One Month of Intentional Reflection & Feedback

After one month of really trying to take everything I've been learning and make changes in the classroom, it is definitely time to reflect. I'd hoped to do this a little earlier, but to be honest, there really hasn’t been the time! Not because I have had too much work necessarily, but I’m doing a lot more reading, listening, tweeting, and considering, which all takes time. 

I also had some personal grief with the decline and following loss of my precious Jack Russell.  And the thing is with teaching, our emotions are so key to what we do, that when they are divided like that.  Well, it's exhausting.

But back to the teaching.

I think the first question to ask is, have the students noticed anything different? Because one of the things that I have found right away is, although we thought that it would be easier with only two classes, it actually makes life a lot harder. I haven’t found the time to create different activities for my two 'experimental' classes. This is meant that although I have adjusted the lesson plans, I haven’t figured out how to give myself nearly enough time for conferring as I should. 

Lesson learned. 

As I work on developing this new unit ahead of me, I need to be far more intentional. Where I thought that I had left ample time to talk to 5 to 7 students, it often turned out that I had time to talk to one. So, back to question number one. Have they seen a difference? They are probably unaware of anything too radically different, as I have always talked about growth and asked about what we’re learning right now in the classroom. The fact that I’m doing a little bit more than I have, has probably escaped them. It will be interesting to see when we survey them.  I did ask two students in a help session the other day.  One said that it has taken the 'grade' pressure away, and she can now focus on the work (YAY!).  The other said she missed the formative grades because they made her 'look' better...

Question number two has to be what differences have I seen? This is an interesting one. I need to really add up the data, but where I have not seen any differences is in the amount of work turned in. Most people said that I will have less work submitted without the gift of a grade......but whether there is a grade or not does not seem to make a difference. Now, of course, it’s early days yet, and habits have been set from earlier in the semester, but I don’t see any increase in the desire to get work turned into the teacher. The same student who asked about re-doing work has re-done work, regardless of whether they have a grade or not. Interestingly, I have not yet sat down with tests and prior work to talk about final summative grades, so they haven’t really seen the benefit of doing that yet anyway. I need to wrap my head around that as well - how am I going to use that earlier learning, and the body of knowledge, to show that they demonstrate mastery that will help them with that summative grade. The concern is that I can do it in such a manner that helps the student but does not appear to be an easier way to get a grade. That’s important. The rigor needs to be just as hard if not harder. Talking of which, one thing I have noticed is, how my grades are lower when they’re not going in the grade book. Interesting. So when I put a true number of merit on the work, those numbers are lower than if I know it’s going in to be posted, visible, and used as a form of 'judgment' on the kids. Now, this is not being intentional, it’s something I noticed after two or three different little assignments.  So is it because I don’t want the parents to freak out?! I don’t think that I had thought about it logically that way, I think it’s more of a kindness thing. As teachers, we love our kids. I don’t want to fail a student from multiple multitudes of reasons. There is one teacher that I know of,who is always so concerned about her students failing because she’s concerned about what our principal will say, or how they’ll do on the Milestones. I'd be lying if I didn't say that was a thought process for me, but that’s not why I care about my kids failing, I care about it because unless they have a reason to not be able to do the work, as in a language issue or a disability, then I really need to find out where the gap between understanding it at a formative level and not at a summative test occurs. I don’t worry about them failing for me, I worry about them. One thing I have learned though, through this short experience thus far, is that all classes will be doing some kind of reflective conversation next week. I want to know why such such a student has never finished any work in the advanced class. What's at play here, does he really think he’s better than all of us? Or is it that there’s an underlying issue that I have not found yet. I tend to feel like it’s the latter.  The reflection has been wonderful.  Now if I just had time to see all the kids more often.

The next question that comes to mind is, how does it help me? 

Am I thinking this is going to be worth it? 

Well I have already said, there is extra work just because I’m just trying to figure this out. I feel like once I have a little bit more consistency and knowledge about what I’m doing, that kind of thing will slow down. I also think I’ll get better at working my lessons, so we get plenty of teaching time, but also focus more on that personalize it learning and independent learning which is so good for the students. The fact that I am meeting with them and conferring with them, means that I know what’s going on - as compared to often when they do independent learning, and I get the work, and I look at it, and I think, "What on earth were you doing in class?"  And then feel like the worst teacher on earth that a student could’ve done no work at all and I was unaware. 

But here is what I am liking, I am loving the fact that I am actually seeing where the weaknesses lie and having the students look at that too. Often I would know, but the student would never be focused on it, their judgment was according to grade only. I also love the fact that when we meet I can introduce a different level of comprehension then when they were just not doing well, but they had no idea. 

The other thing that I am finding is, that because I am sharing my materials with everyone in my collaborative planning team, they are beginning to look at standards breakdown of assignments as well. Definitely a benefit for all. 

Last but not least, as I glance across the grade report card, I really have a visual for who is struggling on theme, characterization, etc. and as I meet with them, we can be much more aware of this - was it because they didn’t understand the question, because they have quite clearly shown their ability and knowledge in other tasks beforehand. I’m hoping that I’m going to get a much better turn out for the formative work because students will have an understanding of how that practice work REALLY helps with the final grade. WOW!

So what’s ahead? Well, we just finished the unit test and it wasn't pretty. So, we start again. What was this question about, what standard does it go with?  Where are my strengths and weaknesses.....there is a lot of learning ahead.

So the thinking and deliberating continues, I sure that it will continue for many years to come! I’m aware it’s going to take me a while to figure out, but the good news is, I love the direction I’m going in. I’m enjoying what I’m getting from the kids, and so far I haven’t heard complaints from parents, I feel like that’s going to happen sooner rather than later, but maybe not! I’m happy that they have trust in me, but I’m ready to talk to anyone with concerns.

So now I move forward, always learning.

Let's go Feedback in Room 1113!