More student perspectives on Critiques.

listen to ‘Student perspective on critique’ on Audioboo


I love this students sense of community, that taking part so that everyone can learn, it was worth taking a risk for. She is very honest and says that it was "strange" to volunteer, but it was evident that she was enjoying it even during the scrutiny. I'm glad she articulates how she felt during it changed. It is obvious she felt safe during the critique and she clearly values the feedback norms established at the beginning of the lesson.

1. Step up, step back.
2. Hard on content, soft on people.
3. Feedback must be kind, specific and helpful

It is pleasing to note that not only has she got a clear idea of what she needs to do next but feels she is more bale to critique others. I love how students she critique and critiquing as instantly transferable.

i was curious about this transfer so I asked a student who was part of this whole class critique.

listen to ‘an audience member talks about critique’ on Audioboo

It's obvious straight away that the sense of community has extended to the audience, who were appreciative not only of the person volunteering work for critique, but of the comments of other students. However, it is clear that critiques go beyond giving feedback to one person. It is clearly away of establishing what is high quality and then a chance  for you to reflect upon your own work. These students may only be 12 years old, but they can distill a process. The teacher action of extracting the key ideas or success criteria, as the work was critiqued seems to be the key in allowing him to do so.

Students talking about the benefits of Critiques and Drafting

As part of creating a learning an agenda in my classroom  I like to keep the pedagogical purposes of the strategies used clear and open. So it is easy to imagine how pleased I was when a student turned up today with two drafts of their work! These year 7 students are redrafting a Scientific write up. They have experienced one full critique before this one. It's nice to see how accepting of challenge and hard work they are. The quality of their work matters to them and they feel as though they are learning by doing this.

The most interesting thing for me in this how they see the benefit of the Feedback Norms as lead to to something helpful, and not just being told to do it again. Again this is indicative of the need for a classroom culture that allows and nutures high quality student work. Another small step towards this I think......

A video example of a critique

This is not a perfect example of a critique session, but many of the features of one are present.

Critique of E- Safety Games


Firstly the use of the Feedback norms, about being kind, specific and helpful are present. The session starts  with a look at strengths of each piece of work. Although difficult, every example has a positive. I intentionally went through every piece of work for this reason, giving value to their work so far.

The whole class ethos of this is emphasised with the question " what will you steal? what idea will you to take to use in your own work?" This is a key point to critiques, its not about getting feedback to one student but away of all students understanding what high quality is like. If I wanted to give one student feedback I'd do that one to one myself. What I want here was to emphasise that we are all in this together.

The specific nature of the questioning, always seeking clarification and specificity, whilst reserving judgement. This allows a frank discussion of what is needs to be done.

Possibly the weakest area of this critique is the focus on the content, although the issues around the topic do surface, as they always do. Critiques are great way to teach content.

Critiquing culture takes off!

I sat down recently to mark some Year 8 practical write ups, which had been critiqued by students in pairs, during a teacher led session. So I expected to see some peer feedback and a second draft.  At first it didn't register that this student had done something different. I did notice that she had done three drafts but the significance didn't register. I was just impressed, by the work ethic and by how the drafting culture had quickly been accepted as the norm by the majority of this class. I did notice that one draft had been highlighted with different colours and thought "Great they have been thorough". But something didn't sit right. I looked again at the student work and saw draft one, followed by a critique followed by draft two which had also been critiqued and finally draft three. It then dawned. They have done an extra critique, but when did they do this? I then realised that the second draft had been critiqued independently of me! These students had not previously critiqued work, but have instantly seen the value and invested in it. The culture of critique and draft had taken off! I love the quote from this student after draft one. 

I am well aware that this is only two students who have completely taken to this, but I now have exemplar critiquing and drafted work to inspire and cajole others. Let the archiving commence. I must confess that I was slightly taken a back by the quality of the critiquing by the students on the second draft. It was so much better than what they had done when I had led the session. It was kind, helpful and specific, and contain real learning conversations and lots of subject content references.  I am becoming increasingly convinced that critiques are the best opportunity for teaching that we have, with ready made context and personal investment. What bothered me was how much better they were without me! In reality they had used the same success criteria we had established and had applied the feedback norms that were shared. But, the important thing is that they have made these there own, they can do it at anytime and with any topic or task and with great skill.  I have annotated the slides below showing the student work, but it really isn't necessary when you look at the work and comments. Drafting example

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Obviously intrigued by the motivation to go to such lengths, I asked the two students involved. They had critiqued each others work and both had made huge improvements. I will photograph the other piece of work and add it to this blog post. The thing that strikes me about this AudioBoo is how matter of fact, they are about critiquing, drafting and hard work! They see it as part of learning, they see it as worthwhile, they see it as normal. Thank you Josie and Emily.

Drafting work and Portfolio books- An Update post.

As a prelude to this post it will be worth reading Nick Dennis succinct blog post An Ethic of Excellence- in opposition to “quickfixes”, which coincidentally is kind of the point here. This post is a reflection to my learning goals set at the start of this academic year.#

I must confess to sense growing well being when considering the impact of Portfolio books. The majority of students now understand their purpose which is a vast improvement from our first attempts at using them. This has presented two major obstacles to overcome. 

Firstly, the hard wired nature of completing “schooling” tasks. That is to say that once complete students believe they are finished. This is unsurprising as most of what they do at school is precisely this. Task done, teacher ticks and on we move – the relentless factory model of education at its most pernicious. Thankfully this cycle is easy to break, although whether it remains broken is a different question.

Secondly, and this is entirely based on the student experience of the above, is that students genuinely do not understand what their best is, since they have rarely had an opportunity to demonstrate it. Surely that’s a teachers job, but the delivery model again occludes.

So, what I have learned so far is the importance of culture. All of my year 7 and 8’s have so far written up one practical piece of work, identified and stressed as “work to be proud” of. Obviously, some students grasp this straight away others remain ignorant, bu,t the culture remains expectant of excellence through hard work and the drafting of work. Each write up has began in lesson time ensuring a shared structure and success criteria for these piece of work and then have been completed as a home learning task. This has then been followed up through a whole class critique of one or two students work to refine and exemplify what excellence could look like. The students have then again been given (a little) class time and a home learning task to improve their work. Again care has been taken to mention that their portfolio work, with that multiple drafts of improving work, is another way to demonstrate successful learning and another way to value their hard work.

A problem encountered.

 If you know a redraft is coming how do you put all your effort in when you know you’re going to do it again. I have no answer to this yet, but I hope the portfolio book will help at least place some expectation upon these tasks. This renders task selection ( and design) essential. I am sure some of my students have encountered this sentiment and have expressed it verbally as well as in sub-par work. They have said things like “will we have to re-do this?” which I have taken care and time to challenge in a positive way. My response has always been to distinguish between redoing and drafting. Redoing implies copying out neater like cutting the lawn, while drafting infers improving and learning. It is a fine distinction, particularly for students, but what is at the heart is the establishment of a critiquing and drafting culture.

So far all students have improved their work in at least two features of their work. Some have made huge leaps in their work. It may be easy to detract from these improvements and claim its due to teacher influence or help from peers and therefore not reproducible by students in their everyday work. But, this is not a quick fix, teaching for its better part is not a set of tricks, tools or gimmicks. It’s about trustful relationships where challenge and expectation can over time develop not only good scientists (in this case) but also a vibrant work ethic and aspiration. At the very least these students now have a model of, if not excellent work, at least good (or for some improving ) work in their books. Its ownership and it’s a starting point.

The recurring power o critiques.

Through all my experience of running critiques with students one thing has continued to surprise me, and that is how much these discussion remain about learning science ( content knowledge). This in itself is a massive selling point for the selection certain tasks at regular intervals throughout the year to critique and redraft. It allows you to revisit and develop understanding of the content that your subject values. It forces students to question what they understand and what they don’t and give opportunity for them to communicate this in several ways. It’s teaching.

The next steps will be more evident after the next student task. Year 7 have began writing up a long term experiment on plant growth, so different content knowledge but the scientific thinking utilised in design, carrying out and analysing experiments remains constant. After the initial discussion of the success criteria, I can already see the improvement, and I’m suitably expectant of work approaching their best. Year 8, is a little more problematic as their next task is an extended writing one, so the similarities are less specific and therefore the transfer I am hoping for is more cultural. We will see if this happens. 

Why do the Students at High Tech High produce such high quality work?

The student work at High Tech High is inspiring. They do not do this by accident or simply because they are talented. A belief in hard work, real outcomes with real responsibility and well designed projects allow them to succeed.

The Process of a Project at High Tech High- a display of student work.

Love the clarity.


Love the steps.


Love the how one task informs the next.


Love the role critique plays.


Love the sharing of the process.


Love to see drafted work.


Amazed by the quality of the final work.


Love how it's cross curricular.


Love the public debrief.


Love the focus on changes made.


Love the idea of identifying difficulties.

Love the the links between hard work and success.

Befuddled by my low quality photography.

Project process hth

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Critiques- feedback and learning at High tech High.

Critiques an essential element to the success the students experience at High Tech High. Critiques are basically a formalised peer and teacher assessment session, but through their regularity, intensity and genuine sense of a learning community these turn into something all together more powerful. A real learning forum, as David Perkins would put it "an opportunity to learn from the team".

The foundation of these critiques are three simple norms, which are now proudly on display and referred to in my classroom.  I like the term norm as it makes it very easy for me to say that these things are normal in successful classroom). These are:

1. Hard on content, soft on people- I always exemplify for my students, for example "When Sean explained about how the light refracts in the eye he did not use any scientific words. Would become the explanation of the how the eye refracts light did not use any scientific language". So far, my students have liked this, giving them confidence to give critical advice to classmates and friends alike. Self correcting has been evident with students rephrasing sentences to give feedback. I feel it has really helped them talk about the content more rather than the presentation.

2. Step up, Step back - Focus on the age old problem that some students will not offer suggestions and others will dominate. Dylan William's advice on no hands up rule applies double here! I like the terminology here makes it a much more student friendly than a rule. This was expertly done at HTH with students being invited to give their advice ,opinions and feedback.

3. Feedback should be kind, specific and helpful- requires no further explanation, although I was amused that the first time I held a critique in this style not one bit of positive feedback was given. I let my students go and did not correct this, as they were clearly trying to be helpful and were battling well trying to be specific. I told them at the end and they thought it was hilarious, in an embarrassed sort of way. The second time around they made sure that they had a bit of praise too. I only give this anecdote as a way of emphasising the need to give feedback on the process of critiquing as well as the content on show.

At High Tech High the Projects run for a long period of time, which naturally allows for the undertaking of what can be quite lengthy feedback sessions. The expert teachers I observed doing critiques were aware that it is hard work for students and can be monotonous, so they managed this situation with aplomb with great sensitivity to how students were responding and giving appropriate breaks and if necessary rescheduling of some group presentations to enable students to get the best feedback possible. It really mattered to everyone.

The teachers also had planned for the feedback that they wanted to be discussed. This tended to be around the content of what was being learned during the project, as well as the quality of the understanding, making this a real chance to explore misconceptions. The basic format was that each group of student in turn would present where their project was at the time, and then the class would discuss the work being guided by the questions the teacher had established. These were on display and guided the conversation as opposed to directing it, so there was plenty of scope for more explorative discussion. Every group also asked for specific advice about their own project which ranged from looking for tips and tricks on how to improve the presentation, yes/ no feedback on whether something was clear and too much more complex request about the content and context. These led to sophisticated dialogue between students, but, the art of the teacher was to interject and clarify, prompt and extend at opportune moments. The teachers role in subject content ( pedagogical content knowledge mostly) was vital, so that they did not revert to the "elementisis"(elements first) approach to teaching and learning. Instead it allows teachers to teach within the context of what the students need to know within the bounds of their projects. See David Perkins wonderful book "Making Learning Whole" for more about elementisis.

The ownership of this feedback by the students, facilitated (and sometimes) given by the teacher was one of the reasons that the quality of the student projects was so high. Due to the creative nature of (all?) the projects at HTH, I am reminded of Geoff Petty's Six phase model of the creative process:-Inspiration, Clarification, Distillation, Incubation, Perspiration and Evaluation. With these it is easy to see that you could indeed have critiques around most of these as they would match the different stages of any project. The least obvious is possibly Incubation, where you are "to leave your ideas alone", but what better way to do this than spend some time reflecting on the learning of others, which could lead to a new insight for your own learning. The notion of incubation challenges the need for "pace" within a lesson, our brains need time process and organise information. Project Based Learning does this.

Back at school, without the luxury of large projects, I have taken the chance during "create a presentation" tasks to utilise Critiques. I would normally rely on my circulation to provide feedback during these sessions, thereby taking the responsibility away from my students. I have therefore built in a mini presentation into these tasks, timed just before the half way point. These are timed, short (around 2 minutes) and focused not on the content but where they are in the development of the presentations. They also allow for discussions on improvement (or learning as you will) in subsequent presentations. I have also requested that each group has questions that they would like to ask, although this is something that they have found difficult so far. 

I have supported these by ensuring I have clear learning outcomes, so that they can assess coverage, and then questions about the content so that they can begin to assess understanding. Although this lengthens these activity substantially, I have so far been impressed by the depth of the knowledge that this time(incubation?) has allowed my students to acquire.

A great thing that High Tech High did that I am yet to emulate is having students work on similar yet distinct projects ( although one is in the pipeline!) This allows them to approach the content from different perspective and contexts. So during the Critique the students will "hit" the same information four or five times in different contexts. This would be music to Graham Nuthalls ears. Then factor in again that over a prolonged period of time you would have several critiques it is no wonder that the students at HTH learn so deeply.

Undoubtedly the high stakes nature of the projects at HTH is a huge motivational factor in offering and being willing to receive critical feedback with their peers. Although I was surprised that this did not dominate these discussions, as the content and learning of the content was central to the conversations I bore witness too. This excellent article on the Unboxed journal written by staff and students at HTH explains in more detail.