Why You Shouldn't Be Afraid to Replace a "Tried-and-True Method"

Tired of the same old pen-and-paper, drill-and-kill nature of test corrections, Algebra 2 teacher Mrs. Kubacki at Northwest High School wanted to shake things up and to make math a little more engaging for her high schoolers. Of course, her existing method was working just fine; students were completing the corrections and often showing growth. Still, she wanted to take a risk.

Quiz corrections are a staple task in her classroom because they give her students the opportunity to earn back missed points on tests. Many of her students rely on them as a way to boost their grade, and she relied on them as an important step in assessing her students progress in advance of a test. She wanted to ensure that when she replaced a tried-and-true method she would still end up with meaningful evidence of learning, so she turned to an tool that is rising in popularity: a video discussion platform.

Tools like FlipGrid and Recap are becoming more renown, but with any new tool, it’s how you use it that truly matters. Though a great tool for virtual classroom discussion or Vlogging, Kubacki instead challenged her students to create with it. She wanted to see student-created tutorials, to be shared with the class.

Using Recap, also known as Let’s Recap and Recap That, her students created video tutorials for one another solving the questions they had originally missed on their quiz. Prior to filming, she gave them clear-cut, high expectations: they had to show their work, use and even define academic vocabulary words for their audience, and show their work step-by-step so their peers could better learn from their video. As a class and before they first participated, they created a list of video norms and best practices for their tutorials. (This list included rules like: No filming and walking. Eliminate as much background noise as possible. Rehearse your video before filming...)

It's probably worth mentioning that many students did have reservations at first; a selfie generation who constantly Facetime, SnapChat, and learn from YouTube are afraid to be on camera. Just like many adults, they were nervous to document their learning and share it with an audience. Anticipating this, Kubacki did not force her students to be on camera, but instead gave them a choice. She also artfully paired students up for the task, sure to consider their personalities. And since she knows it’s helpful when a leader takes the first risk, she was sure to create her own video first, modeling the class-created expectations.

On the day students finally created and published their video tutorials in class, their teacher was both mobile and available to help anyone in need -- this is one of the many benefits in giving students tasks of creation; the teacher can move out of the driver’s seat and into the passenger’s seat. In the event a student did get stuck, they were expected to create a "point of confusion video" --to post their problem step-by-step, up to the point of confusion, and to finally ask their peers for help. Because she expected students to comment on each other’s videos (they established norms for this too), students were able to get help on their corrections and were able to get immediate feedback from both their peers and their teacher.

Of course, Mrs. Kubacki could have stayed with her tried-and-true method of pen and paper, but what would her students have missed out on? Would they have felt as challenged? What academic or even personal growth might they have missed out on? By instead asking them to create video tutorials through Recap, she gave students a platform where they could immediately share their personal growth with a community of learners who could also benefit from their hard work. Taking this risk gave a larger purpose to students' time and to an otherwise mundane task such as quiz corrections. Even more, these students were empowered to own and share their learning by creating something that would help others.

*This blog has been corrected to clarify that the assignment, quiz corrections, was designed as a formative assessment tool leading up to a final summative grade.

A Revelation about Resolutions

Watching a short TED talk on “Grit” by Angela Duckworth, a former consultant turned middle school math teacher, brought about thoughts of personal goal setting and perseverance, thoughts of new years resolutions, thoughts of never-ending attempts at self-improvement, thoughts lacking follow through, and thoughts of failure. It didn’t take long for those thoughts to bring on an overwhelming feeling of defeat with reminders of past inadequacies and ineptitude. As a new year begins, many will set personal and professional goals while trying to figure out how to keep from losing sight of those intentions and eventually abandoning them altogether. In that TED talk, Ms. Duckworth said one thing that began to turn lingering self-defeat into clarity and motivation: “…the ability to learn is not fixed...it can change with your effort…We have to be willing to fail, to be wrong, to start over again with lessons learned.” She very eloquently explained that the key to success and growth is not viewing failure as a permanent condition but as an opportunity for growth and forward progress.

Humans are conditioned to view failure in a very negative light and taught to take steps to avoid it at all cost. When failure is experienced, it is often seen as an endpoint in a journey instead of a brief detour or change in route. The question of how to change this mindset is one that is often neglected when working to facilitate skills for student success and, ultimately, life. However, when searching for solutions to this challenge, it becomes obvious that key elements for success must include clear and attainable goal setting and a frequent and effective self-reflection process.

Sticking with the traveling analogy, it stands to reason that experiential learning is a journey and beginning that journey without a clear destination in mind is futile and pointless. Even if the goal is to aimlessly explore and enjoy wherever life takes you, there is a destination, or goal, of some sort. While traveling, it is also good to keep in mind that when construction, a traffic problem, or an obstacle in a planned route arises, a detour can bring about many new and helpful experiences. The discovery of new places, the skill sets of flexibility and problem solving, and the knowledge of a better way of traveling for the future are all benefits to diverging from a planned path. Whatever it is that alters the planned route to a destination, the “failure” experienced in the pursuit of that original route is ultimately beneficial and one can only know this by reflecting on those experiences, understanding lessons learned, and setting a new course for success.

Eaton High School’s current resolution, or “problem of practice,” is to help students “demonstrate goal setting and reflection to foster critical thinking.” With this goal at the forefront of instruction, EHS provides prime examples of students utilizing digital resources for experiential learning, goal setting, and reflection. One of those examples can be seen in Jennifer Hamzy’s Psychology classes. Mrs. Hamzy uses Google Suite in two ways to provide EHS students with opportunities to reflect on content as well as course progress.

By copying a Google slide deck template, students receive detailed notes over chapter readings and lessons. In addition, these slide decks ask students to respond to reflection questions individually in their copy of the slide deck. They not only are able to increase understanding by making connections to complex psychology concepts but they can also go back to see their answers as they review information for course activities and assessments. Mrs. Hamzy’s students also receive a Google sheet that includes built-in fields and formulas for tracking assessment results and course progress.

This creates more student independence and allows students to see measured progress and areas of need or growth in one quick glance. By frequently documenting personal course data, students who find themselves in situations where they are facing an obstacle or failure, of sorts, can begin to see areas where they can alter their course and focus on a change in strategy for progress and growth, thus correcting previous failures and pushing forward.

While many students have the opportunity to learn practical lessons associated with experiential learning, some have thrived and begun to acquire the “grit” and perseverance necessary to push toward their goals. E-portfolios are an amazing tool for accomplishing this and for providing students with a platform for self-branding, goal setting, self-assessment, and reflection. One student who is an ideal example of utilizing digital resources for goal setting and reflection through experiential learning is Megan, a student in Kristal Holmes’ architecture course. Megan has set goals for herself related to professional architecture, design preparation, and future employment. She utilizes Google Sites to house her e-portfolio showcasing her collection of designs and floor plans as artifacts documenting her work and progress over the course of her studies.

Megan’s work with tiny house design is exemplary of how she documents her design experiences, reflects on them in her portfolio and makes new and improved designs that incorporate lessons she learns from previous architectural designs. Megan’s experiences in Mrs. Holmes’ course have also offered her the chance to develop skills and resources for her professional goals by participating in mock interviews and professional document preparation while constantly receiving feedback for improvement. All of these experiences with goal related tasks give Megan a chance to experience field specific work and tools that teach necessary skills and aid in driving her toward her destination.

Curtis Aguirre’s Spanish I students also utilize digital feedback and reflection tools as they practice using the Spanish language orally. These students use a web-based video tool called Recap where they are able to record themselves speaking Spanish and then receive video feedback concerning their recordings from their instructor and peers. Students can also record self-reflections regarding what they are working on and about their progress with course content. This feedback and reflective work are key to students seeing any challenges as areas needing focus rather than permanent set backs and failure.

Kathryn Watson’s French students are also frequently provided with opportunities to reflect on course assessments and grow through use of Poll Everywhere for informal personal and class reflection. Mrs. Watson uses this online survey tool for in-class reflections, discussions, and exit tickets assessing student feelings and understanding of course content. By allowing students to regularly utilize this tool for reflective tasks, they are being given the opportunity to think back on learning experiences and to contemplate how they dealt with previous assessments and challenges before attempting new ones.

With a true growth mindset at the forefront, anyone can find value in working through obstacles and reflecting on failure, which then facilitates independence, positive behavior changes, life-long learning, and permanent skill development. The learning process is incomplete without reflection. Rather than spending the new year resolving to learn knitting, overcome a personal fear, or lose weight, it would be beneficial to reflect on previously abandoned resolutions and begin to see failure as a temporary road block or detour pushing toward growth rather than a dead end. If we hope to see our students begin to drive themselves into the future, we must help them change views of failure and learn the “rules of the road” by discovering new perspectives and unearthing new routes along their journey to success.

A Digitized Novel Study

Third graders at Beck Elementary recently completed their reading of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. Throughout the reading of this novel, students were tasked with maintaining a digital notebook that would document their discussions, experiences, and learning. 

Students responded to the text in a variety of ways. Getting to know the key characters in the book provided students with the opportunity to analyze character traits that could be supported with text evidence. Beckett, in Mrs. Bell’s class, said, “using different apps, like the whiteboard app, helped us have evidence for our thoughts and allows us show response in pictures and drawing.” Digital tools, such as, the Aww App and Tagul were introduced to students as a way for them to share their thinking about the novel’s characters. 

Mrs. Phillips’ student, Wyatt, felt challenged throughout his work on his digital notebook and his Recap responses. “The most challenging part of our digital novel study was the questions were really tricky and you had to really think and deeply analyze the novel to understand it.” Responding to their reading verbally, using Recap, encouraged students to think deeply about their responses. It was especially empowering for their voices to be heard by their peers as they shared their recorded responses.

An extension menu was also provided to students to access throughout the study. This menu provided students with choice as they responded to their reading in a variety of ways. Support for completing the tasks on the extension menu was provided by the teachers via Screencastify. Instructional videos created by the teacher allowed students to work independently, at their own pace. The extension menu exposed students to new tech tools and provided differentiated learning experiences to students based on their strengths and needs.

On any given day, throughout the novel study, students within their classrooms could be found working on projects of their choice in response to their reading using Buncee, Google Docs, Google Slides and a variety of other digital tools. With choices on the extension menu such as: creating a personal intriguing word wall from each chapter, keeping a summary journal from their reading, publishing a “must read” newspaper article and designing a digital poster to represent a character, it was no surprise that student engagement was through the roof. 

As their reading of the novel came to a close, students had choice again in their final product. Options included creating a book trailer, writing a reader’s theater script or creating an interview with the main character, Edward. These risk-free tasks provided students with a platform to create and collaborate on their learning from the novel study. Some of these tools used to complete these projects were Animoto, DoInk and Canva. Students added their final product as a slide to their digital journal. 

Loseli, also in Mrs. Bell’s classroom, found this project to be good preparation for future learning. “The digital notebook enhanced my learning by introducing me to new websites that can help me with more of my extension projects or more of my learning throughout the year.”

Additional student notebooks can be viewed HERE.