Continuum of Assessment

“Effective assessment is more like a scrapbook of mementos and pictures than a single snapshot.  Rather than using a single test, one type, at the end of teaching, effective teacher-assessors gather lots of evidence along the way, using a variety of methods and formats.” –Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe

Below is the diagram we used to talk about assessment last week.  It was “heavily borrowed” from Wiggins and McTighe, as is the rest of this memo. 

Their argument is that if understanding is our real goal, students must be taught how to understand through effective instruction, including modeling and practice, and continuously assessed in ways that measure the depth of understanding.  With these thoughts in mind, below is information about different types of assessment as described in the second edition of Understanding by Design:

• Informal Checks for Understanding, Observations, and Dialogues: These are often called “Formative Assessments” and consist of on-going assessment of student progress and understanding.  They provide feedback to students about their progress and to teachers about how to adjust instruction.  They are not typically scored or graded.  If they are, the scores usually don’t “count.”  Examples include questioning, observations, examining student work in progress, exit tickets, class discussions, conferencing, quick writes, and think-alouds.
• Tests and Quizzes: These are what we (and students) usually think of when we hear the word assessment.  They consist of content-focused items that assess for information, concepts, and discrete skills.  They usually have selected-response choices or short-answer formats, often with a single best answer.  They are typically “secure,” so the items are not known to the students in advance.
• Academic Prompts: These are open-ended questions or problems that require a student to think critically, not just recall knowledge.  Students must prepare some kind of response or product.  They typically do not have a single best answer and require higher level thinking and an explanation or defense.  These prompts may or may not be secure, but they are often questions typically asked only of students in school.
• Performance Tasks: Wiggins and McTighe define performance tasks as complex challenges that mirror the issues and problems faced by adults.  They range in length from short-term tasks, to long-term, multi-staged projects.  They are typically not secure, and evaluative criteria are known in advance.  Students have greater opportunity to personalize the task and yield one or more products and/or performances.  Important Note: Performance tasks are evaluative.  A performance task is different than assigning an “interesting project.”  Of course, interesting is good, but the performance tasks need to give conclusive evidence about the depth of student understanding of important concepts and skills.

Remember that the sign of true understanding is the ability to transfer knowledge and skills to new situations.  Authentic performance tasks as assessments are a necessity, not a frill, according to the UbD framework.  All of the other assessments listed above can provide evidence of knowledge.  Until students put the knowledge into action, however, we won’t know if they truly understand because we won’t be able to assess their ability to transfer.

Think About It 

This is lots of information.  Let it sit for a while.  Think about the assessments you use in your classes and about possible performance tasks.  By their very nature, you can’t have many, and to be effective, they must be well designed and thoughtful.

Coming along shortly, maybe even next week, will be a chance for you to experience two hypothetical assessments.  No need to cram.  No need to stay up late studying.  Just ponder what you now know about UbD.  And think about how we as a school might be able to report to central office our progress on this specific district initiative.  If you had to assess our school progress on UbD, how might you do so?  I hope to explore some options.

Have a great week, HSE.  Enjoy the snow and cold.  Today’s biting winds and arctic temperatures will make spring feel all the more wonderful.

Phil

A few extra words of wisdom that caught my attention this week:

“The test of a good teacher is not how many questions he can ask his pupils that they will answer readily, but how many questions he inspires them to ask him which he finds hard to answer.” 

                                                                                                  --Alice Wellington Rollins

Listen to the MUSTN’TS, child.

Listen to the DON’TS.

Listen to the SHOULDN’Ts

The IMPOSSIBLES, the WONT’S.

Listen to the NEVER HAVES.

Then listen close to me—

Anything can happen, child.

Anything can be

--Shel Silverstein

Reflections on 1968

In the summer of 1967, our family moved from the Midwest to Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  My father finished up his Master’s degree in pastoral counseling, my mother worked the night shift at a local hospital, and I attended segregated Dalton Elementary School as a fifth grader.

I have vivid memories from that year in Winston-Salem.  One is of the pervasive smell of the city, the home of R. J. Reynolds.  As suggested by the city’s name and nickname, R. J. Reynolds produced Winston, Salem, and Camel cigarettes—maybe they still do.  In the morning, I could step outside our apartment door, and every breath took in the smell of unprocessed tobacco.  The broad leaves would soon be turned into cigarettes, and their smell was sweet and rich, similar to honeysuckle.  It permeated the city before the morning winds blew it away.  Every Saturday we also visited the first Krispy Kreme donut shops, which got their start in “Camel City.”  Dad would load us up to get the kids out of the house, so Mom could sleep.  (The ladies at Krispy Kreme thought he was a single father and gave royal treatment.)

Less pleasant are the memories of Winston-Salem associated with issues of race.  This was when I first became race conscious.  Like most families, we have our internal oral histories that we repeat often when we get together.  From that year we tell stories of my mother’s ostracization at the hospital for providing equal care to all patients, regardless of race or religion.  She found herself eating her midnight “lunch” during the night shift alone and isolated.  My brother, who was in junior high, was targeted for harassment, but responded with maturity beyond his years.  As for me, I had my nose bloodied by two older boys who lived in our complex because our family had black friends over for supper.  I responded with less maturity than my brother.

That school year was also the year my elementary school was shut down on April 4, 1968, after the shooting of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Winston-Salem, still reeling from the riots in the fall of 1967, shut schools down schools as soon as they learned of Dr. King’s death.  We were released mid-day at Dalton Elementary, and our family stayed home the following days, watching Walter Cronkite and other reporters keep us up to date on what was taking place around the nation and across town.

Every year as MLK Day rolls around, I tend to think back to Winston-Salem.  As a father of a somewhat unique family, I find the day to be a good reminder that we have not arrived, but rather are on a journey.  My wife told me when we were dating that she wanted a large diverse family.  She wasn’t kidding!  Our nine kids make us look a little different than most.  We are white, black, and Asian.  We are both gay and straight.  We have hearing and deaf in our house, and we have the full range of academic abilities, from gifted to those who struggle academically.

For many reasons I am thankful for Dr. King’s pioneering work.  I am also thankful for less famous pioneers, such as my wife, father, mother, and brother.  I add teachers to this list as well, including many of you reading this email.  Lisa and I have experienced in our own lives and through the lives of our children acts of kindness and courage from teachers who will never receive national attention, but they are no less important to us and our children.

This I believe: For most of us, living up to Dr. King’s dream and continuing the journey is not about major initiatives, events, or actions.  It is not about one special day.  Rather, this journey is filled with countless individual acts and interactions carried out on a daily basis by people just like you and me, going about the daily business of doing our jobs and being intentional about treating people, all people, with respect and dignity.  

Thank you, HSE, for all you do to continue the journey by making every student feel included, valued, and loved.

Keep fighting the good fight.

Phil

Snow, Assessments, and 2014

Fourth in a Series on Understanding by Design: Assessment Evidence

When we moved from “The Region” and its Lake Effect snowstorms, I gave our faithful snow blower to my brother-in-law.  It seemed like a logical decision last year, but this past week has made me reconsider my thinking.  Of course, when you have a houseful of kids who are at the end of Winter Break and feeling restless, I had good recourse. 

We had to borrow shovels from the neighbors, but on Sunday night, the whole family was out in the cold digging ourselves out the first time.  Lisa and I showed the kids the techniques of breaking up the ice, shoveling to the edges of the driveway, and using legs to lift.  This allowed us to clear the drive in short order and to teach what needed to be done again—and again—in the coming days.

Thereafter, for the most part, I was able to sit in my chair and read books (The dystopian Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth, set in a future Chicago where all people are divided into factions according to what they value most).  The kids went out and simultaneously relieved their boredom and cleared our walks and driveway.  It felt like a win-win situation (to me, not necessarily to the kids).  They did a pretty good job.  The walks were safe, and I was able to get the car in and out fairly easily all week.  The driveway didn’t look exactly as pristine as I like, but it was clear, and I saw definite improvements in technique with all of the practice.  (By the way, I am well into the third book of the Divergent trilogy and wondering into which faction a dad who makes his kids go out in sub-zero might fall.)

Method to the Madness: Assessment

This story of breaking child labor laws actually does have a point that pertains to school.  In the coming semester, we are going to spend time looking at assessments.  Understanding by Design has two broad categories of assessments: “Performance Tasks” and “Other Evidence.”  In UbD, our more traditional assessments (quizzes, tests, observations, sample work) fall into the Other Evidence category.  Wiggins and McTighe put increased emphasis on Performance Tasks. 

A quick explanation: In all of our content areas we have both procedural knowledge and declarative knowledge.  The former includes the skills and actions that are essential to your content, and the later includes those things that are important for students to know and understand.

The key in UbD is that word understand.  Remember that this word is defined very clearly by Grant and Wiggins.  Understanding is being able to transfer knowledge and skills to new situations and contents.

Here is the kicker: Performance Tasks can assess both procedural and declarative knowledge.

Using Performance Tasks to assess procedural knowledge is easy to grasp.  When I checked up on my kids’ progress in their ability to clear the driveway, I am obviously checking a Performance Task.  I would never consider giving them a multiple choice test about how to clear a driveway.  I would have them do it and assess their skill level.  I might give them some pointers and reminders, and I would likely need to put down my book and get out there and show them as well. 

Using a Performance Task to assess declarative knowledge is a bit more complicated, but no less important.  It involves the careful creation of tasks that assess the ability of students to transfer knowledge.  These might be separate from or a part of traditional assessments such as unit exams or final exams.

As Far as I Can Go

I don’t think I can take the snow analogy any farther, but I hope this is a good place to begin the discussion on assessment and Performance Tasks.  We can easily make the connection to using Performance Tasks to assess procedural knowledge.  The harder part is how to develop these tasks to assess a student’s understanding of both procedural and content knowledge.

I would like to leave you with a short assignment.  It is not a formal assignment, and it doesn’t need to be written down unless that helps you.  I suggest you put these thoughts on your metaphorical back burner and let them percolate for a week.  Think about the Goals, the Big Ideas, and the Essential Questions you have for your students this semester.  What do you want your students to know and be able to do by the end of this semester?  More importantly, what do you want them to understand well enough to be able to transfer to new situations and settings?

When the answers to those questions are firmly established by you and others in your course-alike groups, the next big questions are these asked by McTighe and Wiggins in an ASCD White Paper:

• How will we know if students have achieved the desired results?
• What will we accept as evidence of student understanding and their ability to use (transfer) their learning to new situations?
• How will we evaluate student performance in fair and consistent ways?

The answers to these questions might include your current assessments, but you might find that new Performance Tasks could be carefully designed to assess real understanding.

The Journey

This semester we are going to take a look at assessments and consider how we can improve them by using the UbD approach.  Some of this work will take place in our PD sessions, some will take place as part of your department work, some will take place as you create your Student Learning Objective, and some will be done on your own.

Remember that we are on a journey.  We may well get snowed under now and again on this journey, but together we will keep digging our way out.

Welcome back, HSE.  I hope 2014 is a great year for you personally and professionally.

Phil

Kudos this week to all of you who helped make Hamilton Southeastern High School an “A” school.  We have tremendous kids at HSE and a teaching staff who is dedicated to helping each student meet his or her full potential, regardless of state labels.  Today is a great day to be Royal!

Lights, Action, Ditto

I’m sending this out early because, as you know, the construction crew is taking us offline soon after the dismissal bell today.  It is hard to believe we are at semester.  If time flies when you’re having fun, we must be having a blast.  Either that or we are so busy trying to stay ahead of the constant demands that time gets away from us.

No doubt about it, we do have a lot on our plates.  We are still figuring out TEDS, HSE21 pushes us to look at instructional practices, the building project has officially broken ground, budget cuts keep worrying us, and in the meantime, kids keep coming through the doors. 

My Neighbors

Below are pictures of two houses which sit side-by-side in our neighborhood.  The first one belongs to the Fishers version of Clark Grizwold.  Chances are good that you have a house like this in your neighborhood as well. You can’t tell from the picture, but his lights are synchronized to a radio station.  If you tune in to the right station, you can watch the lights flash on and off to the rhythm of the music.  When my wife and I were out walking a few weeks ago, our neighbor was putting up the lights and called out, “Just wait until Friday.  You’re in for a treat.”  He was right.  It is a veritable House of Wonder.  Our kids want us to take the long route through our neighborhood when we come in at night, so we drive by slowly and are appropriately dazzled by the light show.

Lights, Action....

This next picture is a neighbor who lives to the immediate east of the Holiday House of Wonder.  My guess is this homeowner knew he wasn’t going to be able to compete, so he used a little humor and ingenuity to get a response. 

Ditto

If I have my etymology right, ditto is Latin for something that has been said before.  In this case, I think the neighbor is saying, “I can’t beat him.  I might as well join him. I’ll make his lights become my lights.”

HSE: So what does this have to do with us?

It’s a bit of a stretch, but I suggest that sometimes we are like the House of Wonder, and sometimes all we can manage is “ditto.”  That’s okay.  We do what we can do, use a little humor, keep our spirits up, and we all keep taking steps forward. 

I hope your holiday break is a good one.  Find time to relax, enjoy friends and family, and come back ready to light up your part of the HSHS neighborhood.  When that seems like too much, maybe a little Ditto can help keep you going.

Even though it has been said before, have a great break, HSE. 

Phil

I would like to end with a few words from a variety of faith traditions that seem appropriate for this time of the year:

• Always wear a smile.  The gift of life will then be yours to give.  –Rabbi Nachman
• Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive.  --Thich Nhat Hanh
• Kindness in words creates confidence.  Kindness in thinking creates profoundness.  Kindness in giving creates love.  –Lao Tzu
• The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.   –Mahatma Gandhi
• May you live fully.  May you love wastefully.  May you become all you were meant to be.  –John Shelby Spong

To those words, I’ll add, “Ditto.”  Enjoy your Winter Break.

Essential?

Third in a Series on Understanding by Design: Essential Questions

What makes a question so important that it is essential to ask during a lesson, unit, or semester?  Arriving at an answer to this particular question is no easy task.  You would need to think carefully and ponder long in order to identify questions that are significant enough to reach the level of being essential to student learning.  

Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins, early in their book Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding, include this paragraph penned by Stigler and Stevenson, who studied different approaches to education around the globe:

Teachers ask questions for different reasons in the United States and in Japan. In the United States, the purpose of a question is to get an answer. In Japan, teachers pose questions to stimulate thought. A Japanese teacher considers a question to be a poor one if it elicits an immediate answer, for this indicates that students were not challenged to think. One teacher we interviewed told us of discussions she had with her fellow teachers on how to improve teaching practices. “What do you talk about?” we wondered. “A great deal of time,” she reported, “is spent talking about questions we can pose to the class—which wordings work best to get students involved in thinking and discussing the material. One good question can keep a whole class going for a long time; a bad one produces little more than a simple answer.”

In the rest of their book, McTighe and Wiggins discuss what Essential Questions are and what they can do to improve student learning.  I will only scratch the surface of this topic today, but I want to include a few key concepts from the developers of Understanding by Design. They begin by suggesting a helpful approach is to think of Big Ideas and Essential Questions as the “flip sides of the same coin.”  The Big Ideas are the key concepts, knowledge, and skills that you most fervently hope students will take with them beyond your class and be able to transfer to other contents and to life.  The Essential Questions are the way to unpack the ideas.  As students start to find answers, they deepen their understanding.

Remember that UbD is a lesson planning framework.  It is not prescriptive and gives you lots of freedom and options to use Essential Questions in a variety of ways.  They might be used to hook the learner, to lead the learning during a lesson, to guide the students to focus on key concepts, and/or to stimulate ongoing thinking and inquiry.  They can provide a structure for lessons, units, and even whole courses.  They can be used as the daily or unit objectives.  They can be used as checks for understanding, as discussion starters, or as writing prompts. 

However you choose to use them, to be essential, these questions reach a slightly higher plane than commonly used questions—and even higher than very important questions.  Wiggins and McTighe say Essential Questions…

• Are open-ended and have no simple “right answer”
• Are meant to be investigated, argued, and looked at from different points of view
• Encourage active “meaning making” by the learner about important ideas
• Naturally arise in everyday life, and/or in “doing” the subject
• Constantly and appropriately recur and can be asked and re-asked over time

The Essential Questions are the key questions that students must examine and attempt to answer if they are to come to an understanding of the content to the extent that they can transfer the learning to new situations. 

No question, creating these questions is not an easy task.  When you get it right, however, you take a big step toward increasing student learning.  I started with an excerpt from Stigler and Stevenson about the importance of good questions, but I also discovered many other great minds share their perspective on the importance of questions. 

• The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.  –Thomas Berger
• Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.  –e.e. cummings
• Life is an unanswered question, but let’s still believe in the dignity and the importance of the question.  –Tennessee Williams
• Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.  –Voltaire
• Successful people ask better questions; they get better answers.  –Tony Robbins
• You don’t want a million answers as much as you want a few forever questions.  The questions are diamonds you hold in the light.  Study a lifetime and you see different colors from the same jewel.  –Richard Bach
• Who questions much, shall learn much, and retain much.  –Francis Bacon
• I never learn anything talking.  I only learn things when I ask questions.  –Lou Holtz

Have a great week, HSE.  May it be filled with questions that lead to learning.

Phil

Kudos this week to our media center staff.  I have been in schools where media centers are lifeless places.  Dust collects among the books and whispers are shushed to silence.  That is not the case at HSHS.  Our media center is a place of laughter, deck umbrellas, hard work, good talk, fun, and learning.  

Test Central

“Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” –Nelson Mandela

This past week the boxes of End of Course Assessments were carted into HSHS and took up residence in Test Central, the Small Office Conference Room.  Starting this Tuesday, our students will start taking these high-stakes tests.  During the work of sorting and packing the ECAs, I tend to ruminate on how testing has changed education.

No question about it: Our current students are the most tested generation ever.

Like most educators, I have some biases about testing and am asked about these at times, often when I am unprepared for the conversation.  If this happens to you, the following three points about assessments in general and high-stakes testing specifically may be useful.

1)      ECAs Do What They Were Designed to Do

End of Course Assessments do a good job of measuring what they were designed to measure. They are very good indicators of whether or not students have reached minimum competency in three content areas: English/Language Arts, Biology, and Algebra I.  But let’s be clear: This is all they were designed to do.  They are not diagnostic in nature, and they are not designed to measure teacher or school effectiveness.  Certainly, there are attempts to use these tests for other purposes, but they were designed to measure minimum student achievement in three specific areas. 

Sometimes I think we lose track of this fact, and it is helpful to keep their designed purpose in mind.

2)      One Problem with Single Assessments: Margin of Error

Single Assessments are all imprecise to a certain degree.  Imprecision in assessments can be the result of many factors: poorly constructed test items, student lack of attention or effort, and/or mistakes in scoring or grading.  The impact of imprecision on interpretation of test scores is often surprising to educators and completely startling to non-educators.  To illustrate, Robert Marzano uses this equation:

Observed Score = True Score + Error Score

He explains: 

This equation indicates that a student’s observed score on an assessment (the final score on the assessment) consists of two components—the student’s true score and the student’s error score.  The student’s true score is that which represents the student’s true level of understanding or skill regarding the topic being measured.  The error score is the part of an observed score that is due to factors other than the student’s level of understanding or skill.

In other words, error is inherent in scores assigned to students on every assessment.  In his book, Formative Assessments and Standards-Based Grading, Robert Marzano provides this chart to show how dramatic the impact of error can be. 

Reliability of Assessment	Score Student Receives on the Assessment	Lowest Possible Score	Highest Possible Score	Range
0.85	70	60	80	20
0.75	70	58	82	24
0.65	70	56	84	28
0.55	70	54	86	32
0.45	70	52	88	36

Consider this: The typical reliability of a state standardized test is 0.85, which is very good.  Again, I defer to Marzano’s chart and his own words: “For an assessment with a reliability of 0.85 and an observed score of 70, one would be 95 percent sure the student’s true score is anywhere between a score of 60 and 80.”  Reread that line until it is clear because this is a really important concept about a single-shot assessment. 

Another way to look at the same numbers: Using our typical in-house scoring scale, we could be fairly confident that a student with an observed score of 70 is likely to have a true score between a D- and a B-. 

Spend some time considering this chart and the idea of reliability, and I think you will agree that good assessment and grading practice requires multiple assessments to get us closer to identifying a student’s true ability.

3)      It’s Not Just Standardized Tests: We Face the Same Problems in Our Classrooms

Bob Marzano doesn’t let us off easily at the school level either.  He states that the highest reliability we can expect from an assessment designed by a teacher, school, or district is 0.75.  Again, this is very good reliability for a school-based assessment.  The research from Marzano Laboratories, however, is that the typical reliability for classroom assessments is 0.45.  If we use the same example from above, this means that with the typical classroom assessment (which has a reliability of 0.45 and a range of 36) we can with confidence say that a student with an observed score of 70 is likely to have a true score between 52 and 88.  On a typical grading scale, this falls somewhere between an F and a B+.  That’s a bit frightening!

The good news is that our common practice is to have multiple assessment points, rather than just one exam.  The more evidence we gather, the better our understanding of a student’s true ability.  This is good practice and why multiple forms of assessment are more reliable than any one single assessment.

In Summary

If Marzano is right—and let’s face it, he is perhaps the leading educational researcher of the past two decades—his findings have major implications for our grading practice.  But that is a discussion for another day.  The topic for today is testing, especially high stakes testing.   Marzano’s research makes a very, very strong argument for using multiple and varied assessments at the classroom level, and it also reminds us exactly what our state standardized tests do well and what they may or may not tell us about student performance.

Robert Marzano’s argument is neither for nor against state standardized testing.  Rather, he encourages us to be informed about the science of testing and to communicate accurate information to people outside of education, especially those making decisions about how test results will be used.

I hope this helps you talk to friends, family, and acquaintances about these high-stakes tests, and I hope this week of giving ECAs doesn’t test your patience too much.

Keep fighting the good fight, HSE.

Phil

I started this week’s memo with a few words from Nelson Mandela, a man who exemplified to the world a life well-lived.  So Kudos go this week to our Set a Good Example students.  I love walking by the display case by the media center and seeing pictures of our SAGE students.  It’s a gift to have kids like this at our school.  We have the opportunity to teach them and learn from them. 

“There is no passion to be found playing small—in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”  --Nelson Mandela

Head Fake

I hope you are rested and recovering from giving thanks. 

By the way, I did a little light research and found out that the “Turkey Coma,” supposedly caused by the tryptophan in turkey is a myth.  I have no intention of letting facts get in the way of my after-meal tradition and would advise the same for you when Thanksgiving rolls around on the calendar again next year.

And speaking of the calendar, I’m sure you are aware that we have only 15 school days to the end of the semester.  The last three of these, of course, are dedicated to final exams.  Since I was in the research mode, I typed into Google “Cramming vs. Studying” and came up with 149,000 hits.  I looked through the first five links, and it was fascinating reading.  There is overwhelming evidence and research about preparing students for final exams.  Two things jump out: 1) Depending how much sleep you get, cramming may help for one isolated test—sort of.  2) Cramming has no long-term benefits for learning.

If the goal is to have students pass the final exam and then forget the material, encourage them to stuff it in just like we did with the turkey this past week.  Give them a study guide a day or two before the test, and encourage students to put in as much time as possible in the days leading up to the test cramming (thus the name) their heads with information for the exam.  After the test, they can go take a nap on the couch and everything they just “learned” will fade away.

Another option is to take into account the way our brains actually function and build in review as part of daily lessons.  For the past few weeks, I have been creating a short list of best practices that teachers at HSHS are using right now to help students develop good studying habits.  The research is crystal clear that distributed practice leads to long-term retention, and the good news is that many of you are being proactive in your approach to studying for exams.  For example:

• Begin or end each day with a few review questions or quick discussions about key course content.
• Have students take a few minutes occasionally to go back through their notes and find one topic where they might be confused.  Have several students give a quick share-out to the class and then clarify the misconceptions.
• Add one or two questions from previous units to quizzes, tests, and/or homework.  Then discuss these questions when you hand back results.
• Have students make connections to previous learning as a regular part of lessons.  Take two minutes for pair-and-share during which students connect today’s learning to something—anything—in previous lessons.  This helps to solidify the day’s lesson and review previous lessons.
• Create a study calendar for the next three weeks, where students make their own schedules for studying for the final exam.  Make sure key content is included and distributed over time.

I’m sure there are many more ways to include distributed practice in daily lessons, but these are ones I have seen in practice during the past few weeks.

We have incredible kids at Hamilton Southeastern High School.  The vast majority of them want to do well.  We should share with them the brain research and the value of distributed studying.  Realistically, the odds are good they won’t implement these strategies completely on their own.  We can, however, teach our motivated students ways to avoid the need for cramming.  This is a skill that will pay dividends for them now and in the future. 

Of course, other students are less motivated for a wide variety of reasons.  For some, the lack of motivation is cumulative from years of school being difficult, from lack of academic success, and/or from poor study habits.  The practices listed above just might help.  These approaches are what Randy Pausch in his “Last Lecture” called a head fake, teaching a deeper lesson under the pretense of teaching something simple.  Planning distributed practice into your lessons can help all students, even Intentional Non-Learners, use good study habits—and they may not even recognize it as studying.  

We never know what impact one instance of success can have.  It just might be the spark that lights the fire.

Thanks for all you do for the students and for the school.  Time is always precious, and especially so near the end of a semester.  Plan carefully to use it well, and find ways to teach your students how to get the biggest return on their investment of time spent studying.

Have a great week, HSE.  I hope it is crammed full of joy, laughter, and learning.

Phil

Kudos this week to all of you helping students prepare for next week’s End of Course Assessments.  These high-stakes tests are stressful for everyone.  Thanks to all of you who take the time to teach skills and to reassure students.  All of us benefit when students do well on these tests.