Do Your Students Act Like Getting an A is a "Lucky" Day?

 Linking up with Getting Nerdy with Mel & Gerdy today for Secondary Sunday FREEBIES!

Click my FREEBIES tab above to find free samples of every resource I use to help 

kids assess and track their own progress with Learning Goals and Scales. 

Sometimes kids act like getting a A+ is like hitting the jackpot, and I would think, Wow It's great to see them light up and get so excited! They are so proud of themselves, and so happy with their accomplishments. Usually it was the same kids over and over. Then there were the other ones who never received As. I could see in their faces that they stopped getting excited a while ago. What's the problem with this picture?

I realized that my students had NO IDEA 

where their grades came from! 

Some kids might attribute it to "being smart" or say that "school is just easy for me." Other kids would say that they were dumb, or that I didn't like them as much. Getting an A was "lucky" and some kids were just never that lucky. I wanted to communicate to them that getting an A has nothing to do with luck - it has to do with CHOICES.
"I choose to...

...pay attention in class."
...use my time productively."
...ask questions when I don't understand."
...learn from other students who do get it."
...ask myself questions about what I understand."
...complete practice assignments like homework, before the test date!"
...be aware of my strengths and weaknesses so I know when I need help and when I don't."
...persevere when something feels tough or takes a long time."

Notice, none of these statements have anything to do with intelligence! Of course it can be a factor, but most of the time these choices have become habits of good students; and unfortunately aren't practiced by their lower-performing peers.

How can we help kids make this connection that their accomplishments 

are directly related to their choices, and not luck?

Marzano & Haystead's research shows that students perform up to 34 percentiles more when they have clear and specific goals and track their progress in some progressive way.

 This graph was taken from The Department of Safe Schools Single School Culture © for Academics The School District of Palm Beach County, Fl .

I noticed a difference in my student's attitudes as well as performance when we began using specific learning goals with scales and tracking their progress in student portfolios. The kids got to SEE their progress, specific examples of the content they were expected to master, and how each level in a scale related to their grades. My district had assigned a specific grading percentages to each scale so that grading became really quick and easy as well! Read more about Grading Scales here.

If you click on my FREEBIES tab, you'll find FREE copies of the Student Portfolio pages, and some Posters and Assessment samples with scales as well. These free materials are a great way to get ideas and get scales going in your classroom!

Thanks for stopping by!

Valentine's Day Blog Hop 2015

I am linking up with Language Arts Classroom for The Valentine's Blog Hop! One of my favorite things to do in the classroom is Origami. In one of my previous elementary schools, Valentines Day was changed into "Friendship Day" so that it would help the kids thinking more in terms of kindness, than romance. :)

Kids LOVE origami, at least my students always have. In an effort to get kids working together as a team, here is a fun way to assign groups and 'solidify' partnerships using one simple origami fold. Students can leave their group piece in a special place to indicate that they are working together. The pieces can then be gently undone to dissolve or change groups. If the idea intimidates you a little bit, don't turn away yet, this idea involves only one piece of paper with a few very simple folds!  Here goes...

In order to make the directions easy to follow for you and your students, I've created a quick video of the one-paper fold, then the assembly for each group size from 1-6. Each student chooses one piece of paper that is perfectly square. You can cut colored paper to size, or use real origami paper. Each student will be represented in their group by their own unique paper, and will join their paper to the other group members to create a new shape - depending on the number of members in their team. 

1 piece of paper per student (use a variety of colors, or have them label, design, color, or mark their papers to make them unique. 

This is what each individual's completed piece will look like. 

2 pieces go together to form a square for two partners.

3 pieces can fit together to create a 3-D hexahedron.

4 pieces fit together to create a pin wheel.

6 pieces can fit together to create a cube.

  

And if you're up to the challenge of creating something that represents every individual in your class, you can try the "star" made from 30 identical pieces of paper, folded the exact same way.

Watch the instructional video on YouTube!

To find some more great Origami videos, and more ideas specifically for Valentines Day, read a previous post here.

What Can Marzano Scales Do for Gifted and Talented Students?

This week I am attending the 41st Annual AAGT Conference in Phoenix, AZ! 

I had the pleasure and sometimes anxiety of working with gifted and advanced students for 5 1/2 years in my last school district. It was a unique position because I was traveling between two Title I schools where the qualified gifted populations were small, and sometimes struggling to sustain services. In order to keep classes large enough, we experimented with adding high-ability students who weren't scoring high enough to have "gifted" status, but seemed to have a lot of potential to advance.

When I started using learning goals and scales with my 4th & 5th grade multiage math classes, I felt like they were helping me more than the kids. Defining each level of a scale meant that I could quickly plan differentiation for the limited class time I had. Having students who were gifted and high, for two grade levels meant that I had a wide variety of skills, even in these advanced classes.

After we established a routine of referring to and tracking the kid's progress in scales, I saw the benefits for them as well.

1. Accountability- Unfortunately not all children capable of learning quickly are motivated to work! There are multiple reasons and theories why this can be true, but if you've worked with gifted kids, you know that they aren't always the best students. Finishing assignments, staying organized, coping with challenges or perfectionism, emotional or social troubles, can distract them from achieving as much as they are capable of, or mastering the skills that you are interested in having them focus on (primarily the standards).

2. Differentiation- Sometimes teachers assume that a qualified gifted or talented student will be good at everything. They may even assume that they don't have to worry about their progress all year because they will do fine no matter what - not so! These kids are as varied in skills and strengths as anyone else in their classroom and have to be treated as individuals. Even a student who is "gifted" in a specific area, such as math or language arts, they may not have mastered every skill in that area. I had gifted language kids who had amazing vocabularies and profound comprehension, but they really struggled to write fluently. I had math students who were so quick with figures and mental computations, but struggled with word problem application or isolated topics like algebra or geometry. They need differentiation too, and being able to specifically identify their areas of need saves valuable classroom teaching time and can keep them motivated. They get the chance to consistently work on things that they really haven't mastered. This could mean that they move into a scale from the next grade level, or deepen their knowledge and application of grade-level skills.

3. Affirmation! Most gifted and talented kids know that they are smart, but outside of individual projects they don't often have opportunities to display how much they've learned! Sometimes a really advanced student will enter your room already knowing most of the grade-level curriculum, meaning that the usual curriculum and assessments aren't going to show their true growth as a learner. These kids deserve resources to keep them moving forward just as much as any other student. I have found that the scales, which include advanced skills, help these students to pin point where they are going next and affirm that they are learning new things too!

If you'd like to learn more about using Learning Goals with Scales in your room,  there is a quick video tutorial available on my YouTube Playlist -
How to Use Learning Goals with Marzano Scales.

Below are examples of the Student Portfolio Binders I used to track and sort students' Assessments and work. You can get these Portfolios by following the link to my "FREEBIES" page. Grades 3-8