Self Assessment Reflections
After completing the self-assessment on pages 173-174 of the QUILT Teacher manual, please share with us your strengths and commitment(s) to growth.
9 Comments
- Christen Tulli replied:
After completing the self-assessment from the QUILT manual, I was struck by how similar some of the concepts in this chart were to the standards of my National Board Certification program. My strengths in regards to questioning include planning questioning episodes and distributing questions in an equitable fashion, two behaviors I had to incorporate into my classroom videos for National Board.
An example of planning my questioning is a recent lesson I did on Anne Frank where students had to examine a Holocaust collage. They then answered a variety of different level questions on the sheet I provided. These questions ranged from having them analyze what the symbols in the painting represented to comparing and contrasting Holocaust victims in the painting to Anne Frank and her family. By thinking of these questions ahead of time and giving students time to process them, all of my students were able to contribute to the conversation and we had several lively discussions about symbolism! During this lesson, I ensured that I equitably distributed questions by using participation cards with the students’ names. This ensured that I called on everyone and didn’t repeatedly call on the same people. Of course, I occasionally veered off from using these cards when I saw an eager hand waving so that we didn’t lose all spontaneity in the conversation!
I also recognized several weaknesses when I completed this activity, mostly addressed to wait time (#8) and holding each student accountable for his or her answer (#9). While I occasionally grade students on participation, I feel badly marking a quieter student down because he or she hasn’t contributed as much to a conversation. I’d love to learn more techniques for grading students’ participation. In that same vein, I’d like to learn to feel more comfortable providing wait time, as well as feel like I’m keeping an appropriate pace to the conversation.
January 22nd, 2009 at 4:06 pm. Permalink.
- Anne Williams replied:
In completing the self assessment, I realized that I have not been paying as much attention to questioning as I was at the beginning of the year. I have tried to use a variety of questions, but not really thinking of them before class or having them ask questions at different levels. Quizzes and tests usually have a variety of the levels of questions, but not the daily questions. I have tried to use wait time, but not sure if I am still giving enough time and/or allowing enough piggy-backing.
Since it is mid year, our class is going over the norms to see how we are doing with them at our class meeting this week or next.
I have tried to do away with hand raising to make sure that all are coming up with answers, but well established habits are hard to break.
I would like more practice in setting up questions based on the Christenbury circles method.January 28th, 2009 at 9:45 am. Permalink.
- Dawn Sherwood replied:
With the craziness of exams, I was worried about this self-assessment, but I feel I am adequate on most of the items. I know I definitely need to work on areas, especially holding students accountable for producing a correct resonse to each question. It is very difficult when a student doesn’t study, doesn’t pay attention, and doesn’t care to get them to answer a question with either 1) a response at all 2) I don’t know or 3) a response to get a laugh/reaction out of the rest of the class. In order to call on all students, I can’t avoid these students, but I admit I do sometimes try to give them a basic question that they can’t do anything with. I went over the norms in the beginning of school and will be going over them again along with other basic classroom rules (which some of them won’t follow). I feel that I am using Wait Time I fairly consistently, but I know I haven’t done much with Wait Time II. I seem to have kids who can’t stand for the room to be silent and have to say something to anyone if it is quiet.
I realize as I am writing this that I have done all of my thinking about my freshman classes which are harder because of adjustments to high school. These are the classes that I know I provide positive, negative (when they are out of hand), and corrective feedback – one of my few exemplary marks and I use cues and probes to get answers out of students who are having difficulties.
With this being an SOL class, I do try to think of questions in different formats for information they need to know. While I don’t dive into questions haphazardly because I am familiar with material and type of question asked on SOL, I don’t write down questions to ask. Asking higher-order questions are difficult when I can’t get them to complete assignments designed to review lower-order questions. I feel like I have to ask questions regarding basic vocabulary because they don’t know it so they don’t understand the higher level questions to apply it. I also find that many of my students feel “entitled” to being given the answers insteading of thinking or working for them. I had one student tell me that I HAD to go over a review sheet that no one did for homework and give them the correct answers. I informed the students that the answers were in the notes and quizzes that I had handed back and when he completed the work sheet and had a specific question, I would be happy to help him.
I feel very frustrated with these classes and feel like I am failing at times because I can’t do what Quality-Questioning suggests! Granted, one class is more prepared than others, but even though I know it isn’t me, I still fee inadequate at times.As I was typing the above comments, I realized that I have been focusing my self-assessment and thinking solely on my freshman SOL classes. When I started thinking about my oceanography classes, I think we have had more in depth discussions because of the topics. We recently discussed hurricanes and the students were asking great questions ( a couple of which I had to look up on the internet to get them an answer). I realized also that I don’t call on students as much in those classes, because different students answer things so I don’t feel like I have choose students as frequently. When they are out of hand, though I have called on students – of course it is generally to get them to focus on discussions. I actually think I have used Wait Time II with these classes because we are thinking about what each other has said and frequently students will add on to or reply to each others comments. I think the fact that it is a non-SOL topic allows us to stray off the topic and have more advanced discussions because we aren’t AS structured or under a time constraint!
January 29th, 2009 at 12:35 am. Permalink.
- Linda Hubard replied:
It is discouragement city right now. I have not accomplished a fraction of what I wanted to. The worst sin is not holding to the wait time and watching the hands fly up in the air. But I do love to see their eagerness when they are involved. Catch-22.
I’m not saying anything that people don’t know, but there isn’t enough time to do what I would call a “good” job of implementing this. When I get into the Quilting book I am once again inspired and have high hopes. That’s why this class is a necessity for me in order to keep my focus on what I would like to see evolve in my classroom.
There have been times when the students “extend and expand” and I do probe and rephrase. My sense is I need feedback – time to question my students about how they feel about this process. That might facilitate their getting on board more.
I still have the dilemma of not knowing quite what to say to someone totally off the answer – and still sound encouraging. There is no perfect way.
With my students it has been difficult to use higher-order questions; they need so much individual guidance. But I relish such questions and will keep using them on occasion.
I am looking forward to comments from others at our “in person” meetings. There’s always something to glean from such gatherings.
February 3rd, 2009 at 4:03 pm. Permalink.
- Cindy Peake replied:
Upon completing the self-assessment and reflection on my teaching practices of the past semester, I have come to the conclusion that I am not very good at planning to ask higher-level questions. BUT, I seem to come up with quite a few good questions while I am in the middle of leading a lesson! I will then ask the same questions to my other classes but I should write them down so I will be able to plan for the next time!
I need some improvement at prompting and probing when a student gives a wrong answer. I think I do a fairly good job of expanding and extending students’ answers when they are correct! I still need some work on presenting/reviewing material in alternate response formats, although I have tried quite a few new things this year.
I’m actually trying something on Monday in my Math 8 classes which I hope to report success on at our face-face meeting. I have assigned pairs of students certain questions from the midterm; they will present an analysis of the question and both the right and the wrong answers. Perhaps the “remediation” will sink in if they hear it from each other!
February 7th, 2009 at 4:36 pm. Permalink.
- R. Todd Rigler replied:
After reviewing the assesment I still feel that my weakness is the probing. (I still giggle as I type that.) I find that I can do the questioning and the wait time, to an extent, but have a hard time get the deeper answers. I know that part of it is due to my classroom management. I need to hold more students accountable to answering questions and not just having the kids yell out. I find myself giving the kids the followup if they do not get the answer I am looking for. I think it is a habit just to keep my lessons moving. I really need to sit down and script out my lessons. I feel that this will help me work slower and get more meaningful activity.
I seems as if everyone esle wrote a book, sorry, I am a staight and to the point kinda person.
February 8th, 2009 at 9:54 am. Permalink.
- Mary Mahoney replied:
My current questioning behaviors are well below what I would like them to be. None of the areas are checked Exemplary. I have not implemented QUILT with the same fervor I did last year. This is a result of changing content among other factors.
The two areas I feel need to be improved the most are planning for questioning episodes and includes higher order questions as appropriate. The planning piece is big.February 9th, 2009 at 1:24 pm. Permalink.
- Emily Pierce replied:
The only area that I checked exemplary in was number 10–rephrases, probes and cues to correct confused or incorrect answers. I do numbers 11-14 very well. I am a very positive person so I enjoy giving positive feedback but I also am good at giving negative feedback in a way that is not embarassing or rude. I LOVE using student responses to extend or expand on what we are discussing because I think it makes them feel they “own” what we are doing–so now the teacher is coaching them not shoving info down their throats. I think anything that can make the learning more interactive is great. I also believe that it makes the students feel good when we use their repsonses. I also run a classroom where very much of what goes on is students posing questions to each other and with me. One of my expectations in my syllabus that I give out on the first day is that I expect the students to help each other learn, with and without my facilitation.
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:54 pm. Permalink.
- Emily Pierce replied:
I agree with Mary that planning is huge and essential. I need to plan MUCH BETTER questioning episodes. I have worked on higher order questions for 2 years and I have seen great improvement–what I did is I had a copy of bloom’s tax with me and I would pull out the vers that were examples in each category (this was before it got changed to all nouns) and that helped with the higher ended questions. I got the copy online–it was great. I also agree with you, too, that we need to PLAN higher ended questions…be prepared to ask them and probe.
September 2nd, 2009 at 4:57 pm. Permalink.