The Middle Is What Matters

For the past several years, many of us have been involved in Literacy or Numeracy pathways.  We have spent time creating pre-and post assessments and have tracked our students progress along the way.  We moderated marked, and have learned new high yield strategies to help our struggling students improve.  From all of this, the most important lesson we have learned is that what you do in the middle (between the pre-and the post) is what makes the difference for your students.

At Wexford the Grade 1 and 1/2 teachers spent their PLC time together looking at Measurement.  Measurement is a big strand, and involves many different concepts.  Some concepts, such as area and perimeter and volume and capacity are more "meaty" than others such as time.  The planning session started by breaking down the strand into chunks based on what was to be taught.  Those chunks were:  time/temperature, length/height, area and capacity/mass.  From there, they then listed what knowledge the students would demonstrate for each heading based on the curriculum.  This allowed them to focus in on what "chunk" had more expectations and knowledge needed.

From there they then took out the Q-Chart and created rich tasks for their students to do during the unit.  Having the Q-Chart there really helped to open up the questions and allowed them to think of deeper questions to ask their students to really help them show their abilities in all four areas of the achievement chart.

Knowing that communication is an area that their students struggle with, they also created a chart that they will use with their students to help them become better at answering questions.  This chart is a great way to get students to reflect on their learning and helps them to ensure that they have a complete answer.  Plus, it allows for the teachers to give easy descriptive feedback to the students because they can give the students concrete (and visual) examples of what to do in order to improve their answers.

Success Criteria

Some of the new "buzzwords" in education are around Learning Goals and Success Criteria. Success Criteria is defined in the Growing Success Document as "Standards or specific descriptions of successful attainment of learning goals developed by teachers on the basis of criteria in the achievement chart, and discussed and agreed upon in collaboration with students, that are used to determine to what degree a learning goal has been achieved. Criteria describe what success “looks like” and allow the teacher and student to gather information about the quality of student learning.” (p.155). That is a great definition but what does it mean?

In Adrienne and Jennifer’s Grade 2/3 and 3 classes they have done a lot of talking with their students about what makes a “good answer.” For their students, they have talked about what items you would find in a “good answer” and what you can do to an answer to make it an even “better” answer. To help their students make sense of all of the discussions that they’ve had around this topic Adrienne and Jennifer co-constructed success criteria for what a good answer looks like in math. To help narrow the focus, they had the students’ zone in on the communication aspect of the achievement chart as that was the area that most of the students struggled with.

For the lesson, they did a three-part lesson where their consolidation was to build the chart on success criteria in communication using the problem from the “action” part of the lesson. Using the student’s own work the class talked about what they thought made a “good answer.” They then started to think of the different levels of achievement and what an answer at that level would look like. As the discussion grew, the students were getting better at clearly articulating what was good about an answer, and what was needed to improve. Now when the students are “done” their problem, they are able to go and check it and then add more detail if they need too. Letting them take more control over their own learning.
There is no one set way to co-construct Success Criteria. Part of the success of the co-creation is being planned in what you are teaching and what you are looking for in the work of your students. As well, having a community of learners where students feel safe to take a risk is also important. Here are the examples from Adrienne and Jennifer’s classes.

Achievement Categories In Simple Terms

Just before the break I had the opportunity to visit a Grade Six classroom outside of our FOS. In Jessica’s class she co-created an anchor chart on the four categories of math achievement. This chart is hung up in her classroom and allows the students to focus in on what elements are in each area. I appreciated the chart because it is worded in simple language, but is very clear on what is expected in each category. This would be a good activity to do with your class to get them (and their parents) to understand that math is more than just basic rote facts – But rather a combination of different elements that all have real world applications.
Thank you Jessica for allowing myself, and the other coaches into your classroom.

Looking Critically At A Rich Assessment Task

Sometimes we can come up with a really good question or problem to give our students, but when we go to mark it, we find out that it didn’t turn out like we expected. When we give our students a rich task to work on we need to keep our own success criteria in mind when we create the task. When we start to create the task we have many good ideas, and re-word and re-write the question over and over again. When we are done we need to think about the achievement chart, and if our question A) Does allow the students to demonstrate work at a Level 4 and B) Allows us to have the students perform in all four areas of the achievement chart: Knowledge and Understanding, Application, Thinking/Problem Solving and Communication. Some teachers are Wexford are doing just that.


At Wexford, the school is continuing on its second math pathway of the year. This time they have chosen to work in grade teams instead of by division. What’s nice about this approach is that it lets the team focus on the strand, or issue, that they really want to. This week, two of the grade teams put together a pre-assessment task to administer to their students. The Grade Six team is looking at Data Management and the Grade 7/8 team is looking at Measurement.

Once each team had created their question, they then stepped back and took a more critical look at their question. They went through each area on the achievement chart and then predicted what their students would demonstrate for each area. They then created their own success criteria of what they expected to see in each of the categories.

For the Grade Six team, they also wrote out a list of possible questions that they could ask the students about the problem. They then went back and also looked at what areas on the achievement chart they question covered (e.g., was it really a higher thinking question, or was it a more basic knowledge and understanding type question). They also discussed what responses might look like at all four level s of achievement.

                                                                     Grade Six Sample
For the Grade 7/8 team, they too went through each category on the achievement chart, but then found that when they got to communication, the question didn’t allow their students to communicate at a Level 4. So with some quick tweaking, they were then able to fix the question to allow their students to communicate at all four levels.

More information on Success Criteria can be found in the Growing Success document. It’s a great activity to co-teach with either myself or the literacy coach as not only will you provide the students with information on how to improve, but it will help you to clarify what you are looking for in their work.



Blokus Tournament!

To end of their transformational geometry unit, Paul’s Grade 6 class participated in a Blokus tournament.  Blokus is a game that involves using problem solving skills, and strategies, to help you cover as much of the game board as possible.  One you select a piece you not only need to decide where you want to put it, but also how you are going to transform that shape into the space you have provided.  As the game goes on, students really need to use their knowledge and understanding of transformations to make the pieces fit, or else they’re out!

The class was divided into six teams of four.  Three teams were on each side of the classroom.  There was a scoreboard posted on the blackboard to help keep track of who was advancing to the semi-finals and what everyone’s score was.  For those that didn’t win at their game, the score was still important because the person on each side with the best score (who didn’t win the match at their table) got to be put into a “wild card” spot and advance to the semi’s.  After the semi-finals, the same process was repeated with two winners and two “wild cards” advancing onto the finals.

The final round was played on a giant Blokus board.  The whole class crowed around it to see the final match.  It was interesting to watch the spectators as they were so quiet!  Every now and then one of them would whisper to the person beside them and share what piece they would have used, or a move that they would have made if they made it to the finals.  What was even better to see was that once the “Blokus Champ” was named, all of the other players shook hands and congratulated each other on a game well played.

As an FOS we have a class set of Blokus games that you can borrow to use with your class.  If you are interested in using them, please e-mail me and we can make some arrangements.  As well, if you want to learn more about Blokus, or play an electronic version of Blokus on-line or on your mobile phone you can visit www.blokus.com