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There are many effective ways to teach children and live our lives. No one has a patent on the truth. Find yours. Read. Reflect. Think about what you already know about good teaching and how it fits with new learning. Read some more. Think about the implications for your classroom. Collaborate with colleagues. Try new things and spend time defining your beliefs and aligning your practices. Once you’ve found what’s true for you, stand up for what you know is right. Live it every day and be confident and clear about why you believe as you do. People will listen. - Debbie Miller, Reading with Meaning 2nd Edition (2012)

Session C2: Friday, February 6, 2:45-4:15 PM

Kids with Grit: Daily Instructional Habits that Help Students (and Teachers) Persevere

WSRA Convention 2015 • Milwaukee, WI

Samantha Bennett, Instructional Coach • sambennett2@yahoo.com • twitter: @sambennett2

Long-term Learning Targets

• Supporting targets

Questions/Reflection:

I can determine importance in order to articulate what matters most to student grit on a daily basis.

• I can make a connection between my beliefs and what the research says.

I can describe patterns of instruction that will help me help students learn.

Foundational Beliefs (Big Ideas) of This Work:

§ Whoever is doing the reading, writing, and talking is doing the thinking. Learning is a consequence of thinking. § Teaching is personal, but not private. § Teachers matter most to student learning. (What we do. What we ask them to do. What we say. How we allow

them to talk to each other. How we listen. How we structure time. How we structure curriculum. How we acknowledge students. How we give feedback. How we ask them to think about themselves and their own learning. Teachers determine the weather. You have to trust yourself and feel trusted to help students learn.) It bears repeating: Teachers matter most to student learning.

§ Teaching is an incredibly complex endeavor. No one has it nailed. There are always ways to get better for students.

§ Everyone does the best they can until they know better, and then they do better. § We are smarter together.

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You can see more videos of Debbie in action with kids at Heinemann’s Digital Campus: (http://www.heinemann.com/digitalCampus/courses.aspx) Kids with Grit: Everyday Habits that Grow Readers by Debbie Miller and Samantha Bennett

If you want to read more about this work check out these titles:

That Workshop Book: New Systems and Structures for Classrooms that Read, Write and Think by Samantha Bennett (2007, Heinemann)

Reading with Meaning 2nd Edition by Debbie Miller (2012, Stenhouse)

Teaching with Intention by Debbie Miller (2008, Stenhouse)

No More Independent Reading Without Support by Debbie Miller and Barbara Moss (2013, Heinemann)

When What 2:45-3:15 3:15-4:25

4:25-4:30

Opening: Introductions, Reading & Agenda Text-Walk * Developing a “clear and understandable vision” of our work today based on

learning targets * brainstorm – personal anchor chart – top 3 * Who’s got your back? Read research

Workshop as a Structure of Time Mini-lesson: 10,000 hours. Intentional Planning for Use of time – Workshop Pie ; Types of engagement - what do you need to dig into a task or text for an extended amount of time? Worktime: • Catch: Purpose: what this looks like in action (Debbie – Open: LT share)

o Write/talk – implications for engagement in worktime • Catch: Towards mastery: what this looks like in action (Debbie conferring)

o Write/talk – implications for engagement in worktime • Catch: With autonomy: what this looks like in action (Student conversation) Write/talk: implications for engagement in worktime Debrief: Take Aways & Closing

• Revisit your reflection from 85 minutes ago…now what are you thinking? How did you get smarter?

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Choice 1: Research on the Power of Feedback

From Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn by John Hattie and Gregory Yates (meta-analysis/literature review)

In order to maximize the impact of feedback on learning:

1. Focus on how feedback is received rather than how it is given 2. Feedback makes transparent the criteria for success related to the learning goals for the

student 3. Feedback cues a learner’s attention to the task and effective task-related strategies

(away from self-focus) 4. Feedback engages learner at or just above their current level of functioning 5. Feedback challenges the learner to invest effort in setting challenging goals 6. Learning environment must be open to errors and to disconfirmation 7. Peer feedback provides a valuable platform for elaborative discourse. Given

opportunities, students readily LEARN appropriate methods and rules by which respectful peer feedback can be harnessed (check out Austin’s Butterfly on YouTube)

8. Feedback from learners (talk, work, etc.) cues teachers to risks & changes they need to make to improve planning, instruction & assessment

From: How to Give Effective Feedback to Your Students by Susan Brookhart (2008)

How to Know Whether Your Feedback is Good

Student response is the criterion against which you can evaluate your own feedback. Your feedback is good if it gets the following results:

• Your students do learn – their work does improve • Your students become more motivated – they believe they can learn, they want to learn,

and they take more control over their own learning. • Your classroom becomes a place where feedback, including constructive criticism, is

valued and viewed as productive

Focus, comparison, function, and valence are choices about what to say in your feedback. You also have choices about how you say things – about clarity, specificity, and tone.

Feedback Focus:

Purpose: • To describe specific qualities of the work in relation to the learning targets • To make observations about students’ learning process and strategies that will

help them figure out how to improve • To foster student self-efficacy by drawing connections between students’

work and their mindful, intentional efforts • To avoid personal comments

• Examples of Good Feedback Focus Examples of Bad Feedback Focus • Making comments about the

strengths and weaknesses of a performance

• Making comments about the work process you observed or recommendations about a work process or study strategy that would

• Making comments that bypass the student (e.g. “This is hard” instead of “You did a good job because…”

• Making criticisms without any insights into how to improve

• Making personal compliments or digs (e.g. “How could you do that?” or

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help improve the work • Making comments that position the

student as the one who chooses to do the work

• Avoiding personal comments

“You idiot!”)

Kinds of Comparisons Used in Feedback:

Purpose: • Usually, to compare student work with established criteria • Sometimes, to compare a student’s work with his or her own past

performance • Rarely, to compare a student’s work with the work of other students

Examples of Good Kinds of Comparisons Examples of Bad Kinds of Comparisons • Comparing work to student-

generated rubrics • Comparing student work to rubrics

that have been shared ahead of time

• Encouraging a reluctant student who has improved, even through the work is not yet good

• Putting up wall charts that compare students with one another

• Giving feedback on each student’s work according to different criteria or no criteria

Feedback Function:

Purpose (for Formative Assessment): • To describe student work • To avoid evaluating or “judging” student work in a way that would stop

students from trying to improve

Examples of Good Feedback Function Examples of Bad Feedback Function • Identifying for students the strengths

and weaknesses in the work • Expressing what you observe in the

work

• Putting a grade on work intended for practice or formative purposes

• Telling students the work is “good” or “bad”

• Giving rewards or punishments • Giving general praise or general

critcism

Feedback Specificity:

Purpose: • To give guidance but not do the work for the student • To give suggestions that are specific enough so that the student can take

concrete next steps

Examples of Good Feedback Specificity Examples of Bad Feedback Specificity • Using a lot of nouns and descriptive

adjectives • Describing concepts or criteria • Describing learning strategies that

may be useful

• Using a lot of pronouns (this, that) • Copyediting or correcting every error • Making vague suggestions (study

harder)

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Choice 2: RESEARCH ON READING

Reading guru Richard Allington lays down the gauntlet for us in his article: “Every Child, Every Day.” (Educational Leadership, March 2012). (http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar12/vol69/num06/Every-Child,-Every-Day.aspx)

If you want students to read more and read better, we must intentionally plan for them to do it EVERY DAY. Each day students must:

Allington’s Challenges 1. Read something s/he chooses.

2. Read accurately.

3. Read something s/he understands.

4. Write about something personally meaningful.

5. Talk with peers about reading and writing.

6. Listen to a fluent adult read aloud.

Debbie Miller excerpted from: No More Independent Reading without Support (2013,

Heinemann)

“A child must have some version of, ‘Yes, I imagine I can do this.’ And a teacher must also view the present child as competent, and on that basis imagine new possibilities.” ( Dyson, 1999).

A few things that matter most to students learning to read and reading to learn:

Book Selection : Before the lesson begins, I want to ensure that all children have books that are worthy of what I am asking them to do. I want them to think about these three things—Can I read most of the words? Am I interested in this book? Do I think it will give me something to think and talk about? This way, when children move to independent reading, they are ready to go—no fumbling for books, searching through back-packs, etc., and, when children have a say in what they read, it increases stamina, engagement, and motivation.

Do you know this research by Guthrie and Humenick? They’ve found that…

Ensuring that students had access to an array of interesting texts produced reading achievement gains roughly four times as large as the small effect of providing systematic phonics instruction.

In addition, they found that providing students with choices about what to read, where to read, and with whom produced an impact on reading achievement more than three times as large as reported for systematic phonics instruction.

Learning Targets In both the reading and the writing lessons, you’ll notice I’ve written the learning targets in kid-friendly language on chart paper—this is to ensure that everyone knows what we’ll be working toward in our work today. Once I’ve explained the target, I’ll ask children to take a minute to talk together and use their own words to explain what they’re going to focus on in independent reading (or writing) today. There’s also a “How will I show what I know?” section on this chart—this is where children learn about what they will make or do to demonstrate their understanding of the target.

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The Lesson: I strive to keep the lesson focused, short, and to the point. The important thing to remember is that the lesson is to give children just enough support so that they can practice what I’m working to teach them. If I go on and on, I’m taking away precious time for children to read, and for me to confer with them.

Work Time: This is the best—and most important—part! It’s here where children read, write and talk, and the teacher confers with them about their reading, how they’re working toward the learning target, and themselves as readers. The key here is authenticity. Children aren’t doing goofy things—they’re doing the kinds of things that readers and writers do in the world.

The Share:You’re hear me asking children to reflect on these kinds of questions during this time:

How did I get smarter about our learning target? What do I know about reading (or writing) now that I didn’t know before? What did I learn about myself as a reader? What did I learn about myself today that I will continue to do in the days and weeks to come?

This way we’re not only building content knowledge, but we’re instilling the spark of agency within children—when they know themselves as readers, when they believe they’re the kind of kid who CAN—they learn to count on themselves when the going gets tough.

I want children to understand that if they work hard and put forth effort, they have the power to make themselves smarter every single day.

From: Reading With Meaning 2nd Edition by Debbie Miller

BIG IDEAS: WHY DO READING AND LEARNING MATTER?

• I want children to understand that readers read to get smarter, and learn about themselves, other people, and the world—that reading is something they can do independently that empowers them to control their lives and make the world a better place.

• I want children to know that smart is something you get, and that through hard work,

effort, and determination, they can accomplish their goals.

• I want children to know that readers read, write, think, and learn with purpose and enthusiasm, and see themselves as problem posing, problem solving citizens of the world who have what it takes to figure things out.

• I want children engage in conversations and discussions about big ideas with open hearts

and minds, willing to share their own thinking, and appreciate, learn from, and respect the ideas and opinions of others.

• I want children to understand that learning is for always—it’s ongoing, lifelong, and vital.

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Choice 3: Research on the Needs of English Language Learners Principles and Goals for Succeeding with English Language Learners

Aida Walqui, WestEd Quality Teaching for English Learners Project

Principles •goals

Explanation • Can look like…

1. Sustain Academic Rigor • Promote deep

disciplinary knowledge • Engage students in

generative disciplinary concepts and skills

Do not “dumb down” academic challenge & complex subject matter – support access and engagement to complexity by: • Using a variety of accessible text (i.e. Dorling Kindersley books, Time Magazine, Joy Hakim,

Seymour Simon, etc.) • Use of long-term targets that sit at the CORE OF THE DISCIPLINE (see Wigging/McTighe Four

Filters) and assessments with outside-world purpose and audience • Ensure no day lives in isolation – every day builds to deepen understanding of long-term

targets – stay focused on central ‘core of the discipline’ ideas (represented by long-term targets of the unit)

• Balance of daily learning targets: verbs that attend to knowledge acquisition, skill building, and synthesis/application towards demonstrating understanding

2. Hold High Expectations • Engage students in tasks

that provide high challenge and high support

• Engage students (and teachers) in the development of their own expertise

• Make criteria for quality work clear to all

• Practice empathy when planning a unit/lesson: if you were learning this same topic in a foreign language. what materials and supports might you need to make meaning and learn the content/skills?

• Confer with students to figure out what they get and what they need next to grow – allow them to surprise you

• Use a variety of texts to provide access to the topic • Build in time for talk – if you have 24 students in the room, you have 25 teachers • Learning targets are the same for ALL learners – materials to access the targets are NOT

the same • Have clear criteria for success – models of product and process that meet the learning

targets • Time used for self-assessment and peer-critique

3. Engage Students in Quality Interactions

• Engage students in sustained interactions with teachers and peers

• Focus interactions on the construction of knowledge

• Build in time for talk – if you have 24 students in the room, you have 25 teachers • Time used for self-assessment and peer-critique • Design performance-based activities to build background knowledge and synthesize

ideas like Socratic seminars, science talks, debates, • Provide time for feedback and analysis after the performance based events – self-

assessment to knowledge, skill, and understanding based learning targets. • Along with self and peer assessment, add a layer of teacher feedback - label the

processes/thinking students did that helped build their understanding (See Cris Tovani’s Group Talk Feedback Graphic Organizer as an example” +/Quotes/-“) Check out the work of Maria Nichols and Peter Johnston too!

4. Sustain a Language Focus

• Promote language learning in meaningful contexts

• Promote disciplinary language use

• Amplify rather than simplify communications

• Address specific language issues judiciously

• Students need models of process and product (whole group, small group and individually) in order to apprentice into the English language

• Focus on language issues in meaningful contexts and activities – i.e.: • during conferring when discussing a text, • have students keep personalized vocabulary lists and a system/structure to go

back to them overtime • Provide students with access to a variety of texts that USE the disciplinary vocabulary in

context – with as many textual/graphic supports as possible – charts, diagrams, graphics, photos, etc., i.e. the term “short” circuit will need to be read about, discussed, drawn, discussed, constructed, discussed, and so forth.

• Confer with individuals to figure out what they get and what they need next to grow – being “judicious” means the teacher understands that not every single learner needs the same vocabulary list/language supports

• For teacher feedback: focus on fluency in production first: does the student understand the purpose of the assignment and the genre format? Then focus on ideas and logical presentation, then issues of complexity (sentence combining, transitions, etc.) and lastly: spelling and other small editing goals.

5. Develop Quality Curriculum

• Structure opportunities to scaffold learning, incorporating the goals above

• Design units with compelling contexts: problem-based with connections to the ‘outside world’ and an authentic purpose and audience for student work

• Learn, honor and build on the knowledge students bring from their families and their communities

• Confer with students to learn their individual stories • Track multiple measures of data – student talk and student work as well as test data to

build a complete picture of them as learners, thinkers, and humans

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Choice 4: RESEARCH ON MOTIVATION AND ENGAGEMENT

From Drive by Daniel Pink (2009, Riverhead Books)

Most of us believe that the best way to motivate ourselves and others is with external rewards like money – the carrot and stick apporach. That’s a mistake. The secret to high performance and satisfaction – at work, at school, and at home – is the deeply human need to direct our own lives (autonomy), to learn and create new things (mastery) , and to do better by ourselves and our world (purpose).

Autonomy Our “default setting” is to be autonomous and self directed. Unfortunately, circumstances – including outdated notions of “management” – often conspire to change that default setting. To encourage the type of behavior that enables high-performance…people need autonomy over task (what they do), time (when they do it), team (who they do it with), and technique (how they do it). Companies that offer autonomy, sometimes in radical doses, are outperforming their competitors. (p. 207)

Mastery Only engagement can produce mastery – becoming better at something that matters. And the pursuit of mastery, an important but often dormant part of our third drive, has become essential to making one’s way in the economy. Mastery begins with “flow” – optimal experiences when the challenges we face are exquisitely matched to our abilities. Mastery is a mindset: It requires the capacity to see your abilities not as finite, but as infinitely improvable. Mastery is a pain: it demands effort, grit, and deliberate practice. And mastery is an asymptote: it’s impossible to fully realize, which makes it simultaneously frustrating and alluring. (p. 208)

Purpose The first two legs of the Type I tripod, autonomy and mastery, are essential. But for proper balance we need a third leg – purpose, which provides a context for its two mates. Autonomous people working toward mastery perform at very high levels. But those who do so in the service of some greater objective can achieve even more. The most deeply motivated people – not to mention those who are most productive and satisfied – hitch their desires to a cause larger than themselves. …From the moment that human beings first started into the sky, contemplated their place in the universe, and tried to create something that bettered the world and outlasted their lives, we have been purpose seekers. “Purpose provides activation energy for living,” psychologist Mihaly Csikszentimihalyi told me in an interview. “I think that evolution has had a hand in selecting people who had a sense of doing something beyond themselves.” (pp.133-134)

From 4 Secret Keys to Student Engagement by Robyn Jackson and Allison Zmuda: (Ed Leadership, September 2014)

1. Provide Clarity 2. Offer a Relevant Context 3. Create a Supportive Classroom

Culture 4. Provide the Appropriate Challenge

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Choice 5: RESEARCH ON STUDENT ENGAGED ASSESSMENT PRACTICES

(also the ONLY practices that have been shown to close the achievement gap!):

Stiggins’ Seven Strategies of Assessment FOR Learning:

Where am I going?

1. Provide a clear and understandable vision of the learning target 2. Use examples and models of strong and weak work

Where am I now?

3. Offer regular descriptive feedback 4. Teach students to self-assess and set goals

How can I close the gap?

5. Design lessons to focus on one aspect of quality at a time 6. Teach students focused revision 7. Engage students in self-reflection, and let them keep track of and

share their learning

from Motivated to Learn: A Conversation with Daniel Pink in Educational Leadership (September 2014)

Research by Carol Dweck and others has shown that there's a difference between learning goals and performance goals. A learning goal is, "I want to master algebra." A performance goal is, "I want to get an A in algebra." The research shows that reaching performance goals doesn't necessarily mean that you have hit a learning goal. If people are single-mindedly focused on performance goals—and they achieve them—it doesn't mean they've learned anything, improved their capabilities, or mastered something complex. The kid is less likely to retain what she learned to get the A, less likely to persist when the going gets tough, and less likely to understand why algebra is important in the first place.

However, if a kid is single-mindedly focused on a learning goal—mastering algebra—chances are he's going to do pretty well. In the process, he'll probably attain that performance goal and get his A. So it's best to simply go for the learning goal and use the grades and scores as feedback as the student works toward mastery.

So how do we write great learning goals/targets that help students WANT to engage?

Here are a few tips from Leaders of their Own Learning by Ron Berger et. al. (2014)

The Foundation of Student-Engaged Assessment (pp. 21-22)

The process of learning shouldn’t be a mystery. Learning targets provide students with tangible goals that they can understand and work toward. Rather than the teacher taking on all of the responsibility of meeting a lesson’s objectives, learning targets, written in student-friendly language and frequently reflected on, transfer ownership from the teacher to the student. The seemingly simple work of reframing objectives written for teachers to learning targets, written for—and owned by—students, turns assessment on its head. The student becomes the main actor in assessing and improving his or her learning.

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Learning targets are goals for lessons, projects, units, and courses. They are derived from standards and used to assess growth and achievement. They are written in concrete, student-friendly language – beginning with the stem “I can” – shared with students, posted in the classroom, and tracked carefully by students and teachers during the process of learning. Students spend a good deal of time discussing and analyzing them and may be involved in modifying or creating them. (see Table 1.6,)

 

 

 

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Backwards Planning On a Daily Basis: Questions to Consider Sam Bennett

1. Determine the PURPOSE for the lesson based on a number of factors (Determine the learning target): What long-term target are we going after? What daily target will help us get to the long-term target? How will I help them get a clear and understandable vision of the learning target? What did I learn about my kids yesterday that can help me teach them better today -- patterns of understanding or patterns of confusion I noticed during worktime? What do they need to get smarter tomorrow?

2. What will my students DO tomorrow to get smarter? (Plan the worktime) What will they read? What will they write? What will they talk about? What will they create as concrete evidence of their getting smarter? (formative assessments: annotations, reflections, concept map, etc..) How will today’s reading, writing, and/or talk get them closer to the long term target? How will what they create today get them closer to the goals and/or completion of the summative assessment?

3. What will they need from me to work with more depth and stamina than they would alone? (Plan the mini-lesson): What models of both product and process might they need to do the work? (Think-aloud, model annotation, model productive talk, scientific dialogue, how to attack a complex text, how to brainstorm first steps of an idea, essay, concept map….etc.)

4. Anticipate possible confusion or loss of stamina/direction. Where might my learners get stuck? What do they need to KEEP working? (Plan possible “catches” and conferring patterns during worktime): invitational mini-lessons for differentiation, wider range of accessible texts, additional models, etc.) What is my plan for conferring with individuals? Who should I meet with first? Who have I not checked in with for a while? Who do I need to learn more about? How can I structure groups/pairings so I’m not the only teacher in the room?

5. How will we share and synthesize what we’ve learned? (Plan the debrief): What did students accomplish? How did they get smarter? What do they need next?

 

   

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