Our Real Work

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings."

- "Our Real Work" by Wendell Berry 1983.
spotted in the Lincoln VT Community School newsletter
Friday March 20, 2020

Assessment & Grading in Sudden, Extended Online Teaching and Learning

Twitter Thread [Composed and Posted by Rick Wormeli on March 20, 2020, with elements added in the days that followed. ‘Want further conversation? Rick is available at rick@rickwormeli.onmicrosoft.com]

          Given diverse family life situations, resources, levels of support, mental health, and tech access issues, grading things students have done at home via sudden online lessons is more than likely in inequitable. This means grades are likely to be inaccurate reports of learning, and some or many students do not get a fair shake at learning or at demonstrating what they’ve learned, which reflects serious grading bias; grade reports are distorted and perhaps inaccurate.

          Having said that, however, teachers have been teaching online for years, so there are ways to mitigate some of these challenging and biased elements. Plus, some teachers may be required by administrators to grade student work that comes back to them during this time period. So, what principles and practices of assessment and grading still apply, whether we are grading in a F2F classroom, or via exclusively online interactions? Yeah, we might need to get creative on how to apply them, but they are still worth every effort. Let's take a look:

• We can still separate formative (coming to know) learning and assessment experiences from summative ones, facilitating helpful feedback and revising learning with formatives, but not making the formatives high stakes in nature (i.e. grades, %'s, rubric scores). 
• We can still brainstorm (and let kids suggest) alternative ways to demonstrate evidence of learning and not get hung up on whether or not they did something so much as that they demonstrated learning. Unless we're teaching the test format itself, it's irrelevant, if we're after evidence of a standard. 
• This means conferring with our subject-like colleagues and brainstorming multiple ways to elicit the same evidence of proficiency, and gosh, it turns out that there are usually dozens of ways to assess the same evidence. 
• We're still going to be aware that students learn at different rates and not let an arbitrary timeline keep a student from learning. 
• We're still channeling @tguskey and will focus on cultivating students and their talents instead of merely using grades to sort children. 
• We can still disaggregate our reports, reporting less curriculum per symbol, & reporting by standards instead of a massive aggregate. 
• We can mindful not to conflate the report of one thing with the report of another (We still separate work habits from reports of academic proficiency). 
• We can still focus on what students can carry forward and do independently of all assistance as the most accurate report of final proficiency. 
• If we're worried about whether or not students are doing the work at home themselves, we can collaborate on ways to help students maintain that integrity and assure honor. Some starting ideas in how to minimize cheating and plagiarism are included in Rick’s article on the topic at rickwormeli.com/articles. 
• We will still need to identify evidence for performance of different levels of proficiency regarding our standards, and to calibrate all of that with our subject like colleagues. And, we can still provide examples to students of different levels of proficiency that students can analyze in light of criteria for success for their own work on the same content. Analyzing others' efforts really catalyzes our own thinking about our own understandings. 
• We can still use multiple descriptive feedback techniques, teach them to our students and their parents, and help them self-monitor how they’re doing in relation to learning goals. This will also help build and monitor academic goals, which is often motivating. 
• We can still do re-learning/re-assessing/re-do's if students have not learned to a solid level of proficiency, at least for the most leveraging of standards, and yes, we can still remove extra credit activities that do not actually elicit evidence of the same proficiencies. 
• We can still study interval science and grading accuracy and get rid of zeroes on the 100 point scale. 
• We can still separate reports of lateness from the reports of academic proficiency. 
• And yes, we can still study research on how to build self-efficacy, executive function, self-discipline, and tenacity in students and see that none of it says to use grades, or to falsely report student proficiency based on elements that are not evidence of the standard itself. 
• We can still see grades are accurate, ethical, helpful communication, not compensation, reward, affirmation, or validation. 
• We can also choose to be fair (developmentally appropriate for what students need, equitable, even when it is different from what others might need to achieve the same level of learning or higher), instead of hiding behind claims we have to be equal. 
• We can still begin with the end in mind (Covey) and hold to Rick Stiggins' reminder that students can hit targets they can see and that stand still for them. We can be overtly transparent with assessments at every turn so nobody wonders at the criteria for any level of proficiency.
• We can get up to speed on varied assessment prompts and test designs and use them, and we can ask students to perform more traditional assessment responses on paper, if they prefer, and send in a picture of it. If they want to include an audiofile of some sort to explain it, that's great! 
• We can still do portfolios, though this time, e-portfolios, of their work over time, and ask students to reflect on their growth, and how each piece represents their learning regarding specific standards. 
• We can definitely build our repertoire of activities to engage in content that also assess students formatively. A great place to start is Summarization in any Subject 2nd Ed by @dedrasedu and myself published by ASCD. 
• Pass/Fail may be as far we go at first. As teachers get more comfortable with online teaching, learning, and assessing, however, they will grow more comfortable with distinctions among levels of proficiency, so we may need to allow at least three levels of reporting: 
• Proficient 
• Developing 
• No Evidence Presented 

          Of course, each of these needs to be clearly defined. If students go above and beyond, and the
     teacher feels it’s truly the student’s work, there can be a separate addendum indicating such.

Caution when developing assessments and lessons online: “But how will I grade it?” as our first thought before assigning something online should ring warning bells in our educator’s mind. The primary indicator as to whether or not something is worth pursuing in a lesson shouldn't be its ultimate gradeability. Much of the important stuff we teach and that students learn defies easy quantifying and grading. We can’t forego that key content and learning experience because we don’t see a quick grading solution.

Definitely Challenging:

• Finding time to get enough evidence to constitute proficiency or a pattern thereof 
• Equitable access to online content in students’ homes 
• Equitable home support, resources, and sleep 
• Raised anxiety, panic, and depression levels 
• Limited teacher training in assessment design 
• Administrators requiring grades on non-evidence tasks 
• Required state/provincial testing 
• Requiring students to demonstrate proficiency with anything that requires them to be together. ‘Important point, though: Creative responses to this issue have been blossoming all over the internet and it relatively solvable. So, yeah, do debates, book discussions, mock trials, performances, and the like. 

Final Note: Grading can be very inequitable and thereby, unethical, during this ramp up time for extended online learning, so we're well advised to limit it to only the very necessary, and even then, always keep it open to changing grades at any time. If we have to do it, though, don't lose sight of the principles of accurate, ethical grading. They still apply.

Assistance as We Navigate New Grading Waters:
On Twitter: @tguskey @TomSchimmer @mctownsley @garnet_hillman @RoweRikW @MandyStalets @kenoc7 @leeannjung @CVULearns, @rickwormeli2, @myrondueck, among others.
Websites: mctownsley.net/standards-based-grading/, tguskey.com, tomschimmer.com/about/, www.rickwormeli.com

Technology/Websites that really help with assessment, teaching, and grading: 
#SBLchat     Zoom     Flipgrid     Edmodo      Schoology     Seesaw     Quizziz
Padlet     Quizlet     Screencastify     Mentimeter     Skype     Kaizena     Voxer
Rubistar     Google Forms, Google Docs, Google Suite, Google Hangout
Your grading software and student records management system

Persuasion 101

          “People instinctively resist being forced to do things differently,” says Jonah Berger (Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania) in this Wall Street Journal article. “We pressure and coax and cajole, and often nothing moves. Could there be a better way?” Here are his suggested strategies for changing someone’s mind:

            • Allow for agency. People like to believe they’re in the driver’s seat, and they feel disempowered when they’re pressured to act differently – someone else is making the choice rather than them. Studies show that people have an “innate anti-persuasion radar,” says Berger. “They’re constantly scanning the environment for attempts to influence them and when they detect one, they deploy a set of countermeasures.” So one trick is to make people feel they’re still in control. Rather than giving one solution, suggest several and invite the person to choose.

            • Describe a better alternative. People tend to be over-attached to the status quo; they want to stick with what they know and have used over time. And that may not be too bad – otherwise they would have made a change long ago. “Change agents combat this phenomenon by bringing the costs of inaction to the surface,” says Berger, “helping people to realize that sticking with the status quo isn’t as cost-free as it seems.” One financial advisor persuaded a reluctant investor by giving him a monthly comparison between his current investments and what he would be making using the alternative.

            • Engineer gradual shifts. Too big an ask often takes people into their “zone of rejection.” The trick is to suggest something that’s in the “zone of acceptance” – close enough to their current situation that they’re willing to consider it. Berger describes a doctor treating an obese truck driver who was drinking three liters of Mountain Dew a day. Going cold turkey wasn’t remotely possible, so the doctor started by persuading him to cut down to two liters a day, then after a while one liter. Finally the man was open to doing without (with an occasional can), and he’s lost 25 pounds.

            • Alleviate uncertainty. Making a change may feel risky, and many people are risk-averse. Berger describes how a pet shop persuaded him and a girlfriend to adopt an adorable rescue puppy as they fretted about whether they would be able to take good care of her. The shop owner added that he had a two-week trial period, no obligation. “Today that girlfriend is my wife,” says Berger, “and our dog Zoë is an integral part of our family. The trial didn’t reduce the upfront costs of taking Zoë home – food, shots, a crate, etc. – but it did remove the uncertainty.”

            • Find corroborating evidence. Hearing from a number of credible people about a proposed change can make all the difference. They might be loved ones chiming in or Facebook “likes,” all creating affirmation and momentum.

            “Whether you’re trying to convince a client, change an organization, disrupt a whole industry, or just get someone to adopt a puppy, the same rules apply,” Berger concludes. “It’s not about pushing harder or exerting more energy. It’s about reducing barriers to action. Once you understand that, you can change anything.”

“How to Change Anyone’s Mind” by Jonah Berger in The Wall Street Journal, February 22-23, 2020 (pp. C1-2), available to subscribers at https://on.wsj.com/2Tbc0jZ; Berger can be reached at jberger@wharton.upenn.edu.

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #825 of 

The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)

Classroom Materials on the 19th Amendment

          This piece in School Library Journal has resources for the upcoming August 18, 2020 centennial of the Constitutional amendment through which women won the right to vote:

Websites:

-   Library of Congress material on women’s suffrage: www.bit.ly/2TcaLmf

-   2020 Women’s Vote Centennial Initiative: www.2020centennial.org

-   Crusade for the Vote, National Women’s History Museum: www.crusadeforthevote.org

-   The Turning Point Suffragist Memorial: www.suffragistmemorial.org

Books:

-   Vote! Women’s Fight for Access to the Ballot Box by Coral Celeste Frazer (Twenty-First Century, 2020), grade 6 and up

-   Women Win the Vote!: 19 for the 19th Amendment by Nancy Kennedy (Norton, 2020), grades 5-8

Articles:

-   “African-American Women and the Nineteenth Amendment” by Sharon Harley, National Park Service, www.bit.ly/35MN06Y

-   “How Black Suffragists Fought for the Right to Vote and a Modicum of Respect” by Martha Jones, National Endowment for the Humanities www.bit.ly/36Dnsdw

“The 19th Amendment’s Centennial” in School Library Journal, Feb. 2020 (Vol. 6, #2, p. 18)

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #823 of 

The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)

Educating for Full Civic Participation

          In this Kappa Delta Pi Record article, Joel Westheimer (University of Ottawa) says schools have always tried to instill moral values, good behavior, and character in their students. But what exactly does that mean? For Westheimer, the question is personal: his parents were German Jews who escaped the Nazi Holocaust, but millions of others were not so fortunate. “How could such a highly educated, mature democracy descend into such unimaginable cruelty and darkness?” he asks. What did German schools teach about obedience, civic participation, and dissent? And how can today’s schools help kids to “acquire the essential knowledge, dispositions, and skills for effective democratic citizenship to flourish?”

These questions are pertinent: a 2017 Pew poll showed that 22 percent of Americans favor a political system in which a strong leader can make decisions without interference from Congress or the courts. Polls in other western democracies show a similar undercurrent, accompanied by disdain for the free press, civil liberties, and the courts and open hostility toward foreigners and ethnic “others.” Researching schools’ efforts to teach civic virtues and individual morality, Westheimer has found mediocre practices and a failure to distinguish among, and effectively prepare young people for, three kinds of citizenship:

• Personally responsible citizen – The key virtues here are honesty, responsibility, integrity, hard work, self-discipline, and compassion. A responsible citizen obeys laws, pays taxes, helps those in need (for example, contributing to a food drive), and lends a hand in times of crisis.

• Participatory citizen – Basic knowledge for participation (taught in schools and families) includes how government works at the local, state, national, and global level; the importance of voting; and the role of civic and religious organizations. The difference between this kind of citizenship and the one above is activism: “While the personally responsible citizen would contribute cans of food for the homeless,” says Westheimer, “the participatory citizen might organize the food drive.” An active citizen is tuned into society-wide issues, economic and environmental concerns, and knows collective strategies for accomplishing things.

• Social justice-oriented citizen – The key at this level is critical thinking about fairness, equality, opportunity, and the root causes of injustice. “If participatory citizens are organizing the food drive and personally responsible citizens are donating food,” says Westheimer, “social justice-oriented citizens are asking why people are hungry and acting on what they discover to address root causes of hunger (e.g., poverty, inequality, structural impediments to self-sufficiency).”

Westheimer’s research over the last two decades has found that the third form of citizenship is least often addressed in schools, which focus mostly on volunteering, charity, obedience, and the three branches of government. That’s necessary but not sufficient, he believes: “Education that teaches students to follow the rules, obey authority figures, be honest, help others in need, clean up after themselves, try their best, and be team players is rarely controversial. But without an analysis of power, politics, and one’s role in local and global political and economic structures, students are unlikely to become effective citizens who can work with others toward improving the world.”

How can schools do a more effective job getting students to think about the origins of major social problems and how they can be solved? asks Westheimer. “We need citizens who can think and act in ethically thoughtful ways. A well-functioning democratic society benefits from classroom practices that teach students to recognize ambiguity and conflict in factual content, to see human conditions and aspirations as complex and contested, and to embrace debate and deliberation as a cornerstone of democratic societies.” He suggests the following steps for schools:

• Teach students to ask questions. Totalitarian societies have one top-down version of the truth and discourage dissent, even making it illegal. In democratic societies, questioning and constant rethinking of traditions are engines of progress. “Education reformers, school leaders, and parents should do everything possible to ensure that teachers and students have opportunities to ask these kinds of questions,” says Westheimer.

• Expose students to multiple viewpoints. Students might gather newspaper articles or textbook chapters from different states and countries and ask how they are different, how they are similar, and why. Teachers should get students thinking about how issues that seem trivial to them might be a big deal to others. “Critical empathy” is something teachers should work hard to instill, says Westheimer. “This is the kind of teaching in a globalized world that encourages future citizens to leverage their civic skills for the greater social good rather than for their own particular interests.”

• Teach controversial issues. Schools may think they’re doing this by covering slavery, Nazism, and laws that denied voting rights to women, but what about the #MeToo movement, women’s reproductive rights, misinformation campaigns using social media, and debates about what’s included in the school curriculum? “Engagement with contemporary controversies from a range of perspectives and using multiple sources of information is exactly what democratic participation requires,” says Westheimer.

• Focus on the local. Civic education becomes much more immediate when students study and engage in projects in their immediate surroundings – school, neighborhood, town, state. A recent example of this was how students at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida responded to gun violence at their school. “Their ability to connect a very personal experience with the ways in which government, policy, and social and economic forces shape their lives,” says Westheimer, “allowed them to participate on a national scale and, no doubt, prepared them for a life of effective civic engagement.”

• Be political. Even when teachers are careful not to express their own views, some topics are controversial, with students feeling uncomfortable about the views expressed by classmates. “Democracy can be messy,” says Westheimer. “Rather than let fear of sanction and censorship dictate pedagogical choices, however, teachers should be supported and protected, encouraged to use political debates and controversy as teachable moments in civic discourse.”

• Use teachable moments across the school. Although these issues will be primarily addressed in civics and social studies classes, there are opportunities in other subject areas, assemblies, the cafeteria, and hallways. “How classrooms are set up, who gets to talk when, how adults conduct themselves, how decisions are made, how lessons are enacted – all these inevitably serve as lessons in citizenship, in how we live with one another in complex and diverse local, national, and global communities,” concludes Westheimer. “Whether teachers explicitly teach lessons in citizenship or not, students learn about community organizations, the distribution of power and resources, rights, responsibilities, and justice and injustice.”

“Can Education Transform the World?” by Joel Westheimer in Kappa Delta Pi Record, January-March 2020 (Vol. 56, #1, pp. 6-12), available for purchase https://bit.ly/2ScpM5b; Westheimer can be reached at joelwestheimer@mac.com.

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #822 of 
The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)

Dylan Wiliam on Two Strategies That Really Work in Schools

“Today in America,” says assessment guru Dylan Wiliam in his latest book, “the biggest problem with education is not that it is bad. It is that it variable. In hundreds of thousands of classrooms in America, students are getting an education that is as good as any in the world. But in hundreds of thousands of others, they are not.” Wiliam argues that these recent initiatives in U.S. schools are not the best ways to solve the problem of variability:

-   Recruiting “smarter” people as teachers (they aren’t necessarily effective with kids);

-   Focusing on firing “bad” teachers (although of course the very worst need to go);

-   Using infrequent classroom observations (“Good teachers have bad days and bad teachers have good days,” says Wiliam);

-   Using test scores to evaluate teachers (“Every teacher builds on the foundations laid by those who taught their students previously.”);

-   Merit pay for the “best” teachers (there aren’t reliable ways to identify them);

-   Reducing class size (except in the lower grades, if effective teachers are available);

-   Copying the practices of other countries (many of their ideas don’t travel well);

-   Expanding school choice (there are several challenges and scaling up is problematic).

So what does work? Wiliam believes two approaches will bring more good teaching to more students more of the time, with particular benefits for the least advantaged:

            • A knowledge-rich curriculum – Students enter school with significant differences in vocabulary, processing power, and working memory. However, says Wiliam, “The differences in people’s intelligence and differences in the capacities of their short-term working memories (which undoubtedly exist) matter very little if they have the same extensive knowledge. Education can’t do much for intelligence or working memory, but it can have a massive impact on long-term memory.” That’s why a curriculum rich in knowledge closes achievement gaps.

“The big mistake we have made in the United States, and indeed in many other countries,” Wiliam continues, “is to assume that if we want students to be able to think, then our curriculum should give our students lots of practice in thinking. This is a mistake because what our students need is more to think with. The main purpose of curriculum is to build up the content of long-term memory so that when students are asked to think, they are able to think in more powerful ways because what is in their long-term memories makes their short-term memories more powerful. That is why curriculum matters.”

Wiliam lists these desiderata for a high-quality curriculum: (a) it’s well aligned with the aims of K-12 education; (b) it has a carefully structured sequence for building knowledge (for example, it’s easier for students to understand how to find the area of a triangle if they’ve first learned how to find the area of a parallelogram); (c) the pacing of knowledge acquisition avoids overloading short-term memory; (d) material is distributed over weeks, months, and years with review built in; and (e) students have frequent opportunities for self-testing so knowledge is firmly embedded in long-term memory.

            • Improving the teachers we have – “Schools and districts need to focus on the idea that all teachers need to get better,” says Wiliam, “not because they’re not good enough but because they can be even better. Moving the focus from evaluation to improvement also changes working relationships in a building. Where teachers are in competition, either because they are seeking scarce bonuses or to avoid sanctions, then they are unlikely to help each other. In contrast, when it is expected that all teachers improve, cooperation is encouraged and even expected.”

            Teacher teamwork has the greatest potential to improve teaching and learning, says Wiliam, so the most important job of school leaders is fostering a professional environment that supports frequent team collaboration. Foundational conditions include: order and discipline; addressing teachers’ basic concerns; time and resources for professional development; a culture of trust and respect; a “press” for student achievement; and reorienting teacher evaluation to focus on improving instructional practices.

For teacher team meetings to have the greatest benefit for students, Wiliam believes they need to be tightly structured and spend most of the time looking at evidence of student learning (from classroom assessments or samples of student work). He and his colleagues have developed the following steps for once-a-month 75-minute team meetings (with one member serving as timekeeper and facilitator). The focus is always on looking at student work and assessment evidence and thinking of the best ways to adapt instruction to meet students’ needs in real time. Here’s the structure:

-   The teacher responsible for running the meeting outlines the meeting’s aims, including the student learning intentions and criteria for success (5 minutes).

-   The team does a warm-up activity, perhaps sharing something a student said that made them smile, something a colleague did to support their work, something they’re looking forward to, or something that’s bugging them (5 minutes).

-   Each teacher reports on an instructional change they promised to try in their classrooms at the previous meeting with evidence of how it went, and colleagues share ideas and suggestions (25 minutes).

-   The team discusses a new article, book chapter, or video on formative assessment (20 minutes).

-   Each teacher shares a classroom practice they are going to implement over the coming month (15 minutes).

-   The team wraps up by reviewing whether the meeting’s goals were met – and if not, what action needs to be taken (5 minutes).

Wiliam says this protocol has been dramatically successful in improving teaching and learning in hundreds of schools across the U.S.

Educators often voice two concerns about structuring team meetings this way. First, will having the same sequence be monotonous? Not so, says Wiliam; a familiar structure with different content keeps things on track and saves time that might be taken up repeatedly inventing new structures. Second, don’t teachers need an outside facilitator to stay on task? “Our experience,” says Wiliam, “is that teachers really can do it for themselves.” He points to three reasons for not depending on teacher coaches as facilitators: (a) pulling good teachers out of the classroom to serve as coaches often results in a net loss of a school’s instructional capacity; (b) coaching positions are often the first to be cut in hard budget times; and (c) coaches don’t always have credibility. “Even when teachers come from the district,” says Wiliam, “as soon as they stop teaching and become coaches, many teachers regard the coaches as being out of touch with the realities of teaching.”

            What makes this meeting structure so successful? First, says Wiliam, “focusing on classroom assessment seems to be a smart place to begin the conversation with teachers… All teachers in America would probably agree that it is part of their day job to find out whether students have learned what they have been taught.” Second, research points to the power of formative (on-the-spot) assessments to improve teaching and learning by adjusting instruction minute-by-minute and day-by-day, and that is always the heart of these teacher meetings. And third, says Wiliam, “when we develop teachers’ ability to use real-time assessment to adapt their instruction to their students’ learning needs, those skills can be applied in all their teaching.”

            Boosting these skills involves changing teachers’ daily practice, which can be challenging. Wiliam believes this “is most likely to be achieved through regular meetings where teachers promise to their peers what they are going to try out in their classrooms and are held accountable for making those changes.”

Creating the Schools Our Children Need by Dylan Wiliam (Learning Sciences International, 2018); Wiliam can be reached at dylanwiliam@mac.com.

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #820 of 

The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)

Questions to Ask Students During a Classroom Visit

            In this article in Principal, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey (San Diego State University and Health Sciences High & Middle College) and Olivia Amador (Chula Vista Elementary School District) suggest visiting classrooms every day and quietly asking a sampling of students these questions:

-   What are you learning today?

-   Why are you learning that?

-   How will you know whether you’ve learned it?

Fisher, Frey, and Amador say that if 90 percent of students have good answers to these questions, the school has a high level of instructional clarity. “Simply put,” they say, “when students know what they’re supposed to learn,, why they are learning it, and how they will know whether they have learned it, they are more likely to demonstrate mastery.” Here are their thoughts on each of the questions:

            The first is different from asking, What are you working on today? which focuses on the task or the assignment. Better to ask about learning intentions which, if the teacher has been clear, should be on the tip of every student’s tongue. They might say:

-   We are learning about the impact of the setting on a character.

-   We are learning about the rotation of the sun and moon.

-   We are learning about persuasive techniques used in advertising.

Another advantage of asking about learning intention is that it’s easier for an observer to see if the instructional task is at the appropriate level of rigor. “An amazing lesson for third graders at first-grade standards,” say Fisher, Frey, and Amador, “produces fourth graders who are ready for the second grade.”

            Answers to the second question – why students are learning something – are a good way of assessing engagement and perceived relevance. A stellar response from a student might be, We are learning more about syllables today because they help us read big words, and reading bigger words lets us read new books and understand what we’re reading.

            The third question is about benchmarks for mastery, which are often a secret locked in the teacher’s mind. “Success criteria  provide students with clear, specific, and attainable goals,” say Fisher, Frey, and Amador, “and can spark motivation in some of the most reluctant learners. When teachers articulate success criteria, they are more likely to enlist tudents in their own learning.”

            What students say in response to these three questions can provide exceptionally helpful feedback to teachers after classroom visits. There’s no better gauge of instructional clarity than what individual students say when they’re questioned one on one. This feedback to teachers, say Fisher, Frey, and Amador, can bring about marked changes in learning intentions, rationales, and success criteria, which are the foundation for good choices of pedagogy and materials.

“Clear Benefits” by Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, and Olivia Amador in Principal, January/ February 2020 (Vol. 99, #3, pp. 42-43), https://www.naesp.org/principal; Fisher can be reached at dfisher@mail.sdsu.edu, Frey at nfrey@mail.sdsu.edu.

(Please Note: The summary above is reprinted with permission from issue #819 of 
The Marshall Memo, an excellent resource for educators.)