What does it mean to have a reflective class?

Just before the winter break I got my hands on probably two of the greatest books I have ever read. The books were titled: Teaching students to self Assess and Hacking the Classroom: 10 ways to go Gradeless in a Traditional Classroom by Starr Sackstien

You can find both books: Amazon.ca

These book were revolutionary because it validated what I was already starting to do in the classroom. For a long time I have felt that the way I was assessing students wasn't working. When I first started teaching I like many just followed what has been in place for centuries. We taught, we had students review and then we tested. We got data from these test but to be honest was it accurate or reflective of what that student can do? 

These were the questions that I asked for numerous years before I sat in my classroom watching my students taking a test. Some of my students started to ask their friends some questions. I was about to tell them to be quiet when I sat there a decided to listen. The types of questions I was hearing was basically what I already knew about these students based on my observations.  Then as I was marking I kept nodding as I already knew why those particular kids got the marks they got. 

This is when it dawned on me that I already knew more about my students than any test was going to give me. Based on my interviews, observations and comments I made throughout the problem solving process, I already had a better picture of my students needs, next steps and achievements. This was the moment that I gave up formal testing. However, reflecting back I was still missing something. 

I had these amazing comments and observations I would share them with students but kids didn't read them (well most kids that is). This took me a long time to reflect on this, which is why I was led to this amazing book. 

So what was I doing wrong? I was giving marks with my comments. I know this may seem like a simple thing but basically my students only honoured the mark and not the grade.  

If you think back to your own learning what have you always wanted, that lovely A. School has never been about the learning but always about the grades. This is true for our parents too. I come from a fairly traditional household and even when I came home with a 95% the reply back was where is the other 5%. It has been ingrained in our society to think about the letter and not what we need to achieve the letter grade. 

So what have I done this year to address this: 

After reading the books I rapidly changed my practice. I started thinking about how I can make my students better at reflecting and honouring the learning process. We first started with looking at our Curriculum. Yes I actually read the curriculum document with my kids. Before each unit of study we sit down and reflect on what standards we need to learn based on what the curriculum says. I have the students tell me in their own words what they have to do to achieve the standards of their grade level. now I do teach grade 6 but I think this can be done at any grade you just may have to think about the amount of expectations that you want them to focus on. 

We also created a google form for their reflecting purposes. This is still a work in progress. This form gives me a quick look into my students thinking about what they thought they achieved and did on the assignment. Once these are submitted we have a conference about their learning where I either agree with their assessment or disagree. We also discuss next steps and my observations of their work. These conversations are about five minutes in length. 

I also turned to having students do a final reflection on what they think their term 1 report cards are going to look like. This took a while and I am going to try and shorten this process but I also got very rich and amazing discussions from it.

Now you may think that grades are important but I have seen more growth this year in my students then ever before. 

On a recent reflection about their writing here is what some students said: 

I think I got 3 as my final mark. Maybe even 2.8. That is because my tone; it felt like I was shouting. I also plagiarized so that would cut out some marks. I would work on my tone and remember not to plagiarize in the future. I think I was stressing my point a bit to much and the person who I wrote this letter to already knew about this topic. It felt to him, even me, that I basically screaming through the letter. Next time, I should consider my audience. My goal is to get a level 4 in my next writing piece. ~ Raghav

I think I would get a 3 because in the comments you wrote "This the work I expect from you all the time" and I followed most of the guidelines given. ~ Manpreet

Now this was their first attempt at reflecting and is still a work in progress.  In fact after some short reflections on our reflection this is what students said during their final report for term 1: 

I think I deserve this mark because I can do and understand basic math, but I need more practise on justifying my work and answer. I need to work on think more deep and more logically. Math has a big part of logic which I need to practise on because I am very used to the algorithm and what we have been taught in primary grades. I need to focus more on understanding the numbers. ~ Pavneet

- in the Surface Area Assignment he used math terms to write an answer to the question he was given - In the None To Many assignment Manchit used math concepts to do math calculations to find the mean and the median - should try to understand what is happening when you do the math equation

~Manchit

It is funny because these comments was what I wrote on their reports even before I read their responses. I have found that the more students reflect and conference with you the more that they become in charge of their learning. 

Now this does take time. It is not something that can be done on the side; you must put the effort into making it a part of your practise and taking the time to reflect but the more that you do this the better students will get at it.  I often hear that we need to prepare our students for what lies ahead but the reality is in life grades don't matter. They mean nothing except for university and even the grades they look at are the last years. What we need to do is train our children to know how to get the grades they want. To set goals and learn what it takes to meet them. We are training our students for today because in doing so we train them for tomorrow.

So I encourage you to a) read the books and b) jump in going gradeless.  You have nothing to loose and all to gain. 

Making kids doers of math instead of Doing math!

I have been thinking about this topic for quite some time now and then when asked to do the OAME 2015 ignite I thought this would be an amazing topic to push thinking.

My biggest fear in education right now is that we are having our kids go through the paces of doing school. We our turning our students through the drudgery of school.  Before I started to really question this thinking I saw it in my own class. My students were coming to school going through the paces and then leaving. Sure they enjoyed it but was I really making them think? What type of work was I making them do? Why was I teaching them these skills?

I then came across this statement by Fosnot:

The purpose of teaching is to learn, but without learning there is no teaching!

I was shocked. Was she saying that if my students didn't learn then I wasn't being a good teacher. The answer was yes! And the more that I reflected on this the more I agreed with this statement. Over time, i realized that even though I was teaching different kids the common denominator was still me. So when I asked questions like, why don't they get this? The answer was because I am not doing a good enough job. I wasn't making them understand because I was just making them be there instead of embodying the learning.

I see this a lot in math and this is partially because of my lens. In a math class we traditionally stand I front of students, give a lecture, let them work and then test them to see if they understand. B how many of our students are really learning? How many of them become mathmaticians? 

VanDeWalle suggests that The goal is to let all students believe that they are the authors of mathematical ideas and logical arguments.

So then how do we go about doing this?
I would like to propose three key points to this:  Link back to my thesis always link back

1) Role of the teacher

2) Environment of Learning

3) Accountable Kids

Role of the teacher

I want to first preface that teaching to me is about turning my kids into mathematicians through inquiry and exploration but I start with this point because as a teacher we have the most critical role to play.We are not to sit back and allow our students free reign but to ignite (lol) and actually talk about math. I know really insightful!

Researchers have suggested that children should being engaged in problem versus talk procedures. But our role is to bring out the math not by telling students information and expecting them to regurgitate it but by creating contexts for learning asking critical questions and debriefing the math. In my research I found three types of questions that worked the best for creating these conditions:

1) Interrogation: Just like the title suggests → a lot of why’s and how comes2) Going beyond: Pushing the thinking beyond the schema the student has created. These questions include, have you thought? What about this? Can someone else explain3) Comparing: Often I compare strategies together to see if students can move from one to the next. This includes, what are the differences? Similarities

In order for this process to really work "Teachers must have the [student learning] in mind when they plan activities, when they interact, question and facilitate discussions" ~ Fosnot pg. 24

The key to everyone one of these questions is that it was linked to a big mathematical idea. One that was key to the learning of the student. The same goes to the various talk moves that a teacher can make. These should include: Wait time and revoicing. I cannot stress how important these two items are to the success of building mathematicians. To often we don’t give students enough time.

Creating an environment of learning

In a mathematical environment , students feel comfortable trying out ideas, sharing insights, challenging others, seeking advice from other students and the teacher, explaining their thinking and taking risks. ~ VanDeWalle pg 36. When students do mathematics in an environment that encourages risk and expects participation, it becomes an exciting endeavour. Students talk more, share more ideas, offer suggestions, and challenge or defend the solutions of others. When a context is real and meaningful for children, their conversation relates to the context. They mathematize the situation. ~Fosnot

Making kids accountable:

No one is allowed to be a passive observer ~ VanDeWalle pg 36

I love this quote. I think it is exactly the whole idea around accountable talk. Many teachers may think that just because the student is not talking they are not participating but the key is not to be a passive observer, which doesn't always involve talking but listening. However, that has not been the case in school. We have been so use to hearing teachers talk that many of our students are use to being told the answer that they are not use to talking. 

In my thesis research I saw that when I asked an Initiate respond Evaluate types of questions (basically questions I already knew the answers) I got no further discussion happening. My kids just sat there. But when I asked going beyond types or comparing questions, basically critical thinking questions, that was linked to big ideas kids talked about math.  They became active users of the information and doers of math not just following the paces.

So I guess I want to ask: How do you make your students into Doers versus just doing? This question doesn't need to be math as it is a broader problem in education. Love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

End of the year: What have I Learned?

I started the year in a brand new grade and a brand new division. Before this I taught eight years of junior, going between grade four and five positions. This year I am teaching grade two.  My first impressions were, YIKES! I mean I didn't know if I could handle the younger grades. But here I still stand and it has been an amazing journey, with an amazing class.

Here are some things I have learned (I appologize if some may seem like duh moments):

1) primary students take longer to do work. I know this may not be shocking news but I don't think I was quite ready for this. I mean I prepared myself and I wrote plans to reflect this but it really didn't truly understand. Now this actually was a big blessing in disguise. It taught me the importance of going deeper and slower. Because of this my students and I worked through constructing sentences, writing paragraphs, indepth inquiry projects. Math concepts were developed at the students pace. This feeling is a lot different then junior or even intermediate where the need and rush to fit all the dense curriculum is a lot of pressure. 

2) teaching primary has allowed me to focus on inquiry and really developing a inquiry model in the classroom. As I mentions above students work at a slower pace but that doesn't mean they cannot do wonderful things. In fact it's a lot easie because they still have this curious engagement in all topics. Some how this is lost on their way to junior and I think we need to bring it back.  Inquiry has always been a big part of my teaching but this year I have really tried to allow the students to be a big part of the project design and questions.  I have been using provocations, students I wonder statements and trying to flip projects inside out so that we start with a question and develop our understanding through that question.  This is still a big work in progress so stay tuned.

3) even though they are young they are ready to be independent. One of the biggest pet peves of many junior teachers is that the students don't seem to be ready to be independant. They rely on the teacher for answers, not patient with problem solving or just are not ready for success.  I was also told by some that primary they cannot do certain things because they are young or small. Well I wanted something different and have tried to push these skills in grade two in hopes that they are ready for these junior years.  Guess what they can do it.  It took a lot of work and building with students but they are so capable of doing so much.

4) I think that all grades should have a primary mindset. Now I know that this gets harder as kids get older but the inquisitive spirit of a primary child is remarkable.  It's this spirit that we should be harnessing and using to teach our curriculum not the curriculum to teach our students. Now don't get me wrong, curriculum is still important and it's a great guide but that is all. We need to have more inquiry, where students are able to explore and develop understanding. By following this model I actually finished my curriculum ahead of the year and found that I had to give more challenges because the students needed it. If only all grades taught or allowed this to happen, think of the possibilities.

5) I actually like teaching primary, shhh!! I might ruin my image but it's been a lot of fun. The kids are great, they have come so far and it truly has been a lot of fun.

From this learning I have thought of three areas to work on next year:

1) more inquiry

2) more reflections and online portfolios

3) more parent connections and celebrations

What has been the best part of your year? What learning have you done? Love to hear it.