I had an amazing day yesterday. We hosted a workshop for 54 people from all schools in the district and the Achievement Team (if you have a problem, if no one else can help, maybe you should call…). It’s very challenging to plan a meaningful day for these folks, because they represent our best and [...]
OK, I hate to be a name-dropper BUT… I had a little e-mail exchange with Rick Stiggins the other day. I wrote to ask him about what he says in his presentations with regard to the role of experiencing success in building successful, motivated students. He is particularly eloquent on that topic. He pointed me [...]
After my posting about Malcolm Gladwell’s article, Michael Clow shared some additional material from Bob Pianta, Dean of the Curry School of Education at UVA, one of the subjects of Gladwell’s piece. (You can also check out one of his PowerPoint presentations, or a transcript of a different presentation on a similar topic). Thank you, [...]
I have often thought of writing about Gordon Ramsay, but didn’t know what angle to take. He is now very famous as the brutally frank but utterly brilliant superstar chef and restaurateur. And then this week there was an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education about… well, not about Gordon Ramsay, exactly, but using [...]
Since Day Three of the classroom formative assessment training, we’ve had several opportunities to process and discuss with different groups. (Kelly even ran a session at 6:30 a.m., which is not the most insane thing I’ve ever heard of, but a close second. And lots of people showed up! There’s dedication for you.)
One of the [...]
We’ve been getting detailed with feedback, looking at:
what makes feedback feedback?
what distinguishes helpful from unhelpful feedback?
what is the difference between descriptive and evaluative feedback?
Before you keep reading, you may want to think about whether you could answer those questions. The answers are not in this post.
We read part of Susan Brookhart’s book on descriptive feedback, [...]
It’s been a long time since I worked with rubrics. For a while, when performance assessment and authentic assessment were flavor of the month, I did a lot with rubrics. I was a curriculum coordinator, and I worked with groups of teachers to develop rubrics. I used McREL’s Dimensions of Learning framework, which I really [...]
Stacy gave me this great Malcolm Gladwell article from the New Yorker. (If you don’t recognize his name, you’re sure to have heard of his books The Tipping Point and Blink. He has another book out more recently that Ruth lent me but that I haven’t read yet.)
Ostensibly, the article is about how you can [...]
Under Where Am I Going? there are two strategies: clear target and examples of strong and weak work.
Under Where Am I Now? there are also two: descriptive feedback and monitoring understanding. And I realized this afternoon that descriptive feedback is the strategy we’ve spent the least time on.
I learned today about some of the subleties [...]
We went to another elementary today. Me, Kelly, five principals and the superintendent. This time, we went to a variety of classrooms, using the same protocol as last time to talk about what we saw in classrooms. We saw some good stuff.
The purpose of doing these learning walks is to provide principals with the opportunity [...]
