The Handbook for Poor Students, Rich Teaching. Eric Jensen
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Figure 4.7: Micro goal checklist.
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Remember that some weeks are dedicated to holidays, tests, or professional development, so you’ll have to include these additions in your achievement calendar. When students get questions right or reach their micro goal, make time to celebrate. For example, every time your class reaches a micro goal, pause for quick celebrations, saying, “Hey class, we did it! We are one step closer to our big goal this year.” Celebrations are important because they promote the values and standards that are fundamental to your class. Ultimately, these micro goals are about maintaining engagement, a mindset we cover in detail in part six. In particular, you’ll find even more ways to celebrate small victories and student accomplishments in chapter 18 (page 191).
As a final summation of your work in this chapter, use figure 4.8 as a combined checklist to affirm that a goal you’ve set is gutsy, relevant to your students, and has suitable micro goals.
Figure 4.8: Gutsy goal with micro goal checklist.
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Quick Consolidation: Set Gutsy Goals
Many students get discouraged when you try to put them on the path to gutsy goals. Some will interpret the roadblocks they encounter as a lack of ability. This is why you must continually build the growth mindset. If they struggle, help them uncover the false assumptions or strategies that undercut their belief in their own ability to improve. Help them grow. Higher learning requires not only the achievement mindset but also the emotional safety for a relentless intellectual curiosity. Assume the best of your students, and pursue the gutsy goals with a high expectation for mastery. With this firmly in mind, answer the following reflection questions as you consider your next steps.
1. What did you learn about the importance of setting gutsy goals that you didn’t know when you started this chapter? Why are they so important?
2. What distinguishes an ordinary goal from one that demands mastery?
3. How will you help students believe in their own ability to master the content you teach?
4. What is the role of micro goals in the mastery process? How can you set and celebrate micro goals to keep students on the path to mastery?
5. When students struggle and grow frustrated with the standards you’ve set, what will be your strategies for helping them break through these blocks?
The Handbook for Poor Students, Rich Teaching © 2019 Solution Tree Press • SolutionTree.com
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CHAPTER 5
GIVE FABULOUS FEEDBACK
The topic of this chapter may be the holy grail of generating real student motivation and stronger effort. Here, you get tools to generate better quality feedback. As soon as you and I see progress, we get inspired. With feedback, the goal moves closer, and hope rises. That’s how it works for your students too. Think about the nature of the feedback you give your students, and take a moment to answer the survey questions in figure 5.1.
Figure 5.1: Consider how you approach assessment and feedback.
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Your students need and want quality, ongoing feedback to help them learn. Engage the mindset that great feedback is the breakfast of champions. Making sure that all your students get the feedback they need to grow from their mistakes can feel overwhelming, but it’s an essential part of your teaching toolkit. When you intervene with students by giving them constructive feedback on their learning, you can expect a strong 0.65 effect size (Hattie, 2009), meaning more than one year’s worth of academic gains. Give more positives than negatives (3:1 ratio) and be specific enough to focus on key things students can change.
We start this chapter with a look at the value of providing students with ongoing formative assessment and then details four specific forms of feedback: (1) qualitative feedback, (2) quantitative feedback, (3) micro–index card (MIC) feedback, and (4) student feedback. Unfortunately, these types are often those teachers least use. But you can change that path.
Ongoing Formative Assessment
The term formative assessment means you are using the evidence of learning (or lack of it) to adjust instruction toward a goal during the process, not just at the end. (See figure 5.2 for the feedback loop.) Formative feedback measures progress over the long haul. Formative evaluation for both students and teachers has a very high effect size of 0.90 (Hattie, 2009). This factor is effective across many variables, including student ages, duration, frequency, and special needs. Researchers conclude in one meta-study that regular use of classroom formative assessment raises student achievement by a substantial level—from at least 0.40 to 0.70 standard deviations (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Wiliam, 2018).
Figure 5.2: Feedback loop.
One of the dangers of teaching without ongoing formative assessment is that you might go a week or two and still be unsure if your students are really getting it. But if you set up your class for daily multiple checks for understanding, you’ll learn fast and adjust fast too. Higher-performing teachers notice quickly what is not working and adjust rapidly, revise, and redo a lesson.
No matter what kind of feedback you use in your class, quality formative assessment needs the following five benchmarks to work well: (1) clear, shared goals; (2) progress; (3) actionable feedback that moves learning forward; (4) students as owners of their own learning; and (5) tracking. Use the checklist in figure 5.3 to gauge the effectiveness of the formative assessments you use with your students.
Figure 5.3: Assess your formative assessments.
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When your assessments reflect all of these feedback benchmarks, it leads to far more effective strategies than saying “Nice work” or “Good job.” Using this checklist to evaluate and improve all of your formative assessments might be the single best way to boost achievement. Also, easy-to-use classroom activities can serve as powerful formative assessments. Here are my three favorites from Robert J. Marzano’s (1998) A Theory-Based Meta-Analysis of Research on Instruction.
1. Relevant recall questions (average effect size of 0.93): Before you begin a unit, find out what students know and don’t know. Use a brief quiz packed with questions designed to bring out useful and essential prior learning into the foundation time. Consider just ten questions, and