Students and Teachers Exploring the World Together!

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Katherine Ditolla
Grade 5 Teacher
H.O. Smith School

Observing Student Work With Students

by

Katherine Ditolla

What does observing actually mean? Every September I ask this very question to my 5th grade science students. The word "observe" means to direct your attention to a particular event that is happening around us. When a student observes, she will carefully watch and gather notes to describe an occurrence. She will also be aware and make an inference on what is happening in the experiment before her very eyes. Whether you are Albert Einstein or an eleven year old learning about electricity, we are all scientists, and all scientists observe. But what if I suggested that the true observing happens after the lesson?

Every month about twenty teachers from southern New Hampshire would gather in a conference room at Rivier College and observe student work that was conducted during a particular inquiry science lesson. This became an open forum to discuss what we were teaching, how we were teaching the information, and most importantly, how the students were grasping the information.

We used a very specific format to observe. Not knowing what the lesson was, we would first spread out the students' work and observe in silence. While surveying the projects, we would write down anything that came to our mind. We then proceeded to comment on the project using sentence starters, such as "I notice…," "I speculate…," "I question…," "I believe they learned…", and "I suggest". We would end by having the teacher who brought in the work share his / her experience with that particular lesson. He / she would answer any questions we had about teaching methods and how the students reacted during the project.

These monthly round table discussions on teaching science and observing student work really opened my eyes on how students are interpreting science inquiry questions. I truly enjoyed collaborating with teachers on how to assess students as well as lessons that cater to many learning styles. In fact, because I was learning so much through observing student work among my fellow colleagues, I wanted my students to experience a similar environment in the classroom. While I was observing student work for pedagogy reasons, I wanted my students to observe to further learn the content. I wanted my 5th graders to benefit from the unique observing process using their own work.

I started an observing period, on a whim, with a group project on food webs in early October. Each group had a different ecosystem and completed a poster where they were to make linking food chains of various producers, consumers, and decomposers. I thought to myself, "Wow, this is going to be fantastic! They will start to classify organisms, features, list similarities and differences among the environments, and really start to make connections with what they have been learning." Well, it didn't quite start out that way.

What teachers see and what students see are not always the same. When I laid out their posters on the ground in the middle of the circle, the students were confused. They wondered why they weren't presenting the information in a standard presentation format. They were initially uncomfortable with the silence when I asked them to look at each group's project without talking. Some seemed embarrassed with how their project turned out and felt like we were looking to judge. When it came time for the sentence starters, the same bland comment was repeated over and over. For example, "I notice they have cool animals." I felt like the students were concentrating on how the poster looked rather than the information that was supposed to be absorbed by doing the project. Another tasteless comment was, "I suggest they do bubble letters next time." Where was the spicy commentary I was looking for?

With that being said, I realized that my students didn't have much experience, or maybe it was maturity, with observing their peer's work. They needed modeling, practice, and application with how to look at one's work and synthesize the learning that was evident. How was I going to fit all of this in? However, I wasn't going to give up and I continued with this process four more times. And with each time we did this observing protocol, I saw the students slowly start to grow and become more established with their observation.

By the end of the year, I saw a definite change. In March, my class had an their last observing period on a group project on the topic of whether or not taking out a light bulb will affect the other light bulbs in a circuit. Looking back, this observing episode was much different than the one that occurred in October. Since the 5th graders had the time and opportunity to practice observing, and knew my expectation of "digging deep into the work," the students felt more comfortable with the process. Actually, the students were quite excited to share their comments. Hands immediately flew up when I ask for students to share. The remarks they made were much more thought provoking and unique. For example, one little girl said, "I noticed that some groups said that the other light bulbs are affected when you take out a light bulb, but the other groups said the opposite. I wonder what type of circuit they used." This remark demonstrates a deeper depth of the science knowledge because this particular student was able to formulate a question.

I also noticed that concepts were being reinforced when looking at each project because the information was being synthesized in different ways. The students began to learn from each other rather than learning from me telling them the information, which is considered to be student centered rather than teacher directed. It also seemed that some of my shy students were less stressed with presenting in this format because the attention wasn't solely directed on them for a certain duration of time. And I think that many of my students were more mindful of the outcome of their project because they knew it was going to be observed in such a concentrated setting. Hopefully, this kind of consideration would spill into other content projects as well.

Now that I know how significant observing work with students is, I will continue to do it in the future. Nevertheless, the observing method needs some tweaking. Next year, I will definitely go slower when introducing the process, such as before even observing work, I will talk about why we observe and the importance. I think that before I tried to jump right into the process without getting the students' feet wet first. In addition, I will start with practicing in smaller groups before observing as a whole class. Maybe I could start with a project that was created the previous year so students do not feel like they are being critiqued right off the bat.

I think starting with fewer sentence starters would also be less overwhelming. I can then gradually continue to add a new sentence starter each time we observe, building the observing process up. This will help break down repetitiveness, as well as add a fresh element to the process each time. Making sure the sentence starters have "fifth grade friendly" terms is also very important so the students are engaged and building appropriate connections to the material.

I will also try observing work across all domains, because inquiry questions not only benefit science topics, but other subjects as well. For example, in math my class does a lot of work with observing different shapes and graphs. This protocol would be a great tool for learning, especially for those visual students. I can also use this method in partners when editing a writing piece. This way the students are focusing more on the content rather than grammatical mistakes. So not only can this method be used after a project, but possibly in the middle of a project so students can receive feedback and make necessary changes based on their peer's input. If students are learning to be observant and perceptive through all of the core domains, than it is quite possible that NECAP scores would go up and schools would experience great success in the learning process.

In conclusion, it is with out doubt that having students observe each other's work is extremely beneficial. It creates a dialogue and a sense of community that would otherwise not exist among peers. Because of this method, students begin to value and appreciate other students' thought process. They learn how to constructively give and take advice from their peers. It is a positive way for students to start taking different perspectives on numerous science topics. This progressive approach to observe allows students to think and learn in different intelligences. Last, it is an approach to celebrate learning. And learning through observing, even after the lesson, should indeed be celebrated.

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