Tyler Rablin Returns to Talk Assessment

In which Dan chats with Tyler Rablin (@Mr_Rablin) about how teachers can make assessment really work for student motivation, purpose, and confidence. Tyler is a teacher and instructional coach in Washington, and he's the author of the new book Hacking Student Motivation: 5 Assessment Strategies That Boost Learning Progression & Build Student Confidence. Dan and Tyler talk about the nature of student motivation in 2024 and online gradebooks before turning to Tyler's book.

Tyler lays out specific, actionable ways that teachers can make assessment work for students, and it makes for a great read. Dan and Tyler discuss his thoughts on feedback, learning progressions, and what Tyler calls an "informative gradebook." They wrap up by talking about phones in schools and why removing them creates a more authentic, productive environment.

As always, I welcome comments and questions on Instagram, Threads, and Twitter (X) @BigIdeaEd

Mentioned in the show:
Hacking Student Motivation: 5 Assessment Strategies That Boost Learning Progression & Build Student Confidence by Tyler Rablin, February 2024
Assessment with Tyler Rablin, What's the Big Idea?, April 2021
Introducing the HyperRubric: A Tool that Takes Learning to the Next Level (featuring Tyler Rablin), Cult of Pedagogy, August 2021
Tyler Rablin on Twitter (X), where he shares many excellent ideas and resources

Support me on Patreon, where a $5 monthly membership gets you a cool sticker! 

Music: Red Funk by Ruben Ramos

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, listeners. Thanks for checking out my podcast. This show really is a labor of love for me. It's an opportunity for me to talk about things that I'm passionate about in education, and it gives me the chance to talk with some very insightful and cool people about their work in the field. My hope is it's always been that what's the big idea gives you something to think about, something to talk about with your colleagues, an opportunity to reflect on and improve your own practice. If you're a parent, I hope my conversations have given you some insight into ways of thinking about childhood and how we can help kids thrive. If you enjoy the show, consider joining me in this endeavor by supporting me on Patreon. Monthly membership is super inexpensive, but it's a cool way for you to show me that you like what I'm up to here at the microphone. There's a link in the show notes to Patreon. One of the most important things we do as humans is assess. We're constantly assessing and evaluating situations, people, opportunities. We make judgments based on the information we have. And we also are assessed. In schools, at work, in our family and friendship dynamics. I think our ability to assess with depth and nuance is one of those uniquely human characteristics. And it's certainly one of the bedrocks of education. I don't think it's a stretch to say that assessment, that is how we judge student performance, is at the heart of what we do in schools. So much of what we do grows out of that assessment, including our curriculum and classroom practices. And assessment interplays with some of the major themes in education: opportunity, purpose, equity. So this episode is about assessment, specifically how teachers can intentionally design their assessment to help students feel ownership in the process and a sense of growth. I'm joined today by Tyler Radlin.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

I'm Tyler Radlin. I am currently an instructional coach in the Sunnyside School District. I work with our three secondary schools. But prior to that, my whole career, I've been a high school ELA teacher.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Tyler was on the show three years ago to talk assessment, and I've invited him back because he's just published a great new book, Hacking Student Motivation: Five Assessment Strategies That Boost Learning Progression and Build Student Confidence. It's one of those books that's ready to wear. Clear, concise, and practical. Tyler discusses feedback, assessment data, helping students plot a course in their learning, and that dreaded grade book. No matter where you are in the teaching journey, this interview and Tyler's new book has something for you. I hope you enjoyed. And I'm not shocked that you wrote this book because you spoke with such clarity and purpose then about assessment. I know that's a passion of yours. The book is really practical. I love the way the chapters are broken down, particularly the what can you do tomorrow part of each chapter. I think teachers appreciate that. And I want to get into the book and the writing process, but I want to start with your thoughts on the one of the ways you frame the book, and that is student motivation. And I'm curious, as in your experience in the classroom and writing this book, your thoughts on where student motivation is now primarily and where you'd like to see it shift.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

When I started working with assessment and really researching assessment, I don't think I knew that I was digging into motivation. I think that was sort of a surprise to me. But I realized really quickly the reason that I had questions about assessment is because I wasn't satisfied with the way students were motivated in the classroom. It seemed very dependent on uh pleasing me, on, you know, making sure they're satisfying the requirements of the system. And very rarely did I get to have conversations with kids about their interests and their learning and how they were growing. And so I didn't realize it at the time, but my assessment practices were focusing kids on extrinsic motivation as the driving factor. Now I'm not I always am hesitant to like put extrinsic motivation as like the bad thing. I'm learning more and more there are places where extrinsic motivation can and sometimes should exist. So I don't want to say it's like the worst thing, but I think what I found is the problem is that was the foundation of my classroom. When kids asked why should I do this, I was so quick to jump to it's for a grade or you've got to pass the class to get the credit, or you're like things that were meaningful to the school system, but I wasn't focused on things that were meaningful to students. And so a lot of the shift around assessment practices are really thinking about how do I help make this more meaningful for the kids in my classroom? How do I make it more powerful for them? And how do I help them see the purpose for themselves without me just having to sort of constantly tell them what the purpose might be? I wanted them to be able to see it on their own.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Yeah, you write at one point. There's a line that really resonated with me that you said you had this realization that you were assessing students and you had a lot of data, but you didn't have a lot of information. What's the distinction there in your mind?

SPEAKER_02 6:26

Um I I think I had this realization, it was my second year of teaching. Um, this is one of the times I realized it, but I we had to turn in our grades and like we had an online gradebook at this point, but they just didn't trust it, I think. So I had to like walk my physical grades down to the office. And I remember like holding my grade book as I was walking and thinking about what would happen if I passed this off to the next year's teacher. Would they be able to use it? And I was like looking at this, realizing there's there was hardly anything in there that would be valuable to the teacher the next year or valuable to a student approaching their next class. And that was the moment where I realized like I had so many numbers on this page, but so little that I could do with it. And so for me, that's the big difference. Like the information piece is being able to use that that data and do something with it and really know what it means. And I don't, I didn't have something like that.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Slight tangent here. What are your thoughts on the online grade books that are so ubiquitous now in schools?

SPEAKER_02 7:28

I have a complicated relationship with them. I think um, I mean, especially in situations where if you're if if if this is an administrator listening or a teacher listening, you can see it from both sides. But I mean, I I've heard situations where teachers are told every week you have to have these specific types of grades that go in. We need to be updating parents on progress. And I think, you know, yes, I want everyone involved to be informed about how the student's doing, but I also want there to be space for the student to struggle and for the student to not do well at something and not panic about it. And so um, this this is where my complicated relationship with the online gradebook comes in. It's it can be a valuable communication tool home. Um, if you know being able to say, hey, they're struggling in this area, or you know, they're they're kind of slacking off, they need some encouragement at home, it's super valuable there. But I also think sometimes it creates this environment where a student struggles on a quiz or something, and immediately that's updated in the gradebook and it goes home, and all of a sudden there's this panic. And in that moment, like just their brains kicking into that fight, fight or freeze. Like there's no space for learning when that sort of that reaction kicks in. And so that's where I really struggle with the online grade book and how it's used is it's it's such a controlling punitive force that I think sometimes it blocks our brains' capacity to learn.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

It sort of exacerbates the worst things about grades sometimes. And I I love the scenarios when you've probably seen this, when the parent sees the grade before the student does, you know, and like they're hearing from them. I mean, it's it can be really toxic. But I I do want to get to one of your hacks, which is the informative gradebook. And and as you say, an online gradebook is ultimately a tool. And so, how can we turn that into something um positive? Before we get there, though, back to student motivation. What did COVID do to student motivation? What have you seen coming out of the pandemic that um interacts with just the way students are motivated in school?

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Um, it's I mean, it's a huge shift. And I think there are big picture societal pieces that are tough to grapple with, right? If you think about motivation, is um kind of our ability to see ourselves as successful in the future, is a huge concept in motivation. And I think big picture, kids are struggling. I mean, they're they're inundated with information and news all the time that things aren't going well in the world and we're seeing conflict everywhere, and our, you know, climate change is wreaking havoc on our planet. And so I think big picture, that's where we're seeing some of the struggle with motivation. Um, but I think small scale in our schools and in our classroom, um, there's a really specific memory that I have of a student who I had as a freshman. Um, and then I saw them again as a junior, kind of the year that we were returning back from online learning. And when I had them as a freshman, they'd had like A's and Bs in school. When I saw them again, I asked how school was going, and you can, you know, they gave me the really sheepish like look or whatever. And so I pulled up their grades and they were they had their grades were terrible. Um, and I asked what happened. And essentially what they told me is like during during online school, during all of this shift, they got their first F. And it was almost like their identity as a student shattered in that instance. Um, like that we spent so much time building the motivation piece around you have to get good grades to get a good GPA to go to college. That all of a sudden, when they felt like they wrecked that, when they got an F or a D, and that GPA got pulled down so far for a bunch of students. Again, that idea of being able to see that success in the future, they felt like that went away. Um, and so I mean, there's plenty of reasons. There's I was reading a study about how 15-year-olds' brains that they studied have actually changed. Um, so that their prefrontal cortex is smaller and their amygdala is bigger, so they don't make the best decisions and their stress responses are more extreme. So, I mean, there's tons of reasons why, but I think it it a lot of the, you know, I felt it the last two years, a lot of the teachers that I've worked with, it's it's tough because not only is it hard on the kids, but I think it's it's as a teacher, you know, we value our craft so much. We love being good at what we do, we love it like working with kids, helping kids learn. And when you're not seeing that in the classroom and not feeling kids being motivated or really engaging, I think not only is it hard on the kids and they're feeling sort of that that lack of motivation or lack of drive, I think it also impacts teachers where we're feeling like, gosh, I'm not as good as I used to be. And that's kind of pulling us down too. So um, I mean, the the the hope, that my hope is our brains are if they can change over two years, that they can change back, right? It's a very, it's a very flexible system that we have. So um, but I I think that's partially why the book actually took me forever to get out, is I had it almost all the way written and then um coming back to school and kind of recognizing that there had been a shift. Um, I was unwilling to let the book go out there, knowing that it needed more work. It needed to address the more current times of what we were seeing in our classrooms.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

You talk about something I I hadn't really thought about, but the how the um sort of gamified formative assessment tools, I'm thinking things like Kahoot, maybe I don't know if that's exactly what you were thinking of, but they just don't have the same magic anymore with the kids. You know, and that's a small thing in the classroom, but it's it's a it's indicative of something larger. Uh that they don't have students are not gravitating to the same type of learning experiences. Something has changed in them. So maybe now we can talk about the the seeds of the book, the process before we get to the hacks themselves, which are are so um are so helpful and and interesting for stud uh for teachers. When did you first begin to feel like you wanted to write a book? You've been published online, you've been on podcasts, so you've been thinking about this stuff, but when did the book start to take shape and how did you begin to put that together as somebody who's also a teacher? And so very busy.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Um, yeah, so I I'd done a lot of writing through blogging. Like I found that to be early on in my career a really helpful way for me to process through ideas. And then eventually I noticed people found value in that and sort of spreading those ideas and building a community around it. So I always saw the value in it. I just had so much on my plate in the classroom that I was like unwilling to do it. And I was fortunate enough, someone, uh actually, the publishing company I went with had been paying attention to me on social media. Um, and eventually they were the one that sort of gave me the push that I needed. They reached out and said, Hey, your work around this, we think it's important. Um, we like, we like the way that you think about it and talk about it. And so they sort of gave me the push. And I was uh, I mean, thrilled, obviously, but also like that moment of panic where I'm like, do I really want to take something else on? I'm glad I did. I the process was really rewarding, and I feel like I grew a ton in my practice through it, but I definitely needed that push to be willing to get into it.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

The the book features five hacks, and what I like is they're all interlocked, they're not standalone necessarily. There's this sort of theme of helping students see what success can look like in themselves. And I when I saw the five hacks title, I knew one of them was going to be feedback. Uh, when we talked about feedback three years ago, it actually was really helpful for me. It helped me understand that I needed to make feedback more of a priority in my own classroom, helping students not just take feedback, but know how to use feedback. So what are the big lessons for teachers on how to help students understand the power of feedback and use that next time?

SPEAKER_02 15:48

To me, there's there's two levels to approach it if we're trying to improve our feedback. Um, one of the first levels, so I naturally, and this is probably annoying to anyone who's like ever been my boss or something, like I am always asking how the system could be better. Um and with feedback, sadly, it took me a long time to start asking that question with feedback, but I finally hit a point where I realized like students would turn something in, I'd give feedback on that individual piece, and then it would go somewhere else. And then they'd do something else, and that feedback would be gone. It'd be hiding somewhere on another assignment. So one of the biggest things that I found to be a value add for my feedback practice in the classroom is using, I just call them feedback portfolios. Um, but it's all it really is is when a student gets feedback on an isolated task, it's a space for them to bring that feedback over there and put it somewhere that is easily accessed, and we're going to collect a record of all their feedback together. I really found that to be the game changer in terms of students being willing to use the feedback, partially because it was easily accessible, but also because when they were collecting their feedback, I the one that I ended up using, the format had two columns for glows and grows. And it was really fun. Um, the when they started to see the value in it is when students would start to see things that started in the grows column, like things they needed to work on. And you know, a few assignments later, all of a sudden it moves over to the glows column. And I think if they'd never collected that feedback and and put it in that format, I don't think I don't know if they would have been able to see that like this thing I was struggling with and got feedback on that I needed to work on, all of a sudden move to something I get to celebrate. Um so big picture, that's the one of the best pieces of advice I can give around feedback is give students a place to record it and process it. Um, it also was helpful for me when I would go in, I would have access to their feedback portfolios and it would tell me kind of this is what we were working on last time. Because honestly, half the time I forgot by the time I'd gotten through 150 different pieces of writing or something. So it gave me a chance to remember this is what they're working on. I should pay attention to that as I go through. Um, so that's sort of the big picture. The other two tips that I have for feedback are smaller. Um one is having students ask for specific feedback. Um, I found this really helpful with peer feedback, um, but also for me as a teacher, it just changed the dynamic of the feedback. To the student was saying, you know, there was a question at the end, what's one thing you want me to give you feedback on to help you with your writing or whatever it is? And instead of me having to like force the feedback and say, like, this is what you're getting, they I was responding to a request for help. And it really changed the dynamic. And I also saw that in that peer feedback scenario where instead of students in that group being really uncomfortable with the feedback, they were able to, this the writer would say, I want feedback on you know, my sentence structure or my punctuation. And everybody in the group now, instead of feeling awkward about like, well, I'm critiquing this person I kind of know in front of everyone, now they're saying they asked for help with this. We're all going to be looking at this and helping. Um, so yeah, soliciting feedback or letting them request the type of feedback or what feedback they want, and then really the less feedback. Like that is the best tip that I can give. I was so guilty of putting tons of feedback on there. And it's just our brains don't process that much information well. Um, there's a lot of research around that says if you're on a full essay, three comments is the optimal amount if we're expecting students to act on that. So use a feedback portfolio, let students request what they're getting feedback on, and then just give them only what they need and nothing more.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

I love all three of those. The putting students more in the in control of the feedback process, I really like. What is something that students routinely ask for feedback on? You're an English teacher, so if we're maybe in the realm of writing, what what do you what are the things that students most commonly will seek feedback on?

SPEAKER_02 20:02

Typically, I mean, I will say this takes a lot of practice and training. I mean, the first, the first, usually it's is it good? Like that's the that's the question I get. What do you want feedback on? Is it good? And I'm like, uh, not really helpful here. Um a lot of it is around the conventions of writing, I noticed. Um and I I think it it makes sense because I think that's what students are most self-conscious about often in their writing. They don't know if they did that right, they feel unsure about that. So it makes sense to me that that would be the most common one. Um, the other piece that was really helpful, there's another chapter in there that talks about learning progressions and really identifying specifically what's the learning we're doing and what's sort of the the the phases of of learning that skill. Um, I found having that and really emphasizing that throughout a unit helps students figure out what question to ask around that feedback. Um, so I would say if without guidance, definitely conventions, but typically this was almost a gauge for me to see how I was doing with using learning progressions or just really focusing students on um on those learning outcomes is are they able to ask those questions?

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Yeah, as you were answering even before you got there, I was thinking about that hack on the um uh learning progressions. Uh you're right that progressions help create an assessment sequence that we can use to help students build their confidence and gather evidence to support a narrative of success, which I think in a lot of ways sort of encapsulates a lot of the themes of this book building the confidence, gathering evidence to show that you are um where you've been and where you're going. So, what is a learning progression? Uh I have to say this is sort of the first time I've encountered this term, um, but I love the description in the book. So, how would for the for the listener, what do you mean by a learning progression?

SPEAKER_02 21:56

So, a learning progression is the process of Taking a standard, a learning outcome, and really unpacking that to see what would it look like for someone who's never been exposed to this kind of concept or content? Where would they start? And then building a sequence of increasing complexity along the way that might help students really figure out where to go if they're stuck, what might they be stuck on. So for me, like I use I typically use a five-step learning progression that starts oftentimes at basic definitions or background knowledge that I typically assume students are coming to me with. So it's really, really basic pieces. And then moving up in that complexity to maybe we're taking those definitions and applying them in a context or scenario. And then, you know, towards the end, we're integrating that concept with other content we've learned or in novel scenarios. So really looking at what does it look like? You know, we always have that goal, that standard. And I think I started thinking about learning progressions because oftentimes I was pointing at the goal and telling students we need to get there, but I was never giving them a map, right? Like I hiking is sort of my I love hiking, and so all of my analogies end up having to do with the outdoors or hiking. But I think about it in terms of if someone like dropped me off at a trailhead or just on the side of the road and pointed at the top of a mountain, and we're like, go. That's what I was doing with standards sometimes, is I was saying this is the goal, go get there. You know, and you've got students to extend this analogy maybe further than it needs to, you've got students who've never hiked before, maybe don't even have the shoes they need to be out there. And so instead of saying that, it's saying, hey, here's where we're at, here's a map that can help you get there to that goal. Um, I'm always super careful to make sure that it's not something I expect students to have to do step by step. Um, I that's how I started, and I found that it became just super mundane and boring, and it trapped some students that way. So now I always tell students, use this as a map. Like when I'm out hiking, I'm not starting at the trailhead, looking down at the map and taking every step while I'm staring at the map. I'm hiking and enjoying it and trying things out. And then if I get to a spot where I'm stuck, I pull out the map and I say, like, okay, what where did I go wrong? Right. Normally when I'm stuck, it's because I'm way off the route of where I need to be. So I'm like trying to figure out where did I go wrong? What do I need to go figure out, get back to, and then get back on the right path. That's how I really encourage students to use those learning progressions.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Let's really keep this analogy going here. So when you're on that hike, right, you are you're taking photos as you go along. Maybe you're I don't, you know, maybe you're collecting little you know things along the way, like to remember that the hike by. How are students gathering that evidence for you? Is there sort of an evidence journal they're keeping as they go along?

SPEAKER_02 24:58

Yeah, so um I love portfolios are huge for me because I think it when you have that learning progression, that clear kind of these are the pieces that I'll be looking for. These are the pieces that you you need to gather along the way. And then sort of that final goal. I love portfolios because it lets kids identify where they showed that they know it. Um, right. Like so, and part of the reason I loved it is if I've got a student who's writing three, you know, three different pieces, those aren't all going to be stellar pieces. And instead of viewing those in isolation, they can say, all right, for writing an introduction, out of these three, where did I do my best? And they get to put that. And so um there some I'll approach it that way with a portfolio sometimes. The other thing that I think is really valuable though, if if I've built a progression where maybe the first step is just can you define these few words? Um, I try to build in some sort of assessment that's quick, that's straightforward. Oftentimes it's auto-graded, so students can do it multiple times. Because what I really want kids to do there is have an experience of success early. Um, sort of that that first win, that quick win, so that they start. I use this term evidence all the time, um, but they're they have evidence to believe they can be successful. And I think that's where we see a lot of students where if it feels like they don't have motivation, one of the things that I'm always questioning is does that student have evidence to believe they can be successful? Even if it's just a little digital quiz that they take as many times as they need to, eventually, if they can get it, like really get those definitions and have evidence that they got those, that little bit might be what they need to believe, all right, next step in the learning progression, I can do it. I got the background, I can do it.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

And and those quick wins are are so important in conversations with students when you students are feeling down on themselves or feeling like they can't get to that next step. And you can say, but look, remember, you did this, having that thing that you can go back to as a teacher to remind them. How do students well what's the your interaction? You find the interaction with students between their portfolio and this evidence and grades.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

I mean, the grade still has to be involved in an ideal world, it wouldn't have to, but because they are getting to put their best evidence forward, um, it's more of a collaborative process. Um, I also do a lot of conferencing with students where um, especially when we get to the end of a unit or the end of a term, like at the end of a unit, we'll sit down and look at their portfolio and say, you've given me some great evidence. Let's figure out where we're at in this progression. Um, I use a five-point progression or a five-phase progression with my learning progressions, because oftentimes that translates well into that actual grading process, the online grade book, where, you know, at this point, if you're through phase four of a five-point or a five-phase progression, that's four out of five. That's an 80%. Um, and students generally seem to, I feel like it it's it makes the grade make more sense, it seems like, where it's not a weird, I got to figure out how to get more points. It's there's five phases in this learning progression, and I got through four, so that's 80. Like, and it they then can really have a clear picture of if I if I want to improve my grade, I'm not chasing points, I'm not, there's a next step that I'm gonna learn. And so they have a little bit more ability to control the outcome there.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yeah, the in that sense, the grade book is mirroring the map of how it's going, right? Like about this informational grade book idea. Um, you know, I I I find there's a lot of conversations at schools I've been at where teachers are frustrated with grades, understandably, but there's almost like an underlying belief that if we could just get rid of grades, that would somehow sweepingly take care of all the other issues. And right, there's there's so much else there. And I, you know, I what I appreciate about what you've been writing here is that it addresses a lot of those underlying issues that you're trying to build up the self-efficacy. But in the gradebook world, informational gradebooks, rethinking what a gradebook tells students and their guardians, talk a bit about that. How can we take something that we all have to use, whether you know we like it or not? There's that's there. How can we make that work for authentic learning and not just simply point chasing, as you mentioned?

SPEAKER_02 29:42

So I would, I mean, first thing I would do is start asking questions about the standards-based features in whatever gradebook you have. They're built into almost all of them, but they're always like a second-tier piece of the gradebook that goes hidden and doesn't often get set up. Like uh, we use PowerSchool or Power Teacher Pro is the gradebook we use in Sunnyside. And there's a actually pretty robust standards-based piece built into it. Um, but it's really tricky to set up. It involves getting tech involved behind the scenes. Um, so there is a route to go if if your school is looking sort of more system-wide at approaching this or kind of rethinking the gradebook. What I ended up doing is just figuring out to use the phrase from the cover of the book, how to hack my gradebook. Um, so where the last place that I actually ended up with my online gradebook was I I had a separate sheet where I really kept track of the student attempts, you know, organized it exactly how I wanted. And we used that in the classroom. And then what I did is really just thought, okay, the online gradebook, who needs to see this and what do they need to know? And so when I think it's, you know, families and caregivers at home, um, the most common questions are well, often I'm gonna I'm fortunate to be in my community. There the first question I always get is like, how are they behaving in class? Um, so I never incorporated that into the grade piece. I think there are ways to do it without actually impacting the grade, but still communicating that home if families or the community wants that. But um, the questions I often got is are they doing their work? How are they doing, like, are they are they where they need to be in their learning, basically? So my online grade book, the way that I ended up structuring it is I had two sections, one that was weighted nothing, and that was their assignments. And all I would do is I would I could just put a check when they had turned it in. Um, and so this took a lot of communication home with families and communication to my administrators of what that meant. But it was the fastest way for me to communicate the things we're doing in class. Are they doing those? Um, and then the piece I really focused on is we had a category of summative summative standards, and every assignment in there was one of my standards. So typically in a trimester, I would cover seven to ten. And all of those, there were seven of them, they were out of five. Um, and at the end of the term, the way their grade was calculated is you know, you have 10 standards, five points each, there's 50 points, and then how far did you progress in each of those standards on it? Um it gets a little tricky, admittedly, during the term, trying to figure out well, a student's at a uh phase two right now. I'm not gonna put that they have a 40% in the grade book because they're where they need to be. Like they're learning, they're figuring it out. Um, so that part always got really tricky. That's where my conferences came in. We would often say, here's where you're at in your progression. What grade best represents where you're at right now?

SPEAKER_00 32:51

Um yeah, so it gets tricky in the middle. We're so wedded to the hundred-point scale that it's so it's so misleading when you're talking about growth, especially like early or middle when you're trying to in the semester, you're trying to get them to this place. Yeah, you can't say something like you're halfway there, because that sounds horrible in the way we understand grades.

SPEAKER_01 33:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Yeah. I I've I mean, I come sort of my background is international baccalaureate, which uses specific criteria. And so I end up very clunkily putting assignments in multiple times, but for the different criteria, you know, but it's like as long as you've kind of explained it, you know, you're trying to show that where this is where they're being assessed. Um, so we have this informational grade book, we have um the students have their portfolios, you're looking at their work. Your last hack is how to use data to drive learning and and and and inform assessment. What does data mean to you? You know, data is one of those words that sort of gets thrown around a lot in education. I think we're not always talking about the same thing. So, what does data mean to you in a classroom and how how how do you use it to inform your teaching?

SPEAKER_02 34:06

So, in a very general sense, I often think about it just any information I have that informs me and the student where they're at in relation to a goal. Um so that can be, I mean, that's a whole number of things. The the typical way we think about it is the numerical scores from whatever they were doing, um, which can be valuable information. Um the piece that I found that really switches it from just that data, those numbers to information is being able to sit down and talk with students about it. Um, or I should say there's two pieces of making it valuable. The first is really being intentional with sitting down and talking to students about, hey, here's where you're at, here's the next thing you need to learn. Um, if I can communicate that to a student, I'm on the right track with what I want my assessment practices to be. Um, so there's that piece of being able to really clearly communicate to students where they're at currently, um, and then also what does that mean as their next step. So that's kind of part one. The other part that I always think about in terms of making that data meaningful or turning it into information is if I tell a student, hey, this is where you're at, this is where you need to go, it then becomes my obligation to create the opportunity for them to go there. Um, this is where I ran into issues with feedback a lot because feedback is another form of data of, hey, this is where you're at in in relation to the goal. And what I realized is the reason students weren't using it is because I wasn't giving them the space and time in class to intentionally pursue it. Um, so it's even little things like I used to, one of my favorite entry tasks to do for students is I would say, you know, I'd say, hey, pull out your learning progressions. I want you to figure out where you're at with this learning progression. So maybe that, you know, if there's five phases, and then I'll have a resource that says, hey, here's a resource for each of those five phases. You've got 10 minutes at the beginning of class, choose the resource that best suits your needs, that, you know, wherever you're trying to get to next, choose that resource, dig into it, and I want you to learn something new in 10 minutes. And even little things like that, I mean, that's a 10, 15 minute activity, really communicates to students that if I give you feedback or if you get any information that tells you where you're at, I'm going to expect you to act on it. You have the opportunity to act on it. You're not just stuck where you are. The the data, the information I give you, I'm giving it to you so you do something with it. And I think early in my career, especially, that's where I struggled. I spent a lot of time collecting information and data, and then I would teach the lesson that I was going to teach the next day, no matter what. Um, and it was really a big shift for me, especially with freshmen, to trust and believe if I give them good data and a clear goal, that they're gonna use that information well. Um, it didn't always go well, even still in my career, it doesn't always go perfectly, but I've really seen the value of um putting that expectation and ownership on students to say, you're in charge. Like you know where you need to go, you have the information you need, and here's a resource that's gonna help you get there. Use that.

SPEAKER_00 37:23

Yeah, I think sometimes we forget that you know formative assessment means it informs teaching at learning. Yeah. But you know, as you say, like we're busy, we're we're we've got that thing, we're gonna teach tomorrow, and and um sometimes it's hard to change course. What's an example? I I love that how you describe that that 10 to 15 minute um sort of resource check-in. Can you give us a specific example what that might look like? What's something a student might be looking at and what would they get out of it?

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Yeah, so um one of the examples, I don't know why this is always the one that pops in my head, but a learning progression around character development. And so the very beginning phase might just be I can define protagonists, antagonist, plot structure, and theme. Um, right, those definitions. So that resource might be a quick screencast video that I made walking through those, or it could be, you know, a resource that I found that covers those. Um, you know, the next phase might be I can identify protagonists and antagonists in a text. Something as simple as that. That resource might be a video about, you know, the difference between those characters or something. Um, as we move on, it always came up that like methods of characterization, which my phase three in a learning progression is typically this is the new content. So, like for freshmen, that might be methods of characterization or how authors build characters. And so that resource could be something teaching students about that. You know, moving up to the final phase is often how do how does character development build theme or connect to theme in a literary text? And so their final one would be some sort of resource. I think there's actually a really good Khan Academy one that I was I use for that one that pops in my head. But all of them, sometimes I would create them. But the benefit of these learning progressions, when they're so concrete or concrete in those steps, it makes it a lot easier for me to find the resources that are going to be helpful for the student at that phase. I think when I used to focus on like giving them a rubric at the beginning of a journey, it would be like, I can't analyze character development. I can kind of analyze character development. And like I didn't know what resources would be helpful for them, and they didn't know what resources. So these learning progressions make it so much more straightforward as to hey, here's a resource. If you're stuck here, this is what could get you to that next phase.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

I like it. Yeah, that's funny you say about the rubric. I mean sometimes I like rubrics, but sometimes it's like you used evidence to support your claim. You use substantial evidence. Yeah, and it's sort of like a lot of wheel spinning that goes on sometimes, even in my own head, about what do I really mean when I'm when I write these. Um which hack should a teacher start with? Teacher picks up your book, um, loves everything about it, is maybe new to some of these ideas. Which hack do you point to first?

SPEAKER_02 40:23

I would point to, and it's funny because it's not the first hack, but the second one is the one about learning progressions. Um, I would really strongly recommend that that be if you're thinking about changing your assessment practices or looking for a way to tap into a little more motivation, those learning progressions. I mean, I think I got to think about this before I say it because this might be a big statement. But if someone said you only get to keep one part of your craft that is most powerful, I probably would choose learning progressions because on my side, it really forced me to think deeply about what does it mean to learn what I'm asking students to learn? And what do I need to support for that? What do I need to provide? What resources would be helpful, what assessment pieces would be helpful to get them there? So from the teaching side of things, it really helped me understand the link between assessment and instruction a lot better when I started digging into learning progressions. But from the student side, I mean, I there's a there's a the goal gradient theory is this idea that the closer you are to reaching your goal, the more motivation you feel. Um, you think, you know, a runner getting towards the end of the race, they may have been dead a mile ago, but they see the finish line, all of a sudden, suddenly they can sprint. Learning progressions, oftentimes for students, it it takes what feels like a really far-off finish line for students, that standard that feels forever away, and it breaks it down into a sequence of little finish lines. So no matter where they're at, that goal is close. They're close to getting to that next phase of accomplishing something in their learning. And that experience is so powerful for kids in the classroom.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

One thing I love about what you said there is it is it brings the practice of teaching a little closer to coaching, which I've always thought is a really powerful way to think about teaching and often why students respond so well to uh elective classes, classes that are performance-based. There's a coaching element there. Do your students know you wrote a book?

SPEAKER_02 42:26

Uh a couple of my former actually, there's a class, I don't think I wrote about them in the book, but my second year of teaching, there was a class that taught me, I feel like everything I know about what it means to be a good teacher because uh they were it was like I was given an intervention class, and basically it was just like, do what you can. And those kids stepped up and really taught me. I I tried to do what I thought was supposed to happen in intervention class of packets and you know, terrible things that I wish I'd never done. And we all decided real quickly that it just sucked and nobody liked it. And they pushed me to say, how do I do this better? And so um, well, they ended up writing their own books in that class. There's a there was a website that they could print an actual book for like 250. It was awesome. Um, so they all got copies of their books, and that class, my rule was once once you graduate, go find me on social media. Like that's the time that I'm good with it. And that class, a ton of kids from that class were still connected on social media, and they all saw that I had a book coming out and a couple of them bought it. And um, so uh I I have some students, my my freshman students are starting to figure it out. They'll see me in the hallway and be like, Do you have a book now? And I'm like, Yes, I talked to you about it a lot. You knew it was happening.

SPEAKER_00 43:45

So yeah. So good. Um, before I get out of here, I just wanted to ask you about one other thing that's been top of my mind. And I'm just throwing this at you so I can just totally mix this from the interview if you're like um just because it's I've been thinking a lot. About it. Jonathan Heights got a new book out actually today, The Anxious Generation. He's been writing a lot about social media. And one of his big top-of-the-line things that he's been prescribing for years is get phones out of schools. And I'd be curious if you want to weigh in just your own thoughts as a teacher, as a high school teacher, your view of uh phones in schools, um, what you've been seeing, what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_02 44:28

I never thought I would get here, but my last year, um last year, uh, my policy in my classroom, I had a calculator holder with numbers and kids checked in their phones. Um, I just felt like they got to a point where this it's this incredibly powerful device that they have, but it's being used by incredibly powerful organizations designed to steal our attention and time. Um and it just felt like a losing battle for kids. Um, like learning is not the most fun thing they can do when they have a phone in their hand. Um it's it's hard, it's difficult, it requires us to be vulnerable and face some things that we don't feel adequate at yet. Um and I found when students started checking in their phones, there was much less pushback than I expected, right? There's always going to be some, but I I there were students that I think there were some students that actually told me they appreciated it. Um, but I loved it because A, I saw kids talk to each other more. Um they were interacting and communicating and getting to know the kids around them in a different way than I saw when they had their phones. Um it helped the dynamic of relationship between me and the students. I felt like I was turning into like the phone police, not the teacher of just that's supposed to be in your bag, this is supposed to be in your bag. And it just, I it was one of my least favorite parts of teaching. Um, but the piece that I really liked the most is I felt like their phones were turning into a discomfort pacifier, where the instant I feel like I don't know how to do this piece of writing or answer this question, I can distract myself. And I never have to confront what I don't understand or know. And when that phone was removed, I saw so many more students sit in that space of discomfort and then figure it out. Where I don't think when we have our phones, and I know like I'm saying students as if it's not something that I struggle with on a day-to-day basis, but like as people, when we have something to distract us from the discomfort of not knowing something or an uncomfortable experience, we're so likely to just get on our phones. And I found that by removing that, that really helps students be able to learn that skill and see if I just struggle with it, I can do it.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

It's so important to be able to maintain focus for stretches to do anything. And phones are sort of the opposite of that. And yeah, I I agree with everything you just said. And and I'm happy to hear that you know, you said most of your students were pretty receptive to it. And I think that's um I've seen that as well. Students actually kind of welcome giving up their phone for a bit, but I'm not gonna do it unprompted. I appreciate your thoughts on that. Um, and congratulate you again on the book Hacking Student Motivation: Five Assessment Strategies that boost learning progression and build student competence. Um, you're such a thoughtful person about assessment and learning. And big shout out to you on social media, on Twitter, X, um, always sharing ideas there as well. And so I encourage listeners to go there and pick up the new book, which will be linked in the show notes. Congratulations and uh thanks for joining me.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

Thank you so much. I always enjoy our chats.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

So good to have Tyler Ravlin back on the show. Big thanks to him for joining me. If you like the interview, I highly recommend you go back to my April 2021 interview with Tyler for other ideas about assessment and some of that same clarity and eloquence that he brought to today's conversation. It reminded me of something the curriculum coordinator at my school likes to say: clear is kind. That is, when we're transparent and open and clear with our students about where they're going and how they're going to get there, students feel empowered and they feel like they can do it. They see the goal, they see the end line, and especially in the way Tyler talks about it, they're charting their own path to get there with the teacher's assistance. And it's really powerful stuff for self-efficacy and helping students feel like they are um the drivers of their own learning. Highly recommend Tyler's new book. I linked it in the show notes. Get a copy, and uh, I think you'll find there's something for you. Maybe all five hacks are for you, because he's really laid out some very cool ways to make assessment more clear and more kind. Thanks for listening to What's the Big Idea? Appreciate any feedback you want to give me. I hope this gives you something to think about, conversations to take to your colleagues, and uh stay well out there, everybody. Happy spring, and uh tune in next time.