Merely Raising Standards is Not Enough... Teacher quality and teacher effectiveness should be our first concern Scenes from school:
A teacher stands with his back to the class, working out problems on the whiteboard. He flings out questions, directed at no one in particular. The arms fly, zigzagging through triangles, rectangles and squares. The more capable students, bunched in the front, socialize loudly, listen to their ipods, and randomly blurt brief--but correct--answers to the teacher's questions. The off task noise is such that the teacher cannot be heard at the back of the room where I am seated for an observation. I tap the shoulder of a female student who sits in front of me. She hasn't been taking notes. I ask her if the teacher's demonstration is clear. She says she hasn't understood a thing for five or six days now. Last quarter, she received a "D." "Have you ever been asked a question or called upon to explain a procedure in class?" The answer is no. The teacher continues to work problems out on the board, demonstrating his skill and deep mathematical knowledge by rapid firing challenging questions that are directed at no one. In a post-observation conference, the teacher expresses his dissatisfaction that 40-50% of his students will fail this class. His colleagues regard him as a master practitioner.
Scenes from school:
Yet again, a teacher shouts for the class to pay attention as he explains an upcoming group activity. During the preceding activities in this class, ranging from taking roll to handing out corrected homework, he has made fifteen to twenty similar requests--sometimes punctuated with discipilinary threats to offending students. The threats never come to fruition. At the latest teacherly demand for attention, one student does turn to look at him while the others continue socializing, but at reduced volume. Apparently satisfied, the teacher plunges ahead with the explanation anyway. Fifteen seconds after he begins, the one student who was looking at the teacher now turns away to speak to her friend. Minutes later--an eternity in this classroom-- the teacher concludes his speech. He asks no one in particular: "Are there any questions?" Naturally there are none. It is not at all clear whether students heard his call for questions in the first place. The teacher spends much of the rest of the period moving from table to table, re-explaining the assignment.
Scenes from school:
A teacher believes that more writing produces better writers. This fixation on quantity allows the teacher to evade having to teach specific sentence and paragraph construction skills. I am reminded of an inept soccer coach who believed that practice sessions should be devoted to scrimmage, rather than to developing fundamental skills that lead to accomplishment in the sport.
Scenes from school:
A teacher lives in dread of plagiarism in her class. Her writing assignments are generalized or unrelated to specific instruction that has been given. Absent specific learning targets or essential focus for this class, it is relatively easy for a number of her students download, printout and turn in work that is not their own.
Scenes from school:
At my suggestion, a social studies department meets to discuss whether there should be required writing assessments that students must experience in each class at the tenth grade level. Until today, and perhaps hereafter, a student who enrolls in one of these courses will continue to face the luck of the draw: which teacher will emphasize careful reading, thoughtful discussion, and guided writing aimed at developing and exploring specific prompts? Which teacher will care more about checking for understanding versus mere coverage of content? At this point, one cannot know. But there is hope for more professional practice and consistency as the departmental conversation begins.
Scenes from school:
An English department sits down for a meeting on a specially created inservice day. At my suggestion, the agenda topic for the day: "What do we really teach when we teach a work of literature?" Instantly, an even bigger topic immediately emerges: "how did a question like that get on the agenda?" Scenes from school:
A thick course description book gathers dust in a district office. I sift through the five to ten pages for each course description. It's all here: an overview of the content, explicitly detailed lists of state learning requirements in the content area. But the logic of the course sequence escapes this reader. A sequence of skills, deliberately developed throughout the years, is not mentioned; essential questions that would underlie all the learning activities from year to year are non-existent. There is no statement as to what the "meaning" of the course is--or how it is an important contributor to an ongoing controversy or set of questions that students might be invited to explore.
As I plow through the formalistic verbiage, I wonder what logical premise this arrangement of courses rests upon. It appears that a third year course has assumed its position arbitrarily, bearing little connection to--or extension of--what had been covered in the previous course. The third year course could just as easily be a second year course...or a fourth. In the following weeks, I question social studies teachers who deliver this program, yet none are conscious of any deep level connections between the courses that they teach. Each teacher sees his or her course as a discrete block of information that must be delivered to students. Whether students can make connections betweeen their learning experiences, or whether they begin to intuit the "big picture" seems to be left entirely to them.
Scenes from school:
Thirty one 9th grade students do not have enough credits to graduate from junior high school. Twenty one junior/senior high administrators and counselors sit in a district conference room, poring over the student files. Most of the credit deficient students have a demonstrable history of academic non-compliance. About ten to fifteen of them did enroll in summer school to make up the credits, but either failed to do the work or didn't attend. We see their dismal records in front of us. A junior high counselor argues against keeping them back: some are physically too big to be in junior high; some have intimidated their teachers. A junior high assistant principal offers his own variant of an academic "Hail Mary pass": perhaps, he suggests, these students will turn over a new leaf when they get to high school? It doesn't seem like a sure bet to a high school counselor who states that sending students like these on to high school hasn't worked out historically. Four hours pass. The group has dead-ended: there are no viable remedial or re-training options for these students. The meeting concludes with this consensus: all twenty one will be sent forward to the tenth grade.
Scenes from school:
A 7th grade teacher awards a failing student a "D" grade so that he won't have him in class next time around. The student is stubborn, under-skilled, hostile to instruction, continually gravitating towards--or creating--classroom distractions. The 7th grader goes to 8th grade, and the same thing occurs--not only here but at 9th grade as well. At last, the student enters 10th grade with the skills, attitudes, respect for authority and work habits of an underperforming, angry 5th grader. There is not even a remote possibility that the 10th grade curriculum that she faces will be able to meet her where she is.
Scenes from school:
It's open house night at the high school--another late night for a weary teaching staff. The parents of the successful students make their rounds from class to class, expressing their deep appreciation for the quality of the instruction, and basking in the praise that teachers heap upon their offspring. The parents of the unsuccessful students seem not to be in attendance. Who will advocate for them? And how?
For staff development, teacher and content area mentoring, and district level instructional program and policy evaluation in the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California: email saari@topschools.com
Has Your Teacher Team Reached Formal Agreement On Any of the Following?
What does consistency look like? What areas within the school's operations should be "consistent"? What is meant by vertical and horizontal articulation? In terms of their instruction, skills emphases, assessments, expectations and standards, how much "individualism" should be allowed to teachers who teach the same course at the same grade level...and how much "uniformity" should be expected? What are the hallmarks, principles and practices of a successful discipline program in any school? What are the design flaws/deficits that cause cooperative learning to be unproductive? What is the real meaning of "student centering" the classroom? What is the ideal balance between "teacher talk" and "student talk"? What strategies can alter the balance? What do we do with students who do not meet standard? What frequencies and lengths of assessments tend to make them more "formative" than "summative"? How can seating arrangements and teacher movement throughout the class period contribute to student achievement? What are the strategies of "checking for understanding"? Improve Writing Test Scores and Student Literacy Raise Student Engagement Through Instructional Practice Using Assessments to Guide Growth Rather than Catalog Failure Making "Meaning" Out of Curriculum Student-Centering the Classroom for Achievement Creating Cultures of Scholarship Curriculum Articulation: Class to Class, Level to Level, Teacher to Teacher Maximize Instructional Delivery 7-12 Curriculum Alignment for Student Achievement Revitalize Teaching & Learning Cultures Staff Development & Second Order Change Essential Questions For district level instructional program and policy effectiveness evaluation in the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California: email saari@topschools.com
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