Issue 88: Apr 26, 2010 Connections Newsletter

Checking for Understanding

Debbie Cargill
Apr 26, 2010

One goal that educators have for students is that they become responsible, self-directed learners. According to Hattie (2009), self-reported grades have a significant impact on student achievement. In other words, students who can judge their own performance appropriately have greater confidence and increased achievement. When students do not have the confidence to set appropriate goals for themselves, they tend to be less engaged in the learning. For students to take charge of their own learning, however, they must have the tools necessary. These tools include graphic organizers, checklists, rubrics, and feedback.

So - how do you plan instruction in a way that helps students become responsible, self-directed learners? One thing to consider is moving away from the old paradigm of "teach, teach, teach, teach, test" (and hope they got it!) to one in which formative assessment guides instruction. In reality, when we "teach, teach, teach" then test at the end of the lesson, we find ourselves unable or unwilling to re-teach at that point. Usually, there is not enough time to re-teach the whole lesson if some or all students did not "get it." For students, it can become a frustrating experience which further depletes their confidence and efficacy.

The on-going, periodic check for understanding, or formative assessment, can be a key to improving student learning. Formative assessment is intended to make instruction more effective. It provides immediate information about student understanding. Teachers can adjust, modify, or re-direct instruction based on the feedback. Additionally, students can adjust, modify, or re-direct their thinking about a particular concept or skill - becoming more responsible and self-directed learners.

In the LEARNING-FOCUSED Acquisition Lesson plan, we start with the standards to determine what students need to understand at the end of the lesson. Next, we think about what students need to know or do to answer the Lesson Essential Question and show evidence of understanding the concept. Popham (2008) calls this the learning progression. In the Acquisition Lesson plan, we call it Assessment Prompts. These Assessment Prompts give us the information we need to determine whether an adjustment is needed and what that adjustment needs to be. So, instead of waiting until the end of the lesson and trying to fill in the gaps - too little, too late - we are consistently monitoring for learning/understanding throughout. Not only are we improving the delivery of instruction, we are also giving students opportunities for monitoring their own understanding and, ultimately projecting their own successes.

See What Moves You: How to Get the Most from Assessment Prompts and LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies: Connecting Exemplary Practices in Acquisition Lessons to learn more about Assessment Prompts.

Resources:
Hattie, J.A.C. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. New York, NY: Routledge.
Popham, W.J. (2008). Transformative assessment. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

 

Exam Review Using LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies

Debbie Willingham
Apr 26, 2010

I was recently at a high school on what they considered a "bad" day for me to be visiting classes. They were within a week of mid-term exams and most teachers were in the midst of helping students review important content that had been taught during the semester. While a good job had been done in planning and implementing LEARNING-FOCUSED lessons during the semester, what I saw in class after class on this day was the same kind of review I had endured myself in high school classes over thirty-five years ago. Students were given huge review packets with hundreds of questions and terms they should be able to define. Students' reactions were the expected sighs followed by grudgingly getting out their textbooks and occasionally their notebooks to start plowing through the list. There was no connection to the good strategies that were used in their lessons or to the Student Learning Map and Unit or Lesson Essential Questions that were supposed to be the focus of what students were learning. It was as though teaching and reviewing were two separate, unrelated items, and as a result students were re-teaching themselves as though everything they were looking at on the page was new content.

Reviews for exams need to correlate to the way students have been taught throughout the time period leading up to them. Part of the point of chunking content under Concepts and Essential Questions is to lead students back to the most important point(s) of the lesson and unit. The Concepts, Lesson Essential Questions, and Vocabulary should be the basis for the review. Using Student Learning Maps for the units studied during the semester should give students both a good review of what is important and a sense that they are revisiting important content, not starting from scratch. They should revisit graphic organizers completed earlier that explain content or processes in a succinct fashion. Research shows that for students to really internalize content, they should stay away from the initial source (usually the textbook) after the first time they use it to glean information; from that point on they should use the more succinct notes/condensation/summary they have created from the primary source.

One teacher developed an excellent exam review by giving students a list of what to pull from their notebooks to study: the Student Learning Maps for each unit with Essential Questions answered on the back (categorized by Concepts); a vocabulary chart; a cause and effect organizer completed as notes; and a matrix with important formulas and applications. Students were able to pair up to locate their work and get it in order, then go through it together before a whole class review game.

After giving students a sense of what they need to review, games are a great way to go through the important details of a topic. For example, if you are using a Jeopardy  type of game to review for the exam, instead of each "category" you could put the Unit Essential Questions as the category area for mid-terms or large exams and Concepts in the category area for unit exams. In a semester it is feasible that in any given course there might have been 3-6 units, which means 3-6 unit essential questions or "categories" for the game. If you have used a monthly/unit structured review process this will automatically be in place as you work through the semester (see Structured Review in the Learning-Focused Strategies: Planning Units for Learning book).

Students can also make great use of word walls in reviewing. Instead of giving students another list of the same words on the review sheet, the teacher should give them a list of examples or applications of the term, and then have them complete this sentence (adapted as needed):

This is an example of (the term) because _________________________________.

In addition to the content of the review itself, remember that the format of your review lesson is in actuality the same as in any well-planned lesson. You may have several Essential Questions or Concepts as the focus rather than one, but you should pull the point of the review together with an Activating Strategy that will remind students how the Essential Questions or Concepts fit together to form a bigger picture, or have students look at the questions and with a partner come up with a general statement about what they learned from each unit, or have them brainstorm a list of ten important terms they learned concerning each of the units, etc. The Teaching Strategies portion of the lesson may be having students pull together and review the maps, organizers, and other important reminders they will need to go over, and the Summarizing Strategy may be to come up with a couple of good questions they would suggest for the exam or to make a list of the three hardest things they have to remember.

Students need to see continuity and consistency in how they are taught, and they appreciate the organization graphic organizers and learning maps give them. Continuing the use of Concepts, Essential Questions and other research-based strategies on a review day make this a great day for walkthroughs rather than a day you dread to see company coming.

How Do Classroom Teachers Scaffold Grade Level Learning?

Cindy Riedl
Apr 26, 2010

Scaffolding instruction for at-risk and special education students requires that learning tasks and materials are modified and a variety of verbal and academic supports are provided to help these students meaningfully engage with the content as they acquire the necessary language and academic skills.

Successful scaffolding includes:

1. Providing continuity in the classroom. The grade level content and skills remain constant for all students, but tasks and materials are modified for those students who require additional support to access the lessons content expectations. 

2. Encouraging at-risk students to explore topics in a risk free learning environment and be provided with a variety of ways to meet learning goals and objectives.

3. Creating learning contexts where learners increase their autonomy as their skills and confidence increase. Continuity of tasks will facilitate learners in being able to take over portions of the task and become independent learners.

The goal is to create lessons that have learning activities that can be easily modified using scaffolding techniques that help teachers meet the needs of diverse learners while maintaining high standards and high expectations for all learners.

Making it work!

• Build a collaborative learning environment, where students respect the differences in abilities, learning styles and performances of their peers. This culture must be developed. It does not happen by itself. A simple way to begin building a supportive learning community is to have all students complete learning styles and interest inventories. Information from these experiences will establish a platform for discussions about learning differences and how students can work together contributing to success for all. A real world connection to team building skills required to become a productive member of the business world needs to be made.
  
  

• Identify the basic needs and abilities of the at-risk students in your classroom and anticipate the type of support they will require. Creating a learning profile early in the year for these students becomes a guide during lesson development when decisions are being made concerning what materials to use and where scaffolding needs to occur.

Example:

• After determining the content and expectations of a unit or lesson, use the information on the above matrix to make decisions concerning what modifications will be required for students to successful. Ask the following questions:

1. What vocabulary needs to be previewed?
2. Does the vocabulary organizer need to be modified?
3. How will students organize information and will the note-taking device need to
be modified,i.e. partially filled in, page numbers, key words or ideas?
4. Does the text need to be chunked extensively or will it need to be replaced
with another resource that will provide the gist of the content?
5. How will students show what they learned throughout the lesson?
6. How will more proficient peers be selected for collaborative pair activities with
students who need additional assistance to read or write?
7. What scaffolds will you need during reading activities and writing responses?
8. How will you monitor to determine when a scaffold needs to be reduced?