Results Now How We Can Achieve Unprecedented Improvements in Teaching and Learning

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Results NowHow We Can Achieve Unprecedented
Improvements in Teaching and Learning

• Mike Schmoker

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Written and Presented BySharon StandardLiberty
Elementary
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(No Transcript)
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Improvement isnt about reform, but on a tough ,
honest self-examination of the prevailing
cultural practices of public schools, and a
singular straightforward focus on instruction.
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Most, though not all, instruction is mediocre or
worse.There is a GAP between the most well
known essential practices and the reality of most
classrooms.
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1st step toward improvement is to recognize and
rectify our shortcomings.

• We need to see all schools as they really are.

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The largest influence on learning is instruction.
It is the greatest determinant in achievement.

• Clear about which standards he expected the
  students to learn on that day
• Showed them samples of the kind of work he
  expected
• Had students analyze and discuss the samples
• Explained and modeled each specific skill with
  students involvement
• Practice the skills briefly in pairs, then
  individually while he circulated
• Called on students randomly to check for
  understanding
• Assessed the skill when he felt they were ready

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Its About TeachingThe Evidence Is Indisputable

• Teaching has 6 to 10 times as much impact on
  achievement as all the other factors combined
• Teachers working with the same socioeconomic
  population can achieve starkly different results
  on the same test
• Just 3 years of effective teaching accounts an
  average improvement of 35 to 50 percentile points

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Opportunity for Better Schools

• Instruction itself has the largest influence on
  achievement.
• Most, though not all instruction, despite our
  best intentions, is not effective, but could
  improve significantly and swiftly though ordinary
  and accessible arrangements among teachers and
  administrators.

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The Buffer

• It is a protective barrier that discourages and
  even punishes close, constructive scrutiny of
  instruction and the supervision of instruction.
  Its primary effect is to protect instruction and
  supervision from outside inspection,
  interference, or disruption.

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The Buffer
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The status quo gets help from machinery that
creates the illusion of scrutiny and inspection.
It keeps us from seeing that the appearance of
consistent, effective instruction and
instructional supervision are illusions.

• Teacher evaluations
• Administrative evaluations
• Annual surveys
• Needs Assessments
• Thick, detailed improvement plans , which are
  then followed by upbeat year end reports.

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A Single Classroom Tour Can Destroy the
IllusionIt can also be the starting point for
instructional improvement
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EngagementIn most classrooms, half or more of
the students were not engaged or paying
attention.

• Teachers continue to call on the minority of
  students who always raise their hands- while the
  other students tune out.

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Patterns that account for this gap between what
we know and what we do

• Failure to monitor or supervise instruction
• Failure for teachers to work together in teams so
  that they can more effectively plan and teach
• Deviation from common, essential standards

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Trends(from study based on over 1500 classrooms)

• Evidence of a clear learning objective 4
• High-Yield strategies were being used .2
• Evidence of higher order thinking 3
• Writing or Using Rubrics 0
• Fewer than ½ of students were paying attention
  85
• Using worksheets (bad sign) 52
• Noninstructional activities were occurring 35

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Complete Survey
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Unfortunate Realities

• Literacy Students only read a fraction of what
  they need for intellectual development. They
  seldom write.
• Curriculum Teachers do not typically follow a
  common curriculum.
• Instructional Supervision Very little oversight
  of instruction that affects its quality.
  Administrators do not have common, formal
  mechanisms to gauge the content teachers are
  actually teaching or how effectively they are
  teaching.

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We cant use the old myths and excuses anymore,
we have to have a reality check. The school
culture has a tolerance for mediocre instruction,
worksheets, and busy work at the expense of
intellectually viable reading, writing and
learning activities
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Isolation

• The Enemy of Improvement

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Assumption Teachers are professionals that know
how to tech effectively. Therefore, teachers can
and should be left alone.
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Contradiction

• Even though we attend workshops, conferences,
  etc the isolation ensures that new learning
  seldom leads to changes in practices. Lack of
  feedback and meaningless evaluations give the
  impression that being an effective teacher is not
  a requirement. You wont get fired unless you do
  something really grave.

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Leadership InterruptedHow the Buffer Compromises
Instruction

• Direct involvement in instruction is among the
  least frequent activities performed by
  administrators of any kind at any level.

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The Leadership Illusion

• Schools wont improve until the average building
  leader begins to work cooperatively with teachers
  to truly, meaningfully oversee and improve
  instructional quality.
• School leaders usually have little effect on
  instruction, because they accommodate themselves
  to the status quo (to get along-go along). They
  perpetuate mediocrity.

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The Logic of Confidence

• People relate change to improvement
• Administrators tend to hired and retained on the
  basis of their capacity to buffer teachers from
  outside interference, to build confidence in the
  school. Ex. Awards (time and energy spent on
  getting the award, could have been spent on
  improving instruction.

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The Mirage of School Improvement Planning
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Simple plans work the best

• State Departments demand too many things in the
  SIP It creates chaos. It ensures change, but not
  improvement.

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Curriculum Chaos

• Most Important What gets taught
• A guaranteed and viable curriculum. Reality
  What Discrepancy between the intended curriculum
  and the implemented curriculum.

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Evidence of InconsistencyChaos (a self-selected
jumble of standards)

• One teacher taught 28 times as much science as
  other teachers on the same grade level.
• Compared taught standards with state assessed
  standards- almost no correspondence.
• Redundancy and inconsistency at every grade
  level.
• What did get taught was taught down. Ex. By 5th
  grade, most students were being given 2nd and 3rd
  grade work. Teachers didnt seem to realize that
  they were teaching down, because it was what they
  had always taught.
• A teacher said that she didnt teach fractions,
  because she didnt like fractions.

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Good NewsProblems Opportunities for Improvement

• Matched standards to what was going to be
  assessed, organized them, ensured teaching
  time/schedule, monitored progress huge gains

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Tools Available for A Guaranteed and Viable
Curriculum
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Failure to Take Advantage of a Resource

• Many teachers dont know that these materials
  exist or where to find them.

• Solution Give these documents to the teachers,
  explain their contents, and ensure their frequent
  use.

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Excuses A Ship Adrift
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Importance of Quality Control

• Improvements in Teaching and Learning Can Only
  Come From A Strategy focused on improving
  Instruction.

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Narrowing the Curriculum

• States cant assess every standard, focus on the
  ones that the state deems most important
  (focusing on fewer standards is essential to
  effective teaching and learning).
• Problem is not with the tests, but the failure to
  be results-focused and data driven. The Tests
  actually guide them toward essential skills in
  math, reading, and writing.
• If we taught math, reading, and critical reading
  effectively, then students would do exceedingly
  well on state assessments.

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Finding the Way Out of Chaos

• A Combination of these things is needed
• Exceptional leadership
• Teaming
• Clear Standards
• Accountability

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Action Follows Awareness
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The Power Of Authentic LiteracyPurposeful,
intellectually engaging reading, writing, and
discussion

• Generous amounts of reading, rereading, writing,
  and discussion.
• Higher-order literacy demands
• Every subject and every discipline

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Learning and EarningThe ability to read well is
the single best indicator of future economic
success. Students must be given multiple daily
chances to read and read for higher order
purposes.
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Deep Reading The Beginning of an
EducationReading for a PurposeReading for
Meaning

• Teach strategies for reading (what is important,
  synthesize information, draw inferences, reread
  with a purpose)
• Read with pen in hand. It helps the reader focus,
  isolate, prioritize, and ponder written
  information to suit their purposes. Reading,
  reread, detect patterns, evaluate, reconsider,
  rebut.
• Writing combined with close reading

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Good talks about books and subjects (intellectual
exchange) stimulates the intellect and keeps
boredom away.

• Argumentative Literacy Students will argue with
  force and passion, gather evidence to support the
  cause, etc
• They gather an appreciation for the power of
  ideas
• They start to understand consequences

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Literacy and Democracy

• Our success will depend on our ability to read,
  listen and argue (in real world/society)

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VocabularyPart of Reading for Meaning

• Teaching a selected amount of selected vocabulary
  enlarges our ability to understand texts of
  increasing complexity as it increases our
  knowledge of essential concepts
• It has a significant impact on achievement levels
• Opens up a new world to students

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Typical English or Language Arts ClassroomWhat
two activities are the least apt to occur?

• Reading
• Writing

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Questions to think about for improving reading
and writing instruction

• Is the lack of reading and writing good for kids?
• Are reading assignments and class discussions
  lower order or higher level?
• When reading for a purpose (adults), do have a
  pen or highlighter in hand?
• Should students from the earliest grades be given
  prompts or purposes before they read, to guide
  their rereading, with pen in hand?
• Should teachers model their thought about a
  passage/
• Should students receive clear, detailed
  instruction-entire lessons- on each element of a
  writing rubric?
• Should students be taught to evaluate their own
  writing?
• How often do purposeful reading, think-alouds,
  and frequent writing instruction focus on only
  one criterion in a scoring guide?

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The factors just mentioned are the ones the main
ones that keep students down. They are the
results of unforunate practices that crept into
the school and were allowed to stay there.
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The Crayola CurriculumCompared to poor coaching
practices where most of the kids sit around
talking and waiting.

• Discovery from research Coloring was the most
  predominant activity in the school observed up
  through middle school.
• He wrote a paper on it. Waited for negative or
  contradictory replies, He didnt receive any.

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In most schools, English is among the students
least favorite subjects

• It rises to the top in classes where reading and
  writing engage the mind and inquiry is taking
  place.

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Popular, perhaps the most dominant model of
reading instruction in the early grades

• Small groups of students working intensively with
  the teacher for a short amount of time.

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Small Group InstructionIt can be effective for
those in the group if the following occur

• Work is carefully sequenced
• Quickly paced
• Well organized (ensured to meeting clear
  expectations on a sensibly paced schedule

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There is tremendous inconsistencywith those
factors, which once again in most cases are not
monitored.

• What are the other students doing while the one
  group is working with the teacher? Not much.

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We know the importance of time-on-task, but much
time is not spent wisely. About two thirds of the
reading time is squandered.

• Talk about longer school hours, extended reading
  periods at the expense of enrichment
  activities/classes etc If we used the time that
  we had wisely, it would be enough to promote
  unprecedented levels of success in literacy
  without reducing arts and enrichment activities.

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Guided reading isnt the only problem. Even with
whole classinstruction, the lack of quality
control works against effective or consistent
implementation of the same reading program or
curriculum.

• Almost Anything Goes
• When not monitored , this approach can devolve
  into low expectations and minimal amounts of
  actual reading and writing.

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Class Time is Wasted

• 37 hours were spent on making paper mache
  dinosaurs
• Only 10 minutes actual reading time in a two and
  a half hours class
• Spend large amounts of time on literature based
  arts and crafts.
• A diorama
• An illustrated map
• A book jacket
• A movie poster
• A 3-D mobile

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Very Little Writing is Going On

• Very little writing is assigned or taught.

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Writing Facts

• One third or more of college students need
  remedial English
• Only 20 of students entering college can even
  write nominally
• Only 4 of best papers of 8th graders (from the
  best papers) received a high rating. 43 of the
  best papers scored a low rating.
• Even most selective colleges found poor writing
  with students who had GPAs of 3.8

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It is not enough to assign writing We must teach
writing.

• Little or no real writing takes place in the
  classroom. Of the little that does occur much of
  it is ineffective.
• Most writing is just assigned, not taught
• Not given careful, explicit instruction on how to
  improve a single element or feature of good
  writing.
• Never given opportunities to practice individual
  elements, to receive feedback, or to look at good
  examples.
• Mostly correcting, not teaching.

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Writing

• The most essential elements of good writing such
  as word choice, or voice and their sub
  elements- can only be mastered by repeated
  exposure to very focused lessons and practice
  opportunities that include the use of modeling
  and exemplars.

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Ratio of Reading and Writing to Stuff30/270

• Children still spend great amounts of time on
  workbook activities. Used selectively, they can
  be a good source, but millions of teachers depend
  on commercial reading series. It sometimes
  becomes the curriculum. Novels are another
  example.

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As early as grade one, the highest achieving
classrooms spend as much as 70 of class time
reading or responding to what they read.

• Students need to be given the time to read at
  school. In class, purposeful reading and writing
  is needed. Ex. 25 books, a million words.

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Achievement can improve if we consistently use
best practices.
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Bibliographic Citation

• Schmoker, Mike. (2006). Results Now How We Can
  Achieve Improvements In Teaching And Learning.
  Virginia ASCD.