The Best AI Detector

The Best AI Detector is Right in Front of You!

AI is everywhere. It has infiltrated our schools at lightening speed. It cannot be stopped. Schools can try, but students can easily access it on their mobile devices and from home. Many schools are choosing to license AI detectors. In June, OpenAI, creator of ChatGPT, removed their AI detection software from their website because it revealed it correctly detects AI created text 21% of the time. As educators we know that this is not a very good score.

However, schools already have the best AI detectors – the teacher. Now, more than ever, we need to know our students as learners. As an English Language Arts teacher I regularly confer with my students. This means I sit beside them and we talk about their writing. The students’ writing might be a “quick write” – a 5-10 minute piece of writing they do in class or could be a longer form assignment. 

I use gotLearning with the students and we capture their writing and our communication about it – the feedback, revisions and reflections – showing their growth over time. If at some point a student submits a piece of writing that sounds like a 40 year old marketing copywriter wrote it, red flags and klaxons will surface because we both have an easy way to compare their performance and growth. 

As my first-year teaching mentor used to say, “Great teachers know their content and know their learners. And, most importantly, they have the repertoire of skills to bring the two together.” gotLearning is the perfect tool to bring the content and learners together in a way that shows their learning and growth overtime.

Further reading:

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Mike Rutherford is the founder and CEO of gotLearning. He lives in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania where he teaches one middle school English Language Arts class at a local school. He has been a middle school and high school teacher, instructional technology coach, school district EdTech director, founder of the K12 group at Blackboard, Vice President of Business Development at Just ASK Publications & Professional Development, all before returning to the classroom as a 6th grade humanities teacher at International School Bangkok in Thailand where he built version 1 of gotLearning in his classroom. You can follow Mike and gotLearning at @mikerford and @growthovertime on Twitter.

Back to the Classroom

Sunday, August 27th, 2023

I started building gotLearning as a middle school humanities teacher when I found that the technology available to me did not match what was occurring in my face to face classroom. 

After using gotLearning version 1 in my classroom for a few years, I left and started gotLearning and hired an awesome team to build version 2.

Now, after three years of designing, building, testing, receiving feedback and refining gotLearning it is an amazing platform to help teachers and students in regard to learning. However, I haven’t been able to teach with version 2 of gotLearning. With the release of our newest gotLearning mobile app (especially the iPad with an Apple Pencil) I could not handle it anymore – I needed to teach with gotLearning. 

So, I accepted a position to teach one middle school English Language Arts class at a nearby school. This one 50 minute period three or four times a week will still allow me to be a full time CEO of gotLearning. Yes, I am highly aware that I am going to be ridiculously busier than I already was! But, my role as a teacher and as a CEO very much align here. I will experience firsthand the problems that teachers and students are having and we are helping solve. I doing this because:

1. I love teaching.

2. I want to use gotLearning in the classroom.

3. The introduction of generative AI is transformative and I want to experience this transformation first hand. 

So, I am “Going Back to the Classroom!” I am going document my experiences here regularly to show how teaching is going and how I am co-creating learning using gotLearning with my students.

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Mike Rutherford is the founder and CEO of gotLearning. He lives in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania where he teaches one middle school English Language Arts class at a local school. He has been a teacher, instructional technology coach, school district EdTech director, founder of the K12 group at Blackboard, Vice President of Business Development at Just ASK Publications & Professional Development, all before returning to the classroom as a 6th grade humanities teacher at International School Bangkok in Thailand where he built version 1 of gotLearning in his classroom. You can follow Mike and gotLearning at @mikerford and @growthovertime on Twitter.

Snapshot vs. Photo Album

In the realm of education, the assessment of student progress and learning has evolved significantly over the years. Traditionally, assessment has often been limited to snapshots in time—single assessments that provide a brief glimpse into a student’s knowledge and abilities at a specific moment. However, the development of collaborative learning systems, such as gotLearning, offers a more comprehensive and dynamic approach akin to building a photo album rather than taking a one-time snapshot.

Just as a photo album collects and displays a collection of memories, a collaborative learning system like gotLearning aims to capture and document a student’s learning journey over time. By leveraging technology and collaborative tools, this innovative approach allows educators and students to actively engage in the learning process while receiving ongoing feedback and support.

“Teachers play a vital role in this collaborative learning process. Rather than merely grading a final product or a one-time assessment, they become facilitators and mentors, guiding students through their learning experiences.”

 

One of the key advantages of a collaborative learning system is that it encourages continuous learning and growth. Rather than relying on a single assessment or e-portfolio that offers a static view of a student’s abilities, a photo album-style approach allows for the accumulation of evidence and milestones of progress. Through regular interactions with teachers and peers, students can receive feedback and guidance, adapting and refining their skills as they go along.

In a collaborative learning system, students can actively participate in their own learning process, becoming co-creators of knowledge rather than passive recipients. By engaging in discussions, collaborative projects, and sharing their work with others, students gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter and develop essential skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, and communication. The ongoing feedback from teachers and peers helps students identify areas for improvement and build upon their strengths, fostering a growth mindset and a sense of ownership over their learning journey.

Teachers also play a vital role in this collaborative learning process. Rather than merely grading a final product or a one-time assessment, they become facilitators and mentors, guiding students through their learning experiences. Teachers can provide timely feedback, scaffold learning activities, and address misconceptions as they arise. This active involvement enables educators to identify individual student needs and tailor their instruction accordingly, promoting personalized learning and growth for each student.

Another advantage of a collaborative learning system is its capacity to foster a sense of community and connection among learners. By engaging in collaborative projects and interacting with peers, students develop social skills, empathy, and a deeper understanding of diverse perspectives. The photo album-like approach allows for the creation of shared experiences, shared knowledge, and shared memories—a collective learning journey that enhances the educational experience and promotes a supportive learning environment.

Furthermore, the documentation of learning over time in a collaborative learning system provides valuable insights for both students and educators. Students can reflect on their progress, recognize their achievements, and set goals for future growth. Educators can analyze patterns and trends, identifying areas where additional support or instructional adjustments may be necessary. This continuous monitoring and feedback loop ensure that learning is dynamic, responsive, and focused on individual student needs.

While e-portfolios have been used as a means of capturing student work and growth, they often fall short in terms of collaboration and ongoing feedback. E-portfolios typically provide a static snapshot of a student’s abilities at a particular point in time, limiting the scope for real-time interaction and support. In contrast, a collaborative learning system offers a dynamic and participatory experience, akin to building a rich and evolving photo album that captures the growth and development of learners.
Try gotLearning Now
Mike Rutherford is the founder and CEO of gotLearning. He lives in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. He has been a teacher, instructional technology coach, school district EdTech director, founder of the K12 group at Blackboard, Vice President of Business Development at Just ASK Publications & Professional Development, all before returning to the classroom as a 6th grade humanities teacher at International School Bangkok in Thailand where he built version 1 of gotLearning in his classroom. You can follow Mike and gotLearning at @mikerford and @growthovertime on Twitter.

Capturing Learning as it Happens

This article was originally posted on Teachers Going Gradeless. 

As educators we all know how complex teaching and learning is and the many stages that happen through a typical learning cycle. We also know that at key intervals throughout the year, schools layer in formal recording and reporting structures to capture and communicate about student learning at that time. Portfolios and conferences are popular ways to report about student learning and growth. Those of you who are reading this are likely thinking about or are going gradeless in your reporting. We are going to further explore portfolios and conferences as tools for capturing learning evidence and showing growth over time. 

Portfolios are most often thought of as a collection of learning evidence that demonstrates students’ knowledge, skills, and understanding. And conferences are most often thought about as the parent-teacher-student conversations at the end of a quarter or semester. I believe that curating evidence of learning over time and partnering with the student in conferencing throughout the learning process are integral to creating a dynamic learning environment.

All of a student’s learning does not occur in the direct view of the teacher. There are a myriad of things students do as they are engaging in new learning. Students interpret new ideas, ask clarifying questions, partake in trial and error, create rough drafts, receive feedback, receive scaffolds as necessary, make revisions, engage in more trial, receive more feedback, etc. These kinds of activities continue throughout the learning cycle supporting students along the way. Usually, it is the teacher who wraps up the learning cycle and for students it results in some level of learning mastery and some artifacts that can be added to a portfolio. 

When done well, portfolios are individualized museums of student learning. These are a great way to show learning growth and when possible allow you to compare where the student started and where they ended. One challenge is that the process of curating artifacts to go into a portfolio usually occurs after the evidence has been completed and toward the end of the learning cycle. There are so many important pieces of formative learning data that are missed when the curation happens at the end.

Students and teachers should consider capturing and curating learning evidence throughout the learning cycle and as the learning is occurring. This allows both the teacher and student to use a triangulated assessment approach which includes performance observations, conversations, and physical products as learning evidence (Damien Cooper, Rebooting Assessment). This triangulated assessment approach allows teachers and students to paint a more nuanced picture of the student and their learning over time.

In the back-and-forth interactions between students and teachers that occur every day lies much of this learning evidence. This includes physical evidence, online documents/presentation, emails, texts, conversations, as well as peer and teacher feedback—to name a few. Capturing all of this formative assessment data is staggering in volume and incredibly hard to manage for both teachers and students. The average classroom size (Elementary, Middle, and High School in the U.S.) is around 24 students (NCES 2020). Multiply 24 by the typical teaching load of 5 classes and you have 120 students for whom to capture learning data. Not an easy task.

We know we can’t expect teachers to read and respond to each piece of qualitative learning evidence their students produce. It is just not humanly possible nor sustainable at a high level. We also know this is really important learning evidence. We must work smarter and not harder. If we leverage technology designed to co-create, capture and curate the learning as it is occurring, this daunting task not only becomes possible, but essential. The trick is that both students and teachers need to be involved to ensure the capturing and curation is a collaborative and communicative experience. Neither student nor the teacher should bear sole responsibility for the curation of learning evidence over time. Co-creation of learning is what technology allows us to easily accomplish. 

When teachers and students are capturing learning evidence along the way, they both have a much easier time showing growth. Thus, creating and maintaining portfolio evidence as the learning is happening results in richer, more nuanced representations of learning over time. When students and teachers capture learning as it happens—it is no longer an add-on reporting method after a performance task is completed. 

Educator benefits of capturing and curating learning portfolios throughout the learning process (as the student is learning) are:

  • Easily showing growth over time

  • Seeing trends in student learning across multiple students allowing for timely adjustments

  • Aiding collaboration with the full team of educators (special education, instructional coaches, and school administrators) when they can view the qualitative learning evidence of individual students in a way they could never do so before

  • Capturing learning as it happens allows for more diagnostic formative assessment. From this teachers can better meet the individual needs of each learner. The teacher can determine where students are in the learning and provide the feedback or the scaffolding to help them move forward

Student benefits of capturing and curating learning evidence throughout the learning process (not just at the end) are:

  • Engaging more fully in all parts of their learning 

  • Allowing student ownership of their learning supporting the development of student agency

  • Including reflections of what/how students learned as well as what they did to accomplish their learning

  • Including artifacts of important performance observations and reflections, teacher/peer conversations as well as physical products

Conferences are another very important part of communicating student learning and growth. When conferences are limited to the parent-teacher-student conference at specific points throughout the school year they serve the purpose of reporting. If we consider conversations we have daily with our students as conferencing (often called conferring) we have another rich data source to add to our portfolios. This process of conferring—the one-on-one conversations with each of your students throughout the week—will become one of the most powerful learning opportunities for both you and your students.

I learned firsthand the power of conferring by observing master teachers Carl Anderson, Penny Kittle, and Kelly Gallagher confer one-on-one with my students with incredible efficiency and effectiveness. I watched them masterfully partner with our students in these conferring sessions to understand where they were in their learning, to celebrate growth and to set goals for their next steps. And, the best part of this kind of conferring is that the students become the owners of their goals and next steps. 

The qualitative data that is generated daily by students is the most powerful learning evidence to tell the story of learning over time. Expanding how we are developing our portfolios and how we conference with students to more deliberately include this important qualitative evidence will strengthen the stories we ask our students to curate about their learning journey. 

Mike Rutherford is the founder and CEO of gotLearning. He lives in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. He has been a teacher, instructional technology coach, school district EdTech director, founder of the K12 group at Blackboard, Vice President of Business Development at Just ASK Publications & Professional Development, all before returning to the classroom as a 6th grade humanities teacher at International School Bangkok in Thailand where he built version 1 of gotLearning in his classroom. You can follow Mike and gotLearning at @mikerford and @growthovertime on Twitter.

Permission is granted for reprinting and distribution of this blog post for non-commercial use only. Please include the following citation on all copies:
Rutherford, Mike. “Capturing Learning as it Happens.” Teachers Going Gradeless. Reproduced with permission of Teachers Going Gradeless. All rights reserved. Available at https://www.teachersgoinggradeless.com/blog/capturing-learning

Formative Assessment FAQ

During the years that I have been writing, assessment has been the focus multiple times. One component of my assessment repertoire that continues to be elusive for many is formative assessment. Questions that frequently surface are addressed in this issue. Those questions include:

 

    • What specifically is formative assessment?
    • How does formative assessment differ from summative assessment?
    • What does the research tell us about formative assessments?
    • How should we apply these research findings to their instructional practice?
    • Should formative assessments be included in a student’s report card grade?
    • How often should formative assessments be used?
    • How should we go about using formative assessments to gather achievement data and what are some strategies we can use?

 

What specifically is formative assessment?
Formative assessment, as defined by the Council of Chief School Officers, is a “process used by teachers and students during instruction that provides feedback to adjust ongoing teaching and learning, to improve students’ achievement on intended instructional outcomes.” Putting it succinctly, formative assessments provide information, often informal, for both teacher and students about how learning is progressing; concurrently, it informs the teacher about whether or not instruction is working and if true learning is being formed.

 

How does formative assessment differ from summative assessment?
Formative assessments give teachers the opportunity to provide feedback to students so they can use this data to make corrections or adjustments in their work. Formative assessments let teachers and students know how learning is progressing; summative assessments, on the other hand, are periodically administered to students to determine what knowledge they have learned or what skills students have mastered. Dr. James Popham, a UCLA professor and a huge proponent of the proper use of formative assessment, has said, “Whereas formative assessment intends to improve ongoing assessment, summative assessment tries to answer the question, ‘Was instruction effective?’” Rick Stiggins, President of Assessment Training Institute, Inc., distinguishes between assessments for learning (formative assessment) versus assessment of learning (summative assessment). Stiggins notes that both assessment practices are essential but many educators still do not use formative assessment data properly. Any assessment can be either formative or summative. The category into which an assessment falls is determined by how the information gleaned from the assessment is used.

 

What does research tell us about formative assessments?
In 1998, British researchers Paul Black and Dylan William published an extensive review of classroom assessment practices and concluded that when properly applied, formative assessment had a significant impact on student learning. In their meta-analysis, they found that gains in learning through the use of formative assessments are “among the largest ever reported for educational interventions.” As the work of Black and William received increased public attention, dialogue in schools also increased as educators contemplated how their current practice compared to the research findings.

 

How should we apply these research findings to our instructional practice?
There are many justifications for changing one’s thinking about how we assess our student’s progress. Currently, in many grade books, there is a hodgepodge of marks including grades for homework, behavior, participation, attendance, pop quizzes, tardies, and group work. Mixed in with these marks are grades for tests, projects, performance tasks, presentations, essays, book reports, and self-assessments. When determining a report card grade, some teachers combine all of these measures (often weighting different data sources and then averaging everything together) and come up with a letter grade. Unless there are faculty discussions about assessment practices that lead to some uniformity in how schools determine and report student achievement, each staff member can have his own personal and unique system for determining exactly what a specific grade signifies. Hence, grades on report cards vary from teacher to teacher and tell us nothing about what students have actually learned.

 

Should formative assessments be included in a students’ report card grade?
Current work in the field of assessment provides much greater insight into how we should monitor and report student achievement. Many educational researchers and writers have concluded that a student’s grade should be based on the student’s demonstration of mastery of the learning standards. More precisely, performance on summative assessments should determine a final quarter or annual grade. Formative assessments should be thought of as steps in the learning process; this formative data should be used to provide feedback to students, allow students to adjust their learning strategies, and inform teachers as to how they can adjust instruction to improve learning. It is much like when an athlete or musician learns a new technique; they do not use it instantly in a performance or competition. Instead, the teacher or coach observes the students using the new technique and provides suggestions for improvement until the athlete or musician demonstrates improvement and competence in their quest for mastery. In the same vein, our students should complete self-assessments on work in progress comparing their current proficiency level with a published rubric or a clearly delineated standard. Using the gathered data, the student can identify areas of strength, target areas for improvement, and make an action plan. Practices such as giving a pop quiz or assigning a brief writing assignment, collecting and grading papers and returning the work with a single letter grade on top should be eliminated completely. Using formative assessment data to provide opportunities for growth makes so much more sense if student improvement and learning is the ultimate goal.

 

How often should formative assessments be used?
From the time students walk in the door, formative assessment is available. Every comment, look, and move provides data about the learners and their learning. Wise teachers are continuously gathering and using that data. Additionally, these wise teachers are purposeful in orchestrating tasks and interactions on a regular ongoing basis that let them know if instruction is working. As University of Virginia Professor Carol Ann Tomlinson has written, “We need to understand where our students are at any point during a unit; in other words, what each student knows, understands, and can do at a given time based on the content goals we’ve established.” Finding out where each student stands in relation to the identified standards can be determined in a variety of ways that do not have to be complex or time consuming.

 

How should we go about using formative assessments to gather achievement data and what are some strategies/techniques they can use?


As stated above, any interaction between teacher and student can be considered a formative assessment. These interactions may be oral or in writing, can be formal or informal, and can provide data about a student’s progress toward achieving mastery of identified standards. There are dozens of formative assessment strategies. A few possibilities are:

 

  • Ticket to Enter: As students enter the classroom, they are asked to complete a quick response to a question or writing prompt to activate their current thinking on a topic
  • Ticket to Leave: Students respond in writing to questions or prompts to show what they have learned and submit the slip to the teacher as they leave the class
  • Journaling/Learning Log/Quick Write: Students record their reactions to new learning in a variety of ways
  • Self-assessment: Students complete personal assessments indicating where they see themselves with a work in progress
  • Two Stars and a Wish: Students provide feedback to a peer by pointing out two positive aspects of the peer’s work followed by one suggestion to help improve their work in the future
  • 3-2-1: Students record their summarizing responses at the end of a lesson; for example, the students write about 3 new things they learned, 2 questions they still have, and 1 way they connected their new learning to what they already knew
  • One Word Summary: Students choose one word that summarizes the concept or topic they have studied in class followed by 2-3 sentences that explain why they chose the word
  • Graphic Organizers: Students complete a visual representation of their learning
  • Sentence stem: Students begin a paragraph summary with a sentence stem provided by the teacher such as “The important thing about…”  The students then include details to support the conclusion they reached
  • Whiteboards: Students write answers/responses on small handheld whiteboards and display them for teacher and classmates to see
  • Sticks: The teacher places a craft stick with the name of a student on each one in a container, draws out one stick at a time and asks the designated student a question
  • Clipboard Cruising: The teacher moves around the room as students are working individually or in groups and jots down observations about how students are progressing toward mastering an objective
  • 10:2 Theory (Rowe): After ten minutes of instruction, the teacher provides two minutes of time for students to pause and process what they have learned during large group instruction; the teacher observes/listens in on student conversations
  •  

 

It is important to note that none of these assessments are graded; they simply provide important data as learning is taking place. When teachers use formative assessments to appropriately analyze students’ day-to-day performance and the effectiveness of the instructional program, the results on summative assessments should be predictable.  No one should be surprised. Education Week blogger David Ginsburg says it well when he writes, “Formative assessment efficiency on the part of teachers is the key to summative assessment proficiency on the part of students.”

 
Permission is granted for reprinting and distribution of this blog post for non-commercial use only. Please include the following citation on all copies:

Oliver, Bruce. “Formative Assessment FAQ” gotLearning. Reproduced with permission of Growth Over Time Learning (gotLearning). © 2023 gotlearning. All rights reserved. Available at www.gotlearning.com

It’s a Feedback World

As an admitted digital immigrant for whom modern technology does not come naturally, I have occasionally been slow to adapt to new tools. However, when I purchased a GPS (Global Positioning System) navigation device for my car, I read a lot of literature about the system and spoke with friends who talked about how helpful it was when they traveled. Once the device was in hand, I read the manual; I discovered that even for a digital immigrant it was relatively easy to follow. Soon it was placed on the dashboard of my car and provided clear visual and auditory directions to help me find my destination. The longer I used the GPS, the more comfortable I became with it, and the more I realized how helpful it was. On a recent trip, I listened to the voice explain how I could get to my designated address. As I waited at a stoplight, I realized that the GPS provided excellent feedback, made my trip more enjoyable, increased my confidence in using it, and made me feel more technologically savvy. The more I thought about the GPS device, the more I realized that its operation is a valid metaphor for how teachers should provide feedback to students in the learning process. I came to the conclusion that GPS (Global Positioning System) and GPF (Growth-Producing Feedback) have a lot in common. I started jotting down ways that they were similar and devised the comparison chart you see below:
GPS GPF
1. Lays out the entire trip from start to finish… 1. A good teacher will frame the learning by explaining to students how new learning will unfold and how it will be assessed.  
2. Estimates how much time it will take to reach your destination and readjusts the time as the trip continues… 2. A wise educator fully understands that time is the variable in learning; he or she uses feedback data from students throughout a unit to adjust the time required for learning to occur.  
3. Provides on-going and immediate feedback throughout the entire trip… 3. Research teaches us that students learn best when a teacher administers formative assessments and uses the data to provide feedback to the students.  
4. Recalculates when you make a wrong turn… 4. Many teachers use pacing guides to carry out unit plans. However, thoughtful teachers realize that it is often necessary to readjust plans when students do not learn in the allotted time.  
5. Tracks the trip in stages and provides visual and auditory details… 5. By administering a learning styles inventory to students, a teacher can use the feedback from the profile to plan the best way to meet all student needs.  
6. Tells how far you must go to complete your trip… 6. An essential component of good feedback is teaching students to self-assess their own learning and to set goals in order to complete required learning.  
7. Anticipates when traffic jams or roadblocks will occur… 7. By analyzing feedback data from students and completing a task analysis for planned learning, a skillful teacher will be better able to predict when students might experience frustration in their learning and plan accordingly to avoid pitfalls and slowdowns.  
8. Indicates points you will see during the trip and lets you select stops along the way that are important to you… 8. When a teacher incorporates feedback as to how students learn best into the planning process, he or she can often give students choices in how to demonstrate their learning.
  The GPS system is merely one example of how feedback has become a vital part of our everyday lives. From the time they learn to play video games, children receive and expect feedback on how to move to the next level of the game. Numerous reality television shows determine outcomes based on feedback votes from viewers. As soon as a young person acquires his or her first cell phone or learns how to use a computer, instant messaging, text messaging, and responses from peers become a routine part of their day. And who among us has not completed an online survey, made an online purchase, received confirmation for a travel plan, or clicked on an FAQ icon to find an answer to a troubling question. In a world in which feedback is prolific and vital to our daily decision making, it seems only logical that our students should be receiving growth-producing feedback on a regular basis. As teachers assess learning and provide students with clear, detailed feedback, students better understand how to adjust their time and focus to meet learning benchmarks. As a result, they will be more motivated to learn, feel more empowered, will more readily fulfill learning goals, and their self-confidence will increase. Ask yourself: Is my GPF system operating at its peak proficiency?    

Growth-Producing Feedback

“Bruce Oliver, a gotLearning 
Contributor lives in Burke,
Virginia USA. He uses the 
knowledge, skills, and 
experience he acquired as a 
teacher, professional 
developer, mentor, and 
middle school principal 
as he works with school 
districts across the USA.” 

NOTE: At the end of this post you will find a Growth-Producing Feedback Discussion Tool, which lists examples of teacher comments about student work. Use this tool to promote in-depth staff discussion about how to increase the effectiveness of their feedback.

Feedback is another topic that is a repeated focus in the literature. It is an incredibly powerful tool that teachers have at their disposal; it can make a huge difference in student achievement. Grant Wiggins writes that when feedback is given to students properly, most students can achieve at the same level as the top 20% of students. He also asserts that feedback has a positive relationship with the rate that students are engaged. Put quite simply, students who are given specific information about the accuracy and quality of their work will spend more time working on their academic assignments. However, many teachers do not follow the suggestions set forth in research on the topic of feedback. So often, teachers simply follow practices which they inherit or which they have fallen into the habit of using. It is important for school leaders to provide their teaching staffs with the most up-to-date research. If we want students to improve their achievement, it is important for teachers to follow specific practices. Many books and articles have been published that provide educators with the best ideas to increase student achievement. The ideas contained in these publications are wide and varied. Some of the most popular topics include reaching the underachiever, unit and lesson design, differentiation of instruction, and assessing student learning.

The first step in improving how and when feedback is provided to students is to understand a clear definition of what good feedback is. Wiggins says that feedback is not about praise or blame, approval or disapproval. Good feedback describes what a student did or did not do for the purpose of changing or maintaining a behavior or performance. Robert Marzano and associates concur that effective feedback should provide students with an explanation of what they are doing correctly and what steps they must take to continue to make progress.

Typical feedback often includes such comments as “Nice work,” “Unclear,” “You need to improve your study habits,” “C+” or “75%.” These types of statements or grades show either an approval or disapproval of what a student has done, and it is evaluative in nature. Research has shown that this type of feedback to students has very little effect on student learning and can have a negative impact on student motivation to learn. Put simply, students tend to ignore comments when they are accompanied by grades or numerical scores. However, students pay much closer attention to written comments when they are not accompanied by a grade. Stephen Chappuis and Richard Stiggins found that “replacing judgmental feedback with specific, descriptive and immediate feedback benefits students.” Productive feedback tells students what they are doing right, pinpointing strengths, and helping learners develop those strengths even further.

The purpose of feedback is to enhance student achievement by emphasizing progress rather than deficiencies. In order for feedback to be meaningful, it is important for teachers to provide it in a timely manner. The sooner students receive feedback on their work, the greater the likelihood that they will learn and grow from the feedback that is provided. Teachers can give feedback through one-on-one conversations, or by circulating around the classroom and commenting on the student work that they see. Marzano has written that “the best feedback involves an explanation as to what is accurate and what is inaccurate in terms of student responses.” In addition, asking students to keep working on a task until they succeed will enhance achievement.

It is also important for feedback to be specific toward a standard or a benchmark. A student must know how closely he or she is coming to mastering the required learning. The teacher should let a student know the specific skill level or knowledge that a student has displayed, and what needs to happen to keep the student moving along the continuum to mastery. In order for feedback to be effective, the teacher should give guidance on how a student can make improvement.

Giving students effective feedback without letting them respond to the feedback by improving their work is an exercise in futility for both the student and the teacher. Students must have the opportunity to listen to what their teacher has said, to make adjustments in their work and to resubmit their assignments for further comments. It can be a matter of personal fulfillment for everyone involved in the learning process when a teacher can see the results of his or her efforts to improve learning.

When teachers provide feedback in a specific and proper manner, there is an added benefit to student learning. When students are given information about their progress, they begin to develop the skill of self-assessment. They can actually articulate what they have learned and what they still need to work on. Ultimately we do not want students to be completely dependent upon their teachers to let them know if they are learning. Self-assessment is a great life skill we can teach our students. The result can be that our students will have greater aspirations to succeed in the future, enjoy greater satisfaction from their learning, and set future performance goals.

Please download the Growth-Producing Feedback Discussion Tool to use with your faculty.

Permission is granted for reprinting and distribution of this blog post for non-commercial use only. Please include the following citation on all copies:
Oliver, Bruce. “Growth-Producing Feedback.” gotLearning. Reproduced with permission of Growth Over Time Learning (gotLearning). © 2022 gotlearning. All rights reserved. Available at www.gotlearning.com

2,295 Sources of Qualitative Learning Data

I was astonished. 2,295 was the total. It was 2016 and I had just calculated the total number of qualitative learning data sources that I had to manage as a classroom teacher. I consider myself fairly technical and organized but it took me so long to find things which I now realized was because I was drowning in data. 

Now, to be clear, the data that I am talking about was not my students test scores or grades. My school’s student information system took care of that data. The data I am talking about is the important, daily learning generated by my students and included the following:

Handwritten rough drafts Notes from informal conversations with students Teacher and Peer Feedback
Student self reflections Informal checks for understaning Google Docs/Microsoft Word files
FlipGrid videos Student created podcasts Presentations (videos also the slide decks) including Pear Deck
Parlay discussions/Jamboard Jams Emails Summarizers used at the nef of class about the day's learning
Test Quizzes Homework
Goal setting documents Assessment tools like continuums and roadmaps

The above shows 17 sources of data regularly generated from/for each of my students. I had 135 students. Multiply those two and the total is 2,295 sources. My experience is the daily experience of the classroom teacher; trying to manage all the disparate sources of data that are generated by students throughout the day, week or month. Teachers understand how important these qualitative data sources are as they show the complexity of learning for each of our students and show their growth over time which for some was well beyond the grade level expectations and for others was below.

This rich learning data was individual to each student, helped me understand where students were in the moment, where I needed to take them and it told the story of my students’ learning. As important as that data is for teachers, how are we supposed to capture and manage all it especially when our current systems aren’t designed for this?

I was so troubled by this conundrum but my students just kept generating. They generated work through email, Google Docs/Slides/Sheets and the entire Microsoft Office Suite. They used NoRedInk, Khan Academy, TedTalks, Newsela, Kahoot, YouTube videos and my school’s Learning Management System (LMS).  The students were creating learning evidence on their phones, their laptops, on paper, with art, on the whiteboard, on post it notes, conversing with one another, conversing with me, self reflecting and the list goes on and on. It was wonderful because it showed the students learning in real time but it was overwhelming to manage.

I could not possibly capture and manage all of that learning data, but I thought…what if I had a platform that could capture a lot of it and, most importantly, it was a platform that the students and teachers co-created to communicate about their learning. Instead of using teacher-led platforms like the LMS, what if I could partner with the students to capture this rich learning data, put it in a longitudinal timeline, showing the students different iterations of their learning and growth and make it easily searchable like Google? What if I created a platform where students were at the center and helped manage their learning and growth?

So I set out a pretty wide search. The LMS was completely teacher-led and focused on the entire class – not individual students. However, the LMS does a great job of providing content and organizing assignments. I was looking for something that helped after the the initial learning activity occurred.  I couldn’t find anything designed with the students at the center and as co-creators. So, to make a long story short. I built one using business tools while teaching 6th grade English Language Arts and Social Studies. I refined it over a few years. I eventually left the classroom, ditched the business tools and built gotLearning version 2 from scratch – both a web version and mobile apps. With students as partners in capturing and communicating about their learning I now can manage all 2,295 sources of qualitative data to more robustly tell the story of their learning – and so can you. 

 

If you want to learn more do not hesitate to visit our main webpage or contact us. 

Classroom Platforms – CLS vs. LMS vs. SIS

In the education sector, we are seeing the increased interest and broader implementation of competency-based learning, personalized learning, standards-based grading, teaching soft-skills and building student agency among other things. Twenty months into the pandemic schools are forced to reflect on some of their long held practices that were upended due to virtual learning and to devise ways to partner with students and their families in more student focused ways than ever before. 

While these student-focused methods are shifting our educational approaches, we are trying to implement these shifts with tools that were designed for more typical, teacher focused school structures. Take for instance the Learning Management System (LMS). SoftArc was the first to arrive in K12 education in 1990, followed at a wider scale by Blackboard in 1999 (note: I started the K12 group at Blackboard.) Currently, the K12 market is dominated by PowerSchool’s Schoology, Instructure’s Canvas and Moodle. Each of these is true to the LMS name – managing a classroom using the traditional teacher/class/student design. The LMS is a great tool for a teacher to share class information online. However, education is much more than sharing content with students.

John Hattie in his book Visible Learning states:

“The act of teaching reaches its epitome of success after the lesson has been structured, after the content has been delivered, and after the classroom has been organized. The art of teaching, and its major successes, relate to ‘what happens next’”.

The LMS focuses on structuring the lesson, organizing the online classroom and delivering content, but what go-to platform do we have for the most important part of learning “what happens next?” We have so much data generated from our classrooms; it’s like the wild west. No platform exists (until now) to help teachers and students navigate the “what happens next?”.

Consider this scenario, a teacher shares an assignment in their LMS, a student generates a rough draft in google docs, they conduct peer discussions in Parlay while editing in their google docs. The teacher then asks the students to reflect on their thinking in FlipGrid and submit their final work in an online portfolio. Take that scenario and layer on the typical teacher load of 100-125 students and you can see how hard it is to manage so many disparate sources of data. 

Teachers are setting up systems in online drives, storing videos in online video systems, storing data in instructional sites (like NoRedInk, Khan Academy, Algebra Nation), and this doesn’t even include the student constructed, non-digital work. Yet, we haven’t had one place to capture this important work, nor have we organized it according to the student and the duration of their experience (over the year or many years). We need one place to capture/link to this qualitative learning data that tells the story of a student’s learning and it needs to be focused around the student. Enter the Collaborative Learning System (CLS). 

The important and missing element from a teacher’s EdTech arsenal is the ability to capture the back and forth conversations about learning between a student and their teacher. Educators know these conversations are where so much learning occurs and as John Hattie states – “what happens next” is what matters. By having the right tools to personalize learning for each student a teacher can not only meet their needs but show growth over time using qualitative learning evidence. We designed the Collaborative Learning System (CLS) out of necessity and implemented in the classroom to capture this qualitative data. This platform makes it easy for both the student and teacher to add, communicate and revise work all the while incorporating self, peer and teacher feedback and reflection. Through the CLS, students are partners in co-creating their learning story and showing growth all while developing student agency.

We designed the CLS to be built around how a school pedagogically operates. Foremost, we put students at the center with a focus on the qualitative data that tells the story of learning overtime. Secondly, we designed it around how contemporary schools and classrooms operate including the partnerships with the special educators, instructional coaches, teaching assistants, emerging language learning educators, counselors, psychologists, school administrators, parents, etc. We designed gotLearning’s CLS to ensure the particular nuances of these roles are addressed. For instance, a special education teacher may be a co-teacher in one class, teach multiple self-contained classes of their own and also need to support students in other classes. We have designed a way for the special educators to manage their student support under those different structures in partnership with other team members and with a focus on students. School administrators, as the instructional leaders, need to quickly understand how students are doing beyond attendance or grades. Our CLS allows administrators and specialists to see the student level qualitative learning data in real time across their entire school. The CLS supports a whole child approach allowing easy collaboration and support, student by student. 

We also knew that the CLS needed to integrate with education systems world wide. It is purpose built for the contemporary classroom focusing on the student but designed to be  flexible. Our CLS is technology agnostic allowing teachers and students to use the technologies that they already know. Content agnostic allowing teachers and students to choose their own illustrative content. And process agnostic allowing users to organize and communicate how they want to communicate. Finally, there is a platform designed with students truly at the center, allowing them to partner in their learning, easily communicate with others and demonstrate growth overtime. 

If you want to learn more do not hesitate to visit our main webpage or contact us.

The Collaborative Learning System: Telling the Story of Learning

gotLearning announces the first Collaborative Learning System (CLS) that is a purpose-built platform for schools that focuses on the most fundamental elements of student learning – feedback and growth over time. gotLearning’s CLS is structured around the learning conversation and captures the back and forth dialogue between students, teachers and peers about their learning. The learning conversations structure focuses on the qualitative evidence from the student’s own work and mirrors what happens every day in classrooms around the world. 

gotLearning was born in the classroom to meet specific pedagogical needs. The importance and amount of qualitative data available to today’s teachers and students is enormous. Teachers world wide know that the daily conversations about learning, the daily work produced and the feedback provided is where the learning occurs. Both the students and teacher now have one place to share student work, give/receive feedback, make revisions all in the service of supporting and demonstrating the student’s growth over time. 

The CLS allows teachers and students to hold the many and varied sources of qualitative data all in one place. Before our CLS, teachers had to design their own systems for managing the daily sources of learning evidence and spent a lot of time searching in student notebooks, online folders, video sharing services, EdTech apps as well as many communication platforms to locate and review the qualitative student learning data. No longer do teachers or students need to search for where the learning evidence or feedback is located because the CLS provides a tool for teachers and students to capture and manage this crucially important learning process. 

For Students
The gotLearning CLS provides one place for students to capture and communicate about their learning journey empowering students to influence their own path to mastery. gotLearning’s unconstrained conversation tool provides students voice and choice regarding how to communicate their learning empowering students as partners in the process. 

For Teachers
gotLearning enables teachers to easily monitor student progress, provide direct and targeted feedback and make course corrections as needed. A teacher can get a sense of their class as a whole in order to make broad adjustments or to see the experiences of their individual students to provide personalized feedback. Additionally, teachers can see how their students are doing in other classes to seek patterns of performance in order to more holistically support students and their learning. 

For Educational Specialists
Using gotLearning’s Collaborative Learning System, educational specialists are able to develop their own classes in addition to seeing how the individual students they are supporting are doing across all of their classes. Educational Specialists can easily examine the qualitative feedback and learning evidence from all of the teachers for each student they support.

For School Administrators
A school administrator can easily monitor student progress across their whole school as well as examine and/or participate in learning conversations with any of their students They can also follow individual students that may need a little extra attention when needed. 

Professional Conversations
Another key element of gotLearning are the professional conversations. Using the same toolset that is used for students and teachers to communicate – professional conversations captures feedback and learning evidence between the teachers, educational specialists and school administrators. These conversations can be through one on one discussions, small group discussions or even the entire school. Professional conversations are perfect for professional learning networks (PLNs) or Professional Learning Communities (PLCs).

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