Distributed Summarizing’s Impact on Progress

Peggy Corbett
Jun 02, 2008

Looking back I have to wonder why I was always surprised when a test would reveal that my students had completely missed the boat. I mean, I asked all the right questions: "Raise your hand if you don't understand." "Is everybody with me? Yes? Good, then off we go!" And then I would hit the wall when tests were scored. Sound familiar?

The idea of formative assessments back in the day was to give a quiz and record the score. Our responsibility ended there for a very long time. The responsibility was the students: to study more/harder/longer/better - or not. In today's assessment culture, we no longer have that "luxury." Instead, we know now, despite our initial grumblings, that we do have a responsibility to not only take the "temperature" but to also address the underlying causes when we don't get a good reading. Formative assessments insure that we take stock of student progress in a way that immediately informs our instructional practice.

If we are willing to view the situation from the point of view of a student, we must admit that being found out early is preferable to being found out later. The principle that it is more important that a student learn than when he learns can only be realized when we know whether the student is learning. By making formative assessment a consistent practice in your classroom, you guarantee that if a student is lost, he's not so lost that he can't be recovered. If I allow my students to compress information while it is still in a digestible form, I can add more without worrying that he will reach a cognitive overload before the ideas take hold. If, however, I go on and on and on, building to a level of critical cognitive mass, I can almost be assured that one or more of my students will check out due to frustration.
 
The student who is near to my heart is the one who has no voice. This student often has ideas or answers but doesn't have the confidence or personality that makes speaking up comfortable. By allowing him to work in a pair, he is empowered to try his ideas on someone in the safety of the pair and, thus, gains the confidence to share when called on as a follow-up.

Oral summarizing through paired heads is a quick way to insure this processing. Teachers who are unaccustomed to pairs working together often try paired heads once or twice and then give up because it doesn't go well. This type of learning is like any other learned academic behavior: it must be taught as a routine just like other skills such as keeping an agenda, how to act in the cafeteria, or how to enter a classroom. It takes practice, practice, practice - for teachers and students. Given that it is in the top 5 strategies for impacting student achievement, it certainly seems to be a thinking routine worth developing.
Consider the following keys to success:

  • Use pairs only (never more than 1 group of 3)

  • Establish the norms (what are your expectations for noise level, what will your call back to attention be?) These must be taught and practiced.

  • What is your accountability policy? How often will students share? In what way? (If you remember to always work in paired heads with a 1 and a 2 it's much easier. I might say, All 2's stand up. I quickly scan the room and I see that I want to hear from Bill (who is wearing a red t-shirt), so I say, "Everyone who is wearing red remain standing; everyone else sits down." The idea is that it may appear random, but seldom is. I can keep narrowing until all but 2 or 3 are sitting down and then I hear from 1 of them, or all of them. The important thing is that they always know I'll hear from someone so it keeps them on task.)

  • Include some think-ink-share activities to give the students who think best through writing a chance to use their style.

  • Plan your summarizing questions/activities. (What we plan for happens!)

New and veteran teachers are encouraged to begin building in distributed summarizing activities as a way of keeping your finger on the pulse of learning in your classrooms. For additional resources, see your Learning-Focused Strategies Model Notebooks or the Catching Kids Up Book.