7 Things about Feedback

Educational researcher and leader John Hattie teaches that feedback and metacognition are the two biggest drivers of learning. Those two instructional components are key to assessment for learning. This prezi offers 7 short ideas for educators about feedback. How might these ideas be useful in your classroom context?        

High, medium or low?

Many teachers have strategies intended to elicit deeper thinking. One teacher in our school division was willing to share her high-medium-low strategy.

Maybe this could work for you too? Based on Blooms, the verbs on each poster say it all: moving from red to green students increase their ability to connect, infer, apply, demonstrate and evaluate their learnings. Posted in her classroom, she challenges students to think, question and apply their learning on these three different levels.

It reminds us of a questioning strategy useful for any grade but especially younger ones: thick and thin questions. Click the links for more information or to see a teacher-created poster using thick and thin questions.

HFCRD37 teachers can also search for strategies and resources in our coaching toolbox on the S Drive. Or check out our prezi on questioning.

Motivation and Mindset

In the words of classic underachiever Homer Simpson, "the first step to failure is trying." Yup, it makes us chuckle too. Yet, how often and to what depth does this sort of negative self-talk impact our students and even ourselves? It's classic fixed mindset thinking.

One of the leading researchers in the field of motivation, psychology professor Carol S. Dweck's book Mindset has real insight on how to increase motivation in our classrooms--a very big challenge that all teachers face. How many of your students give up? How many persist? And why? Teachers need strategies to create growth mindsets and build perseverance.

Using information from Dweck's book, the following prezi (free to share created by Jen Schones) has motivation strategies for teachers that can help students improve their mindsets.

Key Instructional Strategy: Questioning

No doubt as a teacher you ask some terrific questions. But don't you love it when students ask thought-provoking questions too? Inspired by information from The Right Question Institute, this post outlines a step-by-step process whereby students develop their own essential questions about their learning thus creating a culture of questioning in your classroom. Now that's an important life-long skill! For strategies in developing open-ended questions, visit our last post.