Learning Journeys: Communicating Progress in the Gradeless Classroom
Student learning journeys are as individualized as fingerprints. Letter grades do not capture this journey; they rank and sort students by measuring the immeasurable—learning. If you want to know what student’s know, ask them. Using this strategy along with Google Forms and a Forms add-on, Form Publisher, you can communicate a treasure trove of student learning, providing timely information for parents and helpful feedback for teachers to improve their practice.
I am a strong believer in metacognition in the classroom. Middle school is the perfect age to teach students metacognition skills as research shows that most metacognitive ability develops between ages 12-15 years of age. Using reflection and self-assessment in the classroom gives students an opportunity to practice metacognition. As students reflect and self-assess, it helps to have them share a story about their learning journey. Narratives are helpful for teachers to see not only what students are learning but how and what students are getting out of the learning opportunities provided by the teacher.
As rich as these reflections were, I found that I was only able to share mere snippets with families. After years of limited success, I discovered the Google Forms add-on Form Publisher as a powerful tool to share students’ learning journeys with families. Over time, I was able to use the tool create a student-generated report that would go home to parents to communicate their progress. I am lucky to have an administrator who has experience with Form Publisher and provided me the necessary support in setting up the application for student use.
Weekly narrative report generated directly from student responses using Form Publisher
In my classroom, I have currently incorporated Form Publisher to create various narrative reports that are sent home via email to student families weekly. Each week, I have students reflect on their learning using a set of metacognitive questions adapted from Edutopia. Students write a summary of their learning from the week using questions that help them focus on their reflections. Upon submission, Form Publisher automatically generates an attractive narrative report that, in turn, is emailed home to families.
At mid-term, students once again reflect on not only their learning but on three areas of focus: process (soft skills), progress (growth), and product (academics). The end-of-quarter report is similar to this mid-term report but also includes a portfolio of work samples in the three areas mentioned.
Form Publisher allows me to create templates in Google Docs and Slides and use these in multiple classes while making only a few changes based on class content. I have now begun to embed all the tasks, resources, and an overview of our week within the form itself, not only to remind students what we did but to share that information with parents.
Using Google Forms in combination with Form Publisher for weekly reflections has many benefits. The combination has allowed me to communicate a large amount of accurate information to families in an efficient manner. Using the Google Forms/Form Publisher tandem has resulted in an over-90% completion rate of weekly reflections. With this new format, I have heard a lot of positive comments from students about how much easier this format was to complete.
Parents have also emailed me in response to receiving the report. Said one parent, “I like the reflection format and reports. I think it makes Michael think more about what he is doing and articulating that is really valuable. I like the new format too. Much easier for kids to follow.” Another parent’s feedback was short and sweet: “Thank you for sending me this. What a great way to connect.”
There are many ways to help students reflect on and communicate their learning journeys. Here are a few:
Weekly reports: Students communicate tasks completed for the week in a narrative format.
Weekly reflections: Students use a structured set of questions to reflect on their learning from the week.
Mid-term/End-of-quarter self-assessments: Students self-assess their soft skills, engagement in class, learning, etc.
Self-evaluating for letter grades: Students select and support a letter grade weekly, bi-weekly, etc. to be communicated home and inputted into learning management system.
Assessing soft skills: Students identify strengths/areas for improvement in their communication, collaboration, accountability, etc.
Goal setting: Students set academic and/or learning goals that can be supported from home.
Student learning portfolios: Students gather work samples to demonstrate their learning over a period of time (quarter, semester, year)
Post-assessment reflections: Students reflect on how they did on an assessment, study skills used to prepare, along with strategies they could use for future success. These are sometimes referred to as “exam wrappers.”
How else can you help students communicate their learning journeys? In the above video, I demonstrate how to create templates for both Google Docs and Google Slides using Google Forms/Form Publisher. Unfortunately, Form Publisher’s free version allows only 20 files per month. For unlimited forms, the cost is $79 a year. I have found that this is well worth the cost. Feel free to reach out to me with any ideas, suggestions, or questions on how to use Form Publisher to communicate learning.
Rachael Kettner-Thompson is a National Board Certified Teacher and has been teaching middle school Science for the majority of her 19 years in public schools in Arizona, Idaho, and Washington State. She currently teaches 7th and 8th grade Science just outside of Spokane, WA.
Join Rachael this Sunday, February 28, at 9 p.m. EST for #TG2Chat: Making Time for Metacognition!