Growth Mindset with Assessments

By Mark Heintz

The AP World exam just transpired and I am in full reflection mode.  I asked my students a few questions about things they felt they needed based on the test they just took.  The students felt they needed more writing practice throughout the year.  They felt they needed more individual practice with feedback on their ability to perform on the spot.  To give some context on the test, the exam has four components. Part one is fifty-five stimulus multiple choice questions. Part two is four short responses.  Part three is one document based question (DBQ). Part four is one long essay exam.  While AP does give a course framework, the students do not know the prompts or documents ahead of time.

To adequeately gather enough assessment data for each component, it takes a lot of class time.  To prepare the students for each component and give feedback along the way so students feel success, it takes a lot of class time.  Despite the enormous use of classtime, I feel they are one of the best elements of the class because they require the students to think. Since they take a lot of class time, I have often taught small elements of the essays in the first few units, but never had hard checkpoints or summative assessments for each writing component in each unit.

Based off the student feedback and my feelings on the year, I created an assessment chart to ensure a linear progression of the skills required for each component of the exam.  I wanted to hold myself accountable to formally assessing each part in each unit with the exception of the first unit which is a very short unit.  I did not want to assess the entire essay in the beginning because it would be too difficult and too time consuming.



To give an example of the progression, in the second unit, I will give the students a two document DBQ.  The students will only be required to write a thesis, give contextualization, and connect the two documents to their argument.  This will not require fifty-five minutes like it will at the end of the year.  It only assess three skills, which I can easily provide feedback to the students to help them grow by the next assessment. Each unit I add a skill or documents to progress them towards the final product of seven documents. Unit three adds the synthesis skill.  Unit four moves to four documents.  Unit five adds source component and five documents.  Furthermore, it gives me data on what my students have mastered and need help on at a very early stage in the year.  They do not need to be able to write a DBQ until the middle of May.

I have selected the DBQ's for each unit already and tailored the documents to get at the skills being assessed.  I am hoping that this holds me accountable to ensuring that students are progressing in the skills to be successful.   Furthermore, my hope is that the students will master the skill in smaller doses so I can make them feel comfortable with the exam, hold them to a higher writing standard in the end, and not spend as much class time in the last few weeks leading up the examination.

Author's Purpose and Thesis Development

By Kim Miklusak and Mark Heintz

Bonnie Kale invited us in to see her sophomores analyze each other's work after the three of us had been talking this year about the purpose of our courses.  We quickly realized each of our classes has been getting students to create arguments and defend them with specific pieces of evidence.  Another point of our courses to have students know that authors use different approaches to getting their arguments across to the reader.  So traditionally we rely on the 5-paragraph paper format because it's easy to teach at younger grades, but we realize it's so limiting as students progress.  Bonnie's class was working on getting students to see these patterns and reflect on their own reading and writing.

Prior to the class we saw, the students read a short story and created an outline for their literary analysis.  The students were tasked with two things in their literary analysis. For the first task, the students attempted to identify the author's main idea. For the second task, the students attempted to identify the organizational approach used by the author.

The students had to include both tasks in their thesis for their literary analysis. For the lesson, Mrs. Kale wanted students to identify if students completed both tasks.  She was not having the students provide feedback to other students.  She wanted to see if students could tell when other students completed the task and their effectiveness in the task.  The students walked around the room and attempted to see if other students completed the task using a graphic organizer on their iPads.

Before allowing students to move on to the actual writing of the literary analysis, Mrs. Kale ensured students knew when they were writing to the task at hand.  There has been so much overlap in the skill, the students are seeing that they are writing to a specific audience and for a specific purpose.  Moreover, they are seeing that authors are writing to a specific audience and for a specific purpose in all disciplines.  Some authors are more effective in their argument than others. That same day, all three of us inadvertently focused on the same skill!

Hopefully as this year's sophomores move into juniors, they will have more background in the foundational and cross-disciplinary approach to crafting arguments and supporting those arguments with specific pieces of evidence.  

Self-Reflection on the First Week of School!

By Mark Heintz

Linda Ashida has a way in making the people around her better and enthusiastic to make positive changes in their teaching.  For the past few years, Linda strove to have as many people Tweet everyday as a means of reflection.  At the end of last year, I talked to Linda about changes I wanted to make.  She brought up that fact that if I had been documenting my work daily the changes would come more naturally and daily.  This year, I have made the commitment to document my work.

Monday:

The first day of school! I was fortunate to get white board tables for the room.  They are amazing and their functionality will be a future blog post! But for now, they are amazing!  I have done this lesson for several years now.  I have the student compare the Venus statue to Taylor Swift. This year, the students wrote their comparisons on the tables. They were so willing to try and wrote so much! If they were wrong, they simply erased it! I love this lesson and I feel I will continue to use it in the future.  It gets the students comparing (AP HISTORICAL THINKING SKILL...) and intrepreting historical artifacts for themselves!

 

Tuesday:

The students read about paleolithic and neolithic societies. They learned about the importance of being able to manipulate fire.  In first hour, I had the students draw a world without fire and it did not yield the results I wanted. Second hour, I changed the lesson to drawing a picture that would summarize the lifestyle of paleolithic lives from the reading.  Then, students moved from table to table and wrote constructive criticism on the drawing.  When the students moved to another table, they wrote what they were able to decifer about paleolithic societies from the other student's drawing.

 

Wednesday:

The students categorized words on small cut outs into Paleolithic, Neolithic of both.  They drew a Venn Diagram on their desk and sorted the information.  Then the students further categorized the information into the AP themes.  It was amazing! The students went up to the board to defend why a word was under a theme. Students were supporting their argument with evidence! It was a great way to get the students to see the changes and continuities over time between the two time periods.  

Thursday:

The College Board released some amazing materials that have students analyze Jared Diamond's contention that the agricultural revolution was horrible for mankind.  Having the students read his argument was an amazing challenge for the students.  First, they came up with his thesis. This took more time than I thought. He uses sarcasm and uses counter evidence to begin his argument. The text is only two paragraphs, but the writing is incredibly dense.  Next year, I need to spend at least two days with this reading.   It was a major challenge, but sets up the close reading that is required for the course.  I wish I had spent more time on this.  

Friday:

Students took a short answer quiz on Paleolithic and Neolithic revolution.  The students were beyond impressive. They knew so much and took the majority of the period writing out their understandings! There were only a few misunderstandings that needed to be corrected, but that was conducted with very short one on one student meetings.  

Overall, this week I put a lot on the students.  They interpreted the texts. They sorted information. This takes a lot longer to get through information and I have had to omit a few things that I use to teach.  But, I feel that the students are understanding the things I want them to know more.  

Using Schoology and Locks

By Mark Heintz

Document based questions (DBQs) are a crucial part of history.  Yet, they are incredibly difficult and do not foster a lot of student movement in a fifty minute class period. Students get very frustrated with them and often move too quickly through a document.  Students often don't spend enough time on the source information, word choice, point of view of the author, tone of the document, and the evidence they would use from each document.  I wanted a way to slow students down when working through a document based question.  To have the students focus where I wanted them, I created a quiz for each document covering those topics. In the quiz, I dedicated each question to one of those topics. I should note that this was the first full DBQ that they did.

In Schoology, I set the limit a student could take each quiz to two attempts.  I wanted them to ask me questions if they could not complete it in two tries.  This allowed some students to move forward because they understood each document while students who needed my help received it.  

To incorporate movement, I only gave each student the first document on paper.  They had to "pass" the quiz to unlock a Schoology page that revealed a three or four digit code on it.

Then students had to get out of their seats, go movement during a DBQ!, and put the three or four digit code into a folder with a lock on it.  Inside the locked folder was the document they just took the quiz on completely written out.  The written response used all of the information that they just took a quiz on.  The other item in the folder was the next document so they could take the next quiz. 

By the end, students were moving around the room acquiring all the documents and understandings. It was very cool to see the students talking so much about the documents and allowing students to move at their own pace.  

As a reflection, I would not use all the documents again. It was great practice, but it took too much time to have students go through all nine documents. The whole process took about three class days. I wanted the students to write out the entire essay at the end to show how it all fit together, but the process of taking each quiz for each document took too much time.  Also, the locks were very motivating the first day, but by the third, it had been played out.  I think I could use this tactic again but in a more time sensitive way.

Relative Deprivation: Student Examples

By Mark Heintz

Over the summer, I read David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell. One of the things that struck me was the concept of relative deprivation. Relative deprivation is when people compare themselves to others and feel they are inferior based on other's ability. I see this clearly in coaching running. Many students will not even come out to the sport because they can very visibly compare their mile time to other students. They do not see they can improve and therefore, do not come out for the sport.

 

I then read an article about using student work and examples to help students achieve.  You can read the overview of the article here.  The article contends that using only exemplary student examples can lead to very negative consequences.  I believe the student examples I have used led to negative consequences.  At first, I felt I was a good teacher because I used students examples.  I showed low, mid, and high examples.  However, I spent most of the time on the best examples.  I feel and students love to see what a 100% looks like.

  

The problem with the A, the best, and the 100%, is it is unrealistic.  One of the classes I teach is AP World.  The highest score a student can get on an essay is a nine.  I have been to the AP reading and I graded somewhere around one-thousand essays.  I graded only one nine. One nine out of a thousand.  Furthermore, a student can get a five out of nine on the essays and still be on their way to getting the highest score on the AP exam.  

It is hard to be perfect.  I think it is harder to show kids an essay at their ability that is below the best and be okay with it. Sometimes it feels we are lowering the bar.  Last year in AP, I showed more of the five out of nine essays and my scores went up.  Kids were not confused or looking at an unobtainable writing sample.  

One of the best changes the Human Geography PLT made this semester was norming the average writing.  It took time and discussions about what we thought the average student's writing should be. We started with the average and worked up.  The result is being able to show more student samples at the average level. The process helped me guide students to better writing and meet them where they are. 

Schoology Question Banks and Feedback

By Mark Heintz

I have fallen in love!  My love is the Schoology quiz bank feature.  I teach sophomores world history, so I categorized my question banks by time period, then by topic (such as political), and finally by civilization.  The extreme organization allows me to easily repeat questions on later quizzes.

Here is what my classical political civilization question banks look like. 

As for each questions, I utilize Schoology's feedback feature.  Each question has an explanation to why the answer the student chose is right or wrong.  By using instant feedback, I hope to save time in class. I should not have to explain as many questions to the students. Also, the students can instantly see their misunderstandings of a topic and progress to the next attempt or quiz.  

Below each question, Schoology allows the user to input general feedback for an incorrect or correct answer.  Here I am pasting larger more general understandings of the topic.

 My intent with these questions and quizzes is to have students earn as close to 100% as possible.  I set up my first seven quizzes in a student completion checklist.  Students will have to pass each quiz with a 95% or higher to move to the next quiz.  I want my students to know the content, and I want them to know it so much they have to pass the checklist with a understanding of at least 95%.

 Each quiz has questions from the core set and then random questions from previous sets.  For instance, the Han Dynasty quiz has seven Han Dynasty questions and random questions from Greece, Rome and Persia.  My hope is to continue this process throughout the year. Eventually the students will see each of these so many times the content will be ingrained in their brain.

It is so easy to add questions from previous banks.  Schoology allows the user to choose random questions, so each quiz will be different for each student.  Also, each time the student takes the quiz it will be different! With the feedback feature, the student should not have to go back to their notes to find the information on why or why not the question is right. The feedback will tell them instantly so they can progress through the quiz.  

Video Reflection

By Mark Heintz

A few weeks ago, I posted on the creation of my first video.  You can read about it here.  I have since created about twenty videos that cover the age of imperialism, WWI, WWII, decolonization movements in India, South Africa, Ghana, and a number of other topics in the 20th century.

I commented on how making the videos made me feel like a historian.  While creating the videos, I have learned so much history. For instance, Chiquita Banana paid known terrorist groups in the 2000s to protect their interests in South America, or the history of the United Fruit Company massacre 

But the process of refining the information and providing visual examples has been challenging and really impactful in the classroom.  I have found when I make the video, I have such a clearer goal of what I want my students to know.  I have struggled with how to cover WORLD HISTORY in a year that is global.  Even if I use the AP standards, they are intentionally open ended to allow teachers to use different examples.  There is so much content, it is impossible to cover all of it in one year.   Having clear goals and information you wish your students to know, makes the class manageable for students and myself.

The students who watched the videos have a much higher retention of the content than from just reading the textbook.  They have visuals of the information.  Although there are great visuals in the textbook, they often skip over them in the reading.  When students see maps, charts, or pictures in the textbook, they are relieved because that means less reading on a page.  Having the images in the videos forces the students to see the visuals. 

Additionally, I created a quiz for each video and now have used the feedback function in Schoology. 

The feedback function on a quiz allows the user to provide instant feedback on why the answer is right or wrong.  Since I am creating these questions, I am providing a quick few words on why the answer choice is wrong. The students who have used it, found it to be a great resource if they comprehend the information.    

I still do not know how I am going to use these videos in the future. I am not sure if it will become the primary homework or just use as a supplement.  The videos take a lot of time to prepare and research, but are quick to make once I have all of the prep work finished. Also, the quizzes take time to make.  The whole process can be time consuming and I advise those wishing to start making videos that they should NOT have the goal of making all of them in one year. 

The students enjoy when I put a superhero or Star Wars character behind me.  They always seem to notice those changes depending on my location of where I film them.  

My First Video!

By Mark Heintz

Last week, Christina Barnum taught a few teachers how to create videos for her Biology classes using the app Educreations.  It was another great example of how easy it is to make videos and the different ways to implement them in the classroom.  I have wanted for a few years now to create videos to help students learn the material. I keep seeing examples from my own students that reading at home or on their own is not the easiest way to learn history.

The book our district adopted is a challenge.  To be fair, I was on the textbook adoption committee and approved the book. But, I digress.  First, the books is at a college reading level.  Second, the book assumes the students have a great deal of back ground knowledge.  The book is great for students who know a lot of history, but almost all of my students are taking their first world history course. The students spend a lot of time outside of class trying to decode the text book.  No matter what pre-reading strategies are done in the classroom, it is still very hard for my students to comprehend the material.

To help the students at home understand the reading, I made my first video! It was on methods used by Europeans to imperialize between the years 1750-1900.  I used the software Screenflow.  It records your screen and can record you at the same time.  Using this software, I record myself while filming what is on screen.  I remember reading Paul Anderson's guide to video making who gave the advice of putting yourself in the video to make it more approachable.  I took his advice.

Overall, I learned a lot from my first video.  I spoke too fast and stumbled over words.  But, I love the idea.  The video is short and gets to the point. I made a few multiple choice questions to go with the video to have students self-assess their comprehension of their learning.   Now, I have the video forever. If a student is absent or is having difficulty understanding the material, they will be able to go back and re-watch it.  I have since made five videos in the past two days and am jonesing to make more. 

One last note.  Making the videos really was a self reflective process on what students need to know. I summarized the facts and story of history.  I feel like a true historian by pulling sources together to tell a story.  It is interesting to see what I leave out, include, and how I put the story together.  

Schoology Checklists to Teach Writing

By Mark Heintz

A few weeks ago @MsRachelBarry posted how to create a Schoology checklist.  If you want to learn how to create a checklist or don't know what they are, you should read her post by clicking here.  The checklist feature is great for materials that students can easily self-assess or can be automatically graded with an assessment, such as a multiple choice, matching, ordering of events, or true false questions.  You can mandate students post assignments, view links, or take assessments in the order you want them to.  I have used checklists in varying ways, but recently I created a Schoology checklist to help teach writing.

I teach a comparative essay in world history.  It is a very specific essay that addresses students ability to compare two concepts or processes using historical content.  Students struggle with writing and struggle more with writing in an academic sense.  Furthermore, teaching writing often comes with varying skill levels and the checklist allows for more individualized learning to take place.   Here is the prompt I used for this checklist:

For the first step, I had the students sort historical terms into either the Haitian, French, or Latin American Revolution.

When finished, the students submit their worksheet to Schoology. After submitting the worksheet, a quiz comprised of a matching question assessed the same information on the worksheet.  This is learning that the students could assess on their own through the quiz.  Here is a sample of the quiz:  

After students pass the quiz, they move on to grouping the information into either a method or an outcome of the revolutionary process.  The first two steps can sometimes be accomplished without my help.  Some of the higher skilled students can move onto to the harder concepts and work on the skills they need to at their own pace.  At the same time, I can have students who do not understand the content, stay at the own level and get the help they need. Furthermore, students cannot move on to higher level skills without laying the ground work needed to be a good writer.  It is a failsafe way to ensure students can be successful.  When students know the content and do the first steps, it helps students become successful.  Here is a sample of the grouping worksheet and quiz.  

After they pass the quiz, students have to check in with me, the teacher, before they can move on to the next step.  The next step is when students come up with possible groupings for methods and outcomes.  There is not one correct answer, therefore it cannot easily be assessed with a multiple choice assessment.  So, I have the students write their possible groupings in a short essay question in Schoology.  I check the students' work and approve of it before they can move.

Students move on to evaluating and writing of the essay.  I have the students read through several thesis statements to see if they contain all of the components needed to be considered a good thesis.  I then have the students submit their work and take a matching quiz in Schoology to assess their evaluative skills.  

Worksheet

Schoology Thesis Quiz

The last stage in the process is writing comparative statements.   Students will evaluate pre-generated comparative statements.  After reading the statement, they will fix the statement by rewriting it in the correct manner.  They will post their statements in Schoology for me to evaluate.  At the end of the lesson, the students will have a portfolio of student work and samples to look back upon for future essays.  

When completed, the students will be able to write the essay on their own.  This is in the early stages of the essay writing process.  The students will have seen several parts of the essay and have done the planning stages of the essay.  If everything goes well, the students will be successful when they write the essay. 

Determining Main Ideas in a Reading Passage

I start my AP World History class almost every day with a warm up.  I like the routine of starting off class with the students diving right into content and thinking.  Also, they know what to do at the beginning of class, which helps them start right away.  Before every student had an iPad, I left the warm ups at the door.  Each student picked the paper up as they entered the room, and the instructions were always on the sheet.  Now that each student has an iPad, they download it through the LMS I use, Schoology. 

Most of the time the warm up is a reading that builds background knowledge or addresses an AP theme that is, for a lack of better way to say it, random.  The warm ups are always short, something they can read or complete in less than a few minutes.  Then they can share with another student.  Finally, we report out as a class and then I answer any questions the students might have. The whole process takes from five to ten minutes.

I have a variety of strategies I use depending on what skill I would like to focus on that day.  Also, the variety helps keep the students interested in doing them almost every day. In this case, I used the deletion summary reading strategy.  I used this strategy because students often have a trouble determining what is important or not.  This is crucial when reading non-fiction material.  Furthermore, students will need this skill in any profession, as they will need to be able to sift through material quickly and efficiently in almost any profession.   

 I always give the students a clearly defined purpose when they read.  When using the deletion summary strategy, students cross out everything that does not answer the question or is aligned to the purpose. At the end, I have the students summarize the remaining information. 

Seeing what students delete or keep is very revealing. At first, they either delete or keep everything.  It takes several attempts for students to understand what is important. It takes time to develop that skill when reading unfamiliar non-fiction material.  To help the students, I walk through the process with the class.  After reading each line, I ask what part of the line is essential or directly related to the objective.  Then, we cross out everything we did not say.  As we do this more frequently, I will have several students share over AppleTV their attempts.