Making my learners accountable...

Today during Reading I asked my learners how I would know they were actively participating in the learning. The unified response was, "Make sure we are talking about our thinking!"  To make sure this actually happened, I challenged each person to write down one question they asked that contributed to the collaborative task. Our prompts were: 'What question could you ask? Will it tell you the information you want?' I knew this could be easily overlooked then hurriedly made up so I scaffolded the challenge by handing each person one brightly coloured post it note. My thinking was that if they could see a small space to record their question it wouldn't seem to onerous.

The image above reflects success! Everyone recorded a question and only two students felt too shy to share their question during our reflection time. This is a huge shift in confidence so I took a step back and asked myself why this might have happened, and thought about what I might have done/said differently. With my learners working in collaborative groups I was able to roam around the room having deep learning conversations. Upon reflection the most common message I shared was Did it tell you the information you want?

The questions below are our evidence of how each person participated actively in today's learning. The highlighted questions are from my target students.

• What did you do for the summary?
• Can you share your summary please?
• Was Kate Sheppard part of the suffrage or did she make it?
• What was the suffrage movement?
• What is the meaning of suffrage?
• What is a petition?
• Does Women’s suffrage have capital letters?
• How effective was the suffrage movement towards the men that wouldn’t allow women votes?
• Why were some women against the women’s suffrage issues?
• Why did they change their minds about women’s suffragettes?
• Did Kate Sheppard’s personality influence the men’s decisions?
• What were Kate Sheppard’s major achievements that convinced the law to allow women to vote?
• Why was the law so specific with some people not allowed to vote?
• At any point did Kate Sheppard feel like giving up on her main goal?
• How was Kate Sheppard able to keep going knowing there was hate and conflict against her?
• Were all cultures of women allowed to vote?
• Did Kate Sheppard fear that she was going to lose the fight?
• What made Kate Sheppard want to fight for women’s rights?
• Did Kate Sheppard feel like giving up?
• How did Kate Sheppard become the leader of the suffragettes?
• Is the big circle building the NZ parliament building?
• When did Kate Sheppard find out that women couldn’t vote?
• Why did Kate Sheppard decide to start campaigning to get women the right to vote?
• What convinced the men to let the women vote?
• What made Kate Sheppard keep going even though people didn’t like what she had to say? 
• Why did Kate Sheppard join the suffrage movement? 
• What did Kate Sheppard do to become the leader of the women’s suffrage movement?

These questions reflect strong connections are continuing to be made. The difference is my learners have a purpose for asking their questions and today they were accountable for their learning. My next step is to actively plan ways to sustain this accountability.