When we redesign our writing workshops in to order to invite the dynamic use of far more diverse tools, we honor the way that today’s writers often need to generate, develop, and test new ideas. We honor our noblest purposes for teaching writing as well: We didn’t become teachers to help students become proficient. We became teachers to help our students become influential. We became teachers to help them leave a mighty mark on this…
Love is blind, and far too often, our relationships with quantitative data remain unhealthy. Despite evidence to the contrary, too many of us still believe that grades provide insight and that standardized test scores suggest solutions. Going gradeless isn’t easy, though. Numbers are far more efficient to work with. They seem to create quick and false certainty during trying times, too. Using data in healthy ways is difficult work. It keeps us on the move, and it reminds us, over and…
Pedagogical documentation enables us to capture learning made visible and assess our students’ strengths and needs without disrupting the learning process. One potential anecdote to the testing mess, documentation inspires us to create rich narratives that deepen our understanding of learners and their experiences. This is a beautiful thing. Experience is teaching me that pedagogical documentation is also incredibly complex work that is not without its challenges. For instance, helping teachers and students choose the…
The Backstory: I’ve spent the last week helping Heather Bitka and Rachel O’Sheehan launch a brand new makerspace in Roy B. Kelley School in Lockport. This project began with solid visioning work that challenged all of us to think about and then rethink about what would happen in that space, how, and most importantly: why. This week has been an incredible learning experience for me, as I’ve tested new professional learning approaches and protocols while…
As I’ve begun supporting teachers’ first efforts to document for learning, this question continues winding its way through nearly every conversation: How do we distinguish learning from its products? This seems like a simple distinction, but experience is demonstrating otherwise. As it turns out, making learning visible rather its products is no easy task. It’s also no surprise when our initial efforts to document learning fall short of our expectations. Here’s what I’ve been talking about with western New York…
Teachers analyze different kinds of evidence in order to construct hunches that help them serve learners well. Clear answers are rare, but if we pay attention, we know when we’re getting closer to understanding the challenges learners face and better at designing solutions. The questions we ask often make all of the difference. Traditional research processes often begin with the identification of driving questions. Intended to focus our work, driving questions can help us define powerful pathways through the research…
Over the last few years, some of the teachers that I support have begun assessing learning without interrupting it in order to test kids. Their commitment to documentation is leading to the development of far better interventions. That’s not why I’m blogging about it, though. It seems that steeping ourselves in this kind of learning isn’t merely increasing our expertise, it’s igniting our curiosities and re-energizing us. As we make our own learning transparent to students, our relationships…