No more atta boys

Read time is approximately 2 minutes

I saved my favorite Robert Mazano strategy, setting goals and providing feedback, for last. His research shows that goals and feedback yields a 23% increase. My own related research shows 75% of adults agreed or strongly agreed that specific feedback positively impacts learning.

Specific feedback is the key phrase here. Experts all agree that feedback needs to specific. Just what does specific mean?  It means phrases that include what is done well—phrases such as, “Your use of action verbs makes this writing powerful,” or “Holding your fingers close together while you swim makes you go faster in the water.”  Include in the feedback what the learner can replicate to continue be good (or get even better) at the task, whatever the task.

What is not good feedback are phrases such as, “Good job,” or “atta boy, keep trying.” The learner needs to know what makes the job good or what action to keep trying.

In the last post, I said that feedback is the sister to recognition. They are related, but not the same thing. Recognition is praise such as “Well organized,” or “First place.” Feedback is what the learner can do to continue earning the awards.

A final thought about recognition and feedback: One powerful phrase I have discovered is, “You can be so proud of yourself.” That small turn of words from “I am so proud of you” to “You can be so proud of yourself” puts the recognition right where it should be, on the achiever. As educators or parents, we don’t want learners to do anything just because it makes us proud—we want autonomous learners that do their best and make themselves proud of what they have done. Next time you catch someone doing something well, watch h/his eyes light up when you say, “You can be so proud of yourself…” Just remember to finish that phrase with the specific action that person took.

Specific feedback is easy to talk about, but one of the struggles is developing the habit of making the feedback specific. Keep working to make your feedback specific until it becomes your default. Every time you say “good job,” add a specific phrase.  One example would be, “Good job of showing your thinking when solving this equation.”

Another struggle with specific feedback is when you do not receive it. Try asking for specifics. If someone tells you “good work,” ask what makes it good. Say you want to be sure to keep doing good work.

As the traditional school year winds down, we will change the focus in the next few posts to emphasize time management in any arena.  Next time, we’ll discuss strategies to make that summer project more likely to be completed.

Authentic rather than artificial

Read time is 2 ½ minutes

April and May are filled with those end-of-the-year awards nights and those award nights are a great opportunity to recognize top performers. However, year-end award nights are not enough. Providing reward and recognition along the learning journey is far more important. 

Reinforcing effort and providing recognition is among Robert Marzano’s top nine strategies, yielding a 29 percentile gain. This strategy is not just for that year-end awards night. Reinforcing effort and providing recognition are authentic acknowledgements along the way that provide incentive for learners. 

Unfortunately, too many students think success is linked to natural ability or luck.  By reinforcing effort, educators can dispel this myth and learners can recognize their own connection between effort and success.

Marzano suggests using symbolic recognition rather than tangible rewards. Symbolic recognition does NOT include gold stars or stickers—these are tangible rewards.  One of the best examples of symbolic recognition is a progress chart. The chart is even more effective when the learner keeps it for him or herself. Learners can chart both their own effort and their own results. Self-charting has a big Return On Investment in two ways: it shows learners how much they are improving and even more importantly, it shows the connections between effort and improvement and/or success. Some great examples of progress charts have been pinned on Pinterest. 

Providing rewards is NOT a new idea by a long stretch and neither is offering caution regarding artificial awards. In his 1993 book, Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, IncentivePlans, A's, Praise, and Other Bribes,  Alfie Kohn  writes, “…S. Neill put it, promising a reward for an activity is ‘tantamount to declaring that the activity is not worth doing for its own sake.’ Thus, a parent who says to a child, ‘If you finish your math homework, you may watch an hour of TV’ is teaching the child to think of math as something that isn’t much fun.” (p.76)  

Let me be clear, recognition and rewards are an important part of learning. It is just that the rewards need to be authentic rather than artificial. For the educator this means providing frequent opportunity for intrinsic rewards along the way. For the learner this means frequently charting self-progress along the way. No need to wait for the instructor to provide the chart.

How realistic is all of this? How does it fit into today’s learning environments? Your thoughts?

In the next post we’ll discuss the sister of recognition, feedback. 

Five at more than twenty

Read time is 3 ½ minutes

In keeping with the summarizing theme, this post is a summary of five of Robert Marzano’s top Return on Investment learning strategies: Homework and Practice; Nonlinguistic Representations;  Cooperative Learning; Generating and Testing Hypothesis;  and Questions, Cues, and Advance Organizers.

• Homework and Practice: (28 percentile gain) The single most important information about Homework and Practice is to let the learner (and the learner’s parents) know the objective of the practice at home. If the objective of the practice is not clear, learners should respectfully ask what the purpose of the practice is. That way everyone knows the importance.  

• Nonlinguistic Representations: (27 percentile gain) These maps, graphs, timelines, or drawings rely only secondarily on words. For instance, when acquiring new vocabulary, drawing a sketch that depicts the meaning of the new term cements the meaning of the new word for the learner.  One of the most powerful uses of nonlinguistic representations is formative assessment. Both the learner and the teacher can see at a quick glance what information is unclear or has not been mastered. The learner then knows what s/he needs to work on more. Nonlinguistic representation builds on the Identifying Similarities and Differences strategy. Resources can be found at http://freeology.com/graphicorgs/. 

• Cooperative Learning: (23 percentile gain) The most important information about cooperative learning is to use affinity grouping. In other words, design groups with learners who are similar rather than learners with highest and lowest ability. We learn better from someone who is right next to us in knowledge or ability rather than someone who is far more advanced. When creating your own study group, find partners who are just a bit ahead of or below your understanding. Find specific techniques for using Cooperative Learning at http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/cooperative/techniques.html

• Generating and Testing Hypothesis: (23 percentile gain) This strategy is not just for science, but for any content area that involves investigating and making a decision. Isn’t that any content area? Notice the strategy is called generating and TESTING hypothesis. The key component of Generating and Testing Hypothesis is going beyond testing to defending the conclusion that the hypothesis led to. Specific techniques for using Generating and Testing Hypothesis can be found at http://techtraining.brevard.k12.fl.us/hooverj/InstructionalStrategies/Generating&TestingHypotheses.htm

• Questions, Cues, and Advance Organizers: (22 percentile gain) The most important aspect of this strategy is questions. Learners, of course, need to ask questions about what is unclear. Teachers need to pose only questions that are not “googleable.” Replace questions that can be answered with facts with more rigorous questions that start with such phrases as, “How would you compare…with…?” or “What is meant by…?” or “What facts would you select to show…?” or “What would be your original way to…?” Other rigorous question starters can be found at http://svesd.net/files/DOK_Question_Stems.pdf  or http://doe.sd.gov/octe/documents/WebbLevel.pdf. Additional techniques for using Questions, Cues, and Advance Organizers can be found at http://effectiveinstructionalstrategies.weebly.com/cues-questions-and-advance-organizers.html

Whew…this post was taxing for me—there is so much important information, I had to constantly remind myself that  summarizing is not only writing down key information, but it is also dismissing less important information. 

There are plenty of weeks left of the school year. Try one of the strategies each week. Repeat the strategies that are particularly helpful. Consider adding a comment about which works well for you.

In the next post, I’ll discuss another top learning strategy—Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition.

Think Twitter

Read time is 1 ½ minutes

How are you doing with your anchor word? Consider posting your word in the comments and a short message about how you are doing. For more information about anchor words, see Gretchen Rubin’s blog.

Grit, my word for 2016, takes perseverance and energy--just like developing a habit of new learning strategies does. 

Over the last year I have posted tools for using the highest Return On Investment strategy, identifying similarities and differences. Today let’s look at the second highest ROI strategy, summarizing and notetaking, which still has great results. According to Marzano’s meta-analysis, summarizing and note taking yields a thirty-four percentile gain for learners. 

Summarizing is not only writing down key information, but it is also dismissing less important information. This slight twist of thinking could be a component that learners are missing. When summarizing, think of choosing what is most important and leaving out the rest.

Notice it is important to leave out the rest. The biggest mistake learners make is to keep too much information in the summary. Sorting through what is important and what should be eliminated is the challenge of writing a summary. This skill is more important today than ever before in this abundant information age. Eliminate all but the most important information—think Twitter writing. 

One way to insure eliminating all but the most important is the Three Little Words tool explained in the Dec. 3, 2014 post. Graphic organizers (discussed in the Feb. 15 and Nov. 2015 posts) are other good ways to summarize.

Writing a summary can be a paragraph, an outline, or a graphic organizer—include only the most important information and use your own words for that information. Develop the habit of writing formal or informal summaries to increase learning.

I invite you to summarize this post in the comments section. Challenge yourself to write as few words as possible while keeping the important information.

In the next post, I’ll summarize other top learning strategies that provide more than a twenty percentile gain.

Year of the grit

Read time is less than 2 minutes 

Like many others, I cannot start out the New Year without taking a turn at emphasizing the importance of personal reflection and setting a plan for improvement. Let me suggest something that will have more lasting effect than a New Year’s resolution. 

I no longer set resolutions for myself, but rather I choose a single word for myself each year. I start by taking some time to reflect upon my strengths and weaknesses. Then I choose an anchor word to help me build on those strengths and diminish my weaknesses. 2016 is the year of GRIT for me.

 Sarah Brown Wessling, the 2010 National Teacher of the Year, blogged about what makes great teachers and learners. She suggests great teachers have passion, empathy, and grit; and great learners are risk-takers, gritty, and curious. Notice both lists include grit. Grit can be described as motivation to achieve a long term goal. Grit isn’t easily burned up or used up in the short term—think learning versus getting a good grade on a single exam.

Both successful learners and teachers have grit. It doesn’t come easily but there are ways to gain grit. To  gain grit, Mark McCatty  builds on others' work and suggests ideas such as resolve, endurance, and engage. 

Angela Duckworth also offers some tips. She writes that people who have grit are “comfortable being uncomfortable. They’re falling down a lot. They’re playing things that are too hard. They’re attempting challenges that are too high. They’re getting feedback.” Developing grit sounds a lot like good learning and teaching.

The Examined Existence website suggests steps such as delaying gratification and embracing challenges.

Join me. How about it? Are you willing to set out for the bigger, gritter picture?

If it isn’t grit you want to develop, spend some time reflecting on what would be beneficial to you in 2016. Choose your own anchor word.

In the next post we will go back to powerful learning strategies, since no one can develop grit or any other attribute without learning. 

Metaphors and analogies; fuel and fire

Read time is 4 minutes. 

This second week of December seems the perfect time to look at the most complex strategy for identifying similarities and differences--Metaphors and analogies.

 With a winter break looming, this is the time to challenge yourself to try a complex and sometimes difficult strategy. You know you only have a short time before break, so challenge yourself to try something complex in the short time.

A metaphor is a direct comparison of two unlike things. For instance, a book is food for thought. Books and food are not alike, but yet both can feed thoughts. An analogy is a comparison of one set of two things with another set of two other things.  An example of an analogy is the sun is to day what the moon is to night.  More information on the difference can be found at the Difference Between website.

Remember, any age learner can engage in constructing metaphors andanalogies. The learner builds upon what s/he knows to make the unknown understandable. Metaphors and analogies connect concrete knowledge to concepts. The first step is identifying metaphors and analogies. Creating a metaphor or analogy becomes a second step and forces the learner to think clearly about information, concepts, and his or her own current knowledge. Later take the next step by explaining the similarities within the metaphor or analogy.  The final step is explaining where the similarities may break down.

Metaphors and analogies can be used in any discipline.

One example is the often used science analogy of comparing a water system to electricity. Challenge yourself to take that metaphor one step further and explain how the water system and electricity are alike and how they are not alike. Come up with another metaphor or analogy that helps make electricity understandable for yourself. 

Writing and all language arts topics are full of metaphors and analogies. Beginning writers can start by identifying metaphors and analogies and later learn to use them in their own writing.

To become aware of metaphors and analogies, think about them in categories: 

Body Vocabulary 

• the heart of the city 
• the foot of the mountains/bed/stairs 
• to give a hand 
• to break somebody’s heart 

Weather Vocabulary

• a warm welcome
• to freeze somebody out 
• to be snowed under 
• to storm out 
• a hail of abuse 

See more starters for learners at Teaching English.  Spaghetti Box Kids even suggests competitions.

Metaphors and analogies also make math clearer. The operation of unpacking the terms in parenthesis is a metaphor. Unpacking and solving do not at first seem alike, yet taking the symbols out of the parenthesis just as you would unpack a box—one item at a time before  going on to the next is a metaphor. Look at other math operations to see how they are like real world tasks.

Social studies constantly shows comparisons within history and geography and students make sense of their world. For instance, metaphors can show the comparison of trade agreements with building a house.

Anthony Vecchioni sums up the importance of incorporating metaphors and analogies into learning. “Using metaphors pushes the speaker to sift through experience and memory in search of a fitting comparison. What is it like to start your day without coffee, for example? There is no right answer, but the process of finding the right comparison promotes robust reflection.”

While I was writing this post, I was reflecting on an analogy for learning and teaching. “A learner is to fuel what a teacher is to a fire.” How are the two sets alike? Where does the analogy break down?  What other analogy or metaphor describes learning or teaching for you?

In the next post, we will talk more about the importance of personal reflection on learning and teaching. 

Fact, opinion, rule, practice, concept, cause, effect…oh my

Read time is two and a half minutes. 

It is not new that the learning category of identifying similarities and differences has the highest Return On Investment category, a 45 percentile gain.* In the last post we reviewed the simplest strategies for identifying similarities and differences. A more complex strategy for using similarities and differences is  CATEGORIZING.

CATEGORIZING has long been established as an assessment tool; for a selfish learner (see Oct 6, 2015 post) it can also be a powerful learning tool. An assessment might ask the learner to categorize animals into mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, or amphibians. Other examples of categorizing as assessment might be types of math equations, types of literary characters, types of foreign words--you get the idea. 

Let's turn our perspective of CATEGORIZING to learning rather than showing what we have already learned. To make learning deep, categorize the information into something meaningful for yourself. 

Start with just two categories. Take the information you are learning and place it into each category. Do not allow a category called Other. Use broad or narrow categories.

• What I Know, What Is Unknown
• Tangible, Intangible
• Fact, Opinion

Later, add more categories.

• Known, Unknown, Perceived, Imagined, Tested by Hypothesis
• Tangible, Intangible, Noticeable, Detectable, Simulation 
• Fact, Opinion, Rule, Practice, Concept, Cause, Effect

Other categories can be much simpler.

• Color, Size, Shape, Characteristics

Even later, describe why the information fits into the category.

This last step takes the learning deeper.

Categorizing can be done individually, with partners, or in groups. The deepest learning is when partners or group members agree on the categorization and why elements fit in the selected category.

Categorizing materials for K-6 learners can be found at http://www.readworks.org/lessons/concepts/classify-and-categorize  or http://www.education.com/worksheets/sorting-categorizing/

A quick search on Bing, brought up over a hundred graphic organizers for categorizing for learners of any age.

           

  

In the next blog post, we’ll look at the most complex strategy for identifying similarities and differences--Metaphors and Analogies. Any age learner can engage in constructing metaphors and analogies.

*Robert Marzano’s meta-analysis online at  http://www.marzanoresearch.com/  or in print What Works in Schools (2003).