Formative Assessment & Quizster

As I referenced in my Personalized PD post, I've been trying to make more of an effort to be on Twitter and connect with the amazing teachers of the Math Twitter Blog-o-Sphere (#MTBoS).  Last weekend, while grading papers, I tweeted out this question:

The question was born partly out of frustration of my limitations due to time, etc.  I believe strongly in the power of formative assessment but I quickly get overwhelmed by all of the paper that comes with exit tickets, warmup slips, etc.  I also believe in the power of feedback and I don't want my students to get their first feedback on a topic from a quiz/test, so I fight through all of those paper slips, write comments and individualized feedback on each one, and pass them back.  (Thankfully via their table folders!!)

Many people chimed in with responses to my question - Thank you #MTBoS!! - But the one that stood out to me was this tweet from Kate

Quizster is a new app by a long-time math blogger and her husband.  After checking it out and securing permission from our district director to try it out, I decided to test out Quizster with my AP Stat kiddos and a FRAPPY (aka an AP Free Response problem)

Set up was a breeze.  Quizster walks you through the set-up, plus encourages you to create a student account so that you can see what the kids see.  I tested it with both my cell phone and the webcam of my computer and it worked well with both.  Finally it was time to test it out with my kiddos!

On block day, my kids are used to starting the day with a FRAPPY, but often I have them turn it in via their table folder and hopefully they will get it back within the next few days, depending on how behind I am on grading.  With the Quizster app, the students did their work in their notebook, then snapped a photo to upload via the app's webpage on their cell phone browser / Chromebook.  (They are working on a mobile app right now).  Within minutes, I started getting notifications that I had papers to grade!

On the left, you can see my list of "to be graded" as denoted by the red circle.  When I click on a student's name, their work appears (middle photo) and I choose 'Annotate'.  On the right, you can see me writing the student feedback directly on their paper, just like I would traditionally.  After clicking the "X" at the top right, my annotations are saved and there's a button to send my feedback to the student, then back to the "to be graded" list I go! :)

Some features I really like...

• Flexibility on grading - I can easily grade on the patio without papers flying everywhere!
• Flexibility in the classroom - After students submitted their photos, we were able to go over the AP rubric right away as a class, yet I was still able to later give personalized feedback to each student.
• Responsiveness - I really didn't know how easy the app would be to use or how well it would read my writing... it's extremely user friendly!

One drawback is that you do need to be connected to the internet and for students, that may mean use of their data plan if your school doesn't have accessible wifi for student devices.  I had one student that chose to use the Chromebook camera and it worked just fine, but most kids just used their cell phones.  

I'm really excited to use Quizster as we go into AP review.  So far, my students have had very positive feedback as well! :)

Making a difference - One Good Thing

Shoutout to Glenn Waddell (@gwaddellnvhs) - a friend of mine from Nevada.  Glenn and I struck up a friendship over our mutual love of teaching AP Statistics.  Thank you, Glenn for encouraging me to try this strategy!

---

There are only 4 more Fridays in this school year.  Part of me is happy and excited for Summer Break, but a huge part of me is sad because that means there are only 4 more 'High Five Fridays' left in the school year! :(

If you've been around the #MTBoS for a while, you've probably heard about Glenn and his High Fives.  If not, go read his post here or watch the Global Math Departmet webinar.

Glenn first shared his idea at #TMC15 and I quickly heard about it through all of the live-tweeting.  I mulled it over and dismissed the thought almost immediately.  I am a VERY introverted person and putting myself out there in the hallway to high five my students was extremely intimidating.  My kids would never guess how introverted I really am because I can fake it pretty well in the classroom.  However, the hallway was a totally different matter!  Through a ton of encouraging tweets, Glenn talked me down from my fears and I agreed to try it out on Fridays during the 2015-16 school year.

I.LOVED.IT

My kids loved it too!

It's hard to be in a bad mood or frown when you are getting a high five... just sayin' :)

But this year (2016-17) is where I've really seen the power of the High Five.

There's a young lady that I've seen walking down the hall this year.  I don't know her, I don't have her in class.  In early March, as she walked by my room, she shyly asked "Can I have a High Five too?".  This has continued each week until last Friday, and I did not see her.  On this past Monday, she was back and as she walked by, she again asked very shyly for a High Five.  I said, "Of course!  I missed getting my High Five from you on Friday!".  Her eyes brightened and she went on down the hallway to her class.  Yesterday, I wasn't in the hallway yet, I was standing just inside my door with a student and as this young lady walked by, she reached into my room with her hand held up and said "Happy Friday, Mrs. T!"

It's amazing how one little thing can make such a huge impact on a person's attitude as well as classroom culture.

Personalized PD - A Renewed Committment

I might just be on a blogging streak.. 2 posts in one day! :)

Years ago, I was extremely active in the #MTBoS. I blogged regularly and was an active contributor on Twitter. I spear-headed the #Made4Math challenge and actively participated and coordinated many Twitter chats and book clubs.

But then, life happened.

Three of the past 4 years, I've had a new prep - and all of them have had their own challenges and struggles. This year, it's pre-calculus and while I am so blessed to have amazing students that I adore, I will be the first to admit that I'm not enjoying the curriculum due to its disjointed nature. The daily struggles and challenges have created a situation where I have pushed away from the MTBoS world and broke ties with people I used to converse with daily. Sometimes change is good - sometimes it bites you in the rear.

For me, it was the latter. As a result of my self-isolation, I have lost a richness in my life that I miss. I miss having people to reach out to to share ideas, triumphs, and frustrations. The #MTBoS has moved well beyond me and I am standing still, just watching their plume of dust in the distance. I'm not sad that I was left behind, but I am sad that I chose to stand still instead of continuing forward, even if I was moving at a snail's pace.

So I am making a public commitment to move forward - to stop standing still. I don't like being stagnant. I don't like the lack of personal growth that I have experienced.

My goals:

• Engage in Twitter at least once per week.  This may be an organized chat or just informal, but I need the mental stimulation that comes with working with other #MTBoS teachers
• Read more blog posts.  I miss the excitement that I get from reading about a really cool idea from a follow teacher.  I need to update my blog roll and blog reader and find new bloggers that are sharing the awesome and not-so-awesome days in their classroom.  
• Blog.  I need to be vulnerable and allow myself to share those same days.  
• Read professionally.  I love summer and the opportunity to read books that challenge my thinking.  This year, after struggling so much, I think my focus needs to turn back to formative assessment and pedagogy because those are things I definitely let slide this year

I know this is ambitious and I need your help.  I need an accountability partner (or 2 or 10) to make sure I stay on this path.  If you are willing, please leave a comment or tweet me :)

Crunch Time

(Note:  I know I should probably make some sort of statement about being gone for so long, but every time I try, it just sounds awkward and weird and I erase the screen and shut down my blogging screen for another several weeks, so we're going to just skip past all that, k?  We're just going to pretend like blogging is a regular occurrence around here and that it hasn't been 7 months since I last wrote...:)  )

---

It's crunch time.  The AP exam is in just under 3 weeks and I'm not ready.  My kids are mostly ready, but what I wouldn't give for another week of teaching time to really solidify some concepts!  I've taught AP Stat for 17 years and one would think that I would get better and more efficient at it, but one would be wrong.  I like hands-on activities and that takes time.  With each new released AP exam, I find things that I could tweak or should emphasize more and that takes time.  Curriculum changes in the courses leading up to mine have forced intro stat/probability out the window, so filling in the gaps takes time. Classroom management of 32-33 kiddos, even when they are great kiddos, takes time.  As a result, I have to play triage and decide which topics to teach deeply, which topics to skim over to hit the high points, and which topics to move to the very end of the course and hope I get there before Exam Day comes.

This week was crazy in terms of time.  After school review sessions have started and I'm trying to figure out every little possible thing that I can do to help my students be more successful.  I love teaching seniors, but seniors after spring break can be tiring.  I'm so blessed that my students this year are a fabulous group of kids, but they are tired and I understand that completely.

Skills Check
Last week, on Pinterest, I ran across Bowman's post on Skill Drills in AP Calculus.  While AP Calc and AP Stat are both considered AP math classes, they are vastly different in terms of subject matter and needed skills, but I really liked this idea, so last Sunday, I started typing up my own version of 5 minute quick checks for AP Stat in nice little quarter-sized pieces of paper :)

I've been using them this week as exit tickets and my students have responded very well!  I don't claim ownership of these problems - in fact most of them are based on AP released exams, but you are welcome to them if you want them.

Review Flipper
Last year, I had my students make an AP Review Flipper, but this year, I just ran out of time.  The idea is that each day my students would write an index card "cliffs notes" version of a chapter of material that we could assemble into a review tool.  I got through the first 6 chapters when time just got away from me and it didn't happen this year.  I know that last year's students felt it was very useful, so I felt guilty for not getting it done this year.  With no time left and AP review about to start, I spent many hours this week transcribing my cards to send to the copy shop for each of my students.  This week, we will take a day to highlight each "card" and assemble our flippers and pray that it works okay.  I know it's not ideal - I would rather have them write the cards themselves, but.... :)

My hand was cramping for a good while after this... :)

Now I need to figure out the best way to maximize the next few weeks... In an ideal world, I could give my students some free time to work on old questions, but I've found that in general, that doesn't work well with seniors in May :)  What strategies do you use to help your students?

Formative Feedback

I've been thinking a lot about feedback lately. It started with this tweet:

@MrAbend I would be really curious as to what the Math learning/cognitive science research says about error types. Does @mpershan know?

— Anna Blinstein (@Borschtwithanna) April 15, 2017

@mpershan was kind enough to respond with an email and sent me down a rabbit hole of articles and blog posts about the usefulness of feedback. Since Michael was the inspiration for this journey, it's only fitting that I try to imitate his style of writing out loud to try to organize my thoughts on this topic (sorry, Michael - reading this back after I've finished the blog post has shown me that you are inimitable. Also, I should probably avoid writing blog posts at 11 pm in the future).

The central question we discussed was: what is the purpose of feedback? Clearly, it is only useful if it changes a person's thinking. Does pointing out a mistake do this? Does categorizing the mistake do this? Does indicating a student's level of understanding of a topic ala Standards-Based-Grading do this? Do questions do this better than statements? Do students need to reflect on the feedback or do another problem related to the feedback received or implement it in some other way in order to get more benefit from it? Written vs. oral? Immediate vs. delayed?

Feedback while kids are working in class:

This is the type of feedback I think I know how to do the best. When kids are working on a task, either on their own or with someone else, I am usually able to ask questions, point out features of their work, or connect them with other students' thinking so they can make progress, identify and correct errors, and clarify their own ideas. The one blind spot that I think I still have in this area is when a student thinks about a problem in a way that is really, really different from methods I understand or have seen and thought about before. This doesn't happen very often, but when it does, I'm really stumped. I can help them verify that their answer is incorrect. I can ignore their method and show them a way to think about the problem correctly or point them to another student in the class with a different approach. But if I don't understand it, I can't help them resolve the cognitive dissonance of their incorrect approach, which means that my work is not complete.

But in general, this is the type of feedback that seems to pay the most dividends. The kid is right there with their work, we can have a conversation, I can see if they are able to implement my feedback and give more or of a different kind, as needed, or ask them to work on a related problem. This is really the best case scenario in feedback world for me.

Feedback on homework:

Things start to get real hazy real quick when I'm looking at a kid's work outside of class and my feedback is now provided in written form or via a conversation with them the next day. Will they have time/inclination to do anything about my feedback? Without the option of a conversation, I have to make a guess, which I suspect is often not great, about their thinking and the amount/level of information to provide back and how to do that in a way that opens thinking rather than closes it. Honestly, I don't have any evidence that students get a ton out of the written feedback on their homework assignments. I've thought about building in class time to have students read the feedback on their assignment from the previous day and do something with it (since homework is turned in digitally and feedback is provided digitally, I have no idea how thoroughly students would be reading my feedback otherwise), but it seems like I could just use this time to talk to students of concern about their work or have the class do a problem related to an issue that I saw on many papers. We already go over homework questions in class before it's turned in and the answers are provided in advance, so presumably, they know if they are understanding the material. If I'm very concerned, I would rather email a student or talk to them in class or ask them to work with me outside of class. Spending lots of time writing comments and then flinging them into a black hole of ??? doesn't seem like the best use of my limited time. But not providing feedback on homework also seems wrong. So I'm at a bit of an impasse here. I've moved some of my homework grading (especially for bigger projects) to in-person conversation and in an ideal world, I would be able to do that for all of my grading, but time with students is a precious commodity.

Feedback on assessments:

This type of written feedback seems to go better than homework. I think that there are a few components that have made it more successful:

1. Students perceive assessments to be more summative and take feedback on them more seriously. They know it's a check of their understanding that will more directly be reflected in their grade (grades as motivation.... laaaaaame, but I'm not sure how to get around this... I have to produce some sort of grade at the end, and I like homework to be purely for feedback so that leaves assessments for grading). As a result, they read comments more carefully and are more motivated to figure out their mistakes and learn from them so that they can show more understanding on the reassessment.


2. I separate the feedback and grading parts to help students focus more on the feedback initially. When I grade assessments, I only write comments/questions (and try not to say too much since I know I'll be there in person to continue the conversation). I record their SBG grades on the assessment in the online gradebook only a day or so later, based on the research that showed that when students receive written comments and a grade on an assessment, they basically ignore the comments and only look at the grade, and that this is not helpful for learning. Getting back their assessments with comments only helps to keep the conversations on concepts and learning only, not on grades, as well as encourages students to work together with less comparison to others. 


3. We spend class time correcting quizzes, usually in groups that are either assigned randomly or by common error types. The quiz corrections are an assignment that is collected, they are not for "earning back points" (I don't actually understand what that means), but they are required in order to reassess. I ask students to analyze their error (did they misunderstand an aspect of the concept? execute a procedure incorrectly? make a careless mechanical error?), as well as redo the problems on which they made errors. Based on my thinking around this issue, going forward, I'd like them to also state what they plan to do to make progress on the issue identified. Michael seemed to think that identifying the type of error is not particularly helpful to students, but I think that when followed up with a "next step," it is maybe more useful?


4. I think that more students actually know what they should do to make progress with assessment feedback. They've done a lot of work with the concepts being assessed. They can talk to peers to understand other approaches, they can talk to me, we can schedule a meeting outside of class to work together, they can refer to online resources organized by content topic to review a concept or procedure, they can do practice problems from homework assignments and previous reviews related to this concept so the feedback is both more closely connected to a concrete goal and to ways of reaching that goal. 

So my main questions right now are:

1. How can I make feedback on homework more useful in helping students change their thinking?
2. Are there ways to improve both my in-class and assessment feedback?
3. How can I move more of my feedback to conversation and away from enigmatic notes that try to strike just the right balance of tantalizing hint/information-giving and hook to motivate kids to want to look at their homework again and rethink their approach, but that mostly get ignored or scanned quickly and not attended to? Did I mention that writing tons of feedback on homework assignments takes a lot of time???
4. Are there aspects of feedback that I'm not considering?

Using Canvas to coordinate written feedback

Yesterday, @druinok asked for suggestions on providing more written feedback to many students quickly.

I wish I had the time to give my students more written feedback without a grade attached. How do you fit it all in?

— Druin (@druinok) April 15, 2017

It turns out that we both use Canvas, an LMS, at our schools. There are a lot of features about Canvas that are not the most user-friendly, but in terms of giving feedback to students quickly and easily, it's been really helpful. Here's how I use it:

1. All work that I collect from students passes through Canvas, including work that is not graded, but is just for feedback. I create an assignment with either a link to a pdf for problem sets or to a Google doc for projects/written reflections
   
   
   

2. Students complete the work either in their Math notebook or in a Google doc (for projects/written reflections). But all work is submitted digitally. The student's view has an electronic submission button. Most of my students have the Canvas app on their phones and can submit by snapping a photo of their written work. Those that don't have the app take a picture with their computer camera and submit it via the web version of Canvas. I remind students to submit their homework to Canvas after we go over homework questions in class.
   
   
   




3. In grading mode, I see the photo each student took, mark the assignment Complete or Incomplete, and type written feedback. If the assignment is graded, I indicate their level of proficiency and sometimes comment on the specific objectives graded (we use Standards Based Grading so students don't see points, only learning objectives and levels of proficiency).
   

4. The system is quick - I can go through all the work submitted by students, type or copy and paste comments, and click on levels of proficiency if I'm grading the assignment. Students see the feedback on individual assignments and can also look at feedback from past work, chronologically or organized by learning objective.
   
   
   
5. I love the fact that students have access to all of their Math work in their notebook at all times - there's no longer the loss of time in turning it in, waiting for me to write feedback, and then getting it back, accompanied by the inevitable loss of someone's work and of me lugging piles of papers back and forth from school. There's no longer a question of whether something was turned in or what the feedback on that work was. We can both always easily see a chronological record of the feedback given over the course of the year and track progress. If I ever create a portfolio system for summative assessment, all of the student's submitted work is already digital and organized.
   
   
6. The one drawback that I wish Canvas provided is the ability to annotate directly on student work. If I want to draw a student's attention to a particular problem, I have to write a note that says, "In question #2, look at..." instead of just circling question #2 on their paper. When students upload their files in pdf format, Canvas has an internal marking system that activates and allows you to annotate, highlight, and type directly on the page. But for most students, this would add an extra step of converting their picture to a pdf and uploading it in that format, and I would rather make homework submission as simple as possible. So for now, this is my system.