Healing the Wounded Student Through Formative Assessment

If a student has hurt herself and is bleeding, we do not say, “Wait a few days and we will take care of your bleeding.” We help stop the bleeding immediately.  However, when a student bleeds academically by showing a serious learning gap, we often delay the necessary treatment. When a student displays a learning gap such as  not being able to write a topic sentence in a composition, we  will want to immediately apply the treatment of providing the student with different new strategies.  We  have a list of different strategies on the class website, blog, wiki, a handout, or a QR code.  We write these strategies in student-talk and provide examples.  We provide a  variety of differentiated ways of learning the missing concept of a topic sentence such as  a written explanation, a  Youtubemovie, a podcast, and  a visual.  Through our using the immediacy of formative assessment, the student quickly heals.

Tuttle’s Formative Assessment books

Harry Grover Tuttle’s Three Formative Assessment Books

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Do we help students improve?

I recently talked with a student who had taken a college remedial writing course. Each week in the course she wrote an essay on a writing prompt such as “My weekend”.  Her instructor  plastered her paper with corrections such as “Tenses!” or “Watch your grammar”.  However, this student  did not understand what the exact  tense problem was or how to correct it.   Each week she repeated the same errors. Her instructor did not review whole class errors.   This student did not learn any new pattern or formula for writing  the essays. She only did one type of essay.  She learned how to write better by asking her  friends.

Do we really help our students to improve? Do we give them meaningful formative feedback that helps them improve? Or do we leave our students sinking in their own learning laps? Do we provide them with several strategies from which to select? For example, my formative assessment book on writing, Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, offers many different strategies for each phase of the writing process.  Formative assessment provides continual improvement and success for students.

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Also, my  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

Opening Students’ Minds in Formative Assessment

I had the good fortune to present a full day  formative assessment workshop to a great group of teachers on Friday. They listened, asked questions and created their own formative assessment materials.

During the workshop, I stressed that after we have presented the information and students demonstrate that they do not “get it”, we need to either drastically paraphrase the information or give an entirely different strategy for learning it.  During the workshop, I used several metaphors

Students have a one channel TV.  Although they have the option of many different stations, they stick to one only. When they do not get any reception on that one channel, they do not switch to another way. We have the responsibility to show them how to use the other stations so that they can move forward in their formative assessment.

Students get stuck in a rut when they cannot understand what we present. That rut prevents them from moving forward. We have to help them get out of the rut by providing them with a new strategy for understanding the learning goal. That formative assessment strategy enables them to start back on their learning.

Some quotes about a closed mind or looking at a problem in only one way.

“If your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail”

“Our first problem is not to learn but to unlearn, to clear out some of the old assumptions (ways of thinking and doing).” G. Steinem

“If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.”  V Hill

“Half of being smart is knowing what you’re dumb at.”

“It is not a disgrace to start over, it is usually an opportunity.”

“A mind is like a parachute. It doesn’t work if it is not open.” F Zappa

“A closed mind is like a closed book; just a block of wood”  Chinese Proverb

“A closed mind is a good thing to lose.”

How do you open your students’ minds so that they can learn the critical learning goals in your subject?

My  book,  Successful Student Writing Through Formative Assessment, is available through Eye on Education.

My book,  Formative Assessment: Responding to Your Students, is available through Eye on Education.

Color Coded Rubrics For Formative Assessment

If your rubric has a limited number of concepts, you might consider using  color coding. As you assess student work, you use a certain color highlighter for each major concept in the rubric (for example, for writing, red for  thesis and topic sentences, yellow for evidence, green for details,  etc.)  When you see a strength, you use that color marker to put in a Plus(+) sign next to where you  highlight the actual strength  Likewise, you can put a minus (-) sign next to a learning gap such a sentence that is missing a  transition and indicate where the transition should be.  Since each color corresponds to your rubric, you do not have to write out the type of learning strength or gap.  You indicate the category by its color and then you can write a formative feedback comment more quickly.

A variation is to use a certain colored highlighter for above proficient (green), proficient (blue), developing yellow), and beginning (red)  levels in the student work. For example, if students write an introduction at the proficient level, you highlight it in blue. If their conclusion lacks a restatement of the thesis, does not include the categories of proof, , and does not have an extender, you highlight it in red.  Students can do a color scan of their papers to see their levels of proficiency.

Help your students to improve by adding  color to their work

My book, Formative Assessment: Responding to Students, is available through Eye-on-Education.