20 Minutes with Peter Liljendahl - Assessment

*WARNING*  The following post is just a bunch of random thoughts...and isn't well worded.  It's just a jumble of thoughts and is supposed to help me understand the brief phone interview I had with Dr. Peter Liljendahl**

In last week's presentation Dr. Peter Liljendahl alluded to much of his work on assessment but but given time constraints he couldn't really talk about it.  I was so enthralled by Peter's work that I contacted him afterwards and requested to talk to him.

So I got 20 minutes today with Dr. Peter Liljendahl and I wanted to pick his brain about assessment as much as possible.  He has done much work with assessment, but is still in the process of formalizing it in the form of a paper.

Since it's Mother's day - I can't do a great job of writing it out - but I feel that it's just important for myself to just get it off my chest so I can process it quicker.

Formative assessment, according to Peter's research, is much more effective when it informs students of where they are and where they are going.  Getting a mark of 13/20, where all the marks are aggregated, provides a nice overall picture but doesn't inform the student of the specifics which can help improve and move them forward.   He has found that 50% of students improve by a letter grade when they are specifically informed of where they are and where they are going.  The other 50% are already performing at maximum, or do not want to improve, or something else.

It turns out that teachers have a 'code' in their head about questions.  In a study, Peter gave students and teachers five questions and asked them to put them in 'order' of complexity.  The students had no idea, but the teachers could do it.  If the students have a better understanding of this 'code' that teachers have, they improve their marks.

One teacher has been playing around with communicating the "code" in our head by giving out something like this:

I have done something similar - but I used checkboxes instead of a continuum.  The continuum is an important touch as it will allow for better communication for themselves and teacher.  This allows for feedback, and students must do it during the class time at a semi-regular basis (daily is too much).

Another idea regarding evaluation, and 'reporting out' is shown below.  Again, this way of parsing out the information allows students to take their time in learning and make explicit what they need to be working on.

One teacher gave out one sheet at a time - level 1 questions on one sheet.  Level 2 and 3 questions on another sheet.  It looks like in each case, if one can achieve level 3 at a consistent level for a concept, I would award that person their full marks - regardless if they failed level 1 or 2 at an earlier stage.  Sometimes it takes students a while to understand the first two levels of a question before 'getting it'.  This will work nicely with the spiral curriculum...but the tracking seems like a nightmare to me at the moment.  I'm also double thinking this....shouldn't those who spend the time to understand each day, be rewarded for understanding 'faster' than the next person?  Perhaps not - math isn't really about speed, now is it.  Deep understanding IS the more important thing I would want to emphasize.  Fast, speedy math will more likely encourage memorization - which is what computers should be doing...not us humans.

Apparently, this type of reporting increases student autonomy as students.  If I were to allow students to report out an understanding of concepts through not just quizzes or tests...but also through homework or through the on the board work and have them complete a portfolio of 'proof'.

I am not sure about that...I'd really have to work on their mindset first...to really ONLY care about learning.  This reporting out would have to be...somewhat controlled by me or somehow checked to make sure for accuracy.

I really don't know what to make of all this.  I think I need more processing time on all of this...and have many questions.  

Mind Blown from PD: Peter Liljedahl and his Thinking Classrooms

I have been in education for 10 years.  I have had my share of PD that ranges from outright terrible to absolutely tremendous.  Yesterday's session on Thinking Classrooms by Peter Liljedahl was probably the best PD that I have ever attended.  To hold sway over all teachers in the room from kindergarten teachers to calculus teachers truly demonstrates how powerful his research and delivery just was.

In my 'seasoned' ten years of PD, I know that I usually get bored.  On my own time, I often stay on top of educational trends through twitter, or through random visits to educational giants websites belonging to Dan Meyer (international) or John Orr and Kyle Pearce for more local math stuff.  As a result, sometimes the PD that I usually receive is repetitive.  As a result,  I know to set up at the back of the classroom as close to a power plug as possible so that I can do my email while the presenter goes through portions of a 6 hour PD.  I have been on Peter's website and have seen a little bit of his research.  I already practice some of what he preaches.

But to see him deliver it in person, shows that I have a far, far, far way to go as a teacher.  Needless to say, I didn't need my laptop or the power plug.  We were rarely ever in our seats, anyway.

He showed us how time can pass when we are given a good problem, a vertical whiteboard, and how visible random groups work.  We did 4 problems yesterday, and they each lasted over 40 minutes.  He modeled how to facilitate, how to increase our autonomy, what questions to answer and which to avoid...he was a master teacher.  I was in awe of how he held the room with his simple words, short effective concise speeches, and his passion.

He balanced this practicality and backed it up with anecdotes of his primary research. His research has spanned unique classrooms, across different provinces, and through streams of classrooms. Knowing that the majority of the classroom hasn't changed in the past 100 years, he has taken an approach to try things and statistically measure them.  A lot of what he has measured and done, I already 'intuitively' knew from my own practice.  Others, however, were surprising finds.  The fact that he has spent a lot of his time as a high school math teacher just adds so much weight to his words and his research.

For more information, I recommend that you take a look at his website and read his work and research straight from there.  What follows are my notes, which may or may not make sense.  But they're there mostly for me:

• "thinking" has been sucked out of the classroom sot that we can get through content
• classroom look more alike than they look different in all his travels around the globe
• math has been "normalized" (in kindergarten, the kids already know that math is about sitting in desks, and quietly doing work)
• kids occupy "lowest" energy level that is given to them
• classrooms have not changed in over 100 years
• time to renegotiate the non-negotiables  (contrarian approach)
• he measured the effectiveness of "every" thing...
• types of problems
• assessment
• how we give problems
• how we give hints and extensions
• room organization
• how groups are formed
• student work space
• autonomy
• how we give notes
• how we level (or I call...consolidate or summarize)

Peter has ranked his findings with the following flow chart:

The top are the most effective changes one can do to their classroom to have the most profound effect on learning.  

1.  BEGIN with Good problems

He has them on the website.  However, those good problems are problems that I have to unpack and see for myself how deep they go....because the problems he gave us were simple enough for even non-math people in the PD to access, and deep enough for those who have a background in math to go further.  Now, he didn't emphasize too much about the 'beginning' of good problems, but I know the profound effect that it has on the mathematical mindset of even my 9 applied students.  By beginning with a good problrem

2.  Use vertical non-permanent surfaces

I already know the importance and use of non-permanent surfaces.  They're easy to erase, nothing is set in stone, i

It allows students to be free in their thinking.  It allows them to share and collaborate, and the sharing between groups that occur is amazing as well.  I've seen it work with my students.

It's confirmed in all the classrooms that he has visited and properly researched.  The numbers below show it all. What's been highlighted from his presentation is even the difference a vertical non-permanent surface can make vs a horizontal non-permanent surface.  

3.  Visible Random Groupings

This is one that I will have to work on.  I always start at the beginning of the year - but I can't seem to keep it going.  I usually number off heads...but it takes too much effort on my end and stalls the start of the task.  Combined with not seeing the rewards of doing this...I end up stop the practice.  Peter showed that using cards and letting students 'choose a card' (it actually makes a difference in 'giving a carfd' vs letting them choose a card according to his research) and it's much faster, more effective...and the benefits over doing it over a longer period of time are clear, according to his research.  

The anecdote he shared was when he went into a school that was heavily racially bifurcated. One race's group of 'music people' would not talk with the other race's music people.  The jocks of one race wouldn't talk with the jocks of the other race.  You can imagine what would happen when they were forced into groups with different races.  They would trade cards, just switch groups on their own so that they'd be with the same race and be with their friends.  However, after 2 weeks - all of those social barriers disappeared.  The 'mobility' of knowledge...the transfer of knowledge from person to person just absolutely increased and all of the positive actions below occurred:  

I'm ready to start trying this!