Tag: Socially Connected

Students deliver public presentations to develop real-world skills while concurrently showing proficiency and mastery. Teacher Brandy Quintero shares how these nights work.

Transcript: Brandy Quintero: So exhibition night was created – designed in a way to give students real audiences to present to, and to demonstrate their knowledge to. […] Those are in the evening from like 6:30 to 7:30, so parents, business professionals, people in the community can be here. And I went and sat in. And they get feedback from the people that are in the room on how they presented, what was their level of knowledge, were they able to answer questions that the audience had. And then based on that, I gave them a score or feedback.

In this audio clip, you’ll hear students discuss how they support each other in class.

Transcript:

Student: Try it. Yeah. But like the factor that are numbers you multiply to get the answer.
Teacher: I ask what was – what interest…
Student: Yes. Oh, I was trying to explain to him the greatest common factor, like how do you find the greatest common factor.
Student: See, I told you.
Teacher: How did you know he was working on that? Or how did he know you knew that?
Student: I’m already past this unit. So we have units and he’s on Unit Three and I’m already finished with Unit Three.
Teacher: And how did you know she was already done with Unit Three?
Student: Because we’re all in a group and we like – we basically know what unit we’re in.
Teacher: You check in with each other?
Student: Yeah.
Student: Trying to help each other out.
Student: We usually first ask our peers that are close to us to see if they can help us. Today, I needed help on my writing task and I asked Daphne. She really helped out. I understood it.
Interviewer: How did you know she could give you the right help?
Student: I knew she could give it because she’s more advanced in the unit than me. She’s in unit five and I’m in unit three.
Interviewer: How do you know she’s on unit five?
Student: Every time I grade her writing task I see what unit she’s in and how she’s working on it.

A student shares how peer grading through “team checks” works to help her get better grades.

Transcript:

Student: There are team checks. Team checks are when a partner needs to grade you. A partner needs to grade you in order for Miss Thomas to grade you. Does that make sense?
Interviewer: Yep.
Student: So, you have to go through the partner process first. And then Miss Thomas passes you. She helps me a lot by grading my writing tasks. In order for Miss Thomas to grade me on the writing task, a partner needs to grade you. So, you have the best possible grades.

Sophia Thomas, teacher, explains how peer grading is used as a strategy to deepen learning. Students use a rubric to grade their own and others’ work.

Transcript:

Interviewer: Can you talk about grading? I noticed that students can grade their own, then peer grade, then you.
Teacher (Sophia Thomas): Yeah. That’s for the note taking and the writing task. As I did with how to set your weekly goals, when we started out, we modeled that. First, there was a whole lesson on the different categories in the rubric and what it meant. There was another lesson where we looked at two exemplars for a writing task. I went through and graded the writing task under the dot cam. Then I made comments manually. Then there was a screencast video that showed them how to do that online. It showed how to make a copy of the document, how to comment, how to share it with each other. Watch the _____, and if you’re commenting, how you should use the language of the rubric to comment on your peer’s product. Also, how to use the language after rubric to determine what score do they actually deserve. I wouldn’t say they’re perfect at it but sometimes it’s really cool to see the kind of comment that they’re leaving on each other’s document. The other thing about that is it forces at least another person to see your product and engage with you about that. They may have questions. What do you mean by this? It makes you be a little bit more reflective about the kind of product that you’re producing.

Sophia Thomas, teacher, explains how peers can be a source of support and motivation for students in setting and attaining goals.

Transcript: Sophia Thomas: One cool thing I saw happening really early was that there was this really nice peer pressure that was happening when students weren’t picking goals that were going to really push them or weren’t really good goals. I clearly remember one week a student decided he was going to only do three assessments for the entire week. When, in fact, you’re expected to do at least two per day. Immediately, because the recorder was writing stuff down, they’re like how many – because they do that on a weekly basis and they do it on a daily basis. They are checking in. When he said three, immediately a student said come on. You can do better than that. How about five? Another one said, no, no, no. Seven, he can do seven. He was like no. And it was like come on, man. You can do seven. Eventually, he was like, okay, I guess. He went ahead and changed his goal. That pressure would be such a more difficult conversation when it’s coming from the teacher. But to have your peers actually say you need to set higher expectations for yourself and have them do that. That is really cool