This photograph was taken inside one of the classrooms at HTH. These group norms are followed around all of the school campuses. It is consistent and the same no matter what year level the students are in.

culture of critique

Culture of Critique was a light bulb moment for me. The first time Rob and Laura from HTH came to MOC I was one of the lucky ones to have a workshop with them. They showed us this video from Ron Berger and they had me. How could they not? I was one of those teachers guilty of rewarding the students for doing the work and not always pushing them to their full potential. It changed that day and now I am building a culture of critique in my classroom. I and the students now have higher expectations of all in the class and IT WORKS!!

warm and cool comments

HOW I RUN MY critique session

Using the model from HTH I now use pause and reflect critiques. This means half way through a project we (students and I) will pause and reflect on the work that is being produced. This is a chance for students to reflect on what they are doing, compare themselves and their progress against other students in a constructive and healthy manner and if on track validate what they are doing. It is compulsory for all students to present their work so they have to meet these mini due dates along the way. Below is one of the first critique sessions I ran after the one day workshop. I adapted it slightly to HTH by using music to act as a timer and to a more relaxed environment.

MY CRITIQUE PROCESS

8 MINUTES WARMS COMMENTS (UNLIMITED STICKY NOTES)
2 MINUTES READ COMMENT
8 MINUTES COOL COMMENTS (UNLIMITED STICKY NOTES)
2 MINUTES READ COMMENTS
CRITIQUE THE CRITIQUE
ALL COMMENTS MUST BE KIND, HELPFUL AND SPECIFIC

warm and cool bats critique session one

These year 8 students are learning drawing skills and how to use guidelines, shapes and proportion to develop cartoon drawings of skeletons and bats. Students were asked to draw three skeletons and/or bats then pause to critique the drawings. This enabled the students to analyse if they were improving, what was working for them and what wasn't and how other students were going on their work and how were they going to improve.

critique session two

You can see in the below images that students haven't followed all of the set guidelines (no names and be specific) and the comments are superficial however you will get that if your students have not critiqued before. Just be consistent with your expectations and patient, they will improve. The best part was they all meet the mini due date because they knew they were going to be critiqued.