After a learning experience, I try to reflect on ideas I want to incorporate into my teaching. This blog post is a reflection of the Tellcollab Unconference I attended in June. I decided to do three blog posts: preparing for student learning, advancing student learning, and supporting student learning. I also decided to publish one in June, one in July, and one in August, so that I would revisit and refresh my memory and carry it into my school year which starts after Labor day. Plus, this area is the one I most need to work on, hence it took me the longest to write. So here is part three, what I learned at Tellcollab about supporting student learning.
Supporting student learning, it’s a shift. This year I am going to focus on what students can do, not what they can’t. It’s about growth and opportunities to compare their current performance to their previous performance. Progress is addicting and I want to get them hooked.
How do I provide more effective feedback to push that progress? How do I get students to provide quality feedback for each other? They need to see quality feedback modeled, and have meaningful practice on how to assess peers. One suggestion is to watch the television show The Voice and listen to how the judges give specific descriptive feedback. I posted this before but I LOVE this example of descriptive feedback called Austin’s Butterfly. 
Critique their peer feedback sometimes, not necessarily just their work. Find ways to link feedback to spontaneous output, and for them to reflect on it! Possibly record themselves and transcribe for homework? Have them ask how did I do? What do I need to do to get to the next step? Provide in the moment feedback… to get to the top layer you need to…
Other ideas from the unconference: give the students a punch list of 5 things and score your partner. Provide demonstrations on quality feedback and practice activities like fish bowl, think a-louds, and Socratic seminar. I want to create a list of comments students can say to provide feedback to each other in French and Spanish.
Technology has made it much easier to record students and easier for me to provide feedback. Check out this Google form for self-evaluation from Catherine Oussselin. Students can call google voice and respond to a prompt, record, and keep all their recordings in google classroom from Sept to May to show growth. Other recording options include Flipgrid, WEvideo, and Vacaroo.
My biggest take away from the unconference is that this year I am going to use more student reflections. This can be as simple as highlight something you are proud of, or highlight something you are not sure of in a different color, or write me a question. Reflecting on learning is higher order thinking.
I plan to introduce quality reflection processes to students at the beginning of the year. I want to keep a running dialogue with students about their progress in their interactive notebooks.
Don’t forget to use these self assessment and feedback tools from the Tellproject.org on yourself.