As a rule, I tend to interrupt each of my students throughout lessons so I can get constant, mmmm errr relentless, feedback from each of them. Yes, if put to good use, this is good AfL. Thanks for noticing. The best formative 'assessment' is more like formative feedback: input, process, output, adjust ... input, process, output, adjust ... and so on. Not year by year feedback, but hour-by-hour or minute-by-minute. Not lesson management, but learning management.
And I'd rather not get started on assessments that tick the accountability and visibility boxes.
I digress.
So...
As part of my general philosophy in education, "Don't learn to be helpless" is slowly finding its way into the long-term memory and general mind-set of many of my classes.
Again, forming very much part of an AfL philosophy, no student of mine is allowed to ask for my help!
That does sound rather mean. Let me explain.
Rules
- If you're stuck, ask your neighbour
- If they don't know, ask your other neighbour
- If they don't know, get out of your chair and ask someone else
- Are there any online resources you could be using?
- Have you used trial and error?
- Only then, can you wake me up!
That's not strictly true ... sometimes I might be reading the paper. Alright, fine. Cross out rule 6; it's a joke.
My students are made acutely aware, at a very early stage with me, that there are far more learning resources in a class than their teacher! Often, there are better resources than their teacher!
I don't want simply to establish a collaborative environment; I want a cooperative environment, too.
So more often now when, at the end of a lesson, I ask students "What did you learn today?" they don't tend to answer with the somewhat direct responses such as "I learned how to use Headings in Word" or "I learned how to use advanced searches in Google" or "I learned how to distinguish between a potentially reliable and potentially unreliable source of information".
No, they might say now "I learned that Other Student X already knew how to split a film clip in iMovie" or "I learned that Other Student Y already knew how to import an audio file".
This takes a while to achieve as a mindset, particularly if the class is not used to this mode of learning. But when you start to get this feedback, it feels good.
