Shirley Clarke S Closing the Gaps Prompts

Giving Feedback to Promote Further Learning Shirley Clarke’s Closing the Gaps Prompts

 Reminder most suitable for the more able students  Scaffold most suitable for students who need more How could you makestructured the description support of the character more striking? Question: Why don’t you try using a simile to describe how he eats? Directive: Use a simile to compare him with something Unfinished Sentence: He chewed his food like a ….  Example suitable for all students, but most suitable for the less able

Why don’t you use a simile to describe your character? Try ‘He ate like a pig’ or ‘He gulped food down like a greedy pelican’.

(p. 69) “Unlocking Formative Assessment” By Clarke, Timperley and Hattie (2003)

Shirley Clarke’s Closing the Gaps Prompts  Reminder most suitable for the more able students

How could you make the description of the character more striking?

Guiding principle: The teacher tells the student to do the obvious bit that they have forgotten to do, the student most probably already knows how to do this but has just missed it out, just forgotten to do it! So the teacher’s job is to remind them. It is the least help for all students as opposed to just more able.

What the teacher does: ‘Remember to….’ ‘Don’t forget…’ ‘Try to keep it in your mind to…’ ‘Think back to…now put that in your work’ ‘Don’t leave out…’ ‘You have neglected to…’ ‘Remember that success criteria……’ Shirley Clarke’s Closing the Gaps Prompts

 Scaffold most suitable for students who need more structured support Question: Why don’t you try using a simile to describe how he eats? Directive: Use a simile to compare him with something Unfinished Sentence: He chewed his food like a ….

Questions: Guiding principle: DO NOT OVERLOAD the student with too many questions!! What the teacher does: ‘Who, what where, when, why and how’ questions To be really clever try to use Blooms taxonomy of questions Try to use ‘synthesise’ and ‘evaluate’ questions are they are the highest order questions!! Directive: Guiding principle: Be very specific and tell the writer exactly what they have to do What the teacher does: ‘Tell me more about…’ ‘Do this…’ ‘Explain…’ ‘Add a little bit more about….’ Unfinished Sentence: Guiding principle: The teacher chooses a sentence beginning a little better than the student could write by themselves (as you are modelling quality and improvement) What the teacher does: The teacher writes the first few words of that sentence down and the student writes the rest The teacher varies the sentence beginnings here too…

Shirley Clarke’s Closing the Gaps Prompts  Example suitable for all students, but most suitable for the less able

Why don’t you use a simile to describe your character? Try ‘He ate like a pig’ or ‘He gulped food down like a greedy pelican’.

Guiding principle:

The teacher works out two very good sentences that could improve the student’s story. These sentences should be a little better than the student could write by themselves (Vygostky) as you are modelling quality and improvement!!!

DO NOT get the student to come up with the two sentences as if the student knew two good sentences they would have already written them in i.e you are closing the gap between actual performance and desired performance

What the teacher does:

Writes two sentences into the student’s book and gets the student to pick the sentence they like the most and then the student adds it into the story. Or they can use the examples as a guide to come up with their own sentence.

For younger students I suggest you say the two sentences and get the student to choose the 1st or 2nd one, then only write that sentence in and the student can copy it underneath