Dear Students…

After reading some of the responses posted here, I empathize with what has already been coined as “Cohort 21 Guilt”. I procrastinated writing this final reflection because I felt like I hadn’t done “enough”. I now realize there’s no such thing as “enough”.

My action plan focused on the notion of “success”. What is “success”? As I thought about this back in the Fall, I asked my students how they defined success in the classroom. I had an inclination what the answers would be, but here are a few of my favourites:

“If I feel more confident in the material at the end of the year and try my best throughout the whole duration while remaining un-stressed”
&
“When you improve, learn, and understand new things that you didn’t know before. Success is when you accomplish a goal (for example, doing well in a course).”

Unfortunately, the majority were some variation of “Good grades” though. Herein lied my frustration. Most of my students have a notion that good grades equal success.

After the second face to face, I was able to distill my HMW question down to this:
How might we shift students’ perspective of success to be more learning centred and less focused on marks?

Here is the why behind my action plan:

1. I didn’t want students to see marks as the ONLY measure of success.
2. I want students to use daily formative feedback to help them reflect on how to improve.
3. I want students to look at the bigger picture for small successes.

Small things I started to do after some great advice after the third face to face:
I started to give formative quizzes without any marks on them, just feedback.

I tried to implement more assignments into classes to complement tests and quizzes. For example, we had our grade 9s create their own application of linear system word-problem that satisfied a given solution.

I explored docAppender to help organize students’ reflections after tests but am still toying with this idea.

We will never be able to get rid of marks completely, that’s our benchmark, our currency. I notice I have changed my language and focus though. The bigger picture isn’t the test, the bigger picture is the learning.

The end of the beginning 🙂
I love this phrase; it reminds me that there isn’t a set “place” that I should be at. It reminds me that this Action Plan will continue to germinate and grow with the years to come.

I will continue to emphasize reflection by asking my students’ reflective questions after evaluations (how did you prepare for the test, in what ways could you have improved upon this, what topic are you confident with….). I will continue to give them formative quizzes, but not give them marks on it, just feedback. I will continue to explore docAppender to organize and document their reflections. I will continue to lean on the Cohort community for their thoughts and ideas.

Thank you @lbettencourt for inviting me to be a part of this amazing Cohort experience. Thank you @nblair for being a thoughtful and awesome facilitator. Thank you @mmoore for the coaching and math insight along the way. Thank you @ckirsh for your awesome podcast that I listened to on my drives to Montreal. 

Finally, somewhere in my reflection process, I wrote this letter to my students:

Dear Students,

We teach you to prepare you for tomorrow and life beyond these walls. You probably won’t receive a percentage attached to your performance when you enter the workplace, but you will most likely still have to present, collaborate, problem-solve, meet deadlines and be evaluated.

I want to prepare you for the moments when you and a colleague disagree, or when you have a problem you do not know the answer to or when you are given an insurmountable amount of work. I want you to be able to value to another’s opinion, not back down from something you have never done before and not be intimidated by a workload.

I want to give you these tools, but it often seems like you care more about if “such-and-such” will be on the test.

I want you to know what you’re learning is difficult and I hope you get the answer wrong along the way – that means you’re challenging yourself! I want you to know that the mark that upsets you in your grade 9 math class will not matter when you leave school. I want you to realize there’s no reason to obsess over the fact that it’s 89% and not 90%. I want you to be resilient and try your best and if that means dropping a couple of balls here or there, that is okay. I want you to take our advice and feedback and learn to put it into practice instead of searching for an extra mark.

So, please embrace getting the answer wrong, and keep trying to get it right. Keep working with your friend and talking your solution out. Keep scratching your head and wondering where you might have gone wrong, because that’s when you learn. Not when you receive a mark.

-Ms. Mitchell