Dust has settled Part 2: Visible Learning

Visible Learning
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• Reflection Ticket
• Low Stakes Testing
• Believing in each child

Daily Reflection Exit and Entrance Ticket

I have been using a reflection ticket (Google Form) nearly every day with my students as part of my VL adventure.  One student said the other day (as he was filling out the form, "I learned it because I believed in myself."  I think it is awesome (I love reading over their responses.) and something I've never done before BUT I am struggling to figure out how I measure how effective it is.  

The other day I taught a whole lesson on summarizing and when they took the low stakes quiz a lot of them asked, "What is summarizing?"  Well, I don't need a magic wand to figure THAT one out.  That particular lesson was NOT effective!  

Here's what I'm thinking.  This unit wraps up in one week.  I think for the next unit I will give them all a pretest similar to the post test and use that as my benchmark.  Then I will have concrete data on how they grew or did not grow!  I am open to suggestions.  

What metacognition methods do you use in your classroom?  How do you help students reflect on the content AND their work/attitude?  This is the form I am currently using: ​

Low Stakes Testing

aI have been giving several low stakes quizzes every week as a learning strategy.  So yay for that...BUT here's what I need to do to improve (my goals, if you will):

• Let them show what they know and "test" them in different ways, not just using a Google Form
• I must give them feedback if the low stakes quizzes are going to have a proper impact

One VL guru (Thanks, Craig!) Advised me to focus on just one or two things at a time, which was a huge relief (I'm Queen of biting off more than I can chew.)  So for now, I will:

• Use more variety like: Flipgrid, Quizizz, Kahoot, PollEverywhere, Socrative, and Quizlet
• Make sure they know how to look at the results of their quiz to see how they did.  Show them how to learn from their mistakes.

LOVE love loving putting these strategies into place and thinking about different ways for kids to show what they know.  I can already see a difference in my students confidence.   Confession: I think I was focused on forms because it "gets them ready" for the high stakes testing.  Note to self, don't do that.

Truly Believing in Each Child

The other day we were in a meeting and someone said, "Oh, ______ could never do that."  I'm not judging.  My thinking in the past has not been totally different than that teachers' comment.

I am kinda appalled at MYSELF for not truly believing that each child can excel. I THOUGHT I did, for sure.  But now that I am really conscience of it, I am seeing that this is a growth area for me. To really and truly believe that each student can achieve.  Last year if a child was struggling too much because things were truly too hard, I'd lower my expectations.  This year I'm like, "Nope.  You have to write more because you CAN."  In the past I would care more about their feelings than pushing them to excel.  This is QUITE the eyeopener for me and it is a true pleasure to make the shift.    

Reflection

It is so helpful to put all of this into a blog post. It helps me organize my thoughts and hold myself accountable for future actions.  If you got all the way down to this line, thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts.  #bettertogether