"Learning About" vs. Assessing

"Every time I talk to the children I am learning about them. I like the words 'learning about' much more than I like 'assessing.' I learn about my children. I get to know them. I want to know what they know. I want to know how they know. Isn't that what assessment is all about- learning what children know?"- Jill Ostrow, A Room With a Different View (1995)

When I read this I began thinking immediately about my notebook. The one I started my very first year of teaching. Just like most new educators, I was determined to be the "super teacher." I wanted to be different from others, I wanted to know my students so well that I could teach them in exactly the way they needed to be taught. I knew it was a lofty goal but, as usual, I was determined and  organized. I had purchased a notebook for anecdotal records and carefully labeled each page. The goal was to make notes (especially in the first days) of little things I noticed about my students. Everything from interests to friendships, fears to silly quotes. I imagined this book of observations to inform my teaching, aid in conversations with families and give me ammo when I was trying to curb out of line behaviors.

The idea came about in one of my undergrad classes on observation, I was sure it would set me a part. The notebook served its purpose for a time, I kept it neat and tidy, and within arms reach. I even did a fairly good job of writing in it regularly, for a while. But before I knew it the daily grind of answering emails, returning parent phone calls, eating 2 bites of lunch at the copy machine, searching for lost mittens... and of course teaching, got in the way of the routine of actually writing. What I developed was a mental notebook, where I still kept a "page" for each of my learners. I tuned into how they talked with their classmates, when or if they shared in class, the kind of books they were drawn to, and most of all what made them smile. I began weaving these bits of knowledge in with how I observed them performing academic tasks and quickly the "notebook pages" became like chapters in are larger reference type library I had built.

I found that when I knew what it was that they were good at, where their knowledge started and stopped and what I could do to keep each of them motivated, it transformed the culture of my classroom and my students' achievement. It wasn't really until my 3rd year in the classroom that I had a clean mental system for learning and applying all I could gather about the little humans in my classroom.

I would encourage you to ponder this as we head towards reading assessment windows and a dense time of learning in the year. I'm not telling you to start a notebook, but you can if it helps. Try to just gather information through conversation, observation and maybe even asking your students to write you letters. Allow what you learn to inform your instruction and guide the way you teach. Doing this will also help you understand their work better and support them in their learning.

Text Sets By Grade Level from F&P

Visit the Shared Documents tab up top and scroll down to find F&P Text Sets By Grade Level to find some book suggestions. They are broken down by style and genre as well as by some author studies. 

Book Lists

Follow this link to see book list suggestions from Lucy Calkins and The Reading & Writing Project. Some are by genre and topic, others are by grade level. As you write your units of study and order books to be used during your whole group interactive read alouds, this is a good place to look for suggestions. Also consider these titles when choosing books to add to your classroom library.

The image below gives you a glimpse of what you will find on the site...there are other great resources as well, dig around the rest of the site a little!

Observe, Think, Question

OBSERVE...THINK...QUESTION

I'm going to share one of my all-time favorite inquiry-based teaching strategies today. I loved it so much in fact, that I incorporated prompts for it permanently in my classroom. The strategy is called Observe, Think, Question. If you would have walked into my classroom you would have quickly seen a large Eye (observe), a Brain (think), and a questions mark (questions) hanging from the ceiling.
This strategy can be used in any content area using only a photograph, text, or even a video clip. It very simple, and once your students learn it, they can participate pretty seamlessly at any point in your day, in any subject area.
FIRST: the teacher displays an artifact, text, photograph or video clip and the students write (either on a pre-made graphic organizer or a notebook page they have chosen) about what they notice. It takes some practice, but they get good at just "stating the obvious." This stage of the strategy anchors them in the reality without letting them jump ahead to application or prediction. For example, if I displayed this book cover to my students

They might write observations like:

* I see that it is a boy

* I notice he has only one eye

* I notice that there is no nose or mouth

NEXT: The students can verbally share, or record on their paper thoughts they have, and predictions. For the above book cover they may say:

* I think this boy must be the main character

* I think his eye is important

* I think he might wonder a lot because of the title Wonder

LASTLY: Students ask questions about the artifact, text, photo or video clip. I usually have them record their questions first and then pair up to share and generate a few more. 

By the end of the exercise, you can imagine that a lot of interest, background knowledge and predicting has been done. It is a helpful strategy that I found replaced KWL charts in my classroom very quickly. Revisiting the OTQ work after learning has occurred allows for reflection as well. Think about how you might do this....

display a map with no title or legend in geography....

show a video clip like this without sound in your biology class....

Try it out and let us know what you think!

Reader's Notebook Examples from the Reading & Writing Project

The Reading & Writing Project is the collective work of Lucy Calkins and Teachers College at Columbia University. Their site is full of examples and info that always reminds me of whats possible. Today I want to show you some examples of what can be done in a student reading notebook, its fun to see pages like this;

And once you teach the students how, they can create these response pages with little support!

Look here for more Student Reading Notebook Examples

Five Child-Centered Principles to Guide Your Teaching- from Sharon Taberski

1. It's better to do fewer things well than many things superficially

2. Balanced Literacy is a menu, not a checklist

3. The parts of our balanced literacy system should work together as a system

4. We learn through multiple exposures over time

5. Our practices should be developmentally appropriate

Comprehension from  the Ground Up, Heinemann 2011