Models and M odeling

by Audrey Conant, MEMA Information Skills Chair
Alternative assessments require more than written standards, criteria, and rubrics. They need models of student work for amplification. Exemplary work by in-house peers has a put-your-bucket-down intimacy and a can-do expectation. Exemplary work by students around the world puts everyone on a par. One source for such models; The Concord Review, a journal of award-winning high school history essays. The papers typically include quotes and numerous citations.

First step to help students benefit from models:
First step to help students apply local standards:

The exemplar selections in The Concord Review are not such high level that they would rate "proficient" in every criterion. This would make them excellent fodder for students to assess using local standards. Their imperfections, however slight, would take them off the pedestal and into the "I could do as well as that" category, while retaining quality status. Sample papers can be found through the journal's web page at http://www.tcr.org. For sample journal copies, e-mail fitzhugh@tcr.org or call 1-800-331-5007.

Educators can also enact or point out student behavior or use film or cassette tape to amplify standards that include attitudes or performance, values not easily tacked on bulletin boards.

Written standards without accompanying models or modeling can leave staff members, students, parents, and administrators each with a different image of what those written gradations connote. Youngsters' values differ from adults'. We have to show as well as explain how we value information: through quotations, specific anecdotes, statistics, examples.

"The amateur thinks that the writer has an idea, perhaps a vague thought and a few facts. He doesn't. He has shelves of reports, miles of tape-recorded inteviews, notebooks of quotations and fact and ideas and possible constructions It takes thirty gallons of maple sap to make syrup; it takes hundreds of pages of notes to make one Reader's Digest article."
Murray, Donald. A Writer Teaches Writing, Houghton Mifflin 1968.

Modeling Through Scaffolding

Some aspects of the research process seem magical to many students. They see other students apparently breezing along and wonder what the secret is or when they missed the how-to. The librarian seems to assume that they know what they're doing, and they feel compelled to keep up the pretense, guessing and copying and bumbling along. When they succeed they don't know why they succeeded. They don't connect reasoning with inquiry. If they are to be assessed on the research process as well as the product, they need to experience modeling.

One modeling technique that unveils the mystery is 'scaffolding.' It has been examined, defined, described, and validated, especially in the world of language arts. Based on the work of the Russian psychologist Vygotsky, an educator enacts a 'see-through' learner, concentrating on immature, developing student skills. Using this temporary structure while instructing, the teacher explains, step-by-step, how she made a decision or reached a conclusion. This explanation often takes the form of a "think-aloud," a stream-of-consciousness. In the process, terminology is consistently used that creates a shared language, later incorporated within further student/teacher dialogue. Similar to an apprenticeship, the role of the educator then shifts from teacher to coach as students take over the skill. The educator 'shadows' the students, gradually removing the scaffolding as students become more and more independent.

The more interactive scaffolding instruction is, the more clues students get from each other and the more they can see their own power to craft decisions and conclusions at work. The instruction begins at a non-threatening level, and as interaction becomes the norm, the 'see-through learner' introduces subtleties and complexities. Interaction can initially be invited by hesitating at appropriate points. Self-query and the use of prediction during a 'think-aloud' can eventually bridge to student-query and student prediction. 'Notesheets' can help students transfer their ideas to paper, gradually transferring the guidance of the teacher to the prompts, questions, or topics on the notesheet.

Modeling the development of a notesheet; an example. The checklist for keywords is a sample of visual prompts that could evolve via scaffolding. (See the STUDENT INITIATIVE chapter.) As an educator walks and talks his way through keyword modification options, he can record his what-ifs and idea scenarios on a chart/overhead/projected computer screen to begin a bridge from abstract thinking to a concrete visual that will become a research aid. The rationale, the how-to, the relationship between options, is acted out and verbalized prior to a written prompt.

Modeling Internal Conferencing

Researching is a tool for thought: students who can self-dialogue during the research process are using an active form of reflection. This can empower their inquiries due to personalization and self-involvement. Educators can model this by role-playing how they were "taken" by some research idea and how they batted it around in their mind before taking the next step. One educator uses the angel and the devil technique in her own research as well as in her 'think-aloud' patter, having one on each shoulder advising her on the pros and cons of pursuing an idea. Replicating this for students works well, for it is already in the form of a conversation.

Educators can set the stage for students to self-confer during student conferences. They begin with a "howÍs it going" kind of entry, and steer clear of handling or referring to the paperwork the student has brought. They keep the initial conversation on the process rather than on the draft, listening and waiting for further rumination from the student rather than inserting constant prompts. See the "Conferencing with Yourself" tool in the CONFERENCING chapter.

The values of modeling are twofold. It can deal with higher-level thinking skills by laying bare the inner anatomy of a concept. It can peel away confusing lingo, bring to the surface submerged essentials, and expand and explain directions, assumptions, gaps. Secondly, both modeling and models, when accompanied by a clear, descriptive, written assessment tool, minimize the guesswork of linking student performance to a grade or to a developmental level.

A cautionary note: modeling can be over-used. It is best saved for abstract concepts within decision-making, research strategies, and higher-level thinking skills.

There are librarians who have difficulty in 'thinking aloud' themselves, or who feel self-conscious. They may have developed such sophisticated skills themselves so that the 'flow' of decisions has become one unbroken process and is hard to make distinct. Preparing initial detailed lesson plans can help to separate those decisions into steps, to keep the vocabulary consistent, or to provide a script. Talking to themselves as they deal in their own lives with the research concepts they are teaching also helps to break down the sequence and provide descriptive language.

First Steps in Thinking Out Loud

"What I do when I enter a strange library." Plan ahead by remembering the sequence from your own experiences, detailing significant steps, and arranging them into a meaningful scenario complete with autobiographical patter. List vocabulary that will be transferred to developing student skills. Enact before classes on their first trip to your library. Use vocabulary in ways that are self-explanatory or paraphrase as you walk your talk.

"What I did when I used the Alta Vista engine to search for ..........."
(See clues in FOCUS ON INTERNET RESEARCH chapter.)

"The clues in my pre-search of the topic .......... that led to my decision to focus in on .............."
(Follow this walk-talk by giving students copies of your double-entry journal for your presearch, and have them highlight the clues, noting dead-ends, changes in direction, ideas you eventually discarded in favor of the final focus, and other valuable details. (See chapter DOUBLE ENTRY JOURNALS AND LEARNING LOGS)

First Step for Peer Modeling

Privately select two students and arrange for them to try a new research strategy. While their experience is still fresh in their minds, have them ïtell the storyÍ of what happened to the class.

August 1997
Maine Educational Media Association

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