Peer editing to improve writing

by Kirsten Fletcher, Anna Izzo, Carmen Ruiz-Bergman

Want to know how great teachers encourage great writing? I've encountered some amazing examples in my own department of how to front load instruction and use peer editing to improve students' writing. Check out the different ways you can apply peer editing to your own classes!

Anna Izzo - AP Italian

I overheard Anna Izzo talking about how she was preparing her students to tackle the interpersonal writing section of the AP Italian test. She not only graciously invited me into her class to observe this engaging lesson, but she also wrote the following explanation of her process.

First, students became familiar with the AP rubric.

There is a section of the AP test in which students need to write a formal email response.  I decided to take a day for 'email bootcamp;' we started by dissecting the AP rubric and underlining key words.  Then we read the email prompt for the 2013 test and 3 student submissions.  We read the student who received a 5 together and discussed why he or she earned a 5.  Then I gave students 2 more student submissions they had to grade and prove why.   That lead to a great discussion. The next step was now to write their own with a different prompt.

Students evaluate peer writing

The next day we began reviewing some concepts from yesterday.  Then students switched emails with a peer to grade.  In front of them, they each had out the AP rubric and a check list from me.  The checklist is something I've used before; it's simple.  They just have to check for the different parts of the email response that must be included.  For example, is there a formal greeting- yes or no.  After completing the checklist, they then have to give their peer a grade on the AP scale and defend why.




Carmen Ruiz-Bergman - AP Spanish
Carmen just presented this idea as a Spark Session at our Teacher-Led Institute Day. (Click here for our blog post containing information and resources from all the Spark Sessions.) She then followed up by leading a Learning Lab. I was impressed with how much time she spent familiarizing her students with the rubric and teaching students to self- and peer-assess prior to ever having them write a formal essay. She said that by front-loading her instruction this way, the end result was a high quality essay that kids were confident about writing.

Carmen credits the idea and some of the resources for her work to another Spanish teacher, Señora B, whose blog has an amazing amount of resources for World Language teachers.

The first thing she did was to have students evaluate a writing sample from a past AP Spanish test. She gave students a modified version of the AP rubric, had them read an essay, then try to determine what grade it had received. The discussion surrounding this activity familiarized students with the language of the rubric and with how is should be applied to writing.

AP Rubric rewritten as a checklist

Peer assessment form

Next, Carmen gave students a practice essay and had them write in class. When finished, before she ever graded the essays, Carmen gave her students a self-assessment worksheet. It contained the same language as the AP rubric, only it was presented in checklist format to make it more user-friendly. First, students assessed their own work. Then they got into groups. On the back of the self-assessment worksheet was a similar checklist, broken into different skills for peer assessment. Students passed their essay to a classmate who evaluated it for only ONE part of the rubric (i.e. task completion, sentence structure, use of texts, etc.) The essay then traveled around the group. Each time, a different student assessed it for a separate skill. In the end, each student received feedback from at least 3 peers. At this point, the teacher had not yet graded a thing, but students had already received meaningful feedback!

Carmen did give her students personalized feedback before they wrote their summative essay. However, she just gave them a checklist with what they needed to improve since they had already received meaningful, descriptive feedback from their peers. On the day of the summative writing assessment, students were allowed to refer to their practice assessment and feedback. The advantages of this approach are many. Students not only reflected on their own work, they also had to think about how the rubric applies to writing. By having multiple peers grade each essay, every student was likely to get at least one set of really quality feedback. Carmen reports that the time spent teaching students to self- and peer-assess was worth it because the essays that she received were much stronger than the previous year.

Teacher-led Institute Days at EG!

By Linda Ashida

Today we carried on our tradition of our teacher-led professional learning with our January Institute Day:  "Making Connections."

We collaborated with our colleagues across all departments to plan Spark sessions and Learning Labs that made connections to our professional learning goals and the learning goals we have for our students.

Check out this Google Doc to see more details on the schedule and to see how we crowd-sourced resources, inviting staff to add their own examples and resource to the Google Docs for each Spark Session.

Check out this Storify to get an idea of what the day "looked like." 

Future posts this week will share more details and resources from the Spark Sessions and Learning Labs.

If you are interested in learning more about our tradition of teacher-led institute days, check out the drop-down menu on this Teacher-led Institute Day link on our Collab Lab Resource Hub.

Multiplying Learning

by Katie Winstead

Yesterday we had a very special opportunity to do some cool things at Elk Grove High School. Normally on Thursday mornings, educators have time between 7:40-9:00am to meet with PLTs. Yesterday, as Linda described in her previous blog post, we had a "Late, Late Start" which allowed us to have an extra hour of time to learn together!

With this extra time, we decided to get everyone together from some staff-led professional development. The morning started off with a wide variety of Spark Sessions - from mastery learning and peer tutoring, to modeling and scaffolding for learners of all types in a variety of settings. We learned about how these ideas impacted learning and, in some cases, the technology used to make the impact even greater. Each Spark Session was 3-5 minutes - and one session was even live on Periscope!

From there, staff members had the opportunity to learn more about the different Spark Sessions by meeting the presenter and colleagues in different rooms for an informal Learning Lab. It was great to see all the ideas being passed around. The presenters did a great job sparking interest (which then inspired everyone to join a room of their choosing) and then the entire staff was able to talk about different ways to implement the ideas and further ways to improve them.

Colleagues gathering to talk about Visible Learning.

One session I went to was with Adam Clayton, who talked about how important it is to increase language skills in math classes. He wanted to make learning visible by having students talk about their reasoning while solving math problems. To do this, he used Schoology to push out example problems that students opened in Notability. Once in Notability, students then recorded themselves talking about the problems while they solved them (see image below). These recording and notes can then be turned back into Schoology by sharing it as a note (a strategy I thought of last year - to find out more click here).

The most amazing thing about the session was that one teacher posed a question:

If I wanted to respond and write back to the student, could I then send the note to them with my voice and notes added?

Nobody really knew.. I suggested possibly sending it back in an email, but a second later Kim told us that you can drop back assignments to students in Schoology, so why not a note? Next thing you know everyone is playing around in Notability and sure enough - it worked! We practiced adding on additional audio recordings in Notability while drawing - that worked as well! It was amazing to see everyone working together to come up with a great new idea and multiplying learning. I learned something great that I would never have known if we hadn't had all those resources in one room together. So thank you to all my amazing colleagues for the great learning opportunity!

We would love to hear about your experiences with Spark Sessions, the Learning Labs, or any cool professional development opportunities you have been a part of and why they were so enjoyable =)

Building a Culture of Learning: A Day of Spark Sessions and Learning Labs

by Linda Ashida

Today the Collab Lab hosted Spark Sessions and Learning Labs for all staff during an extended late start Thursday morning.

It was a great morning of professional learning and interdisciplinary collaboration with 8 Spark Sessions (~five minutes each) followed by 2 informal Learning Labs (twenty-five minutes each).

We shared the schedule with staff via this Google Doc.  Our goal for the morning was to spark learning that would continue long after the day was over.  To faciliate future learning, we decided to make the doc editable during the morning and we invited all staff attending to add resources in the far right column of the document.

Feedback from the morning has been very positive. Staff indicated that they enjoyed the variety of the spark sessions and opportunity to learn and explore new ideas with colleagues from so many different departments in the Learning Labs. Also, many noted how the Learning Lab sessions demonstrated the rich interdisciplinary culture of learning at Elk Grove High School that continues to grow. A Spanish teacher commented how she enjoyed collaborating with a Science teacher and two music teachers to experimenting with audio assignments in Schoology! To get a better idea of what our day looked like and sounded like, check out highlights from Twitter curated in this Storify.

Energizing the Mid-Career Teacher

By Kim Miklusak

We have all perhaps seen a variation of this chart during our teaching career: phases of first-year teachers' attitude toward teaching.  It makes sense, and it makes new (and veteran!) teachers feel less isolated in their attitudes as the year goes on.  There is a natural progression to things, and it is something we can be conscious of and try to address and prevent.  See this image here:
Graphic from http://www.newteachercenter.org/

There has been a lot of talk in the past ten plus years--but again recently--about new teacher retention: its costs, its causes, its remedies.  I think it's vital to have these conversations about new teachers.  However, I think another conversation we need to be having is mid-career teacher retention--or, more specifically, mid-career teacher re-invigoration.

I wonder what the above chart looks like across the span of a career.  I'm sure there are many peaks and valleys for a variety of reasons both internal and external to each individual.  I wonder how we can support mid-career teachers as we do new teachers to help them connect to other educators, to continue to grow as experts in their field, and to help them find new avenues to learn.

One way is for teachers to make those connections on their own whether that be through Twitter, conferences, EdCamps, etc.  I think another way is for teachers to start finding ways to publish their own writing and reflection be that in journals, websites, or their own blog!  Another way is for schools to facilitate this re-invigoration.  This past week our school held Spark Sessions and a Mini-EdCamp at our first In-Service day in addition to the teacher-led sessions held at our Institute Days.  In addition, administrators both in-building and at the district are working with many mid-career and new teachers to branch out into new roles and help guide new and existing initiatives.  I hope that all schools follow this lead and spend their resources in some of these ways as well in order to connect to new and veteran teachers.  While it's true that teachers can hit a groove in mid-career and be left on their own, it's also a time to be sure to find ways to remain energized and constantly reflect and grow!

In-Service Day Preview: Spark Sessions & EdCamp

This Monday the CollabLab will help facilitate a portion of our school's In-Service Day focusing on instructional technology.

First, we will be offering a 45-minute session of "Spark" Presentations. A Spark Presentation is a 3-5 minute presentation of an educational technology strategy that teachers employ with their students. These are not formal presentations;  think of a "spark presentation" as a kind of "show and tell." For example, Gary Alperin will share how he uses the student-response app Kahoot and Dean Burrier Sanchis will share how he uses his Weebly Website. We are planning to have Spark Presentations by 8-10 staff members. We already have several teachers who have volunteered, but we want to open this opportunity up to everyone. 


After this we will move into a mini-EdCamp.  EdCamps are "un-camps," free professional development for teachers and by teachers.  There are EdCamps hosted in many areas around the world.  Our local one is EdCamp Chicago, and the next meeting will May 9, at Bednarcik Junior High School.  Elk Grove will host its first "mini-camp."

At the start of the event, teachers come up and suggest a session they are interested in.  This does not mean that you are running it or presenting it; it just means that you are heading there to start talking about it.  The idea is you vote with your feet.  If you go to one session, and it is not what you need, or if there is more than one session you want to see, you simply get up in the middle of the session, and go to another one! Another aspect of EdCamps is the sharing of information. There will be an open Google document available for each session to share out ideas with those in and out of the workshop time.

Check out this site next week for reflections from the day!