Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Making the (Argument Against the) Grade
When people ask me what my least favorite part of teaching is, it's a no-brainer: grading. I could write countless sonnets about all the ways in which and reasons why I hate it. It's not just that it's so time-consuming (it is) and steals precious weekend hours (it does) or that I labor over how to express the most appropriate, individualized feedback for each student (I absolutely do!); my biggest complaint is that I'm increasingly convinced that this part of my job - assigning letters and numbers to student products - does little to help them learn.
On the other hand, they do lots to distract students from learning objectives, to increase competition among students, and to raise student and parent anxiety. None of that, frankly, is good for my classroom or the learning opportunities I'm trying to create there. I'm not the only teacher who's been interrupted as she introduces a new activity or assignment to be asked "how many points" it is, and we've all spent time consoling students whose disappointment over a single assessment led to tears, anger, or the silent treatment. As fabulous as the parents in my community are, they're still more apt to ask about grades than they are about growth on other continuum.
I'm not saying grades don't motivate students. Certainly, some students crave the recognition that comes with acknowledgement of achievement, whether it's an A+, a gold star, or honor roll, and that desire fuels work. But I question if those students are really engaging in authentic learning and not just high-level people-pleasing; in fact, I can't help but wonder sometimes if the learning that happens in those pursuits is incidental to the grabbing of the carrot at the end of the proverbial stick.
None of this is intended to disparage students who want to succeed academically. I respect students who hold high standards for themselves; I respect them more if their assessment of whether or not those standards have been met is derived from something bigger than the number or letter that appears in a gradebook.
Is this a lot to ask of a student? Maybe, but then I feel like it's our job to help students respond to a lot of other types of feedback and consider other means of evaluation. (To be fair, we need to do the same work with their parents - if we don't want them to obsess over grades, then the onus is also on us to explain our concerns in ways that don't rely solely on bad quiz scores.) A friend teaches at a school where students don't get letter grades at the end of the term; instead, they schedule 15 minute conversations with each teacher to talk about their progress, looking together at important products during the discussion and setting goals together for future improvement. It sounded magical, she said, and liberating... until she found over and over that students would engage in these conversations, saying all the right things, and then as a calculated, almost-afterthought, venture somewhat tentatively, "so, that would be, like, an A-?" It's the in-person equivalent of watching students flip to the last page of a returned paper to see the grade, ignoring all the meticulously crafted questions and comments about choices and structure - to them, the final grade is the most important thing; to me, it's the least.
None of this is revolutionary at this point. This Atlantic article is already a few years old, but feels as just as fresh as last spring's conferences, and it's just one of many recent pieces that questions the efficacy of grades. All over the place, schools are (and have been) experimenting with different formats for summative assessments; student-led conferences, student-curated portfolios, student-designed capstone projects and other options provide opportunities to demonstrate their learning - and more importantly, reflect on it. I'm not sure of the best path away from the traditional grading system so many (too many?) of us are still using, but I'm curious about what better alternatives exist.
Monday, December 4, 2017
Table Talk: A Favorite Discussion Format
As an English teacher, I struggle continually to come up with ways to make in-class conversations meaningful, relevant and engaging for my students. The challenge isn't coming up with questions worth discussing - that part's easy. The challenge is that despite the most careful and deliberate scaffolding and norms-setting, I'm frequently disappointed and frustrated by how easy it is for some students to become either passive observers or dominant speakers, and that students don't retain ideas from class discussions the way they retain information or observations that are shared in a more traditional, transmission model, which leaves me questioning the value and efficiency of setting aside so much time for these conversations.
A few years ago, I started working on a discussion format that would address these and other challenges. Before I outline the details and discuss the benefits, an admission: NONE of this is brand new or completely mine. Any teacher who has guided discussions for adolescent students will recognize elements of Table Talk and will likely have integrated pieces of it themselves. In fact, the whole idea is an extension of Chalk Talk, an activity in which students take turns visiting the board and recording their own thoughts on a single idea or focused question, and which is nicely described here. The iteration I describe below represents the latest, but probably not last, evolution of the idea as it exists for my students.
So this is what Table Talk looks like in my classroom:
Students, usually in groups of three to five, travel to different posters in different corners of the room. Each poster has a single question on it, and as they arrive, students read the question and then quietly write their own responses, adding as many different thoughts as they'd like. After a pre-determined length of time (usually between five and ten minutes), students rotate to the next poster, and this time read classmates' answers as well as the original question, and respond to whatever inspires them. In general, the length of time they have at each poster gets a little longer each round (since there's more to read first), and we continue until all groups have visited each poster. The completed posters provide the outline for our whole group discussion.
Why do I love this activity?
1. Individual accountability - Every student responds at least once to the primary questions. One of the reasons I keep the groups small is to monitor that everyone is writing at each poster, at least once.
2. Anonymity - Unaware of whose comment is whose, students consider all the comments thoughtfully. Students who've been in classes together for years before they reach my room have often pre-determined who's "good at English" and who's not; hiding the identities of the authors on the poster means that each idea is given equal weight. Moreover, students who are unsure of themselves can test out an idea and see how it's received without having to publicly own it.
3. Wait time and reflective time - Students have time to formulate their ideas; speed doesn't determine whose ideas get discussed or noticed. They also have time to think about their classmates' contributions before they respond on the poster or in the whole-group discussion that usually follows.
4. Variety of useful input - Students don't have to feel as if they have a brilliant answer to the question in order to participate; it is just as legitimate and valid for a student to write a clarifying question about another's response, to provide an additional example to support an opinion already documented, or to share a relevant quotation. Even less confident students can offer helpful contributions.
5. Simultaneity - Students are able to engage at the same time at each poster; there's no need to wait for each other.
6. Authentic artifacts - I photograph the posters when they're done and post them to our class website so students and review them for a unit test or as they prepare a final essay.
7. Movement - Physically moving from station to station gets kids out of their seats and helps mark a transition to another question or topic.
8. Flexibility - There are lots of ways to modify the activity for different purposes or groups (more on that in a minute).
Naturally, there are some caveats. Students need to buy in to the QUIET idea, for example. It is both tempting and common for students to start chatting within their groups as soon as they've added their first comment; I've found that reminding them that they can keep adding more comments or can respond even to the replies shared by their own group members can help keep them focused. Depending on your group of students, you might also need to provide some guidance about what constitutes a "good" response. In my room, for instance, we talk about the fact that "Yes," "disagree," or a smiley face - by themselves - don't do much to create a richer discussion; continuing with "because" or "and" or "but" provides more meaningful content.
How might you modify it?
1. For assessment - If you do need to use Table Talk as an assessment, you could certainly have students sign or initial their comments and evaluate them based on a participation rubric. If your class is small enough, you could even achieve this without names if every student wrote in a different color pen or marker.
2. To integrate technology - There are a number of applications that might facilitate a digital version of Table Talk that could be used to allow a greater level of autonomy and self-pacing, or for the activity to be completed outside of class. A Padlet or even a shared Google Doc could provide an online parking lot for student responses; VoiceThread would allow for students to share sound recordings of their responses as opposed to written ones.
3. For length - Obviously, depending on the time available for the activity, the number of individual questions, the rigor of the questions, and the amount of time each group gets per poster can be shortened or protracted. Maybe not every group gets to visit each poster. That's okay!
4. For extension - There are a few different ways I close this activity. Sometimes, when every group has gotten to every question, I just collect them, hang them up front and select some golden nuggets myself to highlight and discuss. Other times, groups are responsible for summarizing one particular poster for the whole group, including both common and outlying ideas. When I'm pressed for time, I'll ask group members to review all the comments on a poster and put stars next to two or three that deserve attention when we can return to them during the next class. The more likely that the content on the posters could be useful in a final essay or project, the more time I spend debriefing them.
So that's Table Talk. It's not the only discussion format I use, but it's among the most popular with my students, for whom it's a familiar routine.
A few years ago, I started working on a discussion format that would address these and other challenges. Before I outline the details and discuss the benefits, an admission: NONE of this is brand new or completely mine. Any teacher who has guided discussions for adolescent students will recognize elements of Table Talk and will likely have integrated pieces of it themselves. In fact, the whole idea is an extension of Chalk Talk, an activity in which students take turns visiting the board and recording their own thoughts on a single idea or focused question, and which is nicely described here. The iteration I describe below represents the latest, but probably not last, evolution of the idea as it exists for my students.
So this is what Table Talk looks like in my classroom:
Students, usually in groups of three to five, travel to different posters in different corners of the room. Each poster has a single question on it, and as they arrive, students read the question and then quietly write their own responses, adding as many different thoughts as they'd like. After a pre-determined length of time (usually between five and ten minutes), students rotate to the next poster, and this time read classmates' answers as well as the original question, and respond to whatever inspires them. In general, the length of time they have at each poster gets a little longer each round (since there's more to read first), and we continue until all groups have visited each poster. The completed posters provide the outline for our whole group discussion.
1. Individual accountability - Every student responds at least once to the primary questions. One of the reasons I keep the groups small is to monitor that everyone is writing at each poster, at least once.
2. Anonymity - Unaware of whose comment is whose, students consider all the comments thoughtfully. Students who've been in classes together for years before they reach my room have often pre-determined who's "good at English" and who's not; hiding the identities of the authors on the poster means that each idea is given equal weight. Moreover, students who are unsure of themselves can test out an idea and see how it's received without having to publicly own it.
3. Wait time and reflective time - Students have time to formulate their ideas; speed doesn't determine whose ideas get discussed or noticed. They also have time to think about their classmates' contributions before they respond on the poster or in the whole-group discussion that usually follows.
4. Variety of useful input - Students don't have to feel as if they have a brilliant answer to the question in order to participate; it is just as legitimate and valid for a student to write a clarifying question about another's response, to provide an additional example to support an opinion already documented, or to share a relevant quotation. Even less confident students can offer helpful contributions.
5. Simultaneity - Students are able to engage at the same time at each poster; there's no need to wait for each other.
6. Authentic artifacts - I photograph the posters when they're done and post them to our class website so students and review them for a unit test or as they prepare a final essay.
7. Movement - Physically moving from station to station gets kids out of their seats and helps mark a transition to another question or topic.
8. Flexibility - There are lots of ways to modify the activity for different purposes or groups (more on that in a minute).
Naturally, there are some caveats. Students need to buy in to the QUIET idea, for example. It is both tempting and common for students to start chatting within their groups as soon as they've added their first comment; I've found that reminding them that they can keep adding more comments or can respond even to the replies shared by their own group members can help keep them focused. Depending on your group of students, you might also need to provide some guidance about what constitutes a "good" response. In my room, for instance, we talk about the fact that "Yes," "disagree," or a smiley face - by themselves - don't do much to create a richer discussion; continuing with "because" or "and" or "but" provides more meaningful content.
How might you modify it?
1. For assessment - If you do need to use Table Talk as an assessment, you could certainly have students sign or initial their comments and evaluate them based on a participation rubric. If your class is small enough, you could even achieve this without names if every student wrote in a different color pen or marker.
2. To integrate technology - There are a number of applications that might facilitate a digital version of Table Talk that could be used to allow a greater level of autonomy and self-pacing, or for the activity to be completed outside of class. A Padlet or even a shared Google Doc could provide an online parking lot for student responses; VoiceThread would allow for students to share sound recordings of their responses as opposed to written ones.
3. For length - Obviously, depending on the time available for the activity, the number of individual questions, the rigor of the questions, and the amount of time each group gets per poster can be shortened or protracted. Maybe not every group gets to visit each poster. That's okay!
4. For extension - There are a few different ways I close this activity. Sometimes, when every group has gotten to every question, I just collect them, hang them up front and select some golden nuggets myself to highlight and discuss. Other times, groups are responsible for summarizing one particular poster for the whole group, including both common and outlying ideas. When I'm pressed for time, I'll ask group members to review all the comments on a poster and put stars next to two or three that deserve attention when we can return to them during the next class. The more likely that the content on the posters could be useful in a final essay or project, the more time I spend debriefing them.
So that's Table Talk. It's not the only discussion format I use, but it's among the most popular with my students, for whom it's a familiar routine.
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