Last week I posed an interestinq question regarding DSOAH.
Would this be possible:
Date
Outcome
Essential Question(s)
Activities
Homework
Ticket Out The Door (Daily Formative Assessment)
This reflects UBD and the Revised State Standards
What do you think of this as best practice and reality collide?
Let's see what you think!
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16 comments:
I'll begin. The manageable piece is the toughest, thus the need for the precision of a Hellfire Missile fired from a Predator Drone. A teacher's job still must come down to determining what must be taught in x amount of minutes multiplied by y amount of days!
This past week I put a little time into creating possible units using the Student Outcomes portion of the standards. I will continue to complete this list with some benchmarks that focus the outcomes to a manageable list. I want my outcome to be a daily specific goal and not a general statement that could encompass up to a week of activities. With this in mind I will think of the outcomes as a benchmark that can be accomplished in a day or two.
The essential question can guide the learner to deeper understanding with my help, but it may not be focused on everyday. So, I don't know how important it would be to have it on the board.
I feel comfortable with Activities and Homework always being posted.
"Ticket out the door" can be thought of as 30 minutes to an hour of work after school or a brief look at student understanding, “do they understand or not?" The paper can be returned to the student everyday or be recycled. I see that the latter is more manageable, but what does this implicitly say to the learner? Everyday assessment is necessary for teachers to be able to know if their lesson worked or didn't. And I think that the Ticket out the door should be helpful for the student. With all of this said, I am at a crossroads. I don't want to grade papers everyday and I want to give good feedback to students so that they can gage their learning. What 'chall think?
I've been thinking about the ticket out the door idea for the last week. In my mind, it's a great idea that would be helpful to determine what students took away from that particular day's instruction. On the flip side, I see piles of wasted paper. I see kids ripping half-pages from their notebooks, or worse, ripping out a page from their notebook they'll need to reference again. I see teachers making stacks of copies so that the kids complete this task exactly as the teacher desires. I see overflowing recycle bins when you get to the end of the day and you're just too tired to look at any of those lovely, well-crafted tickets out the door.
Now, I could envision using clickers to accomplish the same task, but this would only work if we all had access to a clicker cart on a daily basis. (and each class was smaller than 32 students...)
Personally, I check student understanding every Friday with a 'reality check.' It's a short quiz that covers the material from the week, the kids get immediate feedback as we use the clickers and get printable results. I can see immediately what students know and can do and more importantly, students get timely feedback on where they stand regarding what we have covered that week. I have had very positive feedback from parents and students regarding this process.
I guess I'm just not sold on an every day check for understanding especially when we can take several days to develop any given objective/skill.
Lastly, I'm with Josh in that I'm not sure that any essential questions need to be posted on the board. I think those are what I should be thinking about as I plan my lessons, but may just add to the confusion for those kiddos who struggle to read what is there now. I definitely don't want to see more information than we have now, because it is already difficult for some students to read/decode what is currently there.
Greetings from the North Woods of Minnesota! I agree with Josh and Lauren's comments regarding the potentional impracticality of the Tickets Out the Door, particularly the concern about wasting paper. Maybe the kids could just have five minutes to answer the Ticket questions in their journals, then share and compare in small groups... Or we could go over the answers as a class, either before leaving or perhaps at the start of the next class period. This way they're all receiving timelier feedback, and without teachers having to look through a stack of papers every night.
I love the Essential Question idea, but like Lauren I am also wary of adding more info to our boards on a daily basis. I remember previously discussing the development of big Essential Questions that can remain at the top of the board or on the wall for an entire unit or even a quarter, and all of our instruction can fall under that big, generalized question. I wonder if we could do that instead? An example might be How is geometry important in our everyday lives? Or How do we use reading and writing to improve the quality of our lives?
Your thoughts?
My first thought was that the essential questions for a world language are NOT doable when the first goal is to have them communicate in the language they are learning… The standards themselves say, “… the target language must be used most of the time. Acquisition of language occurs when students understand messages through listening, reading, and viewing. Students demonstrate acquisition through speaking and writing. The best environment for second language acquisition is one in which teachers use the target language instead of teaching about the target language.” BUT, the inquiry questions in the standards would have to be in English for a novice-low student which 8th graders would be. Clickers would be great for exit tickets, or scratch paper cut in half or quartered… I wouldn’t want kids tearing out paper to use as an exit ticket and I wouldn’t want to have them printed… But, like Josh, I wouldn’t want to have to look at a stack of exit tickets every night – yet, if we don’t look at them, would kids take them seriously?
Would he ticket out the door have to be in a formal assessment? Could it be in a verbal form by the teacher or maybe even student talk. Isn't this an informal way to see if students understood the concept being taught that day? So why would this be cumbersome if an informal check was part of the daily curriculium. I'm not in the classroom so it's easy to throw out ideas, but are the feasible?
I am going to throw out an idea that might not be well received and not being at the last meetings, this may have already been discussed. If our clearly defined focus at Altona is on reading, writing and math, why couldn't the implementation of the required exit ticket be used in only Language Arts and Math? I worry that we are setting ourselves up to fail with including it in the daily agenda as a requirement. I have vision very similar to Lauren's.
I find it difficult to require this across the board, although I do intend to use this strategy when I can and when time permits. Having access to a clicker cart last year did enable me to do more frequent checks like this, but it still requires time. Time is something we are very short off when it comes to curriculum in our science classes. I am not trying to beat a dead horse on the topic, just looking at this point through a very specific viewpoint.
I think that as long as some form of exit ticket exists in every classroom to check for understanding, then hopefully we as professionals can find the right way to do this in our classroom. It may even change based on the lesson(s) of the day. Some lessons may lend themselves to verbal exit tickets rather than written ones (and vice versa). Other times, it may take more than one class period to ensure understanding (maybe even a week).
Can essential questions double as an exit ticket sometimes (verbal or written)? Also, I think someone mentioned that essential questions may be in place for an entire unit rather than change daily, so it might make more sense to pepper assignments/discussions with essential questions throughout the unit rather than writing these on the board daily. (but hey...I teach band...things are different for me, and my ideas may not work for core classes - or band class for that matter :).
I use the exit ticket strategy in the form of a reflective entry in their daily journals. During the clean up phase of class they reflect on and record their unit progress, or lack thereof, for the day. This could be exactly what the did in their unit, the exact step in the guide book or computer program where they were when class ended and anything they didn’t understand or couldn’t accomplish in the unit. During the class review I ask three or four students to share their reflective entries with the class.
When they start the next class I go to each unit station an briefly review their journal entries with them and address any concerns they may have. I find this a great way for them to stay on task. With the A-B Day schedule they often forget exactly what they did the previous class.
At the end of the 5th journal entry I give them an LE&A grade for their journal entries. I also include a “Word of the Day” requirement for each day’s journal entry. I find the grade attachment keeps them serious about their journal entries.
How we do everybody?
What I am hearing from this discussion is that, some of us feel that this "ticket out the door" would either be a waste of resources, time, or is not achievable when "best practice and reality collide"
It would be very difficult to have a different activity for every lesson (check out "Why Didn't I Learn this in College" for some exit ticket ideas for variety), but we still need to check for understanding daily. Most of us do this without even thinking about it anyway, and as Brendan said, it doesn't need to be a written turned in assignment everyday.
Essential Questions, as Josh said can help guide a learner to a deeper understanding of a topic, but not without his help. Sometime, as an exercise, we as a class come up with our own essential questions. While in the begining, this exercise can be uninspired, with practice and persistence it can teach students to be self directed in their learning.
But I guess it comes down to the ultimate question "how do we, as teachers, know when a student 'gets it"? And "How can we do this within a specific time frame?" If we do not consistently check for understanding, and wait for the Unit Assessment, we set ourselves up for disappointment. If 'understanding' is the ability to explain, interpret, apply, have perspective, empathize, and be meta-cognitively aware, think about checking for understanding in one or two of these facets as a ticket out the door. And by the end of the unit, you have hit all of them and your assessment address all of these 'skills' as well. This, narrowed focus may help it become more manageable for all of us.
That all folks...
I would agree with many of my colleagues that the “ticket out the door” is important, but could be difficult logistically. I also am concerned that if we all put on our board the DSOAH with the “ticket out the door” at the end, that students would begin to groan about this. I would prefer to use this strategy and vary it from day to day. So one day it might be a reflective piece in their journals that some share out. On another day it might mean posting “matchbook definitions” using post-it notes. And on another day, it might mean that each student has to verbalize to me something they learned that day.
As far is DSOAH is concerned, I’m wondering if we could replace the “objective” with a question. This question would be smaller than the unit’s essential question, but it would be one that students should be able to answer after a lesson. I also worry, as someone else pointed out, that too much information on the board will be overwhelming to the students—and may even turn them off to the importance of the information.
If it is paper, time, feedback that may be of concern to one, another idea from “Why Didn’t They Teach Me That In College” is the “Lucky Draw” where the question is posed, time given to reflect, then one student is randomly drawn to answer. Hopefully everyone is thinking because they never know if their stick or number will be picked.
One other thing I have done to assess where student understanding lies at the end of the day is to instead have students answer my question they had to pose a question they still had. They resisted and it was difficult for them, but they eventually generated marvelous questions that made them think deeper than any quick-check question that I would have posed and it also helped me to better understand what they still did not get from the days lesson.
I think that it is very conducive to the math classroom (I can’t speak to other topics). Even if it does not end up being required, I may pretend that it is and force myself to put an exit question on my DSOAH board just to help me get into the routine. I am more likely to do it if it is written on the board and because there is always at least one student that will ensure I get to it before the bell.
I like this format better than DSOHA. I like the "outcome" and "Essential Questions" sections a lot. They fit better with the new standards and the music standards have great essential questions. After having my 2 student teachers this last year, I realized that the universities (at least CU) are teaching them to ask these essential questions. They are also very standards based.
The only part of this new format that I think would be a challenge to me would be the "ticket out the door". It seems like everyone else agrees with this. I suppose I could focus on a different section of the orchestra each time, and make my way around, but having to do something everyday sounds like it would take up a lot of rehearsal time. Even 5 min a day can really eat up a bunch of time when you look at the whole year.
I like to post towards the end because I get to read what everyone else is thinking, and generally this helps me consider aspects I would not have considered before. So, a few thought come to mind for me after reading both the question and the various answers from my colleagues.
First of all, regarding essential questions- I agree with the several colleagues who think that this could be better directed towards a unit. The fact that I always have three units going at the same time (trying to incorporate reading, writing, and oral communication skills) would make it difficult to put this on the daily agenda in a way that is clear for students. So, I would simply add these essential questions to the unit directions handout I give at the start of each new unit. This set of directions gives students the assessment explanation/directions with rubric, as well as most of the activities that will be completed along the way. These essential questions could be discussed at the beginning of the unit, revisited throughout, but most importantly, really reflected upon at the end. This reflection could be done in a number of ways. (I’m really big on reflection as it builds metacognition.) Having these questions clearly tied to the specific unit would be helpful and beneficial for students.
There was also a lot of attention paid to “Ticket out the Door” throughout the discussion. In truth, I use this strategy for multiple goals. Sometimes it is to check for understanding, other times it is to give students the opportunity to ask questions (as Linda advocated), other times it is to make sure a student got as much done on a certain project as he/she was supposed to that day. I like tickets out the door, but I think imposing them for everyday in every class would make students weary of them and do them just to get out the door. That defeats the goal of checking for understanding. We want to check for understanding daily in a way that is meaningful for students and for us as we plan instruction. So, I agree with Jenny. We should be doing this in a lot of different ways.
Lastly, I think we need to give some attention to the “outcomes” portion listed in the suggested new agenda. My concern with this goes back to a problem I saw with the way objectives were done. Every teacher seemed to do objectives in a very different way. This lack of standardization from class to class made it difficult for this portion of our daily agenda to really be meaningful for students. So, as we change to listing our daily outcomes, I think it is important to clearly define what these should be AND spend time discussing/talking about them after they’ve been implemented so as to ensure we have executed this portion of the agenda in a way that is meaningful, accessible, and useful for our students.
And I like posting after Jenay has posted in response to all of your postings.
The conversations make a lot of sense. It's nice to see we can put away summertime's deceptive perceptions and project to the school year when the rubber meets the road. I too was concerned about the viability of a ticket out the door daily-- and not just as the resident eco-nazi. That was definitely part of it, though. As someone who tried to nail down a lot of sensical routines in my classroom, I can tell you that doing the same thing daily wears very, very thin. It would definitely need to be mixed up, and I like all of the suggestions above.
Jenay suggested that, while essential questions work for a unit, they would not necessarily be a good "DOEAHT" component (we are going to have to work on making the acronym manageable, BTW). If your daily lessons make up the unit, shouldn't the essential questions be on the board so that the alignment of your lessons makes sense to the casual observer? For that matter, wouldn't it be a good warmup conversation (or even a good exercise for Ticket Out the Door) to discuss how the day's lesson helps to answer the essential questions? Maybe that's too unwieldy, but I always liked having those conversations with my students, and as Kevin said, it may be a difficult thought process to establish with the students early on, but with some time and work I think it would help considerably with their metacognition and self-directed learning.
I have used versions of Ticket out the Door in the past with success, but not on a daily basis. Sometimes I ask the students I Wonder questions and answer them the next day. Sometimes I ask if there are things they don’t understand about the day’s lesson to see if I need to reteach. And sometimes I ask for an important point or idea they want to share from the day. I use scraps of paper that I have recycled, but can see the logistics problem. I will continue to use it occasionally, and don’t necessarily see a need for daily use.
With the essential question, I would prefer to have something that covers a unit. I would present the question at the beginning of the unit, and then revisit it every now and then, but not on a daily basis. As it is, we already present the kids with quite a bit of this type of info, and I think that it can be a distraction. That is not to say that it isn’t important for them to know outcomes and be familiar with the standards. I can imagine that the students sometimes zone out when I go over that info with them in class and focus on the Activities and Homework. Or maybe I’m the one who’s zoned-out.
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