UNIETD

it’s what you do with the content that matters.

Memorizing & regurgitating falls miserably short of equipping our students.

We’ve made education about manipulation and hoops instead of inspiring our students to pursue learning that matters to them — learning that can help them make a difference in our communities and the world.

I believe students are fully competent to be co-creators of their own learning environments. I believe that students can change the world; they are not the future; they are right now. I believe that students need skills that go far beyond the content of most curricula. I believe that students want to learn, but often they lack the environment that sparks the emergence of passionate, life-long learners. I believe that my students have a voice and it should be heard. I believe students can read at their appropriate grade level and still be illiterate. I believe that each of my students has unique talents and interests that should merge with our learning environment at school. I believe my students are not empty vessels waiting to be filled.

I believe that my students need to develop metacognitive skills and make their thinking visible. I believe that students are fully capable of differentiating their own learning. I believe my students are creative and can teach me important things. I believe school shouldn’t be a place where young people go to watch older people work hard. I believe, if given the chance and the right support, my students will become more than they ever thought they could be. I believe that once students begin to see their talents and gifts, they will grow in confidence.

As a teacher: I believe that my classroom should be a place of joy, engagement, learning and play. I believe that I should be less helpful. I believe that I should ask more questions, and offer fewer answers. I believe that I should model what learning, failing, grit & perseverance look like. I believe that I should take risks, even when I’m afraid. I believe it’s crucial to use content to teach skills. I believe that the most important question I often ask my students is, “What do you need?” I believe that I am not the all-knowing guru, nor do I want to be. I believe I need to be transparent with my learning and who I am. I believe that kids need a life outside of school, so I don’t believe in homework — at least not the rote, meaningless stuff that’s usually assigned.

Effective feedback requires that a person has a goal, takes action to achieve the goal, and receives goal-related information about his or her actions.

Information becomes feedback if, and only if, I am trying to cause something and the information tells me whether I am on track or need to change course.

Any useful feedback system involves not only a clear goal, but also tangible results related to the goal.

in addition to feedback from coaches or other able observers, video or audio recordings can help us perceive things that we may not perceive as we perform; and by extension, such recordings help us learn to look for difficult-to-perceive but vital information. I recommend that all teachers videotape their own classes at least once a month. It was a transformative experience for me when I did it as a beginning teacher. Concepts that had been crystal clear to me when I was teaching seemed opaque and downright confusing on tape—captured also in the many quizzical looks of my students, which I had missed in the moment.

Effective feedback is concrete, specific, and useful; it provides actionable information

To be useful, feedback must be consistent. Clearly, performers can only adjust their performance successfully if the information fed back to them is stable, accurate, and trustworthy. In education, that means teachers have to be on the same page about what high-quality work is. Teachers need to look at student work together, becoming more consistent over time and formalizing their judgments in highly descriptive rubrics supported by anchor products and performances. By extension, if we want student-to-student feedback to be more helpful, students have to be trained to be consistent the same way we train teachers, using the same exemplars and rubrics

Even if feedback is specific and accurate in the eyes of experts or bystanders, it is not of much value if the user cannot understand it or is overwhelmed by it.

helpful feedback is goal-referenced; tangible and transparent; actionable; user-friendly (specific and personalized); timely; ongoing; and consistent.

A great problem in education, however, is untimely feedback. Vital feedback on key performances often comes days, weeks, or even months after the performance—think of writing and handing in papers or getting back results on standardized tests. As educators, we should work overtime to figure out ways to ensure that students get more timely feedback and opportunities to use it while the attempt and effects are still fresh in their minds.

Adjusting our performance depends on not only receiving feedback but also having opportunities to use it.

What makes any assessment in education formative is not merely that it precedes summative assessments, but that the performer has opportunities, if results are less than optimal, to reshape the performance to better achieve the goal. In summative assessment, the feedback comes too late; the performance is over.

performers are often judged on their ability to adjust in light of feedback. The ability to quickly adapt one's performance is a mark of all great achievers and problem solvers in a wide array of fields. Or, as many little league coaches say, "The problem is not making errors; you will all miss many balls in the field, and that's part of learning. The problem is when you don't learn from the errors."

In most cases, the sooner I get feedback, the better.

The ability to improve one's result depends on the ability to adjust one's pace in light of ongoing feedback that measures performance against a concrete, long-term goal. But this isn't what most school district "pacing guides" and grades on "formative" tests tell you. They yield a grade against recent objectives taught, not useful feedback against the final performance standards. Instead of informing teachers and students at an interim date whether they are on track to achieve a desired level of student performance by the end of the school year, the guide and the test grade just provide a schedule for the teacher to follow in delivering content and a grade on that content. It's as if at the end of the first lap of the mile race, My daughter's coach simply yelled out, "B+ on that lap!"

Score student work in the fall and winter against spring standards, use more pre-and post-assessments to measure progress toward these standards, and do the item analysis to note what each student needs to work on for better future performance.

"no time to give and use feedback" actually means "no time to cause learning."

research shows that less teaching plus more feedback is the key to achieving greater learning. And there are numerous ways—through technology, peers, and other teachers—that students can get the feedback they need.