If you’re reading this post after Robyn’s most recent newsletter piece and tip sheet on Keeping Promises, you may be thinking about the promises to students that you have made, mangled, and managed to keep. As I read her tip sheet, one of the “promises worth keeping to our students” stood out to me:

7. I promise to help you learn from your mistakes and show you how to get better at learning.

This one took me a long time to figure out in my own classroom, and I continue to practice it as I work with both teachers and students. In my first several years as an English teacher, I thought I was helping students learn from their mistakes when I spent hours writing comments on their papers and grading the work that I handed back. And when I deducted points for late or incomplete work, surely they must have been learning from their mistakes. But it seemed like those same kids kept making those same mistakes over and over.

What I found out through trial and error is that I was taking only the first step in that process. I was showing students that they had made a mistake. Sometimes I could get them to remember that they always made a certain mistake. A few of those kids even felt bad or stupid when they saw the mistake pointed out again and again.

Unfortunately I wasn’t doing a very effective job at helping my students learn from their mistakes or at showing them how to get better at learning. One day I had a very upset 7^th grade student, we’ll call her Shana, come to me with her paper in one hand, a low C full of comments, and her friend’s paper, an A, in the other. “How come her paper is good and mine is bad?” she asked, “Mine is just as long.”

I realized that, unlike me, Shana hadn’t spent an entire Saturday reading 100 versions of this paper and seeing how they stacked up. She had only seen her own work and, despite my comments, she really didn’t get how to make it better.

After checking to make sure her friend was okay with us using her work, Shana came in at lunch and we spent 15 minutes looking back at the assignment sheet and rubric, reading her paper and comparing it to her friend’s. I was able to put my comments in context and explain how they connected to what the assignment asked for versus what she had written. At the end of our conversation, she seemed satisfied. Shana really understood why her paper earned a C while her friend’s earned an A. She was able to talk about the work more objectively rather than just feeling angry and criticized. We had another similar assignment shortly thereafter and she did much better.

After this assignment, I shared with Shana’s entire class some anonymous examples from another class and we talked about what made them high quality work. Students reviewed the comments on their own papers with a partner and compared their work to the exemplars. I saved a few copies of C and D papers and used them anonymously a couple of years later (once their authors were safely in high school) so that students could practice explaining why these examples didn’t meet the standard. I even saved a few with the most commonplace mistakes and had students analyze them before the assignment was due, giving them the chance to check their own work and fix up any similar problems.

Looking back, I’m thankful that my frustrated student marched up to my desk with her friend’s paper in hand and demanded to know why they weren’t the same. She taught me how to help her learn from her mistakes – and how to transform criticism into progress. In the process I think I kept promise #10: “I promise to learn alongside you.”

–Claire Lambert

Does your school or system require that objectives be posted in the classroom? Are they part of your lesson plans? Something that shows up in your curriculum? At some point in your teaching career you’ve probably encountered SWBAT – Students will be able to…  But can you put SWBAT in front of just anything and call it an objective?

Often when teachers plan, whether it’s for a single lesson or the next unit, they focus on the activities students need to complete. With curricula that are packed with must-do projects, tests or worksheets, it’s easy to concentrate only on what work students have to get done and not what they should get out of doing that work.

The good news is that with a little reflection, it’s easy to upgrade an objective from the activity level to the mastery level. “SWBAT create a poster about the prairie” may become “SWBAT identify four species of prairie plants and animals and explain how they interact in their environment.” It’s still important for students to know what you want them to do – complete those worksheets or make a poster – but sometimes we forget to explain what it is we really want them to know. When we write objectives at the mastery level we not only clarify for students why they’re doing this work, but we also uncover the key elements for ourselves which makes classroom differentiation much easier.

For example, if a student has difficulty writing or breaking down a complex task, making the prairie poster could take more time than is available leaving her struggling to catch up. For some younger students who are still developing the motor skills for cutting and pasting or who could get lost for an hour looking for prairie pictures in a magazine, it’s difficult for them to meet the objective written at the activity level. This objective says the student must create a poster, implying that the most important skill is poster creation.

But when the teacher rewrites the objective at a mastery level, she opens up the possibilities for expressing the essential knowledge in other ways. Maybe now the student could walk the teacher through a textbook chapter using the illustrations to show what he knows about the prairie environment or select prairie pictures from a variety of choices, group them, and tell a partner how they interact.

Take a moment to look at the objectives posted on your board today or in a lesson plan for next week and reflect on what the objective really asks students to know and be able to do.  Give yourself a pat on the back for your mastery level objectives and be on the look out for those that could use an upgrade!

–Claire Lambert

We have officially entered the absurdly long, bleak stretch between winter break and spring break. Many of us arrive at school while it’s still dark outside and find the sun dipping below the horizon by the time we leave. Despite the dreary weather and kids who are cooped up inside all day, this can actually be one of the most productive times of the school year. Your routines are well established, you know your students and their needs, and there are probably fewer interruptions to the school day than in the fall or spring.

Most teachers are starting a new marking period sometime in January, so spend a few minutes taking a big picture look at what the quarter holds for you. Try using a calendar to map out the coming marking period. Do a web search for “calendar template” and you’ll find plenty of options out there that you can save on your computer and type into.

As you do your long-term planning, remember to mark these important features on your calendar. Look for anything that impacts students’ time in class or your own workflow.

• Holidays when there is no school (Come on… Presidents’ Day!)
• Teacher work days/ Professional days
• Partial school days or other days with limited instruction
• Assemblies, festivals, pep rallies, field trips and other days with interrupted instruction
• Days devoted to state/district testing or test preparation
• Days devoted to school-wide testing, such as elementary reading assessment
• Due dates for interim grades, report cards, or parent/teacher conferences
• Due dates for making recommendations for next year’s courses
• Your personal commitments (Family visiting for the weekend? Don’t collect an essay on Friday!)
• Time you can keep clear on your calendar spend getting ahead (If needed, can you come in early every Tuesday? Stay late on Thursdays? Block out one Saturday a month to spend grading papers at a coffee shop?)

Now that you can see the big picture of the next few months, it’s easier to schedule in due dates for tests, projects, portfolios, etc. at times when students will be in class and you will have time to grade and provide quick feedback.

If you save a version of the calendar before inputting your personal and classroom information and email it to your colleagues for them to use as well, I guarantee you’ll be the most popular person in the teachers’ lounge today!

–Claire Lambert

It only takes a few minutes, but once you number the chairs in your classroom you’ll find countless ways to use this system. Print out or write on individual note cards the numbers 1 – the total number of chairs in your classroom. Use sturdy clear packing tape to attach the number to the chair – a great place to put the number is on the seat back so students can easily turn around and see the number, but won’t be tempted to doodle on the number or peel it off. Next make a set of note cards with each number to keep on your desk. You can even laminate them and reuse them from class to class and year to year.

Now you can use the numbered chairs to:

Promote Random Name Calling– Let students shuffle the deck and pull from the top or pick a card to see who will answer the next question, be next to the board, or give the next presentation. (Secret hint – if there’s someone you really want to hear from, it’s okay to put his card close to the top!)

Assign Classroom Jobs – Need someone to run a note to the office or pass out papers? Pull a number from the top of the pile and save the time wasted on “Pick me! Pick me!” hand-raising

Assign Partners or Groups – Pull cards to make random pairs or groups on the spot. If some seats are empty or students are absent, just pull the next card in the stack.

Rearrange Desks – Quickly move desks from rows to groups by creating a diagram on the overhead or electronic board showing how you want the chairs arranged by number. Students move their own desks rather than the teacher arranging 30 desks after school.

Claire Lambert