Adam Dyche, Grades 9–12 Social Studies Department Head

unfolded before us. By the end of the school year, though, I was tearfully saying goodbye to each class because of the rich depth of experience we’d all had learning how to embrace the feedback natural to the learning process. I had more joy as a teacher getting to really talk to each of those students and getting to know their fears, confidences, quirks, and passions as we traipsed through each learning experience.

For me, the hardest test was seeing how this assessment format prepared my students for the rigorous AP English literature exam. As a group, my students performed well on this exam historically, exceeding the global averages for performance. However, in the past few years, it puzzled me to see the levels of that success slowly diminishing, especially as I realized my frustrations with students’ lack of willingness to focus on owning their learning and understanding information. Might the two be related in any way? So, I really tested those very questions as I tried a new approach to classes with students. I felt my students were doing better as we gave feedback more precedence, but how would they do when they faced a globally normed assessment that I hadn’t designed?

Happily, this is one of those stories that ends well, and not only did my students close the performance gap that had been slowly growing in the previous years, but they actually more than doubled the year’s global average of students who achieved the highest score possible on the exam, and the percentage of my students receiving that high score increased by 10 percent from the previous year. That kind of increase and growth in performance is very rare with high-achieving and driven students taking the Advanced Placement exam! I believe the success has largely to do with the shift in instructional practice to focus on feedback and conversations with students. The change in approach increased student accountability. The students needed to really understand the information they had to learn. As a result, they actually processed their learning more fully. That ultimately translated into not just a better classroom learning environment, but also dramatically improved standardized test results, a win-win no matter how one looks at it!

Adam Dyche, Grades 9–12 Social Studies Department Head

Many students perceive school as a performance because, too often, performing is our instructional design’s focus. We’re constantly evaluating student work, with a grade or points, for correctness, accuracy, punctuality, neatness, and completeness. To help move away from this construct, I had to change my entire vocabulary regarding learning in the classroom. If I was going to eliminate the “How many points is this worth?” question, I would have to create an environment where this type of thinking—and speaking—does not exist.

Moving from a performance mindset to a learning mindset required a shift in communication. It meant removing performance-based language from my

instruction. I stopped attaching point values to learning tasks. If an assignment was truly for feedback, I didn’t want points—a term often associated with judgment—to drive the student. I wanted students to focus on what the tasks were teaching them, helping them recognize and identify what success should look like. As long as learning had ties to performance, I did not think it would be possible for my students to perceive the difference.

So, I worked to identify and eliminate any customary performance-based expressions from learning. Assignments became tasks. Due dates became timelines. Homework became out-of-class work. Formative assessments were renamed check-ins. I even stopped calling them my students, instead calling them learners. Creatively rebranding my language was hard, but I worked even harder to make these terms the norm. Whether having conversations with colleagues, sending emails to parents, or talking with my class as a whole, I would use these terms as if they’d always been a part of schooling. If a learner asked “How many points is this worth?” my reply was “What is the target of the task?” When a parent would reach out about missing assignments, I shared the tasks that learners were working on. Whenever given the chance to use learning language, I use it.

Through this language shift, my goal is to encourage my learners to reach beyond their comfort zones, where they are free from the pressure to constantly perform and, instead, able to explore and extend their thinking without judgment. For the first time, perhaps in a while, my learners are reacting to the value of revisiting and revising their work to grow, seeking out support and challenges, and engaging me about growth—a true learning environment.

I thought this transformation alone would be satisfying enough until another, equally beneficial outcome emerged from adopting learning language—performance had greater importance. In my class (like all others), performance matters. Demonstrating mastery matters—just as it does on the football field on Friday night and in the auditorium on Saturday. By deliberately designing instruction that uses language (and practices) specific to learning and performance, that clarity now exists. My learners know that tasks—simply completing the work—won’t offset low scores, and they acknowledge the test’s gravity. They see and understand the direct link between skill, content comprehension, and their performance. In other words, they cannot successfully perform unless they gain from their practice.

This has prompted me to begin every year by sharing, discussing, and dissecting what learning and performance look like in my class, how I will talk about them, what my expectations are, and why we undertake this approach. Every year my message improves, while the separation, yet interconnectedness, between learning and performance becomes more rewarding for my learners.