Fill Classroom Walls With Evidence of Learning

and be patient with them when they are having a bad day.” • “I will make contributions to the learning of our class by asking lots of questions when I am confused or when I have made a neat discovery.” • “I will help our classroom to be safe, happy, and successful by always showing respect to my classmates—even when I disagree with them.”

Like the chants, mottos, and slogans we introduced earlier in this chapter, the development of student promise statements must be something more than a one-time event. If student promise statements are going to strengthen the shared commitments of your classroom, students need to have regular opportunities to reflect on whether they are living up to the promises that they have made to their peers. To encourage this reflection, start by having students record their promise statements in the front of their notebooks. Then, have students design small posters sharing their individual statements to hang on a promise wall in your classroom. Finally, throughout the school year, ask students to stop and reflect on their promise statements. Start these moments of reflection by asking, “What are some things that you need to start doing— or stop doing—in order to better honor your promises to our classroom?”

Use the reproducible tools “Developing Student Promise Statements” and “Self-Reflecting on My Promise Statement” on pages 27 and 28 to integrate student promise statements into the regular work of your classroom.

Fill Classroom Walls With Evidence of Learning

In The Data Coach’s Guide to Improving Learning for All Students: Unleashing the Power of Collaborative Inquiry, Nancy B. Love, Katherine E. Stiles, Susan E. Mundry, and Kathryn DiRanna (2008) suggest that collaborative teams working with assessment results should turn data sets into large charts to display on data walls for all to see. “Go visual with your data,” they argue, “to help construct meaning, make sense, and prepare to engage in meaningful dialogue” (p. 7). We argue that “going visual” with data is also a great strategy for reinforcing a culture of learning for students. One simple way to go visual with data in your classroom is to post simple achievement charts displaying the classroom average on both pretests and post-tests (figure 1.4).

As you post new achievement charts, take a few moments in class to point out the changes from pretest to post-test. Explain to your students that this difference is not an accident. Ask students probing questions such as the following. • “What is working for us as a class?” • “How are your participation and collaboration impacting your peers and our results?”

PROOF THAT WE ARE LEARNERS

Our class average on our place value pretest: Our class average on our week-two place value quiz:

41 79

Figure 1.4: Sample classroom achievement chart.

• “What learning strategies should we continue using?” • “Are there any learning strategies that we should abandon?”

These conversations help students see that growth over time is a product of their own actions and the actions of the entire class. That message is fundamentally empowering, helping students to realize that they really can have a positive impact on learning outcomes.

Another strategy to try is to create achievement charts showing a frequency distribution of grades earned on both pretests and post-tests. See the example in figure 1.5.

Notice that this classroom achievement chart starts with a clear statement of a classroom goal: By the end of our unit on place value, all students will score an 80 percent or above on our final exam. Stating a classroom goal provides all students with motivation to work toward mastery. More important, stating a classroom goal provides all students with motivation to help their classmates to work toward mastery as well. Also, notice that individual scores students earn on both the pretest and the post-test are recorded with a simple dot. Hanging side-by-side, it is easy to see that those dots—which represent the learning of the class—move forward from lower to higher levels of mastery from the pretest to the post-test. That pattern tells an important story to students. That is, our classroom’s business is learning. We know more after we are done with our lessons and our practice than we did when we started. And everyone is making contributions to our classroom because every dot has moved forward. We may not be perfect at the end of instruction—not everyone has met our classroom goal of earning an 80 percent on our post-test yet. But we do know that we can make progress because we are all learners.

If you decide to work with achievement charts that include frequency distributions, it is important to keep individual student scores anonymous. The best way to do that is to ask your students to think about the patterns that they can spot on classroom achievement charts a day or two before you hand back graded assignments to students. Doing so will keep students focused on spotting general trends in the progress the class makes instead of trying to compare their own performance to the performance of their peers. Remember, you are trying to protect the intellectual reputation of your students and to build your class’s confidence in their ability to move forward. That can only be done when students are freed from the pressure that comes along with looking at the scores their

Our Goal: All students will score an 80 percent or above on the post-test for our upcoming unit on place value.

Scores Earned Our Pretest Results Our Post-Test Results

100

90

80

70

60

50 or less

Figure 1.5: Sample classroom achievement chart with frequency distribution.