szyk's Blog

I think the number one take away for me is the idea that people need deliberate practice more than persuasion.

I tend to try and convince people, but I think I've already convinced them (that we need to infuse tech more in instruction for example) but they don't get a chance to try things out and use them enough to feel confident DOING them.

So I want to do more with organizing hands on opportunities to work with tech tools.

Also,

It's interesting that our Superintendent has chosen the book "Crucial Conversations" for our leadership team to read and discuss this year.

It must be "hot"!!!

Thanks everyone, sorry this is sooo late!

We use Scholastic Reading Counts in our district. Kids read books, from Dr. Seuss through the Odyssey, and then they take a quiz on the computers to see how well they understood the book. The questions are low level thinking/recall questions, but are pretty tricky. They earn points that can be tracked by the teacher or librarian. This chapter reinforced for me how important it is not to overemphasize the extrinsic rewards that some teachers and librarians have attached to this program. What I see in students is a sense of pride that they read the book and understood it well enough to pass the test. We have a super ethnically and socioeconomically diverse district, so for many kids they just get a kick out of having one more reason to use the computers.

Students like my kid had a requirement to earn a set number of points in the school year (9th grader) this forced him to knuckle down and get some "free" reading done, but what I saw was that because he started the habit, he grew to like it much more. So for him, he discovered the intrinsic rewards because of the extrinsic. The program could backfire for a student who already loves to read.

One cool idea for this kind of program is for a teacher to set a class goal to read a million words. The program will keep track of this and so everyone in the class can feel like they are contributing, whether they read 10 books or 2, chapter books or picture books.

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.

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.

I was glad to see the schedule included in the list of ways to change the environment.

School leaders need to provide teachers with time to collaborate. Often, there needs to be some creativity in scheduling to make this happen. Teachers also need time to visit each others classrooms to observe strategies of those with more successful practices.

In the Dufour lecture I heard, Rick recommended that principals establish expectations for teacher collaborative meetings and have teachers present the principal with minutes for each step of the process as follows:
1) Teachers establish a set of group norms for respectful listening, sharing, full participation, note taking as needed.
2) Teachers establish a set of student learning goals based on standards
3) Teachers determine the assessments to use to measure student progress
4) Teachers present a list of students who need to be targeted for special attention.
4) Teachers present a list of strategies to be tried and analysis of how things worked.
5) If strategies don't work, what's the next step?
6) Constant process of short useful assessments and analysis of student needs teachers with better success share their strategies with the group.

Note that the focus is on the behaviors/strategies, not on blaming less successful teachers.

Attached is a case study from the www.influencerbook.com website you may not have seen yet, about a successful change effort at a middle school, using Influencer strategies

If these elements become part of the structure, teachers are provided with a set of vital behaviors they need to practice to be successful.

Don't forget to plan celebrations when vital behaviors become regular practice, don't just focus on successful outcomes.

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.

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.

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.

I have to add that we need to celebrate and acknowledge our success at mastering these vital behaviors and maybe do it before the test scores come out!

In schools I have supported and currently support, these vital behaviors have led to regular growth in student learning as measured by those crazy California API and Federal AYP scores. (and in the school where they were neglected by a new principal who wanted to be the only one in charge, and therefore did not allow the PLC groups to continue doing their work, our school scores dropped dramatically in her first year)

Of course, some of the key behaviors include the ones that ensure you don't get dinged for kids who don't show up or whose parents won't let them take the tests and all those annoying details of test management that can lead to a schools scores not even being accepted.

Wow, this is a great clip, the bountiful enthusiasm expressed by Eggers is inspirational. I know about 826 Valencia, but didn't realize that it has been emulated in other places. What jumps out at me from a first viewing of this is the infusion of silliness and creativity. Kids need fun, 20 years ago when I was considering a career in teaching, my then seven year old nephew told me, "Auntie Sarah, you'd make a good teacher because you're always making jokes." One thing I really miss when I'm working in schools today is a sense of fun. The emphasis on testing and reaching Academic Progress goals is strangling the joy out of schools.

A split second after I think that, I am reminded of my time in California schools (late 1970's) when I was given NO guidance at all about writing in order to encourage my creativity and not cramp my personal style. I don't think this was right either, since I went to college and had to take remedial writing courses.

The next flash in my mind has to do with the outside of school nature of this learning environment. This program was designed based on feedback from teachers about what they lacked time to accomplish, but were sure students needed. The way the tutoring centers have been organized to emphasize giving undivided attention to each student is really exciting. This is the kind of support my son received having a geeky teacher mom, its the cultural capital that so many kids are missing out on.

The final flash I'll share is the idea that these students have CHOSEN to come in and get help. Teachers in schools have to work with the students who are not making those choices along with the kids who DO choose to go.
Is it possible to create learning environments and/or schools in which all students are CHOOSING to learn?

Hmmm, 20 years ago, I would have said yes, today, I'm not as sure.

Out to lunch, for sure. Let's bring in the bean bag chairs and the magic brownies.

I love it! You're right of course, but please include an ROTC course for my son, who has forced me to reevaluate all my Northern California, progressive education, whole language and granola based learning biases.

I especially appreciate this closing section, " It strikes me that we need a much wider conversation with parents, policy people, downtown office people, legislators, city council folks, and business people about what we want learning to be about and how we'll go about it. We must fundamentally rethink and reexamine our mental models and our values around learning. Not an easy task. But without the larger conversation we will be going about the same business and expecting different results—and we all know that's crazy"

This is really true on many levels. It resonates with me because I have begun to see that everyone (especially those outside schools) has an opinion about what school should "look like" and how it "should be done" and assumes that everyone else is on the same page. Very few people I speak with outside education have considered alternatives to the way they were educated, even when they feel a sense of dissatisfaction with that education and a disconnection between their schooling and the reality of their grown up lives.

Thanks,

This is a great idea, I was talking about something similar to this with a colleague today. He mentioned that it is better to go to workshops or conferences with a colleague or a team, because you are more likely to actually implement some of the strategies you learned when you have others who have learned them and you can discuss them together, plan ways to implement them and so forth.

This seems to go along with your idea here and I wholeheartedly agree.

Absolutely, you guys are right on with this line of thinking. It is probably more important for a new teacher to be willing to learn and work together with a team of other teachers than (as one example) to be super knowledgeable in their field and unwilling to listen to feedback or input from others. (I'm sure we can think of a few of those from our own experience!)

I can't recommend it since I haven't read it, but another of the Dufour/Eaker books is called
Getting Started: Reculturing Schools to be PLCs. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1879639890/ref=sip_pdp_dp_0

The Interdependence section on pages 182-183 touches on something that is key to this transition in schools, interpersonal skills around problem solving and conflict resolution/negotiation. It takes a lot of trust to be able to work together and challenge each other to do better/different. Trust and time are both key to teacher team work. I keep going back to the notion of sticking with a focus on measurable student learning goals not on judging the teachers "style".

This was so valuable to me when I took on a class of K-1 students in a very challenging neighborhood. Our school was ahead of the curve on teacher grade level team work. Our school literacy coach had us work as a team to pick an area of student weakness on which we would focus our group efforts. We chose a list of the "first 200 words" The goal for the Kindergartners was to learn the first 30 and for the first graders, 75 or 100, I can't recall exactly. Once we agreed on the measurable goals, we began to look at ways to achieve them with our students.

We decided that we would all have word walls in our classrooms. We would add a few words each week and focus student attention on those words. We shared games we used and invented to practice the words with our students. We agreed to assess our students monthly to see how they were progressing towards learning the words. Students who knew the first thirty began working on more, by the end of second grade they were supposed to have the first two hundred. When we met as a group, we talked about how things were going. We shared what worked and what had failed, we brainstormed different ways to approach our challenge.

The byproduct of this hyperfocus was that we grew in our ability to work as a team, and actually began to seek out ideas from each other in areas we found frustrating with our students. I did not feel threatened when another teacher's class was doing better than my kids. The kids liked it too. We got ribbons for them when they learned 30 - 75 - 100 -200 words. They were excited to play the games and even liked being assessed regularly. They liked seeing the growth on a chart we created to monitor each students words.

Since that school I have seen similar grade level team work. As Influencer puts it on p. 183. " No one person had exactly the right idea, but as one partial idea was added upon and then changed again, each person helped create a strategy that, if left to her own devices, none would have invented."

It was important that we were asked to choose our area of focus as a group, after all we knew our students best. Often I have seen principals impose their agendas on grade level teams and I don't think that is as effective as setting the expectation that:

1) Teachers will choose the measurable student learning goals, and hand them in to the principal.
2) Teachers will report in with some strategies being used
3) Teachers report how the results will be measured.
4) Teacher report the results along the groups diagnosis of what worked and what did not work and what they'll try that is different in the future.
5) The principal may even want them to hand in some reflections on the group process and how that might be improved.

An important note about lesson study is that the feedback is about THE LESSON, NOT about the teacher. The premise is that the group has worked on the lesson together and the teacher who delivers the lesson is not being critiqued, the LESSON IS.

I have been reading over this group 5 forum, and I'm seeing a lot of moaning about sub par colleagues and teachers. I think this line of conversation is like beating a dead horse. Telling people they are bad teachers WON'T help them get better. Personally, in response to this book, I am spending more time thinking about what the critical behaviors are that would help myself and others shift to more productive ways of working. I have to begin this process with myself as an educational leader, in order to model the behavior I'd like teachers to practice with their students.

The first step in teacher learning communities practice is deciding what the essential standards are, then deciding how to assess whether kids are learning.
What do kids need to know?
How do we know they know it?
How do we teach it if they don't know it.
and the one too often neglected in the age of the achievement gap.

What do we do for the kids who already know it?

This reflects the idea of finding the key behaviors... it's fascinating to me how this book is fitting so well into my other studies, in a way that will improve my practice

Teachers working in teams and taking responsibility for students across subject areas is the main premise behind the work of Dufour and Dufour. There is research done over the past 20-30 years that indicates one of the best predictors of a school that is beating the odds in student achievement is the presence of teacher learning communities. In these schools the teachers are not just friendly and social, they actually challenge each other, design assessments and use the data from assessments to decide on next steps for teaching and learning. These are not pie in the sky wonder schools, there are many examples. Check out one of Dufour's books, such as, Whatever it Takes, or one of his many articles and the website. http://www.allthingsplc.com for more information.

A principal hoping to lead this kind of effort would need to lead by example, and be willing to let go of some control as he or she allows teachers to try things out and share their ideas. In many cases, a principal would need to build trust that his or her efforts are sincere. This principal would need to be open to accepting challenges to his or her ideas from staff in order to demonstrate a commitment to challenging the status quo in the school.

This kind of cultural shift won't happen in a year, I would think a true effort to build this kind of community would take a minimum of three years, maybe more.

I have attached a copy of one of Dufour's articles on this topic.