Mainely Middle
Journal of the Maine Association for Middle
Level Education
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2001/2002 |
Goal Setting and Self-Directed Learning
Introduction Mt. Ararat Middle School is a state of the art learning center whose leadership and teachers are dedicated to middle level teaching philosophy and "best practices" based on latest research. The administration encourages faculty to engage in staff development opportunities, both in and out of district, and many of the school's educators are presenters at conferences in their own right. Mt. Ararat Middle School has recently moved into its new facilities, which were developed with much teacher input over the last five years. Next year, it will be a bustling learning center for nine hundred sixth through eighth grade students. It will be the largest middle school in the state of Maine to date. The school receives students from five different towns, and although the district is directing efforts to unify curriculum and learning experiences throughout the district, there is still much work that needs to be done. In compliance with current middle level philosophy, all students are heterogeneously grouped into houses with teams of four core curriculum teachers responsible for approximately one hundred students. The school mission clearly sets forth the challenge that all students have the opportunity to succeed in every aspect of the academic and co-curricular programs, regardless of the previous record of achievement or the pace at which they learn. The school profile or breakdown of the heterogeneous grouping is 25% of the student body in need of a varying intensity of special services, approximately 10% identified as gifted and talented and the remainder 65% of the population considered the prototype of the typical middle student. However, I must add the comment that there is no "typical" middle student in the sense that "one size of education fits all." The staff and administration have struggled with the transition from reporting student progress based on the traditional forms of assessment which include standardized testing and letter grades based on averages, and that based on the current middle school philosophy stated in This We Believe: Since early adolescence is a crucial period in establishing a clear self-concept and positive self-esteem, assessment and evaluation should emphasize individual progress rather than a comparison with other students. The goal is to help students discover and understand their strengths and weaknesses, interests, values and personalities. Student self-evaluation is an important means of developing a fair and realistic self-concept. Responsible middle level educators design assessment and evaluation activities that allow young men and women equal opportunity when measuring academic progress. (National Middle School Association, 1995, p. 27) This passage directs my inquiry into best classroom practice in middle level education goals. At first glance, the directive seems quite clear. Adolescent students are unique in that they are transitioning from dependent children into young adults and are going through many emotional and intellectual challenges during this middle school stage in their lives. The directive to teachers is quite clear. In order to support the young adolescent students, teachers need to reward reasonable effort of individuals based on what they have accomplished when compared to where they have been and not against some mandated uniform standard that does not take into account growth (National Middle School Association, 1995). However, the reality is that parents and the school board are not ready for communicating student progress without any reference to standard letter grades. To address this situation the school has adopted various additional means of communicating student progress including profiling student progress using a continuum scale in addition to letter grades on report cards, portfolios, and student-led conferences. Considering my struggle with how to measure individual student progress or growth for one hundred students with different needs, learning styles and personalities, coupled with the experience of being overwhelmed by the lack of self-direction the typical student has toward his own educational endeavors, I started to think about how to develop a pattern of "self-monitoring and self-evaluation" that will help students understand their strengths and weaknesses and encourage them to design their own goals and educational opportunities. This outcome would transfer much of the burden of tracking learning from me as evaluator to a cooperative effort between student and me to set goals and track learning. The academic area involved is science, a highly abstract and conceptual laden discipline at the middle level. Once I had clarified the objective of my inquiry, I struggled with how to frame the steps to carry out my objective and how to determine how my findings could best serve to construct a meaningful plan of action for my classroom so that there would be a smooth and meaningful transfer of the burden of responsibility for behavior and learning from teacher to student. The commitment to this yearlong undertaking of inquiry is put forth in my yearly Teaching Goal Document, submitted to my principal in October 2000. In conclusion, the project I have undertaken is rooted in the belief of middle school philosophy that students "need to participate in all phases of assessment and evaluation, helping to set individual and group goals, identifying ways to measure progress, and evaluate their own accomplishments" (National Middle School Association, 1995, p.27). After much reading, discussion with colleagues, and thoughtful reflection, I decided to pursue the idea that the fundamental place to start scaffolding student-based learning is to investigate pathways to help students learn how to be independent, goal oriented and insightful learners. The outcome of this reflective inquiry was to generate a problem statement and research questions to guide strategy development.
Research Problem Statement
Currently most students rely on teachers for direction and not on their own sense of what needs to be done and what next steps should be followed to complete tasks and assignments. I believe this is a result of inadequate direct instruction and practice in criteria design and use, goal setting, self-assessment and reflective practices. I want all of my students to be able to monitor and evaluate their own products based on criteria, both teacher and class generated, to guide their learning. Therefore, I plan to set criteria for, and with, my students and provide opportunities for exposure to past student work for analysis. I will increase student skill and ability to self-reflect by using "prompts and starters" for focus. I will also provide substantial opportunities for self-assessment, self-monitoring, and collection of evidence to show growth or to provide data as a basis for revision. I will provide timely feedback to support and guide student efforts.
Research Questions • Will the introduction and use of "prompts and starters" have a significant impact in generating reflective responses and insightful self-evaluation in my students? • Will an increase in the generation of criteria and rubrics have a direct relationship to the production of quality products that meet or exceed standards? • Will collecting evidence from their own work to show growth help students recognize the need for revision in their product? • What benefit is there, if any, in evaluating past student work of varying quality, as a collection for students to critique and measure against criteria?
Description of Research Many considerations were faced and attended to as the course of my inquiry unfolded. I consciously decided that it was extremely important to take as much time as needed to establish a classroom environment that would work to promote..." the attitude and skills to define learning as a highly personal process of informing, engaging and reflecting to develop the ability to self-critique and, independent of teacher influence" (Johnston,1996, p. 25). The first step in the process was to open up a dialogue between the students and myself about what does a good product or meaningful learning look like. The place to begin was by sharing with them my expectations and initiating a dialogue to help students develop language that makes such a dialogue possible. A common language of what it means to do a task well is the first step in helping students to start evaluating, revising, reflecting on, and setting goals. Setting criteria was the place to start (Yancey, 1998). The students in all four of my classes brainstormed to generate a list of goals to increase their organizational skills as the year began. I collected and generated the list of goals my classes produced and distributed a copy to each student. Once again we collectively decided on one goal from the list to address for the next two weeks. The goal was to record homework accurately and thoroughly so that it makes "sense." We decided on this goal because it was easy to determine whether it was met or not. The next step was for students to come up with criteria that could be used to determine whether or not the goal was met. After two weeks, each student determined whether or not they met the homework goal by reflecting on how well they met the criteria. Once the students became familiar with using criteria, the next step was to apply the use of criteria to science products and set in motion the process of collecting student work in order to document when goals were met or progress was being made as a sign that students were showing growth as self-directed learners. The other consideration that needed to be addressed was how student performance was to be assessed as compared to the criteria. There were three ways in which I attempted to help students t make the shift from completely depending upon my judgment of their work, or upon an arbitrary mark on a paper, to giving value to their efforts toward focusing on what really counts: what they are actually learning and what they can do to improve. The first step was to introduce the use of rubrics and task assessment lists as aids toward self-assessment. These tools took the burden of judgment away from me and put the responsibility for quality work directly on the student. There was no question as to what attributes would be present in a well-crafted hypothesis, conclusion, essay, etc. Some of the task assessment lists were generated by collaboration between the students and me. Others were designed completely by me. All rubrics were authored by me. Again, the rubrics and task assessment lists were implemented so that students would start to evaluate their own work against a definite, written and accessible criteria, instead of depending upon me to judge their work. They would not be left in the "dark" and would know exactly what was commendable and what was lacking in their products. Secondly, I exposed students to the work of their classmates through anonymously projecting student generated hypotheses and conclusions of different qualities on an overhead. The students used the criteria against the sample of student product in order to increase their opportunities to become efficient in recognizing deficiencies and areas that did not meet criteria. These sessions were aimed at helping students to become more independent as critical judges of what qualities are present or not present in their own work. Thirdly, the students were required to keep all of their work in folders dedicated solely to science. All handouts and student generated responses were paper punched for easy accessibility. Everything from the beginning of the year to the end was kept and separated by units. All class work, homework, tests, quizzes, etc., were kept in chronological order to ensure progress over time could be documented in terms of defining their own growth. Although all one hundred students were involved in this project, I collected data on only twenty-four students in one class. I felt that this class represented a cross section of the one hundred students in my house and to collect data from all one hundred house students would prove to be a challenge in and of itself. I did not want to become entangled in a maze of data I could not easily analyze. I felt that the data gathered from one class would be valid because all of the students in our house were equally distributed in classes based on heterogeneous groupings. From time to time during the first trimester I asked students to study a particular piece of work they had done and reflect on one aspect of their work. I encouraged the students to use "starters" or "pause and think" cards to get them engaged and reflective (adapted from Self-Assessment and Goal Setting, Gregory, Cameron, and Davies, 2000). These reflections were placed with the paper they chose to examine as a bookmark to refer back to when asked for evidence of showing growth in their learning and for comparison with later products of the same type. I strongly felt that it was imperative to have students track their growth in meeting deadlines and being responsible for completing homework regularly. Thus, homework deadlines were incorporated into the self-monitoring aspect of goal setting. I thought that many students would have difficulty in this area because they were transitioning from schools where they interacted with one or two teachers to a middle school where they would be meeting with six or seven different teachers daily and only for a short period of time. This new situation offered new challenges to their ability to balance all aspects of their schedule and commitments to school and home, as well as providing valid data for this project. With this aspect of the project in mind, I focused on a system for tracking each student's homework histories. I kept a running record of every homework assignment for the entire year, tracked the type of homework (essay, questions, concept web, analysis, etc.), and whether it was turned in on time, late, if absent how long did it take for the student to make it up, or if it was never turned in at all. When students did not turn in homework, they had to complete a form which asked them for the reason the assignment was not turned in on time, what was their plan (goal setting action) to complete the assignment and when would the homework be turned in. There was also an offer of help during homeroom or after school. I kept this record for those students whose goal was to meet deadlines to use in developing strategies for achieving this goal and also as evidence as to how well they are meeting their goal. These records were kept by students as data for examining homework practices and to set goals accordingly. Toward the end of the second trimester, I set up the means by which the data collected reflected student driven self-directed evaluation of types of work they chose to track. Students were given the opportunity to examine their work over the past two trimesters and choose an area that they want to work on. When the students chose a sample of work that represented an area they wanted to work on, they filled out a "Proof Card" to express how they felt about the particular piece of work they chose as a point of study. Samples were given to the students such as "really tough," "trash it," "getting there," etc., or if they chose they could state their own descriptor (Gregor, Cameron, and Davies, 2000). The students were asked to briefly explain why they felt the way they did about the piece and finally what they would do to improve their product, or what they wuld continue to do to keep the quality the way it was. This slip was placed as a bookmark in the science folder for future reference. Over the next two weeks, the students referred to the "proof card" bookmark each time they worked on a new piece of work that represented the same type of assignment as the reflective paper addressed. The job of the students now was to take their own advice and complete the new assignment based on their own selected criteria. The last phase of developing self-evaluative and self-directive learning was to translate the "proof card" protocol into formal goal setting complete with reasons and strategies for accomplishing the self-mandated outcomes. Students finished the rest of the year periodically self-assessing their most current products against criteria and teacher comments embedded in the product evaluation and determining whether they had met or not met goals. If the goal was not met, the student would revisit the strategy followed, if the goal was met, the student could continue with the goal if it was a difficult one for him or her to accomplish, or adopt a new goal with new strategies and reasons for choosing to start in a new direction. The above discussion of the steps involved in the process of helping students to examine their work as it relates to having met or not met a set of criteria and to decide how to evaluate and strategize steps to meet the set of criteria set through revision or in the next product. The design of this strategy was based on the points brought up by Saphier and Gower: The act of assessment is an act of self-directed learning. This means that students must be engaged in continual self-evaluation and restructuring their efforts by scrutinizing their own work, receiving commentary from peers, and feedback from teachers. They must do self-assessment, applying criteria to their own work. In order for assessment to be an act of learning students must be clear about applying criteria as they go about error analysis...and that they reflect on what they have done and chart a route for doing better next time. (1997, pp. 479-480). The following is a brief outline in summary of the critical steps followed in the year-long project: 1) At the start of the school year, all students brainstormed to generate a list of goals that all seventh graders should achieve for a successful experience. 2) The goal to meet homework deadlines was chosen, criteria generated and data collected by students over the next two weeks. Reflections written. 3) Introduction of rubrics and task assessment lists as criteria for self-assessment and monitoring. 4) Students practice applying criteria to samples of student generated products as a class. 5) Students organized all work in folders dedicated to science; work placed in chronological order to keep track of growth over time. 6) "Starters" or "Looking for Proof" cards used to stimulate student responses to their work with the intent of helping students critique their work against criteria and to think of ways to improve their products on their own. 7) Homework histories were tracked by me, as well as student "reasons" for not doing work. This was done to help students keep track of their patterns of homework completion. Data could be used by students to evaluate their habits and construct goals. 8) Toward the end of the second trimester, students examined all their products from the beginning of the year and chose individual goals for themselves, based on personal decisions. Students wrote goals, strategies for meeting goals, and reflected periodically on how well they were doing. All goal setting and reflective pieces were placed in appropriate places with work in their folders. All folders were collected at the end of the year as part of the data collection process.
Analysis of Data The data collected over the academic year was sorted and analyzed with the intent to learn if students can be taught to self-evaluate, strategize and set goals for themselves with regard to the quality of work they produce for a given audience. It is appropriate to begin with the class profile of the academic make-up of the twenty four students involved in this study: Data Table #1 Class Profile: Total Number of Students = 24 The profiles are further broken down so that individual student performance in this project can be considered when determining how they performed. In other words, were there some other factors influencing their performance beyond what are common characteristics of the average seventh grade student. For purposes of privacy, all students in this study were assigned letters. No names are used. I feel that profiling the class before I start to analyze the data collected is essential to validly interpret data when as many variables as possible are taken into consideration. This being done, the analysis will yield a more accurate rendering of the project's findings. It is now time to address the four research questions in terms of data analysis. I will present my findings in the order that I collected class data throughout the year. Research Question #1: Will an increase in the generation of criteria and rubrics have a direct relationship to the production of quality products that meet or exceed standards? The generic assessment lists for lab write-ups and hypothesis criteria were used most frequently. The rubrics used were more tailored to specific lab investigations or lengthy projects. Over time, most of the students relied on these tools to check their papers for completeness. Some students (about 5%) ignored the assessment lists, and went so far as to check off an attribute without it present in the lab itself. Evidence of the impact of criteria and rubrics has on the quality of student products and can be visualized by this diagram: I found student work, over time, to be of better quality with respect to use of details and data to support arguments in lab conclusions and in essays. The most success was seen in the development of well-written, meaningful hypotheses. By the end of the year, the academic records showed that students rarely lost points because of poor hypothesis structure. I also experienced a significant decrease in students needing or wanting help when faced with hypothesis construction. Students willingly shared hypotheses with each other and I did not hear too many "moans and groans" when they had to generate these. I observed that the class was very much on task when asked to do this assignment. 100% of my students stopped using the personal pronouns "I" or "we" in the hypothesis and all of them addressed the investigative question being sure to incorporate "cause and effect" into the hypothesis. Student reflections supported this confidence toward hypothesis construction. As the year progressed, very few students chose to write goals about hypotheses. On the other hand, essay writing and conclusions were harder for students to grapple with. The evidence for this case is that 58% of the class chose to construct a goal to address conclusion writing. The choices for goals reflected my written teacher feedback on labs done in the past. Through goal setting, most students knew what was needed for better products, but the degree of improvement for conclusion writing was nowhere near the great improvement in hypothesis construction. When student strategies (3rd column of the data table) are compared with the elements present in the performance task assessment lists or rubrics, it is evident that the language of the goal setting choices were crafted in the language used in the rubrics and task assessment lists. Some of the same criteria that students adopted for their strategies include: connections made to background information; scientific language used; avoid using words I, you, me, we, us; use correct spelling. After closely monitoring which students were producing high quality conclusions and which were still struggling with their constructions, the data collected suggests that the criteria was understood, but those who had difficulty in speech and language, a language-based learning disability, or were not ready to think abstractly could not make the leap to more thoughtful and concept-oriented conclusions. Research Question #2: What benefit, is there, if any, in evaluating past student work of varying quality, as a collection for students to critique and measure against criteria? Ten times during the year I asked students to critique samples of conclusions, hypotheses, essays, concept webs, etc. of various degrees of proficiency. This was usually done in small groups or whole class sessions. Most of the time, I put up overheads of student work from previous years or other classes to judge. One time I copied sets of papers of varying quality and distributed these to groups with criteria. In any case, students practiced rating the samples against standards that I had already introduced to the class. Students rated the products using a 1-4 scale, 1 indicating a major "overhaul" was needed and 4 indicating that the sample exceeded the standards. The students had no trouble coming to a clear consensus about where to rank each of the products, but had a harder time justifying their ranking based on criteria. As time went on, however, their reasons given for judgments grew in quality as well as quantity. The students learned to critically look at samples and defend their judgments using insightful reasoning. I was surprised to find out how objective and astute students were when critiquing samples of work. They recognized that sometimes an economy of words made a point better than rambling sentences that did not lead anywhere. They appreciated the various ways the same thoughts could be said. At times, they were harsher on themselves than I would have been. This thoughtful look at work did transfer over to their own products. A tool that was used to gauge student analysis of their own work was the "Proof Card." Students were introduced to this activity after they were familiar with the criteria for science writing and were given a few opportunities to look at samples of work other than their own. The students were asked to look through their science journals and find examples of work they felt proud of and samples of work that needed improvement. They were asked to fill out "Proof Cards" and place them with the piece of work that the card addressed. Some of the more common written comments were: Improvement I am starting to use more background information in my conclusion. Potential My Hypothesis is O.K. but I want to try and include more details about why I think things will work out the way I predicted. Trash it This paper does not look good to me. It is messy and does not say what I want it to say. Really Hard I had to think of words to fit in and make sense to the person reading it. I had a hard time making sentences that made sense. The thoughts the students wrote introspectively were very much on target and related to the oral discussions of anonymous work in class. They were really starting to critique their own work against a standard. Research Question#3: Will the introduction and use of "prompts and starters" have a significant impact in generating reflective responses and insightful self-evaluation in my students? Research Question #4: Will collecting evidence from their own work to show growth help students recognize the need for revision in their products? These two questions are related in that if "prompts and starters" are going to impact reflective responses, then when used in looking for evidence of growth they will aid students to recognize evidence and direct them in the expression of that evidence. As students became more and more familiar with criteria and set goals, the next logical step was to find evidence of having met their goals or recognition of the need to revise products to meet goals. Students were asked to use an organizer called, "Collecting Proof Of," when documenting having met or not met goals. This form had two prompts: "This piece is evidence I met my goal... " If students were still not able to express their thoughts, they could add other starters to complete their reflections. All ranges of students were able to cite evidence as proof of meeting their goal or recognize that they fell short of meeting their goal. Most students were able to self-evaluate and reflect on a plan or strategy that would help them meet their goal the next time. The data in Table 5 shows the ability of students to self- assess their products, although there are great ranges and depth of responses. This, of course, would be what is expected from a heterogeneous group. I feel it is important to relate this data to the student profiles of the class. Three of the six students who are identified as special education students did not attempt to fill out the evidence sheets. Another special education student attempted a response, but the response lacked clarity and was very vague (see student B's response on Data Ttable 5). On the other hand, students who were at a more analytical stage in their thinking, showed greater depth and more critical analysis. Their responses were more thoughtful and demonstrated progress in becoming more self-evaluative. For example, student S states, "I want you to notice the details, scientific jargon and variety of ideas I used for this conclusion. I did not use "I" or "we" and got no points taken off my grade." This student clearly states specific evidence based on the criteria given to her. Another student, M, writes, "I want you to notice that I gave clear examples of data which supported my position. I made it sound like a real letter which was what I was supposed to do. I received total points for this letter/conclusion." Once again this response shows insight into what made his product meet criteria and the language used reflects a good command of language in written expression. Finally, student O chose to do an independent project as her goal. The evidence that shows she met the goal was the actual pamphlet of high quality. She set her own criteria and time lines and succeeded. She proudly states, "I want you to notice that I used the computer and did a professional job."
Observations, Inferences, and Insights There are some noteworthy observations and inferences to be made based on this data. First of all, based on the fact that the class composition was so varied, the range of responses was very broad, from none to vague on one extreme and to totally insightful and reflective on the other. However, each of the students did make an effort to stand back and look at their work with objectivity against a set of criteria, and each attempted, in varying degrees, to direct their efforts to meet criteria. Each also attempted to reflect on his/her products. The analysis of the data collected leads to support of the following insights: • Goal setting is a very critical process that can help students become more self-evaluative, reflective and definitely involved in their own learning. • The extent to which a student is going to succeed depends on: 1) the time spent introducing strategies, practicing critiquing student work as a class, and consistently requiring students to measure products against rubrics or task assessment lists is critical. • Students who have difficulty with written expression or language or who are very concrete learners struggled more than the average student. • The plan did direct students to thinking about their own work, comparing their products against criteria, and caused students to actively scrutinize what they did, revise, and turn in thoughtful products. • Classes of students depended less and less on teacher direction for "next steps" and more and more on looking at past products and judging current ones on the basis of criteria set. • It is somewhat disconcerting to note that students who chose meeting homework goals did not meet with much success. The data indicates that the students with learning disabilities were the most often tardy with work. I suspect that their trouble meeting deadlines has more to do with their learning challenges, including lack of organization and budgeting time rather than indifference to completion of work, but this focus would be worthy of an inquiry project all of its own. Data Table 6 represents the breakdown of the different groups, gifted and talented, special needs students, and the mainstream according to the percent of late work handed in over the entire year.
The Action Plan The analysis of all of the data collected over the year, my discussion with some of my colleagues who have been involved in student directed learning, as well as my reflections over the past year of the project has led me to some very definite plans for "next steps." On one hand, my research validated the worth of student directed learning, but on the other, the process needs to be looked at carefully through the lens of what can be done better. The fundamental principles of self-assessment and goal setting as proposed by Gregory, Cameron and Davies in their publication, Self-Assessment and Goal Setting, has proven to be an invaluable guide in my project to help students become involved in their own learning. I would like to begin my plan of action with a thought about what circumstances I would change in my educational situation if I could to help me do a better job next year. First of all, I would advocate to have my team loop from the seventh grade to the eighth grade so that I would could stretch my plan over a two year period. In the seventh grade, students could be introduced to self-assessing through reflecting on what they are learning and practice looking for evidence that supports the learning they are doing. In the eighth grade, these same students would assess their work in relationship to criteria that has been mapped by the teacher or themselves. I have consulted with the one team that has completed a two-year looping experiment and they are very positive about the experience in many ways. One of the teachers has explored goal setting and self-assessing with her students and has found that given two years to work with the same group of adolescents has proven to be very rewarding. The experience allowed her to start the eighth grade year with the students already knowing her expectations and her already familiar with the past performances of her students. She was able to pick up where she left off at the end of the seventh grade and was able to reinforce and move forward with them. I think that this situation is a very positive one. Secondly, I would like to work more collaboratively with the language arts teacher on my team on developing students' writing skills in science. In general, students in the district come into the seventh grade with strong backgrounds in creative writing and reading fiction, but with little exposure to expository or objective writing. In order for students to evaluate their learning in science, they must learn how to write in the content area of science. In light of the reality of my situation and the results of my data analysis, I intend to adopt the following plan for my science students next year. I will still have the students organize all of their papers chronologically in a dedicated science folder. This was a very efficient way for students to look at their past work. I will give many more opportunities (at least once a week) for "pause and think" prompts so that they will start thinking about what they are learning. Examples of prompts might be: "What was confusing...", "I already knew about..." , "One question I have...". I will collect these prompts rather than have students keep them as bookmarks because many lost them before I could get a chance to look at them and, secondly, it will give me a better snapshot of what they were thinking at more frequent intervals. Monitoring their progress should become more efficient. As students get comfortable with the "pause and think," prompts I will begin to initiate "looking for proof" or finding evidence of learning in their work. I will ask the students to demonstrate learning by finding evidence in their products. For example, I could give the class the prompt to choice a sample of their work that has "potential," or demonstrates "perseverance," or "getting there." Not only do the students have to select a piece of evidence, but give a reason why it demonstrates "potential," "perseverance," or "getting there." In conjunction with finding evidence in learning with the prompts given in the last section, I will incorporate the qualities of scientific writing much more than before. I will introduce more graphic organizers, concept webs, and put more emphasis on supporting ideas by giving details in their writing. The graphic organizers and concept webs will be used to help students organize thoughts and incorporate details. I will be very persistent in using these products with "Looking for Proof" of learning. I will do more modeling in hypothesis writing with students and ask them at intervals to show proof that they can compose a well-constructed hypothesis. I will also continue to use written products from former students as practice for groups and the whole class in recognizing high quality in scientific written expression. Finally, when I feel that students are comfortable with "Looking for Proof" prompts and can demonstrate growth in learning, I will introduce the rubric and task assessment lists. This is the stage in which students will practice assessing their work in relation to criteria. I would not, however, ask them to set goals because I found through data collection that the majority of my students last year could recognize whether they had met or not met criteria, but in many cases could not state constructive strategies that would help them to meet the criteria. I now feel that if students can look at their work over time and find evidence of growth in learning, as well as being able to assess work in relation to criteria, they will have made great strides as learners. In conclusion, I will continue to pursue helping students understand what it means to assess work against a criteria and revise to meet the criteria because I learned that when students are involved in self-assessment, they do not need to depend on me for direction. They know how to look at their own learning and give themselves feedback and, in the end, develop into self-reliant, independent learners. This is a goal that all teachers have for their students.
Works Cited Gregory, K., Cameron, C., and Davies, A.. (2000). Self-assessment and goal setting. Merville, B.C.: Connections Publishing. Gregory, K., Cameron, C., and Davies, A. (1997). Setting and using criteria. Merville, B.C.: Connections Publishing. Johnston, C. (1996). The will to learn. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press, Inc. National Middle School Association. (1995). This we believe: Developmentally responsive middle schools. Columbus, OH: Author. Saphire, J. & Gower, R.. (1997). The skillful teacher. Acton, MA: Research for Better Teaching, Inc. Yancey, K. (1998). Getting beyond exhaustion: reflection, self-assessment, and learning. The clearing house. Proquest <tsupport@bellhowell.infolearning.com>.
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