ML Chat Episode 2: Eliciting Evidence: Formative Assessment Process with Tim Blackburn
This week on the ML Chat podcast we continue our conversation with Tim Blackburn about the formative assessment process. In this episode we unpack the second part, eliciting evidence. Tim shares about the learning journey our students are on and the challenges so many districts face as an increasing number become “long-term language learner.” If you haven’t listened to episode 1, you may gain some helpful context by jumping back one episode and starting there.
TRANSCRIPT
SPEAKERS
Justin Hewett, Tim Blackburn
Justin Hewett 00:00
Well, let’s, when we ended last time we were talking, you know, we kind of ended talking about backwards design. And we were talking about clear intended learning, we had talked about this amazing journey you had gone on, that led you down to Guatemala, you know, back to New York and teaching and then across the country to Oregon and working in the department of education there. And, and now we get to talk about clear unintended, like, where did this come from? Like, where did this focus on clear unintended learning backwards design? Talk to us a little bit about that, if you don’t mind.
Tim Blackburn 00:36
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, as far as like, where it came from, you know, backwards design, one of the things that I find really appealing about it is that, conceptually, it often like really resonates with, you know, with my teacher colleagues, right, you know, these are, you know, concepts, I remember exploring, you know, back at Teachers College, right. And when we think about, like, the fundamentals of curriculum design, where are you going, right? Where is, where is all of this headed? You know, what do I want my students to know, and be able to do, at the end of the year, at the end of the semester, the end of the quarter, as a result of this unit, it’s really instructive to think about, you know, where we’re going much like, say, going on a trip, you know, like having a clear destination in mind. And so, intuitively, right, it’s, there’s, it’s, it’s instructive, just to think about your direction, right. And so, the language, though, for clear, intended learning, you know, really came out of a collaboration with understanding language at Stanford, Oregon State University, and my dear colleague, Karen Thompson. And basically, it’s a, a set of lenses for kind of landing a language rich iteration of backwards design. So when I had this opportunity to collaborate with Dr. Karen Thompson, and our colleagues and understanding language, they were able to, like we were able to like really, like collaboratively like define, you know, three, three lenses, right, that we captured under underneath this title of clear intended learning? Yes, like, what do you want your students to know and understand about class concepts. So, you know, in an either in, like an in a math classroom, you know, for instance, it’s thinking about those mathematical concepts. But in addition to that, our students also have to, to master the what they refer to as the analytical practices. That is, you know, thinking about the thinking practices that are specific to say, mathematics. And then thirdly, the language required to express their understanding of the concepts and to make connections, and to do the analysis and to evaluate a concept. It’s these three lenses underneath clear intended learning that effectively offer a way to, to unpack and understand the language development opportunities inherent in our class.
Justin Hewett 03:57
So the what the why and the how is a focus? And, and I guess, you know, you’ve mentioned in the past that clear, intended learning is really the heart of formative assessment practice. What have you meant by that?
Tim Blackburn 04:15
Yeah, I mean, that was really the heart of this project. Right, you know, with with Dr. Thompson, and
Justin Hewett 04:23
that was the best Bill I’ve heard quite a lot, actually.
Tim Blackburn 04:29
That’s great. So, I mean, the clear intended learning Yes, is very much the heart of what at understanding language they refer to as a formative assessment process. It effectively drives the process because it helps define the end to which we’re going right. So where is all of this? This headed All right, well, if I expect, you know these concepts and these thinking practices and the specific language to express my understanding of the concept, say, at the end of my unit. What are the things that I’m doing on the day to day to actually monitor our progress to that end, right. And then so this formative assessment process has three additional elements beyond clear intended learning. So the second element is what they refer to as eliciting evidence. And this is like, pretty broad, right? Because, but it’s, it’s really all about in terms of lesson design, really privileging language production, like students, what students are saying and what they’re doing and what they’re writing that reveal the extent to which they are building mastery of the class concepts, that class thinking practices, as well as using that language and context.
Justin Hewett 05:59
So let’s dive into that a little bit more, right. You know, when you say eliciting evidence, right, to elicit evidence, I, I can imagine that sometimes when you’re in the classroom, it can be hard to elicit evidence from students. And so I guess I’d love to jump into that, as you know, maybe, what, what are you using to get students talking? And kind of work through the process, if you don’t mind?
Tim Blackburn 06:28
Yeah, I mean, I really, I think it really comes down to, you know, offering students, you know, as much time on target as possible. That is, where we’re building mastery of the class concept, offering my students like scaffolded ways to actually engage the thinking practices, like, for instance, this is probably a pretty good example, is that like, what does it actually look like to analyze? You know, when you like, what are you actually doing, when you analyze something, you know, when you look at our, you know, say our standards and our, it, you know, students are, are expected to do these deep thinking practices, and yet, they can be abstract. So when, you know, when I’m actually like, designing my lessons I’m thinking about, all right, you know, how am I going to not only, you know, prepare my students for a particular experience in like class concepts and understanding like the content that the focus of my of my lesson, but also like, build their readiness in terms of like, getting to getting to that like the depth, that entire grade level
Justin Hewett 07:47
standard, which can be hard when you’re trying to keep up with units in the classroom, right, and you’re supposed to get to certain pieces. And so I think that’s where your backwards design comes into play. Right?
Tim Blackburn 07:57
Well, right, but it also like privileges depth, I guess, right? Like, you can’t do these things on a superficial way. And because of the, especially because of the, the the implicit language load of all of this is that if our students don’t have access to the language, then they can’t get to the right, of course, does that make sense? Yeah, because then everything is superficial, both in terms of how we, like engineer access into our lessons, like really have to be like, mindful about like supporting our students into grade level content. And that means like, making sure that input is all comprehensible, creating lots of visuals, right, and lots of opportunities to process together. And so when you ask about, like, eliciting evidence, it’s like, no, yeah, like, it is evidence, like I’m listening for evidence from, from my students as they engage one another in conversation.
Justin Hewett 08:59
That music came on just like perfect timing.
Tim Blackburn 09:04
Yeah, it’s gonna be a couple more seconds of the countdown. As the students are finding their way.
Justin Hewett 09:13
It’s interesting, as I’m thinking about what you’re sharing, I’m thinking, Gosh, this is just, you know, obviously, it’s really powerful for our multilingual students as they’re learning a new language and trying to have the context and participate in you know, language rich conversations about history, or science or whatever it might be. It also feels like something that a lot of students could benefit from, who aren’t learning English as a second language as well. Right.
Tim Blackburn 09:42
They may not be learning English as a second language, but you know, the I think one of the principles that has always guided you know, my practice is that we’re all academic language learners. And, and I think that you You’re being really clear on not just like the concepts that we need to know in social studies but also like the thinking practices associated with being historian. And thirdly, thinking about the ways in which historians communicate that Yeah, I think I eat a walkie probably says at best is that it’s our responsibility as as teachers to see that our students are apprenticing and these practices over time. And so when I think about eliciting evidence, it’s about like designing these moments in the lesson where I give my students thoughtful spaces, to engage one another, like safe spaces to actually like, build understanding of these things and mastery of these skills. But you know, together, you know, you ever think about the way that an apprentice learns by doing. That’s why I love I really love the notion of apprentice learning as a verb is that we’re growing in our competence over time.
Justin Hewett 11:10
And when I think about Tim, the first year teacher in New York, you this would have gone over your head to some degree, I would imagine, right? Is this. Right?
11:24
There was a survival situation. So
Justin Hewett 11:26
at what point? Can you sit down with a teacher and help kind of develop this next level thinking for them, you know, from a perspective of how to reach and meet the needs of their students?
Tim Blackburn 11:41
Yeah, yeah. I mean, there are some like baseline things that kind of, with you would want to work on first before, rather than, you know, thinking about some of these things, like, you know, like, for instance, I classroom routines are so crucial at any level, right? Is is, you know, as a ninth grade student, for instance, like, it’s very helpful to know, what is expected of me, you know, when I entered class, as I find my see, you know, like, where I’m sitting, how I relate to my peers, what my, my teacher expects of me in terms of, you know, you know, the work that I produce and class, like, those sorts of outcomes are really crucial. And certainly class routines are kind of like baseline. But beyond that, when we think about like, our lesson design practice, yeah, yeah, like, that’s really where were these four elements of the formative assessment process can be very instructive and kind of distilling the lesson design? And
Justin Hewett 12:51
is that something we’re asking teachers to do? Or is it something that we do as a group or as a team? Is it something that, you know, you and maybe some of your leaders at the district office are building out the, you know, the lesson planning and sharing it out? How do we, how do we make that, that work approachable for teachers?
Tim Blackburn 13:12
Yeah, when I was at EDD Northwest, that was like, very much like, what I aspired to offer my colleagues is like a, you know, is a was like a framework just because we, we can often, like, overcomplicate like, the lesson design is complicated, right. And, and so I’ve always been, like, looking for this, this way to, to offer a scaffold for and ideally like a scaffold for teacher teams, like teams of colleagues to come together and talk about their practice and have basically like, a meta language for, for the elements of of a lesson. You know, and and so it’s, like, one on like, really, like one of my, like, my private, like, proudest moments, like in you know, as an educator is actually like, about like, three years into a project in Ontario, Oregon. And listening to teacher teams actually, like use the language like clear and test learning and formative assessment with us and, and, you know, thinking about like, oh, you know, like really pointing out like analytical practices and the, you know, sentence frames associated with comparing and contrasting like to hear colleagues relying on the framework right to support their planning. Happy because it really was the it was really the intention was to is to offer my colleagues like a simple tool, right? Way to distill a complex process and just try to
Justin Hewett 15:10
love it, I love that it’s so cool. I can’t imagine being in that moment, and you’ve been working for three years towards this. And it’s, it’s, and then it actually happens. And you’re hearing them use all the language and all the structure and the process, and oh man, how great reminds me a little bit of, I’ve talked for years about when you’re first getting into a new role, a lot of times it takes 1000 days to get there, right. And to really, like master it, and like, maybe not master because that’s the 10,000 hour rule, I guess. But 1000 days is just something that, like, by the end of that 1000 days, if you’ve been really committed during that time, you’re gonna be really good, like you will be, you know, some level of an expert, I feel like and, and it sounds like this, this group in Ontario, this group of teachers, it kind of reached their 1000 days maybe. So I want to dive a little bit deeper into eliciting evidence, and just kind of maybe talk about, I don’t know, you know, maybe the why behind it, the purpose behind it, or how we do it, you know, just kind of break, break this complex process down a little bit and make it as approachable as possible.
Tim Blackburn 16:19
Yeah, I mean, what I like about it is that it really privileges output that really is like, kind of the, the, the end all be all of eliciting evidence is that I’m thinking about? Really two things like, how am I creating opportunities for students to show me what they know? And secondly, to what extent Am I really clear on what those expectations are? Right? And, and it’s that that linguistic output that I think is just a nice, simple way to think about this, you know, what do I expect to see in my students writing? And what, oh, what do I want to hear in a way isn’t, you know, in which they’re, they’re interacting and class has, they’re building understanding of the concepts, as they’re actually trying out the, these analytical practices in action. And that we’re actually apprenticing in the the desired language forms. It’s really about being like attentive to how they’re my students are growing in those in those three practices over time. And so if I’m thinking about those invitations, right, those invitations to try out those, those those skills and context I can attend to really thinking about further supports my students might need, challenging my students to using more complex language forms, or like finding ways to, to offer extensions for for concepts, or applying those concepts in a deeper, richer way. If I’m listening carefully, and if I’m looking carefully in those writing, I, you know, we can find ways to kind of, kind of turn the crank, so to speak and to the to work to greater,
Justin Hewett 18:23
when I’m thinking about it, to, you know, who do you see doing this? And in what environment? Like, you know, is this a language teacher that you know, an ELD teacher, maybe that, you know, as a part of this in the classroom with the classroom teacher, just trying to think if I’m a teacher, and I’m working with 30 students, how am I able to capture that linguistic output, right, and understand it in a way to be able to think about extension opportunities for the student or kind of where we, where we take our instruction from here.
Tim Blackburn 18:59
I think, you know, there’s, there’s a number of points that come up for me and respond to is firstly, is this notion of like, amplifying and extending language development throughout the school day. Is that Yes, you know, like colleagues have, you know, like in 30 kids in a classroom, how can I be in all of those places at once? You’re, you’re absolutely right, is that is like a challenge to to be able to attend to supporting and differentiating for all of our students based on what we you know, what we observe, right? And so kind of like two things like come up for me, like you know, is firstly, this really is about the invitation, right? It’s about creating a space for students to like to try this on. And so like having like a record of, you know, of what students are thinking in terms of their Writing, or even like a even like a written record of the work that they have processed through speaking and interacting with their, with their peers, right. Those are, you know, the kind of like simpler ways to actually, like capture that sort of evidence of thinking and that evidence of apprenticeship and evidence of growth within our, our three target areas. But it’s also just, it can be as simple as, you know, constructing classroom dialogue, and, and, you know, listening, you know, carefully to what students are saying, right, and so either through pair shares, either through, you know, like small group conversations, or, heck, maybe it’s a Socratic seminar, and, you know, you’re, you’re there as merely as a facilitator, and you’re listening for how students are interacting with one another.
Justin Hewett 21:03
So it’s just, it’s a super intentional word and like, but at the end of the day, and it sounds like you’re building the whole process around like, this is, this is a, this is very much a perspective on really, understanding, I guess, as you’ve said, like, it’s the backwards design of lesson planning. And that makes sense, I get that now.
Tim Blackburn 21:29
Sure. Sure, I will make a fundamental shift and that if, as teacher, I’m doing all the talking, then who’s doing the right who’s doing the work? Who’s doing the heavy cognitive lifting, it shouldn’t, it shouldn’t be me as teacher. You know, and, and I do think that’s kind of like a helpful way to, you know, to think about like, the traffic, you know, the information traffic in a classroom, I really, you know, what I want to hear is, Uh hum. A steady productive hum in my classroom instead of, you know, the teacher journeying on, right, and because it really is like a fundamental shift, right, in sort of, like our mental model for what school looks like, it’s, it’s our kids need to be doing that productive struggle, and that productive work. And it really is the job of a teacher to design these, these invitations for students to connect and cope. And
Justin Hewett 22:48
what you’re saying is really resonated with me, especially around the apprentice, you know, the apprenticeship perspective, right of these students are apprenticing and in a lot of these, these tools, that one thing that I’ve enjoyed sand through the years is that, you know, by doing the work, we build capacity, right, and we increase capacity by doing that work. Well. I mean, we need the students to be doing the work so that they can build their capacity, I’d love for you to give us some more examples of maybe what this looks like. And yeah, kind of walk us through, like, how do we do this?
Tim Blackburn 23:23
Yeah, sure. So yeah, there are a number of like, different cycles, we can like, think about and really, you know, like, depends on our specific, you know, lesson aims. But let’s say I haven’t really thought about,
Justin Hewett 23:41
oh, you’re good, you’re gay, I’m putting you’re in the waterfall conference room, you just just relax. And I think everything will count, you know?
Tim Blackburn 23:50
Yeah. So let’s say that I want my students to analyze the the impact of colonization on the Americas. All right. So let’s, let’s start there. So, in terms of like, the class concepts is that I want my students to understand like concepts like triangular trade, right, to understand the clash of cultural diffusion, to be sure but you know, additionally, like the impact of of colonization, especially on on say, an indigenous cultures here and the Americas and certainly, you know, like the impact of the slave trade, right? There are social studies concepts that I know I want my students to know and understand from say, like a like a social, cultural, economic, geographic perspective, those really We’d like to kind of lie at the heart of what I want them to know and understand. And in order for me to really have a clear sense of what those class concepts are, we got to, you know, of course, use my standard, but then to really think about how I want my students to actually apply that standard at the end of the unit. And so, if we, if we’re going to like assign a, a, say, an analytical, like thematic essay, you got to write that essay yourself. Up. And it’s really until you actually do it, that you can fully understand the inherent like, complexities of what we’re asking our students to do. And so applying our lenses to the concepts to understand like, what actually analysis looks like, especially for cause and effect. It will also highlight the specific language that we need to to offer to our students, right, so the language development and practice. So thinking about, like, what language do I need for cause and effect? And what’s the vocabulary that I would expect my students to be able to use, like, say, you know, triangular trade, colonialism. In impact, like you think about like, all of the language that will like kind of come to the surface, when we’re actually unpacking the artifact that we expect the students by the end. And what’s really helpful about actually defining your destination, it’s actually really liberating because it facilitates your lesson design process.
Justin Hewett 26:58
On the one hand, I could see as a teacher thinking, Oh, my gosh, that is, like, so much work, wait, I’m gonna do the work that I’m asking the students to do. But yet, I can see what you mean that it would almost be liberating, because now it would be more definite in what I’m asking my students to do, and a little less ambiguous, maybe
Tim Blackburn 27:18
a little less ambiguous. And now you have a model from which to draw from throughout your lesson. And so if you’re going to, like, introduce the, you know, these, like, like the concepts of encounter, right, of to civilizations in their first encounter, all right, well, when we’re thinking about it, in terms of eliciting evidence, I want to use like, as as much imagery to get my students like, talking about their schema for you know, and counter right for for colonialism, like, our kids have a lot of lived experience. And so they creating invitations for students to exchange ideas and CO construct meaning, you know, further is, you know, presenting, like, in as many as many modes as possible, you know, information that I want my students to, to negotiate to build new understandings on top of their, on top of their experience, their prior knowledge. And so, as far as like, you know, eliciting evidence goes, it’s yet not, it’s not just a question of reading the text excerpt, but rather, it’s the abundancy and redundancy of it, it’s creating tasks that draw my students into the text that to get them to process the text together, and then to step back and then use the text as a as a resource for their conversations. And it’s in those conversations and the back and forth, I’m listening for evidence of their own learning, right? And looking for evidence, not just around the concepts, but how are they how are they applying that? How are they applying the thinking practices through their understanding of attacks?
Justin Hewett 29:13
This is powerful stuff. I mean, this is this is how you make a big difference with you know, eliciting evidence and so I love the focus on an invitation. You You snuck in there abundancy In redundancy. Is that sound? Is that a term that everybody knows and uses? I feel like you’re the only person I’ve ever heard that from unpack that real quick.
Tim Blackburn 29:41
It’s not Yeah, it. I mean. So John, what he taught me is that it’s really a question about supporting our students to depth. And that if I if I’m doing In my job, right, it’s about thinking about the inviting my students into, to rich content in a supported way. And so, in doing so I’m offering them like abundant opportunities to engage and reengage texts with purpose. That’s really what, like, at the heart of what, what John was, was, was teaching me. So we’re not just going to read it once. I’m going to provide, you know, like, you know, rich imagery and opportunities, like for my students to share their prior knowledge with me, prior to even introducing the text, I want to really just invite the students to, to show me what they know, and what they’ve experienced associated with a particular theme. And it’s through that theme, we can carry that prior knowledge into the, into the texts and, and it’s, it’s in that, that we’re not just going to read the text once, but rather, we’re going to process the text and a multitude in a multitude of ways. And so it’s that, again, that abundancy of opportunity, and then sort of like that, what he meant by redundancy is I read over and over and again, like and yep. And so that we’re it’s not just a question of like reading comprehension, but I can application of those concepts in a novel way. How are you the walkie she writes about this too. And, you know, that’s really what kind of at the heart of the three moments lesson design is that we support our students in negotiating new new texts at grade level with scaffolded support up to standards, and then we create an invitation for kids to apply that learning in a novel. abundance in redundancy, right, that there’s a there is a cycle. And our kids are working to depth because we’ve created the conditions for them to do that.
Justin Hewett 32:05
I love this. I love this is so fun, kind of unpacking this and diving into with you, Tim, I want to ask a question that might sound a little silly, but I’m just thinking, if I, if I’m a classroom teacher, and I’m trying, you know, I have all of this content, I have it broken down, like what I’m teaching throughout the year, and, and I’m trying to get to the next unit, right, and we’re trying to get through this one. When when I am listening to you to you kind of break this down and walk through it, it feels like it would slow me down significantly, and that I’m not going to be able to get through all my content, right. And so I know that there’s a pretty big difference in perspective helped me help me understand why this actually isn’t gonna slow me down.
Tim Blackburn 33:04
There’s, there’s just this this, for me, this is a constant tension. Right. And so I think this the, you know, the question you ask is as fair, as it is frustrating, in the sense that, you know, like, I hear from my colleagues just like, it’s just a, like, a, like a fear, you know, like, like, what about covering like content? Or what about this? And what about that? And I mean, honestly, like, for me, like cover? Sure, it’s a five letter word, but for me, it’s a four letter word, I really I can’t connect to it. And the reason why is that, it assumes that I think it assumes a few things, you know, firstly, is that it just in terms of like, the knowledge and concepts like it assumes that are that it’s better to know a bunch of things instead of creating opportunities for kids to do things in a way. That’s really like the, I think, for me like that the heart of this tension is that I’d rather give my my students interesting and relevant, you know, contexts to build understandings in a deeper way, and to apply them at greater depths of knowledge than, you know, to build superficial understandings and our hurried way of a whole bunch of concept is basically it’s the notion of a mile wide, you know, mile wide and an inch deep. versus you know, versus It’s sort of like an integrated way to, to design units for for depth. And I think this is instructive for serving multilingual students is that the context really drives everything. And if I’m constantly changing the context, it’s it, it can really like lead to an overload. And so think I get it, you know, like, it’s, it’s really like in our wiring as teachers, when we think about the art classroom experiences as students, and then kind of juxtaposing it, you know, to say, our experience, you know, as, as educators, like, I totally relate to that tension, I understand it. And a, I had a principal once tell me, you know, 30 kids get on a bus with you at the start of the year. What are you going to do as a as a teacher to ensure that all 30 of those children are with you at the destination, at the end of the year,
Justin Hewett 36:24
that is powerful imagery.
Tim Blackburn 36:27
And by racing through content and not thinking about like negotiating the potholes and the roll on in the road and the curves in the road? We are going to lose kids. And so again, like I think relevance really matters. And depth is priority, you
Justin Hewett 36:46
think it’s this focus on covering the content or get, you know, moving through that that has maybe had an impact on the large numbers of students who reach a status where they’re classified as a long term English learner.
Tim Blackburn 37:05
100% they this notion of like, long term English learner, what does that really mean?
Justin Hewett 37:12
They don’t have the depth. You know, they
37:14
in my mind, it’s like,
Justin Hewett 37:15
we haven’t
Tim Blackburn 37:16
yet served them. We haven’t yet met their needs. And it also comes from like, a deficit orientation of like, you know, you don’t yet have, you know, the English language proficiency. I find that frustrating. You know, and, you know, and oftentimes when we think about, like, really getting to know, like our students as, as language learners, you know, when we say yes, okay, sure, your your view of greater than seven years of service and English language development, what that really means is that our service hasn’t worked yet. We have not yet served them.
Justin Hewett 37:59
Yeah, it’s more of a reflection on the program, how
Tim Blackburn 38:06
it is, and like 30 minutes of focused ELD a day is not going to cut it. And so like, again, I think this really speaks to more of like a systemic issue of thinking about the myriad ways that our students use academic language for a myriad purposes across contexts throughout their school day. It is not helpful to think about that in like I compartmentalize the intervention sort of way. What are we doing by othering, othering children, you know, and, and pushing them into, you know, pushing them into like interventions, where what they really need are language rich environments, you know, surrounded by their, their peers, in which they get to use language every day to make connections to ideas and express what they’re thinking,
Justin Hewett 39:08
Oh, that is powerful, Tim, and and that’s really, you know, that’s the intention here with clear intended learning. Right. And in that focus, and so where are we going to go next? You know, we’ve been talking about, you know, elicit evidence. You know, where are we going to go next when? Yeah, probably getting close to the end of our time here, you know, and so, so give us a preview of what we’re going to cover next.
Tim Blackburn 39:34
Yeah, absolutely. So like to see eliciting evidence is like really all about the invitation right? What am I listening for? What am I looking for in their writing? That is evident, right? The clear intention 30 So the next piece is what what are colleagues at understanding language referred to as interpreting evidence? And this is really cool, because what it means is that because I know so clearly what the destination is, I also have a sense of what success looks like, that makes a lot of sense. And so the interpreting evidence is thinking about like your success criteria for the class concepts, your success criteria for the thinking practices, that is your analytical practices and how students are really kind of expressing right there, their understanding of the concepts. And thirdly, the extent to which they’re using the target language forms and academic language more broadly. It’s really cool because if you lay out in the interpreting evidence portion, the the success criteria, you can then and probably most importantly, communicate those understanding, excuse me, those success criteria and those learning outcomes to your students. It’s not just like a perfunctory learning target at the start of your lesson. But rather, it’s a tool that we use for for constant reflection throughout the unit. You know, when what I love about learning outcomes, is that we can use them as like, yeah, like a compass.
Justin Hewett 41:25
Northstar is what came to my mind. Set a path right there.
Tim Blackburn 41:32
Got a path right? And and am I on target, right? Yeah. What about my learning today? He reveals you know where I am in this journey? And that metacognition it’s not just like a like a multilingual learner best practice. It is a that is like what we know from Marzano what we know works from from John Hattie, it’s like really like, coaching our students to metacognition. Like an awareness of how I’m growing in my learning. Another part of what I love about it is that it demystifies grading, and it makes our students partners and their own learning, learning development. And so they show me you know, like, show me what you notice about your learning today? Like, where are you in terms of our focus class concepts? Or show me evidence of how you’re, you’re growing in compare and contrast? Or how you’re evaluating, you know, bias and an apparent
Justin Hewett 42:44
so it comes, you know, it’s important, then, you know, after making the invitation to be able to have those student artifacts, right speaking artifact or writing artifact, you know, whatever it might be to be able to help the student medic cognate on it right to be able to interpret, analyze that evidence and, and run. So. Yeah, I can, I can see that I can’t wait to dive into that and unpack it.
Tim Blackburn 43:12
Yeah, and it’s just the it’s from the start, you know, Justin, is that like, I can’t really get to a conversation of success criteria, you know, without a clear destination. And so that, again, the clear, intended learning, drives everything. You know, and, you know, we, if we’re really clear on where we’re headed, and we focus our attention to these, you know, invitations of students like apprenticing in the skills, you know, throughout our, you know, throughout our class, and we’re really looking for and looking for and listening for evidence of learning. And then we provide, we provide the tools for interpreting the extent to which our students are growing in those in, you know, in the target in the target that makes
Justin Hewett 44:09
a lot of sense to me. Thank you so much for this. I’m looking forward to next time. Okay. Thank you, Tim. Enjoy that waterfall conference room, and all the work that you’ve got to do in that middle school today. And, and we’ll look forward to catching up with you next week.
44:25
All right. Thanks a lot Justin.
