Topic: Changing the physical world as a way of changing human behavior

I have an example of changing the school physical space in a way that changed student behavior for the better. I was teaching at a magnet high school that wanted to stop a problem with graffiti in the bathrooms. It was an arts magnet school and during the summer a group of artists came in and painted jungle murals in the bathrooms, they were lovely paintings full of rich colors. This change in the environment stopped the student graffiti and was really nice.

I'm still convinced that graffiti is partly due to students addiction to images, and difficulty with accepting a blank wall.

Scott,

I have a question about data use practices. I took a walk with a former colleague recently and we were discussing the use of data in her school and school district, my former district. The school district has students take theme tests from the Open Court series. The students are judged to be proficient in a standard based on as few as 1-3 questions that "measure" the standard. She and her grade level team members are expected to sit and plan instruction based on the test data which are provided to them as a spreadsheet that includes the list of students and standards. She sees these assessments as useless and yet she and her colleagues are required to use them and discuss them at their meetings.

She has been teaching for at least 14 years, has a master's degree, did a Beginning Teacher support project in which she assembled assessments for first graders. She worked with me when we used reading assessments some of which were actually quite helpful. Yet, she is required to use useless assessments from the school district. She uses her own assessments so that she'll have information on her own students, but this is not used by the grade level team since they are required to use the other assessment data.

Why don't we use the expertise available among our teachers? It's no wonder some become bitter and resentful and distrusting of "improvement" programs.

Sarah, I agree with you that we should be tapping into teacher expertise much more when it comes to assessment. That said, it's unclear to me why the district assessments you describe are bad and why the teacher's assessments are good. What is it about each that makes one better than the other? Can you give me more detail so I can opine appropriately? ;)

Question 1) Are the tests valid? (Influencer Strategy - Personal Motivation - Is it worth doing?)

The district tests measure student mastery of a standard based on 1-3 questions. Every six weeks a different test, based on the recent readings is given. Students can be proficient in one assessment period and basic in the next. It seems questionable to me whether this small number of questions gives an accurate measure of how well a student has mastered a standard.

These second graders are asked to do word associations for multiple meaning words such as reservation, the meaning of reservation the test seeks is a place where Indian's live; opposites for words such as courageous. Students in the school are English Language Learners and At Risk students some of whom are not yet reading at grade level. It seems that students need to be reading at a higher level for these assessments to be useful.

Question 2 - Is the data useful to teachers to guide instruction? (Influencer Strategy: Structural ability - Is it easy? does it make sense? and Personal Ability, do the teacher really understand how to analyze the data in a useful way?)

Teachers receive a static document with the students names on one side of the spreadsheet and student performance on each standard on the other axis.
This static document seems limited to me in that teachers cannot easily manipulate the data to group students and turn the information into knowledge. In my district, our assessments were created by teachers and are scanned in to a web based computer program that allows teachers to easily see the groups of students who did not master a given standard. They can even drill down to see the question missed to see if there is a problem with the question.

Question 3 - If teachers know their students best, shouldn't they use assessments they find helpful to get them to the next level? (Influencer Strategy - Personal Ability, Social motivation)

Examples of the assessments my friend finds useful are the San Diego Quick, in which students read a list of words and based on their performance, a teacher can quickly gauge the student's reading level.

She also gives reading fluency tests to each child and asks her own comprehension questions to judge whether or not the child is comprehending what they read.

If the district does believe the tests are valid, they need to allow more training for teachers in how to use the data. (My friend noted that even the vice principal couldn't clearly explain to them how to use the data.)

My understanding of data analysis efforts that have improved student achievement is as follows:
1) Teachers take ownership of establishing student learning goals
2) Teachers design or find assessment tools that measure student progress
3) Teachers collaborate, sharing skills and strategies that help students improve

I guess the biggest problems with these district assessments are the lack of teacher buy in, and lack of teacher understanding about how to use the results. These two combined with the lack of support for teachers to try other strategies as a team.

Ahhh... gotcha. Yep, the district assessments sound pretty poor. =(

Thanks for the additional info. I might use this (anonymized, of course) as an example in my DDDM workshop for Arkansas teachers/principals in September!

Sure, feel free to use this example. I'm so glad I escaped that district when I did. Large districts probably feel the need to standardize practices for all their schools. Unfortunately this can sometimes be done in ways that are a detriment to real progress.

hee hee, I wonder if this is the same school! I guess mine was a high school so it was different, but I lost touch after that year, so I wonder if the graffitti just came back again after a while.

SF State U used to put white board type materials up in the bathrooms so people could write on those instead of on the walls.