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Using sentence stems to scaffold classroom discussions guides students to speak, actively listen, and build on each others' ideas.

I used to think that the perfect classroom had students sitting in rows, hands folded, with their eyes on me. "All eyes on me" was in fact my favorite teacher line. Having an attentive audience was one of the reasons teaching was fun for me.

Fast-forward 35 years to my last year of teaching before I transitioned to being an instructional coach-my students were at tables or sitting knee-to-knee in small groups. They weren't quiet, and they were facilitating their own learning. The chatter was rigorous and the ideas were flowing. How did we get there? I taught my fifth-grade students talk moves -sentence stems and key phrases that help students speak, actively listen, and build on each other's ideas.

Introducing the Talk Moves

I presented the talk moves over four days. After I introduced each talk move, we practiced what it would sound like in our classroom. For example, when students wanted to expand their peer's thinking, that sounded like "What do you mean by that?" or "Can you give an example?"

On the fourth day, after students had learned the talk moves, a group of four students modeled them. The rest of the class observed and then gave the group feedback by naming the talk moves they saw their peers use.

I kept a bulletin board in the classroom with the talk moves up all year long. This gave my students key phrases to activate their talking, thinking, and listening-like "I respectfully disagree because ___." Building the routines takes time, but in the long run it saves time by engaging students and making the time much more productive. As the school year progressed, we would sometimes need to revisit the talk moves to reflect on how the talk looked-students sitting facing each other, in a circle or knee-to-knee-and what it sounded like when it was working well. The bulletin board was used as a reference guide most every hour of our day.

The Talk Moves

Time to think: When I introduced this to students, we quickly discussed why it's important to allow each other time to think-having that think time helps students articulate their thoughts. To practice this talk move, I gave students time to jot down a few ideas before they started talking, and during conversations they could say, "I need time to think." Allowing for quiet moments and thought to become routine will encourage think time to happen as students later work in small groups or with a partner. I also brought to students' attention when I used this move as a teacher. I'd say, "Notice, I just used think time."

Say more: Too many times people talk and don't listen. This talk move gets students listening as they ask their classmates for clarification. Having students ask questions like "Can you say more about that?" "What do you mean by that?" or "Can you give an example?" encourages active listening and back-and-forth discussion between students.

So, are you saying ___? Summarizing helps students check their understanding and verify with speakers that they communicated what they intended to. Some helpful sentence stems: "Let me see if I understand what you are saying: ___" and "Are you saying ___?"

Who can repeat or rephrase that? Students have to listen carefully if they are going to repeat what someone else said. Having students ask each other, "How can we say that differently?" or "Can you put that in your own words?" also deepens content understanding.

What is your evidence or reasoning? As students explain their thought process, they deepen their own thinking as well as their classmates'. In all subjects, students should be making claims and backing them up with evidence. They can ask each other questions like "What is your evidence?" "Why do you think that?" "Is there anything in the text that makes you think that?" and "Where did you get that information?"

Challenge or counterexample: When students are introduced to a conflicting example, it pushes their thinking and deepens their understanding. They can gently challenge each other's thinking by asking questions like "Does it always work that way?" "How does that idea work with a different example?" and "What if it had been ___ instead?"

Agree and disagree: Conflict isn't always easy, but it's important for students to learn how to respectfully express their opinions and know that it's OK to change their mind when they are introduced to new information. These sentence stems can help facilitate constructive communication: "I respectfully disagree because ___," "I agree with ___," and "Are you saying the same thing as ___?"

Add on: Sentence stems like "I would like to add on to that," "Adding on to what [another student] said, ___," and "Can I push that idea a bit further?" helps students work together to build upon their prior knowledge.

Explain what someone else means: Having students put their peers' responses into their own words gives more students ownership over the answer, exposes them to different ways about thinking about the answer, and allows you to check for understanding. You can get this talk move started by asking, "Why do you think he said that?" and students can initiate it by saying, "I can explain what ___ means by that" or "I can put that into my own words."

Teaching students to talk productively in the classroom is the most important change I've made in my teaching career. I've used talk moves with students in all areas of the curriculum. As an instructional coach, I find that teachers benefit from using talk moves in professional development, too. We all need to talk, process, and share to be truly learning.

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What Productive Talk Looks Like in the Elementary Grades

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Using sentence stems to scaffold classroom discussions guides students to speak, actively listen, and build on each others' ideas.

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When Students Become Teachers - Rigor, Assessment & Accountability - Dr. Lodge McCammon

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With social media taking up such a large space in our lives, many of us question whether it's impacting our communication skills, more importantly, our students' communication skills. As an English teacher, a writer, and a mom, I am always worried about the repercussions social media will have on my kids' critical thinking, writing and personal & academic communication skills.

But I had to pause and think. We worry about social media's impact, but "impact" itself doesn't necessarily mean negative impact. I needed to remind myself that the use of social media by students can either have a positive or negative effect.

But what if we focus on and drive the positive impact that social media can have on student communication?

Let's start by narrowing down some of the main platforms that students use:

Instagram: A photo sharing app that allows users to edit photos and upload them to share with their followers. Users can choose to have a private or a public account. They can also share a photo directly with a selected few people. This is the equivalent of a private message.

Snapchat: A messaging app that allows you to set a timer on the photos and videos the user sends before they disappear.

Tumblr: A blogging platform but is also similar to twitter in terms of Retweeting and sharing others' posts. Users can post videos, photos, and writing.

Facebook: A forum that is used to post pictures, videos, write status updates, articles and comments. Facebook also contains an option to create pages for different causes and events.

Twitter: 140 characters microblogging platform to share ideas, thoughts, and what you had for dinner.
Interesting Facts About Students' Use of Social Media
Although we assume that most students have smartphones, research suggests that students who come from low-income households do not own smartphones, thus making their digital communication means mainly through text messaging ( Washington Post). This is an interesting fact, as there is an assumption that all students have smartphones, and that can impact the pedagogical strategies that we use to integrate social media in the classroom. As a result, it's important that we think about accessibility and students' circumstances when thinking about integrating technology in general in the classroom.

With that being said, a recent study focused on Millennials' use of social media indicates that the most used social media forum is Facebook ( PRRI's millennial Survey). That is not to say other apps are not used, Snapchat is generally used by students whose family income is over $75000 annually. Income is one of the differentiating factors in the use of social media, race, ethnicity and gender also play a part in determining students' use of those apps. These factors are important to take into account as the use of social media is determined by the user, who they are, where they come from etc.
Impact of These Tools on Oral and Written Communication We come back to the question, do these digital tools impact students' oral and written communication in the classroom?
There is a general consensus amongst teachers that these tools do blur the line between "formal" and "informal" writing. But with that being said, in a survey conducted by The National Writing Project, teachers point out that "writing" does not just encompass academic writing done in the classroom. This indicates that more teachers are attuned that writing as a genre is evolving further than essays, reports, and in class writing assignments.

However, when teachers and students were asked if they would consider blogging, posting and texting to be writing both parties did not think so. Writing to teachers and students was confined in the parameters of classroom assignments. ( AP & NWP).

We need to help students see that their blogging, texting, tweeting on social media is real writing. Their writing is real writing because their writing is their voice. Student voice needs to be nurtured and appreciated in the classroom, regardless the outlet they use to communicate it. When teachers show the importance of formal communication to be practiced on social media platforms, students are more inclined to practice good digital citizenship.

Students will believe in themselves if we believe in them. We can believe that they produce great thoughts and ideas. We can also believe that social media's powerful element of connectedness can help to pass on students' thoughts to drive impactful change in this world.

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Social Media & Students' Communication Skills | Edutopia

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With social media taking up such a large space in our lives, many of us question whether it's impacting our communication skills, more importantly, our students' communication skills. As an English teacher, a writer, and a mom, I am always worried about the repercussions social media will have on my kids' critical thinking, writing and personal & academic communication skills.

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ELA.SL.5.1b

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

SL: Speaking and Listening

5: 5th Grade

1b: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative
discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacherled)
with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and
texts, building on othersâ\x80\x99 ideas and expressing
their own clearly.

a. Come to discussions prepared, having read
or studied required material; explicitly draw
on that preparation and other information
known about the topic to explore ideas under
discussion.

b. Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions and
carry out assigned roles.

c. Pose and respond to specific questions by
making comments that contribute to the
discussion and elaborate on the remarks of
others.

d. Review the key ideas expressed and draw
conclusions in light of information and
knowledge gained from the discussions.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

|

ELA.SL.5.1c

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

SL: Speaking and Listening

5: 5th Grade

1c: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative
discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacherled)
with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and
texts, building on othersâ\x80\x99 ideas and expressing
their own clearly.

a. Come to discussions prepared, having read
or studied required material; explicitly draw
on that preparation and other information
known about the topic to explore ideas under
discussion.

b. Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions and
carry out assigned roles.

c. Pose and respond to specific questions by
making comments that contribute to the
discussion and elaborate on the remarks of
others.

d. Review the key ideas expressed and draw
conclusions in light of information and
knowledge gained from the discussions.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

Thought starters

1. What is the purpose of revoicing?

2. What element does tossing a ball add to this strategy?

3. What is the purpose of restating and applying your own reasoning?

School Details

Charles White Elementary School
2401 Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles CA 90057

Data Provided By:

Teachers

English Language Arts Math Science Social Studies Arts / 5 / Teacher

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Talk Moves: Developing Communication Skills

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ELA.SL.5.1b Common core State Standards ELA: English Language Arts SL: Speaking and Listening 5: 5th Grade 1b: Engage effectively in a range of collaborativediscussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacherled)with diverse partners on grade 5 topics andtexts, building on othersâ\x80\x99 ideas and expressingtheir own clearly. a.

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. How do talk moves encourage students to make connections with each other?

2. Which talk moves do you use in your classroom?

3. Which could you add?

4. What can you learn from Ms. Simpson about encouraging students to change their minds?

School Details

Lakeridge Elementary School
7400 South 115th St
Seattle WA 98178

Data Provided By:

Teachers

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Fourth grade teacher Lynn Simpson uses a variety of talk moves to encourage participation and collaboration. Lynn explains how asking students to repeat each others' thinking encourages deeper understanding. By adding on, students build off of their peers' ideas. Lynn describes how her class devised their own "agree" signal to use during discussions.

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Providing students with feedback that helps them grow can be difficult when you see over a hundred students every day. A score on a quiz or a test can provide some feedback. For example, a 90% may communicate that a student knows the material you are teaching them while a 50% communicates that they don't know the material. But that's not very specific. How, then, can we help students move forward and improve their understanding?

If you've ever been a coach, you know that it is not effective to tell your athletes to simply "run faster." You should tell them specifically what improvements they need to make, and then have them practice that skill. You would offer drills and pay close attention to their form. A continuous conversation between coach and athlete leads to improvement.

It's no different in the classroom.

Effective feedback is a concept that I have been studying over the last few years as my school has begun to focus on Visible Learning by John Hattie, a model of teaching principles that looks at teacher and student impact on achievement. Hattie ranks feedback as a highly impactful way to help students achieve their goals. He considers feedback to be "information to reduce the gap between what is now and what should or could be" and further identifies feedback's strong ability to " reduce discrepancies between a student's current academic understandings and achieving an academic goal."

Ultimately we want to see our students grow. Students need specific, consistent and timely feedback that is constructively conveyed to provide tangible ways they can move forward as their understanding is developing. Your students need to know where they are going, how they are doing and where to go next.

Providing percentages on student work does not help students grow and achieve. A score of 50% on a project tells a student that they failed, but comments regarding what was done well and what could use improvement inspires students to set tangible goals next time.

Providing effective feedback can be time-consuming, but using technology can make it easy! Try one (or more) of these tech tools (most are free) to get feedback quickly into the hands of your students.

Google Docs
You can provide task-specific feedback using the commenting feature in Google Docs. Highlight a section or phrase of student work and type how they can improve specifically. For example, on lab reports, I highlight areas that need improvement and comment specifically on what they are missing or how they can clarify what they are trying to convey.

Students receive these comments in an email and they can even reply back to you with questions for clarification. The feedback remains on the document.

This platform has been around for a while, but it has some great features for giving students immediate feedback. When creating a quiz, you can provide an explanation that can pop up after a student chooses a wrong answer. In this way, students will get immediate feedback not just that they chose the wrong answer, but what the right answer is. Be sure to enable this feature before you run a quiz!

Google Form
I recently created a Google Form to gather student reflections on a task. After students received feedback on their lab reports, both in a Google Doc and during a class discussion, I asked them to fill out a self-reflection form. They outlined specific ways they could improve their experiment the next time.

Google Forms allows me to quickly view student responses and get a sense of ways I can change my teaching practices based on their concerns. I give each student their reflection to read before the next lab so they know specifically what they need to pay attention to for improvement and growth. The same can be done in response to math calculations and formulas, essay prompts, presentations or task-based activities.

Peer feedback is an easy way to let students provide constructive comments. Using a Padlet wall, you can have students answer prompts or brainstorm ideas anonymously. Provide students with specific instructions on how to comment back, and watch your Padlet wall fill with feedback that is specific and tangible. It also provides a great opportunity to have discussions with the class as feedback comes in live on the wall. Check out a reflection wall my students have responded to here.

TodaysMeet
Backchannels rock! They are a quiet way to have a "side conversation" in class. Create a backchannel where students can ask questions during a lesson or activity. Students can respond to these questions or you can jump on the back channel and answer them.

Another approach is to set up a backchannel that you respond to as you observe students during an activity. Share this page with the students or read the comments to them before you leave class so they can hear your specific feedback. Go over some backchannel ground rules first. Remind students why types of responses are appropriate and to use their first names as a username, so you know who to touch base with if they need help.

Screencasting
Use a plugin like Screencast-o-matic or Kaizena (which is a Google Doc add-on) that will record your voice and screen. As you preview each student's digital work, record yourself walking through each part, providing specific feedback vocally. As a science teacher, you can explain what parts of the lab report need improvement or why an explanation is not accurate. Audio and visual feedback allows students to feel an academic connection with their teacher, which can often be superior to written feedback. It's like the difference between an email and direct conversation and can convey encouragement and constructive feedback when needed. Screencasting can be especially helpful at the secondary level, when individual conferences are difficult to schedule.

Set feedback goals for yourself
As you transition to more thoughtful feedback, set goals for yourself. For example, you might aim to give one positive and three constructive comments that are goal oriented, tangible for the student and specific. As you get more comfortable offering this type of support to your students, you'll notice you are helping your students work toward mastery.

Indirectly, the feedback your students receive from you should be a good indicator of how well you are doing as a teacher, or what changes you need to make in your teaching practices to better serve your students as they work toward achievement in the classroom. When you think you don't have time to do it, consider how effectively feedback pushes students toward mastery, so when they are receiving feedback and altering their behavior to achieve their goals, they really are ultimately learning.

Rhoda Hahn is an Apple Distinguished Educator and teaches 9th and 11th grade biology in a 1:1 iPad learning environment at Westlake Academy, an IBO World School. Rhoda graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with a bachelor's degree in biological science and is studying for her Master's in Education in Digital Leading and Learning at Lamar University. She frequently looks for ways to create authentic experiences in an active learning environment with her students. Read her blog Mrs. Hahn Daydreams and follow her on Twitter r search for MrsHahnScience on Instagram.
Find more articles by educators for educators on the EdTekHub.

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6 ways to give feedback that helps students improve and succeed

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Providing students with feedback that helps them grow can be difficult when you see over a hundred students every day. A score on a quiz or a test can provide some feedback. For example, a 90% may communicate that a student knows the material you are teaching them while a 50% communicates that they don't know the material.

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Essential tips and tools to improve the parent-teacher communication loop.

Effective communication between educators and parents is important -- if not crucial -- for helping students learn. But as any teacher will tell you, it can be one of the most challenging parts of the job. Of course, every classroom is unique, and we all face different challenges: Some teachers suffer from inbox fatigue trying to keep up with a constant barrage of parent emails, while others struggle to get parents involved at all. But effective communication remains the goal in every case.

In my teaching, I always found that it paid to be proactive; any time I could streamline the parent-teacher-student communication chain, I spent less time responding to parent phone calls and emails, and students tended to perform better. Sure, it can be a bit more work up front, but when everyone's on board:

Parents wonder less about what's going on at school. When everyone's in the loop, at-home conversations about schoolwork are more productive. Parents are empowered to work with teachers as allies to help their kids succeed.

Teachers have more time and energy to focus on in-class learning. Believe it or not, the more you reach out to parents (and students) proactively as a group, the less time you'll spend reacting to questions and concerns over email or by phone. When questions do arise, they'll likely be more informed and constructive.

Students take more accountability for their own learning. With clear expectations and a supportive team of in-the-know parents and teachers, kids are more likely to perform and do their best work.

The most important thing is simply to keep everyone on the same page -- parents, students, and teachers. It's probably never been simpler, thanks to a bevy of great edtech options available today. Consider how you might utilize one or a number of new tools in combination with the parent-outreach strategies you're already using.

Here are a few ideas and tool recommendations to help kick off a positive parent-teacher dialogue:

1. Reach out with a messenger app like Remind.

Looking for a different way to connect? Check out ClassDojo Messenger, Bloomz, or ParentSquare.

2. Start a dialogue around students' work with a portfolio tool like Seesaw.

For a different portfolio option, try Bulb. Want a built-in gradebook? Check out FreshGrade.

3. Keep parents updated with an online gradebook like ThinkWave.

Looking for another free option? Try LearnBoost. Need a standards-based grading solution? Check out JumpRope.

4. Start a classroom blog for parents with EduBlogs.

Need a more fully featured blogging option? Check out WordPress.

5. Create a class website using Weebly.

6. Feeling social? Try Twitter.

However, the goal in using any social network for parent communication should be to boost involvement, and engage parents and students on the platforms they already use. For this, in recent years some teachers have turned to using a closed Facebook group for their class. Parents and students can join, and everyone's posts to the group page will show up in only the closed group, not on their personal Facebook feeds.

As long as you're considering a social media option, what about using Instagram or Snapchat to connect? It may seem far-fetched, but these platforms could offer powerful new ways to connect with and engage parents and students. More than a few teachers are already going this route and finding success.

No matter what kind of online parent-outreach strategy you use, it should go without saying, of course, to always keep your students' (and parents') privacy and safety in mind. Never post anything to a public forum that contains anyone's personally identifiable information, and be cognizant of what "private" really means on various social platforms. For more information, be sure to check out our post, " Protecting Student Privacy on Social Media." And no matter where you connect, remember to keep your posts brief, helpful, informative, and professional.
Cheat Sheet: Proactive Parent Communication

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6 Tech Tools That Boost Teacher-Parent Communication | Common Sense Education

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Effective communication between educators and parents is important -- if not crucial -- for helping students learn. But as any teacher will tell you, it can be one of the most challenging parts of the job.

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Student Discussion Stems Single Poster.jpg

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ISTE 2016 Ignites | Personalize learning and empower students to change their stories

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Driving Question: How Can We Communicate 21st Century Learning to Parents?What is the enduring value of narrative?
Students in our classrooms have parents who attended elementary and secondary school in the 20th century. Many are struggling to understand what their child does in class or is expected to do for homework. Many parents expect to see nightly worksheets or a constant stream of graded papers flowing home, because that's what they're accustomed to from their own experiences. But things look different in today's blended learning and PBL classrooms.

Today, students are more process oriented and collaborative. That means it's incumbent upon us to help parents understand how schooling has changed over the past decade from remembering to thinking. As John Larmer and John R. Mergendoller write for the Buck Institute for Education in Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project Design Elements "Content knowledge and conceptual understanding, by themselves, are not enough in today's world. In school and college, in the modern workplace, as citizens and in their lives generally, people need to be able to think critically and solve problems, work well with others, and manage themselves effectively."

Communicating New Processes
Communicating the processes we use today to parents is one way we can help them understand the complex and rigorous work taking place in 21st century classrooms. None may be more important than the process of thinking and the emphasis we place on it. For prior generations, it was different in most classrooms. Because of No Child Left Behind, the emphasis on thinking was wiped off the map.

Many of the important strategies to promote the thinking processes were lost. Pioneering work from the 80's an 90's on such strategies as think-pair-share and stem sentences, advocated by P21's Blogazine Editor Jim Bellanca and often time blog author Robin Fogarty in BluePrints for Thinking in the Cooperative Classroom (1991), foreshadowed today's return of these strategies and their modifications in the effective teacher's tool kit.

*Think-Pair-Group-Share. Let's start with a relatively straightforward, very simple to use strategy: the think-pair-share. Discussions in our class contain the following elements or a permutation thereof: first I prompt students with a stem. Next, students think to themselves; then students discuss with a partner. After that, students share ideas in small groups. Finally small groups share ideas with the whole class.

*Sentence Stems. While discussions can favor the most vocal students in class, scaffolds can be employed to help all students-even the quietest ones-deepen their discussion skills. This is where sentence stems come in. When placed in the driver's seat to initiate a think-pair-share, stems add impact and increase engagement of all. Recently Terry Heick penned for Teach Thought a post titled 26 Sentence Stems for Higher-Level Conversations In The Classroom. Categorizing stems and offering examples makes them easy to use in different scenarios as thinking prompts.

By communicating to parents the role sentence stems play in helping their child take part in rich, evidence-based discussions, we provide them a glimpse into a 21st century classroom as well as a process they to use at home.

Imagine assigning "homework" where parents (or guardians or siblings) read a book or discuss the news with a students using sentence stems and evidence rather than fragments of thoughts based on opinion only. By doing this we have the opportunity to help redefine the nature of homework. Imagine assigning homework via a Google Classroom question and empowering students to take their discussion online by reading and replying to each other? Not only could we use technology to foster discussion, we're simultaneously develop digital citizenship skills-another thing today's parents weren't taught in school.

Clarifying: To be clear, you're saying that...

Paraphrasing: Is it fair to say that you believe...

Agreeing: I agree with Y because...

Disagreeing: I agree that Y, but we also have to consider that...

Building on: Adding to what X said...

Summarizing: Overall, what I'm trying to say is...

* Adding Context with Protocols
Communicating to parents the protocols we use in our classrooms is something else I like to do. I think it is valuable to help parents understand the critical nature of the success skills mentioned above. Protocols foster the development of such skills. The beauty of a protocol is it's an explicit set of behaviors we enact to make our thinking visible with peers or in small groups. A protocol might even be employed by a student when working alone to promote metacognition about his or her thinking.

Ron Ritchart refers to protocols as "thinking moves" in his book Making Thinking Visible: How to Promote Engagement, Understanding, and Independence for All Learners. While that title may sound like a tall order, I would say it's accurate. Protocols work. I use them in my classroom daily, and as a National Faculty for the Buck Institute for Education; we use several different protocols with teachers during BIE's three-day project based learning training.

I have a page on my Edublog with protocols that we use in class regularly.

Let's take a look at one I developed: the Revision-Edit Protocol for writing. When a student is drafting a text, parents may want to help but not fully understand how. Also, parents and students often come to my 5th grade classroom not completely understanding the difference between "revising" and "editing." The revision protocol has four simple steps of what to do, and a 5th step of what not to do as you can see in the image.

I used to only hand this protocol out on laminated cards for students' writing folders. Now I have it located online, or I attach a PDF of the protocol in Google Classroom assignments. If you look closely at the directions, you'll notice an awkward phrase in step one. That is something we want to explicitly call out in revision. To contrast that with editing, if you look closely at steps two and four, you'll see improperly used homophones; in step three, a misused adverb. I've found engagement with tools or documents can sometimes be heightened by purposefully including "a mistake." Errors become challenges to spot and correct. A culture of curiosity and growth is promoted.

Another protocol I use to promote reflection with students I teach and teachers I train is "I used to think... But now I think..." This was developed by Harvard's Project Zero. During a lesson or activity, it's helpful for teacher and participants to check in and see how thinking is shifting. The teacher offers a prompt or topic. The individual takes a moment to quietly gather their thoughts and prepare to share them in the format "I used to think...But now I think." To conclude the reflection, individuals share their thoughts either in small group or with whole group.
Applications in My Classroom
I did this activity recently with students using the topic "What it means to revise." My class had been working in teams to write sections of a script for an instructional film on copyright and Creative Commons Licenses. We were in the process of assembling the various parts in a single Google Document and revising the flow between each section. One student offered the following: "I used to think revising meant changing the spelling or punctuation. Now I think it means deleting sentences or changing the ideas that don't make sense." A variation on this is TO post the topic in a Google Classroom "Question" and ask students to type their reflections so that every student can curate their thinking online. With the protocol the students take the question stem into a think-pair-group-share.

What about protocols to facilitate student interactions with text? With the advent of the Common Core, we need to communicate to parents that their children are seeing a big increase in text complexity. Take a look at the Lexile Bands below from the Lexile® Framework for Reading.

What processes can we employ to facilitate student interactions with increasingly complex text? The National School Reform Faculty has a protocol I use with students called the Text Rendering Experience. It's designed "to collaboratively construct meaning, clarify, and expand our thinking about a text or document."

Students read a document then mark a sentence, phrase, and word they find especially important. After that during three separate rounds students share what they marked and share why they thought it was significant. A scribe is tasked with taking notes.

While this is a process to read text in the classroom, it could also be replicated at home with a parent or sibling. Again, allowing students to share their thinking via a Google Classroom "Question" and then allowing them to respond to each other's comments could modify this experience.

Another aspect of reading we need to communicate to parents is the changing ratio of fiction to nonfiction reading taking place in classrooms. The Common Core Standards suggests fourth graders should be reading 50% nonfiction and 50% fiction with the ratio changing to 70% nonfiction and 30% fiction by twelfth grade. Reading protocols such as the Text Rendering Experience can help students grapple with rigorous, nonfiction text.

Changing Times
The times they are a changing. School today looks and feels and sounds a lot different than it did 20 years ago. Communicating those changes to parents is an important task. But if we truly want parents as partners in education, we need to provide them an understanding of the processes we use with students and build parents' capacity to use these processes at home with their children, our students.

Next week: Helen Soule, Executive Director, P21

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Driving Question: How Can We Communicate 21st Century Learning to Parents?What is the enduring value of narrative? Students in our classrooms have parents who attended elementary and secondary school in the 20th century. Many are struggling to understand what their child does in class or is expected to do for homework.

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DON’T FORGET TO BREATHE: WHY COMMUNICATION SKILLS ARE MORE CRUCIAL THAN EVER

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DON’T FORGET TO BREATHE: WHY COMMUNICATION SKILLS ARE MORE CRUCIAL THAN EVER

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Our mission is to realize the power and promise of 21st century learning for every student-in early learning, in school, and beyond school-across the country and around the globe.

As the pioneers in this movement, champions of the 4Cs (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity), and creators of the Framework for 21st Century Learning, P21 is the premier organization ensuring every child-without exception-experiences 21st century learning.

Now Creating Even Greater Impact

And now, as a part of Battelle for Kids, P21 has even greater ability to make tangible and immediate impacts.

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As the pioneers in this movement, champions of the 4Cs (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity), and creators of the Framework for 21st Century Learning, P21 is the premier organization ensuring every child-without exception-experiences 21st century learning. And now, as a part of Battelle for Kids, P21 has even greater ability to make tangible and immediate impacts.

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THE THIRD C: COMMUNICATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

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THE THIRD C: COMMUNICATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY

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Our mission is to realize the power and promise of 21st century learning for every student-in early learning, in school, and beyond school-across the country and around the globe.

As the pioneers in this movement, champions of the 4Cs (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity), and creators of the Framework for 21st Century Learning, P21 is the premier organization ensuring every child-without exception-experiences 21st century learning.

Now Creating Even Greater Impact

And now, as a part of Battelle for Kids, P21 has even greater ability to make tangible and immediate impacts.

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As the pioneers in this movement, champions of the 4Cs (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity), and creators of the Framework for 21st Century Learning, P21 is the premier organization ensuring every child-without exception-experiences 21st century learning. And now, as a part of Battelle for Kids, P21 has even greater ability to make tangible and immediate impacts.

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COMMUNICATION WITH PARENTS: MORE THAN A GRADE

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COMMUNICATION WITH PARENTS: MORE THAN A GRADE

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Driving Question: What if I do more than share grades with parents?
I recently met with two parents and their son. It was a conference to discuss how he was doing in class and what they could do at home to help. If that kind of interpersonal communication is the "Gold Standard" of analog communications, we have to concede it's not the only way we can communicate with families, nor is it the most sustainable. But let's start with the conference and the tools for opening communication. Then on to other options.

Communication thru Conferences
Unlike years past, my year-round calendar does not allocate minimum days for conferencing anymore. My single conferences lasted one hour and fifteen minutes after school. To replicate this for my class of 28 students would require 35 hours. Quality communication? Yes. Replicable on a frequent basis? No.

While the recent conference was enlightening for the parents, student, and myself, I came away with two big wonderings:

* How can I communicate to both students and parents current levels of progress, challenges, or strengths in a sustainable manner outside of a sit-down meeting, phone call, or email?
* What should communication look like in our blended learning classroom where there is a lot more learning than just reading and writing?

Communicate Tools, not Results
Parents want to know how their child is doing. As a parent, I do too. It's natural. And my first answers as a novice teacher where shallow at best. "She got a C+ in reading and a B- in math."

A grade is a result of a student's performance on a graded task. I soon learned that by the time a grade is assigned, a student has already succeeded or failed at a given task.

That makes a grade a post-mortem on what was or was not learned. We must recognize this when a parent asks, "How's my child doing?" because what sounds like a simple question is not. Instead of offering to parents a simple answer by way of weekly grade reports or printouts of missing assignments or online learning management services like School Loop, we need to unpack the question and help parents look deeper.

I try to provide parents tools to use with their children at home to support learning in the classroom. By doing so, we can empower them to become assessors of their own child's learning. And if we teach our students to be metacognitive and proficient self-assessors, they can help their parents grow in their understanding of what a 21st century education looks like. My first pledge: tools not results.

What is My Basic Tool?
My basic tool is not the grade. My basic is the tool that tells me, the student, and the parent what the student has learned...in specifics. That's a rubric.

A true rubric communicates a spectrum of performance described by objective characteristics. It is not a qualitative statement like "Used proper punctuation" followed by a quantitative point spread of 4, 3, 2, 1. As I show below, it's a detailed description, a photo that captures what a student did. The sharper the picture, the better.

By teaching parents and students to use a rubric, you empower them to reflect on student performance independent of you, the teacher. It's important to calibrate periodically to ensure the assessment of performance is valid, but it is a communication tool in that it sets forth expectations. Pairing a rubric with a few exemplar pieces of student work is even better, since it literally shows both parents and students a spectrum of work.

I have used an old favorite online tool, Rubistar, to create a new mathematical syntax rubric for my students. After introducing the rubric, my students' work looked night and day different. I elevate the use of a rubric by putting it online so that parents and students could access it at home, independent of the paper rubric they may or may not have remembered to bring home with them.
A New Twist
I'm currently learning how to put a new twist in the rubric concept. By transforming a rubric into a Google Form, students and I can communicate with each other's digital evaluations of their work in our blended learning classroom-technology with good old fashion grammar, sentences and ideas.

In addition to getting students and parents to use rubrics, I couple rubrics with personal observations and questions when providing feedback on students' written work. Ideally, I provide feedback face-to-face in writing conferences, but that's not possible every day for every student. So how can I "virtually conference" with all of my students in some form each day? I can offer thoughtful, written comments on student writing in two different settings: Google Classroom & Newsela.

My district added Google Classroom this year. When I create an assignment involving writing, I can create a Google Doc with the written prompt and have a copy made for each student. As students complete the assignment and submit it, I can read it at my own convenience (which is usually at recess, late at night, or very early in the morning) and provide feedback in the form of comments. Take a look at a reflection by Aidan. The feedback I provided took only a few minutes on my part, but will provide him several points to consider.

Newsela is another communication tool where I interact with my students as they develop their reading and writing skills. Parents can log onto this tool too. Newsela offers high-interest news articles written at five different Lexiles. Students can take a four-question Common-Core-aligned quiz and respond to a ready-made written response that I can edit in the Pro version.

When students submit a written response, I can comment on their writing and share with them my evaluation based on a rubric that correlates to the SBAC rubric used in constructed response questions.

Because I have shared this rubric with my students, drawing their attention to the description and away from the points assigned works wonders in getting away from what "grade did I get" and on to "what did I learn?" To me a score of "check plus" could equate to a letter grade of "A" or "B" depending on the clarity, evidence, and justification provided. A score of "check" would likely fall in the letter grade of "C" or "D." The "check minus" score could receive a letter grade of "F," but I would instead recommend a grade of "Not yet". These students would be given a chance to revise their thinking and resubmit.

Here is a screenshot of a response Ahmad submitted recently. We were looking at text structure. I had highlighted several passages in the text and provided students the following prompt:

The checks may set up the grade that is required, but it is my feedback and the conversation that is what is important. Look what happens when a student gets to hear feedback. I can attune my commentary right to the instructions and the student can reply.

Instruction
The same text structure is used to organize the highlighted parts of this article. Identify the text structure and justify your answer by referring to the examples highlighted in the text.

Rubrics, then, become an effective means of communicating expectations. By curating them online, a rubric is available for future reference. I've had students from previous classes return years after they left my class to tell me how they still use pages on our Edublog that have helpful resources.

There are a lot of blogging services, but I've been incredibly satisfied with my Edublog. It's not blocked by my school district's firewalls, there is a huge selection of themes and widgets, the ability to add student blogs exists, the learning curve is gentle, students refer to the tools housed on the various pages rather than stuffing handouts into folders never to be seen again.

I rely on a blog to communicate essential news, daily homework, and to keep parents in touch with what's going on at school using calendars. And sometimes, I can do more.

Recently, a student returned to school, excited to share with me how he had learned a different way to multiply fractions that was way easier. He showed me how a parent showed him how to "cross cancel." While I do want students to use multiple methods to grapple with problems, cross canceling is not one of the ways I advocate. It's a gimmick that yields an answer, mathematically, but it fails to express precisely what's going on.

By sharing a picture on my Edublog and submitting a written post to go with it, I was able to educate parents why we emphasize using mathematical syntax to express our thinking over simply using a series of steps to arrive at an answer.

The moment was a powerful one for students, too. My class explored what cross canceling was and related it back to the multiple methods they had learned. Upon reflecting they agreed that while cross canceling may be "fast" it was confusing. They admitted it was hard to explain why they did what they did when crossing out numbers and replacing them with newer, smaller ones.

Beyond Dewey
John Dewey wrote in Democracy and Education "Were all instructors to realize that the quality of mental process, not the production of correct answers, is the measure of educative growth something hardly less than a revolution in teaching would be worked."

Today I would revise that quote to say "instructors and parents."

Communication in a 21st century classroom may look a bit different than a sit-down parent conference, but the goal is still the same. Parents and students alike need to know what challenges exist, what progress is being made, and what successes are taking place as a student works through the school year. A grade report may be helpful in showing trends in learning. But it is just about results.

But in order to paint a picture of a whole child, it takes more than numbers or letters. We need to communicate "the quality of mental process" with parents. We need to share reflections of what takes place in the classroom. We need to involve parents as partners in assessing their child's learning. We need to help them with the tools to do that assessing. By doing so, parents not only better understand what their child does, but how they're doing as well. The emphasis is on giving them the tools to understand, not just a result.

Jim Bentley teaches fifth grade at Foulks Ranch Elementary School in Elk Grove Unified School District, Ca. where he is Director of Curiosity FilmsCuriosityFilms.edublogs.org. Jim Check out his classroom projects at http://www.donorschoose.org/mr.bentley. Follow Jim on Twitter @Curiosity_Films

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Communication With Parents: More Than A Grade

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Driving Question: What if I do more than share grades with parents? I recently met with two parents and their son. It was a conference to discuss how he was doing in class and what they could do at home to help.

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COMMUNICATION IN PRACTICE – A P21 MEMBER PERSPECTIVE FROM COMMON SENSE MEDIA

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Our mission is to realize the power and promise of 21st century learning for every student-in early learning, in school, and beyond school-across the country and around the globe.

As the pioneers in this movement, champions of the 4Cs (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity), and creators of the Framework for 21st Century Learning, P21 is the premier organization ensuring every child-without exception-experiences 21st century learning.

Now Creating Even Greater Impact

And now, as a part of Battelle for Kids, P21 has even greater ability to make tangible and immediate impacts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As the pioneers in this movement, champions of the 4Cs (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity), and creators of the Framework for 21st Century Learning, P21 is the premier organization ensuring every child-without exception-experiences 21st century learning. And now, as a part of Battelle for Kids, P21 has even greater ability to make tangible and immediate impacts.