To All Teachers and Principals: Merely Raising Standards is Not Enough... Teacher quality and teacher effectiveness should be our first concern Scenes from school:
A teacher shouts for the class to pay attention as he explains an upcoming group activity. During the first half of this class period he has made fifteen to twenty similar requests--sometimes punctuated with disciplinary threats to offending students. The threats never come to fruition. At this most recent demand for silence, one student turns to look at him while the others continue socializing, but at reduced volume. Satisfied, the teacher now plunges ahead with the explanation. Fifteen seconds after he begins, this single student turns away to laugh about something with her friend. Minutes later--an eternity in this classroom-- the teacher concludes the set-up. He asks no one in particular: "Are there any questions?" Naturally there are none. His exasperation builds as he spends the rest of the period moving from table to table, re-explaining the assignment.
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.
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:
This bright young teacher has all the personal and intellectual skills. Humor, lively intelligence, a casual and also a serious way of dealing with his students. He's a student teacher and you want to hire him. But after observing his lessons you discover that students are not responding or becoming involved with this engaging instructor. Off-task behavior often moves to high levels during the course of the class period. Student answers to teacher posed questions are often blurted, peremptory or sometimes rude. The level of student engagement is astonishingly low, despite this teachers attractive personal characteristics. His customary response to reluctant or passive aggressive behavior is to plead or cajole in friendly fashion; which seems to have no permanent impact on the students seated before him. He should be a success...but he's headed for burnout. You know that. Unjust it may seem, but by any objective measure, this young and potentially gifted teacher is wasting both his and his students' time each and every day.*
Questions Teachers Need Answers To:
How can I create a classroom where authentic learning occurs?
How can I consistently motivate difficult or reluctant students? How can I keep students focused and on task? Why do my lessons seem to start so well, but soon spin out of control? Why do I finish each day exhausted and hoarse because I always have to raise my voice? Why are my group work results so unproductive? Why does it seem that I am always working harder than my students? Why am I always dealing with the same problem students? Why are my students so quick to become confused when they begin a task? Why am I always surprised at how little my students have actually learned by the end of a lesson? Why are my students and I gradually coming to resent each other? To All Teachers, Grades 1-12: If one or more of these questions has occurred to you during the current school term, it is time to get them answered. The daily stress posed by challenging classrooms threatens your well being, your enjoyment of your profession, and perhaps ultimately your ability to continue in your present position. It also harms your students who are missing out on the opportunity of seeing their skills grow, and of discovering the joy of learning. If questions like these ring true for you every day, then it is well past time for you to approach your principal and find support, either through a mentor assignment or peer coaching. But some teachers put off getting in-house help, reluctant to share their frustrations with supervisors who may also be evaluators. A request for assistance and support is not an admission of failure or of defeat. Instead it is an acknowledgment that at present you do not have the strategies that you need to be more successful. Given the widely variable quality of teacher education programs at our colleges and universities, this skill set deficit is much more widespread than school officials wish to admit. It is time now to get the help that you need to become more effective in your instructional delivery and classroom management skills.
Teacher Guide to More Effective Classrooms. One year email support: Practical, real-world classroom management and instructional stratetgies that dramatically improve student learning and participation. The strategies are straightforward and the emphasis is on what each strategy looks like and how it can be implemented right away. These effective tools can be used by all teachers, regardless of their level of experience. Unlike other texts on classroom tactics, this brief, hands-on teacher guide includes one-year email support for each individual purchaser. The email support is the important part: as I receive your questions and comments about implementation, it will be my obligation to respond as your confidential, non-judgmental, personal mentor. I guarantee timely and detailed feedback for all instructional challenges that arise as you begin to create a more effective and enjoyable learning environment. Excerpts from Teacher Guide: A good discipline plan is not a substitute for quality instruction. The purpose of the discipline plan is not to control students who are bored and resistant because the teacher is not quite at the top of his/her game...It is a tool that supports the goal of achieving authentic, participatory classroom learning environments... In some cases, this will be your first challenge: Getting an undisciplined class to discuss mis-behaviors that it delights in, and then agree to penalties for these. Steel yourself, keep your humor, and when necessary, insist that as the teacher, you will, ultimately, set the rules... ...Model the activity either by holding the worksheet or having it on the overhead, or moving to the Bunsen burner and turning it on, or by putting an easy equation on the document scanner and having a student (not you) walk everyone through the steps that are to be performed... Break the activities up and assess each step of the way...This prevents you from putting all your eggs in one basketand getting them smashed all at once... As a result, it turns out that Jessica answers six or seven questions each class period, but Stephan, who sits in the back, hasnt provided an answer since the beginning of the term... Never, never ask: does everybody understand? Never. Those who dont
understand will nod that they do, and the question is therefore pointless... Make your question float over the heads of all between you and the recipient of
the question... Teachers who explain activities never multi-task...They do not hand out papers, take roll, check their computers or do anything else OTHER than establish focus and launch the set up... The teacher finally gets around to calling upon Stephan, but while he struggles over what he is about to say, Jessica and other future Fortune 500 executives waggle their upraised hands violently...the tension is unbearable! Successful Instructional Strategies Covered In the Guide: Pricing
Teacher Guide to More Effective Classrooms $199 *One week after implementing the strategies described in this program, the improvement in student achievement and attentiveness in this student teacher's classroom were turned around completely. What this teacher discovered is that the strategies and tactics for improving classroom culture and student achievement are simple and obvious--but they are not taught in teacher preparation programs anywhere. Why are they not obvious to so many teachers--including veterans--who practice within our classrooms?
For Principals and District Level Administrators Only: Mentoring for Departments & Teacher Teams:
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. During the course of the term students write almost daily in their journals; they create a personal narrative, a biography, and write a persuasive paper--all with the same language limitations that they brought with them when they first entered the classroom. At other times, students gather together in groups to co-edit peer writing, or to review sample papers and state writing exam rubrics. I am reminded of a soccer coach who believed that practice sessions should be devoted to scrimmage or to viewing videos of successful players, rather than to systematically developing fundamental skills.
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 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, a student who enrolls in one of these courses faces the luck of the draw: which teacher will emphasize careful reading, thoughtful discussion, and guided writing aimed at 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.
As Building or District Level Instructional Leader, You Are Charged With the Task of Creating Effective Classrooms Where Student Achievement is Improved: 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 What do we do with students who do not meet standard? What is meant by vertical and horizontal articulation? How to find common ground between teacher individualism and program uniformity Maximize Instructional Delivery 7-12 Curriculum Alignment for Student Achievement Revitalize Teaching & Learning Cultures Staff Development & Second Order Change Learning to Create and Use Essential Questions For individual consultation and face-to-face staff development on any of these topics, please email me and describe your needs. |
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