stop to participate or complete the task. Some are relatively quick and simple, for example, exit slips or cards (see element 19 in chapter 6, page 109) and active-participation activities such as hand signals or response cards (see element 24 in chapter 7, page 120). Others require more intense attention and investment of time for students to address either in or outside of class. After delivering formal instruction on a skill, process, or subject, teachers collect the work, assess it, provide feedback, input a score or notes, and plan next steps in instruction. Here are examples.
• After leading instruction about how to construct a sentence with parallel structure, the teacher asks students to practice finding examples in a complex text and write their own sentences with parallelism.
• To assess how well students know the characteristic elements of a genre, the teacher distributes sample papers and asks students to circle and label parts of the paper (for example, in a mystery identify detective, suspect, clue, and red herring). The teacher would also expect students to indicate those elements that are missing.
• The teacher instructs students to annotate a paper for an express purpose, such as highlighting instances of figurative language and interpreting the meaning. Or, students underline examples of evidence and annotate in the margin the degree to which each piece supports each reason.
• To determine understanding of content, the teacher asks students to draw a diagram of the digestive system and write an explanation about how it works.
• When targeting forms of verbs, the teacher provides students with a list of verbs to conjugate. Students then write sentences with proper grammar using the words.
• After instruction on a specific grammar or convention skill, students review a peer’s paper and make corrections based on what they have learned. They use standard proofreaders’ marks when editing (for further elaboration and a chart of proofreading marks, see chapter 6, page 89).
Using scales and rubrics as instructional tools allows students and teachers to track progress and celebrate student success, the focus of element 3.
Element 3: Celebrating Success
Once a strong system for tracking student progress is in place, the teacher and students have a great deal of rich information with which to celebrate success. Figure 1.12 presents the self-rating scale for this element.
Figure 1.12: Self-rating scale for element 3—Celebrating success.
To instill a sense of pride in accomplishing goals, teachers orchestrate situations to celebrate students’ success. At any moment when students do well or when they have exhibited growth along the way from one point to another on a proficiency scale or rubric, classmates and teachers can take notice verbally, in writing, or by other means, such as by ringing a bell, standing to snap fingers or applaud, or playing an upbeat current song and dancing to it. Teachers and students can do this for one student, a small group, or the whole class. When celebrating the whole class, teachers—with the help of students—can organize a get-together and invite parents or school administrators to attend. Students can even write about their own accomplishments in their gratitude journals to mark the occasion (see element 32, chapter 7, page 135).
When celebrating, cultivate a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006/2008) by encouraging students to celebrate the persistence, hard work, dedication, and risk taking that earned improved results for them. For example, a teacher might say, “I see you continued to work hard when the assignment got tough. That persistence seemed to pay off for you,” “It’s clear you got the hang of it by taking risks and learning from your mistakes,” or “You showed that you can grow your intelligence through hard work.” Comments about the preceding characteristics spur learning and contribute to achievement much more than those that focus on praise, such as “Good job,” “Exactly right,” “Superior work,” or “You are one smart kid.” In fact, research has shown that praise can discourage effort and produce a negative effect:
After seven experiments with hundreds of children, we had some of the clearest findings I’ve ever seen: Praising children’s intelligence harms their motivation and it harms their performance.… Yes, children love praise. They especially love to be praised for their intelligence and talent. It really does give them a boost, a special glow—but only for the moment. The minute they hit a snag, their confidence goes out the window and their motivation hits rock bottom. If success means they’re smart, then failure means they’re dumb. (Dweck, 2006/2008, p. 175)
Hattie and Yates (2014) state that “in teaching contexts, it is more responsible to increase informational feedback while going lean on praise. Students need clear indications that the worthwhile target they are harbouring is becoming real” (p. 68). Therefore, when celebrating success, teachers should judiciously measure their words to emphasize the process of achievement and effort—kudos for engagement, tenacity, and risk-taking—and concretely indicate where students have made growth in their learning goals.
When teachers engage in curriculum design, they consider this overarching question for communicating clear goals and objectives: How will I communicate clear learning goals that help students understand the progression of knowledge I expect them to master and where they are along that progression? Consider the following questions aligned to the elements in this chapter to guide your planning.
• Element 1: How will I design scales or rubrics?
• Element 2: How will I track student progress?
