Hey, Did You Hear?

Here are some highlights from observing student learning!  If you have any questions or would like to explore some of these ideas in your classroom, please stop by the Collab Lab!

1.  Mirror Student's iPad on the Apple TV
This is a quick way to build student ownership and increase student engagement.  Here, Mark Heintz has asked a student to project over the AppleTV, so all students in the class to see him take notes.  Many teachers use this method of student ownership to show class agendas or view Schoology from the students' perspective, as their student view is different from that of the teacher.  

2.  Using Quizlet Live to engage students.   

Quizlet live is a great interactive learning tool. It's user friendly and fun! Many teachers at Elk Grove have used Quizlet live, and we recently had the chance to join in on the fun in Eleanor Pattie's chemistry class. After logging in with their join code, students are grouped in random teams with fun team names. Team members must collaborate to successfully compete against the clock and their classmates to demonstrate their learning. Students get immediate feedback to confirm, or recognize gaps in, their understanding.

        

3.  Place Your Bets! Formative Assessment & Self-Reflection in Chemistry 

Eleanor Pattie engages her students in checks for understanding using a game she calls Place Your Bets.  Students access learning resources via Schoology that Eleanor uses to pose questions. Before each question students reflect on their understanding to determine their "bet" which is a "dollar amount" they put on their game sheet.  At the end of the short round (~five minutes/8 questions) students tally the amount that corresponds to their correct answers to determine the class winner. "Place your Bets" is a quick and fun way to vary a check for understanding after a lesson.

4.  Adobe Spark: Creating and Making Learning Visible in CTE 

The students in Pat McGing's Aerospace engineering class recently used Adobe Spark to create presentations to demonstrate their learning. Check out this example on Apollo 11:

Student Example

5.  Involving Students in their Learning: Remediation & Reassessment in Physics

Mr. Bozcar and the regular physics team have students self-assess following a unit test.  For each test question, students gives themselves a "+"  or  "-"  to indicate their confidence in knowing how to answer the question.  Then they give a check or an "x" to indicate if the answer was correct or not.  Then they give themselves a score of 1-4 based on a rubric (below right).

  

Next, students complete test corrections on the document below.  They are given a class period to do this.  

Lastly, the physics teachers have a schedule for reassessment with any one of the physics teachers on the team.

What is the Purpose of School: students' perspective

By Kim Miklusak

We talk about purpose a lot in the Collab Lab, so much so that it's become a running joke.  But it's true: knowing the purpose of why we do what we do in our classrooms is the center of everything.  It guides everything from our goals to our assessments to our grades and everything else in between.

We decided it would be interesting to hear students' perspectives of school and classes--not any class in particular, but overall.  So we invited in a small group of juniors and (literally) grabbed some seniors as they were on their way out the door.  This is a group limited in that they are mainly AP English students.  We realize that this is just a small representation of our student body, and we hope to host this same type of meeting with other groups of students on the same and additional topics in the future!

We could write a year's worth of blogs based on what they talked about, and they could have talked another hour!  You can follow this link to read the entire summarized transcript of the conversation as it happened, but here are some points I found most insightful and interesting:

• Students felt that while academics held a great importance, obviously, that "soft skills" such as time management, character, networks of support, etc. are all equally as important.  We talked about whether these were skills teachers should teach or if they were simply expected.  Surprisingly (or not surprisingly based on this group) many students said it was self-accountability and self-awareness that were most important although they admitted that not everyone has a support structure or that it took some people more time to develop these skills.  This, interestingly, relates back to a previous post we had about Executive Functioning Skills.
• Students discussed at length the process vs. product of school.  They discussed why some teachers require notes and assignments to be completed in a certain way even if it wasn't the way a student learned best--again while conceding that it's not possible to completely individualize instruction.  They do advocate for options in the process of learning.  There were disagreements about whether habits of work and task completion were truly useful in the learning process.  There was also great discussion about why we average grades (unprompted, seriously!), that if by the end of the year they are able to demonstrate mastery, why were grades averaged from earlier in the year when they were not yet mastering materials.  Again, however, the conversation came back to the idea of grades being a reflection of where you are and thus not including "task completion" activities simply to bump up grades.
• Students brought up the importance of clear standards, the need to clearly know what they need to know and be able to do.  They talked about how class needs to be a reflection of the proportion of the assessments; that is, do we as teachers spend the appropriate amount of time on skills and topics in our instruction and in our assessment, and is that then reflected appropriately in our grade books?  Do we provide appropriate and timely feedback when we return assignments, holding ourselves to the same standards that we hold them?  This led into a conversation about the importance of critical inquiry and critical reading (again, unprompted!) with one student saying: 

  “The way we critically analyze or think, most of my classes taught me how to be a better writer or thinker, how to look through a different lens.  That’s what they’re trying to teach…when we leave this school there are a lot of” people who are not like you.  This will make you well rounded.

So many thanks to these students for their time and insight!  We appreciate their speaking with us today, and we definitely look forward to hosting more sessions like this in the future!

Developing Mastery in Mathematics

By: Rachel Barry

History of SBL at EGHS
Throughout the past six years, the math department at Elk Grove High School has been working towards a standards-based learning and grading model.  We have rid our classrooms of textbooks and created our own curricula based on Robert Marzano's 4-tiered scale.  You can read more about our curricula in an older blog post here.  

We knew that along with creating our standards-based instruction, course materials, and assessments, we also needed to develop an appropriate standards based grading policy.  Through meetings among PLT leaders as well as with the entire department, we developed a grading system that would effectively translate a grade on our 4-leveled curricula to a percentage grade, the method our district asks us to report grades.  This grading policy can be read about on this prior blog post.  

Through reading and attending conferences, I am continuously learning more about effective standards-based grading practices.  This causes me to question my practices as well as those we have developed in our PLTs.  Are students receiving all of the feedback that they need to be successful in my class?  Are students held accountable for mastery of standards in order to be successful in both current and future classes?  Are students motivated to learn more than the required content to "pass" my class?  My PLT members and I continuously have conversations regarding various classroom practices that we hope will address some of these questions.  One of these main questions that kept resonating with us is the accountability factor of critical math skills.  

Determining the Mastery Skills
A few years ago, PLT leaders met separately within the regular and honors levels to create a list of five "In's and Out's".  The "In's" are the five skills that we expect students to come into a course having already mastered, and the five "Out's" are the skills that we want to ensure our students have mastered upon leaving our class.  In the past, we PLT leaders used these to drive instructional practices of skills that we would continue to spiral throughout the year.  We didn't feel this was holding students accountable enough for these skills, so we added a cumulative review section of 5 questions to the end of each unit test.  Students weren't always showing consistency of material they had previously mastered, so we felt we needed something stronger within our curriculum to ensure student mastery of these "Out's".

So this year, my regular junior level Math 474 course is using these "Out's" in what we are calling our Mastery Skills.  Students will be accountable for mastering each of these five skills before exiting our course.  They will be expected to reach a level of 2 on each of the skills.  In percentage equivalency, they have to obtain an 75%.  We are expressing to students the importance of learning these skills for future math courses.  Students can reassess on this topic as many times as necessary.  

Here is our Math 474 course's Mastery Skills:

Our goal with these Mastery Skills is to emphasize learning with our students.  Many times students are caught up in a grade.  Some students have a strong skill set in other mathematic skills that they wouldn't necessarily need to reassess on a poor skill.  Other students are complacent with meeting a minimum requirement to pass the class.  We hope that this method helps to promote the importance of these skills and build an emphasis on reassessment with our students.

In a future post, I will follow up with how our Mastery Skills are working in Math 474!

Let's All Take A Day...to Remediate!

By: Rachel Barry

Is it already almost Spring Break?  Wasn't it just New Year's Day?  This year has been moving fast!  It has been full of wonderful learning experiences (Schoology Checklists, Kahoot! games, Last Man Standing activities, Scavenger Hunts, etc.) as well as some time restraints (cold & snow days, state testing, field trips, illness, etc.).  With the end of third quarter upon us, my PLTs decided it would be a great opportunity to spend some time focusing on remediation.

Following PARCC testing on Monday and Tuesday, our regular junior math team has decided to spend the rest of the week allowing students to catch up on missing work and reassess on topics they didn't master.  Students have been absent for various reasons, and many are very involved before school, during free periods, and after school in extra-curricular activities or are restricted to bus times.  Giving students time during the school day to take any missing quizzes or tests provides students with an opportunity to make up work when I am able to help them and may alleviate stress.

This remediation process shows our students that the focus of their education is student learning -- we want our students to master skills and ensure that the course "grade" truly reflects this mastery.  A poor grade with a strict deadline sends the message to students that they are not accountable to learn that material.  Students accept their poor grade and may never return to the material to learn it.  A structured remediation process reinforces the importance of learning ALL course material.

For the two different classes that I teach, there are two different documents used for remediation prior to the reassessment.  In my regular freshmen class, we use this Post-Quiz Reflection document.  The students who want or need to retake the quiz complete the front rubric and work on the aligned homework problem.  I check over their work and then give them a ticket to bring to our Reassessment Room to take the retake.  In my regular junior course, I use this Additional Practice document.  Students must complete the Additional Practice, get it checked, and then are given the retake ticket.

If you ever want to talk about remediation and reassessment processes, feel free to drop by the Collab Lab.  I'm always interested in talking through best practices and finding new methods for students to show mastery of their learning!