Fighting the Female Dropout Crisis

This article is disturbing but hopeful as to how we can best support pregnant teen moms in schools today. Read on!

Fighting the Female Dropout Phenomenon

Supports Can Prevent Pregnant and Parenting Youth from Dropping Out
By Laura Varlas
In this article, educators serving pregnant and parenting students as well as leaders in youth sex education and policy discuss the elements of successful supports and interventions that can potentially lower female dropout rates.
Despite decades of decline in teen pregnancies, the United States still has the highest teen birthrate in the industrialized world. Pregnancy is also the number one reason girls drop out of school. Research shows that 3 out of 10 girls will be pregnant at least once before they turn 20. And almost half of female dropouts said becoming a parent was a factor in dropping out, according to a survey by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (For more statistics on the social, economic, and emotional costs of teen pregnancies, see the "Million Dollar Babies" infographic on page 3.)
Penalized for Being Pregnant

In many cases schools send the message that pregnant and parenting students don't belong, says National Women's Law Center Senior Council Lara Kaufmann. Her organization works with schools to craft policies that comply with Title IX and other legislation supporting pregnant and parenting teens. (For more information about these policies, go to www.nwlc.org/pregnantandparentingstudents.)
Lack of transportation and child care, extended absences and other scheduling conflicts, juggling school work and parenting responsibilities, and discrimination from school faculty create barriers to teen parents' success in school. Although Title IX calls for equal opportunities for pregnant and parenting students in schools, the mandate is enforced to varying degrees depending on local leadership. Kaufmann cites a notorious example of a school (since shut down) where students learned quilting in lieu of geometry.
"It's like a temporary medical condition—students should have access to accommodations like special desks, bathroom breaks, elevator use, and food," Kaufmann says. At the very least, schools should send work home to students who are absent due to pregnancy, but Kaufmann says it's amazing how many schools don't. "Do you want students coming back to school 6–8 weeks behind?" she asks.
The Pregnant and Parenting Students Access to Education Act (H.R. 2617), introduced in July 2010 by U.S. Representatives Jared Polis (D-CO) and Judy Chu (D-CA), would provide state-level grants to better target supports to this vulnerable population. In addition to policies like these, Kaufmann would like to see supports for pregnant and parenting students as part of the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. "Teen parents have a big motivation to do well in school—being able to provide for their kids," she says. "They just need the support to stick with it."
How can schools be more purposeful in helping students stick with school? Experts say that schools need to be strategic about prevention education and also provide the necessary supports to retain pregnant and parenting students.
Knowledge Is Power

Research shows that comprehensive sex education is a proactive defense against teen pregnancy. Sex education may be a controversial topic, but most parents in the United States agree that factually and medically accurate, age-appropriate sex education is valuable.
"Poll after poll show parents support sex education that provides information about both contraception and abstinence," says Debra Hauser, executive vice president at Advocates for Youth.
Despite overwhelming evidence that comprehensive sex education works, there's a vocal minority who want to make this a moral argument, says Elizabeth Schroeder, executive director for ANSWER at Rutgers University. "But what could be more moral than teaching young people the information and skills they need to be healthy and safe now and throughout their lives?" she argues.
To support educators in providing appropriate information, ANSWER and Advocates for Youth have teamed up with the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States to create a set of K–12 national standards for sex education that will debut this month on their websites.
Hauser stresses that "sex education is absolutely essential, but [it alone] is not sufficient." In addition, teens need access to contraception, academic supports, connections, and hope for the future that will motivate them to use the information and services available to them.
Schroeder agrees, saying, "Teens can make healthy and good decisions, but we [as educators] have to teach them how to do that."
Connect Young Parents to the School Community

Early warning signs that students are at risk for becoming pregnant aren't very different than warning signs for other at-risk behaviors, says Chris Rollison, an educator with the South Carolina Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, a nonprofit organization working with communities across the state to educate, train, and advocate about issues of teen pregnancy prevention.
Research shows that teens who became pregnant in school were often already disconnected or doing poorly in academics. "Involvement in the community and especially school is a protective factor for young people," Hauser says.
If teens do become parents, school connections are more essential than ever in helping students feel supported. "These students have some really challenging circumstances, so it's essential that they know we care about what's going on with them," says Principal Larry Jones, whose Bryant Alternative High School in Fairfax, Va., includes the Project Opportunity program that focuses on school-based supports for teen moms. "Once they know you care, then they're ready to learn."
School communities can also show students they care by allowing young people to create programs that speak to their needs. Any program targeting youth, whether it's preventive or responsive, needs to include the students' voice in its design, implementation, and evaluation, Hauser says: "For it to be sustainable, they need to own it."
Engaging students in this sort of meaningful work can further solidify their bonds to the school community. For example, when students from Iroquois Ridge High School in Oakville, Canada, (outside Toronto) realized that their town was the only one in the region without a sexual health clinic, they lobbied the health department to open one.
The clinic has been open for a year, and true to the needs students expressed, it's the busiest clinic in the region. It's also the busiest because "it's the only clinic in our area where kids had a voice in creating it, and so now all the kids from the other seven high schools are using it," says Mary Tabak, a public health nurse assigned to Iroquois Ridge High School through the Halton Region Health Department. Even the name of the clinic—@232 (shorthand for the clinic's address)—came from the students, Tabak adds.
The group of kids who got this project going were not your all-stars, Tabak recalls; they were engaging in some pretty high-risk behaviors. However, they felt empowered to take up this work, and today they're all in college. "I don't know where those girls would've ended up if they didn't have something meaningful to do," Tabak says.
Diapers and Degrees

Several schools provide exemplary services for pregnant and parenting students, either as part of a comprehensive high school or as a separate school or program, like New Futures High School in Albuquerque, N.Mex. At New Futures, mothers can bring their babies to school, breastfeed in class, get federal assistance checks on campus, and access an on-site health clinic and child care (both staffed by highly trained and licensed professionals).
"It's not like students come in, drop off their babies, and pick them up at the end of the day," says New Futures Principal Jinx Baskerville. Mothers bring their babies to hands-on labs where they learn about child development and parenting skills, and every morning and noon, they roll out 110 high chairs to eat breakfast and lunch with their babies.
New Futures isn't just about parenting, Baskerville is quick to remind. Academics, especially transitions to post-secondary education, are huge too. She cites her highly rated staff, the fact that they're adding advanced placement courses, and that all 45 of last year's graduating seniors were ready for and enrolled in college on graduation day.

Likewise, student achievement is front and center at Bryant Alternative High School, where teachers are engaged in ongoing professional learning communities about student data. Even though the professional learning communities may look a little different at Bryant Alternative—rolling admissions mean teachers must differentiate instruction and plan to meet the needs of a constantly shifting student population—the focus is still on tracking student results toward high academic standards.
Educators Play a Part in Prevention

Schools like New Futures and Bryant Alternative show that teachers play a huge part in curtailing the female dropout crisis.
"I've never had a teacher say it's not an issue," Rollison says of teen pregnancy. "It's getting them to understand that they can have a part in solving the problem." And if pregnancy prevention fails for some, schools can still do plenty to prevent pregnant girls from dropping out.
"The negative stigma of 'you made your bed'—that's no longer the case," Baskerville says. "We need to get over that and embrace, support, and respect these students."
Online Only Videos

Want to hear more strategies for preventing pregnant females from dropping out? Listen to experts from this story address the challenges and benefits of providing age-appropriate and factual sexual health education to young people.

Redos and Retakes Done Right?

Here are some helpful suggestions all teachers can use:

November 2011 | Volume 69 | Number 3 Effective Grading Practices    Pages 22-26 

Redos and Retakes Done Right

Rick Wormeli

Allowing students to redo assignments and assessments is the best way to prepare them for adult life.

Jarrel plagiarized one paragraph in his health class essay on the dangers of second-hand smoke. Carla came to after-school review sessions and followed every direction, but she only scored a D on her English exam. Marco was distracted by other things when he did his history homework: It's full of incomplete thoughts and careless errors that he doesn't normally make.

All three students would like to redo their assignment or assessment properly, and they would like to receive full credit for the new versions they submit. All three cases put our instructional mind-set to the test.

Many teachers reason that they are building moral fiber and preparing students for the working world by denying them the opportunity to redo assignments and assessments—or if they do allow retakes, by giving only partial credit for redone assessments even when students have demonstrated full mastery of the content. These are the same teachers who set a deadline for submitting work and then give students who do not meet the deadline a zero, thinking that the devastating score will teach them responsibility.

In reality, these practices have the opposite effect: They retard student achievement and maturation. As hope wanes, resentment builds. Without hope—especially hope that teachers see the moral, competent, and responsible self inside them, waiting to shed its immature shell—students disengage from the school's mission and the adults who care for them. Our education enterprise is lost.

One Speed for All?

Schools that acquiesce to the factory model of schooling perpetuate an in effective, age-based curriculum: "Eleven-year-olds learn this topic; 12-year-olds learn that topic"; "No, Shadnoosh, you can't learn that until next year"; "Mike, why didn't you learn this last month like the rest of your class?" When learning doesn't happen on schedule, these schools tend to blame students or circumstances.

Teachers do need schematics for moving students through the established curriculum. But as we apply sound pedagogy and respond to real students' individual needs, blind adherence to pacing mandates makes little sense.

The goal is that all students learn the content, not just the ones who can learn on the uniform time line. Curriculum goals don't require that every individual reaches the same level of proficiency on the same day, only that every student achieves the goal. Appointing next Friday as the official test date is an arbitrary decision made for clerical convenience. Teachers do this out of survival, of course; because we teach large groups of students, we sometimes subordinate effective practices because that appears to be the only realistic way to move students through the system.

Although we can't do it 100 percent of the time, allowing students to redo both assignments and assessments for particularly important standards and outcomes most of the time is highly effective. This approach reflects what we know about successful learning, and it better prepares students for the world beyond school.

Practice, Practice, Practice

Consider the Olympic runner poised to begin the race for the gold medal in the final heat. The pistol goes off, and the runners push their bodies to the breaking point, all of them dashing across the finish line within seconds of one another. Our runner comes in fourth, however, so there's no medal for him.

Does he get a "do-over" of that race? No—and that's proper at this level of competition. Remember, he's not in the learning-to-run stage of development; he's in the proficient-runner stage.

How did our runner become so competent at racing this event that he was found worthy of representing his country in the Olympics? He ran it dozens or even hundreds of times prior to today's race. And each time he ran it, his time was not an aggregated compilation of all his digressions (bad times) woven together with his more successful times. Can you imagine telling a runner that his earlier 68.74 seconds from two years ago would be averaged with his new and improved 51.03 seconds, and that this time mash-up would be his official label as a runner—that he would be evaluated as nothing more than the composite of his digressions and successes?

True competence that stands the test of time comes with reiterative learning. We carry forward concepts and skills we encounter repeatedly, and we get better at retrieving them the more we experience them. Why, then, would we impose on schools a policy that prohibits such an effective practice? Doing one successful compare-and-contrast essay in 8th grade does not mean we can do one in 10th grade, especially if we never practice writing such essays in the interim. We write a lot of essays in order to become proficient in essay writing. We become adept at analyzing politics by analyzing a lot of politics, and we get better at playing the guitar by playing the guitar a lot, not by playing it for a week and putting it aside.

It's only sensible, then, to expect different things of students during the learning process than we expect of them when it's time to demonstrate final proficiency or become fully certified. Applying expectations for a high level of competency to students who are in the process of coming to know content is counterproductive, even harmful.

Conveyer-Belt Learning

The problem, of course, is that teachers don't feel they have the luxury of revisiting content and skills to create that proficiency. We may believe the best we can do is to accept a superficial and fragile demonstration on a single, snapshot test and convince ourselves that the score earned is an accurate measure of the student's long-term capacity.

By some estimates,¹  it would take to grade 22 to teach the curriculum currently listed for grades K–12 in the United States. Anxious about this curriculum overload, we run our classes by alternating between admonishments: "Here's a bunch of stuff you have to learn; now take a test. Here's the next bunch of stuff you have to learn; now take the next test." When students fail to learn content on this conveyor belt, we tell them, "We don't have time to go back and teach it to you. Take the low grade and move on." This is no way to treat a child's future or conduct our profession.

Preparing Students for the Real Adult World

The teacher who claims to be preparing students for the working world by disallowing all redos forgets that adult professionals actually flourish through redos, retakes, and doovers. Surgeons practice on cadavers before doing surgeries on live patients. Architects redesign building plans until they meet all the specifications listed. Pilots rehearse landings and take-offs hundreds of times in simulators and in solo flights before flying with real passengers. Lawyers practice debate and analysis of arguments before litigating real cases. Teachers become much more competent and effective by teaching the same content multiple times, reflecting on what worked and what didn't work each time.

LSAT. MCAT. Praxis. SAT. Bar exam. CPA exam. Driver's licensure. Pilot's licensure. Auto mechanic certification exam. Every one of these assessments reflects the adult-level, working-world responsibilities our students will one day face. Many of them are high stakes: People's lives depend on these tests' validity as accurate measures of individual competence. All of them can be redone over and over for full credit. Lawyers who finally pass the bar exam on their second or third attempt are not limited to practicing law only on Tuesdays or only under the watchful eye of a seasoned partner for the duration of their careers. If an assessment of competence is valid, achieving its passing scores grants the assessed individual full rights and privileges thereof.

How pompous is it for a teacher, then, to declare to students, "This quiz/writing assignment/project/test cannot be redone for full credit because such a policy prepares you best for the working world." This teacher doesn't have a pedagogical leg to stand on. The best preparation for the world beyond school is to learn essential content and skills well.

The recursive nature of successful learning shouldn't be discarded because it's inconvenient or we haven't figured out how to do it logistically. (For suggestions on tackling the logistics, see "14 Practical Tips for Managing Redos in the Classroom.") It's too important to our society: We improve with practice, descriptive feedback, and revising our practices in light of that feedback, followed by more practice, feedback, and revision. It's the way authors write great books; it's the way scientists discover; it's the way machinists solve problems. Why would we deny these opportunities to the next generation? Providing feedback and asking students to redo assignments until those assignments match the standards set for them are not optional luxuries saved for when we have time; they're the keys to thriving classrooms.

Not Soft, but Tough

When we graduate from school, we gravitate toward those things we are good at doing. When we're hired, we have a skill set that matches a job's skill needs. We don't have to be good at everything the company does. To be considered successful in school, however, we have to be just as good at all subjects and skills as everyone else is, and on the same schedule. We have to be good at graphing inequalities, conjugating irregular verbs, setting up websites using HTML, identifying literary devices in Dante, playing the concerto with the right timing, determining valence, recognizing nuance between artists, offering pithy insights in the cafeteria, and dealing with hormonal issues while navigating the hallways—and that's all by lunch on Tuesday.

It's no wonder that, in order to meet the needs of increasingly diverse students and the demands of an overloaded curriculum, teachers sometimes need to adjust the pacing of lessons and allow students to make repeated attempts at mastery. It makes sense to grade students according to their performance on standards, not the routes they take to achieve those standards. Some students need more time building background knowledge before they learn new material, and others need a graphic organizer to help them make sense of text, but all grades at the end of the unit should be based on whether they understand oxidation, for example, not on how they learned about oxidation.

Suppose a teacher allows retakes frequently. Will colleagues, students, and parents consider that teacher soft in some way? No—quite the opposite. In the hallway just outside my own classroom years ago, one of my students, unaware that I was nearby, announced to a classmate, "Mr. Wormeli makes you do it over and over again until you learn it. It sucks!" (Pardon the vernacular.) My reputation was not one of being soft, but one of "Slackers, beware."

Making students redo their learning until it meets high expectations demands far more of both students and teachers than letting them take a failing grade—but it also results in far more learning. Maturation occurs in the fully credited recovery from unsuccessful attempts, not by labeling those attempts as failures. If our mission is to teach so that students learn, we don't let their immaturity dictate their destiny. Irresponsible, forgetful, and inattentive students need us to be in their face more, not less.

The Supreme Goal

When it comes to deciding whether to allow a student to redo an assignment or assessment, consider the alternative—to let the student settle for work done poorly, ensuring that he or she doesn't learn the content. Is this really the life lesson we want to teach? Is it really academically better for the student to remain ignorant?

This practice is not acceptable. To be adequately prepared for college and career, students need to learn the content and skills that society identifies as important. Whether a student was initially irresponsible or responsible, moral or immoral, cognitively ready or not is irrelevant to the supreme goal: learning.

There are far more effective strategies for teaching responsibility than to simply label a student as immature and deny that student learning. We can honor Carla's effort by giving her the extra time and attention she needs to master the content. We can handle Marco's sloppy homework and Jarrel's plagiarism wisely by demanding that both of them redo their work properly. These students will then realize that they get more of what they want in life if they pay attention, keep up with the work, and do the assignments well the first time around. Scholarship dawns; there's hope.

14 Practical Tips for Managing Redos in the Classroom Ask students who redo assignments to submit the original attempt with the new one and to write a brief letter comparing the two. What is different, and what did they learn as a result of redoing the work? Reserve the right to give alternative versions of the assessment if you think students will simply memorize a correct answer pattern or set of math answers. Don't be afraid to make the redone versions more demanding. Announce to students and parents that redos are permitted at teacher discretion. This means that students and parents may not take the redo option for granted. Require students to submit a plan of relearning and to provide evidence of that relearning before work can be redone. This includes creating a calendar in which students list day-by-day what they will do to prepare. If a student doesn't follow through on the relearning steps he or she promises to do, ask the student to write a letter of apology to you and to his or her family for breaking the trust. Require parents to sign the original, poorly done versions of assignments so they're aware that their children have required multiple attempts to achieve the standard. (If there is neglect or abuse in the home, of course, remove this requirement.) After two or three redo attempts, consider shelving the push for mastery of this content for a few weeks. Either the student is not ready to reach the standard, or we're not creative enough to figure out how to teach him or her. Take a break and pursue this content in a later unit of study. If the same student repeatedly asks for redos, something's wrong. The content is not developmentally appropriate, there are unseen issues at home, or perhaps there's an undiagnosed learning disability. Investigate. Choose your battles. Push hard for students to redo anything associated with the most important curriculum standards and less so with work associated with less important standards. Allow students who get Cs and Bs to redo work just as much as students who earn Ds and Fs. Why stand in the way of a student who wants to achieve excellence? If report cards are coming up and there's no time to redo something to change the grade, report the lower grade and assure the student that he or she can learn the material the next marking period. If the student demonstrates improved mastery, submit a grade change report reflecting the new, more accurate grade. For the sake of personal survival, you may choose not to allow any retakes or redos the last week of the marking period as you're closing down the grade book and doing report cards. For eight weeks, you're Mr. or Ms. Hopeful, but for that one week, it's OK to protect your sanity and personal life. You can allow students to learn the material and have their grade changed later. Replace the previous grade or mark with the most recent one; don't average the two attempts together. The A that a student earns on his fifth attempt at mastery is just as legitimate as the A earned by his classmate on the first attempt. Unless an assessment is complex and interwoven, allow students to redo just the portions on which they performed poorly, not the entire assessment. (To assist with this, consider standards-based grading on your assessments; record the standards or outcomes being assessed at the top of the assessment and provide a separate score for each standard.) Separating standards in this way saves time for both the teacher and the students. Some redos can be a 10-minute interview at the teacher's desk while the rest of the class works on something else.

Endnote

¹  Florian, J. (1999). Teacher survey of standards-based instruction: Addressing time. Washington, DC: Office of Educational Research and Improvement; Kendall, J. S., & Marzano, R. J. (1998). Awash in a sea of standards. Denver, CO: McREL.

Full article available at: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/nov11/vol69/num03/Redos-and-Retakes-Done-Right.aspx 

Einstein's Brain in Philly??

Hi Everyone -- I loved the last line of this article and immediately thought of my favorite teachers when I read it.

Enjoy!

November 28, 2011, 2:30pm

Visit Einstein's Brain in Philly

By Renee Ghert-Zand

GETTY IMAGES

Albert Einstein may have died in 1955, but his brain is still around — very small pieces of it, that is. For the first time ever, the public can now view 46 slivers of Einstein’s brain on display in a special exhibition at the Mütter Museum and Historical Medical Library, which is run by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.

Although the museum already possesses bits of remains from other famous individuals (a tumor of President Grover Cleveland, neck tissue from John Wilkes Booth), the museum’s curator, Anna Dhody, could not be more excited about this latest acquisition. “It’s Einstein’s brain!” she exclaimed. “It’s one of the greatest minds of the 20th century in our museum. What more can you ask for?”

According to a Live Science article, the museum received the slides of Einstein’s brain tissue after they passed through a number of hands since the genius’s death of an abdominal aneurysm at age 76. Dr. Thomas Harvey, the pathologist who performed the autopsy on the scientist’s corpse, failed to replace the brain after he had removed it for examination. Harvey claimed that Einstein’s son had granted him permission to keep the brain, but the Einstein family denied this.

The pathologist lost his job because of the scandal, but he proceeded to send samples of Einstein’s brain tissue to neuroscientists wanting to discover whether something about Einstein’s brain structure made him so incredibly intelligent. To thank the Philadelphia pathologist, Dr. William Ehrich, who allowed the slides to be made in his lab, Harvey gave him a set of 46 slides of Einstein’s brain tissue. Upon Ehrich’s death in 1967, they were passed to another doctor named Allen Steinberg, who in turn gave them to Lucy Rorke-Adams, the senior neuropathologist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. It was Rorke-Adams who recently donated the slides to the museum.

It seems that although some researchers who have examined Einstein’s brain tissue have found some structural anomalies in it, they cannot be sure whether they are responsible for the great scientist’s genius. However, Rorke-Adams did find that Einstein’s brain looked abnormally young on the microscopic level. She found that he lacked a build up of cellular waste associated with aging, and that his blood vessels were in unusually good shape. “He died at the age of 76, so he was an older individual. But Dr. Rorke-Adams said looking at his brain, you would think it was the brain of a younger person,” Dhody said.

So, perhaps there is something to the belief that genius arises from the maintenance of a childlike wonder throughout one’s life.

Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/the-shmooze/146958/#ixzz1gBdgdhOp

Looking at time differently.....

Below is a link about how people look at time related to themselves. This link is worth watching, especially for any educator who is interested in helping to improve the system so that the material reaches more kids. 

I think it explains how many of our students think, especially boys. If we keep in mind that many of the children like to have some control over what is going on, like in their computer games, we may be able to come up with some more creative ways to teach.  Great food for thought!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3oIiH7BLmg&feature=youtube_gdata_player

A Living Legend Teachers Her Last Class

My advisor at Harvard, Professor Eleanor Duckworth, recently taught her final class. She will be retiring at the end of next year but will have no teaching duties next year. She was a true inspiration for me, teaching me the importance of discovery, joy, and endless questioning in learning, especially through her T440: Learning and Teaching class. I will never forget her.


Thank you, Professor Duckworth, for all of your contributions to education and teachers. Your inspiration have changed many of our understanding of teaching and learning. I was hoping to, someday, take the course once more to learn more from you!


Thank you so much for modeling the wisdom of listening for all of us that teach.  You are a living treasure! Your legacy will live on, inspiring present and future teachers to the having of wonderful ideas.


I wish that I could have been at Professor Duckworth's last class! Enjoy the standing ovation she receives at the end of her last class below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm2awl0jU9s&feature=youtu.be

Dance vs. PowerPoint, a modest proposal = very cool!

I thought some of you might enjoy this "modest proposal" to replace power point presentations with dance presentations instead.  


An interesting maxim from the presenter: "when trying to explain something, use as few words as possible."  This line made me think of the final moments of T-440, when Eleanor led us all in a dance, capturing a semester of insight, inspiration, confusion, community, learning and laughter.

http://www.ted.com/talks/john_bohannon_dance_vs_powerpoint_a_modest_proposal.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2011-12-07&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

Happy learning!

Giving Meaningful Feedback on Writing

As an English teacher, it is all too easy to provide students with copious amounts of written comments and feedback on their writing. In my first year of teaching, this is exactly what I did. I learned all too quickly, though, that this was a complete waste of my time. Students are much more likely to appreciate concise, concrete, and specific feedback that tells them what they did well, what they need to work on, and one other thing to consider for the future. I do the best I can to limit my comments to these three kinds of notes on each student paper, as difficult as that is to do.

At a recent department meeting, I had the opportunity to discuss written feedback with colleagues -- how we use it and what makes the most difference for our students.

Here are some opening questions to consider:
1. What is your department doing that is successful and effective? How do you know?
2. What is your vision for the kind of feedback students should get in your writing program? How can you tell if they are learning from it?
3. How do you encourage consistency while respecting the different styles, strengths, and beliefs of your teachers?

Think of the challenges we face in providing feedback to our students:
1. Time it takes to read so many papers
2. We can't read everything they write.
3. A constant, unending burden
4. It's hard to gauge if comments are useful.

Feedback vs. grading -- justifying the grade --

Research on effective feedback:
Sara Bauer (2011)
Richard Haswell (2006)
George Hillocks (1986)
Barbara Monroe (2002)
G. Genevieve Patthey-Chavez (2004)
Rick VanDeWeghe (2005)

What are the strategies we've tired or been told about?
* Rubrics
* Annotations
* Peer review
* Conferences
* Portfolios
* Response journals
* Audio comments
* Electronic feedback

Some conclusions from the research:

The most effective feedback...
*is timely.
* occurs during the writing process.
* is short, concrete, and focused on what is taught.
* addresses content rather than surface-level errors.
* encourages students to respond or interact.

No one has "The Answer."

"Unfortunately, traditional professional development settings do not help teachers to develop these skills [in providing meaningful feedback]. ...As with students, teachers need opportunities for collaborative assisted professional development in order to grow as instructors and to create more effective learning environments for students." - Genevieve Patthey-Chavez, et al.


"[Students resist] because they are more and more seeing themselves as independent and ultimately free to use language as they wish. They resist because they are students." - Richard Haswell


"The more detailed my comments, the less students would take responsibility for their own texts." - Barbara Monroe