feedback

As educators, when asked if we should increase “student voice” in the classroom or schools, our quick response is often “Yes, of course!” However, in reality, are we really, truly engaging our students in leading our schools, having a say in our curriculum, contributing to our decision-making? I know we do try. For example, we have student councils, we ask for student input in surveys, we give choice to students in projects, we ask them to self-reflect and students participate on some committees. We ask for their feedback, we listen, right? However, student voice needs to go beyond just listening.

Harvard Researcher Brion-Meisels points out:

“Listening to young people doesn’t mean unilaterally considering their perspective…It means recognizing that young people have a perspective on the world that adults can’t share, and that their perspective should be welcomed alongside the wisdom that adult perspectives bring” (Giving Students a Voice by Leah Shafer).

In the past month, I participated in four activities that really solidified my own thinking about student voice.

1. Search Committee

The first was a middle school principal search committee where we had students involved in the interview and recommendation process. What was amazing about the interview process was that our students truly had a seat at the table. They brought their own questions as representatives of the student body. (The best questions on our list came from our students!) Then, when we had discussions as a committee, we went to our students first and listened. Their responses were exactly on point and we were thrilled to have them contribute to the conversation, use evidence to support their arguments, and provide a student perspective, such as, “If she were the principal of my school, I would love coming to school!”

2. Student Discussion

The second instance was a meeting with student representatives at our high school where they were asked a series of questions about the school such as:

Beyond friends, what do you look forward to at school each day?
If you could change one thing at our school, what would it be?
If you could give one piece of advice to teachers or administrators, what would it be?”

The following discussion could have continued for a lot longer than the time allotted because the students in the room were excited that they had an opportunity to share their thoughts on what they loved about their school and ideas for improvement. It was an incredibly powerful discourse filled with respect, reasons supported by evidence, and excitement. It certainly was the highlight of my week! The students, who were representative of various grades and interests, described the school as welcoming, inviting, and inclusive. They enthusiastically provided why they loved coming to school and usually it was because of a single enthusiastic teacher who had made learning exciting. They wanted to have more opportunities for relevant learning opportunities and meaningful homework. They liked using technology, but only when it fit the purpose of the assignment, rather than fitting the assignment around the technology.

3. Student Events– 3rd-Grade Tea

Yesterday, I was lucky to participate in a 3rd grade tea that was being held for seniors in the community. Sitting in the middle of a table of about 11, third graders, it was an opportunity for me to ask them about their school experience. Coming off of the high school discussion recently, I figured I’d stick to some of the same questions. I asked them: 1. “What do you like most about coming to school?” 2. “If you could change one thing about school, what would it be?” 3. “What is your favorite subject?” The students eagerly shared their love for math (that was the #1 choice around the table) and we had a few who liked reading. Some wished they had more time for recess, and thought the end of the day would be the best time to do that before leaving for the day. They said they wished they had more opportunities to learn science, and they shared their favorite books of choice. They liked their music class and were looking forward to learning to play musical instruments in the future. They wanted less homework, but admitted they didn’t have too much each night and Lexia was a big hit because they found it to be a fun way to learn. WOW! That’s A LOT of feedback.

4. Student Panels

Last month our counselors provided a workshop to other educators on the implementation of Wellness Weeks. As part of the workshop, the counselors had student representatives speak to the educators about their thoughts about the effectiveness and impact on wellness weeks from a student perspective. To be expected, the educators in the room were enthralled listening directly from students about their view on the positive impact of these successful practices. Adding student voice to these panels was highly effective!

3 Steps To Increase Student Voice

If you are looking to take action and increase student voice, consider some of the following questions:

Do students have a seat at the table?

Think about all the meetings and committees that take place in a school or district and corresponding decision-making. Every time you have a meeting, ask yourself…what if students were here with us at the table? In our district, we have student representatives to the School Committee, students on our Spanish Immersion board, students on panel presentations, and students on interview committees. Despite all of those opportunities, there is definitely room for growth as well.
Are we asking for student input in a consistent way and then following up with implementation?

If you are a district that does not use surveys of students regularly, then that is a great way to begin this process. Surveys are an effective way to gather data, solicit input, and to help inform decisions in a classroom, school, or district. The key to successful student surveys is that the data is then applied to implement change. It is even more effective when students are part of this process of analysis and discussion. Ask yourself, are you sharing the data with the students and are you implementing change based on input?
Do students have input into and the ability to drive their own learning at school?

Although we work within a standards-based system, that does not mean that students can’t have input into their own learning. There are many ways to increase student voice in learning from input into units, activities, the questions they will answer, or the ways they are assessed. Check out this resource from Chicago on how to have students co-shape curriculum: Seven Steps to Students Co-Shaping Curriculum or this article from the organization we use for surveys called K-12 insight: How to amplify student voice in curriculum discussions.

Resources

If you are looking for more resources about how to increase student voice, here are some examples of how it is being done in schools across the world.

In my own research about student voice, I came across a local school to ours that has a Student Voice Community Service Program at their middle school. What an interesting approach and a way to say at that school–student voice matters. http://cvirzi.wixsite.com/student-voice/contact

5 Videos to Watch on Giving Voice to Students

Including Student Voice by Bill Palmer

Student Power by Milton Chen

Next Steps

After reflecting on the above questions, I challenge you to take one step forward in increasing student voice before the end of this school year. Using the comment feature of this blog, please share out one way that you will try to increase student voice as an educator.

The first time I saw the above picture, it really clicked for me. It was a long time ago, but it was an “aha” moment of sorts for me regarding the differences between formative and summative assessments. Looking back, I used to group all of my assessments into one category in my mind….assessments I used to grade my students and they all were essentially summative in nature. At that time, in the beginning of my teaching career, no one had truly explained the difference, as well as the true impact on student achievement and learning that formative assessments coupled with specific feedback can have. If you look at the soup in the above picture as a metaphor for student learning outcomes, that soup is going to taste a lot better if you check it along the way and make adjustments as needed. Every spice you add….is a piece of descriptive feedback to students…and if you give the right amount and the right kind, the end product is a masterpiece.

Formative Assessment: Visible Learning Effects

The purposes of formative assessments are to guide the teacher on where to take instruction next. They are checkpoints that teachers put in place to make sure their students are still on the path to the ultimate destination of learning. While for many years, we knew that formative assessments were key to helping students reach learning targets, it wasn’t until John Hattie, synthesized over 15 years of over 800 meta-analyses on the influences on the achievement of students, that we realized the significance of formative assessment. In fact, providing formative assessments of learning was the most effective strategy for increasing student achievement, above all other strategies. As shown below, other related strategies to formative assessment include feedback (.73); metacognitive strategies, which are often used in formative assessments (.71), and self-verbalization, seen in self-assessment strategies (.64). Formative assessment and feedback really work!

Formative Assessment Strategies
There are endless examples of formative assessment strategies that can be used in the classroom. Total Participation Techniques is one of my favorite books that give examples about formative assessments and engagement activities.

For more examples please check out the following resources:

Feedback: It’s a marriage between formative assessment and feedback.
Formative assessments are only effective if they are then used to guide instruction and learning. As noted in Chappuis and Chappuis’ (2007) article The Best Value in Formative Assessment in Educational Leadership:

“Feedback in an assessment for learning context occurs while there is still time to take action. It functions as a global positioning system, offering descriptive information about the work, product, or performance relative to the intended learning goals. It avoids marks or comments that judge the level of achievement or imply that the learning journey is over.

Effective descriptive feedback focuses on the intended learning, identifies specific strengths, points to areas needing improvement, suggests a route of action students can take to close the gap between where they are now and where they need to be, takes into account the amount of corrective feedback the learner can act on at one time, and models the kind of thinking students will engage in when they self-assess.”

Moving Past “Good Job!” or “Write Neat”

In previous blog posts, I have brought up some stories about my two boys and I do so because seeing school up close through the eyes of my boys has really provided me insight into areas of education that I had not seen before. One area is in the impact of feedback, and how a small change can make a big difference.

Example #1: My son Connor has been tackling 4th-grade math this year and for those of you who haven’t seen your children make a shift from 3rd to 4th-grade math problems, it can be a big shift. Connor has seemed to make the adjustment pretty well in understanding the various strategies, but in a lot of his work coming home, he had a number of problems marked wrong. When I talked to him to try to figure out what was wrong, we couldn’t figure out why he was getting them marked wrong, but then I realized all of the math was right, but the teacher couldn’t read it clear enough to see that it was the right answer. His commas looked like ones. His 6’s looked like zeroes. With a combination of specific from the teacher and myself….he now understands where to fix the mistakes and how to improve. Last week….all correct and a “Woo hoo!” comment from the teacher. Descriptive feedback explained to him made all the difference.

Example #2: My son Liam is in 2nd grade and of all of the members of our household, he by far has the neatest handwriting of us all. (Thank goodness for computers for the rest of us!) So when he started to get his work coming home with all of the content correct, but a big statement across the top that said “BE NEAT!” we decided to have a conversation with him to figure out what he needed to fix. When I asked him if he knew why it said “be neat” on many of his papers and what he thought he needed to fix, he replied, “I don’t know. It looks pretty neat to me, don’t you think?” I asked him to ask his teacher about it and we came to find out that he wasn’t forming some of his letters correctly, such as his As. So there you have it….a minor example, but now he knows what he needs to work on to improve. He understands the learning target and how to get there.

Feedback: 7 Things to Remember