7 Statements We Cannot Accept in Education

Seven, fingers-down-the-blackboard, cringe-worthy statements that we cannot accept from any educator. 

 

1: That’s how I’ve always done it.

The best teachers constantly reflect on their professional practice by asking themselves, “How can I do this better?” As education reformer John Dewey stated, “We don’t learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.”

As teachers, we must constantly reflect and adapt. We must harness the power of reflection in our daily practices. Failing to reflect leaves the teacher—and thus the students—in the dark. Oppositely, reflective teachers constantly question their choices so they can become more effective.

2: I’ve taught it, they just don’t get it.

Highly effective teachers create a positive atmosphere in their classrooms. Carol Dweck categorized teachers into two categories, those with a growth mindset and those with a fixed mindset. Those with a fixed mindset immediately and permanently place students into preset categories with the responsibility for meeting their unique learning challenges on the students. Those teachers with the growth mindset viewed learning as a shared responsibility. Needless to say, in classrooms where teachers have a growth mindset, student gains are significantly higher with even the lowest-performing students making significant gains.

When students don’t get it, instead of saying, “I’ve taught it, it’s on them now,” we must instead ask ourselves, “What do I do now to make sure they’ve learned it?”

3: I don’t believe in redos and retakes. They’ve had their chance.

Again, I’ll go to the seminal work of Dweck. If we teach students that their intelligence can increase, they’ll do better in school. Failure is part of the learning process and provides an opportunity to improve. We must teach our students to rise to the challenge of our high expectations, to continuously learn, and we must reward students for their sustained efforts.

4: My responsibility is to teach the content.

Before reaching our students’ minds, we must reach their hearts and souls. Great teaching starts with building personal relationships with our students. Each student enters our classrooms with unique needs, strengths and differences.

Learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We must take the whole student into account to ensure the success of each student.

We cannot ignore these differences if we want students to reach their potential.

5: The student doesn’t have the prerequisite skills.

We must take the time to pre-assess and teach students and prerequisite skills they lack. Assessing and addressing student performance must occur prior to full-blown instruction.

Doing so requires additional and creative planning and often it requires a school-wide effort. Whether it’s through differentiation or devoting extra time, energy or resources, plowing ahead without ensuring students possess the prerequisite skills is futile.

6: The student has no support outside of school.

While impactful, we can’t use lack of support, socio-economic status, or a student’s family situation derail what we do. We have tremendous ability to overcome these obstacles simply by believing in our students and their abilities. Equally important we must believe in our abilities as teachers to make a difference.

7: I can’t be held accountable for each student.

We ARE responsible for each student in each of our classes. It’s an incredible responsibility, but one the best teachers embrace.

              

Comment Only "Grading"

You burn the midnight oil, staying up late to grade and make thoughtful comments on students’ papers.

After entering the grades into your grade book, you breathe a sigh of relief and feel good about your accomplishment.

When you return the papers to the students, they immediately look at their grades. Some complain. Others act nonchalant. Others immediately begin to compare with their classmates. Most frustratingly, a couple crumple up their papers and throw them away. Few, if any, take the time to read your comments—the comments that you spent hours working on.

So why did you spend hours writing the comments? Because you know feedback ranks as one of the most effective and influential teaching practices (Dweck, Hattie, Marzano, et al).

But did you know ineffective feedback can actually reduce student motivation? Psychologist Edward Deci found that when students feel they are being too closely monitored, they can become disengaged from learning. Furthermore, Deci discovered that learners often interpret feedback as an attempt to control them (grading as a method of control or statements like, “You cannot do that.”) Finally, Deci discovered a third condition of ineffective feedback occurs when it can be used for competition (I did better than you did).  

Comments only grading maximizes the positive effects of feedback by spurring student learning and instilling a growth mindset.  In comments only grading, the teacher provides only comments on student work. By writing comments only, students learn how to improve their work.

For assignments that required a grade, I employed a simple, yet remarkably effective strategy. I returned the assignment with comments, but no grade. I required the students to read my comments and respond to them (either orally or written depending on the situation). Only then would I provide them with the grade. While it took students a while to get used to this system, they soon grew to appreciate the true meaning of my comments/feedback.

 

Some feedback tips:

1.     comments must be specific

2.     supply information about what the learner is doing

3.     allow students time to read and respond to the comments

4.     allow time for improvement

5.     praise effort NOT intelligence

6.     supply information

Redos and Retakes

One of the seminal moments in my life as an educator occurred about fifteen years ago when my school’s administration required teachers to practice mastery teaching with an emphasis on allowing redos and retakes.

Of course, the teacher’s lounge was abuzz with questions and critiques of the new policy. Redos and retakes took the brunt of the criticism.

Today, I’m an unabashed believer in retakes and redos; my “answers” to the more common criticisms follow.

Over the years, I’ve become more comfortable with redos and retakes thanks to my own experiences, my colleagues, and, in particular, the writings of Rick Wormeli and Ken O’Connor.

Complaint 1: Students need to be held accountable

I agree, students must be held accountable for learning.  So which policy holds students to a higher standard? One in which we allow students to fail or skim by with a D or one in which we use redos and retakes to ensure student mastery?

Students need multiple chances to grow and learn. Each teacher’s goal should be for ALL students to master the essential learnings.

The research of Carol Dweck shows that if we teach students that their intelligence can increase, they will do better in school. In her ground breaking book Mindset, Dweck speaks of the benefits of a growth mindset, meaning that people believe that they can improve their abilities by dedication and hard work. As teachers, we must ensure students view failure as part of the natural learning process and an opportunity to improve. The long-term consequences of one’s mindset impact the entirety of a person’s life. As teachers, we play an important role in instilling a growth mindset in each of our students. We must teach our students to rise to the challenge of our high expectations, to continuously learn, and we must reward them for their sustained efforts.

Requiring students to master their learning through redos and retakes until they meet your high expectations demands far more of the students than letting them accept a failing grade.

Complaint 2: Students will take advantage of retakes by not doing their best the first time.

Honestly, this was one of my greatest concerns when I first began allowing redos and retakes. I was soon assuaged that it wasn’t a problem. Because the redo/retake required an additional commitment (time and effort), students never banked on getting to redo it. 

Complaint 3: This isn’t how the real world works.

Really?

Last time I checked, you’re allowed to take driver’s test, SATs, ACTs, GREs, Bar Exams, and MCATs multiple times. Honestly, it sounds pretty pompous and petty for any teacher to say, my quiz on Chapter 6 is more important than any of the aforementioned tests.

Could you imagine how many people wouldn’t have their driver’s licenses if it was one and done? Confessional: I wouldn’t—parallel parking got me the first time.

When you enter your doctor’s office, does the diploma and certification on his/her wall distinguish whether it took him/her 1, 2, or 3 times to pass the MCATs? Of course, not.

I’ve since left the classroom and have entered administration. I wish I could say that every teacher has met every deadline, but I can’t. For a variety of reasons—some good and some bad—deadlines are missed all the time. And this is not unique to academia.

Need other examples?

• The publishers who suggest corrections and modifications before the author resubmits his work reject authors.
• Bosses would ask to see/hear a presentation before the young businessperson presents it to clients. 
• The apprentice plumber who works side-by-side with a master plumber who continually provides corrective feedback.

When it comes down to it, pretty much every “real world” job allows for redos and retakes. The investment capital makes it impossible to fire an employee for one failure. We must invest in our students by reteaching and retesting whenever they don’t meet our standards.

Complaint 4: They won’t have the opportunity to redo work next year in….

They won’t have time to redo work in college.

Let’s dissect this bit-by-bit. First, I don’t think it’s a true statement. Although I haven’t stepped foot on a college campus in two decades, please allow me to share one of my own experiences. One of my most challenging college classes was US History, Part 1.  Everyday, upon entering the class, we were greeted with a five-question multiple-choice quiz. If we scored below a 4/5, we were required to write an essay covering the chapter(s) covered by the quiz. Students were assigned either a passing or failing grade for each chapter. The professor’s message to me was clear: each student bears the responsibility for his/her learning. Nothing less than a 4/5 is acceptable. Not only did this instill in me grit and responsibility, I also learned the material.

As a ninth grade World History teacher, when students entered my class on the first day of the year, I wanted students who were proficient in world geography (the 8^th grade social studies class). I could care less, if it took the student one day or the entire year to master the geography curriculum.  

Our high school recently held a roundtable in which we invited recent graduates to return and speak to students and teachers. A teacher posed the question about redos and retakes to the college students. Unanimously, the students voiced their approval of redos and retakes. One high-achieving student stated, “[The teachers who allowed redos and retakes] set a high bar; one that challenged us to do our best.”

Another student chimed in, “I felt better prepared for college because I had to master it [the content].”

These students experienced firsthand the value of redos and retakes. Through practice, re-teaching, feedback and retakes, these students mastered the learning and developed a growth mindset. To be adequately prepared for their next year, whether it’s 1^st grade or college, students need to know the content and the skills.

Complaint 5: It’s not fair to the students who do well the first time.

The ability to retest should not be limited to low-achieving students. High-achieving students benefit from retests and retakes. When a high-achieving student scored a B on a test, he/she was often the first to sign-up for a retake.

Side note: Knowing that they have the opportunity to redo/retake a quiz or test, I’m willing to bet that the high-achievers will be less likely to cheat because they know they have a second chance.

Anecdotally, only rarely did I have any of my high-achievers complain about my retest policy—No, it wasn’t because they didn’t voice their concerns to me. I heard plenty of complaints about my projects, my lectures, my expectations, etc.  Those who did complain most likely were used to an educational system that distinguished between the elite and non-elite.

Conclusion

We must move away from the I taught it; I tested it; Most of the students got it philosophy. Instead we must ask ourselves, “When students don’t get it, what do we do?”

We must answer, “We reteach and re-assess.”

Click here to read 12 Steps to Creating a Successful Redo and Retake Policy

Sources

Dweck, Carol S. Mindset. London: Robinson, 2012. Print.

O'Connor, Ken. How to Grade for Learning: Linking Grades to Standards. Arlington Heights, IL: SkyLight Professional Development, 2002. Print.

Wormeli, Rick. Fair Isn't Always Equal: Assessing & Grading in the Differentiated Classroom. Portland, Me.: Stenhouse, 2006. Print.