Assignment #8: Complete the 4 part assignment format as you read, reflect, and respond to Chapter 8: Setting Objectives & Providing Feedback.
Remember: Although your course packet asks you to post to blog for parts A, B, C, and D…we are asking that you only post part C and D. We’re trying to make the blog easier to read and more user- friendly. Thanks!
A. Self Assessment of Current Beliefs and Practices: This component asks you to reflect on how and why you currently use the instructional strategy of Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback in your classroom. The intent of this is to activate your prior knowledge of your strategy use so that you can make comparisons as you read the chapter. Below are the questions to help you complete your self-assessment.
• What is your purpose when you set objectives and/or feedback in your classroom?
• How do you set objectives in your current classroom instruction?
• When and how do you communicate classroom objectives to your students?
• What kind of feedback do you provide for your students?
B. Read & Reflect “Research & Theory”: This portion of the assignment asks you to read chapter 8 and reflect briefly on your thinking after reading the “Research and Theory” section for Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback.
C. Practice: Choose one of the specific “classroom practice” strategies or techniques shared in this chapter to try out with your students (If you are not currently teaching, you may share how you would use this strategy in your classroom). Please post a brief reflection of how this went to the posting labeled Week Eight: Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback. Click on the “comment” link below.
D. Final Strategy Reflection: Use the following sequence of questions/prompts to reflect on what you’ve learned about both the strategies presented in the chapter and what you’ve learned about yourself as both a teacher and a learner. Please post your brief reflection to the posting labeled Week Eight: Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback by clicking on the “comment” link below.
How has the information you read in this chapter on Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback effected your thinking about teaching and learning? What have you learned about yourself as a teacher and learner? Use the following questions to assist you in writing a brief strategy reflection:
• The generalizations related to setting objectives explain that goals should be clear and specific, but also flexible enough for students to personalize the goals. Consider the objectives you are expected to use, that is, those provided by your school, district, or state. To what extent do you feel they meet the criteria of clarity, specificity, and flexibility?
• How does the information in Figure 8.3 about "Corrective Feedback" shed light on your own experiences with giving and receiving feedback? For example, does it surprise you that research indicates that simply telling students whether an answer is right or wrong can have a negative effect on their achievement?
• How might you change how you communicate objectives to students and parents?
• How will you monitor how well students are meeting their learning objectives?
• How will you engage students in the feedback process (consider use of rubrics)?
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Chapter 8 – Kristi Richards
C. One of my personal goals this year has been to work on the art of conferring. I have been reading Patrick Allen’s book on this subject, and I had the opportunity to hear him speak in January. Conferring is an opportunity to not only set up personal goals with a student but also to provide instant feedback.
I try to meet with students every two weeks to “progress monitor” their reading. This means that I do a running record and sometimes include a comprehension question that focuses on the skill/strategy we are practicing. Usually, I was trying to rush through five students in a twenty five minute period, and it was very frustrating. I recently changed my schedule so that I can meet with students on Wednesday, a day that I don’t work with groups. This has allowed me to take more time with each student and set up this time more as a conference, than a quick assessment. I don’t feel like my conferring skills are particularly honed. I also need to work on a better way to record our conversations. As I read this chapter, I realized that I’m doing too much of the goal setting. After the student reads to me and we talk about celebrations and next steps, I should sometimes have him/her articulate what they think they should work on as a reader. I should let them have some ownership over their goal.
D. The information in the chapter about goal setting definitely made me stop and pause. Our staff has spent some time discussing and trying to implement the use of learning targets. After our literacy coaches did some walkthroughs, we noted in the results that many of our students couldn’t articulate what they were doing and why. We are attempting to have teachers consistently post these targets and discuss them with their students. I found the research on effective goal setting to be fascinating. It surprised me, though it makes perfect sense, that narrow goals actually have a negative impact on learning. Though the learning targets are supposed to follow a particular format, they vary from classroom to classroom. I look forward to discussing this topic with our literacy coach.
C. Like Kristi mentioned, I have been working on conferring this year as well in both reading and writing. I changed my writer's workshop around, so that I conferred with students more frequently, then we came up with a specific goal. We always edit the piece first, then I ask the student if they have a goal they want to work on. I was surprised on how many 2nd graders actually had suggestions. If they don't though, I help them out and we make one together.
Also, in reading this year, I decided to give some specific feedback on their DRA's. Usually we do the assessment for ourselves, give the grade and move on. This year I thought it would be helpful to conference with the student afterwards for two reasons. Hopefully it would give them something to work on and it might make the DRA less intimidating. I pulled each student over, went over their current level, what they did well and what they still needed to work on. As I am currently during end of the year DRA's, I have had several students mention or ask if they improved on the area we talked about. So it is a good start on corrective feedback!
D. I am not surprised about the information given in this chapter. If someone gives me specific feedback on an area, then I am more likely to make changes than with just a grade. However, I think we often think the youngsters will have a hard time with academic objectives and feedback. Therefore, we don't provide as many opportunities. But if we work with them, and break it down to their level, then I think it can be really useful. I'm all about being honest and open with my students, no matter the age!
C. Like Kristi and Katy I have been working on conferring. My experience comes from Teachers College Reading and Writing Project. I am still working at it and some years I do better than others. In making the change from a traditional public school to a magnet school I've found myself struggling to combine some of these established practices with the integration of many other content areas. We are required to do regular progress monitoring and so I feel that I am improving at giving "corrective feedback". I know that I really want to examine this chapter more carefully as I begin to plan for next year. I want to think about the changes Kristi made in her conferring schedule. After many years I am also struggling with the notes I take during a conference. We use rubrics, but I think I need to be more consistent about using them across all content areas. I also like the idea of students setting their own goals, but as Katy mentioned I think this will be difficult for children and they will need guidance and practice in order to fully understand and gain value from it.
D. I feel like this chapter hit me the hardest(so far). This is an area I really need and want to improve in. I am so guilty of letting too much time go by after an assessment and then not offering any feedback or feedback that is just too late. We have so much pressure to get through math units that I don't take the time I once did to confer with students about what they did and did not do correctly. I want my students to be able to personalize teacher goals, but am feeling a little overwhelmed by the amount of work that I think will need to go into teaching them how to do that. I'm not good at trying one thing and perfecting it until I move on to something else, but I think I'm going to have to choose one goal of my own from this chapter and concentrate on that before trying something else. I know, even from prior training, how important setting objectives and providing feedback is. However, the realities of the job make it difficult to do this well.
Thanks for your comments - Kristi, Katy, and Kellie. Getting better at conferring with students is something I’ve been working on for the last several years as well. I’ve been wanting to get Patrick Allen’s book….this was a good reminder. Gravity Goldberg (Teacher’s College alumni) also has a great book titled, Conferring with Readers. By far though the best system out there for teachers to set reading goals with their students…. and then follow up with conferring, is The Sisters’ CAFÉ system. I’m sure you’re familiar with their work. It is so important to have a system where students have a goal, work towards that goal, with feedback from the teacher along the way (conferring or small group)….and then have the success of meeting the goal with independence of strategy.
Sarah Barnett
C. I had my first grade students choose their goals in writing. Although they did choose their goals, I did direct them toward what I thought seemed appropriate goals. I wrote their goals on forms that I stapled into their writing folders. Then after each student had done some writing, we checked to see how he or she was doing with meeting the goal. When the goal was being met consistently, we decided upon a new goal. Generally, I met with each student once a week during this process. I think this was a helpful process for some children. Some children really thrive on reaching goals. With this particular project as well as many others, I have found the specific and timely feedback is very meaningful for many students. The problem begins when I get "too busy" to keep up with the feedback. The writing conferences end up getting bumped to make room for somethings else. Without the feedback, the goals process fades away.
D. Given how important timely feedback appears to be, it will be important for me to organize a system that is amenable to providing timely and effective feedback to students.
In terms of giving setting general objectives which leave room for students to set some more specific objectives, I think I can make that process work well in the content areas. There are the objectives which I set and everyone is responsible for learning, but then I could also have students set further goals to focus on. They could do this individually, or as a small expert group.
C. Early in the year, I marked answers wrong on math tests and passed them back to the students. We always went over the tests in class, but I suspected that a lot of students saw the marks on their tests and tuned out. As a result, I started marking problems wrong and allowing the students to correct them and turn the tests back in for partial credit. It's reassuring to see that research supports this practice I stumbled into. Since reading the chapter, I've also started marking the parts of story problems as correct or incorrect so that the students can get the "explanation of what is accurate and what is inaccurate."
D. My school sets aside time in October for student goal-setting. Teachers were instructed to work with students to select goals that were "Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Realistic, and Timely (S.M.A.R.T.) Students, parents, and I were able to come up with them readily enough, but I see now that I should be careful not to allow students to set the goals too specific (such as focusing on learning a particular set of math facts - usually x6s)
As far as communicating objectives to parents and monitoring how well students meet those objectives, most teacher's manuals have the stated objectives over a particular unit. It's the end of the year, but next year I'm going to start pulling the objectives right from the manuals, printing them on a separate piece of paper that gets attached to each test, and highlighting checking off "demonstrated" or "not demonstrated" as students are tested on them. The tests then go home to the parents to get signed, but I also keep a copy. I expect it to be a little more work along the way, but it will save me a lot of work when it comes to report cards and parent conferences.
The most success I have engaging students in feedback has indeed been by using rubrics. Students score their own papers according to the rubric. I score it. If there are any great discrepancies (there usually aren't - fewer kids are dillusional than I expected when I began doing this) we conference about it.
Thanks Sarah and Sam. Sarah – it sounds like you have an awesome system in place for moving your students towards accomplishing their writing goals! While as you said, it can tend to be the first thing that goes when we get pushed along in the “rush” of curriculum…and unfortunately, without the conferences…there goes all of the work and monitoring towards those goals. I’m now working with teachers in my building and district to find ways to manage our days and curriculum to ensure that this important factor (conferences) in reading and writing do not get pushed to the side. It is hard though!!! Sam – I love the idea of having kids be able to have the opportunity to make an error on an assessment…and then have the opportunity to learn from their error and then fix the mistakes on the assessment. I also agree that when I started using rubrics more often in my instruction, both the increase in student effort (because they knew exactly what was expected of them) and achievement.
Thanks Sarah and Sam. Sarah – it sounds like you have an awesome system in place for moving your students towards accomplishing their writing goals! While as you said, it can tend to be the first thing that goes when we get pushed along in the “rush” of curriculum…and unfortunately, without the conferences…there goes all of the work and monitoring towards those goals. I’m now working with teachers in my building and district to find ways to manage our days and curriculum to ensure that this important factor (conferences) in reading and writing do not get pushed to the side. It is hard though!!! Sam – I love the idea of having kids be able to have the opportunity to make an error on an assessment…and then have the opportunity to learn from their error and then fix the mistakes on the assessment. I also agree that when I started using rubrics more often in my instruction, both the increase in student effort (because they knew exactly what was expected of them) and achievement.
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