Poor Students, Rich Teaching. Eric Jensen

page 43.)

       Guide Students to Improvement

      A key benefit of the 3M strategy is developing student autonomy. Students will quickly figure out their milestone and mission but often need help with their method—how to improve their learning. Post a list of “How I Can Get Better at Learning” tips on the classroom wall to encourage students to try various ways of learning and to figure out, on their own, how they learn best. You can make your own developmentally appropriate list of student learning tools. Here are just a few examples.

      • Ask more questions in class.

      • Review work, and talk it over.

      • Summarize the learning daily.

      • Preview learning before class.

      • Work closer with a study buddy.

      • Create a mind map or graphic organizer of the content.

      • Ask the teacher for specific help.

      • Look up difficult concepts.

      You can also have students draw the list and post it or fill out a goal-tracking worksheet. Imagine the powerful effects when students can take their milestone data (like “Eight of fifteen words correct”), reaffirm their mission (“100 percent on my next vocabulary test”), and decide for themselves how to improve their learning (“Maybe I should ask more questions in class”).

      Students can keep their goal tracker in a folder or digital file, or teachers can post them on the wall as ongoing student work. I love empowering students to know and be able to act on the results of their own learning. They’ll know their milestones and their goal (mission), and they’ll choose their next step to get better (method). Finally, it’s most effective when classrooms use the 3M process at least once or twice a week. To empower your students to become better learners, help them learn the tools to do the work, then connect the dots for them. Students learning to regulate their own growth is the heart of the 3M feedback system.

       MIC Feedback

      MIC is an acronym for micro–index card feedback. It is a fast way to help students get unstuck and move ahead. In many classes, students with less confidence dread taking on challenges, creating, producing, completing, writing papers, or doing projects. One issue they have is starting off on the wrong foot and never quite catching up. MIC feedback deals with that issue. It is a way to get inside a student’s head to discover his or her thinking paths (and stuck areas) that might hurt his or her chances for success.

      In language arts, writing a two-page paper can be overwhelming for students with little writing confidence. In mathematics, doing ten problems is a huge chunk for some students. In science, solving a problem or doing scientific thinking is a challenge. You will notice that the size of the process or project (or the number of steps required) is stressful or overwhelming. But students’ approach is key. MIC feedback solves that problem.

      As you start the year (or semester), gathering MIC feedback is simple. Ask students to write their name on the back of an index card. On the other side, ask students to write about any one of the following.

      • Two things about themselves that you (the teacher) should know but most don’t know

      • Past experience in the subject area (in five sentences or less)

      • How the week has been (what they liked and what they’d change)

      • Goals for the class

      • About parts of a paper (introduction, theme, thesis, evidence and support, argument rebuttals, summary, and conclusions)

      • Three friends in the classroom (to learn how much social glue each student has)

      • A five- to ten-word outline of what they are currently working on

      • Advice for another, younger, student about how to approach most mathematics problems

      For the first two weeks, ask for students to do one of these activities every other day. Read and sort these cards. You will quickly identify which students need which types of differentiation.

      With this method, you can learn about specific topics that you would never have time to ask for individually. Over time, students realize they can get help from you (privately, if needed). Initially, this seems like more work. But quickly, students (and you) get the early information correct, and they can move forward in larger chunks faster.

      On the social side, you can use the class time to have students work with just the right partner or in a small group to talk about what they put on their card and what they will do next. (Review chapter 2, page 21, for some group-work strategies.) With peer support, students’ assignments and projects will fit basic proficiency requirements and then you can focus on moving to mastery levels. Each time you use this process, the students will get just a bit better at using the MIC strategy.

       Student Feedback

      Perhaps surprisingly, the all-time best feedback is student feedback to you, the teacher (Hattie & Timperley, 2007). Getting feedback from students is simple. Consider the following four student feedback strategies.

       1. Nonverbal information: This is my favorite strategy because it gives you live, real-time information about how you are interacting with your class. Start watching for nonverbal information. Observe students during seatwork time. Look for signs of physical or emotional distress during the task so you can stop and ask what your students are experiencing (“Can I check in with you for a moment?”). When you introduce something to your class, watch the body language. If any students roll their eyes and slump back in their seats, that’s feedback to you. Your hook or buy-in did not work (or it was missing from your lesson). If everyone except a couple of students is hooked, let each student get started, then go check on the isolated, concerned, or checked-out students. Bob Marzano describes this use of real-time information as withitness, which has a massive effect size of 1.42 (Marzano, 2017; Marzano et al., 2001).

      2. Yesterday’s learning: Retrieval practice has a positive impact on learning (Ritchie, Della Sala, & McIntosh, 2013). To find students who are lost, use an activity to get feedback from the previous day’s class. Give students a blank sheet of paper and twelve minutes to write down everything they can recall from yesterday’s lesson. Collect their work, and quickly sort it to identify the struggling students. Then, reteach confusing concepts and correct your own teaching mistakes. This way, the students get better and so do you.

      3. One-minute summary: At the end of class (as an exit pass), ask students to write an anonymous one-to two-minute note on two topics. First, they answer, “What is the most important thing from class today?” Then, your students answer, “What is still a bit confusing to you about today’s class?” Even though they’re anonymous, which helps students be honest, they’ll give you immediate, useful feedback on your teaching.

      4. Suggestions box: Instead of having students use your classroom suggestions box in a passive way, use the suggestions box as a feedback tool. Ask students before class if they got a bit lost in the previous day’s class (and where). Then, during class give everyone a one-minute suggestion moment for feedback, and encourage them to keep it specific. These tools help you collect valuable feedback, especially if you have already taught students how to tell you what they need. At the end of class, use it as an exit pass. After you sort through the suggestions box once a week, tell students what you read, how much you appreciate their responses, and how you’ll use their ideas to get better as a teacher.

      Students are remarkably candid and accurate in their perceptions of classroom climate. Without quality, continuous feedback, you may as well be teaching in a vacuum.

      CHAPTER 6

      PERSIST