Two things that I am determined to do the very next time I am in my classroom are as follows:
Number One
I will show the fantastic Austin’s butterfly video to my new class. It is something I show every year sometimes more than once.
Showing this video is useful for many reasons: it reminds children to have a “growth mindset” and persevere; it teaches them how to peer/self-assess in a way that is kind, focused and specific and it shows them the power and importance of redrafting work.
Number Two
I shared some ideas with the Soton Scitt students this morning about AFL, which included feedback and marking. I described a couple of ideas about how to save time marking; including using colour coding that leads to pupils copying down their own next step the following morning before redrafting. I was discussing how I mark pupils’ work in green and then they respond to my feedback and questions using purple pen etc. Then I said that pupils should then respond to my feedback using more purple pen (I stressed that the colour of pen didn’t matter and that I would only ask pupils to do this if their work had been independent etc- so not after every lesson!).
After the lecture I realised that I haven’t been encouraging my pupils’ independence enough; and that although I had told the Scitt students about @learningspy’s blog and how he advocates pupils taking ownership of the feedback progress, I hadn’t really been doing this myself! I had been occasionally asking pupils to peer or self-assess their work, particularly in maths and sometimes English. But by accident I had fallen into the horrific Triple Impact Marking (TIM) trap!
Now I want to try to break my habit so I am going to print these next three steps out and try to make me and my pupils follow them at every opportunity:
1. Pupils self asses their work and highlight sections where they feel they have taken a risk or struggled
2. Teacher provides feedback where it has been requested by pupils (and if necessary- feedback about pupils progress towards the original learning objective)
3. Pupils then improve a section of their work using the teacher’s feedback
