Looking at Student Work

One of the most promising strategies for supporting a rich and productive collaboration within a community of learners is to anchor the work with the Looking at Student Work process. According to Joan Richardson (2001):

Examining student work helps teachers intimately understand how state and local standards apply to their teaching practice and to student work. Teachers are able to think more deeply about their teaching and what students are learning. As they see what students produce in response to their assignments, they can see the successes as well as the situations where there are gaps. In exploring those gaps, they can improve their practices in order to reach all students.
http://www.nsdc.org/library/results/res2-01rich.html

Looking at Student Work has a rich and varied history stemming from work at Harvard’s Project Zero, the Coalition for Essential Schools, the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, and our own organization, EDC (Dunne, 2000). The following factors are consistent across the different initiatives:

• One teacher at a time, on a rotating basis, is the "presenting teacher" who brings the work of one or more students and poses a question or concern to the team.
  
  
• Examination of student work samples is carried out collaboratively by the team.
  
  
• A facilitator leads the team.
  
  
• The team uses a formal protocol to structure the process.
  
  
• The team discussion results in recommendations of instructional and assessment strategies.
  

Our "brand" of Looking at Student Work is at the heart of The STAR Cycle. It builds a community of learners by forming teams that include teachers and specialists from general education, special education, technology, and curriculum (and, as relevant, from bilingual education and Title I). The ideal size of a team is about seven participants plus a facilitator. The work of this team is aligned with initiatives within the district and participating schools. For example, this might include a curriculum-based literacy initiative or an initiative to improve inclusive practices.

In the STAR Cycle, the team comes together on a regular basis (e.g., every other week, every third week, or once a month) to engage in the Looking at Student Work process. What differentiates our process from others is that:

• The role of presenting teacher rotates among the teachers.
  
  
• The teachers bring the work of three different students—typical student, struggling student, and student on an IEP.
  
  
• Team members generate instructional strategies and ideas for using technology tools.

The reason for bringing the work of three different students is that their work serves as a proxy for the diversity that typically exists within a classroom. By looking at the work of these three students, teachers are able to meet the needs of diverse learners in their classroom.

The STAR Cycle extends beyond the team meetings. Team members are expected to go back to their classrooms and apply the ideas there that have been generated in the meeting, reflect on the results, and then share the results at the next team meeting. In this community of learners there is a valuable interaction between what happens when the team is together—the collaboration, communication, and information sharing—and what happens in the classroom—instruction, assessment, and reflection. This is what gives the professional development process its characteristic of being a "cycle."

Top

Home · About STAR Tech · Leadership · Using Technology · Resources · Help