S'More From The AP
Week Ending November 7, 2014
Showcasing Student Work - by Tiffany Rabaduex
I thought that being a teacher would give me a major advantage for when my own kiddos started school. I was ready with thought-probing questions, looked forward to the conversations we would have about their daily learning, and anticipated the adorable work that I’d hang proudly on our refrigerator.
Instead, I find myself trying to reason with a six-year-old about whether his latest creation is a sailboat or a train track and then whispering to my husband, “What does this have to do with math?” And that’s when we both look at each other and exclaim, “Gosh, if only this were displayed on a Standards-Based Bulletin Board!”
Ok, not quite – but I do think a little extra explanation would go a long way in helping me to be a better partner in my child’s education. But the most important people who benefit from these learning boards are the students.
I attended a Standards-Based Bulletin Board training and the presenters not only went through the various features that can liven up a bulletin board, but they also talked about short-cuts for making it less time consuming.
The features that we worked with that day at training were:
Title: the catchy phrase/play on words/etc. that entices those passing by to stop and check out what’s on display
Task: a brief explanation of what the students were asked to do
TEK: post the ones that were covered by this particular assignment
Teacher-talk: you write feedback highlighting the positives
Of those, the feedback piece is the most important. As much as students love seeing their work displayed and hearing, “Great job!” – reading their teacher’s handwritten note of “I like the way you showed subtraction by having some of the cars cross the finish line.” will stick with them. This feedback might also help a passerby, like…maybe a confused parent.?. (Who obviously knew the whole time that it was a picture of racecars representing a subtraction sentence – duh.)
The Principal Ponders
Everyone loves a great bulletin board. Planning my bulletin boards at the beginning of each school year was one of my favorite parts of teaching. I wanted them to look cute, be funny, and have room for every child to have their work displayed. Most of the time I could accomplish this, but looking back, that’s all I accomplished with them– cuteness and humor. Did anyone know the purpose behind the student work displayed besides me? Nope. Not a chance. Where were Standards-Based Bulletin Boards 24 years ago?
A standards-based format takes your bulletin board from “blah” to “BAZINGA,” from just something pretty to look at to an actual learning and teaching board. It is a window into the instruction that is taking place in your classroom and shows the connection between the student’s work, the standard their work is to meet and the assessment that is used to decide when the work is good enough. Any work posted will either meet or exceed the standard.
Standard-Based Bulletin Boards contain the following features:
· Title
· Standard – student expectations reproduced from the TEKS
· Task – explanation of what the student was expected to do
· Circumstance of performance – how the assignment was executed (alone, in class, in a group, as homework, etc)
· Student Work – 3 to 6 pieces that meet the standard, but show a range
· Commentary – for each piece, the teacher writes why the work met the standard. Grades 3-5 write a self-commentary and also could include a peer commentary as well.
In addition to these features, the board could also include rubrics and other artifacts, such as pictures and products of the learning process. This is very similar to the exemplars that we talked about displaying last year, just with more purpose. Think of it as exemplars on steroids – and I am here to PUMP YOU (and your bulletin boards!) UP!
Check out this link for some inspiration on how you can bedazzle your board and make it a learning tool for not only the students in your class, but for other students and teachers, parents and any visitors to our school. Bazinga!
http://cekidlights.blogspot.com/2008/09/standard-based-bulletin-boards-math.html