McREL Blog

Looking at student work: Are you snorkeling or scuba diving?

Teachers looking together at student work seems like a surefire way to improve teaching and learning, as teachers look at real artifacts and reflect on expectations, practices, and results. However, as with most things in education, success depends not on what teachers do but how they do it, write Bryan Goodwin and Heather Hein in this month’s Research Says column in Educational Leadership.

When teachers look at student work, are they just skimming the surface or diving deeply into what the work shows students—and even teachers themselves—are thinking about during the learning process? To take that dive, research shows three conditions need to be in place:

•  Be tough on practices, not people. Teachers must trust each other in order to expose their struggles and failures, and they must be willing to be truthful in order to see results.
• Focus on student thinking. Many collaborative conversations end up being about proving students learned and teachers did their jobs; in contrast, effective collaborative inquiry moves beyond whether students “got it” to what they were thinking
• Encourage self-reflection. Analyzing student work has little benefit unless teachers also step back and reflect on their own work and assumptions.

Read the entire column.

Posted by McREL International.

Water the flowers: Tips for maintaining a positive classroom environment

At a recent training in Virginia, some teachers and I were discussing classroom tone and the importance of maintaining a positive classroom environment. One teacher shared a wonderful philosophy from her years of teaching: To keep your class and yourself in a positive frame of mind, it’s important to water the flowers more than the weeds. This could be easily rephrased as, “Spend most of your energy on students who are doing what they’re supposed to be doing and don’t get overly caught up on the couple of students who aren’t.” Granted, we know we’ll always need to redirect and refocus students numerous times throughout the day, but the important lesson is to not let your own positivity, and your classroom’s mood, be entirely consumed by a few students demanding attention for the wrong reasons.

A classroom teacher’s day is loaded with both split-second decisions and methodical, deep decisions. It’s those split-second decisions that can transform the classroom atmosphere to a feeling of doom and gloom or of joy and hope. Often, it comes down to how the adults in the classroom respond to any given situation at any given moment.

Teachers can become great actors and actresses, calmly moving through the day, making decisions, re-teaching a lesson to a student who is struggling, asking critical-thinking questions, and redirecting the student who is off-task. While a teacher might have been up all evening with a sick child or be suffering from a splitting headache, she never shows just how tired she really is to her students. Ideally, she perseveres with a smile and strategically moves into a new lesson or project, making it look effortless while keeping the tone upbeat and positive.

Over my many years of teaching, I’ve learned several tricks to keep myself in a positive frame of mind during the challenging times. Here are a few ideas for redirecting classroom energy when you feel the tone of the classroom becoming stressful or not as upbeat as you’d like it to be:

• Move your lesson outside for a bit; fresh air and sunshine do wonders. (K–12)
• Reward the students who are on task with kind words, a high-five, a ticket, or some form of acknowledgement. (HS, MS)
• Have the class circle-up and share their favorite video or board game, share one thing they are thankful for, or share their favorite birthday gift. (HS, MS)
• Make five positive phone calls home to parents at the end of a day. (HS, MS)
• Play a quick review game to change the tone. (HS, MS)
• Show a 3–5 minute, age-appropriate, funny online video. (HS)
• Tell a funny story from your childhood. (K–12)
• Hand out modelling clay and ask students to create the content as you are teaching it (this also works in secondary classrooms). Kinesthetic learning can lighten the mood of any classroom. (K–12)

Using any one of these ideas can give the class—and you—a quick dose of dopamine and help turn the day around. Sure, it’s important for your students to be enjoying themselves as they learn. But, how you feel and act as a teacher is equally important because your mood transfers to your students. That’s why teachers could win acting awards for hanging their problems outside the classroom door as they step in and get students excited about their learning. When you look out over your classroom and you think of all those faces looking back at you like flowers in a garden, remember to water the flowers with care and love.

Please share your ideas for keeping the classroom environment positive!

 

Cheryl Abla is a managing consultant at McREL International. After 26 years in the classroom, she now works with teachers and schools on what matters most in classrooms using knowledge gleaned from The 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching, Classroom Instruction that Works with English Language Learners, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, and Classroom Instruction that Works. You can reach her at [email protected].

Six important tenets of student engagement

One of the perks of my job is working with dedicated teachers in schools across the nation. Lately, I’ve been asking questions and collecting data from teachers at all levels on their instructional needs and concerns. An overwhelming number of educators have shared with me both their good thinking about, and their challenges with, keeping students more engaged in their learning. Specifically, I’ve heard teachers say, “I need ways to help motivate students who have lost faith in themselves,” and, “How can I help students want to come to school and stay engaged in what is going on in class?”

In thinking about strategies and approaches for student engagement, two talented middle school teachers come to my mind. The first is Dave, a high-energy science teacher who dresses in costumes, uses a mixture of voices, and, on occasion and to the amazement of all, performs what he calls death-defying feats. You’ll hear his students in the hallway say, “I can’t wait to get to Mr. K’s class.” The second is Linda, a mild-mannered teacher with an infectious laugh and soft Southern accent who never performs death-defying feats yet keeps students on the edge of their seats as they master the requirements of her class. What is it, I ask myself, that allows these teachers with very dissimilar styles to capture and hold students’ attention and engage them in important, rigorous learning on a daily basis?

ALL for all: Reviving academic language in classroom conversation

“I times’ed 12 and 140 and I got 1680.”

Sound familiar? While visiting a middle school math class recently, I heard more than a few students use language like this when explaining their work to their peers and to their teacher.

While their answers showed they understood the academic concepts they were learning, the way they expressed their ideas revealed a need for academic language development.

I’m an English language acquisition teacher, consultant, and author who has spent my entire professional career studying the phases of second language acquisition and identifying best teaching strategies for helping ELL students progress toward fluency. But over the last few years, I’ve become convinced that a missing component in mainstream instruction is academic language learning, or ALL™.

Helping students train their inner voices

When it comes to asking questions in the classroom, the most important voice may be the one that you don’t hear. As McREL President and CEO Bryan Goodwin writes in the September issue of Educational Leadership, while we know teacher questioning is key to student learning, research suggests what matters more are the questions that students ask themselves.

Self-questioning, Goodwin explains, is something effective learners do naturally. For example, say you’re watching a science program on TV and you hear an astronomer explain that much of the starlight in the night sky comes from stars that may no longer exist. A little voice in your head might say, Wait, I don’t get that as you reach for the remote and rewind the program to listen again. This voice helps us connect what we’re learning with what we already know, look for the “big ideas” and connect them back to ourselves, and ask more questions that extend learning.

Fortunately, this kind of self-questioning is something teachers can train all students to do. Goodwin notes several research studies that support the effectiveness of such training—in one study, for example, a teacher named Alison King trained a class of 9th graders to ask themselves higher-order comparison-contrast questions, causal-relationship questions, and analysis questions while listening to history lectures. Comprehension tests showed that those students significantly outperformed their peers who did not receive the training.

Not only that, Goodwin points out, but such interventions don’t require much time to do and the effects appear to stick. In King’s study, the training took a mere 90 minutes and, when students listened to a subsequent lecture without any prompts about self-questioning, they still showed higher levels of comprehension.

Read the entire column here.

Posted by McREL International.

Siloed teacher PD: Why it doesn’t work

A new report on a two-year study conducted by TNTP on the effectiveness of professional development (PD) for teachers suggests that much of the available PD is ineffective in helping teachers improve, and that vast resources are being spent on programs that don’t stick.

Our experience in working with districts and regional/state agencies has been that some PD works, and some doesn’t.

What doesn’t work, in our experience, are those PD activities that are “siloed.” These are sessions or efforts that have little or no direct connection to a school or district’s improvement goals, and aren’t built on a researched, proven framework. They may have ignited a spark of enthusiasm or interest among participants in the moment, but when learnings and take-aways aren’t embedded into daily practice, they become easily forgotten or ignored. Outcomes are not monitored and analyzed, and the focus might shift or a new spark might ignite after a year or two.

Look Before You Launch: 6 questions to ask before you add more tech to your school

Over many years of guiding schools and districts on integrating technology and instruction, the costliest mistake I see is the rush to purchase hardware and software without first identifying a 
clear purpose and plan for the new technology. This kind of oversight can lead to misuse or neglect of expensive equipment and systems, resulting in little of the intended impact on student learning outcomes.

Before you add new technologies to your school or district, here are six vital questions—and a few related ones—I recommend you ask first to help you look before you launch.

Why are we doing this?

This may sound obvious, but, too often, schools launch new technology initiatives before clearly defining the intent. Are you preparing for online assessments? Is the new technology meant to make teacher tasks more efficient? Are you trying to increase student engagement or creativity? All of these reasons have merit and you might even say, “Yes, all of those and more!” As a first step, it is imperative to define your goals clearly, and long before you make any major purchases.

Sometimes the best technology is no technology

In 1989, I became the principal of a technology magnet school. Nine years later, I was named an Apple Distinguished Educator. As the lead author of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, 2^nd Ed. (2012), I remain an active proponent of technology-infused learning. Technology enables learners to do or create things that might not otherwise be possible. Knowing all of this, you might ask why I, of all people, would ever advise educators to restrict technology in the classroom.

In one of the episodes* of CBS’s The Big Bang Theory, Leonard reminds his roommate and fellow scientist, Sheldon, of a situation in which Sheldon learned to swim—on the floor—using the Internet. Sheldon defensively asserts, “The skills are transferable. I just have no interest in going in the water.” Clearly, there are times in the learning process when students learn best by actually “going in the water.” Take driver’s education, for example.

Leveraging technology to focus on learning

Mobile technologies are an integral part of our daily lives. Where is the closest gas station? Ask Siri. Which toaster is best for my needs? Check customer reviews on Amazon.com. Going out to dinner with friends? Ask Yelp for a good restaurant within five miles of your house, make reservations on OpenTable, and forward the reservation to your friends, complete with driving directions. Mobile technologies have made our lives easier and are transforming the way we work and get things done. It isn’t about the device, but what the devices allow us to do. How can we translate this savvy use of technology into classroom learning experiences?

Too often, there is little similarity between the very connected world we live in and the world inside of a school. What does it look like when a school’s technological experience does mirror the real world?

The “Innovator’s Mindset”

I recently read a blog post on developing innovation by George Couros, a principal with the Parkland School Division in Stony Plain, Alberta, Canada. I'm a regular reader of Mr. Couros' blog, "The Principal of Change," but this one struck a particular chord with me.

In his blog post, Couros refers to Carol Dweck's work on "fixed" versus "growth" mindsets. In an interview with the OneDublin.org education blog's founder, Dr. Dweck differentiates between the two mindsets, explaining:

"In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it."

What’s STEM got to do with it?

Meaningful careers. Financial stability. Happiness. That's what we all want for the future of our students, right? This might feel like an abstract, far-off concept when working with elementary school students. However, the foundation built during these formative years is exactly what supports achieving those goals. How do we cultivate the curiosity, tenacity, and student empowerment to help our students realize that future?

Think: Science… Technology… Engineering… Math.

 

What is STEM and why does it matter?

While the STEM acronym stands for science, technology, engineering, and math, the real excitement comes from more than just teaching and learning academic content in those four areas, it comes from vitalizing the connections between these fields. In the best STEM programs, students are engaging in real-world problems—and solutions—creating a context for developing a deeper set of skills and new ways of thinking. STEM learning shows kids how they can make a difference, and also empowers them to make that difference.

 

 

Some schools say no to homework: Is that a good idea?

Homework is, once again, in the hot seat. A recent Education Week blog post described a new homework policy in an elementary school in Quebec that is giving its students a year off from homework. Just last year, NJ.com reported that French President Francois Hollande proposed eliminating homework in all French elementary and junior high schools. And, according to the NY Daily News, Townsend Harris High School, a high performing school in Queens, has mandated no homework nights. What does the research tell us about homework and what are the implications for schools?

In Chapter 7 of A Handbook for Classroom Instruction That Works (2^nd ed.), Bj Stone and I outline four essential homework strategies that are informed by research. First, in general, homework is more effective for older students than for younger students. Second, when learning a skill or process, students need a great deal of practice to achieve mastery, but much of that should be guided practice. Third, teachers should communicate the purpose of homework to students and parents; students should know exactly how the homework they have been assigned is directly connected to the learning objectives in the class. Finally, teachers should provide feedback and comments on homework. Students should know what they have done right, what was wrong, and what they should do next.

On the flip side, Pamela Coutts' research, published in Theory Into Practice, highlights negative aspects of homework, including disruption of family time, stress, conflicts between student and parent, and restricted access to community and leisure time.

Reinforcing effort: A parent’s perspective

As parents, how do you reinforce effort? Teachers, how does the amount of effort students give influence your beliefs about their capacity as learners? As a staff member at McREL, though not a formal educator, I've gained knowledge and insights into classroom practices that reinforce effort and, as a parent, I've learned how important it is to reinforce those practices at home.

My child moved from a private, literacy-rich, full-day preschool to a half-day kindergarten in a local public school. At my child's first parent-teacher meeting in his new school, I was impressed to learn that his teacher used writing rubrics to measure literacy. She presented a hand-drawn, rudimentary picture with little detail and no accompanying words and labeled it a 1. She labeled a more detailed picture with a few words added by the student a 2. The next one, labeled a 3, included even more detail in the picture, with additional colors and more words to describe the picture. Finally, a 4 was advanced, with much detail and accompanying sentences. She explained that, prior to beginning an assignment, she asked students to choose the number that they wanted to work toward. According to her, my son almost always chose to work toward a 2, putting forth minimal effort. His teacher recognized that he was capable of more, so sometimes, with coaxing, he would choose a 3.

Teach your students how to fail

We spend a great deal of time in schools nurturing and rewarding academic success—from gold stars on papers to honor roll awards celebrations to the selection of high school valedictorians. Recognition of success is important, but is success really the true measure of learning? What about the learning that occurs when students don’t succeed?  

Failure is not the undesirable end to learning; it is really just the beginning. Acknowledging our mistakes and learning from them is how we improve. Does a toddler who is learning to walk see himself as a failure after that first tumble? When an elementary student falls 20 times while learning to ride a two-wheel bike, has she failed or is she just practicing? Albert Einstein famously didn’t speak until he was nearly four years old and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School after flunking the entrance exam at the age of 15. As we know, he eventually learned to speak and even how to do a little math.

Ending the "fire hose" model of PD learning

As educators, we’ve all experienced sitting through a two- or three-day workshop and, at the end of it, being overwhelmed with information, tired of sitting and listening, and wondering how we’re going to even begin incorporating what we’ve learned into our daily practice at school. We get back to work, and there’s no feedback from anyone and no time to try what we’ve learned. Time slips by, and we make little to no changes in our instructional practices.

This style of “learning via fire hose” is one of the least effective, yet all-too-commonly-used formats of professional development in education.

A much more effective PD model is to allow teachers to absorb information in small bites, giving teachers time to think about what they’ve learned and to methodically integrate new practices into their existing instruction, and providing them with feedback on their efforts.

We saw how well this worked last year when we were working with the staff at a mid-sized intermediate school on research-based instructional practices.

Instead of conducting three back-to-back days of PD, we spread the face-to-face sessions out over the course of the year.

Day 1 focused on the Classroom Instruction That Works strategies that create the environment for learning: setting objectives, providing feedback, reinforcing effort, providing recognition, and cooperative learning.

Day 2 focused on strategies that help students develop understanding: cues & questions, advance organizers, nonlinguistic representation, summarizing, and note taking.

Day 3 focused on homework, practice, and the two strategies that help students extend and apply knowledge: identifying similarities & differences and generating & testing hypotheses.

Each of these sessions was followed by an implementation assignment. We were able to track how well the implementation was going by reviewing real-time data (see chart) collected with our Power Walkthrough classroom observation system. 

As we looked over the data, we saw that teachers’ instructional practices were changing over the course of the year. They were implementing what they were learning in the PD sessions.

Among the changes, we were pleased to see a drop in the predominant use of “practice” as a primary instructional strategy. While providing practice is an excellent strategy that allows students to review and refine what they have learned, we find that it is often over-used in classrooms, leaving little room for deeper learning and developing higher-order thinking skills.

We were happy to see growth in the teachers’ use of “note taking” strategies, which helps students summarize and remember what they learned, as well as growth in the use of “generating and testing hypotheses,” one of the highest-order thinking skills in which we can engage students.

While use of “nonlinguistic representation” as a primary instructional strategy appears low, we did see a definite uptick in nonlinguistic representation being used as a supporting strategy.

The data also helped us show teachers that “providing feedback” to their students was an area they could focus on in future PD and coaching.

By spreading out the PD content over the course of the year, by giving staff time to understand and integrate new learning into their practice, and by providing data and feedback along the way, the school’s teachers were able to see the impact of their hard work and newfound knowledge, and they now have the data they need to set future goals as a professional learning community.

If you’ve tried other strategies for stopping the PD “fire hose,” use the Comments section to let us know what worked well.

Elizabeth Ross Hubbell is a consultant in McREL’s Center for Educator Effectiveness, and co-author of Classroom Instruction That Works (2^nd ed.), Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works (2^nd ed.), and The 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching.

 

 

Sarah Gopalani is a researcher in the Center for Educator Effectiveness, where she conducts quantitative and qualitative analyses in support of research and evaluation team projects.

Non-core classrooms: Are you observing them?

Imagine you're conducting classroom walkthroughs and, as you walk by a music classroom, you hear the sound of student voices singing beautifully. “They are all busy practicing together again,” you think as you continue on toward a U.S. history classroom down the hall.

Wait a minute—did you just skip the music teacher’s classroom?

The music teacher needs to feel valued as a teacher as much as the history teacher does. Stopping in her classroom, and other “non-core” classrooms, to observe is just as important as seeing what happens in math, science, social studies, and language arts.

To get a clear picture of the instruction happening in all of your classrooms, McREL recommends that every teacher, core and non-core, be observed twice a week. While this may seem daunting, walkthroughs can be conducted by principals, coaches, other administrators, or fellow teachers as long as they have been through sufficient training on the “look-fors.” The benefit of conducting walkthroughs and providing formative feedback to teachers is two-fold: It improves communication and helps with goal setting, and the data gathered during walkthroughs can be used to make informed decisions about professional development and coaching opportunities.

In just a couple of months of walkthroughs, you will collect enough data to identify what instruction looks like in your school (as well as in specific content areas), what teachers are doing well, and areas where they need support. As you conduct more walkthroughs, you’ll also get valuable information about how often and how well particular instructional strategies are being used.

As an example, look at the data in this graph, taken from a sample of more than 150,000 walkthroughs recently conducted by Power Walkthrough® users around the world. Notice that there are some differences in strategies being used in core versus non-core classrooms. How does this compare to what you think you’d find in your own school?

Lisa Maxfield is a managing consultant at McREL International, where she provides information and support for McREL’s Power Walkthrough informal observation software.

The power of social learning: Can working with peers improve outcomes?

In 2005, I made a video called "1990" about how surprisingly little high schools had changed in the years since I graduated. In spite of everything I had come to know about the importance of active, student-centered learning using modern tools, in most high schools I visited, students were still, 15 years later, sitting at desks in rows and listening to their teachers, who were standing at the front of the room, the dry erase boards behind them a jarring compilation of messy, hand-written notes.

But humans weren't designed to learn by sitting and listening for long periods of time. We are social creatures (even the most introverted of us) who need to move around and bounce ideas off one another in order to cement new concepts. Students, in other words, need to talk about their learning. Often. (For more on this concept, I highly recommend Steven Johnson’s Where Good Ideas Come From and Chai Woodham’s article on how we are sitting ourselves to death.)

When I work with teachers and school leaders on Classroom Instruction That Works and Power Walkthrough, they commonly ask, "Where should we start?" Many people are surprised when I tell them they should pay attention to how students are grouped. How is instruction primarily accessed by students? Is it by listening to a teacher give a lesson, then working alone to practice what was learned? Is it by watching a video and completing exercises? Or is it working through problems and discussions with a small group of students? Or brainstorming with a partner? The answers to these questions can tell a school much about where their instruction is in terms of meeting the needs of learners.

Last year, I had the pleasure of working with an intermediate school in Texas that needed to achieve many challenging goals in order to avoid having to take more drastic measures. The school worked hard—my work with them was just one of many initiatives implemented that year—and it truly paid off. By the end of the year, the school had met every one of their objectives.

Out of curiosity, I looked at this school's walkthrough data and compared it to "typical" walkthrough data. One thing that jumped out was their grouping data. Most schools have ~50-75% whole-class instruction followed by ~20% individual work, but this school had much higher rates of pairs and informal small group work—and it was higher than the rates of other schools in their district.

What do you do to make learning more engaging, active, and student-centered? Do you gather data on how often students sit through whole-class instruction, work individually, or work with others? You may be surprised by the results.

Elizabeth Ross Hubbell is a principal consultant in the Center for Educator Effectiveness, and co-author of Classroom Instruction That Works (2^nd ed.), Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works (2^nd ed.), and The 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching. She can be reached at [email protected].

 

The answers are in the room

Often, schools mired in low performance feel as if they could just hit upon some new insight, strategy, or approach that has been eluding them, they could be more successful. Yet when my McREL colleagues and I visit schools, we often find ourselves telling them something quite different:  “The answers are in the room.”

Most schools don’t need someone to parachute in with a bold new idea or insight; the things that research says works are usually already being done by someone, somewhere in the building. What schools really need to do is simply find their own bright spots, share them, and encourage others to do what great educators know works well.

I was reminded of that when earlier this month when I had the privilege of speaking to teachers from Madison City Schools in Alabama. My talk was preceded (and admittedly, upstaged) by presentations from the district’s teachers of the year, Cindy Rhodes and Amy Thaxton.

Ms. Rhodes, a 25-year veteran teacher, offered a top 10 list of tips for new teachers, which included such sage advice as “Always have a plan – and just in case that plan doesn’t work, have a backup,” “Greet your kids every day at the door,” and “Tell [your students] you have faith in them and they will learn to have faith in themselves.”

Ms. Thaxton was introduced by a former student who praised her ability to connect with students. She showed a short excerpt from a TED talk given recently by teacher Rita Pierson, who told her audience, “One of the things we never discuss, or we rarely discuss, is the value and importance of human connections” in learning. In some teachers’ eyes, she said, worrying about student-teacher relationships is just a “bunch of hooey.”

As she recounts, “A colleague said to me one time, ‘They don’t pay me to like the kids. They pay me to teach a lesson, the kids should learn it. I should teach it. They should learn it. Case closed.’” Ms. Pierson responded, “Kids don’t learn from people they don’t like.’”

These teachers are spot on in sizing up what educators can do to help kids learn. Decades of research point to the importance of setting a high bar for them (having faith in them), connecting with kids (as Ms. Thaxton clearly does), and being intentional about what we do in the classroom (as Ms.Rhodes does with her plans and back-up plans).

In our new book, 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching, my co-author Elizabeth Ross Hubbell and I call out a dozen big ideas that, when employed every day, hold the promise of helping teachers and their students succeed. While we found these ideas in research journals, we know their true source: passionate, insightful, and dedicated teachers who found better ways to teach. At some point, a researcher came along and studied them to prove what teachers already knew: that these things really work.

What really works in your classrooms? What big ideas or bright spots should researchers be paying attention to now?

Bryan Goodwin is chief operating officer at McREL. In addition to co-authoring The 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching: A Checklist for Staying Focused Every Day, he wrote Simply Better: Doing What Matters Most to Change the Odds for Student Success.

 

Don't work harder than your students

Teachers across the U.S. are either back in school or preparing for that first day of school. I recently read a post by Julie Harris Stern on her blog, Education to Save the World, titled “Stop working so hard…that’s the student’s job!” that provides some teacher-friendly and easy-to-implement ideas that can help new and veteran teachers alike get the year off to a positive and productive start. 

When I read her suggestions, it was clear to me that they're supported by our research and related book, Classroom Instruction That Works, 2nd ed.

As you begin the 2013-14 school year, think of ways you can intentionally plan your instruction so that your students go home more tired than you do—and learn more in the process.

Enjoy Julie's post and have a great school year!

Authentic, Personalized Learning: Pre- and Post-Technology (A Case Study)

McREL has long maintained that technology, when used thoughtfully and intentionally, enhances good instruction. But it’s not about the technology itself; it’s about technology working together with a well-designed lesson or project focused on clear learning targets and differentiated by student needs and learning styles. 

I just read a blog post by Krista Moroder, an educator in Wisconsin, and it really resonated with me. Krista’s reflections, posted at EdTechCoaching,  help us remember that good teaching isn’t something new, created by modern technology tools. Many of us got into education because of great teachers in our own past. Technology can, however, make good instruction even better.

With her permission, I've reposted Krista’s column below.

-Howard Pitler

 

Authentic, Personalized Learning: Pre- and Post-Technology (A Case Study)

by Krista Moroder

I recently worked with a few teachers on a service-learning project they had designed for their students. As we talked about the purpose and design of the project, I was brought back to my sophomore year of high school--and one of the school assignments that had a huge impact on who I am today.

I was fifteen, and I had just read Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. In response to the reading, we were told to try to fix an injustice in our community. I ended up starting an informal community service organization ("T.H.E. Group- Teens Helping Elderly")--and set up a few volunteer commitments. After the school assignment ended, however, the phone calls kept coming in--so I kept the project going for the next few years. By the time I graduated, over one hundred of my peers had helped out in some way: we raked leaves, cleaned out refrigerators, and vacuumed rooms. Mostly, however, we just spent time sitting and talking with the residents we volunteered to help. At the time, I thought I was helping them--and it wasn't until years later that I realized how much they had helped me. In a lot of ways, those conversations grounded me.

***

At every education technology conference I've been to in the last year, I've seen images similar to the one to the right--suggesting that all learning before the digital age was lecture-based and routine. This was not what I experienced.

One of my favorite TEDx Talks addresses this directly--Esther Wojcicki, long-time educator, talks about a project-based journalism class she managed. She explains how she engaged students through audience, relevance, and choice--and at no point does she suggest that this engagement was a direct result of technology advancements (in fact, her story starts in 1984--with a typewriter). What becomes clear by the end of her story is that her ability to engage students was a direct result of her teaching--her efforts building authentic learning experiences, regardless of the tools (typewriter, computer, whatever) that were supporting that.

What I remember from my high school experience was no different. Two of the best teachers I had were my English teachers (no doubt the reason I chose to teach English), and they were fantastic at building assessments that didn't feel like assessments.

They could have asked us to do a multiple choice test in response to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech. Instead, they gave us the opportunity to make an actual impact--to do something real.

They also gave us complete ownership in how we showed our learning.

When we read George Orwell's 1984, we studied the theme of government repression and developed our own responses. My group took over the classroom for a week and created our own version of the Stanford Prison Experiment. We closely examined our peers throughout the week and reported our conclusions in a final analysis. Another group printed out every page of the Patriot Act, completely covered all four walls with paper (the policy was that extensive) and drew our attention to a few key features.

Our two groups ended up with completely different responses--neither of which could have been reported on the same standardized test. We still met the same benchmarks. We were just given a choice in how we met them.

I don't remember staring blankly at a wall because I didn't have a laptop to engage me. I remember thoughtful and passionate discussions...I remember connecting with the people around me...I remember building products out of ideas...and I remember relationships.

***
Let's take a look at the "Justice Project" I did in high school, and the "Community Project" that the middle school students in my current district worked on. These projects were virtually the same, and their effectiveness had almost everything to do with their design. In each project, the audience was authentic, the topic was relevant, and the student had ownership in how they demonstrated their learning.

What changed was the tools that these students had available to them, and the efficiencies they provided.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Today, we can organize content more effectively.
Then--I shuffled between papers, journal entries, books, and bookmarked links.
Now--Students can use a website template that the teacher has created to store all of their content.

2. Today, we can provide more access to our work.
Then--My teacher had to physically collect our journals and papers to follow our progress.
Now--Students can share their digital portfolios with their teachers, so teachers can check their progress at any time.

3. Today, we can collaborate more efficiently.
Then--If we needed to meet as a group, we had to coordinate our sports/work/club schedules so that we could work on the same computer.
Now--Students can connect through email, social networks, and video chat; they don't need to pass around multiple copies of the same document/presentation/video--they can all access and edit the same copy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

4. Today, we can automate rote tasks and provide faster feedback.
Then--I would take short quizzes on paper and wait 1-2 days to receive feedback.
Now--Students take quizzes online and receive immediate feedback; teachers can spend time focusing on higher-order tasks.

5. Today, we can find information more quickly.
Then--I had to search through a book or find someone who knew the answer.
Now--Google.

6. Today, we can provide a wider audience for students.
Then--My audience was usually just my teacher or my classmates.
Now--Students can publish their projects to a website that the entire community can access; stakes are higher.

***

When we compare both of these projects, the real reason for integrating technology becomes apparent: it is simply about being more efficient and productive. Student engagement isn't reliant on an iPad app--it is reliant on a teachers' ability to create authentic, personalized learning experiences, like the service learning project I was part of years ago and our students are part of today.

Building these experiences for students requires creativity, organization, project management skills, and a deep understanding of backwards design.

Being efficient requires knowing how to use the technology that is currently available to us.

We need to do be able to do both.

 

What do you do with classroom observation data?

At their core, classroom observations should be about coaching, building up professional practice, and supporting better outcomes for students. Principals should use classroom observation data to enrich conversations during professional learning community meetings, individual teacher coaching conferences, and staff meetings. When large samples of student data are available, school leaders can disaggregate the data by age, content area, or other categories to enable powerful analysis of the data’s meaning and uses. This, combined with other evidence, can be used to support school improvement goals, collaborative planning, professional development planning, and a common understanding of what quality pedagogy looks like. Principals who do this well can help their teachers make great gains in teaching and learning.

We’re sometimes asked by principals and district leaders who are interested in Power Walkthrough® for more information about how the system ties in with research-informed instructional practices and good classroom observation protocols and purposes.

The Power Walkthrough system supports best practice by using a carefully designed template of observable elements based on the best understanding of modern pedagogy, with indicators of research-informed classroom environmental factors, instructional strategies, learning taxonomies, technology applications, evidence of learning, and student interview responses. The template is customizable, so that if a school wants to focus on formative assessment or collaborative learning, they can do so by adding or substituting observation elements. We recommend not adding too much to the observation template, so that it doesn’t turn into a teacher evaluation tool and take too long to conduct. If individual observations take more than 3-5 minutes to conduct, principals won’t be able to visit enough classrooms for the data to be valid and reliable.

Validity and reliability of data relies not only on a sufficient sample size, but also on the skill of the observer. Becoming an efficient, skilled, and astute observer of teaching and learning takes quality training, practice, and collaborative reflection between observers. School leaders don’t have to be experts in all content areas to conduct good observations, but they do have to be highly knowledgeable in pedagogy and be a keen observer of student learning evidence. The Power Walkthrough templates help principals by providing cues, “look-fors,” and a common nomenclature.

Templates and lists provide structure and allow for statistical analysis, but they don’t preclude the principal from observing other factors in the classroom, interviewing students, or recording descriptive notes. In fact, Power Walkthrough observations are designed to end with student interviews to gather student perspectives on what they’re trying to learn and why they’re learning it, to see if they fully comprehend the objectives of the lesson. Answers such as “we’re learning math because we have a test on Friday” aren’t good enough. A great answer would be something like, “we’re learning how to graph polynomials because they can be used to model how some things work in nature like the shape a stream of water takes when it’s shot out of a fountain or the path of a basketball when you shoot a free throw.”

In the end it’s not about the instrument itself, but how it’s applied. Depending on the goals of school leadership, Power Walkthrough can be used either for typical data collection purposes or innovative change. We encourage instructional leaders to collaborate with each other and their teachers to learn from the data together. Teachers will take ownership of the data’s meaning if they are allowed to find it themselves rather than using a top-down approach of dictating to them what the data means. If used regularly and collaboratively, Power Walkthrough data can provide a wealth of professional development experiences for all educators, both on a daily basis and as part of a whole school improvement effort.

We hope this explains a little more about how Power Walkthrough supports good classroom observation practices and instructional improvement. If there are other aspects of classroom observation protocols and use of data that you’d like us to address, we’d be happy to. Feel free to send me a direct e-mail, or use the comments box below.

Matt Kuhn is a principal consultant at McREL, where he designs and delivers professional development and provides technical assistance to school and districts in instructional technology, STEM, and leadership. You can reach him at [email protected] or 303-632-5628.

 

 

 

Creating Your Own Destiny

 
I just had an article published in Middle Ground magazine, Creating Your Own Destiny: Teaching the Importance of Effort. This article talks about the importance helping students to understand the relationship between effort and their success.

Have you had a student like Lynn as described in the article? What strategies worked for you?

Elizabeth Ross Hubbell is a consultant at McREL.

Data show classroom observations decline in spring

Classroom observations, or walkthroughs, are quick snapshots that, over time, begin to show trends within a school—trends which can be used to identify staff development needs. Based on feedback from our Power Walkthrough clients, we’ve found that schools and districts use their observation data to set goals, provide specific professional development, increase coaching conversations, and enhance mentoring programs.

But in examining our clients’ data, we often see a decrease in the number of walkthroughs during April and May. Walkthroughs should be an integral part of the school culture and part of the normal routine in which teachers and students are comfortable with administrators in the classroom. If we know and understand the importance of walkthroughs, why is there such a large drop-off in how many are done during the last quarter of the school year?

Are you seeing similar trends in your school? Why do you think this might be? We welcome your insights in the comments below.

Written by senior consultant Lisa Maxfield and administrative specialist Cheryl Mervich.

What is the Purpose of Homework?

If you walk into a typical teachers’ workroom and ask the question, “What’s the purpose of homework?” you’ll likely find that most teachers have a definite opinion. But ask them what research says about homework, and you’ll get less definitive answers. What does research really say about homework as a strategy to improve student achievement? 

The effects of homework on student achievement are not entirely clear; a number of factors, such as degree of parental involvement and support, homework quality, students’ learning preferences, and structure and monitoring of assignments can affect the influence of homework on achievement (Hong, Milgram, & Rowell, 2004; Minotti, 2005).  

One synthesis of research on the relationship between homework time and achievement showed some gains at the middle and high school levels, but less so at the elementary school level (Cooper, Robinson, & Patall, 2006). Others have found that homework can help students strengthen their self-regulation skills such as managing time, setting goals, self-reflecting on their performance, and delaying gratification (Ramdass & Zimmerman,  2011). 

On the flip side, there’s some research highlighting negative aspects of homework, including disruption of family time, stress, conflicts between student and parent, and restricted access to community and leisure time (e.g., Coutts, 2004; Warton, 2001).

So what’s the best approach to take? In Cathy Vatterott’s 2009 book, Rethinking Homework: Best Practices That Support Diverse Needs, she outlines practices she refers to as her “New Paradigm for Homework”:

• design quality homework tasks;
• differentiate homework tasks;
• move from grading to checking;
• decriminalize the grading of homework;
• use completion strategies; and
• establish homework support programs. 

If you take Vatterott’s recommended practices along with our research-based recommendations (found in Classroom Instruction That Works, 2^nd ed.), you can begin to view homework differently,  as an extension of practice and a chance to deepen understanding of a topic. Consider these tips:  

1. Always ask, “What learning will result from this homework assignment?” The goal of your instruction should be to design homework that results in meaningful learning. 
2. Assign homework to help students deepen their understanding of content, practice skills in order to become faster or more proficient, or learn new content on a surface level. 
3. Check that students are able to perform required skills and tasks independently before asking them to complete homework assignments. 
4. Consider parents and guardians to be your allies when it comes to homework. Understand their constraints, and, when home circumstances present challenges, consider alternative approaches to support students as they complete homework assignments (e.g., before-or after-school programs, additional parent outreach). 

Because the research on homework is mixed, teachers should think carefully about what tasks they assign for homework, and what the purpose of that homework truly is. Remember that it’s essential for students to receive feedback on their homework so they know what they did correctly, what they did incorrectly, and what they need to do next to improve. 

Howard Pitler, Ed.D., is chief program officer at McREL, co-author of Classroom Instruction That Works (2^nd ed.), and lead author of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works. You can contact him at 303.632.5554 or [email protected]. 

 

 

References: 

Cooper, H., Robinson, J. C, Sc Patall, E. A. (2006). Does homework improve academic achievement? A synthesis of research, 19872003. Review of Educational Research, 76, 1-62.

Coutts, P. (2004). Meanings of homework and implications for practice. Theory into Practice 43(3),182–188.

Hong, E., Milgram, R. M., & Rowell, L. L. (2004). Homework motivation and preference: A learner-centered homework approach. Theory into Practice, 43, 197–204.

Minotti, J. L. (2005). Effects of learning-style-based homework prescriptions on the achievement and attitudes of middle school students. NASSP Bulletin, 89, 67–89.

Ramdass, D., & Zimmerman, B. (2011) Developing Self-Regulation Skills: The Important Role of Homework. Journal of Advanced Academics, 22(2), 194-218,354-355.

Vatterott, C. (2009). Rethinking homework: Best practices that support diverse needs. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Warton, P. M. (2001). The forgotten voices in homework: Views of the students. Educational Psychologist, 36(3), 155–165.

Coaches for the Classroom

When you think of coaches, an image of a sports figure may come to mind—Tom Landry, Bobby Knight, or Bear Bryant. But in education, coach may be a part of your everyday vernacular as well.

As schools are looking for ways help teachers implement the Common Core and reach No Child Left Behind (NCLB) goals, traditional professional development (PD) programs, sometimes referred to as “one-day wonders,” have proven ineffective in sustained growth and improvement for teachers. Researchers Bruce Joyce and Beverly Showers (2002) found that PD that consisted of demonstration, feedback, and practice did not have a noticeable effect size on classroom transfer (effect size + 0.0). Even research-based models of learning and the most thoughtful day of PD have no impact on student learning if the teacher cannot internalize or sustain their learning over time and with fidelity. In order to make deep, lasting changes in teacher practices, more and more school districts and states are using instructional coaches to support teachers in implementing best practices for increased student achievement.

What is an instructional coach? While there are many variations, in general, an instructional coach teaches educators how to use proven teaching methods and uses a variety of PD practices to encourage the implementation of these methods. Often, instructional coaches meet with teachers individually or in small groups, collaboratively plan with teachers, model instructional practices, or observe teachers using instructional strategies (Knight, 2004). Instructional coaches are meant to help teachers transfer their training to the classroom and implement what they’ve learned with fidelity.

And there’s research to back that up. Two programs, Pathways to Success from the University of Kansas (which includes six middle schools and three high schools), and Passport to Success by the Maryland Department of Education (which includes five middles schools), showed that instructional coaching programs generated implementation rates of at least 85 percent (Knight, 2005), which means teachers were using what they learned in PD. Joyce and Showers (2002) also analyzed implementation rates and found that when coaching is added after PD, “a large and dramatic increase in transfer of training—effect size of 1.42—occurs”.

McREL staff has seen firsthand how instructional coaching helps teachers transfer what they’ve learned in training. In October and November 2012, McREL staff trained a diverse group of English, French and Cree-speaking consultants from Northern Quebec in instructional coaching strategies. These consultants learned best practices in coaching and practiced through role-playing and other interactive scenarios. A month later, when Bj Stone, McREL principal consultant and co-author of Classroom Instruction that Works (2012), presented two days of instructional training to the Cree teachers, the coaches were prepared to support and reinforce the new learning with a “toolbox” of strategies, including setting goals with teachers, modeling classroom lessons, and checking for the fidelity of implementation. Many teachers, in Cree and elsewhere, report that not only does instructional coaching increase their confidence, it also increases their willingness to try new evidence-based best practices. Teachers and coaches begin to share a vision—to increase achievement for students.

How is your district using instructional coaches? How is it benefiting the school? The teachers? Have you experienced any challenges?

Patti Davis is a lead consultant at McREL in the Center for Systems Transformation.

 

References

Joyce, B. & Showers, B. (2002). Student achievement through staff development (3^rd ed.). Alexandria, VA: ASCD.

Knight, J. (2004, Spring). Instructional coaches make progress through partnership: Intensive support can improve teaching. Journal of Staff Development 25(2), 32–37. Retrieved from http://www.instructionalcoach.org/images/downloads/articles/Knight_PL2005-05.pdf

Knight, J. (2005, Winter). Instructional Coaching. StrateNotes 13(3). Retrieved from http://www.instructionalcoach.org/images/downloads/articles/nov_stratenotes.pdf

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The Devastating Power of Zero

The Devastating Power of Zero

I was recently working with a group of great educators in Illinois who were learning about McREL’s classroom recommendations on providing feedback, taken from our second edition of Classroom Instruction That Works, when I inadvertently opened a Pandora’s Box regarding the grading of missing or incomplete assignments.

Two of the recommendations from the book are:

• Provide feedback that addresses what is correct and elaborates on what students need to do next.
• Provide feedback appropriately in time to meet students’ needs.

 Additionally, in our Handbook for Classroom Instruction That Works (2^nd ed.), Bj Stone and I expand those recommendations by suggesting that teachers should allow students to rework their assignments until correct, based on the feedback they receive.

 When discussing this with the Illinois educators, our conversation quickly moved to grading and the power of the zero.

 While there was general agreement with the notion that the grades a student receives should accurately reflect that student’s understanding and mastery of the content, some of the educators felt that allowing students to rework missing or incomplete assignments was unfair to the other students who turned in their work on time and demonstrated higher levels of understanding on the first attempt. These educators felt that if a student didn’t complete an assignment, they should get a zero with no opportunity to rework the assignment after receiving feedback.

 Which of these two approaches—giving zeros or allowing rework—leads to a final grade that more accurately reflects the student’s understanding and mastery of content?

 To explore this, I gave the following scenario. During a unit, a teacher has two assessments and two assignments. Let’s look at three students and see how a zero given on one of the two assignments affects their final grade. 

	Assessment 1	Assessment 2	Assignment 1	Assignment 2	Final Grade
Juan	100%	100%	100%	0%	75%
Susan	90%	90%	90%	0%	60%
Joe	80%	80%	70%	0%	57.5%

In the cases above, the zero given on Assignment 2 has dropped each of the student’s final grades significantly and, it can be argued, does not accurately reflect the overall learning that occurred. Now let’s look at the same three students and give them the opportunity to redo that missing or failed Assignment 2, based on the feedback we have provided. We will acknowledge the lateness of the work by giving them partial credit for the reworked assignment.

	Assessment 1	Assessment 2	Assignment 1	Assignment 2	Final Grade
Juan	100%	100%	100%	50%	87.5%
Susan	90%	90%	90%	50%	80%
Joe	80%	80%	70%	50%	70%

By giving partial credit as compared to zero credit, Juan’s final grade went from 75% to 87.5%, and, looking across the row, I believe more accurately reflects the student’s true level of learning. The same can be said for Susan and Joe.

 More importantly, if a zero is recorded with no chance to improve, the task quickly becomes insurmountable from the student’s perspective. If Juan had received two zeros rather than one, he would now be failing this unit and begin to see little hope of improving. Even if future assignments are done well and graded highly, it won’t be enough to pull his final score up to a satisfactory level. The exemplary work he did on the two assessments would be meaningless. Why then should he continue to try? Why should he pay attention? Why should he even come to class? 

Zero is defined as the figure or symbol which stands for the absence of quantity. In education, it also stands for the absence of hope. Students should be allowed to rework based on their teacher’s good feedback, and, in the process, change the power of zero from an absence of hope to hope for meaningful improvement.

Howard Pitler, Ed.D., is chief program officer at McREL, co-author of Classroom Instruction That Works (2^nd ed.), and lead author of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works. You can contact him at 303.632.5554 or [email protected]. 

Are we using whole group instruction more than ever?

In McREL’s Power Walkthrough® training, we teach school leaders how to capture key instructional indicators in the classroom, such as what strategies are utilized, how to determine if the students are learning, and how students are grouped. Around this time every year, we examine our Power Walkthrough data from K–12 classrooms all over the world and in a variety of school settings (e.g., urban, rural, public, independent) to see the emerging trends and patterns in the collected data.

This year, we noticed an interesting trend when we looked at the student “grouping” data. In this portion of Power Walkthrough, the observer notes whether students are all focused on one source of instruction (whole group), if they are working alone (individual), if they are working with one other person (pairs), if they are working in informal groups of three to five (small group), or if they are working in highly organized groups with individual roles and responsibilities (cooperative group). While individual, small group, pairs, and cooperative groups have fluctuated or have only changed incrementally, it seems that Power Walkthrough users are recording an increase in whole group instruction over the past two years. This is surprising given that so much of “21^st century” or “student-centered” learning touts reducing whole group instruction.

Below are two comparison charts that show these data that are based on 99,136 walkthroughs in 2010–2012.

 

 

	2010	2011	2012
cooperative	3.80%	2.30%	2.30%
individual	27.40%	19.20%	21%
pair	3.70%	4.85%	4%
small	13.70%	21.30%	15.50%
whole	51.50%	52.30%	57.20%

 

While we can make a few assumptions about these data, there are a few caveats to consider: Some observers may be different due to job changes and additional clients; schools may have differing criteria of cooperative learning; and many schools use their own templates while these data are from our template. Regardless, though, this trend sparks questions about how we are using instruction and student grouping in our classrooms now and into the future. Consider the following as conversation starters in your school:

 

1. Students working individually were observed six percent less in 2012 than in 2010. Is this a positive or negative statistic?

 

2. We were very surprised to see that whole group instruction had grown. Is this indicative that we are lecturing more? If so, what would cause us to do so?

 

3. Does the nominal growth in small group instruction indicate a shift towards more collaborative and informal learning environments?

 

4. Do these trends hold true in your school? What questions do these data spark for you?

Tech CITW captures the “big picture”

On occasion, we come across mentions of our work that let us know how our work impacts educational leaders, teachers, and students. We were especially thrilled when The 21st Century Principal blogged about the 2^nd edition of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works. We thank blogger J. Robinson, former teacher and administrator, for recommending our work to his readers:

"Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works is not a "how-to" book when it comes to employing technology in the engagement of instruction. Rather, it is a ‘big-picture’ book that surveys the field of technological tools and helps the teacher connect with the kinds of technology she might wish to use in the classroom.”

Check out Robinson’s blog or follow him @21stprincipal on Twitter to read more of his ideas and musings as he grapples with an ever-shifting learning environment.

 

Elizabeth Ross Hubbell is co-author of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, 2nd edition.

 

Using the CITW strategies as a framework for conferences

Earlier this summer, I had the pleasure of taking part in the t.i.c.l. (Technology Integration and Instruction for the 21^st Century Learner) Conference in Iowa, a lively gathering of educators focused on transforming their classrooms into student-centered learning environments. Co-hosted by the Prairie Lakes and Northwest Area Education Agencies, this conference gathered teachers and leaders in northwest Iowa who are passionate about changing current classroom and school norms to better meet the needs of today’s learners through innovative teaching ideas, 21^st century tools, and involving students in their own education.

I especially liked the helpful tools available to aid participants in summarizing
key ideas from the sessions.  A reflection journal, in both paper and electronic formats, included sections for teachers to connect what they were learning to the second edition of McREL’s Classroom Instruction That Works. This updated journal (below) provided participants with a common language for integrating 21^st century tools as they learned about new resources and techniques to take back to their classrooms and apply immediately to their practice.

 

 

By offering this tool to teachers so they could adapt CITW strategies to their own teaching, conference planners demonstrated a thorough understanding of component two of the new Framework for Instructional Planning—helping students (or, in this case, teachers) develop understanding.

You can access the Reflection Journal from the bottom of the front page on t.i.c.l.’s website. Consider modifying this tool for upcoming professional development and training sessions.

(Special thanks to Prairie Lakes and Northwest for permission to blog about this
resource.)

Written by Elizabeth Hubbell, co-author of Using Technology with Classroom Instruction That Works.

Teacher prep programs: Helping new teachers swim—or sink?

Would you participate in a swim meet if you just learned to dog paddle? Probably not. Yet, many of our new teachers are entering the classroom straight from their college or preparatory program without the training, practice, or knowledge they need to succeed. With the increasing demands on teacher performance, and many teachers leaving the profession after their first year, the “sink or swim” mentality isn’t useful for teachers, their schools, or, most important, their students. Instead, we should be asking: What do preservice teachers need, why aren’t they getting it, and what can we do to ensure they get it? 

School administrators Gary M. Chesley and Janice Jordan assembled a focus group of 30 new teachers from 17 universities and asked them how prepared they believe they were for their first days of school. Here are a few of the issues, also echoed in other studies, that these new teachers expressed about their preservice training.   

Classroom management

New teachers are continually overwhelmed by unruly students and are unsure how to respond to classroom management issues. One study from researchers at the University of Florida, Stephanie D. Van Hover and Elizabeth Anne Yeager, shows that lack of classroom management skills often causes new teachers to be less creative and rely more heavily on lecturing and textbook-style lessons. Teacher preparation programs should teach research-based strategies for classroom management and expose preservice teachers to multiple ways of managing student behavior and building positive relationships in the classroom. 

Planning curriculum

Novice teachers struggle with lesson planning and coming up with enough curricula. The focus group  teachers reported that lesson planning practice in their preparatory classes seemed artificial, contrived, and useless in the real classroom. That may explain why, according to research from Sarah Walstead Fry from Bucknell University, many spend 10–12 hours a day planning and grading. High-quality preservice programs must give novice teachers opportunities to work side by side with master teachers to observe effective, long-term curriculum planning and deeply understand and organize subject matter. 

Demanding environments

Many of the new teachers surveyed in the focus group felt unprepared for the mental and physical stress they experienced—including the classroom workload and the expectation that they manage multiple demands and responsibilities. They felt that their preservice programs did not give them the “professional habits of mind” to build a teaching career or the skills needed to be “highly collaborative and active contributors in professional learning communities.” Teacher preparatory programs should expose preservice teachers to the intense work of the typical classroom for longer periods of time and focus on specific professional habits, such as accurately assessing the effectiveness of an instructional strategy.  

How can K–12 school and universities collaborate to more effectively prepare teachers? What challenges did you face as a new teacher? What could have prepared you more fully for your first day?

For more information, read the May 2012 issue of Educational Leadership, Supporting Beginning Teachers, which includes Bryan Goodwin’s article, “New Teachers Face Three Common Challenges.”

Written by Jennifer Tuzzeo, writer and editor at McREL

Quiet in the classroom

Imagine being 13 years old and having a social studies class in which you and your classmates learn cooperatively 100 percent of the time, and no one ever works alone . . . ever. Depending on your personality, this could be your favorite class or your worst nightmare.

This was the learning environment one teacher created for his students after attending a professional development seminar on the benefits of cooperative learning. Upon returning to the school, he physically made over his classroom, creating stations for small groups of students to work together every single day.

Perhaps he was so inspired by a dynamic instructor that he couldn’t resist converting to a new teaching approach; perhaps he viewed it as a way not to have to deal with the time-consuming planning that good teaching often requires; or he may have viewed it simply as a fail-proof way for students to learn. Whatever his instructional motivations, it most likely was the way he himself preferred to learn. However, it was not the preference of at least one of his students, who began to dread attending his class and, as a result, learned very little social studies that year.

An insight as to why and how some students choose to opt out of cooperative learning is revealed in Susan Cain’s book Quiet, which posits that our culture, in general, and our schools, in particular, undervalue certain types of individuals, specifically, introverts. She contends that the focus on group learning in schools ignores the needs of students who not only dislike working in group settings but actually don’t learn in them. Instead, they learn best when they work individually, usually through reading, writing, and reflecting. 

In McREL's Classroom Instruction That Works, Second Edition, the authors write that learning to collaborate and cooperate is a good foundation for future success in a world that demands high levels of social interaction. When used consistently (but not daily) and systematically (but not rigidly), cooperative learning structures provide opportunities for students to interact, take on specific roles, and listen actively to others’ ideas. But cooperative learning is not necessarily the basis for thinking or problem solving; that level of understanding often occurs when students are allowed to think and wonder on their own. 

Cain writes that introverts represent one-third to one-half of all Americans; naturally, the same percentage exists in classrooms. For students possessing this personality trait, a steady stream of external stimuli is exactly the opposite of their ideal learning environment. And taken to the extreme—where students even take tests with a partner, possibly because teachers think it will reduce student anxiety (and new brain research suggests it sometimes does)—the practice gets in the way of learning.

More than two years ago, McREL Senior Researcher Charles Igel wrote on this blog that, while group learning had become as ubiquitous to modern instruction as rote recitation was during the last century,  many teachers were still confused about how to use it effectively. In a recent article, he explains that the early researchers of cooperative learning realized that just putting people into groups and having them learn together was not enough to improve learning. Cooperative learning is a subset of collaborative learning, and is different because it is highly structured and contains certain identifiable elements to foster the upside of social learning (i.e., engagement and high achievement) while avoiding the downside (i.e., uneven effort and outcomes). The research supports that when teachers use cooperative learning properly, they are more likely to reengage students who have become marginalized while preparing all students to be successful in their future endeavors.

Which brings us back to the over-zealous middle-school teacher, who, had he not taken his efforts to the extreme, might have created an environment where students learn to think on their own. We must acknowledge the possibility that when students seek solitude to “do their own thing,” they aren’t necessarily refusing to play well with others; rather, they may be following their natural tendencies to seek out an environment that frees them to learn their way.

Listen to Susan Cain’s TED Talk, “The Power of Introverts.”

Learning Uninterrupted

A growing trend in education over the last two decades has been exploring ways to use educational technology to maximize classroom time and extend learning opportunities beyond the classroom. The idea of a “ubiquitous learning environment,” where students can learn at any time and in any place, has long been a dream of many educators and goes back over one hundred years—correspondence courses, phonographs, radio, filmstrips, and television have all been re-purposed for learning.

Today, with high-speed Internet and devices like smart phones and tablet computers more commonly in the hands of students, educators are closer than ever to realizing the dream of the anytime/anyplace classroom. Despite the (very real) digital divide, schools increasingly are providing students with mobile computing devices to take learning from the school into the home.

Many teachers already take advantage of free online services that provide rich and engaging educational opportunities. For example, the Khan Academy provides video vignettes on a plethora of educational topics, and MIT hosts a wide selection of online courses. But today’s educators are not just looking to capitalize on these types of resources, but also to transform homework time into an extended classroom experience. McREL’s own research in the areas of Homework and Practice supports the idea that learning outside of the classroom has a high (and measurable) impact on student learning and achievement.

Most recently, the ubiquitous classroom has been getting attention due to the “flipped classroom” movement started by two Colorado teachers, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams, from Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park, Colorado. Their flipped classroom began by first recording live lectures for students who missed their classes, but it evolved to recording lectures for homework use, and then for class-time projects and group discussions. While their version (http://www.flippedclassroom.com) is predominantly vodcasting, it also incorporates using Nonlinguistic Representation, an instructional strategy that research has shown to increase student understanding of concepts and processes.  

The new expectation is that teachers with access to rich educational technology resources are using valuable face-to-face class time to expand learning opportunities, and that homework is truly becoming an extension of school work. While parents and teachers might need convincing that flipping the traditional classroom is valid, students won’t. This way of learning capitalizes on the 21^st Century skills that students are already using (with or without us), which allows them to not only be along for the journey, but able to give input and guide the process, too.

What have you done in the area of ubiquitous learning? Tell us your story about moving your classroom into anytime/anyplace learning.

To read more about what research and ubiquitous classrooms have in common, check out the new McREL-ASCD publication, Classroom Instruction that Works, Second Edition.

Written by Andy Kerr, Lead Consultant

The evolving landscape of educational research: What a difference a decade can make!

When the first edition of Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement (CITW) was published in 2001, it gave the educational world unprecedented guidance for using research-based strategies in a practical way. Free from any one particular philosophy or program, this was one of the first books for educators that very simply said, “This is what works.” McREL's continued requests for training, services, and products based on this seminal work are indicative of its lasting relevance in the field.

Yet, what a difference a decade can make! Since that initial publication, our profession has been enlightened by the works of Carol Dweck, John J. Medina, Linda Darling-Hammond, Nancy Frey, and many others. We know more now about student motivation, providing feedback, the power of multimedia and images, and scaffolding learning that we ever did before. While we have been humbled by the success of the first edition of CITW, it became more and more apparent that the work was in need of an update as we helped educators learn the nuances of the nine categories of effective strategies. In addition to including emerging research in the field, we felt the need to make correlations with dynamic developments in educational technology and an increased focus on 21st century skills.

Perhaps our biggest incentive for rewriting the book came from our experiences in working with thousands of schools and districts on learning CITW. As we talked with educators and school or district leaders, we realized that there were parts of the first version of CITW that were confusing or unclear. For instance, the 2001 publication lists the strategies in order of impact on effect size, starting with Identifying Similarities and Differences and ending with Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers. This sent an unintended message to readers that those strategies listed at the top were of higher priority than those at the bottom. Countless times, we heard clients say they intended to focus on the "best" strategies that school year and, if time allowed, they would turn their efforts to the "lower" strategies. This was, of course, no fault of school leaders or educators; it simply reflected changes we knew we wanted to make.

Classroom Instruction that Works, Second Edition, addresses these issues and incorporates the best thinking on instruction from the past decade. For one, we created a framework to help educators prioritize the strategies as well as know when each strategy should be used when planning for instruction.

We also reference how these strategies integrate with new technologies and 21^st century learning. In the new research, the strategies have remained the same, but the findings and how we talk about them has changed. To that end, each strategy in the second edition of CITW includes the following sections.

Why this Category is Important includes findings from the new research and how these differ or are in support of findings from the initial meta-analysis.

Classroom Practice gives practical classroom recommendations as well as vignettes to help readers see the strategy in action.

Today's Learners outlines how these recommendations fit with 21st century classrooms, student-centered instruction, and modern technologies.

Tips for Teaching gives key points or take-aways from the chapter.

Classroom Instruction That Works, Second Edition, takes a classic publication on instruction and makes it fresh by drawing from new research, providing better organization of the strategies, and addressing its relevance to our classrooms today. The book will be available on January 16 from www.ascd.org. We look forward to hearing your feedback!

Online Instruction that Works: The environment is different, but the strategies still deliver

Learning with computers isn’t what it used to be. Most of us knew them as a classroom tool; now, they are the classroom. A total of 1,500,000 K−12 students enrolled in online courses in 2009, almost double the number in 2006, according to the International Association for K−12 Online Learning. Alabama, Michigan, and Florida require online learning for students to graduate, and others, like Idaho and Utah, are considering similar changes. Students, parents, and teachers alike appear to be embracing online learning. In a fall 2011 EducationNext article, students report better engagement when learning is differentiated and accessible through multiple venues, and teachers often report better relationships with students and the ability to provide one-on-one guidance that face-to-face classrooms cannot afford (“The Highs and Lows of Virtual School: One Teacher’s View”).

But knowing how to instruct online effectively is not automatic. The first time I delivered professional development virtually, in spite of knowing better, I lectured more, used fewer multimedia resources, and did not provide ample time for participants to interact with one another. It seemed that all the lessons I had mastered in face-to-face instruction suddenly had to be relearned in an online environment. I didn’t have the physical cues (e.g., eye contact, facial expressions, off-task conversations) to help me adjust my lessons accordingly.

So I went back to the nine research-based strategies of Classroom Instruction that Works (CITW) that I know so well and realized that, tweaked for virtual application, they still provide the framework I need for effective instruction. They reminded me to do the following in an online classroom:

• State explicit objectives for each session and make them accessible to all.
• Provide feedback to each participant and allow them opportunities to give their peers feedback and self-reflect.
• Offer multiple avenues to help participants develop understanding of new concepts.
• Provide ample opportunities for participants to interact in groups.
• Provide opportunities for participants to apply what they learned in real-world situations.

Time and again, we have received feedback from readers and workshop participants that the CITW strategies provide clarity and purpose for how to create an environment conducive to learning and how to scaffold student learning from initial understanding to deep knowledge (see figure below)—whether they’re teaching science or social studies, in an urban or rural setting, or in an ELL or mainstream classroom. Though the delivery method of online learning is different, we have every reason to believe the CITW strategies will deliver for teachers in virtual classrooms like they do for teachers everywhere who want to be the most effective they can be.

Elizabeth Ross Hubbell is an educational technology consultant at McREL

Turning classroom instruction on its head

The classroom lecture. It’s been criticized, despised, even lampooned. An entire generation  can probably recite the lines to Ben Stein’s dead-pan, droning lecture in the 1986 film, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. (“Anyone?... Anyone?”)

 

But lectures aren’t necessarily bad. In fact , they can be an efficient way to help students acquire new knowledge. The problem with lectures, though, is often a matter of pacing. For some students, the information may come too slowly or repeat information they already know. Result: boredom. 

For others, a lecture may provide too much information too rapidly or presume prior knowledge students don’t have. If students zone out for a moment, they may miss important content and be lost for the rest of the lecture. Result: confusion. 

After a hit-or-miss lecture, teachers often give homework assignments, which students perform in what may be a private hell of frustration and confusion. What did my teacher said about cross-multiplying? Comma use in compound sentences? The Laffer Curve?

A new generation of enterprising teachers is beginning to turn this classroom model on its head, creating what are called “flipped” or “inverted" classrooms. Using simple web software, they record and post their lectures online, creating mini-lectures similar to what Salman Khan has created with his Khan Academy collection of more than 2,000 online lessons. (Click here to view Khan’s recent TED talk). 

In these inverted classrooms, students watch the lectures at home, where they’re able to speed up content they already understand or stop and review content they don’t get the first time around (and might be too embarrassed to ask their teachers to repeat in class). The online lecture also incorporates visual representation, such as animated graphs or photos of important historical events. 

Now, when students come to class, they can ask their teachers clarifying questions about the previous night’s lesson and engage in guided practice on problems they might otherwise have struggled with at home in tormented isolation. During class time, teachers can provide students with real-time feedback and correct misperceptions before they become deeply ingrained.

Jamie Yoos, last year’s teacher of the year in Washington state has created his own “inverted classroom” (see below). 

 

Click here to view some of Yoos' lectures on TeacherTube. 

Similarly, two Colorado teachers, Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams, have also “flipped” their classrooms with vodcasting (i.e., online broadcasting of videos).

Students of these innovative teachers say they love the new format and are more engaged in class. Sure, there may be a few students out there who still delight in a 50-minute lecture, but for the rest, inverted classrooms just seem to make … anyone? … anyone? … perfect sense.

Putting a little mystery in teaching

Want to hear a simple, surefire way to get kids interested in what you're teaching?

First, think back to your childhood. For kids, the world can be a wonderful, mysterious place. That's why, as any parent knows, children are naturally full of questions. Why is the sky blue? Why do I dream? Why do birds fly south for the winter? The list goes on and on.

As we grow up, we solve these mysteries and fill our heads with facts. Over time, we start to forget what made things so interesting to us in the first place. As teachers, it's easy for us to take a Joe Friday "just-the-facts, ma'am" approach to teaching. As a result, we blow the suspense for children. We come right out and tell them the answers to the mystery, rather than building their interest by posing questions such as, "Have you ever seen a shooting star? What do you suppose that is?"

A few years ago, Robert Cialdini,  a psychologist at Arizona State University, wrote an article titled, "What's the secret device for engaging student interest? Hint: The answer is in the title." After sifting through dozens of dry science articles, Cialdini found that engaging science writers take a different approach: they pose a question, for example, "What are the rings of Saturn made of? Rock or ice?" Then they build suspense and mystery before finally resolving the mystery. The answer, in this case (spoiler alert!), is both.

Teachers, can, of course, do the same thing in their classrooms. Instead of coming right out and providing kids with the answers, they can build suspense in all kinds of subject areas, not just science. For example, in social studies, a teacher might offer this mystery: How could a rag tag army of volunteers (the American revolutionaries) defeat the world's greatest superpower at the time (the British empire)? In math, a teacher might get kids wondering how to calculate the area of a circle. Gee ... wouldn't it be great if there were some kind of "magic" formula for that?

At two upcoming events---a lecture here in Colorado on Jan. 15 and a free, national, NASA-sponsored webcast on Jan. 20---McREL staff members will offer up some big space science mysteries (and their answers), helping teachers think about how to design their lessons around these mysteries.

So as you plan your next lesson, you might ask yourself, what's the mystery here?

Bryan Goodwin is McREL's Vice President of Communications and Marketing.

How do you teach science to students with visual impairments?

Imagine a big ball of rock and ice hurtling through space that grows a tail as it approaches the sun. Can you picture that?

Well, maybe not. You might wonder, what kind of tail? Is it long like a monkey’s, curled like a pig’s, or bobbed like a poodle’s?

Well, none of those, I might tell you. It’s more like a jet condensation trail, only a little wider and not as long—relatively speaking, that is.

But what if you’d never actually seen a con trail—or a monkey or poodle tail for that matter. We could go on like this forever, playing a sort of 20 questions game, each of us becoming more exasperated.

Obviously, if I could just show you the image of a comet, you would quickly understand what I’m describing. That’s the challenge science teachers face, though, when trying to help students with visual impairments grasp difficult science concepts: They can’t rely on simple images from textbooks. They must help students use manipulative and tactile tools to “see” what they’re learning.

For the past three years, McREL has been working with Edinboro University, Tactile Learning Adventures, and the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind to develop an intervention to help teachers create tactile graphics and written descriptions for visually impaired students.

The project, titled ACE (for Adapted Curriculum Enhancements) and funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Education, has created and studied the effectiveness of materials and lessons designed to help grades 6–12 mainstream teachers adapt lessons for students with visual impairments.

So how do you help a student with visual impairments visualize a comet? Here’s a hint: it involves a Styrofoam ball, some ribbons, and a hair dryer.

View this lesson and download other free lessons and materials from the ACE website at http://www.ace-education.org/.

Bryan Goodwin is McREL's Vice President of Communications and Marketing.

Summit School District finds "secret" to narrowing achievement gaps

In the popular mind, Summit County, Colorado, in the heart of Colorado ski country, might seem worlds apart from the usual challenges many other school districts face—a place where perhaps privileged, ski sweater-clad youngsters gather ’round roaring fireplaces to sing John Denver songs.

The reality, however, is until recently, Summit School District had one of the largest achievement gaps in the state—with the English language learning children of the county’s influx of immigrant workers achieving at much lower rates than its nonminority students.

Over the past two years, McREL has worked extensively with teachers and administrators in the district to help them narrow their achievement gaps while increasing overall student performance.

So what’s the secret to these initial successes? A bold new program? A whiz bang technology? A new silver bullet?

Nope.

The “secret” has simply been to focus on delivering consistent, high-quality instruction in every classroom.

Teachers across the distict have been working hard to adapt the effective instructional practices they already know to the needs of English language learners. In keeping with some of the key ideas of McREL’s Changing the Odds for Student Success: What Matters Most report, they've been adopting “growth mindsets” for students, delivering challenging instruction, and providing students with the support they need to meet high expectations.

In the words of Superintendent Millie Hamner, the district has been simply “focusing on keeping best instructional practices and student learning first on our minds, in our agendas, and in our hearts.”

Read the entire Summit School District story here.

Download the free Changing the Odds report here.

Bryan Goodwin is McREL's Vice President of Communications & Marketing.

Three simple steps for adapting lessons for English language learners

At some time or another, we’ve all probably all had the frustrating experience of trying to converse with someone in a foreign language. We may catch snippets and phrases here and there, generally getting the gist of what’s being said to us. But when it comes time to open our mouths and speak, we’re tongue tied. Our vocabulary ("I don't know how to say sprint; I'll just say run instead"), conjugation (“Let’s see … what’s the third-person plural of correr?”), and dialect fail us (“Shoot. I still can’t roll my r’s.).

At this point, a fear begins to grip us. We worry that our conversation partners may judge by our underdeveloped language skills that our intellect is similarly on par with a toddler.

That judgment would be wrong, of course. Just because we’re not yet conversant in a second language, doesn’t mean we can’t grasp difficult concepts.

Teachers face a similar challenge when they have English language learners in their classrooms. While those students’ language skills may not yet be fully developed, they are still very much capable of grasping complex content. And all learning can’t stop while students acquire their language skills—if it does, students’ will find themselves well behind their peers once their language acquisition catches up to their intellect.

In a new article for TeachHub.com, Jane Hill and Cynthia Bjork, authors of training-of-trainer materials that support the book, Classroom Instruction that Works for English Language Learners, identify three simple steps for adapting lessons for English language learners students to ensure they continue learning content while learning English:

Step 1: Know the stages of second-language acquisition. All learners progress through five stages of language acquisition, write Hill and Bjork: pre-production, early production, speech emergence, intermediate fluency, and advanced fluency. Knowing where their students are in this continuum helps teachers to plan their assignments accordingly.

Step. 2: Tier student thinking across the stages of second-language acquisition. Hill and Bjork’s article provides a matrix that overlays the levels of thinking from Bloom’s (new) Taxonomy to the stages of language acquisition. They recommend teachers use this matrix to plan homework and class assignments accordingly.

Step 3. Set expectations. In this stage, teachers combine stage one and two, identifying their students’ level of language acquisition and assignment at-home and in-class practice assignments accordingly.

By knowing where students are on this continuum and scaffolding their learning to the next stage of the continuum, teachers can ensure their students are gaining valuable knowledge while at the same time advancing in their language acquisition.

Read the whole article here.

Follow these links to learn more about McREL’s English language learners instructional leadership academies, workshops, and books and manuals.

Bryan Goodwin is McREL's Vice President of Communications & Marketing.

How to make staff development stick

Educators have probably all grown wary of drive-by staff development—the one- or two-day workshop that momentarily energizes staff, getting everyone excited about doing something new, but then, like a photograph left too long in the sun, fades over time. 

So who are we to blame when this happens? Teachers? Is it their fault when guidance from a workshop doesn't take root in classrooms?

Not so fast, according to McREL staff members Jane Hill and Anne Lundquist in an article that’s now online at the Education.com site. 

School leaders actually hold the keys to making staff development stick.

Hill and Lundquist lay out several strategies that they have used effectively in the English Language Learner Instructional Leadership Academies they have led in Colorado, Nebraska, Virginia, Iowa and other states to turn drive-by workshops into something lasting in schools.

These strategies include identifying, up front, a leadership team, consisting of school administrators, district staff, and teachers, who take responsibility for helping teachers to implement what they learn in staff development sessions in their classrooms.

Leaders also need to recognize that any change worth making is difficult and takes people out of their comfort zones. To loosen folded arms or “this too shall pass attitudes,” leaders must work on getting everyone on the same page (something at McREL we call creating a “purposeful community”) so they see the need for change and believe doing something different will make a difference. They also need to take steps to overcome the anxiety and pushback that comes with any difficult, meaningful change (which we call “second order” change).

Hill and Lundquist's article offers practical steps for how leadership teams can accomplish both of these objectives. While their article focuses on staff development related to improving the achievement of English language learners, their practical tips and advice for making professional development stick translates well to all kinds of teacher learning.

Read the entire article online.

Bryan Goodwin is McREL's Vice President of Communications.

Financial Literacy with Generating and Testing Hypotheses

By Matt Kuhn – McREL Lead Consultant

While I am a curriculum and instruction consultant at McREL, I am also a father. Today I chaperoned my fifth grade son’s class trip to Ameritowne. These experts in financial education develop the financial literacy of young people through real-life experiences and hands-on programs. They use simulated communities such as Ameritowne, International Towne, and others. They also use the Classroom Instruction that Works strategy category of Generating and Testing Hypotheses. Specifically, students problem solve, make decisions, and analyze systems as they try to run simulated businesses, governments, nonprofits, and other institutions found in a community. Each “store front” is sponsored by a real organization in the actual community. More information can be found at http://www.yacenter.org.

This was a great example of how dynamic experiences can build student background knowledge and thinking skills. The students governed the town, produced television news coverage, bought and sold goods, ran charities, produced products, and more. They had to analyze conditions within the community (system) and decide what to do. They then tested their plans as they ran the community. The adults were there just to advise and assist. It was wonderful to see how well the students did in their work. Do you have any examples of real-world simulations that use Generation and Testing Hypotheses in other content areas? If so, share it with us in a comment to this posting.

Using BrainPOP with Summarizing & Notetaking

by Elizabeth Hubbell, Educational Technology Consultant at McREL, and Allisyn Levy, Director of BrainPOP Educators
(*Note: this post is the second of a series of collaborative posts between BrainPOP Educators and McREL's Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. These articles will be cross-posted on the McREL Blog and on BrainPOP Educators Blog.)

Think back to your K-12 years. Did someone actually teach you how to take notes? If so, in which grade were you? 

My earliest memory of actually being taught how to take useful notes (formal outlining aside) was in my biology class in high school. Our teacher had her trusty overhead projector and would stop during her lecture to capture key points of what she had just said. She didn't use Roman numerals or capital letters, but rather a series of bullet points, arrows, stars, etc. She would ask us to jot down these items along with her and to draw small sketches out to the side to help us remember processes and concepts. 

I remember her stating at the end of the lecture, "By the end of this unit, I don't want your notes to look just as they do now. I want to see underlines, highlights, arrows...I want to know that you actually used them to help you study."

Little did she realize that she was following the classroom recommendations that would eventually be published in Classroom Instruction that Works:

1. Give students teacher-prepared notes.

2. Teach students a variety of note-taking formats. (She demonstrated informal outlining, webbing, and using pictures, knowing that different students would prefer different styles of notetaking.)

3. Use combination notes. (She combined linguistic and non-linguistic representation of what we were learning.)

Students even as young as kindergarten learn to draw pictures to help them remember what they've studied. By upper elementary, students can, and should, have opportunities to see what good notes look like, for example, how to indent to show subordinate details.

BrainPOP movies and features include great resources to teach notetaking. They provide introductions to a wide variety of subjects and explain key vocabulary terms for students (using images, animations, audio, and print). They can also serve to review a topic already covered. All of BrainPOP's movies have closed captioning. This feature, with any student, is an excellent literacy and visual reinforcement. Pausing at a key concept during a movie and inviting students to put the concept in their own words, or drawing a quick sketch to represent the concept, gives students the support they need to successfully learn and remember concepts. Each of BrainPOP's short, animated videos offers ample opportunities to pause for discussions and time for students to take notes. 

For example, a teacher may wish for her students to watch the movie on Franklin D. Roosevelt as they begin their unit on the Great Depression. Before watching the movie, she provides her students with a skeletal outline (see below). She may also choose to model notetaking on the typeable BrainPOP Vocabulary page, or do some shared writing with the class before handing out copies. Teachers may pick and choose notetaking tools provided on BrainPOP (closed captioning, graphic organizers, vocabulary) and use these to scaffold student learning during the movie. 

Franklin Delano Roosevelt  

• Which number president? _________
• Served 19__ - 19__
• served ______ terms
• The Great __________ was happening when FDR took office
• "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." What do you think this means?

• Four key points of the New Deal in the movie
• Unemployed ____________
• Farmers _____________________
• The stock market ________________
• The banking system ____________
• Vocabulary terms to know
• Social Security ____________
• fireside chats ____________
• Eleanor Roosevelt ____________
• isolationism ____________
• United Nations ____________

 

By using a resource such as BrainPOP, students can watch a segment as often as they need in order to capture the main ideas. BrainPOP provides graphic organizers and activities that can serve to scaffold the process of summarizing, paraphrasing, and notetaking. Eventually, students will not need these scaffolding tools, but will be able to capture key ideas on their own. Instilling strong notetaking skills is a lifelong gift we can give to students. 

For more information about McREL's workshop on Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, click here or contact Elizabeth Hubbell at ehubbell [at] mcrel [dot] org.

Are you a BrainPOP Educator? Sign up today for BrainPOP Educators, our free professional community, where teachers can find and share innovative lesson plans, graphic organizers, video tutorials, and best classroom practices. You may contact Allisyn Levy at allisynl [at] brainpop [dot] com

Using BrainPOP as an Advance Organizer

by Elizabeth Hubbell, Educational Technology Consultant at McREL, and Allisyn Levy, Director of BrainPOP Educators

(*Note: this post is the first of a series of collaborative posts between BrainPOP Educators and McREL's Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. These articles will be cross-posted on the McREL Blog and on BrainPOP Educators Blog.)

One of the most effective strategies that teachers can employ when first starting a unit is to use advance organizers to help students activate background knowledge and organize potentially confusing new information. Advance organizers can take many forms, including graphic organizers, skimming, narratives, and simply giving an overview of the content (expository advance organizers). They are given to students in advance of the learning activities to help scaffold their learning. This "front-loading" before new material is presented increases opportunities for student success as they're able to connect to prior knowledge and organize new information more easily.

For example, a middle school teacher is beginning a unit on forces and motion, with an emphasis on types of bridges and forces that act upon a bridge. He knows that his students have studied some of these concepts before and wants to remind them of their background knowledge on the subject as well as get students personally interested. In order to do this, the teacher will utilize several types of advance organizers as his kickoff activity.

He begins by creating a graphic organizer to help students organize the new terms and definitions they will be learning. This also serves the dual purpose of helping them to focus on what's important while not being distracted by taking lots of notes. In this way, the teacher is modeling teacher-prepared notes. (More about this in an upcoming blog post.)

 

The students do several activities to help them fill out their graphic organizer. One is to watch the BrainPOP movie on Bridges. Before or after watching the movie, they might explore the intriguing facts and comic in the related FYI on BrainPOP as another means of piquing student interest and activating prior knowledge. He also uses other online and print resources to help students find the information for which they are looking. In effect, the teacher is using these resources as expository advance organizers, but using a variety of media to engage students and to speak to different learning styles.

As a narrative advance organizer, the teachers shows a video clip of "Galloping Gertie," the Tacoma-Narrows bridge that collapsed in 1940. Students ask questions such as, "What made the bridge 'gallop'?" and "Was this a mechanical error or did a natural disaster occur?" In this way, the teacher is again using multimedia to tell a narrative and to get students interested in the subject at hand.

By the end of the activity, the students are more familiar with key vocabulary and concepts that they will need as they progress in their studies of force and motion. They are likely far more engaged than they would have been had they simply been asked to read the opening paragraph of their textbooks. Even better, they can go back and visit the resources again or quiz themselves on basic concepts to self-assess their understanding.

For more information about McREL's two-day workshop on Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works, click here or contact Elizabeth Hubbell at ehubbell [at] mcrel [dot] org.

Are you a BrainPOP Educator? Sign up today for BrainPOP Educators, our free professional community, where teachers can find and share innovative lesson plans, graphic organizers, video tutorials, and best classroom practices. 

Finding Motivation to Put Forth the Effort

by Matt Kuhn,

One of the research-informed strategies from the book, Classroom Instruction that Works, is Reinforcing Effort. Many students don’t make the connection between success and effort. Often they think that other students achieve because of luck, who they know, or born-in abilities. If children don’t think that they have any of these factors in their favor, they may assume that they have no effect on their chances for success. It is up to the community, parents, and educators to make sure children do understand that effort can result is achievement. It’s at the core of the American Dream.

McREL is often called to struggling communities where motivation is a big issue. Many of these communities have the most difficult of circumstances such as high poverty, unemployment, teen pregnancy, drug use, and violence. Yet, once in a while we come upon a community that despite the odds, is succeeding in motivating their students to succeed. Some of the schools in these communities were documented in McREL’s Schools that “Beat the Odds” report found at http://www.mcrel.org/product/231. When we look closely, we find school leaders that look for ways to motivate students. Sometimes it’s simply finding a way to reward good behavior. For instance, a high school principal in Poplar, Montana makes a small difference by realizing that students want a safe place to socialize with friends. So she provides a supervised common area for students in order to motivate them to try harder in school. They can play the Wii video game, socialize with friends, or just relax with a book as reward for their efforts in school.

Increasing student effort boils down to finding out what is important to them and finding ways to use it for motivation. A large example of this is Project Citizen (http://www.civiced.org/index.php?page=introduction). As you can see from the embedded movie below, Project Citizen Educators from around the world help students find an interesting community problem. Then they work together to find solutions. Not all problems get fixed, but enough do to teach the lesson that effort does pay off in success.

Having positive role models also improves intrinsic motivation to succeed. If students see successful people like themselves, they believe that they can do it too. One of the best ways to provide genuine role models is by using the ones already found in your schools. For instance, a school counselor could start a peer-partner program that connects screened and trained role models from upper classmen at the high school with struggling students in the middle school. Or, educators could put together a summer camp to motivate urban boys or girls using young successful students from their own community. An example of this is shown in the video below.

Sometimes you may need to find mentors from higher education to motivate students. In the video below, the Expanding Your Horizons program is shown to motivate girls to pursue STEM fields.

McREL is also doing work in this area. We have begun work on a three-year project to design and study the effects of a two-week, summer science program designed to encourage high school students to enroll in high school chemistry call “Cosmic Chemistry” (see http://www.mcrel.org/newsroom/pr_091012_cosmic_chemistry.asp). In what ways have you seen schools in struggling communities beat the odds and motivate students to put forth a strong effort?

Homework and Practice have a Sister

    In our work with districts across the county, we often find that homework and practice is a bone of contention in many schools. Many issues arise if the strategy of homework and practice (H&P) is misapplied. Sometimes H&P is too large a part of the students’ total grade. This enables some students to pass a class without really showing that they know the subject. Other times H&P is not differentiated enough resulting in some students finding the work too frustrating and others seeing it as a total waste of their time. Furthermore, the purpose of an H&P activity might not be communicated well to the students or the activity really has little or no purposeful connection to the learning objectives at all. For instance, we have all seen busy work such as word searches assigned as homework for homework’s sake. If the teacher, and more importantly the students, cannot readily tell you why an H&P activity is important, than it probably does not have a good purpose and should not have been assigned in the first place.

    But the problem I find most egregious is when there is no opportunity for feedback on H&P activities. When you practice something you are trying to see what you are doing well and what you need to change about what you do not do well. This requires feedback, usually from someone as skilled as or more so than you in the subject. This is why master teachers pair homework and practice with its sister strategy, providing feedback. 

    Providing feedback can be tiered to give every opportunity to the students to receive the guidance they need to learn. For instance, teachers could lead students through checking the work and accuracy of their math homework (whole group feedback). Then the students could pair up and discuss how to solve the three practice problems that were most challenging to them (peer feedback). Then the teacher could encourage students to revise their work based on the feedback (mastery teaching). Finally, the teacher could collect a random assignment at the end of the week for in-depth feedback by the teacher (expert feedback).

    In any case, students should have the opportunity for meaningful practice that includes criteria-based corrective feedback. These feedback should be both positive and negative in that is lets the students know what they are doing well and not well and how to improve it. Then the students should have the opportunity to act on this feedback to make the corrections. Sports coaches and master teachers know this practice and feedback loop very well. Do you have an example of a practice/feedback loop that you use with your students?

Matt Kuhn - Curriculum & Instruction Consultant - STEM

What Does Teaching Really Look Like?

by Elizabeth R. Hubbell

I attended Colorado's Learning 2.0 conference in February of this year, my second time participating in this lively "unconference conference." The kinds of conversations and connections that are made at this event are, I think, the future of educational gatherings. Howard Pitler and I presented "What Does Teaching Really Look Like?" In this session, we presented data from our Power Walkthrough software. Now that we are nearly two years into this product, we have compiled data from over 27,000 walkthroughs. We are starting to get a picture of what classrooms look like during the school day and what our students are actually doing during their K-12 years.

What we are finding is startling: overwhelmingly, the primary instructional strategies that teachers are using are Practice, Cues & Questions, Nonlinguistic Representation, and Feedback. While these are all very effective strategies, those that engage students in higher order thinking skills, such as Generating and Testing Hypotheses and Identifying Similarities and Differences, represent a small margin of the strategies used.

Almost 80% of the time, students are either working individually (24%) or are in whole-group instruction (54%). This means that students are in cooperative groups, informal small groups, or pairs only 20% of the time. Considering the social nature of students, especially Millennials, this is unfortunate. Working collaboratively is increasingly becoming a necessary skill for the 21st century workplace, yet students get relatively little time to practice these skills. Teacher-directed question/answer and worksheets are two primary methods of providing evidence of learning. (See Wes Fryer's post on Worksheets here http://www.speedofcreativity.org/2009/03/27/the-thursday-folder-and-worksheet-measured-learning/.)

The data that is being gathered is starting to paint a picture that we know all too well: due to high stakes testing and curricula that are all too often a mile long and an inch deep, teachers will quickly cue and question students, then give them practice time and feedback to learn the content or skill. There are many solutions to this problem, some more quickly implemented than others: reconstruct curricula so that students get deeper learning experiences with less content, make lecture material readily accessible online so that students come to class with the background knowledge for higher level projects (see Rethinking Homework, Part 1 of 2), and make sure that administrators can provide the support teachers need for collaborative inquiry projects with their students.

Administrators, what other “low-hanging fruit” can you think of that would help teachers to have the skills, time, and resources to make certain that higher-order thinking and project-based learning is happening regularly in classrooms? Teachers, what barriers currently keep you from doing as much collaborative, inquiry-based learning as you would like?

We welcome your comments.

*For a complete article on this topic, we invite you to read this month's issue of Changing Schools, a free quarterly magazine written and published by McREL.

Elizabeth R. Hubbell is an Educational Technology Consultant in the Curriculum & Instruction department at McREL.

The Problem with “Problem Solving”

    There is a big difference between generating and testing hypotheses – problem solving and doing practice problems. The difference lies in the level of critical thinking required. These two instructional strategies are often confused by instructional leaders. This isn’t surprising since most text books rarely differentiate between the two. 

    When we train school leaders to conduct walkthroughs with McREL’s Power Walkthrough software (www.mcrel.org/powerwalkthrough), we make sure they can distinguish between the two. Let’s look at an example of this distinction. We might walk into a classroom and see students quietly completed a worksheet that asks them to find and correct ten “problems” with grammatical errors. These are language arts practice problems. On the other hand, students could be contemplating possible solutions to a community problem such as homelessness in Miami. In this second example, students would be using the problem solving process to define the problem, analyze and hypothesize multiple solutions, weigh these solutions against each other, and plan for action.

    I am not implying that it is not worthwhile for students to do practice problems. Practice is important for building the foundational skills students need. Nonetheless, if we want students to think critically, we cannot be satisfied with just doing practice problems. We have to build upon the foundations laid by them by providing students opportunities to analyze, evaluate, and create through problem solving. Do you have an innovative example of generating and testing hypotheses – problem solving? If so, share it with us in a reply to this posting.

Opening the Silos of Classrooms with Common Assessments

I had the good fortune this past school year of working with Bea Underwood Elementary teachers (Garfield County #16, Colorado) in helping them to create common assessments for their Power Indicators. Throughout the year, a core group of teachers diligently worked through identifying key standards that they wanted to commonly assess, collaborated with their grade-level teams to create activities and rubrics for assessing the students, and began the (sometimes) agonizing process of evaluating student work together so that they were all in agreement on the type of work that would earn a 1, 2, 3, or 4 on the rubric.

At our year-end meeting, the most poignant statements that the teachers made about the experience were those that talked about the critical conversations this project had spawned. One teacher remarked that one of her team’s biggest “ah-ha” moments was when they realized that they did not yet have a common language to use with students when administering the assessments. Another remarked on the many conversations she had had that year with her team regarding which skills were MOST important to assess in that particular grade. Most agreed that the experience had forced teachers to come out of their classrooms and have more collaborative conversations on student learning with their colleagues.

I believe that this one school is an example of a shift we are seeing in education: no longer are teachers expected or encouraged to do their own thing within the four walls of the classroom. A combination of technology, looking at best practices in other fields, and using data to inform instruction is positively impacting education in that teachers are exploring critical questions such as: “What’s really important?” “What really works?” and “What additional professional development do we need?”

Are there other schools or districts that are embarking on similar journeys? What have been your experiences? How has it impacted the culture of your schools? We would love to hear your thoughts.

Generating and Testing Hypotheses is Not Just for Science

I’m right in the middle of facilitating a three-day workshop in Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works. We are just about to get to the Strategy of Generating and Testing Hypotheses. Out of the 30 participants, less than a handful have taught science. I can tell that I will need to do my best to show the power of this strategy for all content areas.

Often when we mention the words “hypotheses” and “testing” together, people automatically think we are talking about science. To be fair, we sometimes are talking about science, but not nearly as much as people think. Generating and testing hypotheses is just another way saying “predict and determine how good your prediction turned out.” It can be used in all sorts of teaching situations. For instance, a language arts teacher might be leading students through reading a novel and ask them to predict what actions the character will take next based on what they have read so far. Then as the read more, they discuss the accuracy of their predictions. Another example is a music teacher that teaches a unit on Blues music and then has students create their own simple blues song. Creating music includes making many lyrical and melodic predictions and testing them out. A final example is the social studies teacher that asks students a big question like “What would the World be like today if the Nazis had won World War II?” Students are then asked to predict and investigate the feasibility of their predictions in a persuasive essay. Notice how the strategy tends to involve higher level thinking skills near the upper reaches of Bloom’s Taxonomy? This is why we have to use it beyond just science class.

We could go on and on about more non-science examples, but we would like to hear from you. What non-science examples can you come up with for Generating and Testing Hypotheses?

Setting Life-Long Objectives

I was thrilled to find this article in my ASCD SmartBrief last week on the importance of setting objectives. As one of the strategies highlighted in Classroom Instruction that Works, it’s often the first strategy we talk about during the workshop, and often one of the most important things a teacher can do to engage and motivate his or her students.

This article in particular focused on helping students to see how their decisions in school impact their future lives and careers. Students often go through the motions of “going to school” without realizing that decisions they are making at age ten, thirteen, sixteen, can hugely impact the options they have available by age eighteen. One question teachers often bemoan is the inevitable, “When are we ever going to use this?” If teachers can help their students to understand that learning to problem-solve, work through difficulties, prioritize, and network with others will greatly impact their adult lives, then teachers can help students move beyond their sometimes naive views of wanting to dismiss specific skills because they may or may not need them. Instead, the experience of learning itself becomes a lifelong skill and can help students to reach their future endeavors.