Course and Teacher Evaluations--Getting End-of-Year Feedback from Students

With the end of the year just around the corner, you may already be mentally planning for next school year.  Consider gathering anonymous student feedback to help you become an even more effective teacher.

Here are some sample Course/Teacher Evaluation forms you could use as a starting point.  Remember that you can use hard copies of these evaluation forms, or one that you create. You could also create your own Google Form version to gather feedback from your students. 

If you are creating your own evaluation, consider including some of the following:

·         Did students have a clear understanding of the learning target each day?
·         Did the learning targets fit together in a cohesive whole for the semester?
·         Did students know what it looked like/sounded like to be successful meeting the learning target?
·         Did students feel that they got sufficient feedback from you as they were learning? Did they know where they were strong and what their gaps were prior to their final assessment or project?
·         Did students feel a sense of ownership in their learning?
·         Was the course challenging enough? Too challenging? Just right?
·         Did students feel that the assignments helped them to achieve the learning targets?
·         What might have helped them to more easily master the learning targets?
·         Was the time during the class period well-spent?

If you would like help creating an end-of-course evaluation or a teacher evaluation, please contact your building coach or administrator.

Growth Mindset

Happy Wednesday!

Looking for new ways to cultivate a classroom culture that embraces a growth mindset? This week’s coach tip includes several resources for you to add to your toolbox related to growth mindset in the classroom. Maybe you will try something new in the last few days of school, or use the resources to plan for next year!

Growth Mindset: a belief that suggests that one’s intelligence can be grown or developed with persistence, effort, and a focus on learning.

According to Mary Cay Ricci in her book, Mindsets in the Classroom, “An educator with a growth mindset believes that with effort and hard work from the learner, ALL students can demonstrate significant growth and therefore all students deserve opportunities for challenge. Add to this belief an effective teacher armed with instructional tools that differentiate, respond to learner’s needs, and nurture critical thinking processes, and you have a recipe for optimum student learning.”

   

Looking for a little summer reading? This book, Mindsets in the Classroom, is full of helpful ideas in an easy to read format. There is also a compatible resource book making new ideas easy to implement.

Additionally, this video “Praising the Process”, demonstrates how process praise helps students to develop growth mindsets. The video is specifically focused in the area of writing, and is well worth the 6 minutes to watch! In the video, Ms. Stewart shares tips for how teachers can begin to use process praise in their classrooms.

Finally, if you haven’t already checked out the Class Dojo videos related to growth mindset, you’re missing out! They are a perfect way to help elementary students to see themselves as learners, cultivate a growth mindset, and start classroom discussions.

Class Dojo Growth Mindset Videos

Super-Easy Strategy to Help You Save Time for a Lesson Closure

Why should teachers build in time for lesson closures?

Lesson closure can enhance “a learner’s ability to organize, evaluate, and store information presented in class” (Reese). We focus on learning targets, but to maximize learning, we should also make sure that students have adequate time to process their progress toward the learning target and to set goals at the end of the lesson.   

The problem is this:  How does a teacher keep track of the time and not end up accidentally teaching all the way to the bell? 

Watch this SUPER-EASY strategy used in the classroom of THS Math teacher Malinda Shirley.  All she did was to recruit a student to call a five-minute warning at the end of the period each day, so that she always has time for a closure. Brilliant!

To learn more about closures: “Road Tested / Lesson Closure: Stick the Landing” by Tyler Reese.
 (http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/education-update/jun14/vol56/num06/Road-Tested-~-Lesson-Closure@-Stick-the-Landing.aspx)
 

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Student Self-Assessment & Goal Setting

According to Susan Brookhart, the coordinator of assessment and evaluation for the school of education at Duquesne University in Pennsylvania, student self-assessment is driven by three basic questions that students must be taught to ask themselves

• Where am I going?
• Where am I now
• Where to next?

To learn more about equipping students with the tools to accurately answer those questions check out this article: “Students 'Self-Assess' Their Way to Learning”

Three W's Closure Strategy

This is a simple strategy that provides students a chance to reflect on their learning and teachers an opportunity to gain important information to inform future instruction (6.3).

Students write or discuss:

What?	So What?	Now What?
What did we learn today?	What is the relevancy, importance, or usefulness?	How does it fit into what we are learning?   Does it affect our thinking?  Can we predict where we are going?

More Lesson Closure Ideas

Ask questions:

• What is one thing you learned today?
• How does today's lesson impact your understanding of _______________?  
• How would you summarize today's learning for someone who wasn't here? 
• What was the most significant learning from today?
• What "a-ha" did you have today?
• What was the most difficult concept in today’s lesson?  Why?
• What should I review further in our next lesson?
• 
  

If you are running short on time:

• On a scale of 1-5—using your fingers—rate today's lesson. To eliminate peer pressure, have everyone close their eyes.  
• Whip around:  Have each student share one word or concept they learned.

Get-Out-of-Class Ticket

• Ask students to write down one potential TEST QUESTION from today's lesson. Collect them as your students leave the room, a ticket out of class, if you will. Hang on to them. You might want to use one or two on an upcoming unit exam. This also provides a chance to personally connect. Saying goodbye is an opportunity to build up individual relationships with your students which, in turn, helps build up a positive classroom culture.

This article was also used for this post.

Ending Your Lesson Using Best Practices

 Coaches and administrators throughout the district have been going into classrooms for the yearly spring Data Collection, observing and recording best practices throughout the lesson.  If the observer is in the classroom at the end of the period, he/she looks for best practices in the lesson closure. The benefits of a strong lesson closure are well-documented and can be summarized as follows:  Closure summarizes the current lesson, allows for a check to see “did my kids get it,”and helps inform teacher planning for the next lesson.  Closure provides that critical bridge that brings sense and sequence to a series of lessons within a unit.

What do coaches and administrators look for in a lesson closure?

Coaches and administrators in Tahoma School District look for the following when they are in an end-of-lesson Data Collection:

If you have questions about what these look like in a lesson, please contact your  building coach or administrator.

What do others say about lesson closure?
Dr. Rod Lucero, Associate Professor in the School of Education and the Associate Director for the School of Teacher Education and Principal Preparation (STEPP) at Colorado State University, says that “closure activities also help define both your teaching agenda and the intended learning progression, weaving today's lesson with yesterday's while providing a look ahead at what tomorrow's will bring. As a deliberate part of your planning process, these activities summarize the current lesson, provide it context, and build anticipation for the next. Properly implemented, they will help you establish and maintain course momentum. Reinforcing what students have learned, closure activities also serve as an assessment tool with which to evaluate your students retention level—Did they get it?—as well as your own effectiveness.”   (http://teaching.colostate.edu/tips/tip.cfm?tipid=148).

How do lesson closures relate to TPEP?
Allowing a few minutes for a brief summary and student assessment and/or reflection not only meets Criteria 6.1, “Self-assessment of learning connected to the success criteria,” but also meets 6.3, “Formative Assessment Opportunities”; 6.5, “Student use of assessment data”; and 3.2, “Ownership of Learning.”  All of this for a brief time-out to synthesize the day’s learning!

Next week:  Fun ideas to liven up your closures