In an earlier post here I mentioned that this past year I started reading Robert Marzano's The Art and Science of Teaching. So many aspects of that book spoke to me. I love the idea of having students use a four (or five) level rubric to assess themselves before, during and after their learning of a specific standard.
I promise I am not data obsessed, and we do have a lot of fun in our classrooms, and yes I do love to create super cute crafts for my classroom! And data can be fun too! ;) But this year, I feel like I need to take a step back from my environment and instead focus on my instruction and my student's learning a bit more.
In many of my posts, and in my creating of Common Core I Can/ We Can statements I emphasize the importance of "learning targets". These learning targets are so important for ALL of your students because it conveys to them a destination for their learning. It tells our students what they are to learn, how to deeply learn it, and how to demonstrate their new learning.
Without these specific learning targets many of our students are kind of left roaming the forest in search of a clear path. Learning goals are really pretty easy to make, and this past year my kids loved making them themselves with these "I can" statements.
With your instruction you first communicate your learning goals to your students, plan a guided learning activity that takes place in the classroom, and then plan for assignments that are engaged learning experiences to extend classroom learning (can be homework).
You then plan time for formative assessments in between these learning goals, learning activities, and assignments. With these formative assessments comes Marzano's "scales".
By using a scale, the teacher and the students have a clear direction about instructional targets as well as descriptions of levels of understanding and performance for those targets.
For my specific rubrics or "scales" I used kid friendly language and kept them very simple.
I plan to start my year off using this simple terminology in order to slowly ease my students into using these levels of understanding rubrics. I plan to align each rubric with each Common Core standard and allow my students to assess their level of understanding at a minimum of two times throughout a specific Common Core Standard unit.
It is most definitely a "gradual release" of responsibility! But I am SO excited to implement these in my classroom. With these posters/rubrics, as well as my Student Data Tracking Binders (that you can read about HERE), I feel like my students will be in control of their own learning and growth for the first time EVER.
One question I had from a reader was, how do you communicate what these levels actually mean (or look like) to your students and parents? That's a great question! To answer it, I created this cupcake/baking analogy that you can grab HERE:
Here are some previews of these products. Click each picture to read more about each poster/rubric pack:
Click the pictures or click HERE to be taken directly to my store. I created 3 versions {of course they are super cute!} one version (which is included in the Math Data Tracking and Graphing Binder Packs for each grade) is the "Zebra Math Kids", another set has a "Basketball Kids" theme and the other has "Super Hero Kids" theme (and can be found in the ELA Data Tracking and Graphing Binder Packs). The "Zebra Math" theme comes with only 1 set of teal polka dot posters, but both the "Superhero" (my FAV!) and the "Basketball Kids" products have two sets of the 5 posters (1 in black polka dot with curly border, 1 in green polka dot with curly border}.
**I blog about these in quite a few blog posts, so make sure to roam around to read up on how I use them more!