Making Connections

These are my screenshots of a fake text. Yvette used iFakeText to create fake messages based around the debate about changing the New Zealand flag. Her messages are against the flag being changed, and Evelyn her partner is for the change. These messages state the different reasons for and against. This app allowed the students to 'see' the language features they were using and allowed their partners to 'see' the language features missed out or used incorrectly.

Punctuation Questionnaire

The MIT group devised this questionnaire to see where our class was at with their own understanding of punctuation. They sat with each student to support them with their responses. This decision was made after a group discussion revealed that maybe not everyone would feel confident answering questions if it wasn't explained properly. The group wanted this to be seen as an anonymous questionnaire so they created it on my devise and only I could see who has sent the responses. I printed this out (minus the names) and gave it to them to collate the data.

Our decision: We need to add DLO's that support and scaffold the learning to our rubric so that everyone can access and use it.

MIT Update #3

With our year 7/8 camp over and the work to celebrate the amazing learning we had outside our usual four walls completed, my MIT group are back in action. We are still in the create stage of our 'student speak' rubric and know that if this is to be a success we need to dot all the i's and cross all the t's. I think the most exciting component in our rubric is our decision to include DLO's created by ourselves to help make the learning visual for others. In effect we hope to create a tool that facilitates and support independence when revising a piece of written text, thus helping to shift student achievement.

We realise one size does not fit all. Many of my students stated in an 'anonymous' google form questionnaire that they needed something that allowed them to check their own understanding before they felt confident enough to give others feedback. It was that realisation that if all students in our class were not able to use the rubric with confidence, then it would simply become digital decoration. That is most definitely NOT what we are striving to do. Our aim is to create a tool that becomes embedded in our learning environment and is used often and accessed by many.

Our monumental challenge!

The pictures above show us beginning the challenge of creating our own writing rubric that all the students at PBS could understand. We reflected on our earlier task of assessing our own writing against a rubric written in student speak. Although some of it made sense after we unpacked the language we felt that we needed a rubric that we could use in language that we could understand. Thus the idea of creating our own rubric was born. We started with sentence structure as that had been our learning area the day before and moved onto punctuation. The discussion taking place was amazing. We borrowed some ideas from exemplars but made sure we made the learning our own. I was stunned to see the students 'testing' whether their words were specific and easy to understand. Still very much a work in progress but we're off to a great start! Thank you to Ms Kirkpatrick, Mrs Millward and Mr Wong who helped us check if our thinking would make sense to their students.

Sentence Structure

Today I used my MIT group as 'experts' but have noticed that these students all have strong and dominant personalities. This often results in them taking the lead leaving those who need further support in coasting mode. However today there was a twist... the 'experts' could only question the people in their groups. This completely changed the locus of control, something my 'experts' found very frustrating. 

How did one 'expert' overcome this 'frustration'? 

St. #1: This is really frustrating Miss, they just didn't get how they had to write things in their own words.

T: So what can you do to help them?

St. #1: I could ask them different questions using easier words I think.

T: True... and while you're thinking about what you could say think about how Austin's friends helped him...

St. #1: Oh... I need to be more specific!

T: (thinking) Yah! Connection made!

Having worked through the collaborative challenge we played a version of whiteboard tag. Each group member had a role to play in sharing their understanding of our learning. Sajiha, Fine and Yvette created this quiz about sentence structures to help Room 5 consolidate their learning. We wanted everyone to be successful so allowed the 'open book' option using the group notes if answers needed to be checked. The best part was that by the responses I could see every student showed that they had made a connection to the learning.

How Austin helped Room 5

Sharing Austin's Butterfly with my MIT focus group helped them make real connections to the power of feedback. The students were amazed at the transformation of Austin's initial image to his final drawing. This clip allowed them to see how using 'the eyes of a scientist' his peers were able to guide him through six drafts. Our challenge was to notice what the feedback looked like. 

What we did:

Ideas were recorded on whiteboards independently then shared with a partner. The objective behind the 'list sharing' being to compare lists and merge ideas into one list. This allowed a further two opportunities to connect to the feedback. Once all lists were compiled we shared as a group. By doing this we were able to co-construct the success criteria that would guide our own feedback skills.

We think feedback is:

• Information that supports the learning
• Kind and positive
• Helps people realise and see their errors
• Critical (but not mean)
• Detailed and specific
• Useful - should have a purpose

From our success criteria we derived our learning intention:

• LI: To give useful, specific feedback 

This lesson was observed by our literacy facilitator who asked if they had the opportunity to make a decision about their learning during that lesson and if it was successful.

Student 1: Yes I did because I got to help decide what our Learning Intention was and what that would look like. It will help me to help my critical friend by getting them to see their mistakes in a kind way.

Student 2: Yes because we set our own success criteria. It was fun learning about how Austin changed his simple butterfly into a detailed picture. I think I will think about this when I'm helping my critical friend because it will help me look at my own work too.

What's next?

I need to provide real situations that will allow for specific feedback to be noticed and given. This will allow the students to see how the feedback helped them make changes. To move learning to the next level I will need to provide time for the students who receive feedback to explain in their own words why they were given this advice.

Austin's Butterfly

The power of giving specific feedback. Amazing!