Is there a problem here?

Is there a problem here?

from Doug Fisher's Michigan Reading Association Presentation (via delta_dc)

A student in my W14 teacher-assisting seminar raised this question:

If the [desirable] Japanese lesson style* is all about posing meaningful problems and allowing students to explore them, and if the proper role of the teacher is to lend perspective and support in those investigations, then why are we taught to use gradual release of responsibility?
  * we might substitute problem-based learning, or 3 act lessons, or active inquiry, or...

Then today (4/9/14) I read this on Twitter from @ZPMath.

I'm not grading this

I asked my students to turn in a draft of the Cheesecake Task last week. But when I sat down this weekend to prepare to write feedback on their tasks, I hit a snag. Simply put, the work was not good, but their self-evaluations were off the charts high. How could this be?

 Before I started inking comments, I decided to sort the stack into two piles:

Pile one: Almost got it, needs minimal feedback. 
Pile two: Needs a lot of work (and lots of feedback).

Pile one had 5 papers in it. Pile two had 19.

Ugh.