Reflections of a Techie

Dynamic feedback loops OR Formative Assessment in Math & Test Prep

Having spent weeks on reviewing Number Sense, it was time to see how much students knew in a simulated testing situation.  I created a series of 3 - 10 question formatives which covered rational numbers.  I needed that dynamic situation for independent practice...something where I could watch all of them do their problem set but without interacting with them.

Today we dragged the mobile carts into the pod and got started.  As they took their quizzes, I would watch their questions stream into my grid.

"OK, Bill...be sure to check #2 again"....squint a bit more at the screen and realize that everyone was missing #9.  Buggers that means I really need to do more with teaching estimating with percents.  New numbers would post to my screen and I could tell the 2 kids in the back of the room where messing around, clicking through and not showing me what they knew/didn't know.  I walked back there and set them straight...by the time I returned to monitoring my screen they were in "review" mode and changing their answers.

Here is proof to me that dynamic test results can be powerful.  All the groundwork I had invested in teaching the concepts, having them drill on the concepts, allow a little time to go by and let it sink into long term memory (or escape) and blam.  See what they remembered and what they could still do.  The capability to watch their scores pour in, question by question, is remarkable.

I thought they were getting messed up on estimation problems.  Turns out I was all wrong.  They were missing the multi-step problems.  Without instant results, I would have operated from the wrong assumption and addressed a need they didn't have.  This is powerful stuff.  It is a feedback loop that can change how kids feel about math...

If I know what they "get" and "don't get", I have a much better chance at helping them learn the tough stuff.

It will be interesting to compare tomorrow's results with today's.  I will be watching to see if they soar and falter in the same places they did today.  Whatever the outcome, it will inform my decision about what to teach the next day.  That's just cool and humbles me to think about the potential we have together because of the leveraged knowledge I have with technology.

Homework, Feedback and Improving Grades

I've been working on turning over responsibility for grades to my students.  This is a complex and very puzzling dance we've been doing.

I started the year by announcing I was no longer grading homework.  I told students that I thought homework was their practice sessions and they needed to not face the pressure of getting a grade for practice.  We talked all sorts of analogies (soccer practice, piano lesson practice etc etc etc) and I think they "got it".  I also believe that the practice that you do at the beginning of a concept shouldn't show the same quality of product as when you are nearing the end....hopefully they're getting better over time.

Actually this has worked out pretty well.  We still grade everything in class the next day.  I have them review their answers with a shoulder partner and they decide which problems they want worked on the board.  Gosh this used to take what seemed like hours.  Now we've gotten pretty efficient at it.  (You also figure out that if you assign 30 problems it's going to take the whole hour!!!)  Part way through the 2nd quarter, we started trying to categorize the types of problems that they needed me to clarify to see if there were patterns.  Sometimes it is very clear what they dont' get...and it becomes a great source of data information for me...and sometimes it's just a bunch of stuff.  The one thing they've gotten really good about knowing...is their error a result of "not getting" it or rushing through/careless mistake.

I think that was one of my first successes.  Helping students to have a way to know about their set of math skills...helping them be able to describe how well they could/couldn't do something that had no correlation to a grade!!!!!  My colleague, Bill, has written about how students have felt like the challenger in American Gladiator...beat about the head with grades.  He asks the question...where does that get either the student or the teacher and concludes that it does little if anything.

It's been grueling to design all the formative pieces that go along the way.  I teach with another person and we've gotten it together....I seem to be really good at designing the pre-assessments and the tiered assignments and she is really good at the review lessons and finding practice problems from which to pick.  Without her help to share the burden, both of us would have drowned by now.

The other big hurdle is for the kids to realize that they get fewer grades so they mean so much more.  I think they were nervous about this.  They had different kinds of experiences with assessments...maybe not knowing what to expect on the test or what kinds of problems they really need to be able to work/answer.  Now I think they believe me when we pass out the targets at the beginning...they sort of check those off as they know they can do the skill there...and then they know that they better be good at the review packet.

One student yesterday told me that there was nothing new on the test..he smiled and added, as always.  Cracked me up.  But I think he was trying to tell me that he felt like he was in control of his learning.  He knew what to expect and he'd studied for those things.

My class average is actually up this year even though last year's students were much stronger math students.  I think I have a better system of collecting feedback and I think students are beginning to see that I don't "give them" a grade, they "earn it".