Blogs

I came across this blog by Cassandra Erkens recently from a link on Twitter.  I was reminded of 2 things:

1. Twitter is an excellent resource for professional development and professional growth, and
2. Formative Assessment - Assessment FOR Learning - just makes sense.

I love how Erkens provides practical ideas for implementing AFL strategies into a classroom.  More importantly, though, is how she helps teachers decide what to STOP doing in order to make room for the new strategies.

Follow this link to read Focused Formatives by Cassandra Erkens.  You can follow Cassandra on Twitter at @cerkens.

Often, the most profoundly powerful concepts are simple at their core. AFL is such a concept.

Doesn't it just make sense? If we want young people to learn content or skills, we need to gather feedback - and help them gather feedback - on how their doing in relation to specific standards and then use that feedback - and train them to use the feedback - to guide learning.  

It's a lot like going to the doctor when you're sick.  You tell the doctor what's wrong with you so he or she can use your feedback to guide the application of medical treatment.  You would never think of NOT telling the doctor your symptoms - unless you weren't interested in getting better..  It's just common sense.  It's a simple practice that leads to powerful results.  There's no reason the classroom shouldn't function the same way - unless we're not interested in students actually learning....

The PE Curriculum of Salem (VA) City Schools has changed in recent years to have a primary focus on fitness as opposed to the traditional game-based physical education.  The goal is to teach a student what she needs to be able to maintain a healthy lifestyle for a lifetime.  Kids are taught to:

• analyze their own fitness activity,
• recognize various fitness levels,
• analyze their heart rate and how it relates to fitness levels
• determine what type of activity is required to reach various fitness levels

All of these skills will help students take control of their own physical well-being and live healthy lives.

Recently I was in a PE class at Salem High School taught by Ashley Mathis. Mrs. Mathis did an excellent job incorporating the goals of Salem's PE curriculum into her activity.  Her students were working out in the school's fitness room.  They were paired up at stations around the room.  The students would be active for two minutes at their station.  After two minutes they would stop, measure their heart rate, and then rotate stations.  They had a goal of being in a certain fitness level for a certain number of minutes.  They used the feedback from taking their pulse to increase or decrease their intensity at the next station appropriately.  

My first thought as I watched the class was that this is what a PE class should look like.  All kids were engaged.  All kids were active.  All kids were working hard.  And - at least as best I could tell - all kids were having fun.  This was a meaningful class teaching students meaningful skills that have the potential to lead to healthy and active lifestyles.

But the other thing I thought was how natural the principles of AFL fit into this the class.  To make a big deal out of this class's "AFLishness" seems unnecessary because it seems so natural or normal.  Yet there is something profoundly important to be learned from once again realizing how to best use assessment in the classroom.  Specifically, in Mrs. Mathis's class:

• The assessment strategy was well-planned and intentional, rather than an after-thought.  Assessment was woven into the activity and integral instead of something additional that was done when the activity was over.
• The feedback was constant and given throughout the activity - every 2 minutes to be exact.  Students always knew where they were and how they were doing.  They didn't have to wait until everything was finished to see how they did.
• The teacher used the feedback to know how to encourage students and how to direct their upcoming activities.
• The students used the feedback to self-regulate and take control of their own growth.
• The assessment was unrelated to a grade.  Instead, the assessment-elicited feedback was directly related to growth and learning.

AFL is how people learn.  It's not just how we learn in school.  It's how we learn period.  It seems so simple, yet sometimes the bulleted list of principles evident in Mrs. Mathis's class are not evident to the degree they should be in our classrooms.  They need to be.  Whatever you teach, use this PE example as a model on which to base your assessment strategy.

Thanks, Ashley!

Ok - which would motivate you more... A chance to win a date with Angelina Jolie or a chance to win a date with Brad Pitt?

Weird question, right?  I was watching a TV discussion about Hollywood's "most beautiful couple", and for some strange reason, I saw an educational corollary buried beneath it.  

Here's the point: If you would be motivated by a chance to win a date with Angelina Jolie, then a chance to win a date with Brad Pitt probably wouldn't do much for you.  And if you'd do anything for a date with Brad Pitt, you probably don't care too much about a chance to go out with Angelina Jolie.  This got me thinking about external motivators and how they're often used - or misused - by educators.  

External motivators don't cause people to be motivated if they don't already care about the external motivator.  External motivators don't create new motivation - they just reinforce motivators already in place.

The purpose of this post is not to encourage or discourage the use of external motivation.  The purpose is to challenge educators to look at such motivators with a dose of reality - not all motivators will work for all students and not all are appropriate to use in all situations.

As I have worked with teachers around the country on the topic of assessment and grading, it is rather easy to help people reach a level of cognitive agreement with the concept of making sure that a grade assigned to a student represents mastery.  But many teachers struggle with the fear that if they assign grades based on mastery they will lose the "carrot and stick" of rewarding with points or assigning low grades and zeroes.  I don't pretend to have the answer to every hypothetical or potential grading and assessment situation - and I definitely don't believe there is a one size fits all solution that works in every class with every student.  But I do know the following to be true:

1. Students who routinely do not turn in work or make up missed assignments tend to not be motivated by the fear of the zero or the low grade - or they would have done the work in the first place.  I'm not suggesting that a zero or low grade couldn't be appropriate in certain situations, but we just shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking that this external motivator was ever working with these students to begin with.  To tell a routine "zero-getter" that he'll receive a zero if he doesn't turn in his work would be like telling me I'll lose out on a date with Brad Pitt if I don't do my work.  BTW - I didn't mention this earlier but I would be much more motivated by a chance to win a date with Angelina Jolie!
2. Students who already care about their grades are the ones motivated by grades and earning points because they already care about those external motivators.  Over the years teachers have used grades as carrots and sticks with these students to encourage compliance.  However, these are the students who drive us crazy when they seem to only care about are earning points rather than learning content.  So using grades as the primary motivator to get these students to do work is a problem for another reason - it promotes the idea students have that points are more important than learning.
3. When grades are used as inappropriate carrots and sticks - v. appropriate - then grades become falsified.  Rather than communicate mastery, they begin to represent how hard a student worked or how much they worked instead of what they learned.  This is unacceptable - unless your goal is for the grade to represent effort more than or as much as mastery.

It's really hard to blame teachers for using grades as carrots and sticks.  After all, it's been done this way forever.  We are all products of an educational system that operates as though everyone is motivated by the same external factors and that trains students to only work for external motivators.  Our teachers did this - our universities taught us to teach this way - our school divisions' grading systems are usually set up this way - it's just the way it's always been.

But that doesn't mean it has to stay this way.

While it's fine to come up with carrots and sticks that work in your classroom with individual students it's not fine to:

1. Have a "bag of motivational tricks" so limited that we end up trying to use tricks we know won't work with certain students instead of searching for other ways to motivate, inspire, encourage, and successfully demand that students work.
2. Foster the misguided idea that collecting points is more important than learning.
3. Assign final grades that we know do not reflect content knowledge and skills gained as a result of our excellent teaching.

I really don't have specific answers to share - just some things to think about.  

If you think there might be a better way, then you can't keep doing what you've always done.  If you're wanna change, then you gotta change.  Don't expect to keep everything the same except for your allocation of points and then see a revolution in your classroom.  If you're looking for a place to begin, try exploring the concepts of Standards Based Learning.  I'd suggest taking a look at some of the resources on http://rickwormeli.net and following the Twitter Chat #SBLchat - Wednesdays at 9:00 pm EST.

I apologize if I've muddied the waters more than I've made them clearer, but sometimes answers aren't simple.  Asking questions, though, is essential.  Try asking yourself these:

1. Do I try to use grades and/or points to motivate?
2. Does it work the way I want it to?
3. Does it lead to falsified grades (grades that don't represent mastery)?
4. Would there be other external motivators I could use with my students besides grades and points?

If they don't want to hang out with Brad, see if they'd rather hang out with Angelina...

Here's an excellent resource created and shared by Pam Jimison.  It's a great way to look at Assessment FOR Learning strategies.  What would you add to her graphic?

http://wjuedtech.wordpress.com/2013/07/25/formative-assessment-infographic/

Disclaimer: I know next to nothing about being an FBI agent, training to be an FBI agent, or anything at all related to the FBI...

Recently I had a conversation at church with a friend who is a former-English-teacher-turned-FBI-agent.  We were discussing a David Baldacci novel i was reading at the time about the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team.  My friend recommended a book by FBI Special Agent Christopher Whitcomb entitled Cold Zero: Inside the FBI Hostage Rescue Team.  The next week at church, my friend showed up with a copy of the book for me, and yesterday I finally got around to starting it.

Now please realize, this book has absolutely nothing to do with teaching or education whatsoever.  I am not recommending it as a book for teachers to read - unless the teacher likes books about the FBI Hostage Rescue Team.  But believe it or not, I found a little Standards Based Learning nugget on page 37.  

The author is recounting how he became an FBI agent.  At this point in the book he has made it to the FBI Academy in Quantico where the best of the best are trained and held to the highest of standards.  In talking about the tests they had to take, the author says the following:

Somewhere in between, we found time to study for the exams that came with relentless frequency.  At least once a week our entire class huddled together, reviewing notes and making sure the less prepared among us would feel ready the next day.  As our letters stated, a score of 84 or lower in any course would result in a New Agent Review Board and disciplinary action.  If you failed to achieve 85 on a makeup exam or performed similarly on another exam, you were gone.

Did you notice what he said?  If you didn't earn a satisfactory score of 85 on a test, you were kicked out of the FBI Academy - BUT NOT RIGHT AWAY.  That's right - the world's top law enforcement agency - that only selects the best of the best of the best and that has the highest standards anywhere - GIVES STUDENTS TEST REDOS!

Often, when considering whether or not to allow students to redo work originally done poorly, teachers are concerned that by doing so they might not prepare young people for the real world.  Teachers struggle with the concept of students getting used to redos and not receiving them later on in life.  I appreciate the logic behind that.  But while I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions to this statement, the real world is full of second chances.

I'm sure for every example I came up with of people getting chances to redo things in the real world, someone could find another example where someone didn't get that chance.  And I'm sure the example I just shared from the FBI has its flaws and limitations.  But the bottom line is this: It is not true that people don't get redos in the real world.

Of course, it is also true that school isn't the real world - it's school.  We aren't supposed to be the same as the real world.  In some cases, we should be better than the real world.  After all, the real world has plenty of flaws.  In other cases, we are preparing for the real world that students will encounter eventually.  But let's not fool ourselves into thinking that if we give a student a redo or retake - ESPECIALLY IF BY DOING SO THE STUDENT LEARNS THE CONTENT - we are dong a poor job of preparing students.

After all, I'd say the FBI Academy is about as "real world" as you get, and even they allow - regardless of how limited - an opportunity for a test redo.

I recently observed a wonderful Geometry class at my school taught by Helen Price.  There were quite a few techniques/strategies she used - from good use of direct questioning to giving students control of their learning to creating a positive culture - that would be worth sharing with others.  However, what really stood out to me was how well she incorporated AFL into the fabric of her planning.  It worked well.  As I watched her class I was reminded of the fact that AFL can't be an afterthought - unless the teacher just likes to add to his or her headaches...

Over the years I have had the privilege of working with many educators across the country helping them incorporate Assessment FOR Learning principles into their classrooms.  It's not uncommon for teachers to agree in theory with the idea that assessments should be used for feedback to guide learning.  It's not uncommon for teachers to agree in theory with the idea that students should continue to retake, redo, and rework assessments until they learn the material.  It is also not uncommon, though, for teachers to have difficulty making this theory work in reality.  It would be nice if learning could be the constant and time the variable, but the real-life constraints of time make implementation difficult.

Turning a philosophy into a classroom reality is not the easiest of tasks for all people.  Many - if not most - of us are very comfortable with what we know.  We tend to not think about life in terms of applying philosophies.  Rather, we look at problems and then plug in the solutions we've used before or seen used before.  While this method has some benefits - it's efficient, it's comfortable, it works if it works - it doesn't lead to the type of professional growth that occurs from getting outside our comfort zones.  We get better at doing what we already do, but what if we could be even better?

It's important, when we recognize theories that should work, for us to keep experimenting until we figure out how to make the theoretical a reality.  Specifically with the philosophy of AFL, I have noticed that when teachers have trouble incorporating it into their classroom it's because they have simply added AFL on top of what they already do instead of weaving it into the fabric of their instruction.

A perfect example of this is with the practice of retakes and redos.  Let's say a teacher teaches a unit of content the same as he or she always does and wraps things up with a traditional unit test.  If the teacher realizes at this point that students have not mastered the content at a satisfactory level, the teacher might feel pressure to turn the unit test into a formative or AFL experience by allowing students to take a retest.  While this is not an inherently bad idea, it often presents some problems for the teacher.  

Time isn't the variable at this point in most of our school systems.  In fact, time is a very limited constant.  So to allow a redo or a retake means more time on a unit of study already completed.  It means repeating things that some in the class have already learned. There just doesn't seem to be time to add this on top of what is already being done.  When handled this way, AFL becomes an additional burden on a teacher.  This should never be the case.

If a coach's players don't run a play right in practice, the coach has the players do it again.  In fact, the coach builds time into the practice session to allow players to run plays again and again and again.  It's assumed that the players won't do things right the first time.  If the coach "taught" the play for the 95% of practice and then tried to run it during the last 5% of the time, the coach might not have time run it again if the players didn't get it right.  This would lead to frustration.  The coach might say something like, "I did the best job I could teaching the plays, but the players didn't pay attention.  I don't have time to have them run the play again.  I need to move on to the next play."

This would be terrible coaching, and, quite frankly, when it occurs in the classroom it's terrible teaching.  Just as a coach builds in time for running plays over and over, a teacher must build in time to assess over and over.  

Back to Mrs. Price's Geometry class: I enjoyed watching Helen Price weave redos/retakes into the fabric of her class in a way that led to student engagement and student ownership of learning.  When I came into her class that day, the students were determining - based on feedback they had received from her - whether or not they were ready for a retake.  Those who felt they were - I love, by the way, how ownership of the learning process was given to the students - moved into another room with an instructional assistant to retake their quiz.  Those who weren't - a little less than half the class - stayed with Mrs. Price for an engaging and interactive review session.  The students who stayed behind had stayed for a purpose and this showed as they worked.  They were focused on what they knew they needed to know better to be ready to take the quiz again.

There are many things I could point out about Mrs. Price's lesson that day.  She incorporated technology well.  She did an excellent job pulling in all students.  She provided feedback that allowed students to make decisions.  She allowed students to learn by teaching each other under her guidance.  But what I was most excited about was seeing an example of how weaving AFL into the instructional plan from the beginning allows what could have been a headache in another classroom to be instead a great opportunity for moving down the path to mastery.

Don't try to add AFL to what you already do.  Instead, redesign and re-plan your practice sessions (lesson plans) so they incorporate redos and retakes of assessments from the very beginning.  

If you considering how to make (or if you should make) redos and retakes a part of your classroom, you really need to spend some time listening/reading Rick Wormeli's thoughts on the subject.  He has a knack for combining the philosophical and the practical.  Here are some of his thoughts copied from an article he wrote in Ed Leadership back in November 2011.  A link to the entire article is included at the end:

When it comes to deciding whether to allow a student to redo an assignment or assessment, consider the alternative—to let the student settle for work done poorly, ensuring that he or she doesn't learn the content. Is this really the life lesson we want to teach? Is it really academically better for the student to remain ignorant?

This practice is not acceptable. To be adequately prepared for college and career, students need to learn the content and skills that society identifies as important. Whether a student was initially irresponsible or responsible, moral or immoral, cognitively ready or not is irrelevant to the supreme goal: learning.

There are far more effective strategies for teaching responsibility than to simply label a student as immature and deny that student learning.

14 Practical Tips for Managing Redos in the Classroom

1. Ask students who redo assignments to submit the original attempt with the new one and to write a brief letter comparing the two. What is different, and what did they learn as a result of redoing the work?
2. Reserve the right to give alternative versions of the assessment if you think students will simply memorize a correct answer pattern or set of math answers. Don't be afraid to make the redone versions more demanding.
3. Announce to students and parents that redos are permitted at teacher discretion. This means that students and parents may not take the redo option for granted.
4. Require students to submit a plan of relearning and to provide evidence of that relearning before work can be redone. This includes creating a calendar in which students list day-by-day what they will do to prepare.
5. If a student doesn't follow through on the relearning steps he or she promises to do, ask the student to write a letter of apology to you and to his or her family for breaking the trust.
6. Require parents to sign the original, poorly done versions of assignments so they're aware that their children have required multiple attempts to achieve the standard. (If there is neglect or abuse in the home, of course, remove this requirement.)
7. After two or three redo attempts, consider shelving the push for mastery of this content for a few weeks. Either the student is not ready to reach the standard, or we're not creative enough to figure out how to teach him or her. Take a break and pursue this content in a later unit of study.
8. If the same student repeatedly asks for redos, something's wrong. The content is not developmentally appropriate, there are unseen issues at home, or perhaps there's an undiagnosed learning disability. Investigate.
9. Choose your battles. Push hard for students to redo anything associated with the most important curriculum standards and less so with work associated with less important standards.
10. Allow students who get Cs and Bs to redo work just as much as students who earn Ds and Fs. Why stand in the way of a student who wants to achieve excellence?
11. If report cards are coming up and there's no time to redo something to change the grade, report the lower grade and assure the student that he or she can learn the material the next marking period. If the student demonstrates improved mastery, submit a grade change report reflecting the new, more accurate grade.
12. For the sake of personal survival, you may choose not to allow any retakes or redos the last week of the marking period as you're closing down the grade book and doing report cards. For eight weeks, you're Mr. or Ms. Hopeful, but for that one week, it's OK to protect your sanity and personal life. You can allow students to learn the material and have their grade changed later.
13. Replace the previous grade or mark with the most recent one; don't average the two attempts together. The A that a student earns on his fifth attempt at mastery is just as legitimate as the Aearned by his classmate on the first attempt.
14. Unless an assessment is complex and interwoven, allow students to redo just the portions on which they performed poorly, not the entire assessment. (To assist with this, consider standards-based grading on your assessments; record the standards or outcomes being assessed at the top of the assessment and provide a separate score for each standard.) Separating standards in this way saves time for both the teacher and the students. Some redos can be a 10-minute interview at the teacher's desk while the rest of the class works on something else.

Source Article: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov11/vol69/num03/Redos-and-Retakes-Done-Right.aspx

Members of this site will appreciate the way middle school principal, Ryan McLane, has described the importance of Mastery Grading.  Read his Education Week article at: http://mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?DISPATCHED=true&cid=25983841&item=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.edweek.org%2Few%2Farticles%2F2013%2F06%2F05%2F33mclane.h32.html%3Ftkn%3DZLCCITACcBCfR8CBWbOW%252BWRaeYRQ%252BrwJbqnf%26cmp%3Dclp-sb-ascd

As this site has grown, so has the number of sports and coaching analogies.  It seems that one way to communicate excellence in the classroom is to compare it to excellence on the field or court.  As sports-related posts/discussions/resources are added to The Assessment Network, links to them will be added to this blog, making it a one stop shop for all AFL-related sports references.

 Videos:

• Michael Jordan Nike Commercial - the importance of failure
• Allen Iverson - talking 'bout PRACTICE
• I Want to be the Starting Tailback... - preventing grading practices from messing up AFL
• Spurs Players Coach Themselves - example of differentiation resulting from meaningful assessment

Pictures

• Standards Based Feedback and All-Star Voting

Blogs:

• Fantasy Football and the Problem with Averaging
• Dean Smith, the Tarheels, and AFL in Action
• An AFL Lesson from Bayern Munich Football Club - keep drilling basic skills
• Good Teaching is a Lot Like Coaching a Mule - the importance of the basics
• Kevin Durant Teaches Us About AFL - using feedback to focus on improvement
• Of Batting Averages, Grading, and MVP Seasons - the problem with averaging
• Coaching in the Classroom - comparing good teaching to good coaching
• A Sports Analogy for Assessment - comparing formative assessment to practice and summative to games
• Why is Allen Iverson on Assessment FOR Learning? - explanation of Allen Iverson Practice video
• Assessment FOR Learning on the Football Field - success on the field happens for the same reasons as success in the classroom
• Applying AFL to a PE Class - comparing weight lifting and AFL

Good Teaching is a Lot Like Coaching a Mule!

If you’re reading this and are from Salem, VA you might have a clue what that statement means.  If you’re not from Salem you’re probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about.

A little background: High school football is a pretty big deal in Salem, just like it is in so many small towns across our country.  But in Salem, Virginia, football might be a slightly bigger deal than in most towns.  The Salem Spartans have had great success on the football field for many years.  In the past 26 years, they’ve won 17 district, 13 region, and 6 state championships.  There have been many reasons for that success, but one consistent throughout all those successful years has been the tough blue-collar play of the offensive line.  And that offensive line is collectively known as The Mules.

From 2000-2004, I had the privilege of being a coach in Salem’s football program.  I was at the bottom of the totem pole – middle school assistant coach – but it was tons of fun to work with the kids and to learn from the amazing coaches in the system.  Willis White, the Virginia High School League Hall of Famer, was the head coach for the high school team.  He liked to remind me that he had “holes in his underwear older than me.”  A buddy I coached with once told me that Larry Bradley, the head coach of our middle school team, had forgotten more football than I’d ever know.  There were so many excellent coaches in the program, but the one I learned the most from was Billy Miles, the coach of The Mules.

As a former high school offensive lineman who had already coached a middle school offensive line at another school, I thought I had a pretty good grasp of what it took to be a successful offensive line coach.  When I was hired to coach for Salem, I sat down with Coach Miles so that he could teach me how to coach Mules.  As I came to appreciate the way The Mules were coached, I also came to realize that I had a lot to learn! 

The Mules were taught higher level thinking.  They learned rules and philosophies which they then applied to the thousands of different situations they might encounter.  They made calls, did combo blocks, read the defense, talked to one another, and changed their plans and assignments all within a matter of seconds depending on how the defense was lined up.  Their ability to apply their knowledge was evident on Friday nights (and Saturdays in the playoffs) as game after game the Spartans were able to pound the ball behind The Mules and right down the opponent’s throat.  Coach Miles was a phenomenal coach and an even better teacher.  I had a never been around a high school offensive line that operated on that cerebral a level. 

As Coach Miles taught me how to play like a Mule – a prerequisite to being able to coach Mules – I’m sure he could see that I was getting excited.  I couldn’t wait to take all that I was learning and share it with the Mules of the future at our middle school.  It was then that Coach Miles reminded me of something: Before I could get my players to this high level of play, I had to make sure they mastered the basics. 

Coach Miles told me to stay away from teaching them how to read the defense and make calls until they could first get in a stance and could make the appropriate first step.  And he told me that I needed to refresh the basics with my players every single day. 

So that’s what we did.  We practiced getting into a three point stance.  We did it over and over again until they had mastered it.  Then we did it some more.  We got into three-point stances and took our first steps until they could do it in their sleep.  Then we did that some more.  As the season went on, we practiced the basics a little less than we did earlier in the year.  After all, I needed to teach my guys how to apply their knowledge to game situations, and that takes time.  But there wasn’t a single practice where we didn’t focus at least a little bit on the basics.

Occasionally I would go up to the varsity practice field to watch Coach Miles and his Mules.  Man, did they work hard!  If you think Marine Corps drill sergeants are tough, you must never have watched Coach Miles!  He made the Marine Corps look like Sunday School!  But Coach Miles loved his Mules and they respected him.  It was a joy to watch them put into practice all he had taught them. 

But even The Mules practiced the basics every day.  That’s right – The Mules, who could read a defense and adjust their blocking schemes in a matter of seconds, still practiced getting in their stance and taking the correct first step every single day. 

Coach Miles never assumed they were beyond the basics.  Therefore, there was no way they would ever forget the basics.  You really can’t become a cohesive and dominant offensive line if you don’t have the basics down.  I suppose Coach Miles could have skipped the basics and assumed that as a varsity coach he was above that.  I suppose when a player messed up the basics he could have bemoaned the woeful and inadequate coaching the players received at the middle school level.  But instead, Coach Miles recognized that without the basics his team would never get to the higher level.  Instead, he took the responsibility on himself to make sure his players had the skills they needed.

See how this applies to teaching? 

Great teaching is just like coaching The Mules.  The goal is higher level thinking.  The goal is to take what has been learned and then apply it to new situations.  But it all starts with the basics.  Students newer to the content (like my middle school linemen) need more time focusing on the basics, but ALL STUDENTS need to continually refresh the basics if they’re going to truly reach mastery.  Students more familiar with the content might not need as much time refreshing the basics, but they still need to revisit them to some degree on a regular basis.

I think sometimes we educators overlook the importance of the basics.  We feel like we have too much to cover to spend time going over the basics.  For example, an Algebra 2 teacher might not feel like he should have to focus on addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and using fractions.  A US History teacher might not feel like she has time to focus on vocabulary not directly related to her state standards.  A Science teacher might not feel as though she should have to routinely revisit proper lab procedures.  And these teachers would be (in my opinion) incorrect.

I routinely hear teachers point out that a lack of basic skills prevents students from mastering their course content.  I think those teachers are correct.  Students often lack the basics which in turn prevents higher level mastery.  My response, though, is to copy Coach Miles.  If the basics are what are preventing students from having success, then focus on the basics.  Perhaps part of the reason students are lacking the basics is that we have a tendency to assume they should have been learned already and as a result move away from them.

Consider your own content area for a moment.  Would your students have more success if they had a better level of mastery of the basics?  Would you have a greater chance of helping them reach higher levels of application if they knew the basics better?  If the answer to either or both question was “yes” then the only acceptable next step (assuming you want your students to have success and to reach higher levels of application) is to figure out how to work regular reviews of the basics into the fabric of your classroom.

This is how you coach The Mules, and this is how you teach students.

There's no other way to put it...  This is good stuff!

As schools and teachers adopt the philosophies of Assessment FOR Learning, it's only natural that grading practices will begin to change. (Click here for more info on grading as it relates to AFL.)  We need to realize that some of those changes will seem strange to some of the parents of our students.  It's important that we can articulate why we make the grading decisions we do.

Rick Wormeli has composed an excellent and thoughtful response to concerns a parent had about grading practices that reflect the philosophy of AFL and Standards Based Grading.  This response is recommended reading for all teachers. Not only will it prepare you to respond to people in your community who might question your practices, it might also help you explain to colleagues who are confused by such practices as well.

Click on the following link to read Rick's response: http://www.adams12.org/files/learning_services/Wormeli_Response.pdf

Educators steal from one another all the time.  It's how we get better.  

The following post is stolen from Matt Townsley (@mctownsley) and his MeTA Musings Blog - a great resource for AFL and Standards Based Grading ideas.  You can read the article in its entirety at: http://mctownsley.blogspot.com/2013/04/sbg-is-more-than-teach-test-reassess.html

In working with educators around the country I have found that most seem to cognitively grasp the concepts of Assessment FOR Learning.  However, many have difficulty putting those concepts into practice.  I think this often happens as a result of not planning with AFL in mind from the get go.  Sometimes educators will teach as they have always taught and then try to attach AFL principles after the fact.  To be most effective, AFL should be embedded into the lesson from the beginning.  For some folks that might mean starting over from scratch.  For others that might mean a few tweaks.  But it must be intentional.

The following post that I copied from MeTA Musings gives an example of how not to practice AFL.  Mr. Jones tries to apply AFL after the fact to this Math classroom.  It then gives an example of how a lesson or unit might look if AFL is there from the start.  This image (https://salemafl.ning.com/photo/sbgflowchart) goes along with the example below.

I'd love to hear any feedback you might have.

Here's an example of how SBG should not work in a middle school math class:

Mr. Jones teaches the area of a triangle on Monday and assigns some practice problems to complete in and outside of class.  Some of the students complete all of the practice problems.  Some of them do not. All students are provided the answers ahead of time on the board.  Mr. Jones teaches the area of a circle on Tuesday and assigns some practice problems to complete in and outside of class.  Again, students are provided the answers to the practice problems ahead of time.  Some of the students complete the practice problems and some do not.  On Wednesday, Mr. Jones gives all students a quiz on these two standards.  After Mr. Jones looks at the quizzes, he sees that about half of the class still doesn't understand how to find the area of a triangle or the area of a circle.  He thinks to himself, "Well, I'm really glad we have standards-based grading, because these students can reassess."  The next day, he hands back the quiz and tells students what they need to do before they can participate in a reassessment.  When only a few students show up for a reassessment opportunity during the next week, Mr. Jones becomes flustered and wonders why students aren't taking advantage of reassessments.

When I look at the visual above and think about Mr. Jones' SBG practices, I believe he's missing the "classroom feedback and informal assessment" part of the flowchart.  Mr. Jones appears to think standards-based grading is merely teaching, testing and offering reassessment opportunities. 

Here's an example of what SBG might look like in a middle school math class:

Mr. Johnson teaches the area of a triangle on Monday.  Before he assigns some practice problems, he asks each student to complete a problem on their small whiteboard and hold it up in the air.  Mr. Johnson can quickly see which students are still struggling to understanding the concept.  Rather than assigning everyone the same practice problems to complete it and outside of class. Mr. Johnson makes a quick adjustment and groups together several students who appear to still be struggling.  They will be working with Mr. Johnson for some of the remaining class time and will also be completing different practice problems than their classmates.  The next day, Mr. Johnson asks each student to view a solution to a completed practice problem that is already written in the board.  Each student must write a brief paragraph explaining if the solution is correct or not and evidence to support their reasoning.  Mr. Johnson walks around the room while students are writing their paragraphs.  Next, Mr. Johnson asks students to pair up and share their paragraphs with each other.  Finally, he asks several students to share their written responses aloud and the class collectively decides what the correct solution is to the problem.
Mr. Johnson teaches the area of a circle to round out the class period on Tuesday.  Rather than assigning practice problems from the text, he asks each student to find the area of a circle found in their home.  Each student will be asked to share their findings tomorrow in class.  On Wednesday, Mr. Johnson decides to administer a quiz that he knows will never land in the grade book.  He uses the quiz as an opportunity to provide written feedback to every student, but only after each student has once again self-assessed themselves in pencil against the standards.  Mr. Johnson writes comments by many of the students' solutions and then circles where each student is on a continuum of understanding for each standard.

Mr. Johnson asks students with relative strengths and weaknesses to pair up for seven minutes during class on Thursday.  Josie understood area of a triangle at a high level, but stunk it up on the area of a circle.  She'll be conferencing with Alex who didn't have a clue on the area of a triangle, but dominated the area of a circle.
Later in the week, all students complete another assessment, but this time it goes into the grade book.  Mr. Johnson feels pretty good about the assessment results, because he had the opportunity to see and hear students' thinking during class and was able to provide them with structured feedback through the ungraded quiz prior to the most recent assessment.   Reassessment opportunities are offered to students after the most recent assessment as well.

This fable is far from the ideal classroom, however I think it illustrates an aspect of standards-based grading that I believe deserves more attention in my own conversations with fellow educators: less grading and more feedback.

Sometimes when you're learning a new skill or trying to figure out how to apply a new philosophy, it helps to watch that skill or philosophy being used or implemented in a totally different arena.  Thinking outside the box and adopting new ideas can be difficult when you're extremely familiar with your own domain.  Observing the skill or philosophy at work in someone else's domain is less threatening.  Once you are able to see the benefit of the skill or the power of the philosophy it might be easier to figure out how to include it into your personal realm of familiarity.

I think this might hold true for the application to the classroom of the philosophies of Assessment FOR Learning, Standards Based Grading, and Measuring Student Growth.

Below is a recent article Sports Illustrated article about the Oklahoma City Thunder's Kevin Durant.  As I read it I was struck by just how much sense it makes to assess for the purpose of learning (not grading), to grade and assess based on standards, and to intentionally and meaningfully measure growth.  It just makes so much sense when it comes to improving in life, as evidenced by this article about Durant's attempts to improve as a basketball player.  I wonder why it doesn't always make sense in the classroom where we educators are working tirelessly to get students to improve?

Read the article below for yourself, and as you do, pay attention to the intentional steps Kevin Durant has taken to improve his shooting.

1. He is constantly - daily - assessing himself.
2. He has broken down shooting into "standards" based on different locations on the floor.
3. He is using the feedback from the assessments to determine what "standards" he needs to practice and where he needs to grow.
4. His improvement is constantly being charted so that he and his personal trainer/shot doctor/video analyst/advance scout can keep adjusting the learning plan for maximum growth.

It just makes so much sense for him to do this.  Durant wants to grow, and this is how one intentionally sets out to grow.  

Likewise, it makes sense to me that every teacher would want to:

1. Constantly - daily - assess students.
2. Break down learning into standards based on content knowledge and skills.
3. Use assessment feedback to determine which standards individual students need to focus on in order to grow.
4. Constantly chart improvement so that learning plans can be adjusted for maximum growth.

So read the article below, look for the examples of Assessment FOR Learning, Standards Based Grading, and Measuring Student Growth, and then consider how you could better apply them to your classroom.

HOW 'BOUT THEM APPLES?

Copied from http://www.sportsillustrated.com and written by Lee Jenkins (@SI_LeeJenkins)

On the day after the Heat won their 27th game in a row, Kevin Durant sat in a leather terminal chair next to a practice court and pointed toward the 90-degree angle at the upper-right corner of the key that represents the elbow. "See that spot," Durant said. "I used to shoot 38, 39 percent from there off the catch coming around pin-down screens." He paused for emphasis. "I'm up to 45, 46 percent now." Durant wore the satisfied expression of an MIT undergrad solving a partial differential equation. You could find dozens of basic or advanced statistics that attest to Durant's brilliance this season-starting with the obvious, that he became only the seventh player ever to exceed 50% shooting from the field, 40% from three-point range and 90% from the free throw line-but his preferred metric is far simpler. He wants what Miami has, and he's going to seize it one meticulously selected elbow jumper at a time.

The NBA's analytical revolution has been confined mainly to front offices. Numbers are dispensed to coaches, but rarely do they trickle down to players. Not many are interested, and of those who are, few can apply what they've learned mid-possession. Even the most stat-conscious general manager wouldn't want a point guard elevating for an open jumper on the left wing and thinking, Oh no, I only shoot 38% here. But Durant has hired his own analytics expert. He tailors workouts to remedy numerical imbalances. He harps on efficiency more than a Prius dealer. To Durant, basketball is an orchard, and every shot an apple. "Let's say you've got 40 apples on your tree," Durant explains. "I could eat about 30 of them, but I've begun limiting myself to 15 or 16. Let's take the wide-open three and the post-up at the nail. Those are good apples. Let's throw out the pull-up three in transition and the step-back fadeaway. Those are rotten apples. The three at the top of the circle-that's an in-between apple. We only want the very best on the tree."

The Thunder did not win 27 straight games. They did not compile the best record. Durant will not capture the MVP award. All he and his teammates did was amass a season that defies comparison as well as arithmetic. They scored more points per game than last season even though they traded James Harden, who finished the season fifth in the NBA in scoring, five days before the opener. They led the league in free throws even though Harden gets to the line more than anybody. They posted the top point differential since the 2007-08 Celtics, improving in virtually every relevant category, including winning percentage. Their uptick makes no sense unless Durant was afforded more shots in Harden's absence, but the opposite occurred. He attempted the fewest field goals per 36 minutes of his career. He didn't even take the most shots on his team, trailing point guard Russell Westbrook, and he seemed almost proud that his 28.1 points per game weren't enough to earn the scoring title for the fourth consecutive year. "He knows he can score," says Thunder coach Scott Brooks. "He's trying to score smarter."

Durant is lifting Oklahoma City as never before, with pocket passes instead of pull-ups, crossovers instead of fadeaways. He remains the most prolific marksman alive, unfurling his impossibly long arms to heights no perimeter defender can reach, but he has become more than a gunner. He set career marks in efficiency rating, assists and every newfangled form of shooting percentage. "Now he's helping the whole team," says 76ers point guard Royal Ivey, who spent the past two seasons with the Thunder. "Now he's a complete player." The Thunder are better because Durant is better. Of course, the Heat will be favored to repeat as champions, and deservedly so. But Oklahoma City has been undercutting conventional wisdom for six months.

NBA history is littered with stars who languish in another's shadow, notably Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing and Reggie Miller through the Michael Jordan reign. Oklahoma City lost to Miami in the Finals last June, and Durant will surely be runner-up to LeBron James in the MVP balloting again. Durant is only 24 and is as respectful of James as a rival can be, but he's nobody's bridesmaid. "I've been second my whole life," Durant says. "I was the second-best player in high school. I was the second pick in the draft. I've been second in the MVP voting three times. I came in second in the Finals. I'm tired of being second. I'm not going to settle for that. I'm done with it."

Justin Zormelo doesn't have a formal title. He is part personal trainer and part shot doctor, part video analyst and part advance scout. "He's a stat geek," Durant says, expanding the job description. Zormelo sits in section 104 of Oklahoma City's Chesapeake Energy Arena, with an iPad that tells him in real time what percentage Durant is shooting from the left corner and how many points per possession he is generating on post-ups. After games, he takes the iPad to Durant's house or hotel room and they watch clips of every play. Zormelo loads the footage onto Durant's computer in case he wants to see it again. "If I miss a lot of corner threes, that's what I work on the next morning before practice," Durant says. "If I'm not effective from the elbow in the post, I work on that." Zormelo keeps a journal of their sessions and has already filled two notebooks this season. Last year Zormelo noticed that Durant was more accurate from the left side of the court than the right, and they addressed the inconsistency. "Now he's actually weaker on the left," Zormelo says, "but we'll get that straightened out by the playoffs."

Zormelo, 29, was a student manager at Georgetown when Durant was a freshman at Texas, and they met during a predraft workout at Maryland that included Hoyas star Brandon Bowman. Durant embarked on his pro career and so did Zormelo, landing an internship with the Heat and a film-room job with the Bulls before launching a company called Best Ball Analytics in 2010 that has counted nearly 30 NBA players as clients. Zormelo kept in touch with Durant, occasionally e-mailing him cutups of shots. They bonded because Zormelo idolizes Larry Bird and Durant does, too.

Durant left a potential championship on the table in 2011, when Oklahoma City fell to Dallas in the Western Conference finals. About two weeks after the series, Durant scheduled his first workout with Zormelo in Washington, D.C. "I didn't sleep the night before," Zormelo remembers. "I was up until 4 a.m. asking myself, What am I going to tell the best scorer in the league that he doesn't already know?" They met at Yates Field House, where Georgetown practices, and Zormelo told Durant, "You're really good. But I think you can be the best player ever." Durant looked up. "Not the best scorer," Zormelo clarified. "The best player." It was a crucial distinction, considering Durant had just led the league in scoring for the second year in a row yet posted his lowest shooting percentage, three-point percentage and assist average since he was a rookie. He was only 22, so there was no public rebuke, but he could not stand to give away another title.

"He was getting double- and triple-teamed, and in order to win a championship, he needed to make better decisions with the ball," says former Thunder point guard Kevin Ollie, now the head coach at Connecticut. "He needed to find other things he could do besides force up shots. That was the incentive to change his pattern." Over several weeks Zormelo and Durant formulated a written plan focusing on ballhandling, passing and shot selection. They were transforming a sniper into a playmaker. Growing up, Durant dribbled down the street outside his grandmother's house in Capitol Heights, Md. He played point guard as a freshman at National Christian Academy in Fort Washington. He watched And1 DVDs to study the art of the crossover. "Where I'm from, you got to have the ball," Durant says. "That's how we do it. We streetball." But he sprouted five inches as a sophomore, from 6'3" to 6'8," and suddenly he was a forward. Though his stroke didn't suffer, his handle did. "I still had the moves," Durant insists, "but I dribbled way too high."

He could compensate in high school, and even during his one season at Texas, but the NBA was changing to a league where the transcendent are freed from traditional positions and boundaries. When Portland was deciding between Durant and Ohio State center Greg Oden before the 2007 draft, Texas coach Rick Barnes copped a line that Bobby Knight used when the Blazers were debating between Jordan and center Sam Bowie in 1984. "He can be the best guard or he can be the best center," Barnes told G.M.'s. "It doesn't matter. Whatever you need, he'll do." The Trail Blazers selected Oden and Durant was taken second by Seattle, where coach P.J. Carlesimo started him at shooting guard. "Kevin could be all things," Carlesimo says, but back then he was too gangly to hold his spot or protect his dribble. Brooks replaced Carlesimo shortly after the franchise relocated to Oklahoma City the following season and wisely returned him to forward.

This season Durant is averaging two fewer field goals and nearly two more assists than he did in 2011, and he has practically discarded two-point shots outside 17 feet. Brooks tells him on a near nightly basis, "KD, it's time. I need you to shoot now." Says Brooks, "To extend the apple metaphor, I'm now able to put him all over and get fruit." He isolates Durant at the three-point line, posts him up and uses him as the trigger man in the pick-and-roll. When defenders creep too close, Durant freezes them with a crossover at his ankles or deploys a rip move that former Thunder forward Desmond Mason taught him four years ago to pick up fouls.

"Remember when tall guys would come into the league and people would say, 'They handle like a guard!' but they never actually did handle like a guard?" says Thunder forward Nick Collison. "Kevin really does handle like a guard." Durant has become both facilitator and finisher, shuttling between the perimeter and the paint, stretching the limits of what we believe a human being with his build can do. If his progression reminds you of someone else's, well, that's probably not an accident.

Without Harden, Oklahoma City needed a new playmaker, and Durant had spent more than a year preparing for the role. He just didn't realize it at the time. "They were looking for somebody else to move the defense and handle the ball in pick-and-roll," says a scout. "It turned out to be him." When Durant was 20, the Thunder asked him to act 25, and now that he is nearly 25, the plan for his prime has come to fruition. He is the NBA's best and perhaps only answer for James. "I've given up trying to figure out how to stop him," said Celtics coach Doc Rivers. "And I'm not kidding."

On Nov. 24, four weeks after Harden left, the Thunder were a respectable but unremarkable 9-4 and nursing a five-point lead with one minute left in overtime at Philadelphia. Durant posted up on the right wing, bent at the waist, a step inside the perimeter. Dorell Wright, the unfortunate 76er assigned to him, planted one hand on Durant's rib cage and another on his back. "What do I tell a guy in that position?" asks an NBA assistant coach. "I shake his hand and say, 'Good luck.'"

Durant faced up against Wright, tucked the ball by his left hip and swung his right foot behind the arc, toe-tapping the floor like a sprinter searching for the starting block. Durant had scored 35 points, but on the previous possession he fed Westbrook for a three, and on the possession before that he set up a three by Kevin Martin, who had arrived from Houston in the Harden trade. It was time for the Durant dagger, but before he shimmied his shoulders and unfurled his arms he spotted guard Thabo Sefolosha, ignored in the left corner. Sefolosha was 1 for 6, and in the previous timeout Durant had told him, "You're going to make the next shot." Durant could have easily fired over Wright and finished the Sixers, but he let his mind wander to the ultimate destination, seven months away. I'm going to need all these guys to get to the Finals, he thought.

Durant took one dribble to his left, and center Lavoy Allen rushed up to double him at the free throw line. He dribbled twice more, to the left edge of the key, and two other Sixers slid over. Surrounded by four defenders, Durant finally shoveled to Sefolosha, so open that he feared he might hesitate. He didn't. Durant jabbed him in the chest as the ball slipped through the net.

How about them apples?

A natural outgrowth of the AFL philosophy is the idea that redos are essential to learning.  After all, if learning (rather than calculating a grade) is what's most important, and if for learning to occur students need lots of practice and opportunities to learn from their mistakes, then redoing an assignment just makes sense.  If students can't redo an assignment - either right away, at a later date, or by demonstrating mastery on a future assignment - then by definition the assignment was summative.

It's common for teachers to grasp this concept but then have a difficult time figuring out how to make redos work in their classroom.  That conversation is bigger than any one blog post, but Reed Gillespie from Nokesville, VA has taken a nice stab at it.  Click on this link to read his recent blog post entitled: 12 Steps to Creating a Successful Redo and Retake Policy.

Thanks, Reed, for taking the time to add your voice and ideas to this important discussion!

First, a disclaimer: I am not and never have been a Math teacher.  After teaching Modern World History for 7 years, I went to the "Dark Side" and became an administrator, so I probably don't know anything about teaching Math.

However, I do know a few things about teaching in general.  Furthermore, I have a pretty good grasp of the philosophy of AFL and how applying it in the classroom can increase student learning.  So I'm going to give this a shot.

I've noticed that one of the problems that some Math students have is that they don't practice at home.  I will in no way advocate stopping the assignment of practice to be done at home.  Practice at home is a worthy topic unto itself, but please do not read into what I am about to write that I am recommending not having students practice at home.  In fact, I would recommend assigning practice to be done at home every single night.  But if:

1. Many of our students don't practice at home, and
2. We realize that we cannot control what one does at home, and
3. We believe practice is required to learn the content, and
4. We care MOST about whether or not students learn as opposed to whether or not they make responsible decisions outside of class, then
5. It makes sense to provide as much practice time as possible during class since that is the only time in a student's day we can control.

Of course this idea of giving time to practice in class fits very nicely with the philosophy of AFL.  The AFL teacher would give practice opportunities in class that provide useful feedback for the teacher and the student.  Frankly, I've never known a Math teacher who doesn't give students chances to practice in class.  Usually this comes in the form of a practice problem or getting started on the night's homework.  Typically the teacher will move around the room to see how students are doing and to answer questions the students might have.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this sort of practice activity, but like everything, it does have limitations.  For example, if a student chooses to just "go through the motions" of doing the practice, then very little feedback will be received.  Also, the student who, for whatever reason, doesn't ask questions will quite possibly not learn as well as the student who does ask questions.  Finally, the teacher is only one person and almost always outnumbered greatly by students.  It can be difficult to give each student the specific feedback they need during such an activity.

One more background observation before I share my idea.  I have noticed that students often take test-like or quiz-like situations more seriously than they do other activities.  In other words, kids who will goof around and disrupt classroom practice tend - in a well-led classroom - to sit quietly and do as they're told during a test or quiz situation.

That's a lot of build up and background to an idea that's not all that earth-shattering.  In fact, I'm sure the Math teachers out there will respond by saying, "Been  there, done that!"  But I still figured I'd share a potential practical application of the philosophy of AFL to the Math classroom.

In a nutshell, the idea is to break up the Math process into steps and then give students a daily quiz on each step as they learn the process.  It would look something like this:

• The Math process being taught is broken down into steps.  For this discussion let's assume we're learning Math Process P which is divided into 3 steps.
• The teacher teaches Step 1 and then gives students a quiz on Step 1.  The quiz will ONLY be on Step 1 and it will be worth X points.
• The teacher teaches Step 2 and then gives the students a quiz on Steps 2 AND 1.  This quiz will be worth 2X points.  The student or the teacher might even  choose to erase the first quiz from the grade book or set it to not factor into the grade.
• The teacher teaches Step 3 and then gives the students a quiz on Steps 3 AND 2 AND 1.  This quiz will be worth 4X points.  The student or the teacher might even choose to erase the first two quizzes from the grade book or set them to not factor into the grade.  
• The teacher reviews the quiz on Steps 3, 2, and 1 and then gives a unit test on all aspects of Process P.  This unit test is worth 10X points.  The student or the teacher might even choose to erase the quizzes from the grade book or set them to not factor into the grade.

Here are some more details:

• A quiz might be given the same day as the respective step was taught.  On the other hand, a step  might take more than one day to teach.  If a step takes a few minutes to teach, then the teacher will quiz on it after giving the students a chance to practice it.  If it takes the entire class period to teach the step, then the quiz will open class the next day.  
• If any step takes more than one day to teach, then the students will take a quiz on that step on consecutive days.
• There will be a quiz given every day.

To me this seems like a way to make sure students are practicing in class.  For example, even if the student did no homework, he would still practice Step 1 three times before the unit test, Step 2 two times, and Step 3 one time.  Beyond just practicing the step, the student would be receiving more feedback and more direct feedback than is typically received when the class goes over practice or homework problems.  Finally, the teacher would get valuable feedback as he or she would know how each student - as opposed to just the question askers - was doing on each step.  Plus the teacher would have the specific feedback necessary to tightly focus remediation efforts, determine what might need to be retaught, and create differentiation efforts.  

So, Math Teachers, what do you think?  Could this work?  What have I overlooked?  Would this type of practice - this use of assessment for the purpose of learning - increase the likelihood of students learning?

The January 2013 edition of the Association for Pyschological Science's journal has a great article about what impacts students' learning.  What they found is that certain techniques and strategies have a positive impact on students learning content (and should be continued) and that certain techniques and strategies have little to no impact on student learning (and should be stopped).

The strategies with little impact include summarizing content, highlighting, and rereading material and notes.

The strategies that had a positive impact were ones that fell into the category of taking practice tests.

Some may find those results surprising.  Strong AFL teachers shouldn't be surprised at all.  AFL teachers know that Memory is the Residue of Thought.  AFL teachers know that students and teachers need the feedback that comes from regular practice.  Teachers who, for example, have used regular Quia quizzes to prepare students and to gain benchmark data know and attest to the value of taking practice tests.

What was disturbing, though, was the finding that having students prepare/study by rereading notes and by using the highlighter method was more common than having students take regular practice assessments.

It's time to put away the highlighters and break out the practice tests!

Here is a link to the APS study: http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/publications/journals/pspi/learning-techniques.html

RECOMMENDED READING: Here is a link to a post about the study found on the AJC Get Schooled blog: http://blogs.ajc.com/get-schooled-blog/2013/01/11/how-to-study-stop-highlighting-stop-cramming-stop-rereading-notes-start-taking-practice-tests-and-using-flash-cards/

Last spring during our division's professional development day I attended a presentation led by Curtis Hicks and Mark Ingerson.  Their presentation was based on the book Why Students Don't Like School by author and cognitive scientist, Daniel Willingham.  There was one statement in particular they shared from his book that really stuck with me.  In his book, Daniel Willingham says MEMORY IS THE RESIDUE OF THOUGHT.

Think about that statement for a moment - MEMORY IS THE RESIDUE OF THOUGHT.  All teachers are trying to get students to remember content.  If Willingham is correct, then we must first get students to THINK about content.  There can be no residue of thought if there isn't first thinking.

Reflect on your own classroom and teaching practices.  Is the truth behind this statement evident in your classroom?  I would contend that it's worth asking yourself the following question: "Am I doing enough to give students opportunities to THINK about my content?"

If it's true that MEMORY IS THE RESIDUE OF THOUGHT then the following statements are probably true as well:

• The more one thinks on something, the more "residue" that is left.
• More residue leads to greater memory of content.
• Greater memory of content leads to an increase in learning.

As you're thinking about your classroom and how much opportunity for thought your students have, I think it's worth noting an important distinction.  There is a huge difference between LISTENING to content and THINKING about content.  

Students often listen to content and listen to information and we fool ourselves into believing they've been thinking about it just because they heard us.  However, we all know that there have been many times when we have been listening to or hearing a speaker while our thoughts were a million miles away.  Or maybe we have a few students who are engaged in a meaningful class discussion about the content, which also then fools us into thinking that our class as a whole was really thinking about the content.

If we want students to actually THINK about the content, then we need to structure activities IN class that require them to engage with the content, to form opinions, to use facts, and to apply.  We have to create opportunities to really think.  This concept applies to ALL levels of students.  Just because your students are IB or AP students who know how to sit and listen politely doesn't mean that they are thinking about your content.

This is where AFL comes in.  Strategies that are based on the philosophy of AFL are strategies that lead to students thinking about content and assessing their own understanding.  AFL strategies inherently lead to students THINKING about content.

As you head back to school from your Christmas/Winter break, consider what you can do this year to ensure that your students are actually thinking about content and building the residue that will lead to memory.  For AFL strategies and ideas that will help you accomplish this goal, check out https://salemafl.ning.com/profiles/blogs/practical-examples-of-afl-to right here on Assessment FOR Learning.

As readers of blogs on this site know, I love the philosophy of Assessment FOR Learning.  However, a philosophy is only as valuable as the results it produces.  I'd like to share with you some results of AFL's impact on teaching and learning at the school where it is my privilege to serve as an Assistant Principal - Salem High School in Salem, VA.

From school year 1999-2000 to school year 2007-2008 (the school year BEFORE SHS began making AFL its professional development focus), Salem High School averaged 89.6 retentions per school year.  This means that 89.6 students - which on a typical year would be about 7% of our student body - failed to move on to the next grade level.

AFL's focus is not about getting students to pass.  It's about getting students to learn and then making sure that grades accurately reflect that learning.  Obviously, though, passing classes would be a byproduct of such a focus.

Since the 2008-2009 school year, when Salem High School's teachers began adopting AFL strategies and exploring how to use assessment to increase learning, SHS has averaged 44 retentions per year.  That is slightly fewer than half the number of retentions that we averaged during the 9 previous school years.  On a typical year, 44 retentions would be about 3.5% of our student body.

During that same period of time our graduation rate has increased, our state test scores have continued to improve or stay at a very high pass rate, our percentage of students taking dual-enrolled and advanced courses has remained incredibly high, and our SAT scores have remained at or above the national average.  Students at Salem High School are not passing because they are being passed along.  They are passing because they are learning.  And they are learning because the wonderful faculty of SHS is taking very seriously its efforts to use assessment as a learning tool.

AFL works, and I look forward to seeing our data get even better as our teachers become even more proficient at incorporating AFL strategies into their everyday lessons.  

When our school first starting investigating Assessment FOR Learning 4 years ago, the first teacher we had address our faculty with an AFL classroom example was Bert Weschke, our Welding teacher.  Recently, as I have engaged in some conversations about applying AFL practices to the classroom - or more specifically, NOT applying those strategies - I have come back in my mind to Bert's example.  There's a lot to learn about AFL from the way Bert Weschke teaches students to "lay a bead".

A weld bead is a deposit of metal that results from a passing of the welding torch over metal.  Bert shared that when teaching students to lay a bead, he has them practice numerous times on a piece of metal.  As they are practicing, he is moving around the room providing them with feedback.  He has already taught/lectured on how to lay a bead.  Now, as he moves about the room, his students get plenty of practice and receive plenty of feedback.  

Eventually, the student will have to submit a bead that receives a summative grade.  Until that point, though, each student will repeat the process over and over with the goal of mastery in mind.  The feedback the student receives might come in the form of a grade - such as "If this was the final product you'd get a C." - but it isn't going to impact the grade.  

This seems to me to be the common sense way to teach Welding.  Imagine a Welding teacher lecturing and demonstrating how to make a bead, telling the students to study his notes on bead laying that night, and then taking his students into the shop the next day for a hands-on test before moving on to the next topic.  It just wouldn't make sense - unless, of course, mastery of the skill was not the goal.

So why does it make sense to teach this way in a Science class or a History class or any other classroom? It doesn't.

If students are going to master content THEY MUST BE GIVEN OPPORTUNITIES TO PRACTICE THE CONTENT AND THEY MUST RECEIVE FEEDBACK FROM THE TEACHER.  Grading the student really should be secondary.  The feedback could look like a grade - "If the final test were today you'd have a C." - but it really shouldn't be what determines the grade.  

It's true that some students can listen to a lecture or read notes and then do well on a test, but:

1. Not all can,

2. This doesn't ensure long-term learning, and

3. This makes the teacher irrelevant.

No matter the level of the student or the level of the course, teachers MUST provide opportunities for practice and they must give regular feedback along the way.  That feedback could be entered into a grade book; it could be a score on a unique feedback scale (such as a check or check+); it could be descriptive and in paragraph format, or it could be a simple statement such as "Keep working on _____."  

How much feedback is too much?  If you're following kids home in the afternoon to give them feedback instead of being with your family, then you probably need to stop.  Until then, keep giving feedback.

As I think about Bert's example of teaching Welding, I'm reminding of several History professors I had in college.  By lecturing and giving notes without any feedback or assessment prior to the quiz, large test, or exam, essentially these professors ended up assessing whether or not:

1. I had strong listening skills,

2. I could memorize notes, and/or

3. I could teach myself.

What they weren't assessing was how well THEY TAUGHT me the content.

Let's not be like those professors.  Instead, let's be like a good Welding instructor.  Let's make sure that students have many opportunities to practice and receive FEEDBACK.  Let's make sure TEACHERS lead students to mastery.

Assessment in on-line classes presents significant challenges for both students and teachers, especially for teachers like me who give a lot of importance to evidence gathered throughout the course by performance tasks.

The purpose of framing assessment around performance tasks is to clearly distinguish between those who really understand from those who only seem to because through performance understanding becomes "visible". This is the reason that assessments are frequently designed as projects, which are essentially complex, “messy,” and multi-staged problems to be solved. These critical-thinking elements help teachers see levels of comprehension displayed by students. Tasks with these characteristics also go beyond furnishing a snapshot of student understanding to providing "scrapbook" of understanding - in other words a collection of evidence gathered over time, instead of through a single event. This is crucial because "understanding develops as a result of ongoing inquiry and rethinking". (Wiggins pg. 152)

However, this way of framing assessment still goes against many assumptions our students have about learning and thus about grading as they are often considered equivalent. I have spoken with my students at length about this to understand their perspectives, and they offer a variety of interesting ideas that can be summed up in the following two phrases. Whatever is given a grade by the teacher is important, and anything else can be skipped. Further, grades are derived from quizzes and tests.

Several problems arise from these opposing perspectives to learning that need to be looked at carefully. Among them is how forums are approached. Forums provide opportunities for students to put concepts found in the readings in their own terms and bounce ideas off their fellow students. Groups collaboratively plan a product or performance by facing contextualized issues. These exercises give students feedback and practice at doing the task, both valuable for the summative assessment that will come later in the course.

Fellow teacher and blogger Lisa Lane is particularly concerned about the second point because like me, she wants students to extend their understanding of the topic at hand through discussion in forums.

"In terms of course design, I don’t consider the discussion 20% of the course, just 20% of the grade. It’s more like half the class, because it’s the processing and sharing of the knowledge learned via presentation and reading. It’s the heart, not a side activity. It’s lower stakes (not 50% of the grade) because I want the students to feel free to explore." (Lane, 2009)

This seems simple enough, but my experience corroborates Lisa's - the students just don't get it. The message that students receive is that discussions held in forums are 20% of the class and deserve that much of their energy devoted to the course.

I have found a way to begin to resolve this problem. From the beginning of my courses I make it clear that grades will be based on summative assessment only which will take place at or near the end of the course. All other activities are formative and for that reason are not graded. To avoid misunderstandings regarding the importance of non-graded formative activities, I give a mark to each activity, a number according to its relative value. I keep these on a Google spreadsheet permanently linked to the course so it is always up to date and visible to students. The Google spreadsheet is a link so I never have to upload new versions or save them under new names or send the document out to students because they can see updates made to the document in real time or any time they check into the course.

This has effected a change in student's attitude towards formative activities because students can’t stand to receive a low number, even if it doesn’t count towards the grade. I have told them that because activities are formative, they can be improved by going over my qualitative feedback and the rubrics. This of course means being flexible with due dates and very patient with problems students and groups have in submitting assignments on time. It has motivated them to interact more with me, with classmates and with the rubrics and it has focused their attention, even if it is inadvertently, on the learning process - writing, editing, consulting, re-writing, re-editing, consulting again - and less on the grade itself.

Also, if a discussion is designed to last two weeks and it is worth six points (marks), I assign three to the first week and three to the second week. This gets students to participate more constantly and not just at the end of the designated period for that discussion.

Students can compare the number of marks they have to the total possible number at any given moment which serves as an alert for students who fall behind. At the end of the course, they are awarded a Professional Development score, which is simply the sum total of their marks. This indicates effort given towards the activities in the course and their level of mastery of the key course concepts. In nearly every case high marks coincide with high grades and low marks with low grades. Although this score is not part of the grade, students take it as seriously as the grades.

Although it may be counterintuitive to use numbers (marks) to encourage students to practice essential skills, it seems to be a language symbol that communicates a message far clearer than many of my attempts to explain and motivate.

---- References ----

Lane, Lisa. Ramblings on Assessments that work and assumptions that don't. Blog post, 2009. http://lisahistory.net/wordpress/ ?p=392

Wiggins, Grant and McTighe, Jay. Understanding by Design. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2005. pg. 152.

Article originally published in Online Classroom, August 2010.