ASSESSMENT

Co-constructing Success Criteria for Explanation Writing in Grade 3

March 19, 2018

Today in Mr.James’s classroom our Grade 3 students had an opportunity to collaboratively create criteria for writing a successful explanation.

Mr. James chose a “Gallery Walk” activity framework to carry out the task.

To begin with, various explanation samples written by elementary students were pasted onto big sheets of paper and placed in the middle of each table. Our students had to walk around, read the explanations and try to write about the features of the explanation that they noticed.

Next, Mr. James asked each group to discuss the poster at their table and share the three most important features that they noticed. Mr. James wrote these down in a list, while the children were adding their findings.

After that, our students had an opportunity to check this Bitesize BBC site in order to learn more about writing an explanation and see what they missed. As a results of this brief explicit teaching, several important features were added to the criteria list.

The fact that the students, while learning about written explanation structure, were actively involved in creating success criteria for writing their own explanation changed their attitude in a significant way.

Suddenly it became much easier as the children were guided in their thinking: first, during the discussion they had with peers, and then by the teacher who highlighted and confirmed the important components and dismissed the wrong inferences made by the students.

The benefits of criteria co-construction became obvious during the next session when our students had to to write an explanation using their own success criteria and a template provided by Mr. James.

"Research confirms the benefits of involving students in defining the success criteria for a goal or task. By collaborating with the teacher to define the criteria, students begin to develop an understanding of what quality means in the context of their own work. Wiliam (2007) emphasizes that simply sharing criteria with students is not enough because “the words do not have the meaning for the student that they have for the teacher”.

Out of 8 students, only two asked for additional support and modeling. The rest of the students were able to follow the template independently, reminded each other of success criteria and completed the task on time.

It seems the key to success was that students not only learned how to produce a quality explanation in theory but also had a chance to examine and annotate explanation samples. In other words, the children did not only listen to the teacher but also shared their thinking, discussed it with peers, distilled the important findings and finally presented a better product to the class.

Lucas is adding his ideas.

A group discussion took place before sharing findings with the class.

Grade 3 EFL Class

We have started to talk about living things, life cycles and genes with our Grade 3 students. To interest my language learners I chose to show them a video about Spider Goats. I also prepared an adapted text to read after watching the video. All the scaffolding helped and all my students understood the story and I decided to engage them in the thinking routine - I Learned I Think I Wonder.

First, my students had to think about the facts that they learned and write them down.  I also wrote challenging words and phrases on the board to provide additional support to my beginners. Next, to trigger their thinking and start our discussion I asked them what they thought about the whole experiment of the researchers. The genuine interest in the subject greased the wheels of the discussion and all the students became eager participants of the conversation. I also made some notes on the board to make sure we remember the most interesting opinions and unusual ideas. All the students had to justify their opinions and explain why they thought it was awesome and mindblowing or horrible and bizarre.

Finally, my students shared their wonderings and the discussion changed direction. My students started talking about nature and how we need to be responsible and caring towards the environment.

Shintaro was very interested in the matter.

I really enjoyed our class! The natural curiosity and thinking that it triggered were fascinating. I also noticed how my students displayed other attitudes such as responsibility, empathy, appreciation. They were definitely thinkers, they cared for Mother Nature and were able to communicate their ideas in a collaborative setting. 

Julia's ideas made our discussion even more engaging

G3 EAL  - Developing Writing Skills

Every Thursday I work with four students from Mr. James' classroom on developing their writing skills. Today we revised the narrative story structure and simple scaffolds for planning. I did a lot of modeling and demonstration during previous sessions.

Our learning intention was to complete the planning and the first draft of a story in 40 minutes. After revising the story structure and success criteria for our session in general, I offered each of my students a different picture story starter.  I pointed out that the picture shows the beginning of the story.

When my writers began to create their stories, I was closely monitoring them, providing indirect instruction and guiding their thinking. I had only four students in the group and that gave me a chance to confer briefly with each student, discussing ideas for writing, asking questions or highlighting potential challenges. 

Even such brief exchanges provide our students with opportunities to think about how they learn. Such conversations develop our students' metacognitive skills and language - they begin to reflect on their thinking process, choice of strategies and realize what they should do better next time. Meaningful teaching situations like this can help our students to become more independent, as they are not told explicitly what mistakes they made but are given a chance to make their own conclusions.

At the end of our session, one of my students was able to see her own flaws and gaps and hopefully will apply this new understanding.

Dailyn and Khameliya had a very productive writing session.

Indirect instruction in the form of questions triggered Raingsey's thinking.