Adding a Feedback Question to Daily Warm-ups

Do you check in with your students every day? Maybe a warm up or exit ticket? Amy Morriss, who teaches high school Physics, Engineering, and Robotics outside of New Orleans, LA, uses a graphic organizer for problem solving and elevated her bell work to include a feedback question:

We set professional goals at the beginning of the year, and my goal was around more and earlier intervention on problem solving in Physics. A lot of kids seem to get it, but then they get to the test and then can't execute on problem solving.

I created a graphic organizer to guide students through the problem solving process as well as a checklist (did you check sig figs, etc.). Students solve a problem using the organizer as bell work every day. At the bottom of the graphic organizer, they can evaluate how they feel about their problem solving (pretty good, meh, poor), and they have a space for them to ask me a question. When they complete their bell work, they submit it to me through Floop.

Problem solving graphic organizer for Physics word problems. Click here to download a PDF.

I've just implemented this over the past few weeks, and it's really helped me identify how my students are doing because I have just one problem that I'm grading a bunch. And, usually, you have some kids in class that don't want to ask questions. They don't want to admit "I don't know something," or they're shy. Now they can ask me a question, and they have a regular formatted way to do it, so I can respond to the question on Floop. It's been a really useful tool for me to nail what's going on every day.

While the biggest problem Floop solved for me was being able to efficiently provide meaningful feedback, a benefit I discovered is that now I use feedback data to help me make decisions. For Physics, I give specific feedback on specific problems. By looking and seeing how many times I'm making the same comment (I've given feedback on problem #9 fourteen times!), I can see that I need to either revisit that skill or see how the problem can be clarified.

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