10. Randy believes that the number one goal for educators should be helping students learn how to judge themselves. How important is this in the learning process? Do you do this in your classroom? Explain.
Being able to judge yourself is one of the most difficult things to do especially if you have never done it before. I remember when I went to play volleyball in college, we had to watch film from games and scrimmages and our coach would point our errors or things that we needed to work out. At first, I found it to be so embarrassing!! But as time went on, I found it to be a great learning tool to help make me a better player. I never would have been able to see what I did wrong if we did not watch film. Even though this was done in a coaching/player situation, I found it to be quite an educational experience.
I am a visual learning, so for me, it was a great tool that I had never experienced before. In those moments, I think that I was able to learn more than the drills that we did because I could see my individual development but also the teams.
I don’t tape my classes, but I do use this tool for my volleyball team. It is fun to watch and see how they are at the beginning of the season and how the younger players react to seeing themselves. We get some laughs but we also see the good and bad that they do. They make comments on themselves but they also make comments as a team and its great for them to give that feedback.
In my school we have character targets in addition to learning targets. I think the implementation of this has drastically changed students views of themselves and others. When problems come up throughout the school day or a student shares something going on in school/home, we talk about it as a crew. Lots of times it involves student issues and we work as a crew to resolve this. We speak of ways/strategies we could improve the situation next time as a way of reflection. I think everyone is so quick to judge and I admit, sometimes I am too, but through self-reflection and evaluation we can try to better ourselves for the next time to try and make the outcome more desirable.
I love that you try to work out the situation as a group. There might be ideas floating around out there that you've never thought of! Also, by sharing the problem and finding a solution together, maybe more people will be able to use the solution for themselves in the future.
I do believe it’s important for students to be able to judge themselves. We go through life constantly being judged by others when it’s our own sense of self-worth that really matters. Knowing how to do that self-reflection, however is another thing. How do we teach our students how to judge themselves without being too critical or not critical enough?
I try a lot of different versions of peer- and self-review in terms of speaking and writing in Spanish typically based on a rubric that I’ve provided my students. They seem to do well with gauging the values of their partner’s and their own papers. While my evaluations don’t seem to render information as blunt as Randy’s, I do try to include things such as, “I worked well and didn’t annoy anyone in class” or “My team thinks I pulled my own weight” on my rubrics. My students usually chuckle at these dimensions at first but when they realize that I’m seriously grading them on their contributions they typically straighten right up. Those that don’t find that they have no basis to argue when their grade is lowered due to inefficient use of class time or making annoying noises while working.
I guess everyone should be able to look at themselves and determine where they stand in the class, the school, or the world. Without this ability, how would we go about identifying areas of improvement if no one else were to point them out to us?
I think this is a great tool for your students. I try to have my grade 4's think about how they worked with each other and if they contributed to the group- but I will try next year to incorporate more of a self-reflection after introducing new topics. I love the areas you mention as assessment points.
In my 12-1-1 class I have young kids who often times are on the spectrum. We spend a lot of time working on behavior and social skills and I use a color coded behavior system. Red, yellow and green correlates to their behavior. My goal for them is to always turn their behavior around and end the day on green but if they have a red or yellow part of the day I take time to do a modified type of "Life Space Interview" with them. We talk through how do you feel about your day, what choices did you make today, what can we do next time. It makes a huge difference for my students who don't always have the best role models at home or guidance. When they judge themselves most time they are very honest and accurate in their assessment. It's the first step for me in making real and lasting change with them.
I am going to dive deeper into this notion next school year. I want to build in some assessments to our curriculum routine and that way they will be consistent and I will be able to keep the assessments routine.
This skill is extremely important in the media field. We do class critiques for every project students complete. At first, they hate the idea, and are apprehensive about showing their work to others. But, after a few times, they actually look forward to the feedback. Our critiques have rules: the feedback must be constructive, specific and relevant. Since the students know that the objective is to help each other grow as creators, not to tear each other down, they end up being very receptive to the comments. In fact, they are often their own harshest critic, so I think part of learning to judge yourself is learning not to judge yourself too harshly.
That is a great lesson to teach your students. It sounds like that particular activity is working well, and the best part is they are being receptive to their classmates critiques. I love the 3 rules you've put in place: constructive, specific and relevant. I'm sure that helps keep them all on task.
I feel like this skills is essential and definitely lacking in today's society. People are regularly passing blame or putting things off on others. It is so important to be able to "look in the mirror" and see what is really there. We talk about this a lot in our classes as the kids are getting older and more involved with their IEPs. There is a lot of self-reflection. What am I good at? What do I need help with? How do I learn best? What do I need to help me be more successful? These are things we talk about regularly and creating the right environment to do so is imperative.
I agree with you, Kristen, that students (and adults) pass the blame to others or wait for someone else to do things for them. Learned helplessness....
I think it's very important for children to be able to judge themselves and I liked Randy's quote, that "what your peers think is, by definition, an accurate assessment of how easy you are to work with". I not only see this in my own classroom but also through my daughter as she works with different group-mates in 5th grade. She will work with whoever she is assigned to but isn't too thrilled if their work ethic is not the same as hers. I told her this will help prepare her for "the real world". :) When my students work in pairs or groups I usually try to ask them what worked well in their group and what did not work well. Kids are usually pretty honest so the feedback is valuable. In hearing what others have to say about them, students can have a clearer image of how they are perceived and judge themselves based on that feedback.
I believe self-assessment is an essential skill. I have encountered far too many students who truly believe they are going to be professional athletes or medical doctors. In both instances they lack the skills to achieve these goals. One activity I have done in the past past is to have students take all their graded work for a quarter and have them decide what grade they think they should earn for the marking period and justify it based on their graded work. I tell them that if they want a higher grade than what the numbers I dictate they need to be able to shoe me they have learned information since the test. I then meet with each student individually and have them tell me the grade and explain why they believe they have earned that grade. If I believe it is too high then I ask them some content questions. In the end I show them what their grade should be and we discuss any discrepancy. The students are usually pretty good at determining their grade when they have to justify it using evidence.
Judging yourself is a very difficult, yet important idea. It is hard to see yourself as not who you want to be, but it is crucial in order to improve certain areas of your life or self. It is part of the learning process to teach students to judge themselves, and it needs to be taught, the reason why they need to judge themselves. Something as simple as editing their own writing pieces and fixing their mistakes can be hard, but it can be the beginning of learning to judge their self as adults.
Being able to critique yourself and then reflect on ways to improve are valuable skills. As a musician from a young age we are always taught to do self critiques - and usually we are our hardest critics. In my classroom the students do reflect on their performance and reflect on what they can improve, and make goals for how they will improve. We have both learning targets and character targets at our school. The character targets seem to really help the student take ownership of their actions -and I have noticed an improvement since the beginning of the year when I started incorporating them in all of my classes.
I think as teachers we do learn how to accurately evaluate our performance in the classroom. I know immediately if lesson needs to be adjusted or if I need to go in a different direction all together.
And I think that while we may be critical of administration, colleagues, or students from time to time, we do have each other to lean on for support too!
It is important to get students to judge themselves as it is a crucial part of the learning process. We self assess effort and achievement with a 1 little effort to 4 working even when it is difficult and looking at the challenge as an opportunity. We analyze unit tests, color code question types, and write our strengths and weaknesses. Being reflective and honest with themselves helps them learn. These reflective skills are important when working with mentors and their new teachers. It is easy to tell someone to do something but it is more difficult and effective to get someone to realize what needs to be done by their own self-assessment. Great professional development related to self assessing is emotional intelligence and cognitive coaching.
For many years I have taught Ancient Greece to my 9th graders, or psychology to my seniors, and in both classes I love to emphasis Socrates and his idea "The unexamined life is not worth living". I have found in my own life, and that of almost every student I have taught, self-judging, examining your own life, may be the hardest thing to do honestly, but the most beneficial. I do teach techniques in class for my students to employ when completing work. The honesty part seems to be be their greatest struggle. When I get students to take the time to reflect on what they do, then I have to urge and teach honesty in those reflections. We will lie to ourselves so easily about the quality of what we do, and the effort we put into things. Learning to honestly self-judge may be one of the most important skills for anyone's success.
It is by far way easier to pick out the flaws of another than to recognize flaws in ourselves. However, it is so important to "take a look in the mirror" every once in a while. Personally, I do this when I've been involved in a "heated" moment. Self reflection is hugely important and should certainly be taught in the classroom. This might come as one of those "head fake" lessons. There have been times during discussions when students have said really absurd things and there are occasions when they are being truly sincere, but I am quick to dismiss their insight. After reflecting on their thoughts and what they may have added to the discussion, there have been times when I begin a class with an open apology (I have judged myself as being wrong), letting them know that they may be on to something and if they could possibly expand on what they were saying.
I agree that a goal for educators should be to help students learn how to judge themselves. Learning to judge yourself is very important, it helps you to become better at understanding and accepting other’s criticism. Also, the person that is able to judge themselves may see less criticism from others because they are able to fix and adjust areas of weakness before others see them. I help students learn to judge themselves by having them look at their mistakes and figure out what they did wrong and how they can fix it. I ask questions like…What could you do to improve…, reread your answer, does it make sense? and what could you have done differently?
I think that this is a really important concept - especially when it comes to self-esteem. I will absolutely incorporate the concept into my classroom when I have one of my own someday. I fully intend to have formal critiques at the end of every project (6th grade and higher) and have rubrics for every project so that grades can be clearly defined and students can take time to reflect on their artwork when they are done. When I was in high school, we did formal critiques after every project and I thought it was a huge part of the learning process. Not only do you learn how to talk about art, but you also learn how to look at it.
Being able to judge yourself is one of the most difficult things to do especially if you have never done it before. I remember when I went to play volleyball in college, we had to watch film from games and scrimmages and our coach would point our errors or things that we needed to work out. At first, I found it to be so embarrassing!! But as time went on, I found it to be a great learning tool to help make me a better player. I never would have been able to see what I did wrong if we did not watch film. Even though this was done in a coaching/player situation, I found it to be quite an educational experience.
ReplyDeleteI am a visual learning, so for me, it was a great tool that I had never experienced before. In those moments, I think that I was able to learn more than the drills that we did because I could see my individual development but also the teams.
I don’t tape my classes, but I do use this tool for my volleyball team. It is fun to watch and see how they are at the beginning of the season and how the younger players react to seeing themselves. We get some laughs but we also see the good and bad that they do. They make comments on themselves but they also make comments as a team and its great for them to give that feedback.
In my school we have character targets in addition to learning targets. I think the implementation of this has drastically changed students views of themselves and others. When problems come up throughout the school day or a student shares something going on in school/home, we talk about it as a crew. Lots of times it involves student issues and we work as a crew to resolve this. We speak of ways/strategies we could improve the situation next time as a way of reflection. I think everyone is so quick to judge and I admit, sometimes I am too, but through self-reflection and evaluation we can try to better ourselves for the next time to try and make the outcome more desirable.
ReplyDeleteI love that you try to work out the situation as a group. There might be ideas floating around out there that you've never thought of! Also, by sharing the problem and finding a solution together, maybe more people will be able to use the solution for themselves in the future.
DeleteThat is great you guys have character targets as well! It is so important to teach our students to be good people as well as educated.
DeleteI do believe it’s important for students to be able to judge themselves. We go through life constantly being judged by others when it’s our own sense of self-worth that really matters. Knowing how to do that self-reflection, however is another thing. How do we teach our students how to judge themselves without being too critical or not critical enough?
ReplyDeleteI try a lot of different versions of peer- and self-review in terms of speaking and writing in Spanish typically based on a rubric that I’ve provided my students. They seem to do well with gauging the values of their partner’s and their own papers. While my evaluations don’t seem to render information as blunt as Randy’s, I do try to include things such as, “I worked well and didn’t annoy anyone in class” or “My team thinks I pulled my own weight” on my rubrics. My students usually chuckle at these dimensions at first but when they realize that I’m seriously grading them on their contributions they typically straighten right up. Those that don’t find that they have no basis to argue when their grade is lowered due to inefficient use of class time or making annoying noises while working.
I guess everyone should be able to look at themselves and determine where they stand in the class, the school, or the world. Without this ability, how would we go about identifying areas of improvement if no one else were to point them out to us?
I think this is a great tool for your students. I try to have my grade 4's think about how they worked with each other and if they contributed to the group- but I will try next year to incorporate more of a self-reflection after introducing new topics. I love the areas you mention as assessment points.
DeleteI love the inclusion of these traits on your rubric. I am also thinking about incorporating more of this into group projects next year.
DeleteIn my 12-1-1 class I have young kids who often times are on the spectrum. We spend a lot of time working on behavior and social skills and I use a color coded behavior system. Red, yellow and green correlates to their behavior. My goal for them is to always turn their behavior around and end the day on green but if they have a red or yellow part of the day I take time to do a modified type of "Life Space Interview" with them. We talk through how do you feel about your day, what choices did you make today, what can we do next time. It makes a huge difference for my students who don't always have the best role models at home or guidance. When they judge themselves most time they are very honest and accurate in their assessment. It's the first step for me in making real and lasting change with them.
ReplyDeleteI am going to dive deeper into this notion next school year. I want to build in some assessments to our curriculum routine and that way they will be consistent and I will be able to keep the assessments routine.
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome, and by building in these types of assessments your students will really be able to see the growth and progress.
DeleteThis skill is extremely important in the media field. We do class critiques for every project students complete. At first, they hate the idea, and are apprehensive about showing their work to others. But, after a few times, they actually look forward to the feedback. Our critiques have rules: the feedback must be constructive, specific and relevant. Since the students know that the objective is to help each other grow as creators, not to tear each other down, they end up being very receptive to the comments. In fact, they are often their own harshest critic, so I think part of learning to judge yourself is learning not to judge yourself too harshly.
ReplyDeleteThat is a great lesson to teach your students. It sounds like that particular activity is working well, and the best part is they are being receptive to their classmates critiques. I love the 3 rules you've put in place: constructive, specific and relevant. I'm sure that helps keep them all on task.
DeleteI feel like this skills is essential and definitely lacking in today's society. People are regularly passing blame or putting things off on others. It is so important to be able to "look in the mirror" and see what is really there. We talk about this a lot in our classes as the kids are getting older and more involved with their IEPs. There is a lot of self-reflection. What am I good at? What do I need help with? How do I learn best? What do I need to help me be more successful? These are things we talk about regularly and creating the right environment to do so is imperative.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, Kristen, that students (and adults) pass the blame to others or wait for someone else to do things for them. Learned helplessness....
DeleteIt sounds like your students are having effective conversations about their own abilities and how they can maximize their own learning and success.
DeleteI think it's very important for children to be able to judge themselves and I liked Randy's quote, that "what your peers think is, by definition, an accurate assessment of how easy you are to work with".
ReplyDeleteI not only see this in my own classroom but also through my daughter as she works with different group-mates in 5th grade. She will work with whoever she is assigned to but isn't too thrilled if their work ethic is not the same as hers. I told her this will help prepare her for "the real world". :)
When my students work in pairs or groups I usually try to ask them what worked well in their group and what did not work well. Kids are usually pretty honest so the feedback is valuable. In hearing what others have to say about them, students can have a clearer image of how they are perceived and judge themselves based on that feedback.
I believe self-assessment is an essential skill. I have encountered far too many students who truly believe they are going to be professional athletes or medical doctors. In both instances they lack the skills to achieve these goals. One activity I have done in the past past is to have students take all their graded work for a quarter and have them decide what grade they think they should earn for the marking period and justify it based on their graded work. I tell them that if they want a higher grade than what the numbers I dictate they need to be able to shoe me they have learned information since the test. I then meet with each student individually and have them tell me the grade and explain why they believe they have earned that grade. If I believe it is too high then I ask them some content questions. In the end I show them what their grade should be and we discuss any discrepancy. The students are usually pretty good at determining their grade when they have to justify it using evidence.
ReplyDeleteI love this technique. I would be interested in trying this myself. Puts the onus on the students to own their work and defend what they know.
DeleteJudging yourself is a very difficult, yet important idea. It is hard to see yourself as not who you want to be, but it is crucial in order to improve certain areas of your life or self.
ReplyDeleteIt is part of the learning process to teach students to judge themselves, and it needs to be taught, the reason why they need to judge themselves. Something as simple as editing their own writing pieces and fixing their mistakes can be hard, but it can be the beginning of learning to judge their self as adults.
Being able to critique yourself and then reflect on ways to improve are valuable skills. As a musician from a young age we are always taught to do self critiques - and usually we are our hardest critics. In my classroom the students do reflect on their performance and reflect on what they can improve, and make goals for how they will improve. We have both learning targets and character targets at our school. The character targets seem to really help the student take ownership of their actions -and I have noticed an improvement since the beginning of the year when I started incorporating them in all of my classes.
ReplyDeleteI think as teachers we do learn how to accurately evaluate our performance in the classroom. I know immediately if lesson needs to be adjusted or if I need to go in a different direction all together.
DeleteAnd I think that while we may be critical of administration, colleagues, or students from time to time, we do have each other to lean on for support too!
DeleteIt is important to get students to judge themselves as it is a crucial part of the learning process. We self assess effort and achievement with a 1 little effort to 4 working even when it is difficult and looking at the challenge as an opportunity. We analyze unit tests, color code question types, and write our strengths and weaknesses. Being reflective and honest with themselves helps them learn. These reflective skills are important when working with mentors and their new teachers. It is easy to tell someone to do something but it is more difficult and effective to get someone to realize what needs to be done by their own self-assessment. Great professional development related to self assessing is emotional intelligence and cognitive coaching.
ReplyDeleteFor many years I have taught Ancient Greece to my 9th graders, or psychology to my seniors, and in both classes I love to emphasis Socrates and his idea "The unexamined life is not worth living". I have found in my own life, and that of almost every student I have taught, self-judging, examining your own life, may be the hardest thing to do honestly, but the most beneficial. I do teach techniques in class for my students to employ when completing work. The honesty part seems to be be their greatest struggle. When I get students to take the time to reflect on what they do, then I have to urge and teach honesty in those reflections. We will lie to ourselves so easily about the quality of what we do, and the effort we put into things. Learning to honestly self-judge may be one of the most important skills for anyone's success.
ReplyDeleteIt is by far way easier to pick out the flaws of another than to recognize flaws in ourselves. However, it is so important to "take a look in the mirror" every once in a while. Personally, I do this when I've been involved in a "heated" moment. Self reflection is hugely important and should certainly be taught in the classroom. This might come as one of those "head fake" lessons. There have been times during discussions when students have said really absurd things and there are occasions when they are being truly sincere, but I am quick to dismiss their insight. After reflecting on their thoughts and what they may have added to the discussion, there have been times when I begin a class with an open apology (I have judged myself as being wrong), letting them know that they may be on to something and if they could possibly expand on what they were saying.
ReplyDeleteI agree that a goal for educators should be to help students learn how to judge themselves. Learning to judge yourself is very important, it helps you to become better at understanding and accepting other’s criticism. Also, the person that is able to judge themselves may see less criticism from others because they are able to fix and adjust areas of weakness before others see them. I help students learn to judge themselves by having them look at their mistakes and figure out what they did wrong and how they can fix it. I ask questions like…What could you do to improve…, reread your answer, does it make sense? and what could you have done differently?
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a really important concept - especially when it comes to self-esteem. I will absolutely incorporate the concept into my classroom when I have one of my own someday. I fully intend to have formal critiques at the end of every project (6th grade and higher) and have rubrics for every project so that grades can be clearly defined and students can take time to reflect on their artwork when they are done.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in high school, we did formal critiques after every project and I thought it was a huge part of the learning process. Not only do you learn how to talk about art, but you also learn how to look at it.