Nov+29+Differentiation+Reading

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Why Every Student Needs Critical Friends by Amy Reynolds

The ability to respond to another person’s work in a helpful and critical way is a skill that all learners need to develop. I agree with the author that it is the “tangible aspects of the learner’s work” that needs to be expressed specifically.

I even think as teachers we say things like “your child is a good student.” While there is nothing wrong with this statement, there are better ways to be more specific. When we focus our own comments on explicit behaviors we want the kids to do then we will get kids who strive to do those positive behaviors.

I also like what the author says about kids having differing strengths and weaknesses. For many years, I think teachers would build up kids with empty comments. You can’t fool kids. They know who is good at each skill. But if we approach our teaching and learning in a more open and honest way, we can build on the strengths of each other. Ronda

Having a classroom, with ‘goals of differentiation,’ may be ‘possible’ for a teacher who teaches in the elementary level and/or high school classes that are eighty minutes long. Since classes at Tanana are 45-55 minutes long, it may be somewhat more laborious for teachers who are tasked with a copious amount of information s/he must teach from the designed curricula. Teachers do need to make every effort to ensure that their students do: ‘trust’ them, take ‘ownership’ of their learning, have an honored ‘voice’ and develop an ‘awareness’ of how they learn, just as the article stated. What seems rather difficult was the goal to make lessons for each individual student. Of course, many teachers individualize grading and teaching for their students; however, when teachers do what the article stated, those teachers are viewed upon as having no control, no focus and yada yada yada. And, many teachers believe that if they don’t ‘teach to the test,’ they risk a label and societal embarrassment (harsh, but is it?). La Verne

I enjoyed this article. It defined differentiation much more simply than other articles I’ve read. The three key elements teachers need to be aware of is setting learning goals, making connections (understanding) to students, and to constantly monitor student progress toward those goals. It also went into four things students must have if they are to be engaged in the learning process, putting them in charge of their own learning, making them life long learners (wow – talk about repetitive word use); they are: trust, fit, voice and awareness. I would love to be able to do this type of teaching in my classroom. The longer I teach and have the same classes – I get closer to being able to differentiate effectively. However, it takes about five times teaching a specific class before teachers are satisfied with the content and pacing. So, the next step would be learning student learning styles and creating lessons that allow students to achieve the same learning goals in several different ways. This could take several more years to get down. I am just now getting to the point where I can differentiate some of my classes – by providing different types of projects. Consequently, our current secondary system does not make it easy for teachers to differentiate their learning goals. Not only do we often teach up to three different classes – we can have up to 150 students or more each semester. Often times we are juggling so many balls, just dealing what needs to be dealt with on a daily basis, that any new balls added (strategies – such as differentiation) may cause us to drop all the balls, so are nothing but unrealistic dreams. We need professional development time to get together with other teachers, teaching the same subjects to try to differentiate lessons. Maybe PLC time on Wednesday mornings will eventually get to this level. I hope so. Jennifer Stugart

A Response to “Why Every Student Needs Critical Friends” by Amy Reynolds The teacher I admired the most in undergraduate school was an art teacher who could repeatedly guide weekly critiques of painting, modeling for us how to find something positive in everyone’s work, how to offer sensitive constructive criticism and to help everyone come away from each person’s critique learning something for themselves. I was impressed then at how he could do that and after having taken many other classes from other instructors I am still impressed at how good he was at it. Just think if we could teach our students how to do this early on in their learning careers what a powerful tool we would be giving them. Both being able to give and take criticism graciously, constructively is so important for growth in any kind of situation, at work or in our personal lives. I think the prompts listed in the article as well as others such as the “Knowledge-telling to Knowledge-Transforming Prompts” in the most recent issue of __Knowledge Quest__ should be posted in classrooms or included in planners. Here are some of the prompts from the __Knowledge Quest__ article. They’re more for self-critiquing -
 * GOAL || My purpose is… ||  ||
 * NEW IDEA || A whole new way to think of this topic is…. || Something that is similar is…. ||
 * ELABORATE || I could develop this idea by adding…. || A good point on the other side of the argument is… ||
 * IMPROVE || To liven this up, I’ll…. || To put it more simply….. ||
 * PUTTING IT TOGETHER || I can tie this together by….. || My main point is…. ||

Katie Sanders

“Why Every Student Needs Critical Friends” by Amy Reynolds Reflection by Karen Kay Mobley

Students of the 21st century are accustomed to many types of critiques. I really liked the ideas presented by Amy Reynolds. I agree that by making students part of the feedback process encourages students to be more active and engaged. By having students provide feedback as an authentic assessment also raises the understanding for all students. Students learn so much from one another. Using prompt questions is a good guide especially for eliciting effective student responses in the beginning. Trust in a classroom is essential for students to participate in assessment of this nature. Students in my class did these book projects at home and they shared with each other by writing a comment down on a quarter sheet of paper. After each student finished presenting their report, they had comments from their peers but I only allowed positive comments. They assembled these comments into a little book. The students really enjoyed the presentations and most were eager to give comments. It was a great experience for all. In the future, I will allow students to give critiques.

Critical Friends comments By Amber I have seen students help peers improve writing by responding to a piece of writing presented by a student. The responses would begin in a couple ways..

“I would like to know more about….” “I like …” “I did not understand …” These were phrases the teacher taught the students to use to deliver effective feed back in the peer editing process. I never thought about the children as critiquing each other, but after reading this article, I see that they were critiquing each other in a very productive manner. Last year, I had my own students asking similar questions at show and tell time. I haven’t begun show and tell yet this year, but I think I do need to get it started. I had something good going there.

Why Every Student Needs Critical Friends

I found this article a very informative and interesting piece. The positive spin on how peers can help each other critique each other’s work was a very good idea. I think it’s a great idea to create a trusting community, and to use the positive prompts for the critiques. “I would like to see more of…”, “One thing I really liked was…” , “One thing to make this stronger would be by…”, and “Did you ever think about” prompts were excellent suggestions for a classroom teacher to use. By helping the students learn positive ways to respond to criticism, instead of negative reactions, I think you could create critical thinkers and positive learners. I also liked the idea of getting feedback from the students about their experience. I think it is important for the students to feel part of the process of learning, and this would be a great way to get feedback from them and new ideas for the next time around. I think this would be an excellent idea for upper Elementary classes, Middle school, and High School, but I think it would have to be more guided and less of a process for lower Elementary students, but overall I feel that it is an excellent tool to utilize. Reading Response by: Nicki Haroldson

This article made the peer response / presentation of writing assignments sound extremely appealing. I recently started a new job for junior high / high school populations, and from what I have seen most of the "writing" assignments are worksheets. I am sure that there is a lot I haven't seen yet, have heard of wonderful projects past teachers have done, and I am already looking forward to practical, life application writing assignments and projects. The program has been short a teacher up until my hiring, and I am sure that the "nuts and bolts" of incorporating activities like this are easier said, and promoted in an article, than done (see LaVerne's comments above). Class size, time constraints, and dynamics of a given group of students are only some of the many variables that could promote or destroy any instructional approach. I don't think there are many jobs out there that require "fill in the worksheet" type tasks, day in and day out. Even job applications require some efficient narrative / descriptive short answer format for describing duties for past jobs. And, like the article points out, writing is for the purpose of communicating with others. If it doesn't make sense or "speak" to the reader, what's the point? Remember the results of the survey reviewed in class? (OK, I just outed that I am posting this late, after the class it was due by.) UAF instructors have voiced concern that incoming freshmen don't know how to write research papers, and the last research project most high school students do is in 10th grade. Writing for effective communication; being able to take and give constructive criticism; meeting the demands seeking, securing and succeeding in a career, post-secondary educational setting, or apprenticeship program are just some of the things we always keep in mind as educators, and the emphasis of this approach would help, of course, not only in writing, but social skills also. I need to educate myself more on course descriptions for high school classes and requirements and see if this would be applicable to more of the curriculum demands. Sarah Voorhees.

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I agree with many of the points made in this article. I have taught English 10, formerly known as Writing about Literature and Intermediate Comp. for seven years. The class is made up of mostly boys that struggle with reading or writing. Sometimes, I have had up to 20 boys and 5-7 girls in a single class – while honors level classes have the exact opposite ratio. I can definitely support what this article has to say about writing. I seem to have more success getting boys to write compositions because I let them choose the topic based on their own interest and experience. We then edit and revise in the computer lab (also essential to the successful completion of the writing process). Although I get a lot of papers on comparing Wii and Xbox, differences between specific models of cars and/or tucks or the effects of not doing well in school and being able to play sports, they are writing and completing the writing process, which causes their writing to impove. So, by applying this idea to reading – schools should offer boys a wider variety of materials. I am trying to get our department head to order a new graphic novel version of Fahrenheit 451. Students who actually read this book enjoy it – because it has enough action (fights, illegal acts – like reading forbidden texts – and murder). I guess the bottom line is that when writing the curriculum – we need to decide on a purpose for the literature chosen: have students read or pretend to have read so that they can receive a grade, or develop a life-long love for reading.

Jen Stugart

I very much enjoyed reading this article and agree with Amy's position. I liked the analogy of peer critiques in a class, to the audience voting singers off of a stage or survivors on an island. Only, in the class the assessing peers must remain constructive in their feedback given. However, one thing that I have noticed, is that it is becoming increasingly more of a challenge to keep students critiquing at appropriate times. Just as, in an audience they can vote immediately and give their judgement, many students do this in class. They have a difficult time refraining from wanting to share their comments.

Maybe it is because I am working with younger students, but also I usually always have several hands going up immediately to go first. There are even more hands shooting up faster when asked for audience feedback. I would have to say, at least my class this year, has done pretty well at evenly offering compliments as well as constructive criticism. Another noticeable difference in the younger students, is that not as many are able to take all feedback received, analyze, and apply it to their future work. -Shane

Response: Why Every Student Needs Critical Friends, by Amy Reynolds

In the elementary grades I think students can recognize mistakes in papers other than a friends, but when it’s a friends paper they usually fail to see any mistakes. Students still have the desire to have others like them and will not risk being too critical about another students’ paper.

Thanks Katie for the self directed writing guidelines. I think if students have a direction, guidelines or rubric to help channel their thoughts and be more specific in projects it lessens the need of critiques from the teacher or their classmates that become more harmful than helpful; harmful in the sense that the student visualizes the mistakes as more work to redo the paper. If the student has followed the guidelines or rubric there should not be as many errors.

In the upper grades there may be guidelines that can help others to critique papers with diplomacy. Sixth graders are not as diplomatic. This skill of helping another student regardless of grade level is important to his or her writing development. A good teacher who creates a solid foundation and examples for the students is essential to successfully develop peer critiques. As the author stated students’ receiving relative and constructive feedback and ideas develop a higher level of critical thinking. As students progress and develop this skill to decipher and analyze written communication increases their ability to have good jobs and it helps to develop their critical thinking. To be on the receiving end of peer critiques is not fun because it does mean revision, but is necessary. Dave W.