Would you go to Doc?

We had one dentist in my hometown - Doc H.  Doc was the only game in town and if you went with a toothache more than likely you would be missing that tooth by supper.  It seemed his remedy was to just pull the offending tooth - I suspect that is all he really knew.  I think Doc did his best, but I never got the feeling that he was consistently trained in cutting edge dentistry.

What kind of doctor do you want?  The one that has been doing the same thing for 20 years, or the one that continually learns and improves?

What kind of teacher do you want?   The one that has been doing the same thing for 20 years, or the one that continually learns and improves?

I caught part of Diane Sawyer's interview with Chris Christie - the New Jersey governor about his battle with the state teacher union - specifically over tenure.  Sawyer made the comment "Isn't tenure not having to prove yourself anymore?"  I immediately thought of Doc; he never had to prove himself - he was a fixture.  I'm sure people got adequate dental care - but it's a stretch to say we got premium services.

It seems to me that all of us should prove ourselves (or improve ourselves) everyday by working to get a little bit better.  I don't buy that at some point anyone in a field has all the knowledge and skill - there is always room for improvement.  Why would Tiger Woods hire a swing coach if this weren't true?  Athletes and coaches constantly preach the "get a little bit better" and "continue to improve" mantra.

Do we preach the same in education?  Is professional development mandatory - that is, are teachers expected to continually improve, and yes, change their teaching practice?  As I've said before - the good teachers continually examine their practice and on occasion completely re-vamp what they do.

So, what kind of doctor do you want?  What kind of teacher do you want?

Doc might have been acceptable in his time - but I doubt if I would go back today.

Toby

Formative Assessment - For Teachers

I think we can all agree about the value of formative assessment.  Learners gaining continuous feedback about their level of proficiency makes a profound difference.  Formative assessment typically applies to students - but why not teachers?

Since teachers have the greatest impact on student achievement wouldn't it make sense to provide formative assessment so teachers can improve as well?  Principals will need to ratchet up their ability to supervise instruction, through both formative and summative assessment.  Most principals try to conduct walk-through observations of teachers, which can provide ongoing conversations leading up to a summative evaluation. 

Some suggestions to using formative assessment of instruction include:

• Develop and use a common language of instruction. You can't discuss instruction without vocabulary.  Name the strategies so they can be replicated.
• Get feedback from the teachers about the formative assessment.  Let them test drive the instrument on themselves so they have a better understanding of what will be collected.
• Provide a variety of assessment methods. Self observation, peer observations, as well as principal walk-through observations should be used.  People will see trends if the information comes from a variety of sources.
• Set goals.  Teachers should use the formative assessment data to set goals for instruction, as well as new strategies to try.
• Get out of the office.  Set weekly goals for classroom visits; the benefits to the principal go far beyond observing the individual teacher.  Students will see the principal from a different perspective and the principal will have a keener understanding of curriculum and instruction.
• Utilize technology to make gathering the formative assessment data more efficient.  Good principals try to have the information collected by the time they leave the classroom.  Needing to go back to the office to write up the formative observation prohibits frequent visits. For example, Google Forms can be used to gather and send the data on a variety of devices.
• Follow-up.  Have teachers respond to reflective questions, discuss what was observed and what can be changed.

Committed teachers generally want to improve their craft and formative feedback only makes sense.  The principal doesn't need to know everything about the content or even all the strategies, but they do need to provide a process for reflection and improvement. 

Special thanks to Mitch at Dorchester and Jen at ESU 6 for their work on developing quality processes.

Toby

Feedback, Feedback, Feedback

I had two opportunities to see the value of feedback to improve instructional practice.

First I had the chance to see a high quality model for instructional supervision.  The foundation of the model is continuous feedback from the building principal and even district administrators. Teachers set goals and constantly receive feedback about their practice, with new teachers receiving extensive support as they learn the craft of teaching. It struck me that this school has built a culture of continuous improvement through conversations about instruction.  Since personnel make up the bulk of the budget in any district, it only makes sense that feedback and support be provided to the most valuable resource - the staff.

The second instance was at a session on digital walk-through training provided by one of our principals - Mitch Kubicek- to a group of 14 principals from schools across the state.   Mitch provided the group not only the technical expertise about how to use a digital tool - Google Forms, but also the rationale for continuous feedback.  Mitch uses the data from 5 minute walk-through visits to provide feedback to teachers and to look at aggregate results for the building.  This not only provides the opportunity to set individual teacher goals, but also to look at professional development needs for the building.  For example, if the building data indicate a majority of the instructional methods involve presenting new information, professional development on how to practice and deepen content knowledge may be in order.  None of this is possible without providing feedback to the teachers about what is happening in the classroom.  Mitch even has the teachers tape 15 minutes of classroom instruction and use the walk-through tool to analyze their own teaching - self observation.  His goal is to walk through 6 classrooms a week - which takes about 30 minutes to complete.  Imagine the impact on teaching and learning that costs just 30 minutes a week?

Neither of these two examples are possible without feedback models.  In order to truly examine the teaching practices we need to uncover them, provide feedback, and insist on continuous improvement.  If each teacher can get a little better everyday, over time the improvements in teaching and learning would be profound.  It all rests on feedback.

Toby

Kid Talk

The following exchange took place between my wife (a math teacher) and my teenage daughter after a math homework session:
Mom: How often do you get to talk through solving your math problems?
Teen: We don't
Mom: You don't get to talk?
Teen: No, but we ask each other anyway
Mom:  How does the teacher know if you have problems or questions?
Teen: You're supposed to go up and ask - if you don't know and don't ask, it's your own fault.

Really?  I hope this isn't the case - but it is at least one student's perceptions.  We need to extinguish the sage on the stage mentality and get students talking.  How can we expect students to learn by sitting and listening with only quiet seat work to follow?  Is that how you learn?  Is that how anyone learns?  Humans are verbal creatures - we learn by talking (and doing).

Our staff has been training engagement techniques over the past several months that promote student talk.  I thought this would be a good time to list a few and consider how these techniques could change the above conversation.  All of these techniques get kids talking and many of them promote physical movement.  See how many you recognize or call by another name:

Inside - Outside Circle: two circles of students facing each other for verbal review.
Clock Partners: students paired for reflection/review based on "appointments".
Choral Response: whole class response technique when answers are short and the same.
I have...Who has...: structured verbal review of important concepts.
Musical Cards: students trade concept cards while music is playing, then pair to discuss.
Line-ups: students line up according to degrees of agreement, then discuss viewpoints.
Run the Tournament: students discuss important concepts and determine winners that advance in the tournament.
Academic Games: Pyramid game, taboo, Who am I?: each game requires students to verbalize answers.

So, why would we want to get kids up and moving and talking when we have them quiet and look like they are paying attention?  Because the brain needs processing time; the brain will drop concepts that are not processed.  Academic talk provides processing and results in greater engagement and retention of both concepts and skills. Ever talk your way through a difficult task or chore?  Talk's not just for memorizing jargon.

So how prevalent are these practices?  Are students expected to still stay in their seats, listen and do quiet seat work?  The teachers who have tried these techniques report positive results from their students and indicate their classes are more enjoyable.  We've learned it doesn't take much to implement; teachers just need to try a few things. 

So maybe the conversation could go like this:
Mom: How often do you get to talk through solving your math problems?
Teen: All the time.
Mom: How?
Teen: We work in partners, we trade up all the time, we talk about how to get answers.
Mom:  So what does your teacher do?
Teen:  Most of the time the teacher just listens and if somebody is wrong they get help right there, or the teacher goes over it with the class.

Change the Discussion

We just attended parent - teacher conferences and had some good discussions with our child's teachers.  I've been one one side of the table or other for going on 30 years and it occurred to me that the conversations at the middle and high school level seem to follow a familiar pattern:

• The accounting section. This is where the debits and credits get tallied and reported from the grade book. It sometimes goes like this:  "his grade is an 84, but he didn't re-take the last quiz, so if he gets at least an 80 on it, his grade should be about a 90."  It's here where we can find out about missing assignments, low or high scores, and sometimes a preview of upcoming things that are going to count a substantial portion of the quarter/semester/final grade.   Often this section of the conference is used to validate the accuracy of the reported grade.
• The student qualities section.  We get to find out about the in class attributes of our child; we find out if they participate in class, or if they turn their work in on time.  Inevitably this section turns into a discussion about what the student can do to improve their grade (see the accounting section). Recommendations might include coming in to re-take tests, pay attention in class, or ask questions if they are confused.
• Final salutations.  Generally this is the "thanks for coming in and let me know if you need anything or have questions." 

This is not an indictment on the process - believe me I followed the sections to the letter when I was in the classroom.  But it seems to me that we need to change the discussion from accounting and student work habits to one about learning.  What has the student learned well?  What are their struggles?

So an interesting thing happened at conferences - the teacher let us know what things our child did well and an area of improvement based on the content.  Now we're getting somewhere - the conversation changes when you find out your child is strong in adding and subtracting fractions, or needs to improve on solving multi-step problems.   It seems that we got a lot more of this kind of discussion at the elementary level - the teacher told us about how many sight words they had mastered, or how well they were adding and subtracting.  Maybe we need more of that in the upper grades.

You can find examples of grading scales that describe the academic expertise necessary at various levels.  If we have a descriptor of "A" through "D" grades - then the conversation can include the kinds of academic understandings a student possesses and those that need to be gained. 

Whether schools go to scales or not, we put a lot of time and effort into parent -teacher conferences - maybe we should try to change the discussion.  After all nobody should know the academic abilities of our children better than the teacher.

Toby

Now that's how to welcome a new student!

Check out the following video; a "Lip Dub" by the students of Magnolia High School in Texas.  That's how to welcome a new student. 

Teaching is Hard

Teaching is a complicated business.  I thought the December - January issue of Educational Leadership did a nice job of presenting some good points about effective teaching.  Some themes I noticed  (or looked for) throughout the issue are:

• Teaching is hard - it's a complicated human activity
• Humility - great teachers understand they don't have all the answers and there is not a magic bullet
• Reflection is key - the effective teachers are reflective about their craft and adapt their strategies
• Great teachers are learners - they always look to improve their instruction
• Purpose - the best teachers have a passion, and their excitement transfers to the students

When you put some of these together it seems evident that we need to recognize the complexity of teaching and foster growth among teachers in every stage of their career.  I think a pretty commonsense approach to helping teachers improve would be:

• Define a model or language of instruction- Marzano and Danielson provide a couple good ones that are more than the quick checklists
• Have teachers set some goals - let them decide what they want to improve upon.  Marzano suggests that about three goals a year per teacher.
• Promote professional development - Charlotte Danielson writes that this is "not because teaching is of poor quality and must be 'fixed' but rather because teaching is so hard that we can always improve it."

This notion of continuous improvement is what we expect from our schools, so it seems natural that we provide a way for each teacher to reflect upon and improve their practice.  The notion of incremental gains as opposed to a massive "fix" is more appealing as it provides a differentiated approach.  How much more will our students learn if all of our teachers get a little better at a few things each year?

Toby

The December - January issue of Educational Leadership can be viewed at 

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/dec10/vol68/num04/toc.aspx