Supporting Students When They Fall

Posted on April 30, 2012 by admin

By:Robyn R. Jackson

One Thanksgiving my father’s entire family gathered at my great uncle’s house for dinner — all seventy of us.  We had a ball from the oldest (91) to the youngest (4 months).

After dinner, I was standing near the pool table talking to one of my uncles when one of my littlest cousins, aged 2, toddled by.  We paused to comment on how cute he looked, stomach poked out, hands askew for balance, face smiling with the sheer joy of walking by himself.  Then suddenly, he fell.

You could see the surprise on his face as he landed solidly on his bottom with a thud.  He looked around bewildered as to how he had landed on the floor and then up at us, the nearest adults.

Instinctively, I lurched forward to pick him up and felt my uncle’s hand pull my arm back to stop me.  My little cousin sat on the ground and looked up at us, his expression caught somewhere between surprise and a good cry.  He watched our faces closely for signs as to how he should react.

“You’re okay,” my uncle said brightly as he smiled down at my cousin.  “Come on,” he coaxed.  “Get on up.  You’re okay.”

My little cousin looked at my uncle for a moment and then turned and searched my face.  Quickly, I smiled and nodded.  “You’re okay,” I repeated.

He watched our faces for a few more seconds, then leaned forward and pushed himself to his feet.  He wobbled for a few seconds and then put his hands out in front of him to gain his balanced.  Once he did, he looked up at us and smiled.

“Yay!” we clapped.  “You did it!”  He giggled at our praise and then waddled off to the other side of the room.

“If you pick him up every time he falls,” my uncle commented, “He’ll never learn to get up on his own.”

The same can be said for our students.  All too often, we bubble-wrap learning.  Somehow, “all students can learn” got twisted into “no students should ever experience failure.”  We try to control every part of the learning process and do not allow our students room to fall.  And, even when they do, we rush in the pick them up without allowing them time to learn from their fall.  We treat falling like it’s a bad thing rather than an inevitable part of learning.

Some of us err on the other side and do leave space for kids to fall but do nothing when they do.  We say “If you want to fail, I am not going to stand in your way,” and leave it to them to figure out how to get back up — or not — on their own.

Both approaches hurt students.  It is true we can’t just let students fail, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t allow them to fall once in a while.  Experiencing some difficulty, some failure, falling every once in a while, is how we learn.  The key is that when they do fall, we cannot leave them sitting on the ground and we can’t rush in to pick them back up.  Instead, we offer them an encouraging smile and support students when they fall.  We tell them that they’re okay.  And we teach them how to get back up again.  It’s the only way they’ll ever learn how to get up on their own.

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Case Study: Rigorous Unit Planning

Posted on May 11, 2012 by admin

Recently in one of our rigor workshop series, I worked with two teachers – Elise and Sylvia — who were planning a unit on Harriett Tubman for second-grade students. Prior to the workshop, these teachers had worked to plan a unit. Their unit appeared rigorous on the surface but they wanted to find ways to improve it.

Their unit centered around a book on Harriett Tubman and a visit to the Harriett Tubman museum. Students would read the book and then visit the museum and then write a paragraph where they discuss whether the museum was a good representation of Harriett Tubman’s life. Sound rigorous right? The teachers thought so too until we tried to put their unit into the rigorous unit planning template. All of a sudden, the teachers realized that their unit didn’t take students past application (the second stage of rigorous learning). They called me over for help.

“Ah, I see the problem. The students are evaluating the museum. Evaluation is a thinking skill. That’s application. But every unit needs to get at least to the assimilation level. In what thinking process do you ultimately want your students to engage?” I asked.

They thought for a second.

“We’re not really sure,” Elise said as she picked up her unit planning template.
“Well, why are you having students read the book and go to the museum? What are you hoping to accomplish?” I prompted.
“We want students to understand the difference between a museum and a book,” Sylvia offered.
I nodded. “Why?”

Sylvia looked at Elise.

“I guess because they will learn different things about Harriett Tubman. The book is going to give them more background information and tell her story but the museum will show them actual pictures and artifacts from her life.”
I thought about Sylvia’s response for a moment. “So why do we go to museums?”
“So that we can see actual artifacts and get a more interactive experience.” Elise replied passionately. “The children will get a chance to touch and hear and see all kinds of artifacts. It will make Harriett Tubman come alive.”
“And how is that different from the book?” I asked.
Sylvia chimed in, “The book will get students immersed in her story. They will come to know Harriett Tubman through the book.”
“Why do you want students to evaluate the museum?” I asked.
“Because we want them to see how museums are different so that they can understand what they can get out of the museum versus what they can get out of the book. We thought that by having them evaluate the museum, they would use what they have learned in the book and apply it to their experience in the museum.” Sylvia explained.
I thought about their explanation for a moment. “So what you are really after is for the students to not only understand Harriett Tubman but to also understand the difference between the experience they get from reading a book and the experience they get from visiting a museum. Is that it?

They both nodded.

“And the thinking skills students will use are compare/contrast when they compare the museum to the book and evaluation when they determine whether the museum was an accurate representation of Harriett Tubman, right?”

Again they nodded.

“Well let’s take a look at the thinking processes available to us in the assimilation stage. When you combine compare/contrast with evaluation, what thinking process do you use?”

They looked at the chart in Appendix C of How to Plan Rigorous Instruction that explains each of the thinking processes involved in assimilation. Finally they chose Decision Making.

“So, what decision is logical to have your students make as a result of reading the book and visiting the museum?” I asked.
Sylvia started. “I guess they could decide which was better, the book or the museum?”
“Better how?” I pushed.

She thought for a moment.

“Better at showing us who Harriett Tubman was.”
“I like that,” I said nodding.
“Me too,” Sylvia beamed and turned to Elise. “That’s a way better unit already isn’t it?”
“Much better,” Elise grinned. “In fact, I can already see how I will create a graphic organizer that helps them compare the book to the museum. And, we can have a great class discussion about the criteria for comparison and for evaluation. Oooh, and we can set up a writing assignment that helps them develop an argument for why the museum or book is better. I LOVE it!” she clapped her hands together.
I chuckled at her enthusiasm. “Wait, you’re almost there. There’s one more stage of rigor. How will you help students adapt what they have learned?”

By this time they were on a roll.

“Ooooh, we could have them take the perspective of Harriett Tubman and identify which one would she like better or think was a better representation of her life!” Sylvia exclaimed.
“I like that,” Elise nodded. “Or we could have them write a recommendation to someone they know about which they should do to learn about Harriett Tubman, read the book or visit the museum. They can even do it as a letter!”

I left them there excitedly brainstorming their unit. (download their final unit plan

That’s the thing about planning in a rigorous way. When you think through your unit using the four stages of rigor, you come up with lessons that are not only more rigorous, but more creative, more interesting, and more fun to teach. You also discover ways to help your students more meaningfully engage in the material. Rigor isn’t just an abstract concept. It requires rigorous planning and thinking. But, if you invest in that up front, your teaching can become alive, more passionate, and more creative and your units much more coherent and relevant for students.

You can find the template I used with Elise and Sylvia as well as watch me use this template to plan a rigorous unit using one of the common core standards here.

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Never Work Harder & New Teacher Evaluation Systems

Posted on May 11, 2012 by admin

School districts across the US are creating new teacher evaluation systems that are supposed to better identify ineffective teaching and, in some cases, tie a teacher’s rating to student performance. My quarrel is not with the evaluation systems themselves however. My quarrel is with how they are being implemented. Here are three of the most common mistakes I’ve seen:

1. Limiting the number of teachers who can rate in the highest category: Some school districts have warned principals that they should not award too many of the highest evaluation marks for teachers. Afraid of evaluation inflation, some districts are actually discouraging evaluators giving the highest marks. What’s more, teachers are being told that it is okay if they don’t score in the highest category because most teachers rarely do.

2. Not tying professional development to the evaluation and salary system: Many teachers are being required to participate in professional development that does not directly address any one of the domains or categories for which they are being evaluated. In some districts I’ve seen, the professional development has absolutely no connection to the teacher evaluation system or the schedule for salary advancement. Thus teachers are being asked to dance to the beat of three competing drummers.

3. Not providing follow-up professional development, feedback, and coaching that helps teachers respond effectively to the evaluation: This mistake is perhaps the most egregious. While all districts provide some training to teachers and instructional leaders on the components and mechanics of the new teacher evaluation systems, most do not provide comprehensive training to show evaluators how to follow up a negative evaluation, how to give growth-oriented feedback that shows teachers how to improve, or how to help teachers respond to evaluative feedback and ultimately improve their instruction.

I wrote Never Work Harder Than Your Students & Other Principles of Great Teaching for precisely these reasons. First, I wanted to make mastery teaching the norm, not some rarified achievement for a gifted few. I wanted to make professional development and evaluation more coherent and connected, and I wanted to provide a framework that showed leaders and teachers how to take their evaluation and turn it into an opportunity to grow. By understanding the and the (log-in to download files), leaders and teachers could have an accurate assessment of where the teacher is, understand what exactly the teacher needs to do to grow, and have a process for getting the teacher there. Rather than give teachers vague evaluative feedback, provide unconnected professional development, and apply random strategies for growth, teachers and leaders could use the evaluation and professional development cycle to actually improve instructional practice.

If you want to grow as a teacher, I encourage you to focus on where your teaching challenges are and what principle or principles will best help you address those challenges. (You can find a template for doing just that in Never Work Harder Than Your Students starting on page 229). If you are an administrator, you can use your evaluative feedback to help teachers grow by connecting their teaching challenges to one or more of the principles (Check out our list of classroom challenges by principle in Never Work Harder Than Your Students page 233 for help). And, if your district is using the Danielson Framework for Teaching as the foundation of its new evaluation system, check out this month’s (log-in to download) which shows how each of the 7 Principles helps you grow in your practice of the four domains.

It’s time we had a more coherent evaluation process that provides growth-oriented, actionable feedback with coherent professional development and consistent professional growth. The 7 principles of effective instruction support your evaluation process can help you make your system do just that.

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Who Wants to be a Teacher?

Posted on May 7, 2012 by admin

by: Denise Malone

Several years ago I reluctantly agreed to be part of a Career Day celebration at a boarding academy. On my way to the school, I was flanked by professionals who enthusiastically talked about what they were going to share with the students. I listened attentively and thought to myself, “Their jobs sound so much more exciting than mine. After all, in this day and time, who wants to be a teacher anyway?” Lawyers talked about exciting court cases. Engineers ranted about innovations that revolutionized their company’s effectiveness. Entrepreneurs boasted of their plans that made their business enterprises soar. And there I was thinking about my profession, replete with all of the academic, social, and economic challenges that plague our schools.

During the opening session of the Career Day celebration, a charismatic gentleman, dressed in an expensive suit, stood before the student body and wowed them with the story of how he obtained his federally appointed government job. The story was quite interesting, but somehow I was lost in a fog when I heard him casually mention his six figure salary and something about a jet awaiting his arrival to whisk him off to an appointment. This gentleman told his story well. The excitement mounted as he inspired the student body with the notion that they too can achieve great things if they stay in school and pursue the right career path.

I sat mesmerized, but was jolted into reality when the organizer of the day sent all participants to a designated area to give their presentations. I saw students enthusiastically rushing to the various career booths, many that became overcrowded with students who were eager to follow a career path full of glitz, glamour, and megabucks. And there I was taking up too much space prompting the organizer to ask if I wouldn’t mind moving to another location since my group of students was so small.

In contrast to the teeming numbers at the other presentations, about four students waited for me to tell them about becoming a teacher. It didn’t take me long to remember why I was called to the noble profession. Just as enthusiastic as the opening speaker, I said, “If you decide to become a teacher, you probably won’t make six figures, and you can rest assured that there will not be a jet reserved to whisk you off to your teaching assignment, but you will train, teach, and inspire students who will one day become viable citizens of our society.” The rest of the presentation was easy. The four students and I talked about the joys of teaching, its rewards and its challenges. I left feeling that I had presented the profession in a positive yet realistic light. I told them that they had to do more than just love children; they had to possess a drive that believed in the grand potential that exists within the minds of young people.

I had long since forgotten about that experience until sometime later a young man approached me and said, “Remember me?” I didn’t have a clue as to who he was. He said he was one who sat in my Career Day presentation and was inspired to go into teaching because of what I said about the profession. I was thrilled beyond belief when he said, “I want to inspire young people just like you inspired me.”

Having now taught for 28 years, I can truly say that I’m still inspired by the students who have achieved great things. I’ve watched the young ones blossom into mature adults. Some have become actors and actresses; others are doctors, lawyers and meteorologists. Others own their own businesses, and some have become great parents and model citizens. Better yet, some have even become excellent teachers.

Denise Malone, is a master elementary level teacher in Fairfax County, Virginia. She celebrates the intrinsic rewards of teaching and shows us why it is the best of professions in this article.
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Earth Day: A Teachable Moment in the Classroom

Posted on April 16, 2012 by admin

By: Diane MacEachern

There is no student who is not affected in some way by our environment. Climate change is increasing pollen counts in the atmosphere, posing greater risk for kids who suffer from asthma and other respiratory problems. Children’s exposure to toxic chemicals in toys, school supplies and other everyday products threatens their ability to reproduce when they become adults. America’s dependence on petroleum has undermined our national security, putting people young and old at risk for domestic and international unrest.

Against this reality, Earth Day, April 22, offers an unusually opportune “teaching moment.” Here are three ways teachers can use the date as a focal point to engage students in thinking about their planet and what they can do to protect it.

  • Use the event to instill “green” values that kids can carry into adulthood. We adults have created the environmental problems we face; unfair as it is, today’s students are going to have to help fix them. The more they know, the better equipped they’ll be.
  • Use the classroom to model “green” behavior. The mantra is “Earth Day is Every Day,” but it might be more apt to say “Our impact on the Earth is everywhere.” Demonstrate behaviors in the classroom students can duplicate both in class and at home. For example, bring your lunch in re-usable containers; drink from a re-usable water bottle; use both sides of a sheet of paper; carpool with other teachers; turn off the lights at the end of class.
  • Use the school to create a community of support for environmental protection. The only way we’re going to address our environmental challenges is by working together. Inspire students to create a school-wide or grade-wide project with measurable objectives so they understand that united, they can make a difference.

Need help getting started? These resources will provide excellent background information, course materials, and reference documents.

North American Association for Environmental Education
Check out their National Environmental Database, a directory of more than 13,000 U.S.-based organizations concerned with environmental education. The Teacher Education/Professional Development page links to distance education workshops and regional and local EE conferences.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Environmental Education
EPA maintains a portal for EE resources groups according to grade (pre-K – 4th; 5-8; 9-12). The government site also lists grant opportunities to raise funds to support classroom EE projects.

National Environmental Education Week in April
National Environmental Education Week (EE Week) is the largest organized environmental education event in the United States. EE Week offers a full week of educational preparation, learning, and activities in K-12 classrooms, nature centers, zoos, museums, and aquariums. The website includes comprehensive teacher resources, an online carbon footprint calculator, water quality testing activities, a photo blog contest, nature journaling, green reading lists for teachers and kids, and funding resources to help you pay for it all.

Diane is a tireless advocate for living a greener lifestyle and is the author of Big Green Purse: Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World

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What is Rigor?

Posted on April 16, 2012 by admin

Rigorous InstructionWhat is rigor?

Whenever we deliver a rigor workshop, one of the first questions we get is “What is rigor?” While everyone agrees that rigorous instruction is important, few agree on what rigor is. In most cases, educators believe that they know rigor when they see it without really having a fully defined idea of what it looks like.

Rigor is a quality of instruction that requires students to construct meaning for themselves, impose structure on information, integrate individual skills into processes, operate within but at the outer edge of their abilities, and apply what they learn in more than one context and to unpredictable situations. 

Let’s examine each of these qualities of rigor more closely:

  • Construct meaning for themselves:
    Rigorous instruction goes beyond helping students memorize facts, acquire understanding of concepts, and develop basid skill proficiency. Students learn how to unpack concepts, ask interesting questions, develop their own ideas and standards of evaluation, and think critically about the content.
  • Impose structure on information:
    By imposing structure on information, students learn how to organize concepts, make connections among and between concepts, and deal with ambiguity and complexity. Doing so helps them to think accurately, consider multiple meanings and interpretations, and engage in disciplined inquiry and thought.
  • Integrate skills into processes:
    Students aren’t just asked know information or perform a skill; students are asked to develop individual thinking skills about what they are learning and then combine those thinking skills into thinking processes which they then apply to the content.
  • Operate within but at the outer edge of their current abilities:
    Rigorous instruction pushes students to reach for meaning rather than find it already apparent. Students must work independently and constantly stretch just beyond their present abilities. In doing so, they develop new ways of thinking and understanding.
  • Apply what they learn in more than one context and to unpredictable situations:
    Rigorous instruction teaches students to use or adapt what they have learned and how they have learned to think to solve real-world problems in multiple contexts, even when the “correct” answer is unclear and they are faced with perplexing unknowns.

To learn more about rigor and how you can provide rigorous isntruction to your students:

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PD Case Study: Rigor at Woodmont High

Posted on April 11, 2012 by admin

Because our professional development at Mindsteps™ is fully customizable, how schools implement our work looks different from school to school. While the concepts and principles are the same, how each gets implemented is highly individual to each teacher. Here is how one school has used our workshops  and materials on rigorous instruction* to create a school-wide focus on rigor that is both highly customized to their school’s needs and highly effective in changing instruction.

Woodmont High School is a comprehensive high school located in Greenville, SC. In order to meet the needs of its diverse student population, the school has launched several initiatives including High Schools That Work, Learning Focused Strategies, Freshman Academy, an Advanced Placement Program, and A Middle Years and International Baccalaureate program. Although each program had its merits, there was little connection among the programs, which lead to a real lack of coherence in their implementation. After we introduced them to our rigorous instruction workshops, the administrative team began to see that rigor was the perfect foundation on which to build all of their other initiatives. Rigor provided a through line and a way to help teachers implement the initiatives with fidelity and coherence.

We began working with Woodmont High School in the summer of 2011. At that time, we provided a district-wide training series for instructional coaches and AP teachers to help them plan rigorous learning units. We also worked with their administrative team to help them develop a customized plan for introducing rigorous instruction to their staff. Towards the end of the summer, the coaches shared what they learned with their administrative team and together the admin team began working through some of our materials to understand what rigor is and how to lead teachers to implement rigorous instruction. They used our book The Instructional Leaders’ Guide to Strategic Conversations with Teachers as well as several of our free rigor resources* to guide their work.

At the beginning of the school year, the admin team and instructional coaches shared an article  and a few free resources* with their staff. They also continued to meet and grapple with the concept of rigor as an admin team first before rolling it out to teachers.

In October, I conducted a coaching visit with the school. During that time I took the instructional coaches and members of the admin team on walk-throughs to help them learn how to identify rigorous instruction and provide teachers with the kind of feedback that would increase their capacity. At the same time I worked with groups of teachers to introduce the concept of rigor and coach them through instructional strategies for beginning to implement rigorous instruction in their classrooms.

After my visit, the admin team continued to practice their walkthroughs. This helped them establish a rigor baseline for their staff’s current capacity and allowed them to hone their own understanding of rigor in preparation for leading their staff.

At the beginning of the second semester, the admin team and instructional coaches launched their rigor initiative with the staff. They began by having the staff watch my free rigor webinar and lead them in a discussion of the concepts. The staff also identified what their own professional development needs in order to implement rigorous instruction effectively and what their students needed to successfully engage in rigorous instruction.

Shortly thereafter, I visited for a day of coaching and to kick off the school-wide book study of my book How to Plan Rigorous Instruction. I met with the entire staff to introduce them to the book and then met with small groups of teachers to share strategies for overcoming resistance to rigor.

After my visit, the admin team continued their walkthroughs as teachers began exploring the book. Several of the teachers opted to participate in our Master Teacher Cohort – a group of teachers who receive on-line and in-person coaching – to develop model rigorous lesson plans. These teachers will also develop professional development workshops to share with their staff as well as lead out in the book study this fall.

Woodmont High School has done several things to ensure that their investment in rigorous instruction will pay off and last:

  • They took time to understand the concept of rigor first as an admin team before rolling it out to their staff.
  • They developed a multi-year plan for how they would roll out the rigor emphasis rigor for their staff.
  • They determined how to use rigor to meet their own needs and integrate it with what they are doing already.
  • They used our Free Resources to supplement our paid services.
  • They modified resources when necessary to better meet their needs.
  • They worked with us to customize our consulting services and trainings to better meet their needs rather than trying to adopt a “rigor program.”

That’s exactly what we love to see happen with our clients. We don’t want to come in a shove a pre-packaged program down your throats. Instead, we work to understand your needs and co-create a professional development program that is individualized to meet your needs and institutional personality. When we work together, we can develop something that works best for who you are and where you are.

If you are using Mindsteps™ Resources in your own way, we’d love to hear about it. Describe how you use our resources in the comments section below or post pictures and descriptions of what you are doing on our Facebook page.

*All of the free rigor resources mentioned in this post can be found here.

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Rigor Requires Rigor

Posted on April 11, 2012 by admin

rigorous instructionJust the other day I was helping a group of teachers plan rigorous units. As we were creating essential questions and thinking through the standards, I asked what I thought was a simple question: Why are you teaching this?

The teachers were stumped. They had no idea why it was important that students learn the area of polygons, or study poetry, or understand the effects of Reconstruction on modern-day racial politics. If they didn’t understand why it was important to know these things, imagine how their students feel? And, if they don’t think through why what they are teaching is important, then they will never consistently help students to learn to think for themselves.

We find this a lot. We’ve been helping a lot of schools implement rigorous instructional practices lately and the one thing that has become glaringly clear to us is this: Rigor requires rigor.

You cannot expect students to engage rigorously with your content unless you have first thought rigorously about what you are teaching, why you are teaching it, and how you will shape the learning experience for students to cultivate the rigorous thinking you are after. If you are unwilling to think rigorously about your own instruction, then you cannot expect your students to think rigorously as they learn.

Some teachers get annoyed with us during our workshops, not because they disagree with what we are sharing, but because we are making them think too hard. They are so used to going to workshops where all they have to do is “sit and get” that it is an abrupt transition to participate in a workshop where they actually are encouraged to think. But, once they get over their initial annoyance, they get so excited! For many of them, it’s the first time they have been taught to think rigorously about their own practice, and armed with this new way of thinking, they can go back into their classrooms and redesign lessons, try new approaches, and see amazing results for their students. That’s the thing about rigor. It helps you make meaning for yourself. And, that process is addictive.

Thinking rigorously about your own practice helps you develop:

  • A rigorous understanding of what we teach: It goes without saying that having a depth of subject-matter understanding is critical for rigorous instruction. We need to first think rigorously about what we are teaching before we can help students think about our content in a highly rigorous way.
  • A rigorous understanding of why we are teaching it: It is fascinating to me how many of us are teaching things without really understanding why we are teaching them. I’ve worked with several teachers recently where I have asked them why they are teaching a particular concept or skill and the only answer they can provide is that it is in the curriculum or on the state test. That’s not a very rigorous answer. It is critical that we understand why a concept is important enough to be included in the curriculum or on the state test and why it is important for students to learn it. Without this understanding, you cannot craft potent essential questions, determine the appropriate thinking skills and processes to teach, or demonstrate real relevance to students in terms they can understand.
  • A rigorous understanding of how we teach: In order to help students engage successfully with rigorous material, we need to think carefully about how we will shape the learning experience to cultivate rigorous thinking. It is important to systematically move students through the rigorous thinking process — from acquisition of content, to application of thinking skills, to assimilation of thinking skills into thinking processes, to adaptation of these skills to new and novel situations in order to develop habits of mind. Teachers should plan units backwards, starting at assimilation to determine how they ultimately want students to think about the material and then build these thinking processes systematically throughout the unit. (to download our rigorous unit planning graphic organizer or see the tutorial on rigorous unit planning, click here)

Want your students to think more rigorously? You’ve got to think rigorously about your own practice. Want your students more engaged? You’ve got to be engaged in your content yourself. Want your students to invest in their own learning? Give them something to invest in. Think through your units, understand why you are teaching, and plan rigorously. Want more rigor? Rigor requires rigor. Think more rigorously about your own planning today.

Learn more by checking out our rigor resources here and buy our book How to Plan Rigorous Instruction.

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Instructional Leadership: Data Based Interventions

Posted on April 2, 2012 by admin

Instructional LeadershipFrom time to time we come across a resource we find really useful. Our colleague Dr. Shawn Joseph recently wrote a wonderful book, The Principal’s Guide to the First 100 Days of the School Year: Creating Instructional Momentum that is chock full of helpful tips and strategies for new, veteran, and aspiring principals. Here’s an excerpt:

Teaching is a very dynamic process.  Since the era of accountability has begun, teachers have been overwhelmed with data collection and data analysis.  In many districts, curricular demands force teachers to move at a rapid pace in order to expose students to all of the content that is required for yearly testing.  This has led to less time for teachers to re-teach and reassess concepts that have not been mastered.  My advice to you as an aspiring principal or a new principal is to utilize the expertise of your staff to ensure that teachers have “real time” interventions based upon “real time” data.  To accomplish this goal, the teachers who are closest to the students need to determine what formative assessments will be utilized and the processes for re-teaching and reassessing.  This is a critical process that needs to be understood if you want to get off to a great start.  Here are some suggestions to guide your thinking:

  • Meet with each of your teacher leaders to determine the pre-created data points that are used in the subject areas or grade levels in your school.  Often, publishers of textbooks or curriculum programs come with pre-created assessments.  School districts also create their own data points.
  • Determine whether these data points are administered frequently enough to give teachers information about how students are progressing on the written and taught curricula.
  • Charge your leadership team to meet with classroom teachers to identify (1) how often students will be assessed (2) a process for creating common, teacher made assessments to measure students’ mastery of the written and the taught curricula.  In many instances in smaller schools, this will be your responsibility as the principal!
  • Create a time for teachers to use to work together to create assessments and discuss data generated from the taught curricula.

As educators, we generally do not give our students enough responsibility as it relates to challenging them to utilize their meta-cognitive skills.  One way to do this and simultaneously generate data that can be used to improve weekly instruction is to develop a feedback tool that can be used with students.  So what does this practice look like in operation?  In the book, The Principal’s Guide to the First 100 Days of the School Year: Creating Instructional Momentum, individual processes and group processes are described to support your thinking about data.  Here is a sample, along with a tool from the book, to get you started.

Individual Data Process

When students are not learning, “real time” interventions are needed.  The only way to do this is to have tools and a classroom system to ensure that this process is occurring.  The principal is a key figure in articulating this expectation and working with staff members to ensure that effective systems are in place.  Here is an example of what a system might look like in a school.

At Utopia Middle School, the math department decided that it would gather input from students weekly and utilize the students’ narrative data to plan for the following week.  The team decided as a group, in collaboration with their principal, that they would meet each week on Fridays before school so they all could meet together.  In return, the principal did not assign them an instructionally related activity block during the school day as he was able to do under contract language.  On Thursdays of each week, all math teachers issued students a “Week in Review” sheet to summarize their lessons from Friday through Thursday. (A copy of this sheet is at the end of this post).  The week in review sheet identified the objectives that had been taught from Friday through Thursday.  It also asked students to share what they were most proud of accomplishing academically during the week.  The weekly review sheet asked students to identify concepts they still did not understand.  Students were asked to give the teacher feedback to let him/her know what he/she did that made learning difficult for them during the week.  Students could also comment on the classroom environment during the week.  Similarly, students could share something that they enjoyed during the course of the week.  Finally, there was a section for parents to comment after reviewing the sheet for homework.  Students submitted the sheets to the teacher at the beginning of class on Fridays.  During the teacher’s planning period with his/her colleagues, the sheets would be reviewed.  Data would be analyzed to see if there were common themes that emerged as it relates to likes or areas of difficulty.  Teachers would use this feedback as part of their Friday morning planning with one another.  Teachers also had an opportunity during this time to talk with one another about pedagogy that was used during the week that support or challenged students’ learning.

In this example, the tool was the weekly review sheet.  All math teachers in the building used the same tool.  The tool was designed and implemented by the teachers.  If adjustments were made, it would be done at a department meeting gathering feedback from all of the teachers.   What makes this system effective is that it is understandable, consistent, and addresses needs from students’ perspective.  The teacher would have exit cards or other means of assessment that were collected during the week to verify information students shared.  This additional student data is quick and easy for the teacher to read, analyze, and use to change their instruction.  Systems do not need to be complicated to be effective!

As a veteran principal, future principal, or a new principal, you will need to work with your designees that are responsible for giving feedback to teachers to effectively ensure that group data analysis and individual data analysis is occurring.  Together, these systems will have a dramatic effect on the focus and effectiveness of teaching and learning within school buildings.

Shawn Joseph’s Week In Review Sheet

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Case Study: The Top Five Things Students Want

Posted on March 19, 2012 by admin

Every year, we spend time at Mindsteps™ conducting student focus groups with the schools we serve on an ongoing basis. We conduct these focus groups to find out if the work we are doing with teachers and administrators is really making a difference where it counts – with the students. Every year, I am surprised by what the students tell us and this year is no different. Here are the top five things they told us:

We want more interactivity: In just about every focus group we conducted, the students begged for more interactivity, more hands-on activities, and more opportunities to figure things out for themselves. They don’t want to be dragged through the curriculum in a slow death-march towards the state test; they want to be engaged. They want to learn how to learn for themselves. They want hands-on activities and opportunities to learn collaboratively. They want teachers who take time to answer their questions rather than dismiss them. In short, they want to be partners in their own learning.

We can tell when you are “winging it”: The most interesting thing I learned from our focus groups this year was how often students complained about disorganized and ill-planned lessons. They want teachers who have a full understanding of the curriculum and a clear idea of where they are headed. They like teachers who seem to have clear learning goals and hate classes where the teachers seem to be, in their words, “winging it.” Students want to know that their teachers have a good grasp of the subject and a clear plan for helping them learn it. They tend to trust the teachers who are well-planned and distrust the ones who aren’t.

Don’t make it personal: I don’t know whether we are under a lot of stress lately but this year many students surprised us by saying that their teachers take things too personally. Whether it is crying in the classroom, being sarcastic, choosing favorites, punishing the entire class because of a few students, getting frustrated by their questions and refusing to answer, losing our tempers and yelling, or taking out our personal problems on the students, the students just wanted us to “chill out” and “act like adults.”

Make it relevant to US: For the first time since we’ve been doing student focus groups, we heard student say over and over again how much they enjoyed it when teachers made their subjects relevant. They love it when teachers show them how what they are learning relates to their lives. But, students caution that they are interested in how what they are learning is relevant to their lives, not their teachers’. They don’t want to hear about our lives; they want us to show them how to use what they are learning in their own lives.

You still talk too much: Although the feedback we get from students differs from year to year, this one remains consistent. The students HATE classes where the teacher spends most of the time talking. They want opportunities to digest the material for themselves through class discussions and interactive activities. They want the chance to think about what they are learning rather than simply plowing through the curriculum. Every single focus group said that their teachers do far too much talking and they wished that learning involved more of a conversation rather than just a teacher monologue.

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Posted in Case Studies, Classroom Strategies, Professional Development, Seven Principles of Great Teaching | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment