HUMS staff blog update, January 12, 2020

Almost not funny.. almost

ITEMS 

1. January meetings 

January 14 - Shared Staff  (agenda coming)

January 23 - LT/DH Meeting (Thurs) - updated

January 20 - Building Based Inservice (w/ Dept/ELOX planning) (2 hours-argumentative writing)

January 21 - HUUSD  In-service

January 28 - Dept/ELOX Planning

2. Trail Mix / Mix it up week

Don't forget about providing trail mix days... this coming Wednesday and Friday.

Wednesday TA providing trail mix - Curran, Wheeler, Moore, Ibson and Gordon

Friday TA providing trail mix - McCarty, Dreimiller-Greenwood, Managan, Potts - Bouffard and Selvaggio.

3. Board Meeting this coming Wednesday evening beginning at 6:00.

4. Duane, Jen and Mara are developing a 4 core presentation for grade 8 regarding cyberbullying. This will be similar to the one we provided to grade 7 in the beginning of the year. Once we finalize the program, I will get in contact with the 8th grade team to select a date for the presentation.

5.   Four Principles for Giving Feedback to Students

            In this article in Middle School Journal, Alison Koenka (Virginia Commonwealth University) and Eric Anderman (The Ohio State University) describe how teachers in two different classrooms handled a discussion with their seventh graders as they read Lois Lowry’s novel, The Giver. Each teacher asked the same question – “What do you think is the theme of this book?” – and in both classes there were lots of hands in the air and the teachers called on one student. But then the classes diverged:

-   In the first, the student who was called on shared an enthusiastic comment about the book’s theme of memory. The teacher nodded and said, “Yes, anyone else?” The student slumped back in his seat and no other students offered to contribute. 

-   In the second class, the teacher responded, “Yes, memory is certainly an important theme. Now, let’s enrich that response further by also explaining what makes it so important, and supporting our arguments with specific examples from the book.” The student who responded sat up a little straighter and flipped through her book looking for examples. Other students were eager to join the discussion.

The key difference, say Koenka and Anderman, was “specific, student-centered information delivered to students about their performance in a motivation-building way.” The authors suggest four characteristics of the most effective feedback: 

            • Specific – Written comments on students’ work (spelling out why it was good and what could be improved or extended) have a far more positive impact on motivation and performance than grades or generic praise (“Good work”). With formative assessments, there’s an argument for giving comments and no grades. 

            • Task-focused, self-referenced, with identifying next steps – Feedback should target specific features of students’ performance, refer to their own previous performance, and identify what needs to be done next. These components are especially important for middle-school students, say Koenka and Anderman, because they make the feedback informational rather than controlling, supporting early adolescents’ “burgeoning need for autonomy.” The informational approach also encourages the development of self-efficacy – confidence in one’s own ability to complete tasks successfully. Commenting on students’ writing using track changes and comment boxes is a great way to give focused, self-referenced, and a next-step focus. Providing comments via video livestreaming is even more effective. 

            • Not norm-referenced – Comparing students’ performance to that of their peers is especially damaging for middle-school students because of their heightened sensitivity to the opinions of their contemporaries. A teacher’s comments, however well-meaning, about the “best lab report in the class” or a “terrific class average” are not helpful to students who didn’t do so well. And counterintuitively, praise isn’t good for students who are singled out because it may set them up for ostracism and communicate that it’s all about outperforming others rather than the intrinsic benefits of learning. 

            • Not about personal characteristics – The trap with comments like “You’re a natural writer” and “You were born to be a scientist” is that the traits are seen by students as innate and unchangeable. This encourages a fixed versus a growth mindset, definitely not helpful to improving performance. Students may react positively in the moment, but it will sap their motivation and willingness to take risks and deal with more-challenging work down the road. Koenka and Anderman say that fixed-mindset thinking is especially unhelpful to middle-school students since they are just forming their adult identities. 

“Personalized Feedback as a Strategy for Improving Motivation and Performance Among Middle-School Students” by Alison Koenka and Eric Anderman in Middle School Journal, November 2019 (Vol. 50, #5, pp. 15-22), https://bit.ly/2FmHKfv; the authors can be reached at koenkaac@vcu.edu and anderman.1@osu.edu.