Marker Students

We have all had to identify two marker students in our classroom.  One of our schools is taking the work of those marker students out of the binder and onto the walls.  They have turned a conference room into a living data wall.  Each teacher has posted the work of their marker students in all three area of reading, writing and math.  They have written down what they notice about the students strengths on the task, their needs and also the "next steps."  The "next steps" however are for next steps in the teaching of the topic, not the next steps for the student.  At every staff meeting they are going to be spending 10 minutes talking about what they notice about the work of the marker students, and what strategies they can share with each other to help not only the marker students improve, but all of the students in their class improve.

One side of the Room.  Each cartoon person represents a student.

The other side of the room.  You can see how each teacher has their two students and the 3 subjects.

A sample of a math problem from a student.  (The work is taken from The Process Standard Series by Susan O'Connell)

Here are the notes the teacher made about the student's work.  They can easily turn the strenghts and needs into effective Descriptive Feedback to the Student.