Tried it Tuesday - Feedback Bulletin Board

I'm joining up with Holly for her Tried it Tuesday linky. It's only the second week of this linky party and I love it already! I love people saving me time by just giving me great ideas and resources!!




This week I am sharing something that I tried this year in my classroom. Well I should mention I tried it reluctantly, very reluctantly. There has been a big push for the last two years in my area to provide descriptive feedback to students so they know exactly how they could improve their work. It could be done in a quick conference with the student, it could be notes on their work, or notes on a checklist/rubric. I enjoy quick check-ins with my students and the 2 stars and a wish strategy (even made up my own stickers using Avery mini-circle labels, click here and here for a copy - of course you need to buy your own labels!!).

This year our principal said we had to have a "Bump It Up" bulletin board in our classroom (and I thought great one more thing we "have" to do). The purpose of the bulletin board is to display a learning goal, checklist for students and sample work with descriptive feedback posted. This is where I struggled - I did not think it was right to display student work with feedback on it for the whole class to see. But we "had" to have one in our class so I googled Bump it Up Boards, looked at some pictures and read a little. Then I made it work for me and my class - and even though I was reluctant to do it - it is working for me.

This is how I use it:

1. post the actual expectation
2. post a student friendly version of the expectation
3. post a checklist of what you need to be successful

4. give students an assignment (we wrote predictions for the book "I Wanna New Room")
5. use student samples that I have typed up and maybe changed a little (to protect the innocent!)
6. as a class we review the checklist and then use the checklist to assess a piece of work - no levels or grades are mentioned - we just give feedback
7. I write up feedback using the categories: consider, start, continue to , stop and do less and post the feedback and the work on the board

8. before students begin the next assignment we review what we learned from the Bump it Up board - they can use it as a reference while working

This bulletin board is working for my class. We use it for writing, reading response questions and math problem solving. The students are very respectful when providing feedback and then actually use the feedback to "bump up" their next assignment (some even want to fix their previous work). They go back and look at the examples and the feedback and the checklist, woo hoo!

I have 2 Bump it Up Bulletin Board sets with subject headings to post learning goals in my TpT store for $1.00 (this one and an owl theme) but it is a super easy bulletin board to create and you could do one that matches your decor/theme.

Some other teachers in my school make up a work example that is a Level 1 or 2 and then work together to bump it up to a level 3 and then bump it up some more to a level 4 and post that example instead of student work.