Can every activity you do be used as an assessment? If not, stop doing them. Every activity you provide for learning should be meaningful to you and the student; that is, the student should understand why they are doing it, and you should be able to ensure they did the work and the level to which they understood the concept. If these conditions are not met, the activity will waste your class time, and students will not be motivated to accomplish it.

Students are motivated when they understand why they need to do something, how it fits into the context of their world, exactly what you expect, and they want to give their input too.
Here is a real world activity I used in my classroom that helped students understand what boarding school life is like.
1) We were going to be reading A Separate Peace, John Knowles, and I wanted the students to understand the setting of the novel. I got online and contacted Phillips-Exeter (the school the story is based on, and where one of the film versions of the movie was shot), and I requested application materials.

2) On the day of the lesson, I simply stated to students that we were going to be learning about the importance of setting, and how our own experiences play a role in books we read. I had students brainstorm with a partner and write down their response to this hypothetical situation: "You come home from school and your parents ask you to have a seat in the living room with them. They calmly explain to you that they have enrolled you in a boarding school in New Hampshire, and that in one week, you will be flying out there to begin classes."

3) After a couple of minutes, I asked the groups to choose one of the partners to go and write a couple of their responses on the RIGHT side of the board.

4) Then, I put in the Phillips-Exeter admissions DVD and had students watch.

5) Now students worked with their partner to answer this hypothetical situation. "Your parents have just showed you this DVD, and asked your opinion about going to this school. What is your response?"

6) After a few minutes, I asked for the partner that did not go up before to go and write a few responses on the LEFT side of the board.

7) From here, I can take the lesson in many directions. I can have students look in the book and compare what the author describes to what they saw, I can have them write an essay on the setting, I can have them create an information organizer comparing public vs. Boarding school, or I can ask them for an opinion paragraph with well thought out supports for their opinion.

The point here is that I took something that seemingly had no value to students, the setting of a novel written 50 years ago, and made it matter to them, because I brought their world in (today's Phillip-Exeter on DVD), I asked their opinions (the board writing activities), I allowed them to work in real world situations (collaborating with co-workers), and I gave them a choice at the end of which assignment they would like to complete (we work out ahead of time rubrics for different types of assignments, so they know exactly what I expect, and they had a part in making those expectations as well.)

Make the lesson relevant, engaging, fast paced, and you will see students achieve and be motivated.

Are there corrective strategies you use before the second test? If so, why not use those strategies before the first test, so the second test is not necessary? If we teach effectively once, we don’t have to do it over and over (and it actually saves us time!).

Let's break this down logically. If I have corrective lessons available, but I only use them after students have shown learning gaps in a particular area, it means that I am actually planning for my students to fail. A corrective strategy, if you end up needing to use them at all, they should be a repetition, a "B" form of something the student has already been expected to perform. Introducing new activities or concepts after evaluation means that you did not expect your first round of teaching to reach everyone.

Pull out some of the strategies you have set aside for "low-achieving" and "special education" students, and use them for everyone. What is necessary for some students is good for all students.

This also allows us as teachers to stop planning for the middle 60-80% of our students, and allows us to plan for the top 10%. If we are going to allow retests, and we are going to give enough repetitions, and we are going to use varied strategies, all students have the potential to reach a "B" level or higher. We can now begin to plan for success, and our goal for each class we teach should be 100% passing rate at a "B" level or above.

You may think this is an unrealistic goal. However, what if airlines planned for 1% of crashes, or restaurants planned for 1% of their dishes to have food poisoning? What if 1% of tires were faulty? We cannot afford to plan for even 1% failure. We must continually ask ourselves, "What if this were my child?" and "Have I done everything I can?"

Are your students motivated by success or by a fear of failure? As an educator, you must ensure that six motivational keys are met in order for students to feel motivated to achieve success. Each thing you say and activity you provide must have embedded in it: safety, success, a valued purpose, freedom and independence, love and belonging, and enjoyment.

Of course different parts of your day, different students, and different activities won’t require the same levels of each key at all times, yet these foundational principles upon which you build your classroom must be at the core, or students will revert to their natural need to fear failure.

Here is a more specific explanation of each key with a practical suggestion to making it work:

1) Safety: Students must feel emotionally, physically, and mentally safe in the classroom. That means sarcasm might not be used in your classroom, or that you allow students to choose whether they will participate in an activity (they must still show understanding in an alternative form--keep them accountable!), or that you make sure every student has access to the correct answers before asking them to perform for the class.

2) Success: Students must be able to see visible progress towards their goals. This means that you might provide a chart that they keep in a folder that they can chart progress on a particular skill--they will be able to graph how they do over the course of a few weeks to see gradual improvement. Making students feel successful might also mean letting them retest (See the blog entry on retesting for more on this) until they reach an A or B level. Students in my class love progress reports and report cards because they nearly all have A's or B's. Finally, feeling success might also come in a less tangible form, like encouraging words from you.

3) Valued Purpose: Many students need to know why they are doing an activity in order to buy in to the activity. When I teach Romeo and Juliet, and students ask me "Why do we have to do this?"
I tell them, "You don't."
They answer, "Really?"
And then I explain, "You have the choice to not do anything I assign. You can even choose not to come to class. I can't really control that. Romeo and Juliet has no influence on your future success. However, we will be using Romeo and Juliet to study people, opinions, human nature, and issues and themes that relate to everyone, and those types of skills are very important to your future success."
As students understand why I assign something, and I share what my purpose is, and then I back up what I say by not giving them pop quizzes and making them memorize the minutiae of the story, they enjoy the story, the purpose, and the issues far more, and I get to spend more time on what matters--the state standards.

4) Freedom and Independence: Students have a need to feel like they have their own stamp on the classroom, their space, and their assignments. I work with students to create expectations for them and for me, and we agree that if I do list A, they will do list B, and whenever there is an issue with an individual, the first thing I do is refer to list A (did I do something incorrectly?). I apologize to students for things that I did not do that I should have, or did that I should not have.
Also, I work on rubrics with students so that we all have a say in how I will grade their work--and they usually have higher standards than I would. I also let students choose their seats (no seating charts) and I allow healthy snacks and water/diet soda/juice into the classroom. I find that if I have adult expectations for their behavior, they begin to act more adult-like.

5) Love and Belonging: Some students need to feel appreciated, cared for, or just noticed in order to perform. I look for those students who are painfully shy and I watch for special gifts or talents they have, then I compliment them privately, so I don't make a show of them in front of other people. Other students may need a high five or a fist bump to show them you share their excitement, and even high school students like getting a success stamp on their well done assignment.
Overall, students just need to hear encouragement and support from you daily. As a teacher, I know my mind is drawn first to mistakes, and my mind says to get on them for what they need to improve. Instead, I have to discipline my mind to find the correct, and compliment it, without strings attached.

6) Enjoyment: Students must enjoy the activity they are doing in order to buy in and do it well. Instead of handing our worksheets, hang up informational posters, and make students move around the room to find the information. Allow students to interact, to move, and to perform. The more the students do to teach themselves and each other then content, and the more the teacher becomes a facilitator instead of a lecturer, the faster and more permanent the learning is.

Remember, in teaching, as in life, the size of the question determines the size of our answer. Instead of asking "How I am I supposed to do all this?" ask "Why would I do all of this?"

My answer was "It's the right thing to do. It's what I would do for my own child."

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