Looking Together at Student Work

This updated third edition provides teachers and administrators with strategies and resources for examining and discussing student work, such as essays, math problems, projects, artwork, and more. The authors describe two ways of looking together at student work—The Tuning Protocol and The Collaborative Assessment Conference—including how to choose work to present and examples of groups using each protocol. This new edition also offers suggestions for addressing some of the key challenges that emerge when groups first begin to share and discuss student work, as well as guidance for using protocols once groups have progressed beyond the initial stages. This book will be useful to teachers, administrators, teacher educators, coaches, and others who are involved in the work of improving teaching and learning for all students.

New for the Third Edition:

• The addition of The Microlab Protocol, a relatively quick and easy way to introduce groups to protocol-guided conversation.
• Facilitation strategies and more detailed notes for presenters about how to select work and prepare for their roles.
• Updated examples and a new case focused on a school's use of protocols to develop teachers' understanding and application of the Common Core State Standards.
• Current research on the effectiveness of practices that involve the collaborative examination of student work.

Tina Blythe develops and facilitates online professional development courses for Harvard Project Zero and consults for schools, districts, and organizations both nationally and internationally. David Allen is an assistant professor at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. Barbara Schieffelin Powell is a national and international educational consultant in curriculum development, teacher education, and evaluation.

"School leaders looking for systemic strategies to improve student achievement would be well served by Looking Together at Student Work."

—The School Administrator

“This is a book that is at once brief, elegant, and useful. . . . These authors know as well as anyone on Earth that the practice of collectively accountable teaching is messy, but they also appreciate the fact that people in the midst of it nonetheless need some kind of map.” —From the Foreword to the third edition by Joseph P. McDonald, New York University

“This (is a) probing and practical guide. . . . I commend these practices of looking together at student work as powerful resources not just for the technical but for the cultural enterprise of education.”
—From the Foreword to the second edition by David N. Perkins, Harvard Graduate School of Education

"This excellent book will be very helpful to teachers, school leaders, and parents who want to improve teaching and learning, and to researchers who want to understand school improvement."
—David Cohen, John Dewey Collegiate Professor, School of Education, University of Michigan

Table of Contents

Foreword to the Third Edition by Joseph P. McDonald

Foreword to the Second Edition by David N. Perkins

Foreword to the First Edition by Kathleen Cushman

Preface

Chapter 1. Overview
   A brief description of the book and its intended audience · Some reasons for looking together at student work · A brief overview of relevant research

Chapter 2. Getting Started
   Steps for getting started with using protocols to examine student work · A brief description of the Microlab Protocol · Initial challenges and ways of addressing them · Strategies for deepening the use of protocols over time

Chapter 3. Crucial Considerations: Description, Interpretation, Evaluation, and Context
   A discussion of the roles of and distinctions among descriptive, interpretive, and evaluative comments in a conversation about student work · A consideration of the importance of knowing (or not knowing) the context of the work being discussed

Chapter 4. Two Ways of Looking Together at Student Work
   Descriptions of two protocols: The Tuning Protocol and the Collaborative Assessment Conference · Suggestions for choosing work to present in each of these protocols · Examples of groups using the protocols

Chapter 5. Looking at Student Work in Action: Two Cases
   Descriptions of how two different schools created their own ways of learning from student and teacher work by adopting and adapting various protocols

Chapter 6. Facilitating Protocols
   A brief introduction to what facilitators of protocols think about and do while facilitating a group

Notes

Print and Digital Resources

References

About the Authors