Better Late than Never...
How do I get student buy in?
I started teaching middle school students again in November. Taking over mid-term is challenging even when you are a veteran teacher like me. My students had routines with the teacher they had before me, but what I wanted was different.
On my first day of teaching this group of students, I spent time letting them get to know me. After the slide show, I let them ask me questions and we played a game. I should have taken notes about what they shared. Next time we met, I did.
I know what I need to run my classroom for ME, but I didn’t think about what my students needed at first. Rookie mistake! It took me a while to get in the swing of things. Teaching a new curriculum in a new group of students was challenging for me, but once I got my bearings, I realized I needed to learn more about my students. But how and when? We are already a topic behind.
Proficiency grading was something I was very familiar with, but my students were not used to using in science. So I introduced them to the grading scale we were going to use (Emergent/Novice, Approaches, Meets/Proficient, Exceeds/Mastery). This allowed me to talk to students about what they are learning and how to level up with science. It wasn’t about the number of correct answers anymore or completing work without learning.
We continued learning but I wasn’t seeing the level of ownership and student empowerment I was hoping for. I began thinking about what was missing, why were these students not engaging the way I intended? I realized I was missing something VERY important - student interest. Students were still wondering how to raise their grades by completing work, but not actually wanting to do it right…
After participating in our district grading policy feedback committee, I heard many ideas I wanted to integrate in my classroom. As a friend of mine and I were talking about the struggles of my classroom and the things I learned about grading, I mentioned wanting to move towards a grade less classroom. She told me about Starr Sackstein, a colleague of hers who has worked in the grade less classroom for years. I began my study of the grade less classroom and started reading her blog. I decided to make some changes, beginning with reading her book, Hacking Assessment.
With this research, I realized I didn’t know enough about my students to really engage them in the work. The next time we had a class meeting, I asked students to share what they were interested in. I asked them how they spent their time after school. This conversation went very well. Almost every student was willing to share what they learn about after school. It was amazing to see how students were aware of their level of proficiency of their interest and able to be completely honest about it. They understood how to level up with what they love. Then we connect their interests to the proficiency scale we use for science grading. It was amazing to see students connect to each other while sharing their love.
I used this information to connect what they love to what we are learning about in our current content. With the help of Google Gemini, I created parent guide and student scavenger hunt documents to support our Chemistry Unit.
I continued this conversation with Judy, a friend in my book club, on my drive from Texas to Vegas over spring break. We have been reading The Next Conversation by Jefferson Fisher and one of the messages is about having clarity in communication. Judy and I were brainstorming things I could do with my students to increase engagement and student achievement.
We discussed my thought about education being a three legged stool: parents, students and teacher. I believed that if we could get everyone on the same page, it would help. She disagreed. She said the parent’s responsibility is to get the student to the school and reinforce positive behavior while in the classroom. The contract between the teacher and student, is where the work happens. Judy brought up another stake holder in learning I never considered - peers. How can I encourage students to have ownership and support the learning of their classmates?
The first day after our break, we had another class meeting about creating the classroom environment needed for the best learning of all students. I wish this was something I would have done on day two, back in November, but better late than never.
It’s never too late to start over with your students!
In this conversation, each class made their own list of needs. Together we decided which activities were their responsibility, my responsibility or both. This poster became a contract between all students and myself which we all signed. In addition, we had a conversation about what is appropriate behavior and agreed upon classroom expectations.
Another idea came up during the grading policy feedback group, someone had mentioned having assignments planned for in advance for the quarter or semester: that if students knew what was going to happen there wouldn’t be any surprises in the assignments and wouldn’t need to “work the system” to make their grades. Our district has a minimum F policy which people feel students are “gaming” the system. This struck me as interesting and I continued this conversation with a colleague in my building about student empowerment and grades. She shared a document with me where students tracked their assignments. I amended this document for fourth quarter for my students.
When I shared this fourth quarter plan and the learning progressions, students began to ask, why don’t all teachers do this? I responded, ask them. I don’t think all teachers know how to do this, nor do they have time to collaborate about innovative ideas. Maybe I’m wrong?