domingo, 24 de abril de 2016

April 25th


KARCHER STAFF BLOG

Student's of the week for 
April 18 - April 22
  • Kylee McNamara: (Silver) 
    • Kylee always has a smile on her face and always looks for the chance to help others. She has a generous spirit!
  • Delbert Gasser: (Applied Academics)
    • Delbert is always friendly and works well with his peers. He is helpful and does a great job participating in class.
  • Dylan Thomas: (Hive) 
    • Dylan put forth awesome effort on his exam this week, displaying responsibility. He has also displayed courage by being a vocal participant in classes.
  • Delaney Brien: (Diamond) 
    • Delaney is a hardworking student that is always representing "The Karcher Way". She has been a quiet leader, but has become an active participant in her classes.
  • Brody Richards: (Onyx) 
    • Brody has a great personality!  He always has a smile on his face even when he's running laps on the track in boots. He is personable, polite, and works hard.
  • Alyssa Blicharz: (Karcher Bucks) 
    • Alyssa is a creative student with a real passion for drawing. She is friendly to all and will happily engage in conversations with everyone, especially her teachers.

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Kudos
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  • Andrea Hancock was chosen as the KCB STAFF OF THE WEEK!  Congrats Andrea and thank you all for continuing to reinforce our 8 character traits. 
  • Congrats to Rod Stoughton and Nick Buendia for a GREAT performance on Monday night for JazzFest.  The students did an amazing job!!!  
  • Thank you to all academic teachers, special education, teachers, and special educations aides for helping proctor all of the Forward Exams this week.  The week went fairly well I thought!  Thank you!
  • Thank you to all staff for your flexibility this week.  I know modified schedules are never ideal but we cannot help state testing requirements and I appreciate all of your flexibility and understanding - thank you.
  • HUGE shout out to Steve Berezowitz for all his work behind the scenes with testing - nice job!
  • Thank you Andrea Hancock for taking the lead with the Walking Lunches KCB rewards.  AND thank all of the staff members who are volunteering to assist with this!!!
  • Please say farewell to Faith Trow, special education aide, who will be leaving us with Monday, April 25, being her last day.  Faith will be moving back to Kentucky.  Good luck Faith!
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Reminders
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  • Half Day on Tuesday
    • Tuesday morning we will be calling students who missed any of their Forward Exams for make-ups.  
    • Tuesday from 12:00 - 12:30 is our special education aide meeting in the library.  Lunch will be provided.  Please make sure you communicate with Kim or Jane in regards to attending.  
    • Tuesday afternoon - Teacher in-service - Building Level.
      • We will be working through best practices and setting some ground work for the 2016-2017 school year.  
      • We will meet in the library at 1:00 - 3:00.
  • PLC Wednesday - Standards/Common Assessments
  • MAP Testing will begin on May 9th.  Marian Hancock sent out information regarding location, etc.  See Marian with any questions.  
  • Walking lunches start on April 25, Monday.  See the Google Document below for sign ups.  More staff are welcome to join and THANK YOU ALL who volunteered to sign up and assist!  
  • First Lady Michelle Obama is encouraging everyone to wear your college gear on Tuesday, April 26 to represent where you went to college or your favorite college.  So... lets see the gear on Tuesday!
  • Looking ahead...
    • May 20th will be our last FNL from 5-7:30.
    • Please let Mike Jones or Donna Sturdevant know if you are interested and willing to assist with the event.  
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Pictures from the week
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Mr. Buendia and his Jazz Band students this past Monday night at BHS.



Mr. Stoughton and his Vocal Jazz Students this past Monday night at BHS.



Ms. Hoffman and Mr. Block working with their students on a jump rope routine... talk about classroom management at its best right here!

Article of the week: Continuation from last week's article.  

Data-Driven Shakespeare


Paul Bambrick-Santoyo
Enhance literature classrooms by using writing to drive conversation.


3. Give In-Class Feedback on Students' Writing

Feedback is one of the most important drivers to improve critical reading and writing. So why limit feedback to summative essays at the end of a unit? Hadley gives students feedback on their writing every day. Here are three key actions that help her find the time.
Create a monitoring pathway. Most teachers who circulate the classroom to give feedback gravitate toward the students who usually struggle or those who raise their hands for help. The cost of this approach is that few other students receive support. To prevent this problem, Hadley monitors students' writing in a pre-set, strategic order, which she calls her monitoring pathway. Perhaps counterintuitively, she goes to her fastest writers first because they're typically the first ones to get something down on paper. Then she moves on to students who write more slowly, thus giving them some extra time to formulate the beginning to their own answers so that she can respond meaningfully.
Use symbols to give feedback. The second obstacle to giving efficient feedback is the amount of time it takes to interact with each student. Hadley plans a few specific symbols she can routinely use to give feedback on students' writing. Here are some of the symbols she uses as she circulates:
  • M=meaning. The student's basic understanding of the text is off. He or she needs to re-read.
  • A=argument. The student's main argument is off.
  • E=evidence. The student needs more or better evidence.
  • Z=zoom in and then zoom out. The student needs to zoom in on each piece of evidence, unpacking words and phrases, and zoom out to explain how this evidence achieves the author's purpose.
Rather than spend 20 seconds explaining that a student needs to look for better evidence, Hadley gives that feedback with a simple code written in the student's page. Twenty seconds shaved off each student interaction translates to reaching more students in a 10-minute span. More students have a chance to improve their answers even before the class discussion begins. Hadley's ability to deliver coded feedback quickly is also greatly enhanced because she already has an exemplar response in hand. Because she knows what she's looking for, it is easier for her to identify the gaps.
Identify the patterns. By using a monitoring pathway and coded feedback, Hadley can more easily identify the patterns of errors that are occurring. On her way through the classroom, she makes notes about overall trends in student understanding, writing the same simple coding on her own paper that she uses for her students. For example, she notices that "E" (lack of high-quality evidence to support an argument) is a weakness in more than half of the students' written responses. During the following discussion, she draws students' attention back to the text and encourages them to cite evidence for the ideas they articulate.

4. Drive the Discourse to What Students Need

By including pre-writing in the lesson, Hadley identifies areas of confusion even before the conversation begins. She can now drive the conversation to what students need to learn, not what they already know.
After students write about Sonnet 65, Hadley calls her class back together. "Students," she says, "we have some solid analyses of the poem, but we're missing some key evidence. I want us to look back at certain lines." She follows by asking targeted questions to clarify the meaning and significance of key words that students misinterpreted or overlooked. "What does 'o'er-sways' mean?" she asks. After a student infers that it means something like "to overtake," Hadley follows with, "So what does it mean that mortality overtakes their power?" At that point students grasp the concept of these seemingly strong and permanent things (brass, stone, earth) being defeated. With that concept solidified, she turns to the last line: "You all noticed that 'black ink' refers to Shakespeare's own writing. But why use the phrase 'shine bright?' What analogy is he making?" Slowly but surely, the students unpack the big idea that a star is heavenly in a way that brass, stone, and sea are of the earth.
As the discussion builds from word meaning to thematic interpretation, Hadley then spurs conversation further by having students analyze one of their peers' responses. "Let's look at Lia's answer," she says, showing the writing sample on the projector. "Do you agree or disagree with her argument? Darius?" Hadley already knows that Darius gave a different answer in his written response. Healthy debate has begun.
Her familiarity with the students' written responses enables Hadley to use the following strategies during the conversation:
  • Start from the point of error. Hadley doesn't waste class discussion time on the analyses that students have already done adequately in writing; instead, she uses that time to dive into their errors. This is data-driven discussion at its best: students use discourse to challenge one another to improve their thinking.
  • Show-call. By showing examples of student responses and asking the class to react to those answers, Hadley makes it the students' job to unpack misunderstandings so that they build off one another to get to a deeper understanding. She can also leverage strong responses to push the class forward.
  • Prompt strategically. Hadley doesn't stop there, though. Rather than just making sure that students are the ones leading the discussion, she monitors which students are doing the talking and when. She asks questions of students she knows are struggling with particular challenges, not students who already know the answers. The conversation is dominated by the students, but it now responds to all students' needs, not just the needs of the extroverted few.

A Data-Driven Cycle of Improvement

Think about the benefits of putting writing first. Although discussion without pre-writing often produces a rich conversation, discussion with pre-writing is more likely to produce meaningful, rigorous learning, in which 100 percent of students grapple with the text and improve their ability to read deeply.
Implement these steps in your classroom, and you've adapted traditional discussion-based learning in a way that will enhance every student's literary understanding. You've increased what each student can do individually, but you've also increased what students can do as a team. The end result is a powerful, data-driven cycle of improvement for literacy: read, write, revise, discuss, revise, and read even more.
When we use student writing to inform literary discussion, we can meet our students exactly where they are at every minute of every class. When we know how far they've already come, we have a great opportunity to help them go even further.

By -

domingo, 17 de abril de 2016

April 18th

KARCHER STAFF BLOG

Student's of the week for 
April 11th - April 15th 
  • Brent Vieau: (Silver) 
    • Brent had an absolutely outstanding defense of Serbia in our World War 1 Peace Conference.
  • Eban Winker: (Onyx) 
    • Eban's effort, attitude, and focus have improved tremendously. He is working hard to do his very best and we are so proud of his accomplishments.
  • Dawson Weis: (Karcher Bucks) 
    • Dawson was student of the week in science and continues to be a leader at track practice.
  • Kale Dietz: (Diamond) 
    • Kale always has a postive attitude inside and out of class. He is a creative problem solver that thinks outside of the box.
  • Alexis Carver: (Applied Academics) 
    • Alexis has shown tremendous growth this semester in orchestra. Her attentiveness and drive this quarter really show loyalty, courage, and responsibility as the standout attributes of our 8 Karcher Characteristics. 
  • Melissa Johnson: (Hive) 
    • Melissa is always exceptionally positive, industrious, and compassionate towards others.



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Kudos
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  • Alyssa Riggs was chosen as the KCB STAFF OF THE WEEK!  Congrats Alyssa and thank you all for continuing to reinforce our 8 character traits. 
  • Thank you Steve Berezowitz for all of your work getting everything set and ready for the Forward Exam this week!  It was a LOT of work and we all thank you for that!!!
  • Please help welcome our student teacher Ryan Scanlan, fom Concorida University.  Ryan is working with Stephanie Rummler and will be with us for the rest of the school year.  
    • Thank you as well Stephanie Rummler for your service to our profession by giving back and helping be his cooperating teacher!
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Reminders
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 Forward Exam Information

Other information:
  • BLT Meeting after school Monday, April 18th - we will meet in the library.
  • JazzFest is Monday, April 18 starting at 6:40pm @ BHS 
  • Tech Tuesday is happening this week!  Molly Ebbers will be available in her room for any help regarding technology that you might have.  Take advantage of this time she is offering up!!!
  • PLC Wednesday:  Literacy in the library within your departments. 
    • Please make sure you are bringing your laptops and curriculum needs along in order to collaborate together as to your infusion of the inferencing strategy.  
  • April 26th - Half Day - Building Level In-service
    • Special Education Aides:
      • We will be meeting from 12:00 - 12:30 in the library, lunch will be provided.  
  • MAP testing begins May 9th.  
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    Pictures from the week
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    Pictures from the Hive Discovery World field trip...
    Ms. Hoffman & Mr. Block team teaching and assisting students with a jump rope routine.  On a side note... outstanding classroom management!  

    Article of the week: Great article highlighting the importance of writing whenever you are going to incorporate a discussion into your lesson design. 

    Data-Driven Shakespeare

    Paul Bambrick-Santoyo
    Enhance literature classrooms by using writing to drive conversation.
    When it comes to teaching English, Shakespearean sonnets reflect both our deepest hopes and our greatest fears. We hope that these poems will give students rich opportunities to think critically and independently. But we fear that the challenging content will frustrate students who struggle with comprehension and critical reading. How can we set the bar high, but also help students clear it?
    Imagine two different middle school teachers working to meet this challenge. Both of their classes are studying a complex text, Shakespeare's Sonnet 65. To develop their students' close reading skills, both teachers have asked students to pay special attention to the first quatrain of the sonnet,
    Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea,
    But sad mortality o'er-sways their power,
    How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
    Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
    and its final two lines,
    O, none, unless this miracle have might,
    That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
    If you listen in on the students' discussion in both classrooms, you might think the lessons were equally rigorous and invigorating. As each class discusses how Shakespeare's use of figurative language helps convey the theme of his sonnet, the students contrast the poet's association of beauty with a delicate "flower," and his use of "brass," "stone," "earth," and "boundless sea" to depict strength. Students also connect this language to the broader theme of the poem—that art, and writing in particular, can give beauty a chance to survive time. A few students make insightful comments that draw the conversation to a powerful close. All in all, it's a rich, engaging conversation.
    Yet if you later assess how well the students in each class analyze a different sonnet in writing, one class will significantly outperform the other. What will make the difference? The teacher of the higher-performing class—Hadley Roach, who teaches at North Star Academy in Newark, New Jersey—has transformed a great literature discussion into deeper learning by skillfully incorporating an under-utilized technique: She asks her students to write before they speak.
    Integrating writing into the daily work of language arts instruction can be one of the most powerful tools for improving reading achievement, according to a recent study by Chandra L. Alston and Michelle T. Brown.1  These researchers compared two groups of students—a group that made remarkable gains on standardized tests and another whose scores improved much less significantly—and considered what kinds of writing tasks the students in each group had experienced. The results were dramatic. Students in the higher-achieving group were far more likely to have been assigned rigorous writing prompts in class and to have received feedback on their responses.
    How can teachers make in-class writing a daily reality in their classrooms? Here are four simple instructional moves that Hadley Roach uses.

    1. Write First, Talk Second

    Let's go back to the beginning of the class discussion. In a traditional class, as soon as students finish reading the poem, the class discussion begins with either student reactions or a well-formulated question by the teacher. But in Hadley's class, the first thing that happens, before any conversation takes place, is writing. Instead of calling on a student to initiate the conversation, Hadley asks every student to write an answer to the prompt, What is the purpose of the imagery in these lines?
    Write first, talk second—it's a simple strategy, but one that's underused in literature classrooms. Students tend to formulate their ideas more thoughtfully and precisely in writing. And when they write first, all students get an opportunity to verbalize their thoughts—not only the most extroverted students, who might normally dominate the discussion.
    In traditional classrooms where discussion occurs first, by the time students are asked to write, they can generate an answer on the basis of what other students said rather than on their own comprehension. Thus, the final essay becomes an exercise in listening comprehension, not text analysis. Teachers can walk away with the false impression that their students have comprehended the material independently. In contrast, writing first gives a clearer picture of what students really understand so that the teacher can better respond to their true needs.

    2. Spar with an Exemplar

    Although the initial responses to the writing prompt are not graded, students will eventually be asked to write an analysis that shows what they have learned. Most of us who teach literacy have grappled with the difficulty of grading student essays objectively. When you have 30 papers before you, how do you decide what constitutes a high-level response versus a mid-level or low-level response? A rubric is a helpful starting point, but applying a numbered list of criteria to a fully fleshed-out essay is still a challenge. What does a good answer really look like for this particular prompt?
    The solution: When you create your final writing prompt, write not only the question students are to answer, but also an exemplar response for your own information. For example, here's an exemplar Hadley could use to set the bar for her students to respond to her pre-discussion writing prompt about Sonnet 65:
    Shakespeare engineers a contrast between beauty and time in his first quatrain. He offers up the concrete images of "brass," "stone," and "boundless sea" only to remind the reader that they will be destroyed by time despite their apparent strength. When he compares beauty to a "flower" in line 4, that flower seems so weak in comparison to the metal, rock, and sea used to represent time's strength that beauty's doom at time's hands seems a foregone conclusion. The imagery in these lines shows how hopeless the narrator believes beauty's fate looks at the beginning of the poem.
    Why spend the time writing an exemplar when students will complete their own analyses and we don't want to steer them to only one correct answer? Because you really can't do justice to their analyses without thinking through the desired response in advance. In fact, many excellent teachers do more than just write their own exemplar—they "spar" with other exemplars. In preparing her writing prompt, Hadley reads up on the most important critics who have analyzed Sonnet 65 and also compares notes with other educators teaching the poem. In this way, she gets a clear sense of what a deep understanding of Sonnet 65 would look like, even for someone who has interpreted it differently than she has.
    This sparring greatly enhances Hadley's own understanding of the poem and prepares her to manage students' multiple interpretations. It can also unearth common areas of focus (for example, she notices that all the critics focus on the words "shines bright" in the sonnet's final lines). In the process, Hadley has become a better student of Shakespeare herself, which makes her a better teacher.
    I will include the next portion of this article next week!

    By -

    domingo, 10 de abril de 2016

    April 11th

    KARCHER STAFF BLOG

    Student's of the week for 
    April 4 - April 8

    • Gwen Busch: (Diamond) 
      • Gwen is a new student and has quickly adapted to Karcher and "The Karcher Way." Gwen treats her classmates with respect, shows enthusiasm for her classes, and has an admirable work ethic. We are glad to have her as a new addition to the Diamond House. 
    • Elizabeth Stoffel: (Applied Academic) 
      • Elizabeth always has a positive attitude, consistently helps those around her, and is always wanting to know how to better her art work.
    • Victoria Vandan: (Onyx) 
      • Victoria consistently displays an extremely positive attitude, she is a very hard worker, and has a sweet demeanor that is appreciated by all who come in contact with her.
    • Cassidy Dorn: (Karcher Bucks) 
      • Cassidy is a responsible worker because she puts forth great effort and takes her time.
    • Sarah Hensley: (Silver) 
      • The Silver House has recently seen her seek out new challenges in her classes.  One of the highlights is taking on leadership roles in class.
    • Tyler Duesing: (Hive) 
      • Tyler is overall a rock solid pillar of our school, displaying honesty, responsibility, respectfulness and kindness to staff and peers.

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    Kudos
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    • Molly Ebbers was chosen as the KCB STAFF OF THE WEEK!  Congrats Molly and thank you all for continuing to reinforce our 8 character traits. 
    • Thank you to our applied academic team, Kaylyn Waki, Jennifer Pelnar, Nick Buendia, Rod Stoughton, Dawn Salbrieter, Jayme Pruszka, Marilee Hoffman, and Hans Block for your work on Thursday morning regarding the infusion of increased literacy in the area of writing for the 2016-2017 school year.  
    • Thank you to our science and social studies teams, Katherine Botsford, Brad Ferstenou, Andrea Hancock, Barb Berezowitz, Stephanie Rummler, Jack Schmidt, Dina Weis, and Linda Amundson for your work as well on Thursday afternoon regarding the infusion of ELA collection units and/or literacy circles as we work to infuse, enhance, and increase the amount of time students are reading and talking about their reading with their peers for the 2016-2017 school year.  
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    Reminders
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    • NOTE - Advisory curriculum has moved to Mondays so that iTime groups can run Tuesday - Friday.  We will see how this goes to assist with how we want to run iTime/Advisory for the 2016-2017 school year.  
      • SPEN will run on Tuesdays and Wednesdays during iTime with Hans Block.
    • Grade postings should be submitted by 3:30pm on Monday, April 10th.  See Kim Moss with any questions.  
    • Staff Meeting Monday - April 11 in the library @ 2:40.
    • Silver House field trip to the Discovery World - Tuesday, April 12.  
    • Forward Exam information:
      • Reminder - we will being the Forward Exam on April 18, next Monday and run testing Monday - Friday.  Make-up testing will be held on April 26, our half day.  
      • Just a follow up to Steve Berezowitz's emails...
        • All proctors for the Forward Exam have to sign the confidentiality agreement prior to proctoring starting on April 18th  (see Steve for this agreement)
        • All of our students should be given the time, during this week, to view the testing features as we do not want them struggling simply because of navigating through the test.  The plan is that this will be done broken up throughout the academic sections - discussed already at team time.
        • There will be no hard copies of the directions for the proctors.  All of the directions are online and this is the link to the directions.
        • Please assist with letting students know that they will all need headphones for this test.  We do not have enough within the building for every student so we will need students to bring a pair in for this exam.  
        • Modified Schedule for April 18, 19, and 20.  
        • April 21 & 22 is for 8th grade testing only and our make-up schedule will be on April 26.  
    • Tuesday - PBS committee meeting with Matt is scheduled after school at Dyer.  Anyone interested in helping can attend.  See Matt with any questions.  
    • Tech Tuesday with Molly Ebbers this week will be on:  4 neat-keeno ways to use polling in Google classroom.  Take advantage of this weekly PD as we move into 1:1 chrome books for next year!
    • PLC Wednesday - New literacy strategy, inferencing will be presented by Patti, Molly, and Jenny in the library.
    • Statewide Tornado Drill on April 14, this Thursday at 1:45.  
    • Looking ahead...
      • Half day inservice on April 26th.  
      • Special Education Aides I would like to have a meeting with all of you from 12:00 - 12:30 on the 26th (lunch will be provided) to discuss some changes moving into the 2016-2017 school year.  Please see me if you are not able to attend.

    • Don’t forget to register for InterActiv 2016 June 15th and 16th.
      BASD covers your registration fees.
      This is the perfect opportunity to get ready for our upcoming Chromebook 1to1.
      We will have many sessions on Google Apps, using them in the classroom, and even a pre-conference on Google Basics.
      Check out the website for more on the sessions and pre-conference offerings.
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      Pictures from the week
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       Ms. Botsford's and Mr. Ferstenou team teaching their first lesson of the unit Rome.  Students went on a gallery walk through images of Rome and were asked to summarize the photo, write down questions or statements they would want to know more about regarding the image, and make an inference about what the main theme is within the photo.  Students flowed between Ms. Botsford's and Mr. Ferstenou's classroom throughout the activity.  



      Students in Ms. Parr's Read 180 class working on comparing fractions through partner activities.  


      Students in Ms. Sturdevant's class simulating bungee jumping with barbies to work on predictions, adjustments, problem solving, and creating an explanation of their math behind, "How many rubber bands are needed for barbie to jump 485 centimeters - no more, no less?"  




      Discovery World - Hive House Pictures...











      National Junior Honor Society - from March 21 but I wanted to include these as I missed adding them last week!



      Article of the week:



      Do They Hear You?

      John Hattie, Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey
      To make sure students will accept and use feedback, integrate these three strategic moves into your instruction.
      Feedback is powerful. In fact, research suggests that feedback can be one of the most effective instructional strategies for improving student performance and closing achievement gaps (Hattie, 2012). Unfortunately, although getting teachers to provide feedback is relatively easy, getting students to receive that feedback is complicated.
      In our experience, students who actually receive feedback are usually willing to use it. Why doesn't this happen more often? One problem is bias—like all of us, students seek feedback that boosts their self-image. If feedback is vague and personal, they may selectively accept only positive comments ("Great job! You're so smart!") and defensively reject negative comments ("This paragraph is confusing, with some awkward sentences"). What's worse, neither of these kinds of "feedback" is actionable; they do nothing to inform the student about what he or she should do in the future.
      It's not easy to break through the walls that everyone has about receiving feedback, but it's well worth the effort. Here are some approaches that can help ensure that your feedback will be received.

      Establish Clear Success Criteria

      We cannot overstate the importance of setting clear expectations for learning. To make the most of feedback, teachers and students must understand what success looks like. When students are able to compare their performance with a clearly understood criterion for success, they are more likely to accept and value the feedback the teacher provides to help them reach that goal.
      For example, teacher Melanie Strauss wanted her world history students to understand the specific events that influenced the rise of the empires of Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, and Russia in the 18th century and to use this information to gain insight into world events today. From their work in the instructional unit so far, her students understood the concept of an empire. They had studied the empire building of these three countries, and they had compared international timelines to explore the idea that history happens simultaneously all over the world. Ms. Strauss began a new lesson by saying,
      Remember the CNN Student News page from last week about Russia? The annexation of Crimea from Ukraine by the Russian Federation has its roots in the Russian Empire dating back to the 1780s. It's still relevant. When you know the history behind the development of a country, you can get a sense of what their citizens value and why. Your challenge is to identify and explain why strong central governments dominated Europe by 1750. When you can answer this question, you'll be ready to figure out why relations between Austria-Hungary, Great Britain, and Russia changed as they fought for dominance.
      In this introduction, the teacher communicated her learning intention, attempted to make the learning relevant for students, and provided a definition of success for the day. In the lesson that followed, her students worked in small "expert" groups to identify the changes for their assigned empire. Ms. Strauss had populated the online learning management system with several articles and websites about each country, as well as commentaries from historians about this time period. The students were tasked with reading and taking notes on several documents to examine how the countries changed geographically, politically, economically, and socially. Then they reconvened in home groups to compare similarities and differences among the three empires. Each home group proposed a hypothesis for why central governments rose to prominence at this time, citing evidence the students had first formulated in the expert groups.
      During the discussions, Ms. Strauss offered feedback to the groups, helping students identify what additional information they would need to refine their ideas and writing. As she met with one group, she noticed that they had included little evidence in their draft. Rather than simply telling them to add more evidence, she said, "I'm thinking that your readers might disagree with one of your statements. How could you make it more convincing?"
      Arturo immediately answered, "We should say where we got the information so they could check if they wanted." The students welcomed her feedback because it was delivered just when they needed it to reach their clearly understood success criterion.
      Here's another example. Students in a 3rd grade class were writing opinion papers. They had studied a number of ways in which writers can use lead sentences to engage their readers. In the current lesson, their teacher wanted them to learn about writing for an audience. She said,
      Today, you'll have a chance to write your lead three different ways so that you can determine the best way to start. You'll get a chance to talk with three different classmates about your leads so that they can tell you which ones they think work the best and why. Then the choice is yours. You'll know you are successful when you have selected a lead for your paper that captures your audience's attention, and when you can explain why you chose it.
      Again, the teacher's clarity invited students into the lesson and opened the door for accepting and valuing feedback from others as students took ownership of their learning.

      Provide Different Kinds of Feedback

      Feedback should help students answer three questions (Hattie, 2012): Where am I going (what are the success criteria)? How am I going (what progress am I making toward those goals)? and Where do I need to go next? By keeping these questions in mind and providing different kinds of feedback depending on what the learner needs at the time, teachers can ensure that their feedback is robust and meaningful.
      We've already discussed the importance of addressing the first question—Where am I going?—by providing clear success criteria. Feedback to address the second question (How am I going?) may be related to three factors (Hattie & Timperley, 2007):
      • The learner's success in doing the task. This kind of feedback is the most frequently given, as it speaks directly to the success criteria. It helps students note where and when errors were made, but more important, it helps them understand and correct those errors. To prepare for giving feedback about the task, ask yourself such questions as, Does the student's answer meet the success criteria? What did he or she do well? Where did he or she go wrong? What other information is needed to meet the criteria?
      • The processes the learner is using. The purpose of feedback at this level is to guide students to self-correct their own cognitive operations. We want our students to ask themselves, How did I get here, and where am I going next? In preparing to give students feedback about the processes they have used, ask yourself, What is wrong and why? What strategies did he or she use? What is his or her understanding of the concepts/knowledge related to the task?
      • The self-regulatory habits the learner is developing. As students deepen their knowledge of a topic, they are increasingly open to feedback that challenges them to reflect on the metacognitive processes they used to learn the content. Ask students questions such as, What happened when you …? What further doubts do you have regarding this task? How have your ideas changed?
      For example, Ryan Knight, an 11th grade English teacher, shifted the kinds of feedback he gave his students over a three-week unit during which they read, discussed, and analyzed a number of 20th century short stories. "I often provide them with feedback about the task throughout the unit, but even more so in the beginning," he said.
      Some of this early feedback was focused on the students' success in performing the task. For instance, when students practiced writing thesis statements, Mr. Knight wanted them to understand that these statements should set up an argument, not just present facts. Before students began writing a short essay on Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," he asked them to draft a thesis statement and turn it in as an exit slip. The next day, he read some of the students' responses to this prompt without identifying the writers, posing questions like, "What is this student doing well?" and "Where does this student need improvement?" After the class discussion, students edited their own thesis statements to better meet the success criterion. One student's original thesis state was In the short story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor contrasts what a "good man" is through the relationship between the grandmother and the Misfit. After participating in the feedback session, the student recognized that this sentence was factual but did not set up an argument. He revised it, writing, In "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," Flannery O'Connor uses the relationship between the grandmother and the Misfit to comment on the high price that society pays when a life is lived selfishly.
      As students' content knowledge deepened, Mr. Knight's feedback shifted as well. In addition to focusing students' attention on the task itself, he posed questions about processes used by the student writers. He asked such questions as, "The response is correct, but why is it correct?" He would also read passages from several student essays and ask, "What do these have in common?" to help students develop the cognitive habit of looking for patterns. For example, one pattern that students noted focused on explanations for quotes. As Mykela commented, "In the examples we like better they always have a sentence to explain what the quote means. It makes a connection from the quote to the topic. The ones we don't like so much just have random quotes stuck in the paper."
      Toward the end of the unit, Mr. Knight intentionally shifted his feedback to focus on the self-regulatory habits he was trying to develop in his students. These metacognitive behaviors are important because students who become skilled at thinking about their thinking are more likely to take their learning with them from year to year. Unlike cognitive tasks, such as remembering information or comparing and contrasting ideas, metacognitive tasks involve strategically planning how to complete a task, matching specific skills and strategies to the task, monitoring one's own understanding, self-assessing performance, evaluating progress toward the completion of a task, and self-correcting as the task is completed.
      For example, Mr. Knight asked his students to journal about their approach to writing thesis statements. He asked them to "consider what you do when you receive a writing prompt. How do you approach the task, and is that working for you?" As he read their reflections, he noted that several students included ideas that they could use in the future, but a few students just summarized what they did for the current topic. Mr. Knight knew that he needed to meet with the latter group to help them think more strategically.
      At another point, he asked the class to assess their performance, saying "I am sorry to interrupt your great work, but I would really appreciate it if you could stop and reflect on your success. What's working for you, right now, and what's not?" He invited students to share and provided them with commentary about their success.
      Andrew said, "I think what's working for me is having my notes and annotations here while I write. I don't have to reread to find everything because I can just read my own notes to remember what I was thinking when I read it before. That makes me realize that I should step up my annotations because it makes things easier for me later." Mr. Knight commented, "That could be a useful process for you. I hope you'll try it out and monitor yourself to see if it's working."

      Promote Students' Listening Skills

      If students aren't skilled in listening, they won't benefit from feedback. The well-known listening skills that students are often taught—such as tracking the speaker, monitoring body language, and not interrupting—are important, but not sufficient. These outward signs can mask a lack of attention to the feedback being given. There's a significant difference between hearing and listening. True listening requires attending to the message, not just looking like one is interested and understands.
      Two conditions can help cultivate students' capacity to listen to feedback across their entire school career. The first condition is that structured feedback should occur regularly. To make students conscious of the role feedback plays in their learning, we should schedule formal feedback sessions, including frequent short conferences between teachers and individual students.
      The second condition is to teach students how to paraphrase the feedback they receive, thereby demonstrating that they understand it. This can occur regularly as a part of the informal feedback conversations teachers have with students. After giving a student feedback about a piece of work, try asking the student to repeat your comments back to you in his or her own words so that you can confirm that he or she understands and knows what to do next.
      Of course, students will be more confident in paraphrasing if they see it explicitly modeled by their teachers. Kindergarten teacher Francesco Calderón regularly features a conversation station as part of his centers rotation (Bond & Wasik, 2009). The teacher has a list of questions he asks the children who visit the center. For instance, he asks them, "Tell me about what you do when you go to the grocery store," and listens carefully to their replies. Mr. Calderón then paraphrases what each student has said. "Tell me if I am correct, Emory. What I heard you say is that when you go to the grocery store …." Sometimes he makes deliberate errors so he and the students can talk about what he can do to improve his listening. "They learn by explaining what they hear," he said. "As the year evolves, we begin to talk about their work, and they bring examples to the conversation station. What begins as simple conversations and paraphrasing becomes guided practice with providing critiques and feedback to one another."

      Powering Up Feedback

      There's no doubt that providing feedback to students can be useful. But we're concerned that many students do not receive the feedback that has been provided. Our experience and review of research suggest that these specific strategies—clarifying the learning intentions and success criteria, matching the level of feedback with the task, and teaching listening skills—can increase the likelihood that students will use feedback. Together, these actions can put more power behind feedback and thus improve students' learning.

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