The Elephant, or Yeah, food's great. Unless it's Killing you.

Came across this on Facebook yesterday morning:
Educator Milton Chen tells of a colleague who was in India, when an Indian educator questioned her about the American practice of high-stakes testing. As she explained the policy, the Indian educator said simply, "Here, when we want the elephant to grow, we feed the elephant. We don't weigh the elephant."

Love, love, love it. Then I thought about it. It kind of assumes that one-size-fits-all.

He's right. Elephants, or anything else for that matter, must be fed to grow. Your mother and Maria Montessori will tell you, "You are what you eat." Found this on Pinterest yesterday:

It applies, I think, to your diet of media and ideas, too.

So, to feed and not to measure at all doesn't make a lot of sense. With what are we feeding, and in what direction is the growth?

What's a good diet for one, isn't for another. When my 14-year old was brand-new, he grew like mad; (He was a 20-lb. four month old!) he was also wicked-sick. It was obvious within the first few weeks of his life. If I ate any dairy at all, he crudded up and gagged. And beef? Fuhgetaboutit! When I expressed my concerns to the pediatrician, as I took in a 5-week old with an ear infection, he answered, "He can't be allergic. He's gaining weight." 

Dude, really? 

Judging by one measure, he was doing really well, by all others,not so much. I got a new ped. AJ was skin tested at 9 months, after his first asthma attacks and pneumonia, and his list began (I can't even remember the whole thing anymore...) with milk, eggs, and wheat. 

Don't worry - he's fine now. Exercise and medicine have his asthma well-controlled, and he's down to shellfish, tree nuts, and peanuts, and those aren't all that unusual. He doesn't see himself as sickly - one of my big goals for him - as he might have, had we continued along the path we were on - and is still a pretty sizeable boy. :)

Oh, and for added fun and games at our house - my husband's diabetic. Can you imagine feeding him and not measuring? Don't even.... 

So, feeding the elephant is a good thing, as long as the food is quality and what one actually needs. To feed without any sort of measure, or using the wrong tool, can create all sorts of problems, the worst of which is continuing on a course that isn't working.

 On the other hand, a single, stressed-out measure that gives precious little information beyond a raw score and percentile, is of very little value to me. We need to focus on formative measures.

The trick, of course, is creating a balance, and therein lies the challenge. (*sigh* Great.)  The chicken-and-egg question - the circle that neither begins nor ends - to feed and to check that we are, indeed, growing, and not just in a narrow sense. Then, make adjustments and get back in the metaphorical kitchen. Repeat.

Added to the laundry list of Stuff to Figure Out this Summer: Adding dimension to my assessments. 

This week's goals:

Lay the groundwork for our very first FedEx day. Being allowed to do a one-day project on anything they like and present it any way (within reason) they like will be overwhelming to many. Need to develop a framework for choosing a topic. I'll hash this out while dumping mulch in the front flower beds today.

Continue to learn about high-quality thinking strategies from Making Thinking Visible and add them to the repertoire. This one's been worth every penny of the $17 I spent. 

Get ready for Mini-Society. For the first time in my experience, the kids have chosen a republic. Could be interesting - a lot of strong personalities will try to insert themselves into positions of power. It'll be fun to see how they work this out. Constitution this week, business plans next week - if we have a functioning government. (Of course, we all do business without the benefit of that, but that's a whole 'nother blog post...)

Have a fabulous week. Holy cow! April's almost done!

Elizabeth

Adventures in Grading

Early this week, the kids have been finishing up a science projects that culminates their study on animal adaptations. The task was reasonably straightforward and was an on-your-own assignment:

Study a biome. Create a top-tier predator for that biome. (Once they had planned their predator, I added) Create a prey animal that has a shot at survival with the predator you just created as part of the biome.

We spent a fair amount of lessons looking at the mouths and feet of different animals, and, as part of that time, kids designed their predators bit by bit. This gave them collaborative time, as they shared ideas with each other, even though the project was individual.

Typically, I have a project rubric available at the beginning of a project, so that the kids know exactly how they're being graded. There are always at least two grades - the grade I give and the grade each child gives him or herself, with each of us using the rubric. Sometimes,especially early in the year, I'll have a peer-grade before I see it and give kids the opportunity to make changes based on the grade from the peer eval. The average of the grades goes in the book.

I never quite got around to making that rubric. I know; bad teacher.

Over the break, part of my professional reading was ROLE Reversal by Mark Barnes, a sixth-grade English teacher in Ohio. Check it out here. The Kindle version isn't expensive. (BTW, if you don't have a Kindle - I have a Nook - you can get an app for your tablet or laptop for free.)

One of Mr. Barnes' tenets is, since his class in a Results-Only-Learning-Environment, that his students assign their own quarterly grades. It's not random; they have to justify their choice and conference with him, but the grade they pick is the grade they get.

I teach fourth grade, and while asking them to reflect on a period of six weeks is most likely beyond their range, they can certainly reflect on the work of six days.

So, curious to see what they'd say, and too lazy to bother with a rubric at this point, I let them have at it. "Once your work's on display, write me a letter explaining what letter grade you feel like you've earned and why." No minilesson on evaluating or anything, just a cold write. What grade does your work deserve?

Here's what I got:

"I think I should get an A+ (100) because I took my time, colored it, and I made sure it was neat where you could read it. Also I did my best in what we were doing. I re-read it to make sure it made sense. I also kept on drawing the animal to make sure it made sense but looked good. That's why I think I should get an A+.

"I think I deserve a B because I did good but I don't think I tryed my hardest to spell the words correctly and we all know I suck at spelling, but I still think I should of asked for help in my spelling."


This is the work of an EC student. A lovely girl, somewhat overshadowed by an overachieving big sister, whom I taught several years ago. This sister's very shy, so I wasn't surprised when she was a bit wishy-washy about what she thought she'd earned.

"I think my grade should be a B or an A because i really don't think my prey go's good with my animal because they are almost both the same, but the prey is more stronger. So I think it should be an A or a B."  I handed her letter back to her and said, "Pick one." She did; an A.

"A B because  I didn't do really good on it, I just did good, and I think the info is pretty good. I just think I did good on the drawing and pretty good on the info."

Okay, not much of a letter, but earlier in the year, he'd try to cry his way out of most assignments and wrote just enough to shut me up on the others. He writes really light, so this didn't photograph well, but it's there, and the amount of detail in his drawings is significant. Had I had a rubric, he would likely have scored a C. The writing isn't as detailed as it might have been and, to be honest, the kid's no artist. What's really important, though, is that he rubric would have completely discounted the growth in task commitment and how much attention he gave this. This is breakthrough work for this guy.

A couple of kids tried the 'I'll butter her up' approach...

... and this was just too funny not to include. 

I love the sincerity. He'll have to choose between a C and a B. Yeah, that last line's about dodgeball. Who knows...

So, what have we learned?

Obviously, we need to spend some time talking about what makes a good project. Most students cited the aesthetics of their projects rather than content, ("I colored neatly")  though that wasn't universal. ("I tried my best on the predator doing its armor and how it catches food and I got a lot of facts.") 

I think, at the beginning of a year, I should still share grading responsibilities and use rubrics, but over time, move to narrative grading that they control. When fourth graders start a year, they've only had one year's experience with letter grades at all. 

It's also safe to let them grade science and social studies, because there's no test for those this year. I don't have to worry about report card grades lining up with testing results, so I can keep playing with it this year.

They grade themselves pretty hard.

With that in mind, I'll set a big ol' long-range goal: develop a set of minilessons that teach how to evaluate their project work. I think it might revolve around having them create feedback for a set of exemplars. If they think about how to write feedback well, they'll better understand the intention of the feedback they get. 

Good night!

Elizabeth

Structure

"Begin at the beginning!" shouts Imogene Herdman in one of my all-time favorite books, PageThe Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It's a voice I hear often, a reminder to approach work as a process, which is, unfortunately, not a skill I naturally possess. I'm much more wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, which, of course, ends with a bunch of useless, half-done bits and pieces.

So, on with a bit of self-discipline.

All of which ties in with where my brain is today: what physical and organizational structure would work best in a minds-on, hands-on, do-something classroom? Since I'm elementary, and set up for a workshop format anyway, I've got desks in pods. The room's a decent size; the only adult furniture in the room is my one (disaster of a) desk and my rocking chair. The rest is low bookshelves and rug space. We've got a big ol' rug with dots that I snagged from The Infamous Year in Kindergarten that lies in front of the Promethean board. Desk pods are worked around that rug. It's comfortable this year, since I've only got 19, but that's unusual - and about 5 short of the norm.

It's fine for a reasonably-traditional fourth grade room. It will have to work better for the transformation I want to become reality. I'm a Montessori chick, so I get the importance of The Environment.

It will require:

• Group space (done.)
• Small team working space - okay, I've got 4 additional rugs that delineate team space. They make physical space obvious, but since they're not walled-in at all, noise 'bleeds' from one to the other, if you take my meaning. I'd also like to add some drawing space - whiteboard dividers, I'm thinking - Stanford's dschool published a DIY plan for a rolling whiteboard: Adult-sized Z-rack. I'm wondering if it couldn't be child-sized - 3' by 3' (?) and suspended from an adjustable shower-curtain rod between two low bookcases. 
• Leave-me-the-hell-alone-I'm-working individual hidey-space that will be used and not abused. Probably three-sided carrells on a pod of desks? On that note, should desks become community real estate, as opposed to individual? Maybe with common basic supplies loaded into each?
• Movable seating. Preferably that which is inexpensive, cleans up easily, and won't require quarantine if someone shows up with lice.

So, my goals for the next few days include:

 

Find a cheap copy of Make Space , which look really interesting. Unfortunately, it's also wicked-expensive. I'll see what I can do. :)

Play around with a classroom design site, like Classroom Architect, to give me an idea of what I might could do.

Keep reading ROLE reversal, with a mind to adapting for fourth-graders.

 Begin reading Making Thinking Visible, which should arrive Monday, in my never-ending hunt for effective, non-worksheet strategies. Training vs. Understanding. I like the concept.

Are you, "Been there, done that!"? I need your help! What's worked for you? Please comment! 

As always, thanks for your time and expertise,

Elizabeth