McREL Blog

GreenSTEM Model: Steps for an instructional approach

The 5th-grade class gathered by the creek that ran between their school and neighborhood, reminiscing about years past when it was safe to play in and around this water. The creek was now stagnant, cloudy, thick with algae, and foul-smelling. Thus began their yearlong GreenSTEM project that used STEM concepts and processes to investigate the problem with the creek, and inspired students to design and carry out a solution.

GreenSTEM is an engaging project-based approach that uses science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) content and practices to investigate local environmental problems, and design and implement solutions. GreenSTEM projects like the creek example comprise all eight steps (see graphic), which are woven throughout the lessons, and can last a week, month or the entire school year. Authentic and relevant GreenSTEM lessons that focus on only one step can be explored in only one or two class periods.

Steps we took in the GreenSTEM Creek Mitigation Project

Identify a local green challenge. We identified the poor water quality of the neighborhood creek as the challenge.

Frame the challenge with driving questions. In our first lesson, the 5th-graders asked compelling questions like, “What is making the creek behind our school look and smell bad?”, “What is causing the pond to be covered with algae?”, and “What effect do the large rocks on the lower edge of the pond have on water flow between the pond and channel?” This led to a series of ecosystem investigations that helped identify the problem and design solutions.

Ground all actions in STEM content. Using science, math, and technology (i.e., the modification of a natural resource to meet the needs or wants of the community), the 5th-graders investigated and gathered data to describe the problems with water and soil quality, macroinvertebrate diversity, erosion and deposition, and invasive plant species. This evidence became the guideposts for designing solutions to modify the creek.

Design and implement a solution. In a dynamic engineering design process, students design a solution, test it, modify the design based on test results, and test again. This is not always easy in some real-world GreenSTEM projects. In the creek mitigation case, the 5th-graders discovered that any of their design solutions addressing erosion, eutrophication, and current placement of large rocks in the creek channel could only be implemented by, or with permission from, the local water district authorities because of environmental protection laws. This made collaboration with these community experts essential to the project’s success. Students gathered the data on their designs through stream table channel modeling and presented their evidence and design solution recommendations to the authorities. At this point, if the authorities chose to implement their design, students would then be able to gather comparison data, allowing them to enter another improvement cycle in the engineering design process.*

Evaluate the solution, with the option to redesign. The effects of any creek mitigation would be evident immediately after implementation of the design solution, allowing a longitudinal study to continue for months and possibly years. Evaluation of various stream table channel design models would also be possible. With no creek mitigation, the evaluation could continue with the current creek channel design.

Share with others affected by the challenge and solution. Because students had very limited control in testing any solutions to the creek’s water quality, they became the engineer liaisons, offering their evidence-based solutions to the attention of the legal decision-makers. Students prepared and gave presentations to key stakeholders from the city and county water authority, school and district administrators, and interested community members.

Provide choices for students throughout the project. Real-world projects like this creek project are equally exciting for both teachers and students, who become co-learners by exploring, discovering, designing, and testing together. There is no preset answer or “right” solution. Given the latitude to make choices in GreenSTEM projects, students often discover new aspects of the challenge and come up with more innovative ideas than the teacher could have imagined.

Connect beyond the classroom throughout the project. School and community stakeholders were not aware of the creek quality issue and its effect on community activities until students met with them. Because their suggestions were data-driven and evidence-based, the water district professionals, and community members initiated high-level discussions with students about their findings and solutions, and then took the information back to their agencies and leadership for further discussions about implementation.

GreenSTEM projects can continue to inspire students far beyond the classroom—even over a lifetime—through ongoing student engagement in community issues and the pursuit of “green” jobs and higher-education opportunities in STEM. This revelation became clear to a GreenSTEM educator workshop participant, who expressed it so powerfully:

“The human mind continues to process unresolved questions long after the question is asked. Even if a classroom never solves a GreenSTEM issue, those 30 minds will continue to churn on the problem. Perhaps someday, one or two of these minds will find an answer to the problem.”

*Note: The water authorities were grateful to the students for bringing this problem and some solutions to their attention, but chose not act on the recommendations, citing flood control engineering design as the priority to an unimpeded channel with improved water quality. This lesson in civics enhanced the students' authentic community GreenSTEM project.

McREL consultant Laura Arndt taught science and GreenSTEM education at the elementary and high school level for 16 years. Now at McREL, Laura develops science curriculum and professional development models, and offers expertise on STEM and GreenSTEM program development in both formal and informal education settings. For more information about GreenSTEM, contact Laura at [email protected].

 

 

Additional resources

Green STEM: STEM as It’s Meant to Be

Greening STEM resources

Looking on the bright side for school improvement

Recently, I’ve had some enlightening discussions with colleagues about the concept of an inside out approach to school improvement. Many of the meaningful exchanges in these conversations have centered on opportunities to learn from bright spots within our schools and districts. Often in school improvement planning, we limit ourselves to discussing challenges, ignoring the bright spots. By doing this, we’re missing a great opportunity to expand and replicate the greatest aspects of our schools, our existing strengths.

While I was serving as a high school administrator in Michigan, our school improvement team was charged with turning around student outcomes within some of our identified gap areas, in this case, 9th-grade math and 9th-grade English. At the time, our school was still structured much like it had been since the 1950s, with each department operating independently in its own silo. Attempting to shift this paradigm was like turning around a freighter ship in a canal. However, during one of our routine school improvement work sessions, this anti-change trend actually changed.

Here’s what happened.

While following a typical template for a Department of Education-designed comprehensive needs assessment for school improvement planning, we worked through a dialogue guided by data protocols. The “challenges” side of our T-chart became our focus and grew far more elaborate than our “strengths” side. Much of the prior training that our school, along with others across the district, had received on school improvement planning was focused on problem identification, a flavor-of-the-month program remedy, monitoring implementation, and evaluating its effectiveness. This trend seemed to be going viral in school improvement teams across the district and the state.

However, in the midst of our gap-focused meeting, a hidden bright spot was exposed by a bold member of the team who asked: “What is our school really good at right now?” An awkward silence followed. The squeak from the markers on chart paper suddenly ceased as our focus shifted from gaps to bright spots. Soon though, we started talking about the positives: When people think of our school, what is it that people would say we are good at right now… ten years from now… ten years ago?

This new series of questions required some higher-order reflection—reflection that expanded beyond our T-chart template and beyond our initial gap-focused mindset. The responses rolled out rapidly: Band! Girls’ basketball! Football! It was fascinating to hear the collective agreement in these three responses. The attention of each member of the group shifted to a bright spot, and the responses steered everyone to a path of shared vision. All eyes focused on a space within schoolwide efforts. We derived encouragement from our ability to consistently attain our desired outcomes in these strength areas.  

Eventually, the follow-up question surfaced: Why? Why were these programs so good at getting desired outcomes, year in and year out? Why were we able to have consistent success with our students in these programs, year in and year out? This discovery process led to meaningful professional learning for every member of our team and helped reveal and replicate the “DNA” of these bright spots. In particular, we found our most powerful assets resided in:

• High-leverage instructional strategies. Effective demonstration of high-quality instruction was consistent in our bright-spot programs. Reciprocal teaching, cooperative learning, peer tutoring, and time-on-task were just some of the many routine practices revealed by dissecting the programs. In addition, each program—whether it was band, basketball, or football—was highly effective with the use of formative assessment during practice to drive both instruction and instructional design and planning; this led to success at game or performance time.
• Effective use of video to analyze and drive strategy. The most successful sports programs in our school used video to enhance the instructional program, providing students and players with an excellent example of how to fail forward, not just as individuals but also collectively.
• High-quality transition programs from middle to high school. One common thread we discovered in each of the bright-spot programs was an excellent transitional program for middle school students entering into the high school program. These summer programs and camps helped to engage students and families with the core principles and expectations of the program. In addition, the middle and high school coaches and teachers collaborated and co-designed the program of study for the students and players, ensuring the transition was relatively seamless.

Our analysis of the “DNA” of these school programs revealed many of the same findings commonly gleaned through extensive workshops on high-quality classroom and school practices. However, this powerful practice of self-reflection created an additional sense of ownership among our team members. Encouragement came from our own school’s success—something that couldn’t be replicated from external findings or external teachings—dispelling any myths that team members might have believed regarding potential outcomes with “our kinds of students.”

Encouragement transformed into motivation, which created engagement. The rippling effects on our school culture and climate included:

• Schoolwide collaboration. The department silos began to break down and faculty began to observe promising practices across departments.
• Focus on the positive. A tighter, more engaging focus on closing gaps allowed us to fill the gaps with strengths.
• Ownership and shared-vision. We weren’t asking faculty to buy in to a new program for the remedy. Rather, we already collectively owned the promising practices of our successful programs and could use them as a model for wider success.

What might you find if your school improvement team focused on your school’s bright spots and began replicating them? How much further down the road toward school improvement might you go?

A former principal and federal programs manager/academic officer for the Hawaii State Charter School Commission, McREL consultant Ben Cronkright works with Departments of Education in Guam, the Marshall Islands, and Federated States of Micronesia on increasing capacities related to teacher effectiveness and college- and career-readiness for students.

Righting your RtI/MTSS triangle

“How can we implement MTSS/RtI when we have an upside-down triangle?”

I hear this refrain from schools across the U.S. that do not have the perfectly distributed groups of students just like that perfectly illustrated Response-to-Instruction/Intervention triangle which shows 80 percent of students receiving and succeeding with core instruction (tier 1), 15 percent needing moderate interventions and support (tier 2), and 5 percent needing significant interventions and support (tier 3).

The unfortunate reality in many schools is that far less than 80 percent of students are mastering academic standards through tier 1 instruction alone. Given this predicament, how can school leaders tackle RtI implementation?  

Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), which include RtI, are built on the idea that general education instruction should meet the needs of the majority of students. When that isn’t the case, the first place to look is at the curriculum, instruction, and assessment that is happening in general education classrooms and how well these systems align with each other and with state academic standards. The next step is to review the performance and preparedness of the student body.

Empowering teachers with collective efficacy

In 1999, I embarked on my first year of teaching, eagerly anticipating leading my own classroom and filled with much hope, promise, and possibility. However, as my initial year unfolded, it turned out to be a no good, terrible, very bad year (so disappointing that I even wrote an editorial about it for the Denver Post). I consider myself a very positive person—a team player—so this experience was as much a surprise to me as anyone else. What changed my hope to despair and, eventually, my profession from teacher to education consultant?

In thinking about all the subsequent years I spent teaching—some great, some tough, and some just-okay—I remember one significant moment. One morning, as we greeted students on the first day of school—the same year that I was elected to serve as the language arts department chair of a low-performing suburban middle school—my principal advised me that if test scores didn’t go up, the blame would fall squarely on my shoulders. In that moment, I realized that there was no “team.” As an individual teacher, I felt inadequate to carry that load alone; worse, I worried that remaining a teacher might cost me more than I was willing or able to give.

GreenSTEM: Inspiring and empowering learners to change the world

How do we teach our students to pursue a line of inquiry that connects personal, community, and global decisions to an understanding of relevant science, technology, engineering, and math?  “GreenSTEM” is an engaging and innovative approach for both students and teachers.

In an effort to distinguish traditional science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) programs from those with a focus on ecology and sustainability, some educators have recently been adding “green” to STEM programs. The concept is so new that a standard definition of GreenSTEM—one that fuses the real-world connections intrinsic to STEM learning with the deeper concept of sustainability—has yet to be penned.

If “… going green means to live life, as an individual as well as a community, in a way that is friendly to the natural environment and is sustainable for the earth,” as the all-recycling-facts.com website states, then GreenSTEM programs would incorporate science content, technology tools, engineering design, and math applications into problem-based projects, which have the goals of conserving natural resources and energy; reducing pollution, consumption, and waste; and protecting the health of our ecosystems.

Directive vs. collaborative leadership: Which is more effective for improving schools?

When a school needs to improve, school leaders can approach it one of two ways—tell your staff what to do and how to do it, or work together to figure out what to do and how to do it. Because the direction you take will shape the success of your improvement efforts, it’s crucial to choose the approach that’s best for your school’s needs and will help reach your long-term achievement goals.

Bryan Goodwin, McREL President and CEO, takes a look at the case for direction and the case for empowerment in his latest Research Says column for ASCD’s Educational Leadership, “To Go Fast, Direct. To Go Far, Empower.” The choice, he finds, depends on whether your school needs quick results or to “break through performance ceilings.”

Studies on successful turnaround efforts, Goodwin writes, show that their leaders tend to have a “take-charge attitude” and have very clear expectations of staff, often establishing new instructional routines with off-the-shelf programs like America’s Choice, Success for All, etc. This directive approach works well when a school needs to execute teaching routines more effectively and implement curriculum more consistently.

However, research also shows that the resulting quick gains also tend to plateau, Goodwin notes, and many turnaround schools eventually begin to adapt their curriculum, working together to better align it with the needs of their students.

Read the entire column here.

Posted by McREL International. 

Do school structures create obstacles for STEM learning?

STEM is a hot education initiative these days, with numerous schools investing energy and resources to create more, and more robust, learning experiences for students in science, technology, engineering, and math, all with a goal of boosting student interest and readiness for post-secondary STEM education and careers.

Yet despite the investment and focus, research studies show that many of these efforts fall flat, producing few, if any, gains in student achievement and interest.

Why is this, and can STEM programs get better?

McREL’s Bryan Goodwin and Heather Hein recently dug into this question for a column in ASCD’s Educational Leadership magazine. They found that how students are taught is an important factor for long-term interest, with successful STEM programs focusing on rich, hands-on research experiences and real-world applications. It also appears that out-of-school time programs, which are free from the constraints of our current accountability- and assessment-driven time in school, approach STEM more creatively and offer a way to rekindle student interest.  

You can read the full column on the ASCD Educational Leadership site.

Posted by McREL International.

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?

Taking some of the stress out of professional development

For most occupations, routine continuing education is necessary to keep current with new and changing policies, procedures, and technologies and is critical to job expertise and career advancement. Why is it, then, that educators too often view professional development (PD) opportunities with a touch of dread and angst? From our conversations with teachers, we know these feelings are often rooted in concern about the relevancy of the PD and a lack of time to apply what’s been learned. In this post we offer a few suggestions for PD planners to address those challenges, based on our experiences working in schools and districts.

As mentioned in a previous blogpost, PD sessions ideally should be spread across the entire school year, giving teachers time to absorb the material and integrate what they are learning into their classrooms in a more meaningful way.

An AWSM way to increase middle schoolers' math success

How does student work inform instruction? I read Katrina Schwartz's MindShift blog post, "How Looking at Student Work Keeps Teachers and Kids on Track," and immediately found connections to McREL's Institute of Education Sciences (IES) study of a formative assessment model for middle school math, now completing its third year. Not only does Ms. Schwartz highlight the use of student work as a method for improving student learning and teacher practice—a cornerstone of our study—but she also relates this to mathematics.

For the IES study, McREL's math and assessment specialists developed a program that provides teachers with authentic samples of student math work and an interactive, hands-on experience to increase their use of high-quality formative assessment practices. The program, called AWSM (shorthand for Learning to Use Formative Assessment with the Assessment Work Sample Method), has a goal of increasing middle school students' math achievement. (Read our AWSM success story.)

AWSM differs from other formative assessment professional development in that it:

• focuses specifically on middle school mathematics,
• features supportive peer review of colleagues' assessment practices,
• centers on the use of student work samples,
• is job-embedded, and
• fosters teacher collaboration.

Formative Assessment—What it really is and why it matters

Out of curiosity, I recently asked 60 teachers attending a conference session on formative assessment to explain the difference between “summative” and “formative” assessment. To my surprise, the first volunteer described formative assessment as “the formal assessments we give kids to find out what they really know.” Other participant responses varied, from descriptions of in-class observations to a general understanding that any assignment a teacher uses to measure progress are all formative assessments—including online tests administered quarterly by the school district to gather program data.

When asking the question, I had mistakenly believed that most participants would easily describe the two as processes that provide assessment of learning (summative assessment) and assessment for learning (formative assessment).

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.

 

 

Supporting nontraditional education programs in traditional settings

Given all of the recent media attention on domestic violence and child maltreatment, from Ray Rice to Adrian Peterson and a recent National Public Radio story about a former abuser, the question lingers: how do we teach children about healthy relationships when they grow up with unhealthy models?

Healthy relationship education largely resides in nontraditional education settings—part of 4-H and other community-based character development programs. Yet, it is something all youth should learn. Traditional education settings—schools—can give much wider exposure to this important facet of education. Looking back on the healthy relationship education work that I led as a graduate student nearly 10 years ago at Auburn University, I am pleasantly surprised to see it is still being funded. I find myself asking, what makes this particular work, especially considering its nontraditional focus, so sustainable in the traditional education setting?

Building academic optimism with changing demographics -- infographic

Many factors can dramatically affect a school's population in a short period of time. Maybe a new industry moves into town. Maybe a new school opens or an old school closes. Maybe school or district boundaries are redrawn.

Sound familiar?

Regardless of the causes, new student demographics bring both challenges and opportunities, and school faculty must decide how to respond. The experience may be both rewarding and disorienting. As faculty work to improve student outcomes, they may ask, "How do we adapt?"

I had an opportunity to learn about one school's response to rapid demographic change recently. At this particular school, the economic recession had affected the community surrounding this school as well as local industries. The school's boundary was moved to include a large, low-income housing building that often accommodates seasonal working families. In interviews conducted with faculty, all interviewees reported noticing marked changes within their student populations during the previous five years, including increased racial diversity, decreased average socioeconomic status, and increased transiency.

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.

A "fresh eyes" perspective on school climate change

As the summer winds down and thoughts of the new school year begin to surface, what changes are you considering to improve your school's climate?

One component of your school's overall climate that should not be overlooked, literally, is the visual appearance of your facility, inside and out. The physical appearance of your school sends implicit and explicit messages to your parents, students, staff, and visitors about the quality of the learning environment and care to be found inside.

It's tricky, sometimes, to notice these visual messages if you're in the building every day. If you walk by the same broken light, day after day, it's easy to begin overlooking the problem.

So how do you get an objective, "fresh eyes" perspective? One easy strategy is to designate a few members of your school community to photograph the school, letting them take photos of whatever captures their interest, both positively and negatively. Including multiple school stakeholders in this process promotes and fosters a sense of school connectedness and reveals different stakeholder perceptions and mind-sets. Ask the community members to note what messages about the school are being conveyed by the photos they take.

Use a personal learning network to keep up with instructional technology

Given the pace and breadth of technology innovation these days, keeping up with the latest in instructional technology is difficult to do alone, especially if you’re not sure where to begin. Establishing a personal learning network (PLN) can keep you on the cutting edge of instructional technology, creating many layers of support that you can access when necessary.

There are countless ways to connect with peers on technology issues. However, a few key strategies will help you establish your connections more quickly:

• Teachers.net is an online chatboard where teachers ask questions and rely on other members to share experiences, challenges, and insights into solutions.
• Tech & Learning is a free online magazine that offers the latest news in instruction technology.
• The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) welcomes new members and offers a leading publication, Learning and Leading with Technology, which provides a national and world view of the latest and greatest applications on instructional technology.

On a smaller scale, your PLN could include your social networks such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Delicious, and Pinterest to stay connected with colleagues and like-minded peers. The colleagues within your district or school offer an even more intimate network of associates who teach under similar circumstances and will know your needs and challenges best.

When the light bulb goes on: Transforming education with small science

There's something special about being there when "the light bulb goes on," when students who have been wrestling with a concept finally get it, seeing the world in a different way that allows them to understand it more fully. This is one of the primary reasons I was excited to join McREL's science, engineering, technology, and mathematics (STEM) team, which brings emerging STEM content, specifically nanoscience and technology (NS&T), to classrooms in a way that helps students truly grasp it.

NS&T has the potential to transform our world as much or more than plastics did in the 1960s. This science involves the manipulation of matter at the nano scale, at 10^-9 m. This is even smaller than the "world" you can see with a microscope. Need a quick catch-up? This cool three-minute video from the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net) explains succinctly the potential applications of NS&T.

The emerging role of creativity in the classroom

If I were to create a word cloud of emerging concepts that I find most exciting in education today, it would include "creativity," "design thinking," and "maker spaces." It seems that a grass-roots movement celebrating art and design, partnered with practical problem-solving, has taken hold in nearly every aspect of our culture. Some examples of this movement are:

• Conferences, such as ISKME’s Big Ideas Fest, Aspen Ideas Festival, or Wired magazine's inaugural Wired by Design,that encourage participation and problem-solving while learning from today's creative leaders.
• Maker spaces or innovation labs in museums that change the role of the museum visitor to one of an interactive participant and innovator.
• Incorporating design thinking into our classrooms by creating an environment in which students work collaboratively to define a problem and develop solutions.

This shift—on however small a scale it may be—in how we run our classrooms heralds a profound and welcome evolution in defining the roles of the student, the teacher, the classroom, and school in general. It signals that we have at last stopped talking about moving classrooms away from Industrial Age models to actually doing so.

Coaching takes informal observations to a new level

When McREL first introduced the informal observation software Power Walkthrough® (PWT) in 2007, it answered an emerging need for principals and school leaders to gather informal data as they conducted walkthroughs in their classrooms. The purpose was to have an informed understanding of what instruction looked like in their schools and to help guide faculty conversations and professional development (PD) efforts.

In recent years, however, we've noticed a trend of principals conducting fewer informal walkthroughs. This may be due to a growing movement of principals conducting rigorous, more formal evaluation walkthroughs or to an increasing number of PD support staff (e.g., coaches, curriculum directors, and teacher leaders) providing informal feedback to staff.

We've also noticed that, once a school has been using PWT for some time, school leaders often find themselves wondering about next steps. They have the data they need, but aren't sure, beyond scheduling PD sessions and book studies, how to address instructional gaps that their walkthrough data show as evident.

What does "You 2.0" look like in the classroom?

Last week, Mikkel Storaasli, over at “Surely, You Can’t Be Serious,” blogged about his crosswalk between The 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching: A Checklist for Staying Focused Every Day (which I co-wrote with Elizabeth Hubbell) and Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching.

First, I admire anyone who riffs on one of the funnier lines from the old Airplane movie in the masthead of his blog. More important, though, I appreciate his in-depth analysis of the links between the 12 touchstones and the Danielson framework.

I was struck by Storaasli’s keen observation that the similarities between the two frameworks are reassuring, given that they are both based on research.

This is as it should be. In fact, it’s the point of research—to offer clarity about what’s most important, based on evidence. Over the past few decades, we’ve accumulated an impressive body of knowledge about what good teaching looks like in the classroom. In so doing, we have begun moving away from the old days of hunches, intuition, and ideology driving what we do in schools.

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.

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].

 

UDL: Common access to personalized learning

After reading my previous blogpost on Universal Design for Learning, a reader, Jackie, posted a comment asking if implementing Universal Design in instruction might potentially lead to “advanced learners not being able to excel in the classroom because everyone is working on the same thing at the same time.”

Jackie’s concern is understandable, and I thought it was worth further exploration here as a follow-up post.

Universal Design for Learning ensures that all students have meaningful access to course curricula, instructional activities, and assessments. But this doesn’t mean that advanced learners won’t be able to excel or that everyone in the class is working on the same thing at the same time. The important point is access.

To expand on the example from my original post, think about an advanced user of a GPS device who would be able to excel in locating multiple restaurants, gas stations, and interesting locations on a trip, using the device in a way that maximizes the benefit for his or her needs. Another person may use the same device for a single, straightforward purpose: to get from point A to point B.

The universal design of the GPS device allowed both persons to access the information needed for their specific, personal needs.

Universal Design in Learning allows students with diverse abilities and backgrounds to learn and demonstrate knowledge through multiple means. It doesn’t require instructors to abandon their teaching/learning philosophies, theories, or models, but it does require that they rethink their use of a diverse set of instructional strategies in order for learning to be accessible to everyone.

If you’re interested in further exploring UDL concepts, here are a couple of resources I’ve found to be helpful. For an overview of Universal Design and how it can be applied in education, take a look at this online Prezi presentation on Universal Design for Learning by Stephanie Richardson. And a good book on the subject is Universal Design in Higher Education: From Principles to Practice by Sheryl Burgstahler and Rebecca Cory.

Jackie, thanks for the question. For everyone, are there other questions about, or aspects of, Universal Design for Learning that we should explore further together?

John Ristvey is a director for McREL. You can reach him at [email protected] or at 303.632.5620.

My trip through Universal Design

At first, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) may sound like just another tall order for today’s educators to fill. Instead, it’s more “everyday” than one might think.

Originally coined by designers and architects, Universal Design is “the design of products and environments to be usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialized design” (Center for Universal Design). In education, UDL is the design of “instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone—not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs” (CAST).

How does Universal Design play out in our daily lives? While I was traveling to Edinboro, Pennsylvania, for a meeting with some teachers in our Adapted Curriculum Enhancement (ACE) program, I experienced several examples of Universal Design that we take for granted (almost) every day. 

For example, after maneuvering through airport security, I stood at my gate and watched, with others, the latest news on TV. The volume was muted, and we were all reading the closed-captioning—an example of technology designed for the deaf and hard of hearing but which benefits everyone without adaption.

After arriving in Pittsburgh, I found my rental car and plugged in the GPS.  Even though I didn’t know the zip code for my destination, the system was still able to find the location. Before I got on my way, though, the GPS asked whether I wanted the shortest route, the fastest route, or to avoid highways. It also told me which gas stations and restaurants were along the way. With all of these options, I thought, this GPS could meet everyone’s needs, from the business traveler to the hungry sightseer.

Can we apply this concept to the classroom just as easily as we do in real life? The DO-IT Center at the University of Washington has developed a checklist for incorporating Universal Design into instructional practices, including multiple items under each of these main categories:

• Class Climate: Adopt practices that reflect high values with respect to both diversity and inclusiveness.
• Interaction: Encourage regular and effective interactions between students and the instructor and ensure that communication methods are accessible to all participants.
• Physical Environments: Ensure that facilities, activities, materials, and equipment are physically accessible to and usable by all students, and that all potential student characteristics are addressed in safety considerations.
• Delivery Methods: Use multiple, accessible instructional methods that are accessible to all learners.
• Information Resources and Technology: Ensure that course materials, notes, and other information resources are engaging, flexible, and accessible for all students.
• Feedback: Provide specific feedback on a regular basis.
• Assessment: Regularly assess student progress using multiple accessible methods and tools, and adjust instruction accordingly.
• Accommodation: Plan for accommodations for students whose needs are not met by the instructional design.

McREL’s ACE program also uses principles of UDL to help teachers assist students in visualizing complex science concepts through tactile graphics with written descriptions and 3-D models. The overarching principle is to develop course material, curriculum, and instruction with UDL in mind from the beginning, so that educators don’t have to “retro-fit” their teaching when they have diverse learners in their classrooms.

How have you included the principles of Universal Design in your classroom (maybe without even knowing it)? 

John Ristvey is a director for McREL. You can reach him at [email protected] or at 303.632.5620.

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.

 

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

International student performance: Are the data what they seem?

Results from the 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) show what educators have come to expect about U.S. students: Compared to their counterparts in many Asian and some Western European countries, their test scores lag in math and science—the fields of study often equated with innovation, technology, and healthy, competitive economies. 

Do these data, as an education task force sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations warned in a March 2012 report, put the United States’ “future economic prosperity, global position, and physical safety at risk”?

Certainly, many would agree, as Eric Hanushek, Paul E. Peterson, and Ludger Woessman say in an article for Education Next, that the U.S. position is “problematic.” In a 2010 analysis, the trio of experts in education reform and economics in education found only 6 percent of U.S. students performing at the advanced level in mathematics, which is a percentage lower than that attained by 30 other countries. In 2011, just 32 percent of 8^th graders in the U.S. were proficient in math, placing the United States 32^nd in the world. Further, the rate of improvement among U.S. students is underwhelming: In a study of 49 countries, it was right in the middle, with 24 countries improving faster. Eight countries made gains at twice the rate of U.S. students.

Hanushek, a renowned expert in educational policy and education economics at
Stanford University, believes that these results have “enormous implications” for the future
of the U.S. economy in the future.

Others, however, look at the data quite differently. Yong Zhao, author of Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization, whose scholarly work focuses on the impact of globalization and technology on education, contends the numbers don’t tell the whole story.

According to the data, Zhao says in a blog on his website, America’s national security, jobs, and economy have been “resting upon a base that has been crumbing and cracking for over half a century,” and the United States should have “fallen through the cracks and hit rock bottom by now.” But other facts suggest otherwise: The United States remains the dominant military power in the world; its economy is still the largest in the world; it is the 6^th wealthiest country in the world; and it ranks 5^th, 2^nd, and 1^st, respectively, in Global Competitiveness, Global Creativity, and in the number of international patents filled or granted.

Why? Because, Zhao says, “high test scores of a nation can come at the cost of entrepreneurial and creative capacity.” The American system produces more creative, innovative, and entrepreneurial-minded people. In fact, PISA data show that countries with higher scores have fewer people confident in their entrepreneurial abilities.

What do you think the data says about the American education system? You can hear Hanushek, Zhao, and other experts in education and high reliability present their perspectives at McREL’s Summit for Innovative Education February 4–5 in Denver. 

 

If we don’t do standards right, will we have time to do them over?

In previous blogs, I’ve noted that while standards-based reform efforts appear to have “raised the floor” on student performance, they’ve been less successful in “raising the ceiling” or unleashing the talent of our students at the upper-end of the spectrum. In fact, Harvard education professor Martin West noted that far greater percentages of students in other developed nations perform at the same levels demonstrated by the top six percent of students in the United States.

Students also appear to be detached from the system of standards-based assessments and accountability that we’ve so carefully constructed over the past two decades—as evidenced by the fact that surprising students prior to taking a standardized test with a mere $10 bribe for good performance is enough to make them do significantly better on the tests. 

So what’s the answer? More bribes for students so they’ll play along with our accountability systems? While bribes may work to some extent, as I noted in a recent column in Educational Leadership, external rewards tend to have diminished results over time, requiring greater dosages (or payouts) to be effective. Moreover, the presence of external rewards can serve to undermine intrinsic motivation, which researchers have found can have a powerful influence on student success.

In the video below, education author and speaker Sir Ken Robinson notes that raising standards is fine—indeed, there’s no sensible argument to be made for lowering them. However, if we only focus on what we want students to learn and not why we want them to learn it, we may be doing them a great disserve.

 

Robinson speculates that it may be more than just coincidence that “incidences of ADHD have risen in parallel with the growth of standardized testing” and points out that “our children are living in the  most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth.” And yet, we penalize “them for getting distracted and from what? Boring stuff … at school.” 

He points to studies that show that the longer students stay in school, the less creative they become. Similarly, other researchers have found that the longer students stay in school, the less intrinsically motivated they become.

However, standards need not come at the expense of student engagement. The Edutopia web site, for example, provides many vivid examples of learning environments, such as The Build San Francisco Institute, where standards-based learning opportunities are incredibly engaging for students, many of whom were previously at-risk for dropping out of school.

In Tulsa, a team of curriculum developers and researchers from McREL designed a pilot summer program, Cosmic Chemistry, in the Union School District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Cosmic Chemistry gave teenagers, many of whom had been identified as unlikely to enroll in upper-level high school chemistry courses, an opportunity to interact with NASA scientists and experience the thrill of inquiry and discovery of true applied science. The program resulted in excited students who are now intrigued by science— so much so that 80 percent of students who participated in the course enrolled in Advanced Placement chemistry courses at their high schools.

This suggests that when we consider student motivation and help students understand what’s in standards-based learning for them, we create relevance in their learning, and it becomes possible to not only raise the floor with standards, but also the ceiling on student performance.

Sure, it takes a bit more planning, creativity, and effort. But the results—and the expression on these students’ faces—would suggest that it’s worth it.

As 46 states move to adopt Common Core State Standards, the opportunity may never be better to not only rethink the standards themselves, but how we might go about creating a standards-based system of education that truly engages student interest and motivation.

While some educators might feel weary or overwhelmed with the enormity of transitioning to new standards and say, “I agree with you. But right now we just need to take care of adopting the standards. We can worry about that other stuff later.”

However, we might do well to recall the words of the late, great UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, who famously remarked, “If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”

What are your thoughts? Is it possible to make standards-based learning engaging for students?

 

Written by Bryan Goodwin, Vice President of Communications, Marketing, and New Business Development.

Do our students care about higher standards?

A recent working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research, co-authored by Steven Levitt (of Freakonomics) reports on a series of studies involving some 7,000 students in the Chicago area to see whether incentives—such as cold, hard cash—could entice students to perform better on tests.

Researchers told students immediately prior to taking a standardized test (such as those used to evaluate school  performance) that if they did well on these tests, they would receive an award. Over the course of the experiments, the researchers tweaked the conditions, for example, changing the dollar amounts (from $10 to $20), changing the rewards (from trophies to cash), and altering the payout schedule from immediately after the test to 30 days later. In some cases, they provided students with the cash or trophy prior to the test and told them they would keep it if they did well or return it if they did poorly.

In general, the bribes worked: students who received awards performed at significantly higher levels (about 5–6 months more of learning) on the tests than those who did not (see p. 14 of the report).

Other intriguing nuances emerged as well. For example, non-monetary rewards, such as trophies, worked for younger students, but not older ones. Delaying payments consistently diminished the benefits of the rewards. And students were far more motivated by the threat of loss—getting a reward in advance which could be taken away for poor performance—than anticipation of a future reward.  

Perhaps the most interesting finding of these studies, however, comes as a single sentence tucked into page four of the report: 

Our results suggest that in the absence of immediate incentives, many students put forth low effort on the standardized tests that we study.

In other words, what the study may really have found is that most students were capable of doing much better on tests if they only applied themselves a bit more during the exam. Recall that the rewards were only announced immediately prior to the tests, so students in the experiment weren’t preparing any more for the tests than students in the control groups; they were simply buckling down a bit more to receive a small $10 prize or $3 trophy. These are also the same tests that have high stakes for teachers and administrators, but as the researchers put it, “low stakes for the students choosing to exert effort on the test.”

With this in mind, have we spent the past 20 years fretting over raising standards, creating related assessments, and designing accountability systems to improve student performance, but neglecting to help students understand why any of this should be meaningful to them? Moreover, are we about to make this same mistake all over again with Common Core State Standards?

In my next blog, I’ll explore what it might look like if we were to put student motivation (and an answer to the question, what’s in it for them?) at the center of our reform efforts.

Have standards-based reforms neglected student motivation…or maybe even undermined it?

 

Written Byran Goodwin, Vice President of Communications, Marketing and New Business Development

Trend Spotting: The Evolving Role of Museums in Education

On the Horizon, an international journal that explores emerging issues as technology  changes the nature of education and learning, has released a concept paper titled, Museums and the Future of Education. Co-authored by Scott Kratz, vice president for education at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., and Elizabeth Merritt, founding director of the Center for the Future of Museums, the paper explores the vibrant role that museums could play should education experience a profound shift from  traditional teacher- and school-centered models to more informal, personalized, “passion-based” models.

There are several signals that indicate this shift is a very real possibility. The unprecedented interest in open-source education resources such as MIT’s OpenCourseWare and the Khan Academy signify the public’s growing willingness to explore learning outside of a formal classroom. The emergence of cheap (or free) and easy-to-use publication and dissemination tools such as Apple’s iBooks Author means that everyone, not only textbook companies, now has the power to create high quality educational resources. Even the growing trend of “unconferences,” where participants gather for spontaneous informal learning sessions, often with topics agreed upon by the group, indicates a desire for professionals and life-long learners to create informal learning networks for their professional development.

What I found most intriguing about the ideas in this concept paper was how closely they paralleled the future educational landscape that McREL described in 2011 when we wrote, The Future of Schooling: Educating America in 2020. In some of the scenarios described in the book, education was no longer depicted as an institution of age-grouping, grades, and school buildings, but had morphed into systems that relied on inexpensive online resources, informal networks of learners and teachers, and local educational institutions (primarily museums) to provide differentiated instruction for learners of all ages. 

What would this shift mean for today’s educators, and how close are we, really, to such a reality? Schools such as the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia and those in Adams County, Colorado already offer alternatives to a traditional model of school. A more informal model of schooling would mean new opportunities, but also new threats for those currently in America’s education system. Consider your current role in your school, district, or organization and complete a SWOT analysis to help you think about the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats that an informal learning
environment would have.  

Access a free copy of the concept paper and watch a recording of Elizabeth Merritt’s May 24^th webinar presentation on Steve Hargadon’s website.

Written by Elizabeth Ross Hubbell, co-author of Classroom Instruction that Works, 2^nd edition (ASCD, 2012).

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

Unearthing secrets to student success

In the decade-plus since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, schools and districts have struggled to bring all students to proficiency in core academic areas, as measured by standardized assessments. No question about it—students do need to be proficient in core subject areas, yet a legitimate criticism of this high-stakes environment, as found by researcher Wayne Au, has been that it can narrow the curriculum to tested subjects and result in an increase in teacher-centered pedagogy.  

But what if student-centered learning, with an additional emphasis on intangibles like effort, motivation, and character, could result in an increase in student achievement outcomes? The Expeditionary Learning program is based on just that premise. In Expeditionary Learning schools (students engage in team-based, interdisciplinary “learning expeditions,” including fieldwork, case studies, projects, and service learning—all with an underlying focus on culture and character. These learning expeditions are intended not only to foster students’ academic growth, but also to contribute to the community. In Rochester, New York, for example, students worked on a proposal to beautify the area by uncovering a river that had been paved over and creating a riverfront park area. In Denver, Colorado, students proposed to build a planned new school as a “green” school, researching environmentally friendly building practices, proposing a school design, and creating pamphlets to present their findings to the district.

Program developers and staff have long been convinced that this approach results in improvements in student achievement, and quasi-experimental research from the RAND Corporation, Brown University, and other highly regarded institutions backs them up, showing statistically significant achievement gains and decreases in achievement gaps in Expeditionary Learning schools. None other than President Barack Obama called Capital City Public Charter School, an Expeditionary Learning School, an “example of how all our schools should be.”

What are Expeditionary Learning schools doing to foster this success? We want to see it firsthand, so we’ll be working with the Expeditionary Learning program, through a grant from Nellie Mae, to study student-centered learning practices in an Expeditionary Learning school in Springfield, Massachusetts.

What will we find? Stay tuned for our results.

Easy antidote to grade inflation?

As I wrote recently in Educational Leadership, grade inflation appears to be a real phenomenon with costly consequences for students. From 1992–2006, the percentage of American high school students who reported earning an A or A-minus average nearly doubled (from 18.3%–32.8%). An analysis of student work in Oregon concluded that most high school students receiving Bs (and many receiving As) are not doing work on par with college expectations for entry-level students. Perhaps as a result, more than 30 percent of freshmen drop out of college each year, costing taxpayers in excess of $1 billion per year in wasted grants and state appropriations to colleges.

Is there any way to stop grade inflation? One solution, some offer, is to open up the “black box” of teacher grades, which can be as carefully guarded as secret recipes, making it difficult to determine what actually goes into a student grade. As a result, one teachers’ A can be another’s C grade.

More than 20 years ago, in Spain’s Basque Country, a small high school stumbled onto what appears to be a simple antidote to grade inflation. In 1990, a small school in the Gipuzkoa province purchased new software that began automatically placing on report cards, with little apparent forethought from school officials, information about where students stood relative to the average grade in their class. Immediately, student grades shot up 5 percent (an increase, according to researchers who later analyzed the school’s data, on par with lowering class sizes from 22 to 15). Presumably, as students and their parents began to understand that a grade of say, an 85, wasn’t all that special compared to other students in the class, they began to work harder. And as a whole, the entire school began to perform better on Spain’s national exam.

Incidentally, this sort of value-neutral information about students’ relative performance is exactly the kind of feedback that motivation researcher Edward Deci has noted strikes the perfect balance between providing information to guide performance while not diminishing motivation by coming across as coercing, such as saying to a student, “You shouldwork harder in my class.” Reporting how students are doing relative to their peers seems to be a simple way to open up the black box of grades while inspiring students to work harder. It encourages a student to think, “If the average grade in my class is 85, surely I can do at least that well … if not better.” 

For the school in Spain, though, there was one problem.

After just one year, parents and teachers complained that the information was creating too much competition among students. Average class grades were removed from report cards and student performance swiftly sank back to prior levels.

What do you think? Should revealing where students stand relative to their peers be encouraged … or shunned? 

 

The next frontier of education: Implementation

In my latest “research says” column in Educational Leadership, I report that a new slew of “gold-standard” studies has unearthed (somewhat inadvertently) that in a lot of cases, educators really aren’t very good at the whole implementation thing. The studies, commissioned by the Institute for Education Sciences within the U.S. Department of Education, were carefully constructed with impressive sample sizes and rigorous statistical analyses. They found little or no effects for several popular education programs, such as Odyseey Math and Rick Stiggins’ Classroom Assessment for Student Learning. 

Yet, almost without exception, the programs in question were so poorly implemented that it’s difficult to determine if they—or the poor implementation—were the reason for the weak results. In other words, the programs might have actually worked had they only been implemented with fidelity.'

This may be true of many education approaches and reforms, which ultimately get thrown on the trash heap because we believe they don’t work, when in reality, they may work just fine when they’re implemented well.

On the upside, we have seen a lot of improvements in education (for example, great teaching and curricula that challenge and engage students, to name just two) that can have a tremendous impact on student success … when done well. In fact, most of the big impact approaches aren’t new at all. For decades, we’ve known that teachers setting high expectations, being a “warm demander,” and intentionally matching instructional strategies to learning goals really do work. We just need to do these things correctly and stick to them.

Educators might take some solace in knowing that they’re not alone in struggling to do what everyone knows must be done. Businesses have the same trouble. Everyone in the airline industry knows Southwest Airline’s open secrets of success, such as their “all aboard” seating; yet few, if any, competitors have been able to effectively follow Southwest’s formula. Doing things right, of course, is a thorny challenge. Yet, as I write about here, it’s not impossible—in fact, we know quite a lot about the keys to good implementation.       

So the good news is this: we don’t need to wait for silver bullets, or Superman, or some yet-to-be invented innovation to improve our schools. As we show in the video below, we simply need to do better what decades of research says matters most to change the odds for student success.

 

Bryan Goodwin is the author of a new book from ASCD, Simply Better: Doing What Matters Most to Change the Odds for Student Success.

Saying no to fads—in dieting and education reform

In a new documentary film, Joe Cross, an affable Aussie, who after tipping the scales at 310 pounds and contracting a rare auto-immune disorder, decides to spend 60 days drinking only fruit and vegetable juices. The film follows Cross as he traverses America, Johnny Appleseed style, to inform patrons of truck stops and small town diners about the wonders of an all-juice diet.

At first, Cross seems to be hocking yet another fad diet (unsuccessfully, judging by the puckered faces of juice drinkers) that’s based, like many fad diets, on a reductio ad absurdum: fruits and vegetables are good, so cut everything else from your diet. Other diets, of course, proclaim that protein is good, so eat as much meat as you want, just cut out carbs. Some food producers would have us believe that fat is the enemy, so eat what you want, as long as it’s fat-free (Voila! Guiltless cookies!).

The truth, we know, lies somewhere between: with a balanced diet and exercise. 

Like the diet industry, education has had its fair share of fads, past and present, which similarly, have taken good ideas to their illogical extremes. Here are but a few:

• Too much lecturing is bad; therefore, no lecturing is good.
• Self-guided learning is good; therefore, classrooms should be completely open—free of uniform curricula, grade-level expectations, doors, and even walls.  
• Good teachers help most kids learn more, so better teachers alone will ensure all kids succeed. 

Simply Better: What Matters Most to Change the Odds for Student Success offers not a new “fad diet” for education, but rather the education reform equivalent of a “healthy lifestyle”—those things that decades of research says are most likely to have a big effect on student achievement. At the core of the book is the What Matters Most framework (a sort of “food pyramid” for education), which comprises five components that research shows matter most for improving student outcomes.

Guarantee challenging, engaging, and intentional instruction. The first key to student success is a teacher who challenges students, develops a positive relationship with them, and is intentional in his or her use of a broad repertoire of teaching strategies.

Ensure curricular pathways to success. Students benefit most from a curriculum that provides both challenging and personalized learning experiences to prepare them for life success.

Provide whole-child student supports. Good teaching and curriculum alone won’t help all students succeed; many need cognitive, emotional, and learning supports to address factors such as home environment, background knowledge, and motivation that are vital to learning.

Create high-performance school cultures. Great schools can help to overcome the effects of poverty by ensuring high-quality learning experiences in every classroom and providing a school-wide culture of high expectations for learning and behavior.

Develop data-driven, high-reliability district systems. To ensure consistency in student learning experiences, districts need to put data systems and standard operating procedures in place to provide real-time responses to student struggles.

One might look at these five components and see nothing remarkable or new about them. After all, haven’t we known the importance of something like good instruction for decades? What is remarkable, though, is the powerful effect that getting these five areas right could have for students. 

Cross’ documentary ultimately clarifies that juice alone is not the key to good health: a balanced diet with plenty of exercise is. His interviewees all seem to understand this. What’s missing for them, though, is a belief that they can change their behaviors, stick to a better diet, and be happy. The most redeeming feature of Cross’ film lies in showing ordinary people who have changed their lifestyles and are happier now without all the funnel cakes, hot dogs, and stuffed-crust pizzas.

Like losing weight, when it comes to raising student achievement, the answer is not a magic pill or quick fix. Rather, it’s staying focused on simply doing better what we know must be done. The hopeful news, as illustrated in Simply Better, is that ordinary schools nationwide have stayed focused on what matters most, doing it well, and creating extra-ordinary results for students.

How well is your school addressing the components of the What Matters Most framework? Take McREL's free, online survey to find your bright spots and biggest opportunities for improvement.

What’s good for the body is good for the mind

First Lady Michelle Obama tours the country speaking of healthy eating habits, Dr. Oz answers your health questions on daytime TV, and the USDA recently updated the food pyramid. As obesity rates rise, healthy living is front page news. Then why are schools cutting physical education (PE) programs? That answer has also been front page news: budget cuts and falling academic scores. Schools need to do more with less, and cutting PE leaves more time and money for academics. In California alone, according to a policy brief released in May by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, 1.3 million teens in California do not participate in any school-based PE classes.

However, research shows that PE may be just what students need to perform better at school. Researchers Kathryn L. King, MD, and Carly J. Scahill, DO, from the Medical University of South Carolina Children’s Hospital implemented a program among 1^st through 6^th graders at low-performing schools in South Carolina that incorporated academic skills into physical activity. For instance, younger children used scooters to trace shapes on the ground, and older children climbed a rock wall outfitted with changing numbers to help them solve math problems. Students were engaged in this program for 40 minutes a day, five days a week. At the end of the year, test scores improved from 55 percent to 68.5 percent proficient.

John Medina, author of Brain Rules (2008), cites a similar study that examined the brain power of children before they began an exercise program. The children began jogging 30 minutes two or three times a week and, after 12 weeks, their cognitive performance had improved significantly. Perhaps just as important, when the exercise program was taken away, children’s scores plummeted back to pre-activity levels.

Because students are expected to learn more and more information at an increased rate, they need all the brain power they can create. Scores keep falling regardless of the programs and strategies schools implement—not unlike a “check engine” light that keeps appearing because, no matter how many times you take it to the shop, the mechanic isn’t fixing the actual problem. Maybe the mechanic is even making the problem worse.   

Have you noticed the academic effects of cutting physical education in your school? Is more academic time a viable reason to cut ancillary programs?

Georgia’s Vision Moving Closer to Reality

An earlier blog, The Power behind Envisioning, describes the Georgia Vision Project, one state’s effort to rally residents in support of a singular high-stakes cause—providing all children in the state with an excellent education so they can be successful in college, career, and life.

A risky endeavor, you say? You bet it is, but so far, the response to the 45 recommendations has been great, say the planners. That response could be sheer luck, but it’s doubtful.

Take, for instance, the fact that the George Lucas Foundation has tapped Whitfield County Schools in rural northwestern Georgia (where 66% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch) to be part of its new “Schools that Work” series. At first glance, Whitfield County, which includes five public middle schools embracing project-based learning, seems the polar opposite of the first school profiled in the series—San Diego’s High Tech High, a network of nine K–12 charter schools founded by a coalition of business leaders and educators and with an annual operating budget of about $27 million. Despite marked differences in school culture and resources, the schools share important principles: a common intellectual mission, personalization, and adult-world connections. 

And herein is a lesson for us all.

Perhaps more school districts should be like Whitfield County, where educators are respected enough by the community to make decisions about what is and isn’t good for their kids; where supporting one another is a practice, not just an idea (e.g., administrators fulfill morning duties so teachers can meet and plan together); and where there is freedom to try and even fail at new ways to engage students in learning for today and tomorrow.

Recommendation 8.4 of A Vision for Public Education in Georgia is this: Develop a culture and climate that foster innovation and responsible risk-taking.  Whitfield County can check this one off the list.

Read why the George Lucas Foundation chose Whitfield County Schools as a “Schools that Work” school here: http://www.edutopia.org/stw-replicating-pbl-why-we-chose-strengths

 

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.

New review of McREL's The Future of Schooling

Dave Orphal, over at the Learning 2030 blog, offers this nice review of McREL's latest book, The Future of Schooling, available from Solution Tree Press.

In his review, Orphal praises the book for its timeliness. He notes, for example, that one of the critical uncertainties identified in the book---whether the outcomes of education will be standardized or differentiated---is currently playing out in the "movement to national common core standards" being countered by critiques from "Sir Ken Robinson and Daniel Pink who argue that standardization is exactly the wrong direction to go."

Orphal also praises the book for its balanced view on these issues, noting that the authors take "great pains to not reveal where they stand in some of the hottest educational debates raging the country." He adds, "Neither pro-Rhee nor pro-union; neither pro-testing nor pro-authentic assessment; neither pro-charter nor anti-charter, there is plenty in this book to anger every side of our overly partisan educational reform circles."

Our intent is not to anger anyone. Rather, it's to provoke thinking about what the future may hold, to move people out of their comfort zones so that they can begin to prepare themselves for what may lie ahead. As we write in the book, "Some of these potential futures may capitvate and energize you; others may dishearten and frigthen you. Some may do all of the above. That's the point." 

Read Orphal's entire review here.

Approaching learning like a video game

Here are two common classroom scenarios: A student is bored while waiting for classmates to finish a test and, therefore, becomes disruptive, or a student is frustrated due to misunderstanding the material, but the class moves forward, anyway. One student wants to speed up past the group and one wants to slow down from the group. In either scenario, the student is left feeling unmotivated. But what would the scenario be if schools were not structured around groups, but rather the individual?

We’re all familiar with basic video game design: A player participates individually, and when a level is complete, moves on to the next level, right?  Adams 50 School District in Westminster, Colorado, has taken a similar approach in how students progress from level to level.  

Students are tested and placed in one of 16 performance levels. They then move through the levels at their own pace, not according to a school calendar or their peers. There are still curriculum expectations, but students decide how to learn that content; they could write an essay, prepare a presentation, or work in a group and demonstrate key knowledge and skills.

Is this an approach you would like to see in more schools or in your own school? Do you think individualized curriculum is the master key to student success? Can this approach hold up against the Common Core and state standardized testing?

To learn more about how Adams 50 implements this approach to learning, read our story in the current Changing Schools publication and on the Adams 50 website.

Making the case for bottom-up change in school reform

In President Obama’s State of the Union address last week, he called out the Bruce Randolph School, a turnaround school here in Denver. Once one of the worst-performing schools in Colorado, Bruce Randolph graduated 90 percent of its seniors last year—and 87 percent of them headed to college a few months ago. Obama attributed the school’s success to reform that is not just “a top-down mandate, but the work of local teachers and principals; school boards and communities.”

So how did they do it? According to a Denver Post article, then-Principal Kristin Waters first asked all teachers to reapply for their positions (only 6 out of 40 remained). Then, the school became the first in Colorado to be granted “innovation” status, a move that allowed it to operate more like a charter school, granting it autonomy from district and union rules and giving it more flexibility in terms of budget, hiring decisions, schedule, calendar, and incentives.

Waters said the school succeeded, ultimately, because it created “the supports for students, teaching them to ask for help and giving them that help…It was all about best practices, holding teachers and students accountable and creating high expectations.”

These factors are also at the heart of ongoing school improvement efforts in McLeansville, North Carolina, at Northeast High School (NEHS), which has moved from the academic “watch list” to the county’s “most improved school,” having increased test scores sharply for two years in a row. Since 2007, the school has seen double-digit gains in the percentages of proficient students in seven subjects, including increases of 34.5 percent in physical science and 25 percent in geometry.

The school did it by getting all teachers and administrators on the same page in terms of its main goal: to improve student engagement. Now, teachers hold themselves accountable by creating criteria for engagement and collaborating frequently, and “focus walks” by teacher leaders and administrators ensure that students are not only engaged but also learning in all classrooms via the same research-based instructional strategies.

In both cases, improvement efforts started at the student level. The schools didn’t bring in new programs or overhaul their systems; they simply figured out what their students needed most and found the best way to systemically meet those needs.

How does your school ensure students are engaged and supported? Do you have other examples of bottom-up change that have worked?

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.

Can we predict the future of education?

“It’s tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” ~ Yogi Berra.

Clearly, change is in the air these days in education, whether we’re Waiting for Superman, racing to the top, dotting our three i’s, or wondering how tea party politics may change the face of Washington.

In light of all these changes and uncertainties, the question on many minds is likely, where is it all leading?

The most truthful answer anyone can give to that question is this one: nobody knows for sure.

It’s simply not possible to predict how all of these various trends will come together to shape a new future. That doesn’t mean, though, that we can’t prepare ourselves for it. The trick is to consider multiple, alternative futures and begin to envision how we—or our districts, schools, or students—might flourish in each.

In a new book from McREL to be released this month by Solution Tree Press, we analyze current and emerging trends in a wide array of areas, including politics, the economy, technology, and society. After analyzing these trends, we offer, not a prediction of the future, but four, very different scenarios for what the future may hold.

The scenarios in the book, titled The Future of Schooling: Educating America in 2020, are designed to provoke readers to ponder many “what if,” questions, including:

• What if the current, multibillion-dollar federal investment in education succeeds in identifying and scaling up numerous innovations that transform schooling as we know it?
• What if, on the other hand, investing billions of new dollars fails to create dramatic improvements in education? Will the public continue to support public schools as we know them?
• What if online learning becomes as commonplace in the schools of tomorrow as chalkboards were in the schools of yesterday?
• What if technology allows students to proceed at their own pace along individualized pathways, measuring their progress in real time at each step of the way?
• What if the world’s best teachers are able to broadcast their lessons to thousands of students each day?

The reality is that the world of education is changing rapidly. While we don’t know exactly what lies ahead, it’s nearly impossible to imagine the world standing still and education in 10 years looking exactly the same as it does today.

The good news is that when confronted with this uncertainty, we don’t have to throw up our hands in hopeless desperation (or stick our heads in the sand). Rather, we can begin preparing today for what tomorrow may bring.

Learn more or purchase a copy of the book on the Solution Tree website here: http://www.solution-tree.com/Public/Media.aspx?ShowDetail=true&ProductID=BKF433

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.

Catch a glimpse of real 21st century skills

Last week, I caught a glimpse of the future and realized that, like my own parents, I’ll probably have no idea what my kids actually do at work when they grow up.

This glimpse came courtesy of a Minnesota Public Radio story, which covered McREL’s NSF-supported “nanoteach” initiative to bring instruction in nanotechnology to high school classrooms nationwide.

In case you’re not familiar with nanotechnology (I’ve only recently learned about it myself), it’s the science of creating structures and manipulating matter at the molecular level. It promises breakthrough innovations for “everything from improved cancer treatments to more effective sunscreen,” reports MPR’s Dan Gunderson.

If that sounds farfetched or like something out of Star Trek, consider this other tidbit from Gunderson's story: “the government predicts nanotech will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the next five years.”

The challenge, then, is getting today’s student students prepared for these jobs of the not-so-distant future. Moreover, nanotechnology will likely change our world. That means that students, even those who have no interest in pursuing nanotech careers, should understand both the promise and peril of this rapidly emerging technology.

Read the MPR story.

Visit the Nanoteach Website.

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

What’s in a Name? Recognizing the Distinction between Cooperative and Collaborative Instruction

by Charles Igel

Walk into a classroom and you are likely to see small groups of students working together. Group learning has become as ubiquitous to modern instruction as rote recitation was during most of the last century. This pedagogical shift makes perfect sense. Classrooms are more diverse than ever, and group-oriented instruction provides a means for addressing both learning and cultural differences while maintaining focus on the curriculum. Despite this prevalence, there is confusion around what constitutes effective group instruction.

 

In general, group-oriented instruction is divided into two categories – cooperative learning and collaborative learning. A cooperative lesson is designed such that group members work toward a shared learning goal (positive interdependence) while being held accountable for their own learning through individual assessments or comprehension checks (individual accountability). Furthermore, cooperative groups receive explicit instruction in how to effectively work together (group processing skills). Collaborative learning, on the other hand, lacks these elements. A collaborative lesson may simply have students work together with thought to neither the goal structure nor mechanisms for individual accountability. Unfortunately, most group-oriented instruction is collaborative, not cooperative.  Without these critical elements, group-oriented instruction is often ineffective, plagued by intra-group competition and unequal distribution of labor (and learning!)    

A number of well-developed instructional methods such as Learning Together, Jigsaw, and Student Teams-Achievement Division meet the level of cooperative learning; for an overview of the basic concepts involved, see this site. Whether you use one of these techniques or design your own, learning to recognize the difference between cooperative and collaborative instruction can make all the difference.

Charles is a Researcher within McREL's Research and Evaluation department.

Celebrating "lightbulb moments"

Excerpted from "A Second Chance at Success" in Northwest Education magazine, by Bracken Reed

On any given day in one of Debbie Watkins’s seventh-grade math classes you might find a student standing under a giant lightbulb, calling a parent, family member, or guardian on an old white telephone attached to the wall. Occasionally, the entire class will turn to watch the student make the call. Other times they barely notice, it’s become so commonplace.

It may sound like a punishment, but it’s actually a unique reward. A student gets to turn the light bulb on when they’ve finally demonstrated mastery of a difficult concept, typically one that has been causing them grief for several weeks. Then they get to call an adult of their choosing to share the good news.

...

These lightbulb moments and celebratory phone calls are indicative of several things at the grade 6–8 Vallivue Middle School, just outside Caldwell, Idaho.