Erin BosmanFinal Paper Draft6/30/17

“When I figure something out now, I want to celebrate! I want cake and ice cream!” When my student Isabella joyfully stated her feelings about working hard, I knew that restructuring the way that my classroom runs was having an impact on students and their learning. My research centers around my students and their involvement in their learning, environment, and choices. This story is about a group of third-graders who took ownership of their classroom and re-shaped their thinking about themselves and others. These shifts happened when children were able to have a voice and become not only students, but teachers.

School Context

Norwood Park Elementary School is a Spanish World Language Magnet Cluster School located on the northwest side of Chicago. The school is located in the community of Norwood Park and is ranked a Level 1+ public school. Norwood Park is made up of 411 students and serves children in grades Pre-K through 8.

According to the Chicago Public Schools website, Norwood Park School’s student population is made up of the following racial demographics: 58.9% white, 30.7% Hispanic, 5.1% Asian, and 1.5% black. Low-income students make up 17.8% of our school population. About 5% of students at Norwood Park have limited English skills, according to the Chicago Public Schools website. Students bring a wide diversity of languages with them, including Spanish, Polish, and Serbian, among others.

About fifteen percent of our school population are students who are diverse learners. One classroom at Norwood Park provides an instructional program for diverse learners with low-incidence disabilities. The ten students in this room are classified as having cerebral palsy, autism, and low-cognitive functioning.

Norwood Park School’s mission, as listed on their website, states:

“Norwood Park School is a neighborhood school focused on a core curriculum and committed to meeting students’ individual academic and social-emotional needs. At Norwood Park School, we believe: Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies create the core of learning; physical activity, through daily recess, physical education, and extracurriculars, is an integral part of every child’s education; every student should graduate conversational in a world language; technology plays an important role in the life of a student; students should have access to rich and rigorous academic experiences that are tailored to individual needs; students should exceed test standards on a city, state and national level; and students should graduate prepared to gain admittance to their high school of choice, either public or private.”

I have the privilege of teaching twenty-nine students in my third grade classroom this year. There are thirteen boys and sixteen girls in my class, and they are a group of inquisitive and independent learners. We are a self-contained classroom, so together we learn reading and writing through the workshop model each day, and also explore math, science, and social studies together. My students learn Spanish, physical education, and music each week in their specials classes. I

integrate art education into our curriculum as much as possible, and students are also given the opportunity to explore art through their music education throughout the year as well.

The environment at Norwood Park School is one that many would describe as warm, inviting, and family-friendly. Our students take part in the community of Norwood Park outside of the school hours, many participating in park district events and sports, Boy and Girl Scouts, and in their local churches. The strong presence of the school PTA ties our school community together with the events and fundraisers that they coordinate. Students are invited to dances and Family Movie Night among other events, and use those opportunities to interact as a school family. The annual Art Auction is coordinated by our PTA, and brings together our entire school as classrooms create art projects for the silent auction. These fundraisers support student learning and our school classroom environments. This has made it possible for students to have access to more books, technology and an annual STEM event. Parent volunteers have a presence in our school on a daily basis as they give their time to assist teachers and the school at large. It is through this work as a community of teachers, staff, and families that Norwood Park is successful in preparing children to be active citizens and learners.

Literature Review

My group of students is made up of twenty-nine third graders, most of whom are performing at or above grade level in reading and math skills. Because my students are achieving at a high level, I want to explore how giving students more choice will have an impact on learning and motivation. As teachers, we are increasingly teaching larger groups of students who have a variety of complex needs and abilities. With the academic and social demands that we place on children also increasing, I’m asking myself how I can not only create a learning environment that supports each student, but how they can be responsible and motivated to take ownership of their own education. My research will explore how and why choice can be a powerful learning tool, and also how students may have an impact on each other’s learning through a peer-teaching process. If students are to have more choice in what and how they are learning, they might have a stronger sense of ownership if they are also looked at as teachers on that topic.

Why Choice is ImportantAllowing students to have power in their decision making when it come to their education

can be a crucial part of their learning. General well-being stands out as one compelling reason to give students choice in the classroom. According to Alfie Kohn (1993), people of all ages need choice in order to experience physical health and psychological well-being. He says that when people have a sense of self-determination, they are much less likely to show psychological distress. Students in an elementary setting have shown higher self-esteem and have a greater feeling of academic proficiency when they are guiding their own educational choices (p. 3). Anderson (2016) says that students are more highly motivated when they have ownership over what they are learning. Giving children autonomy leads to more engagement in the topic. Teachers often give assignments and grade them, which leaves children in the role of the ‘worker.’ If we give them more choice, they begin to take more responsibility for their learning (p. 16).

ResponsibilityAnderson (2016) emphasizes how important it is to teach responsibility in a time where

there is such an increase in differentiation (p. 16). Students are being held more accountable for their education and are expected to not only perform academically, but to explain how they did the task. When students have access to a more personalized learning experience, they are sharing in the responsibility of what the teacher is typically doing (p. 17). According to Anderson, when more options are available to students that are appropriately challenging and interesting, it may be one of the best ways to help students to achieve (p.17).

Learning increasesWhen students have more choice, Anderson (2016) believes that students are able to engage

in higher-level learning, which can lead to a richer learning experience. Anderson says “when students are more joyfully engaged, their brains are able to process learning and store it in long-range memory more effectively” (p. 17). Choice can also enhance creativity and lead to better organization. Anderson emphasizes that when a classroom is doing a variety of things and studying different topics, the learning can increase. If students are reading many different texts, they can have richer conversation and that can lead to new thinking. This research pairs with why a peer-teaching experience could be a large contributor to students learning. Anderson gives an example of a student who showed her learning using a quadrama, which is a three-dimensional project. After that student presented her work, multiple other students showed their research in a similar format after asking the presenter about her thinking. When students are involved with deciding the boundaries of an assignment, they have more power and control. This gives them more flexibility to accomplish their goals, and students then have a means to inspire one another. From this, other children can gain new ideas and show their creativity as well (p.18).

Kohn (1993) gives numerous examples to support how choice increases student academic growth. Students have shown that they can complete tasks in less time when given choice, and the written results for an experiment were better in a class of high school seniors when they were told to find solutions without clear-cut instructions. Students in an inner-city school missed less class and scored better on standardized testing after their teachers were trained in promoting a better sense of self-determination. Second graders who practiced doing math in groups while figuring out their own solutions to problems developed more sophisticated reasoning skills while learning basic concepts (p. 5).

Social and Emotional LearningStudents need a range of social and emotional skills in order to be successful citizens and

students. Anderson (2016) demonstrates that when children have more power over their work, they are in turn more joyful about what they are doing. He believes that children gain powerful emotional skills when they have choice, naming grit, social awareness, and effective decision making as just a few. Grit can be thought of as persevering through difficulty, and when students are more highly engaged, they can be more motivated to push through challenging work (p. 20). Kohn (1993) believes that teaching children to become generous and caring must include giving

students choice in the classroom. He says “if the environment in which such values are taught emphasizes obedience rather than autonomy, all may be lost” (p.4). Anderson (2016) builds on this thought, saying that students gain social awareness when they have choice and can see that people are different. They learn this through the lenses and perspectives of the schoolwork being shown in their classrooms. Empathy can be practiced when children work with diverse partners and can see that people learn differently (p. 20). Anderson shows that decision making can not be effective without choice. When students have choice, they grown in their ability to be self-reflective and thoughtful, which leads to children who can advocate for themselves and make appropriate decisions (p. 21).

CollaborationWhen the learning happening in a classroom is largely the same, a sense of competition can

take over the learning environment. Anderson believes that can lead to judgement of a student’s own work or the work of others. A benefit of choice is that as student work becomes more diverse, it is harder to compare, and students become less competitive and more focused on their own thinking. Students are then able to relax and be more supportive of their peers (p. 21).

Effect on teachingAn interesting outcome of giving increased student choice is the effect it has on the teaching

and teacher in the classroom. Teachers are under a great deal of stress due to the demands of the profession, and often experience ‘burn out’ as a result. Kohn (1993) reports that teachers feel more motivated to teach when student have a hand in designing the way a unit will look because the work will always look different. When students are more active participants in their learning, the teacher is freed from the task of being a supervisor to being more of someone who interacts with the children (p. 5). According to Anderson (2016), autonomy in the classroom is critical for fostering a positive connection with the teaching profession. When students have choice, they are more engaged and creative, and teaching and learning becomes more fun. This can reignite the passion for teaching (p.22).

Peer teaching

Studies have shown that students teaching their peers can be largely beneficial to learning and confidence. Briggs (2013) shows that there are many reasons why children should teach skills to their peers. Active learning is promoted when students have direct interaction with each other, and peer teachers actually reinforce their own learning when they teach others. Student relationships improve because they feel more comfortable and open after interacting with their peers. Understanding of a subject area grows because of student discourse. There are many benefits that have been proven in both the tutor and tutee, including greater social competence, better communication skills, more supportive feelings toward one another, and higher achievement and productivity. Bruce Burton (2012) proves that peer relationships and self-esteem improve as a result of peer teaching. His studies show that personal development is accelerated, which gives children an equal and responsible relationship with adults. Students regarded as troubled or as

having behavioral problems have changed after the peer teaching experience, specifically after teaching younger children about bullying. Taking on a leadership role in a positive way proved to change habitual patterns of behavior in those children.

Rationale:When I began teaching at my current school in 2014, it was my first experience working with

second graders. After teaching kindergarten for the previous six years, I was pleasantly surprised by the high level of independence that this age group had, compared to the five and six-year olds that I had taught. Over ninety percent of my students read at or above grade-level standards according to the Fountas and Pinnell benchmark assessment. Overall, my students had a high level of ability and independence but a low level of motivation. I felt that most students did the minimum of what was expected of them and did not seek out learning experiences. My hope was for these high-achievers to ‘push’ themselves, and their motivation was not where I wanted or expected it to be. I knew that they were capable of more than what I was seeing.

In 2015, my administration introduced our faculty and staff to FRE, Fonton Relational Education, a modern educational model that teaches students to work at their ability level while developing each student’s natural talents. This model focuses on a child’s interests, knowledge, and abilities and seeks to push students to their greatest potential. Our school’s interest in FRE led my principal to apply for and receive an educational grant for us to begin implementing some pieces of personalized learning into our classrooms, which began with our classroom environment.

When I introduced flexible seating in my classroom, I began to see how students were more engaged with their learning when they had choice with where they were learning. This leads to my current research focus. I want to take the idea of student choice a step further, and see if students are more engaged and motivated to learn when they have more choice with what they learn, then become the teachers to their peers on those topics.

The Common Core Standards for third grade ask students to show proficiency in many areas that I feel are rigorous, particularly in speaking and listening standards. The anchor standards for college and career readiness say that third grade students should be able to “Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.” The speaking and listening standards list ways that third graders should be interacting through discussion in a variety of settings and be able to report on a topic or text. My research will allow students to be challenged with their speaking and listening skills through the peer-teaching portion of the study, and I hope to gain further knowledge on how to scaffold their learning in these areas.

This research will mainly be done through the following:● Reading/writing instruction: Students will choose topics that they will read and write about,

and will become ‘experts’ on those topics. They will teach their peers what they know and decide how they can best prove that they are experts on these topics.

● Vocabulary: My school does not have a mandated vocabulary program, so students will personalize their vocabulary instruction. I would like to see what happens when students are finding words and word parts in the reading that they are doing so that studying vocabulary is more meaningful to them.

● Journaling: Students will journal as they peer teach so that I can gauge their feelings about the experience.

● Science/social studies: My grade level has expectations for the curriculum that we teach for third grade, but I would like student choice to be a part of these units of study as well. Research and peer teaching around the topics that we are learning about in the whole group can be a part of students’ personalized learning experience.

● SEL: As part of Responsive Classroom, my students have a morning meeting time each day at the start of our morning. Students could possibly lead and teach this and choose topics that are important to them and their growth.

My research in these areas could help me to gain a greater knowledge of what motivates students to learn and to take ownership of their education. This will not only benefit my students as they find their greatest potential, but it will also affect my teaching greatly. If I can find leadership roles that work for my students, they are learning more and also motivating their peers to learn. My findings will be shared with other teachers in my school so that we can carry on the pieces of this research that proved to do the most to increase student learning and motivation.

Question:What happens when I give student choice in a third grade classroom?

Sub-Questions:● What happens to student self-motivation?● What happens to the culture of the classroom?● What happens to student test scores on reading NWEA assessments?● What happens to students’ vocabulary acquisition?

Summary of Data Collection Methods

Student Surveys/Feedback● General Student Choice: In early December, I administered a survey asking students about subject

areas that they prefer and their levels of confidence in them, what parts of the day they prefer, and where they feel they learn best in the classroom. Because of the results of that survey, I asked for more specific information in my next questionnaire about the breakdown of some subject areas, most specifically math, and how students want to spend their time learning. I will follow up with post-surveys around this information in March and May.

● Peer Teaching Information: When my students began showing interest in peer teaching, I administered surveys asking what topics students would be interested in teaching. When the process of teaching began, I surveyed students every other week to track what they were learning, why they choose to teach or attend a group, and if they’d like to see changes in our peer teaching process. I also tracked how many students were participating in peer teaching groups as the student or the teacher to gauge the popularity of the groups.

● Choice Projects and Student Interest: I am taking pre and post surveys tracking how students are reacting to projects where they have had choice versus assignments where they did not have choice.

The areas that I’m taking data about are choice with writing units, student leadership with daily Morning Meeting time, book recommendation methods, student-run conferencing, creating anchor charts, and student choice in classroom setup.

● Post-Activity Exit Slips: On randomly selected days, I asked for students’ reactions to activities that were choice-based or ones that were chosen by me. I wanted to understand why students reacted to what we were doing in the classroom and to get in-the-moment feedback from them.

Student JournalsMy students are writing their thoughts on their learning and accomplishments in a journal that they write in one or two times per week. Students are usually self-directed with what they are writing about, but I am sometimes giving them a prompt that is focused on a topic related to choice in the classroom or peer teaching.

Exit Slips from Peer TeachingOne time per week, students who did not show proficiency in math concepts taught in earlier units participated in a peer teaching group to learn that skill. Exit slips were taken after the group to measure if students’ knowledge on that topic increased as a result of peer teaching.

Peer Teaching Feedback FormsStudents fill out a ‘Peer Teacher-Meter’ after they attend a peer teaching session giving feedback to their teacher and rating how much they have learned, on a one to ten scale. When students teach a session, they fill out another form where they rate their comfort as a teacher and how it felt to teach their peers.

Teacher JournalI have been keeping a journal recording observations about students and their behavior, responses, and my data collection.

Case Studies In January, I started to study three students in my class who exhibit differences in levels of motivation, academic achievement, and behavior.

VictoriaVictoria is a student who achieves very well academically and has little to no problems with behavior or with building social relationships. She shows excellent focus when working in whole-group and independent work settings. Things tend to come easily to Victoria, and she is a student who started the school year with very low motivation to do any more than the minimum work requirements. She often resisted doing challenging math work with peers at her level (according to their NWEA scores) and almost always chose to work by herself. Victoria gave up easily when something was difficult for her and would be easily discouraged, even when doing something like losing a multiplication game in math. I noticed that during our bathroom breaks while playing ‘Around the World’ for math facts, she would utter phrases like, “I always lose,” or “I knew I wouldn’t know that.” Victoria is a competitive gymnast outside of school and attends a Polish school once each week to continue learning to read and write in her native language.

Isabella

Isabella was my student in second grade and moved with me this school year as I began teaching third grade. She has been a struggling reader since kindergarten and has received MTSS interventions around decoding and comprehension strategies for the last three years. She has received speech therapy services since kindergarten, where she was given help with articulation issues. While in second grade, Isabella put a great amount of effort into her work in the classroom and in the outside reading tutoring program that her family enrolled her in. She made great progress academically that year. As Isabella began third grade, I noticed that her attitude about her learning shifted in a negative way. She was not putting effort into her work and was often disengaged during whole or small group work. Her participation levels were very low. When I talked to her about this, she often shrugged her shoulders and could not give an explanation about her behavior.

ChristopherChristopher was new to Norwood Park this school year after attending a small private school since kindergarten. While he was on target academically with reading and math skills, he struggled with writing, both with handwriting and basic independent writing skills. His stamina for writing a personal narrative or essay was incredibly low, and Christopher often left his table 5-7 times during a writing session to tell me he was finished after writing a sentence or two. Christopher showed that he had the skill set to be working above grade level standards, but lacked motivation to do anything above what was required. He would often ask, “How many sentences do I have to write?” and did not have the independence to work on his own. Being new to the school, Christopher worked at forming social relationships with other students, and would often choose to be disruptive or silly to make others laugh. This often happened during whole-group instruction. During small group work, Christopher usually contributed very little to his team and would stay silent unless I was there.

Data and Interpretation

The first steps of my research were observing my students and seeing what areas of study and times of day caught their interest, and which ones they seemed most resistant to. I wanted to know why certain behaviors were happening (good or bad) throughout the day, and why kids seemed motivated and engaged in some subjects more than others. I decided to administer surveys to my students to narrow down their feelings about the subject areas and the structure of our day as a way to focus in on some patterns that I saw and then tailor my research around that.

Subject area surveyThe first survey I administered asked students which subject areas they felt most and least confident in and why, and also some specific questions about the breakdown of the time spent in each subject. I wanted to see how student learning might change if I structured the day in a way that students preferred or felt that they worked more productively in.

Data from survey

Question Responses, 12/9/16 Survey Responses, 3/17 Survey

1. What subject are you most confident in?

69% -Reading and Writing14%- Math17%- Science and Social Studies

36% -Reading and Writing40%- Math24%- Science and Social Studies

2. Why are you most confident in that subject?

The majority of responses, regardless of subject area, answered that they felt confident because they could work independently or that it was fun or their favorite subject

The majority of responses, especially from students who said math is what they are most confident in, said things like, “I work hard in it,” or “I’m comfortable in it,” or “I don’t mind pushing myself in it.” Students also mentioned that they work together in these subject that they feel confident in. Responses from students who said science or social studies said that it is fun or that they love it, or that it is a subject that they understand.

3. What subject are you least confident in?

28%- Reading and Writing56%- Math16%- Science and Social Studies

28% -Reading and Writing48%- Math24%- Science and Social Studies

4. Why aren’t you confident in that subject?

The majority of the responses included statements about math being too hard or being bad at it, or feeling pressure with the subject area.

Students responded with a large variety of reasons this time, mentioning things like, “I don’t have enough time,” or “There’s so much to learn,” to “ I don’t always get it.”

5. In reading and writing, I work best...

67%- Reading and writing by myself32%- With a partner or group

48%- Reading and writing by myself48%- With a partner or group4%-Peer teaching (Students wrote this into the survey)

6. In math, I work best..

57%- By myself42%- With a partner or group

32%- By myself60%- With a partner or group10%- Peer teaching

7. What part of math workshop do you like the most?

83%-Independent or group time16%-Whole-group (mini-lesson)

62%-Independent or group time38%-Whole-group (mini-lesson)

December Analysis: This survey told me that overall, students felt more confident in reading and writing, and that they also felt they could be more independent in those subject areas. They felt least confident in math overall, and their responses showed that most had a fixed mindset about their learning, saying they were ‘bad’ at it. As a result of this survey, I started to shorten my mini lessons in math and try to give more independent work time, and then made another survey just about math to try to get to why students had negative feelings about themselves as students of math.

March Analysis: My second survey showed that a much larger group of students felt most confident in math, from 14% in December to 40% in March. This could be a result of the way that I re-structured our math block, in addition to the peer teaching that we incorporated into math. It surprised me that there was still a large group of students (48%) who said that they were least confident in math, despite the large increase in the previous question. I asked myself again how I could solve this puzzle of math being a troublesome subject area for students.

Another striking point from the March survey results were the student responses about why they felt confident in a particular subject area. In the first survey, students mostly mentioned that they felt confident because they could work independently or because they viewed the subject as fun. The next survey, along with the increase in confidence in math, showed responses that were more focused on work habits and their learning community. Students said that they learned in their groups and partnerships, and many said that they work hard or study more in the subject they feel good about. This told me that students were experiencing a change in how they approached difficulties, and that they were confident in things that they still saw as challenging. The March survey showed a change in how students liked to work in the classroom. More students wanted to work in partnerships in groups. I saw this as another shift from a self-centered learning approach to a more collective way of approaching learning. Students were finding value in working with someone, which supports the changes that I saw in the culture of our classroom.

Math surveyMy follow up survey was specifically about math and how students would like to spend time in math. This was in response to the December results of the survey above.

Survey results:

Question: Responses, 12/16/16 Survey

1. What part of math instruction do you like most?

62% independent time27% whole group time

2. What do you want to change about math? 64% more group or independent work time35% more whole group time

3. Would you like more self-directed time in the classroom overall?

71% agreed

Analysis:The results of this survey surprised me because I saw an increase in the number of students who favored whole-group instruction from the survey I had just given a week earlier. Because I had already started adjusting my mini-lesson to fifteen minutes or less, I saw that I was already getting more positive feelings about the setup of our math workshop time. Most students still wanted more group or independent time, but they were happier with our whole-group learning time. This set the course for our day to be set up with more independent and group time for students and less whole-group teaching. Students craved independence and collaboration, and as I observed them in both settings, I saw a greater amount of engagement and productive work being done during those times. According to the notes in my journal, I was redirecting student behavior as much as three times more during whole-group lessons than during other times of day. This indicated a need for change to happen, and my students’ voices said the same.

Around this time in my research process, I decided to observe my students and let them guide where this need for independence would go. I saw how much they craved time to work with their peers and do self-guided work, and more and more I started noticing something else that stood out to me. Students were showing interest in helping each other with work and also seemed incredibly engaged when students were

showing off their own work during mini-lessons. What struck me most was that students seemed equally interested in watching their peers show their personal successes as well as struggles that they were having.

For example, during our share time at the end of one writing workshop session, I asked Kara to show the way that she was organizing the information in her non-fiction book about babysitting. She placed her draft on the overhead projector to show off and I complimented the way that she was working through this part of her writing. Two students raised their hands to share in that praise, saying, “Kara, I liked the way you listed your chapters,” and “That looks really nice!” During another share session that week, Celia brought a problem to the carpet to share with her peers. She said, “I can’t interpret ALL of the information from my graph about the Olympics, and I don’t know what to do!” Instead of answering her question, I watched my students as they raised their hands to offer their suggestions. Audrey said, “Just try looking at the important information in it, like the main idea of what you’re looking for. Then you could just show that instead of the whole graph.” Celia smiled and quickly thanked her. I saw how this was not only engaging, but what I watched was incredibly effective.

On a day in writing workshop soon after this, Michaela came to me for an individual conference about her book on ice skating. Celia was standing nearby, waiting to see me next. As Michaela described her problem with paraphrasing (a similar issue that Celia had days earlier), Celia popped in with some great advice around what she does when she has too much information. She read the passages that Michaela had in front of her, then asked what she really wanted to know from these pages. When she heard Michaela’s area of focus, she told her what she’d keep and what she’d cut, and Michaela was soon on her way with her writing. Also standing nearby, Joel piped in, “I wanted to give advice, too!” I knew that what was unfolding was setting up for a drastic change in my classroom. Kids wanted to help one another. My struggle was figuring out how this would look. I worried that students might think that they could advise a friend, but might not really help them. They might use this as an excuse to socialize or be off-task in some way. Plus, I didn’t know how to organize students helping one another in a way that made sense. Thankfully, my students gave me the answers to most of my concerns!

During writing workshop in December, something happened during writing workshop that changed the course of my research. I always had students sign up to conference with me on their writing in a list format on a white board. One day, students started listing what they wanted to conference with me about. For example, Audrey wrote ‘help with descriptive words’ next to her name. When other students saw this, they started doing this as well, and this idea evolved into this:

My students were creating their own conferencing groups based on what they needed to work on that was similar to their peers! This sign-up board put the needs of my students on display, and soon after, a student wrote, ‘If you need help with a writing idea, come to Tessa.’ I saw that students were noticing the needs of their peers and wanted to support them to work on the problem that they had. Celia, seemingly feeling like an expert on paraphrasing after helping Michaela days earlier, signed up as a go-to on that topic. Something was growing here. Although students were regularly conferencing with a writing partner, this showed that students wanted more time to work with peers on a topic that they felt confident assisting them with. Because of this development, I decided to structure writing workshop time with more conferencing time for students. Students needed the skills and strategies to become ‘teachers,’ so I moved toward starting that process immediately.

Peer teaching readiness/confidenceIn December, I took a survey asking students about their confidence levels for teaching. This was after students did some very informal teaching of a topic in front of the whole group. These are the results:

December 2016When teaching, I feel...

28%- Very confident50%-Somewhat confident21%-Not at all confident

December Analysis:These results told me that I needed to give students more teaching practice and gather ideas about what exemplary teaching looks like.I distributed a survey asking students what they’d like to teach to their peers and gave them the option to teach something that is academic or something they are an expert on outside of school. All but two of my

students (93%) named a topic that they think they are an expert on. However, when I presented the idea of teaching that topic to the class and posted a sign-up sheet, only twelve students (41%) signed up to teach. I decided to have one student teach the entire class about a topic of their choice, and the class filled out a feedback form about their teaching and how well the class learned their topic. Celia taught a lesson about how to braid. After her six minute lesson, my students came up with this list of exemplary teacher qualities:

The creation of this list told me that students were ready to have more independence with leading groups. After Celia’s lesson I announced that we’d do more demonstrations of expert topics so that we could hone our teaching skills. A collective “YAY!” was shouted from the carpet. That day, six more students signed up to teach their topic. We did another whole-group teach two weeks later, and after that, a total of 20 students had signed up.

Students filled out the feedback form below while they observed Celia doing her teaching demonstration. Her teaching score average was an 8, showing that students had mostly learned how to braid after watching her. Some useful comments that I shared with the class were as follows:

“Celia uses very clear words while she teaches. She should extend her voice a little more so everyone can hear.”“I think it’s important to have all your supplies ready when you teach.”“You have to be ready to go when you teach.”“I think she could have let us see what she was doing a little more.”“I learned how to braid because Celia was telling each step very clearly. She even told us how to measure with a ruler, and that helped me.”

This form was student-friendly, so I decided to continue to use the form as sort of an exit slip for students to fill out each time they attended a peer teaching group.

Peer Teacher-Meter

Date:___________ My peer teacher was:______________

SUbject area and concept:____________________________Today I was taught by my friend and…

I didn’t learn I learned I learned something, I mostly I learned a ton!the concept a little but I’m still a little confused learned the My peer teacher Concept was a rock star!I______________________________________________________________________I0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Today I learned:______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________I need another peer teaching session about this concept: Yes No

I feel ___________________________ after my peer teaching circle.Feedback for my teacher:________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________________

Peer teaching confidence:

December 2016When teaching, I feel...

28%- Very confident50%-Somewhat confident21%-Not at all confident

March 2017 64%- Very confident20%-Somewhat confident4%-Not at all confident(Several students did not respond because they had not peer taught at this time).

May 2017 81%-Very confident15%-Somewhat confident3%-Not confident at all

March analysis: There was a large increase in teaching confidence from December to March. By this time, our groups were in full swing and 72% of my students had taught a group at least one time, either in math or writing. Students had created a list of “Exemplary Teacher Qualities” that they followed during teaching sessions after Celia’s practice session, and we continued to add to that as students came across challenges in their groups. While I was pleased to see this increase in confidence in teaching skills, I still had a pesky 24% of kids not feeling confident, and another group who had not taught. I knew that interest in teaching was increasing, but I wanted to increase motivation in those who were choosing to not participate. I wondered if lack of participation was linked to a lack of confidence in the process of teaching.

May analysis: By May, confidence in teaching made a sharp increase, specifically in the ‘very confident’ category. This pleased me immensely, partly because students were feeling good (and I assumed motivated) about teaching, and partly because numbers for teaching were continuing to grow. As students were getting more practice with teaching groups, they must have continued to grow with their skills which helped with their confidence. I also gathered that with the rise in co-teaching, students were learning more from each other which helped their confidence. They were telling me this in surveys and interviews, and I saw it while observing their teaching. The number of students who were not feeling confidence was down to 18% total, which was low considering the numbers from December were 71%. Students were showing more confidence and were continuing to be motivated by peer teaching.

Feedback about own workAs the months of this work progressed, I saw students were able to give themselves and others more detailed, critical feedback of their work. At the beginning of the year when students shared writing or other work on the projector, their classmates would say things like, “Your writing is really good,” or “I like how you wrote your summary.” They were highly focused on correcting mechanics of writing, such as punctuation, grammar, or capitalization, instead of digging into the craft of their writing. As students continued with the work that we did and practiced sharing work, I saw a change in the type of feedback that they gave. For example, during a share of Tristan’s informational text on soccer in March, I collected the following notes in my journal: “Your chapters are really well-organized and they make sense to the reader.” “The words in your chapter about the positions are really descriptive!”“I think you could write a little more about the rules of the game because that’s an important part of writing about soccer.”

The way that kids were responding was specific and offered greater room for students to improve on their work. The same kind of response was happening during one-on-one conferences with students and during their peer conferencing. I wondered if the process of peer teaching was helping students to look at work more critically and know how proficient they were with certain skills. The openness that I saw with students admitting what they needed to work on was refreshing. I saw the embarrassment of not knowing start to chip away, and more and more students were volunteering to show off work that they needed help with. This made for a classroom community that was showing openness to growth and not perfection. Students seemed to see the value in taking in help from others more and more, whether it was during a one-on-one conference or a peer teaching group. I saw a large shift during my whole-group teaching time, especially during math. Students often raised their hand while I was teaching, saying, “Ms. Bosman, I’m not sure I get it. Can you do another problem like that?” Before doing this work, this did not happen often, as students were typically embarrassed to say they were lost. As time went on, I also saw that students could be more specific about WHAT they didn’t understand and could articulate that. This shift carried over to every subject area, and I head this kind of talk going on during peer teaching groups as well.

Peer teaching Data

Math peer teaching numbers

Week of: % of students attending % of students who signed up to teach

February 6th 17% 14%

February 13th 21% 14%

February 21st 41% 17%

February 27th 51% 24%

March 6th 48% 38%

March 13th 54% 52%

March 20th (PARCC testing) 76% 69%

March 27th (PARCC testing) 83% 79%

April 3rd 81% 77%

April 17th 72% 81%

Analysis:These numbers show a slow but steady growth in interest with attending groups and with teaching peers. Most students had either attended sessions or taught by April. I had some resistant attendees and teachers at this point, and it was clear which students were most enthusiastic about this process and which were not. My focus became probing those students to find out more about their feelings about teaching and learning in our groups.

Writing peer teaching numbers

Month: % of students who had attended at least one group

February 59% (17 students)

March 86% (25 students)

April 93% (27 students)

Reactions to Peer Teaching

After the process of peer teaching started to become a part of our classroom routine, I wanted to measure students reactions to this. I saw the popularity of the process steadily growing, but I wanted to know more about what students were learning and why this was working for them. Here is some feedback from a survey taken in the beginning of March.

Question: Responses, 3/8/16 Survey 5/5 Survey

1. What do you learn when you attend a 79% learn a specific math or writing skill or strategy 90% learn a specific math or writing skill or strategy

peer teaching session? 21% get better at whatever the topic is 62% get better at whatever the topic is

2. Why do you decide to attend a peer teaching group?

24% attend to learn a new skill57% attend to improve on something they need help with14% don’t attend

72% attend to learn a new skill65% attend to improve on something they need helps with11% don’t attend

3. Are you comfortable in the group? 86% are comfortable14% are not comfortable

90% are comfortable10% are not comfortable, or didn’t answer

4. When you’re the teacher, what do you learn?

48% learn how they help others improve12% learn more about the topic themselves8% learn what others are good at

65% learn how they help others improve62% learn more about the topic themselves48% learn what others are good at

5. If you have not taught yet, why? Students said they have too much independent work to do or reported that there hasn’t been a topic they didn’t already know or were interested in.

Students responded that they were trying to perfect a topic before they taught it or that they preferred independent work.

Additional comments/questions for Ms. Bosman

34% asked for more peer teaching time, or specifically asked for reading peer teaching

48% asked for even more peer teaching time; 31% indicated other topics they’d like to teach about

Analysis:Students are reporting learning happening in their teaching groups and are using these groups either to learn a new skill or improve on one they need work on. Because over half of students are attending a group to improve on something, I continued to see an increase in students pinpointing growth areas and being open to making those areas better. This is showing evidence of growth mindset as opposed to earlier data that showed closed mindset when it came to areas of difficulty. The second survey showed continued growth with students understanding the value of learning as the teacher and not just as the student. I also saw that students were ready to begin expanding their teaching groups to other subject areas and that I should try this during our reading time as well.

Feedback to Peer Teaching: Student ReactionsStudents were filling out forms (shown above) after leaving a peer teaching group assessing their experience as a student or a teacher. On average, students reported an average learning experience of ‘8’, meaning that they mostly learned the concept that was taught by their teacher. This was promising and I was pleased to see the comments that students left for their teachers. There was a distinct progression with the types of comments left. For example, when we first started the process in January, many comments looked like this:

“I learned a lot.”“Jenna was a good teacher.”“Now I know how to publish my paper better.”

The feedback was positive, but I noticed a large difference in the feedback I read in later months. This is a sample of comments from our later in our teaching process, in April and May.

“Next time when I teach, I can come prepared with more examples for my group.”

“Going to Eliana’s group has made me more confident with counting money.”“Now I can fix the chapter in my book. David taught me how to do that better and showed me his work.”“Tessa taught me strategies for finding equivalent fractions. I’m feeling like I can tackle them now.”

This later feedback was much more specific to what students were learning and students told how they were learning from their teacher. I saw a change in mindset with learning as I read these comments. My students were showing that they were taking more ownership of their learning as they chose to attend groups. Some mentioned how they would apply what they had learned in a group after it was over. I saw more words centering around confidence with a skill and the perseverance to learn a tough skill.

What about when students aren’t learning?Some students stated on feedback forms that they didn’t learn from their teacher. Handling this challenge actually became a teachable moment in our process. In the first months of teaching, I saw comments like the ones listed below from students who reported that they did not learn the skill.

“I didn’t really learn it.”“Jana could have brought more materials with her to show us how to do it.”“I kind of know how to do text features now.”

I shared this with students as a way for them to re-assess how effectively they were teaching. Conversations about how to best teach each other followed, and I saw these comments popping up on feedback forms much less as the weeks passed. This is not to say that students were learning the skill every time they attended a peer teaching group. There were times that students did not pick up the skill, but I was struck by the how the feedback was changing. The comments below demonstrate a different type of thinking.

“I think I should go to this group again, because I’m not super confident with division yet.”“Audrey taught me a lot about text features, but I’m not sure I have mine finished yet. Maybe she can conference with me later.”“I wasn’t focused, so I should go to another session.”

Some students asked their peer teacher a question, showing that they were seeking knowledge about the learning that was happening.“David, where did you learn to multiply so many digits?”“Victoria, can you show me long division again?”

Changes seemed to be happening with how my students approached learning. They did not see a defeat as an endpoint in learning, but as a challenge that they’d overcome with a different approach. Many mentioned that they’d have to continue trying at something as a means to learning. I noticed that they were becoming more specific with naming what they needed to learn or work on and seemed to be more honest with whether they had really learned something or not. This trend was becoming visible in many other parts of our day, as I will explain in detail later in the paper.

How our Writing Workshop ChangedWith students responding well to choice along with the increased demand for supporting their peers, the structure of my writing workshop changed in many ways. Not only were my mini-lessons shrinking and

becoming more about students giving each other feedback, but the part of our workshop that was formerly dedicated to independent time changed as well. Students were asking to begin their writing time with conferencing so that they could be set up to feel good about their work time. Soon I saw the entire block of time transformed. What used to be a strictly “Level Zero Voices” work time was starting to look like a little writing community where kids checked in with someone who could support them. One day, I saw Tessa referring to a writing rubric while she helped another student with expanding their paragraphs. She advised them to look at what the rubric asked as a guideline for what their writing should look like. At the end of that session, I asked Tessa to share that at the share time, and the following day, three peer teachers asked their groups to bring the rubric with them. The teaching tools that I always wanted my students to use were out of folders! This was obviously an action inspired by their peers and not me, but I couldn’t have been happier.

The atmosphere of our writing workshop changed during this time. I saw motivation increasing as students were working together more than on their own. As I continuously listened in on the conversations that were happening, it gave me the opportunity to celebrate not only exemplary work, but the struggles that students were having and were able to overcome with a writing partner. As I saw Michaela write a fantastic introduction for her non-fiction piece, I asked her to share it at the end of the session. She was slightly hesitant and seemed nervous about the attention she’d receive. As I highlighted her courage for sharing her piece, Michaela warmed up to the crowd as they raised their hands to pinpoint why her introduction was so engaging. This showed the community that was building during this process. Both ‘teacher’ and audience was actually teaching each other.

I wanted to push students to continuously be comfortable being open with their mistakes or with trouble they had with writing as well. One day as Audrey and Christopher conferenced on what text features he should use, I saw him saying how his topic was making it difficult to choose what features to use. Audrey gave him advice about what she thought would work and at the end of their conversation he said, “I never thought of it like that!” At our share, Christopher asked if he could tell the group about this, and as he told the story of Audrey supporting him, he said, “I’m still not sure if it’ll work but now I know what to try.” The comfort that he had with sharing a struggle seemed to resonate with kids just as (if not more) easily than the celebrations did. Many students made our “Me Too” sign language signal while he spoke. Kids were opening up about what was difficult and seeing their peers as helpers. As I saw more and more examples of this kind of open mindset, I saw that my project was taking me somewhere that I hadn’t expected it to.

Challenges to Peer Teaching: Engaging resistant studentsAfter sifting through the data from my March survey above, I noticed there were still eight students who had not signed up to be a peer teacher: Noah, Tristan, Ryan, Bella, Manus, Adrian, Leah, and Bryan. I wanted to know more about why they were not signing up, and their written feedback did not give me enough information. To find out more, I asked the students the same questions one-on-one. This proved to be a better method of data collection. It was often difficult to get useful information from students in written surveys when I asked them to elaborate. When I asked students about their hesitation, I got the following responses:

Ryan: “I’m still not confident enough to be a teacher. I’m still working on my independent work when we start peer teaching in math, so I want to make sure that’s right first.”

Adrian: “I really haven’t been to many peer teaching groups, so I should probably start going to more sessions so I can learn more about something.”

Noah: “I’m not sure if I want to. I just like working by myself.”

Bella: “I’m still publishing my writing. I don’t have time.”

Manus: “I don’t know. I think I’ll teach but I don’t know.”

These responses told me a great deal about my resistant teachers. I was relieved that most of these students were not uninterested in teaching; they were just focused on individual work time. These students had something in common and I had not realized it until I interviewed them. They were all slower and more thoughtful workers in general, so it made sense that they would not rush into being a teacher. I saw a great deal of reflective thinking from Ryan, Adrian, and Bella regarding their readiness to teach. They were placing their responsibilities for their independent work first and saw their readiness as a priority before rushing into teaching.Noah and Manus remained somewhat of a mystery at this point. They were both high-achieving students and avid readers who I believed had a great deal to teach their peers, but they showed little to no interest in peer teaching. I decided to continue to watch their journey with this process and to interview them again after some time passed.

Peer Teaching Exit SlipAbout a month into this process, I felt that I needed more information about whether learning was really happening in these groups. In surveys and interviews students were often telling me that they were learning from their peers, but I wanted data to back up whether this process was really working In order to gather information on how effective peer teaching is, I structured one time per week where students attended a group to learn a skill that was not mastered in past math units. Students completed an exit slip after their peer teaching group so that I could measure growth of that particular skill.

Results:

Skill: Number of students participating Results after Peer Teaching Group

Rounding numbers to tens and hundreds place 12 students 10 out of 12 students increased their score at least one letter grade. 5 of those students scored 100%.

Area and Perimeter 18 students 14 out of 18 students increased their score at least one letter grade. 6 of those students scored 100%

Multiplication-1 digit 9 students 7 out of 9 students increased their score at least one letter grade. 5 of those students scored 100%

Multiplication-2 digits 14 12 out of 14 students increased their scores at least one letter grade. 8 of those students scored 100%

Analysis:The growth in the students who attended these groups was incredibly exciting. This showed that peer teaching was effective with teaching others new skills and also spiraling back to previously learned concepts

as well. It made sense that students were effective with teaching skills that they had done many times in the past and could explain that learning to their classmates. This was not a successful route for all students. For example, there were two students who did not grasp rounding after their first peer teaching session. I had them attend another session with a different peer teacher, and they had similar results with their exit slip after that group. This showed me that like most teaching strategies, peer teaching will not work for all students, and additional support will be necessary for them.

Case Studies

VictoriaWhen this process began, Victoria was my most resistant student. Although she was high-achieving and more than capable of taking on peer teaching, she was the only student to say, “ugh!” when I introduced our expert teaching demonstrations. She quickly followed this with, “Do we have to?” Victoria is a straight-’A’ student and showed that she was highly interested in reading and learning, but she was unmotivated to do anything more than the minimum that was required. I noticed during interviews with her that she did not have confidence in herself, and had a hard time giving herself credit for her strengths. She really shut down when I asked her why she wasn’t interested in peer teaching, even when I pointed out that she has a lot to teach others.

This resistance continued for about six weeks. Victoria did not attend a session taught by another student and she did not sign up to teach. Finally in March, she started to come around after students had the idea to co-teach instead of being on their own. Victoria is close friends with Audrey, who is another high-achieving student, and I saw that she was becoming mildly interested in the things that Audrey was teaching. The two girls were in the same small math groups that I taught and I always taught them enrichment work in math. One day, Victoria asked if she could co-teach multi-digit multiplication with Audrey, and from that point on, her attitude slowly started to shift. Although she held back and was a bit shy during the first teach, she started to sign up more frequently, first just once a week, then at least three times. I was careful not to push her, so I sat back and waited to see if her motivation changed.

During morning meeting one day, Jake gave Victoria a peer teacher shout-out, complimenting Victoria on how she taught him multiplication. He said that he didn’t know how to do that before, but now he really got it. Victoria shyly smiled but seemed thrilled with the compliment. From then on, Victoria was constantly (almost daily) asking me to teach her more challenging math concepts so she would have something to sign up for. She started to take more time with her work and was spending more time editing and revising her writing, instead of asking me if she was ‘done’ several times per week. During an interview, I asked Victoria what changed her mind about becoming a peer teacher. She said, “I want to now...at first I didn’t. I didn’t feel confident at first, but I liked seeing others do it. When I watched Eliana, I saw that it didn’t have to be long. I could say just a little and still teach, and kids would learn.” Victoria had been uncomfortable with criticism and feedback early in the year, and never volunteered to share work in front of the class. It took time, but in May Victoria brought a math problem and response to the projector for feedback from the class. She did not say much, but took in the praise that students gave her along with the areas for improvement that they pointed out. I was proud that Victoria put herself out there and was not upset with the feedback. I asked her later why she was ok with this and she said, “It felt really good. I know other people can help me with stuff I don’t know.” Although the changes in Victoria were sometimes subtle, there was a shift in her motivation and the way she thinks about herself as a learner as a result of this process.

IsabellaAs an historically struggling student, Isabella faced challenges that most of my students didn’t. Her challenges were more specifically linked to reading and writing, but third grade was presenting her with more difficulties than I saw her facing when she was my student in second grade. Bella had lost her drive as this year started, which surprised and concerned me. She always had low confidence in herself, especially in reading.

When I introduced the work of peer teaching, I was not surprised to see that Bella did not volunteer to teach or attend groups at first. I knew that because of her confidence levels she would probably not want to be the teacher with her peers. When I asked for volunteers to share work with the class for feedback practice, Bella never volunteered. She often had little to contribute while working with her writing partner, but she never got upset or shut down when they gave her advice. When we took the winter NWEA test in January, Bella finished her reading test in less than 20 minutes (most kids take around an hour to finish), and when I discussed this with her, she just shrugged her shoulders and said, “I just wanted to be done.” Bella’s reading score landed her in the 22nd percentile, which was incredibly worrisome considering that third grade students need to in the 24th percentile to successfully pass the grade and not attend summer school. I knew that something needed to change with Bella’s confidence and drive in order for her to be successful. She was capable of much more when she focused, but that motivation was not there. I spoke with Bella’s mom about her test scores and the time of her test, letting her know that it was clear that Bella rushed through the test. She agreed that her motivation to do well had decreased, although we weren’t sure why.

I wanted Bella to recognize her strengths so that she could build confidence. She became my focus as I gave shout-outs during our share time and in morning meeting. Even with all of my efforts with pointing out what Bella was doing well, she was still slow to finding this on her own. She was resistant to sharing with peers and although she was attending peer teaching groups, she did not want to teach. In February, I had a one-on-one interview with Bella. When I asked her why she hadn’t peer taught, she said, “I like watching other people teach but I don’t know why I don’t want to do it myself. I don’t know what’s holding me back.” When I asked her about what she did well and what was hard for her, she said, “I’m pretty good at math, but reading isn’t good. It’s hard for me. I don’t like when I’m not good at something.” This interview showed a fixed mindset and that Bella saw herself as a ‘bad’ reader. She did not elaborate much and couldn’t see herself as a learner that was growing in any way. Because she did recognize some strength in math, I decided to focus on that and try to help her to find specifics in what was going well with math.

From there, I encouraged Bella to share during our whole-group math time whenever possible. I ‘cold-called’ her (called on her when her hand wasn’t up) when I knew she had the correct answer on her slate so that she could get comfortable explaining her thinking. I noticed that Bella wrote out her answers in math extensively, showing each step, even though she struggled with doing this in writing. Slowly, Bella started to participate more. I recorded her participation in my journal and saw that during math, she raised her hand at least two times per day, and she started answering with more confidence. Finally in April, after kids started to co-teach their peer teaching groups, Bella signed up with her best friend Josie to teach about counting money. I watched as she taught a small group and took her time to explain how she goes about counting coins and adding and subtracting values. She seemed proud of what she had done after the group was over, and the following day she signed up again. Some confidence was building in Bella, and soon I saw this carrying over to reading.

In April, kids were working through rigorous non-fiction text and comparing and contrasting passages about the effect of climate change on polar bears. During some practice together, I listened in on Bella as she shared quietly with a partner at the rug and I thought that her observation was well thought out. I put her on the spot and had her share this thinking with the group. Students listened to her, and I saw her voice becoming more steady and sure of herself. Later that week, the kids did a practice response independently doing this same work. We came together when they were finishing to do a ‘feedback session’ and look at student work. I was floored as Bella raised her hand to share her writing on the projector. It was April, and all she had shared at that point was math. The most interesting part was that Bella’s writing was not complete or exemplary, but showed a great deal of work and thinking. She stood in front of her classmates as they gave both positive feedback and areas of growth, and Bella did not get upset or embarrassed. She took in their thoughts, listened as students applauded for her, and took her seat.

I interviewed Bella that afternoon to get her thoughts on that change. She said, “I used to not be ok with feedback, but now I want it. I think I can do better on things and people can tell me things to help me.” This was a total change from her earlier views about herself, which were very fixed. I asked her about how she’s now peer teaching, and she said, “Before, I felt scared about peer teaching. Standing up in front of the class meant everyone was staring at me. Now I feel like I want to teach another one. I kind of peer taught today when I showed my comparing and contrasting. I really wanted to share it because I thought it was great and I wanted to try it out. I felt really confident about my work because I worked really hard on it. It was my work, just mine. I was finally showing off what I did. And getting feedback was good. It makes it better, and I knew no one would say mean things. I don’t want to say any names, but a partner I had once said all the things I did wrong. But now I knew it was just about getting better, and that felt good.” Bella’s comments showed a great level of change in her thinking about herself as a learner and the whole peer teaching process. Where she had seen herself as ‘bad’ at something and timid when it came to sharing, she was now open to the help that others could provide. She knew that getting feedback was a positive thing and not an attack on her mistakes. Even the length of her responses showed a change in her. Bella continued on this path for the remainder of the year. Her participation continued to grow and she was willing to share her work almost daily. When we took the NWEA test in May, Bella came to me asking for feedback about how she could do her best. She said she was not going to rush this time because she knew she wouldn’t do her best that way. Although Bella still needs extra support with reading, she has become more thoughtful, focused, and brave. I watched a transformation happen that I’m hoping will continue as she grows.

ChristopherChristopher showed a drastic transformation as a result of this work. As I described above, Christopher was a student who showed low levels of confidence and motivation. He had the ability to achieve, but his lack of confidence held him back from doing well. He was not working to his potential. Because Christopher was new to the school, I felt that he was struggling a bit socially at the start of the year. His habit of ‘tattling’ often got in the way of his academic growth, as he often spent time paying attention to what others were doing and telling me when he thought someone else was off task.

When we started the peer teaching process, Christopher was indifferent to being involved. He quietly sat back and listened as students signed up for the practice teaching sessions. When I asked him if he was interested in showing off something that he knew, Christopher shrugged his shoulders and said nothing. I was surprised by this because he often wanted to share things with me about his weekend or what he had done at home. I thought that pushing him to do a teaching demo might help him socially, and might also help him to gain confidence. After a few weeks, Christopher finally signed up to teach about a computer game

that he plays. He did a quick demo and seemed happy with what he achieved, but I was not seeing a change in his other behaviors. Christopher would still write the absolute minimum that he needed to answer a question and was often the first to finish his work. I often saw him give up on a math problem that he was working on and write any answer just to be finished. In January, I interviewed Christopher about his strengths and weaknesses and the peer teaching process at that point. He gave very limited answers and could not articulate himself easily. He said that he reads well, but that math was ‘hard’ for him. He stated, “I get stuck on things in math and go to the next problem because I can’t do it.” He said that he liked math, but that it was hard for him. Regarding peer teaching, Christopher said that he liked going to groups and that it was ‘fun.’

Christopher started to attend more peer teaching groups, and seemed especially excited about the leadership roles that I started to give to students, especially the ‘Ask Me’ person and the morning meeting leader. He became more vocal as the took on responsibilities in the classroom and slowly seemed more motivated by these things. When he first found a root word in a book he was reading in March, he came to me excitedly to show me and to ask if he could post it on the wall. With each bit of ownership that he had in the classroom, the more he seemed to buy in to his learning. When something was assigned by me, he was much less engaged and continued to do the bare minimum. For example, completing assessments was something that Christopher was not putting his full effort into, and he almost always finished quickly and had to be encouraged by me to write more.

His participation continued to grow, and one day Christopher volunteered to show his math work on the projector. He was showing more writing on his slate during math, which showed his thinking process more clearly. It seemed that he knew that in order to share, he needed to put his best effort into his work. This first experience with being the ‘teacher’ seemed to excite him. I was seeing the shift in him that I was hoping for.

This continued into his socializing process. I was starting to see his habit of tattling fade away as his confidence improved. This made sense because he was becoming more engaged with his work, either independently or with groups, so he had less time to focus on the behavior of others. One area that stood out to me was the process of resolving conflicts. The steps towards resolving a problem that I had taught students seemed to really resonate with Christopher. When something bothered him, he often wanted to have a conversation with that person right away to resolve the situation. If he overheard someone else having a conflict he asked if he could be the one to mediate. I felt relieved that he was at least going in a positive direction with being involved with others, even though this was still slightly distracting to him. One day, a few of my boys had an argument on the playground with some second grade boys over a soccer game. Christopher came to me when I picked up the students and asked immediately if they could have a ‘conference’ with the second graders to resolve it. I agreed and was impressed with his proactive nature as opposed to just tattling about this situation. He explained to the younger boys how to resolve problems, introduced our ‘talking stick,’ and successfully led all six boys to a resolution. This kind of communication was not something I had seen before, especially with Christopher.

After about six weeks of hesitation, Christopher finally embraced being the peer teacher, but only after the possibility of being another student’s co-teacher. This move towards having more confidence was a team effort for him, which I saw in the other students that I examined in these case studies. This showed me that Christopher is a child who needs that collaboration and benefits from it greatly. I watched as Christopher co-taught four sessions before feeling confident enough to teach a math group alone. His words became more

precise each day, and he started to prepare for his lessons and be more enthusiastic about teaching. Other changes accompanied this. Christopher was coming to me for reassurance less often. He was working more independently at appropriate times and worked with groups more efficiently. I interviewed him in April and asked the same questions that I did from his very limited interview in January. His answers showed monumental changes in his mindset and feelings about challenges. For example, when I asked him about things that he was working on and difficulties that arose, he said, “I’m working on writing and science and math, and in reading I’m working on synthesizing. Math is a subject I think I can get better at. When something is hard for me, there’s another way to get around it. I can always keep trying. There’s something else that will get it in my brain.” I was shocked at the difference in his growth mindset and how he was seeing that he could solve his own problems. This was a large shift from his previous thoughts of himself.

I then asked Christopher how he feels when he’s figured something out. He responded, “It feels like I’ve been doing super smart things, and there’s another way around it. I think of it like there’s a spill on the floor. Like you can go over a spill on the floor. You could go around it one way or on the other side. Like in math, I could do that. There’s a way to get to the answer.” I asked him if he feels like he changed in third grade. He said, “Yeah, I have. In reading, I used to just memorize books, like Dr. Suess. Now I can do things like summarize and find the important parts. It’s like I’m doing more mind work. Now I’m more interested in things, like the history of Chicago. I think I can learn more now. I didn’t know a lot about math and I thought it was just about adding numbers. But now after you explain something, I have lots of thinking going on. I get home and I’m still thinking about stuff. I got a notebook and I get a blanket and I go write about things I’m thinking. It’s kind of like homework but you didn’t really give us that as homework. Things kind of open my mind. Like I ask lots of questions. Last year I just memorized stuff and that was what I was learning.”

This conversation showed the growth and transformation that Christopher had made. He saw himself and the learning process differently than he had in the past. I saw in front of me a child who had always had the potential to learn, but now he believed that he could learn and actually enjoyed it. He went on to tell me how he had introduced peer teaching to his family and that they would ‘play’ peer teaching at home. Christopher seemed to be changed by this process, and was now much more highly motivated and confident in himself. His mom noticed this too, and remarked to me that he was very interested in learning about different topics at home. She wasn’t pushing him to do homework as much as she used to, and he had grown a lot in math. These changes were noticeable and I saw growth in his work as well. As you can see below, Christopher’s growth shows in his test scores as well.

Student NWEA Data

Spring 2016 Winter 2017

Math Percentile Reading Percentile Math Percentile Reading Percentile

Victoria 213 94th 214 95th 219 94th 208 79th

Isabella 193 53rd 181 32nd 199 52nd 184 22nd

Christopher (Fall) 192

55th (Fall) 192 59th 204 67th 202 66th

Both Victoria and Bella showed a decrease in their percentile from spring to winter in their reading scores. Those tests were taken in May 2016 and January 2017. During this time, I was seeing low motivation from both students, which could have had an effect on their scores. Both showed low confidence as well, even though Victoria had a high ability to perform and grow on the test.

Student Choice As peer teaching was in full swing, I wanted to see what would happen if I started to open up the classroom in more areas to reflect student voice.

According to a survey around student choice that I took in December:● 89% of students said they wanted to help to choose the way our room is set up.● 85% of students said they wanted to come up with systems for our class to recommend books to each

other● 92% of students said they wanted to lead and/or help in more areas of the classroom

I took this data and continued to observe students to see how I could honor these wishes and make them more involved in decisions that were being made in the classroom. This took me to some unexpected places where I started seeing motivation growing as a result of this leadership role.

‘Ask Me’ Person

Because students had a very positive reaction to the increase in conferencing time during writing workshop, I decided to give students more ownership of this time and so I created an ‘ask me’ person. This is a go-to person who students can ask any question they have. During the first two weeks, 86% of kids signed up and 14% of students did not. After conferencing with those four students on why they did not want the job, two students said they had too much work to do to be the ask me person, and two said they didn’t feel enough like experts to do the job. After the third week, those four students signed up as well. This job has become so popular that I now have to rotate the job. I started noticing trends of students showing self-reflection with their ability to complete work and to be the expert. One week, even though it was their turn, Anna and Adrian said that they had too much of their own publishing to do and couldn’t be the best Ask-Me person. Bryan said he didn’t feel like an expert on non-fiction writing, so he should skip his turn that day.

When I asked Jake, who was first hesitant to be a peer teacher, how he felt about being the Ask-Me person instead, he said, “I’m signed up to be a peer teacher, but I’m waiting for my day to teach so being an Ask-Me person is cool because I can still help people.” Joel said, “Sometimes I don’t want everyone looking at me in a peer teaching group, but when you’re the Ask-Me person, it’s just one person you’re helping so I don’t get so nervous.” This theme of being happy to be a helper was repeatedly showing up, which told me that the culture in the room was shifting to a more positive place.

Vocabulary acquisitionStudying vocabulary was a part of our reading curriculum that I wanted to explore through this work. My school did not have a vocabulary curriculum that was supported by administration (or myself), and we had used a workbook-type program in the past. My principal wanted to move away from the practice of teaching kids a word list each week and asking them to memorize the definitions. As my work centered on student choice more and more, I thought that this was the perfect place to give students more ownership.

I started this part of my research by modeling word solving through read alouds. For example, I would read a word with a root or prefix and then show kids the steps I would take to solve that word. (“I know that ‘triangles’ have three sides, so I think a tricycle must have three wheels. ‘Tri’ must mean three.”) I would then add that prefix to the Word Detective Wall, and kids could add more words they find in reading that have the prefix ‘tri’. I slowly modeled how to do this with words that have multiple meanings, words with suffixes, and words that I figured out because of another word I knew with a similar meaning. When I opened this up for students, they first reacted slowly and carefully, and not many picked up on finding words to add. However, as a few students noticed words and asked if they could make a card with that word, the practice started to take off. I had those students model their thinking and show the specific part of the text that the word or word part came from, and students heard their process. Over the next few weeks, so many students were finding vocabulary words for our wall that I had to control the practice with an individual sheet that students kept in their reading folder. They would jot words on their sheet and then check in with me about their findings during a designated part of the day in order to put their word on a sentence strip. This became necessary because so many students were approaching me throughout the day with ideas, and it was interrupting instruction. The enthusiasm was contagious, and by March all except three of my students had recorded at least four words on their individual word sheet. Sharing about this work became a part of our morning meeting time that students called “Word Detective Share.” One or two students per day shared their word finds and then posted it on the wall. Therefore, strategies and thinking were being shared on a daily basis.

What surprised me most about this was how it started to carry outside of the classroom. I had always thought of vocabulary as somewhat dry and it had never carried any enthusiasm with my students. However, students were noticing words much more frequently, and some started to record words on post-its or index cards at home while they were reading. In the picture below, you can see how Tessa took this practice home with her and researched to find four meanings of the word ‘vain.’ After she showed this work to the class, I saw the trend build and more students began doing the work at home as well. The students were showing increased motivation and were seeking out their own learning while learning more about words. This was something that I had not witnessed with any previous vocabulary instruction!

Other changes started to occur in the classroom as a result of this student-run practice. I found students sneaking the dictionary that was in our library to find meanings of words to discover whether they had more than one meaning. This became such a popular practice that I had to purchase three more student-friendly dictionaries for all of my little word detectives! The wall of words and word parts continued to grow, and one day in March Eliana raised her

hand during word study time and said, “We’re studying homophones, so shouldn’t we make a category on our wall for them?” Kids were taking more notice to what we were learning and were applying it appropriately. Because of her suggestion, of course we added homophones to our wall.

When we began our study of figurative language, I wasn’t surprised that students immediately asked if we could use another bulletin board in our room for this. They wanted to write examples of figurative language that they were finding in their reading. Students found the wall that worked best and made heading for similes, metaphors, hyperboles, and personification, and then they were off! I watched as students stopped to read what their classmates posted, and even though at times I had to redirect them to post their work under the correct heading, they were increasingly posting in the right spot. This showed me that seeing these examples was helping them to understand the different types of language we were studying. It also showed a thoughtfulness that was spreading across subject areas. Because students had complete ownership of the classroom and what was being posted in it, they took the responsibility of what was going up more seriously. This continued until the end of the year, and the excitement of creating these cards never seemed to fade. The finished product of our Word Detective wall is posted below.

Testing ResultsI looked at the reading NWEA test data for my students, specifically the vocabulary strand. The results are as follows:

January: 80% of students at or above the mean.May: 100% of students at or above the mean.

Final Word Wall

Motivation to be Challenged Students were showing an increase in their motivation to learn in many areas. I noticed that in many instances, students wanted to know more about the topic that was being presented to them. They were going above and beyond what was expected of them more than I had ever seen in the past. For example, during a non-fiction writing unit, Bella brought in photos and additional research from home to supplement her research about dogs. Janalisse researched about polar bears and the effects of climate change on their habitats after we learned about this in class. She wanted to teach the class about her findings.

Most memorably, many students went above and beyond the expectations for a group project they completed. I assigned a group project about renewable energy sources and students completed this work in class. There was nothing required for them to do at home, yet kids began bringing in additions to their projects. Leah made a poster to supplement her project about wind power, and soon after, Rosa added to her teammate’s poster with one of her own. Audrey created a solar panel model made of cardboard to show

with her group’s presentation. Nolan and David made posters to teach about biomass energy. This trend was growing, and the increased motivation in students was clear.

Morning Meeting Leadership

As students became decision-makers in more aspects of our learning community, I decided to let them take over our Morning Meeting time each day. This portion of our morning is spent doing social-emotional learning, and we often share, discuss topics of importance that are affecting our community, or just celebrate what is going well in our classroom. I started the year leading the meetings and chose the agenda for the meeting each day. When students took over, the results were positive and showed students taking more leadership with learning. One student per day chose the agenda for the meeting and led each portion. The first thing that I noticed was how much more deeply students were engaged when a classmate was leading the meeting. I gave almost no redirection for behavior during this time after students took over, when previously I gave, on average, three redirects per day. Students knew that they would be leading the meeting at some point, so they seemed more engaged with the parts of the meeting and started to speak up about what they thought she be included. Students voiced that they wanted more time to discuss issues going on, such as bullying or name-calling, and they wanted to give more ‘shout-outs’ to peer teachers or students. I let them create agenda cards and the leader chose what we’d discuss that day. After a few weeks, I surveyed students about their feelings on taking over this part of our day. 92% said they preferred having a student lead the meeting, and many gave feedback about being happy to discuss relevant topics and be the decision makers for what the meeting looked like. I noticed that students became increasingly responsible with setting the agenda ahead of time and becoming purposeful about what we discussed. For example, Eliana chose to discuss gossip and how to make better choices around this type of talk after we had a situation where a rumor started about someone the previous day. Students really responded to the positive portions of the meeting, such as the shout-outs for peer teachers. This improved classroom culture as students were able to publicly praise one of their classmates, and it also gave repeated expectations of what good peer teaching looked like. This was clearly a win-win, and continued for the rest of the year.

Chart Making

An unplanned turn of events with students taking ownership in my classroom was when they voiced interest in creating charts in the room. One day during math, I was writing on an anchor chart about geometry concepts when Adrian said, “Ms. Bosman, the way that looks doesn’t make sense to me. You should put all the lines on one part, and the angles together there.” It was incredible to see how students were becoming proactive with their learning and could articulate to me things made sense to them. In that moment, I allowed Adrian to take over with the chart, and students made most charts for the rest of the year. I noticed that students were using charts more often, most likely because they were proud to have been part of creating the charts or just remembered it more than they would have if I had made it.

Some students actually started creating charts to accompany a peer teaching lesson that they were teaching, and we posted those in the room after for all students to see. I would have those kids explain the chart and why they made it, which was another opportunity for them to talk through their thinking process and for others to take that in. In the pictures below you’ll see examples of some student-created charts that boosted learning in the classroom.

Change in culture and Positive BehaviorThis process showed an enormous shift in the culture of my classroom. As students worked together more collaboratively and continued to take more ownership of the classroom, I saw some trends building that were unexpected outcomes of the work we were doing. For example, one day I saw students passing notes, which I immediately thought of as off-task behavior. As I approached the students and looked at the note, I saw that it said, “You’re a good friend! Pass it on.” The students explained that it was ‘just to be nice.’ Of course upon hearing this I wanted to encourage this type of behavior, but we agreed as a class that it couldn’t distract from our work.

Since the beginning of the year, we had a Kindness Wall on one board where students could post shout-outs to each other or recognize an appreciation for someone. Students had always enjoyed this, but as student leadership grew, they wanted to take this to another level. Audrey suggested that we make a “Kindness Jar” where students could write quotes that they liked, and I could read them at the close of the day. She then made a jar and took the role of starting with the first quote. Students quickly followed with a high level of enthusiasm and wrote their own notes for the jar often.

This continued to our peer teaching groups. Students were often sharing praise for their teachers or students during our morning meeting time, and of course they loved getting shout-outs from others. A more positive classroom community was becoming more evident each day. David brought this to his peer teaching group about multiplication. He wrote a “happy note” for Joel, telling him how hard he was working. Our former music teacher did something similar at the end of their weekly class together. David explained to me that he wanted to give his own happy notes for kids who were doing really well in his groups. This positive culture continued to build, and seemed to bring more enthusiasm into attending peer teaching groups. The kids loved the praise they were receiving!

I noticed an overall feeling of collaboration in the group, and that kids were being proactive about solving problems that arose. At the start of the year, I taught students how to effectively solve conflicts with others. Students quickly started to use those strategies with each other, and would often ask me for a few minutes to talk to another student privately to fix something that was bothering them. This helped our classroom to run more smoothly when issues were being solved quickly and effectively. It was as if students knew that we could not learn and continue with our current systems if these problems were present.

Our gym teacher commented about this one time when I picked up my students. He said that if there was an issue with sportsmanship or arguing over a game, my students often asked him if they could have a quick discussion about it before moving on with a game. They would ask to speak one-on-one with someone else when an issue arose as well. He said he noticed less conflict happening during gym overall as the year progressed, and that issues were solved more quickly in the past when there was a problem.

Students were becoming more specific about how others were helping them. I saw a shift even in the kind of writing that students did with compliments on the Kindness Wall. Rosa once wrote “Bryan was making me feel confident during math” as a note to him. Celia wrote “Audrey-thanks for helping me learn about division!” Students were seeing each other as parts of a community and not individuals. I felt like this shift was evident in so many parts of our day. Students asked each other for help more than I had ever seen. They needed feedback from partners often. When something happened that they thought was a cause for celebration, they pointed it out. This was not just for celebrating themselves; students wanted to praise others as much as possible. I had to wonder if all of the learning and teaching that students were doing together had a part in this. Students were truly learning together each day and hearing so much about what their peers were working on. They had become much more open to discussing their areas of growth, which brought out an honesty in the group that was not there before. The culture of kindness and positivity grew daily.

ConclusionGiving students more choice in the classroom showed many positive outcomes in learning and growth. My findings are as follows:

● Feedback: Students were able to give more specific and useful feedback about their own work and about a peer’s work. They could identify areas of strength and growth more efficiently, and we able to use that information to make changes in their work. Students showed more openness to receiving feedback through this process. They became more willing to receive feedback and used the conferencing model to improve on writing skills.

● Vocabulary acquisition: When students are given ownership with vocabulary acquisition skills, they are more likely to be engaged in the process and to acquire word meanings. Students showed increased motivation to learn the meanings of words when they have ownership of the process of learning vocabulary. NWEA vocabulary scores grew from 80% of students at the mean or above the mean in winter to 100% of students at or above the mean by spring.

● Student Choice Systems: When students were involved in making decisions about our classroom environment and creation of materials, they were more engaged with learning. Students took time and care to create these materials and showed a higher level of interest in what was being taught when they had choices and involvement. When given leadership roles such as the ‘Ask Me’ person, students were more focused and motivated because they wanted to help. Giving students choice showed an overall increase in focus, motivation, and engagement.

● Peer Teaching: When students were teaching or learning in peer teaching groups, I saw an overall increase in engagement during math time. Students were motivated to learn and improve on a topic so that they could be a teacher for their peers. After attending these groups, I saw an increase in student learning. NWEA test data supports this. When my students took the test in May 2017, 82% met or exceeded their goal in math. My class’s average score was 216, and the national mean for

third grade students for the spring is 203. Motivation increased with difficult math material with many students, which pushed student achievement.

● Culture and Behavior: Class culture was more positive when students had leadership roles in the classroom. Students were working together more collaboratively as this process went on, and there was less conflict and redirection of behavior as the year progressed. I found that giving students choice had a positive influence on student relationships, and there was a higher level of respect for others during this time. Students communicated more effectively and solved conflict more independently than I had seen in the past. An environment of community emerged through this process, and work became more collaborative and less individualized.

Policy Recommendations

Student-Led Conferencing As a result of the work that I did, I believe that all classrooms from kindergarten through high school should have structures in place for kids to confer with each other, especially during writing workshop. In order for this to be successful, students should be taught conversation protocols so that this time is structured and allows for kids to give each other compliments and feedback. This not only allows students find points of growth and give them more of a growth mindset, but it also builds relationships with students and makes the classroom community for positive. This should include some type of student-run peer teaching practice, which would vary based on the classroom setting.

Looping with studentsSchools and districts should consider the benefits of systems where teachers move through grade levels looping with groups of students for at least two years. This allows teachers to know students in a deeper and more meaningful way, which helps to increase student growth.

Student ChoiceEvery classroom teacher should have a thoughtful plan for how students will have a voice in their classroom. Students should take part in creating their space and helping it to develop across the school year. A system for showing vocabulary acquisition should exist in all classrooms, as learning vocabulary spans across subject area. Student voice should be at the forefront of planning and implementing instruction.

Works Cited

Anderson, M. (2016). Learning to Choose Choosing to Learn. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Briggs, S. (2013, June 7). How Peer Teaching Improves Student Learning and 10 Ways to Encourage It. Retrieved from http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/peer-teaching/.

Burton, B. (2012). Peer Teaching as a Strategy for Conflict Management and Student Re-engagement in Schools.

Kohn, A. (1993, September). Choices for Children: Why and how to Let Students Decide. Retrieved from http://www.alfiekohn.org/article/choices-children/.