I3Investigating the Impact of Instruction Module 1

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I3Investigating the Impact of Instruction
Module 1

• Making Meaning of the Alabama Quality Teaching
  Standards through Inquiry-based Professional
  Learning
• Alabama Department of Education

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Learner Outcomes

• To understand the value of collaborative inquiry
  as a process to improve teaching and learning
• To learn about a Cycle of Collaborative Inquiry
  as a vehicle for professional growth
• To commit to investigation, reflection, and
  inquiry as a method for the continuous
  improvement of teaching and learning

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Agenda

• Sharing
• How do teachers learn new ideas that lead to
  professional growth? How might inquiry, as a
  strategy, serve to help teachers improve
  instruction and learning?
• Learning
• Collaborative inquiry and its relationship to
  continuous instructional improvement
• Committing
• What ideas can I use? How might this assist my
  professional growth?

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The Importance of Instruction

• Of the in-school factors that affect learning,
  the quality of teaching is the most important by
  far. Marzano, 2003
• Students can do no better than the assignments
  they are given and the instruction they receive.
  
• Education Trust
• What teachers know and can do is the most
  important influence on what students learn
  Improving the quality of teaching holds the
  greatest promise for higher levels of student
  learning for all children. Berg, 2003

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Effective Instruction

• Central
• Complex
• Contextual
• Changing

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How do teachers improve instructional practice?
Teachers must continuously learn and study to
improve instructional practices. 100 90
80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10

• Complete the survey, Improving Teaching and
  Learning.
• Use the colored Post-its to post your results on
  the easel papers around the room.

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Individually, look at the posted results around
the room.

• What conclusions can you draw from the posted
  results?
• What questions do the data raise for you?

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• Discuss your conclusions and questions in your
  small group.
• Be prepared to share with the larger group.

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How Do Teachers Learn Best in Order to Improve
Instruction?

• Teachers were asked an open-ended question about
  what influences their professional practice.
  They were asked to list up to four ideas.
• What would you say about what most influences
  your practicethings that inspire or motivate you
  to improve?

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Influences on Teacher Practice
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Standards of Professional Development, National
Staff Development Council (NSDC)

• Collaborative
• Job-embedded
• Data-based

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Teacher Inquiry

• An important tool for professional growth

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Inquiry

• The dictionary defines inquiry as
• The act of inquiring asking
• A search for information, knowledge, or truth
• A question

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Characteristics of Effective Teacher Inquiry

• Focused on student learning
• Collaborative
• Teacher-centered and teacher-directed
• Reflective
• Continuous

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Effective Teacher Inquiry is focused on student
learning

• What is the impact (of teacher practice) on
  student learning?
• Data might include observations of students,
  measures of learning, student perceptions,
  student behavior

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Effective Teacher Inquiry is collaborative

• Inquiry requires working with colleagues to
  prevent, counting as real the data which
  confirms what we already believe. (Senge)
• Offers multiple perspectives

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Effective Teacher Inquiry is collaborative

• Clarifies questions and thoughts
• Provides support and encouragement
• Increases rigor
• Student collaboration enriches the data and the
  discussions
• Results are used, as we learn from one another

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Effective Teacher Inquiry is teacher-directed

• Teachers select the question, focus, or topic of
  inquiry decide which data will best inform them
  analyze the results and make personal meaning
• Important, practical, purposeful, and
  relevantworth doing

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Effective Teacher Inquiry is continuous

• Not a one-time event, like much of our
  traditional professional development process not
  product
• Occurs over time and spirals in complexity
• Were never there Continuous improvement is
  the reason for inquiry and study

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Effective Teacher Inquiry is continuous

• Teacher inquiry is not something I do it is
  more a part of the way I think. Inquiry involves
  exciting and meaningful discussion with
  colleagues.It has become the gratifying response
  to formalizing the questions that enter my mind
  as I teach. It is a learning process that keeps
  me passionate about teaching. Dana and
  Yendol-Hoppey, p. 6

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Effective Teacher Inquiry is reflective

• Reflection is at the heart of inquiryand occurs
  throughout the process

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Collegial Inquiry Cycle
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Collegial Inquiry Cycle

• Establish focus or problem
• Review data, including literature
• Frame question for investigation

Question
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What Might This Look Like in a School? (Example
1)

• Establish the focus or problem. At grade-level
  team meetings, teachers regularly look at data
  and identify problem areas. In a discussion
  about reading, third grade teachers identified
  that fewer boys than girls are excellent readers.
  
• This led to a series of questions
• Are we teaching more to girls preferred styles
  of learning?
• Do girls and boys have different learning
  styles?
• Can we, as teachers, have an impact on the
  proficiency of boys reading?
• Isnt this difference to be expected? Havent
  young girls always been better readers than young
  boys?

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What Might This Look Like in a School? (Example
1)

• Establish the focus or problem.
• These teachers decided the focus of their inquiry
  would be helping students develop excellent
  reading and comprehension skills, with a special
  target on boys.
• They needed more information (from research, for
  example) before they could frame the question for
  investigation.

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What Might This Look Like in a School? (Example
1)

• Review data, including literature.
• Third grade teachers perceptions were confirmed
  by the Alabama Reading and Mathematics Test
  scores. On reading, only 21 of the third grade
  boys scored at Level IV, Exceeds Academic Content
  Standards, compared to 39 of the girls.
• To better understand the data, the group created
  a visual depiction of the data.

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What Might This Look Like in a School? (Example
1)

• Review data, including literature.

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What Might This Look Like in a School? (Example
1)

• Review data, including literature.
• Teachers looked to the literature on reading
  strategies for boys vs. girls. One teacher had
  read a copy of Michael Gurians book, Boys and
  Girls Learn Differently! A Guide for Teachers
  and Parents.
• In the book, six strategies were suggested for
  academic excellence in language arts. Teachers
  selected four that they believed would help all
  of their students. They would look at results by
  boys vs. girls and by levels of readers.

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What Might This Look Like in a School? (Example
1)

• Frame question for investigation.
• In what ways will reading of third grade
  students improve over the course of six weeks, as
  we use strategies to address the special learning
  needs of boys? How, specifically, will the
  reading of lower reading-level students be
  affected? How will the reading of boys be
  affected? Strategies will include
• Reading aloud and encouraging students to draw as
  they listen
• Giving students choice in the books they read,
  being sure to include some that might be of
  special interest to boys
• Using computer software and comic books to
  encourage boys to read

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What Might This Look Like in a School?
(Example 2)

• Establish the focus or problem. At middle school
  team meetings, teachers regularly look at data
  and identify problem areas.
• Seventh grade teachers identified that although
  7th graders at their school score higher than the
  state average on the Alabama Direct Assessment of
  Writing (ADAW), fewer than 13 score at Level IV.
  They believe that more of their students could
  become Level IV writers.
• They decided the focus of their inquiry would be
  helping students develop excellent writing
  skills, and would work across all subject areas
  to accomplish this.

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What Might This Look Like in a School? (Example
2)

• Review data, including literature.

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What Might This Look Like in a School? (Example
2)

• Review data, including literature.
• Teachers had a lot of questions, as they talked
  further. Some of the questions follow
• What constitutes a holistic composition score?
  It doesnt appear to be related to the other
  three scores.
• Why are our students scoring so much lower on
  Writing Mechanics and Grammar and Usage?
  What specifically does each of those include?
  How are they the same? How are they different?
• What does a Level IV composition look like? What
  does a Level III composition look like? Wouldnt
  it help if we knew the difference? Wouldnt it
  help if our students knew the difference?

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What Might This Look Like in a School? (Example
2)

• Review data, including literature. In
  discussions of the data, teachers realized they
  didnt fully understand the way these tests were
  scored. They decided to
• request training for all teachers on the scoring
  rubrics of the ADAW
• develop, with the students, a scoring rubric that
  students and teachers would fully understand and
  
• practice writing and using the rubric for
  scoring.
• One of the teachers suggested that to cut down on
  teacher time for grading written papers, the
  students could learn to score papers via the
  rubric, providing feedback to peers for the final
  copy.

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What Might This Look Like in a School? (Example
2)

• Frame question for investigation.
• In what ways will the writing of seventh grade
  students improve with the introduction of and use
  of (1) a student-created rubric that aligns with
  the state writing test rubrics (2) students
  writing in every class at least once a week (3)
  students reading rough drafts of peer papers to
  give feedback for final revisions?

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Collegial Inquiry Cycle

• Decide timeline
• Identify data collection strategies

Design
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Design the Study

• Once the team has identified a question that is
  important, its important to plan the study.
• Which teachers will implement?
• When will the research begin?
• What data will you collect?
• When will you collect data (for example, pre- and
  post-?)
• What would success look like?

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Types of Data to Consider During Inquiry
Samples of student work
Classroom Observations

• Perceptions and attitudes

Related research and literature
Test results and other data
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Collecting Multiple Forms of Data

• Helps findings be credible.
• Triangulation multiple sources of data
  gathered, analyzed, and compared. Helps fill in
  gaps from one source.

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What Might This Look Like in a School? (Example
3)

• Establish the focus or problem. At a high
  school, teachers meet once a week. The groups
  are heterogeneous in terms of grade levels and
  subjects taught.
• Recently, the faculty had been trained in posing
  questions that engage students in thinking at
  higher-levels. In sharing progress with this
  strategy, teachers seemed to be meeting with
  different levels of success. Some were worried
  that they were able to cover less content when
  they took the time to ask higher-level questions.
  And some were not getting students to answer at
  high levels of thinking they were opting out
  with one- or two-word answers.
• The teachers decided the focus of their inquiry
  would be better understanding the value of
  engaging students in higher-level thinking.

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What Might This Look Like in a School? (Example
3)

• Frame the question.
• Identify data collection strategies.

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Punctuated Class Activity Student
Self-Observation

• Purpose
• Provides immediate feedback about student
  learning
• Helps students pay attention to how they are
  learning
• Encourages student responsibility for learning
• Facilitates self-monitoring of learning

Adapted from Angelo and Cross, 1993.
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Punctuated Class Activity Student
Self-Observation

• Process
• Decide in advance of your class the points at
  which you will stop for reflection. These
  segments should be about 10-20 minutes in length.

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Punctuated Class Activity Student
Self-Observation

• Process
• When you reach the first stopping point during
  class, ask students to reflect and then write.
  You might provide the following questions as
  prompts
• What were you doingphysically and
  mentallyduring the last 10 minutes?
• Were you fully present? Did you get distracted?
• Were you making connections with anything that
  you already know?
• What do you expect will happen next?
• Allow about two minutes for reflecting and
  writing. Collect the papers.

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Punctuated Class Activity Student
Self-Observation

• Provide feedback for the students. Read through
  the written reflections. Look for trends to
  report. Identify any especially good strategies
  for linking learning to previous knowledge. Ask
  students to reflect on the ideas they heard that
  were effective and those that were less so. Lead
  a discussion about what they might do in the
  future during a similar activity.

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Punctuated Class Activity Student
Self-Observation

• What kinds of comments might you expect from your
  students?
• As a teacher, how might you use this information
  from students to improve instruction?

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Perceptions and Attitudes

• Teachers use interviews, student focus groups,
  and surveys to collect information about
  attitudes from students, parents, and colleagues.
• What kinds of data might these teachers want to
  collect from students to better inform their
  study of higher level questions?
• With a partner, create a question or two for a
  survey that might be administered to students.

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Collegial Inquiry Cycle

• Teach
• Assess learning
• Collect other data

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Collegial Inquiry Cycle

• Analyze data
• Make meaning
• Draw conclusions
• Make modifications

Make Meaning
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Concluding Reflection

• Think about this session. Look back through the
  learner objectives, the handouts, the activities,
  and your notes.
• Think about what you have learned.

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Concluding Reflection

• Summarize in one wordor one short phrasethe
  content of todays session. Write your word on a
  large index card. Add a written explanation of
  why you selected that word.
• On the back of the card, write any questions (or
  confusions) that you have about the process of
  teacher inquiry.

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References

• Angelo, T. A. and Cross, K. P. Classroom
  Assessment Techniques (2nd ed.) San Francisco
  Jossey-Bass. 1993.
• Berg, J. H. Improving the Quality of Teaching
  through National Board Certification Theory and
  Practice. Norwood, MA Christopher-Gordon
  Publishers, 2003.
• Cross, K. P. and Steadman, M. H. Classroom
  Research Implementing the Scholarship of
  Teaching. San Francisco Jossey-Bass, 1996.
• Dana, N. F. and Yendol-Hoppey, D. The
  Reflective Educators Guide to Classroom
  Research Learning to Teach and Teaching to
  Learn through Practitioner Inquiry (2nd ed.)
  Thousand Oaks, CA Corwin Press. 2009.
• Darling-Hammond, L. What Matters Most Teaching
  for Americas Future. New York National
  Commission on Teaching and Americas Future.
  1996.
• Gurian, M. Boys and Girls Learn Differently! A
  Guide for Teachers and Parents. San Francisco,
  CA Jossey-Bass. 2001.
• Hendricks, C. Improving Schools through Action
  Research A Comprehensive Guide for Educators
  (2nd ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ Pearson.
  2009.
• Love, Nancy (Ed.) Using Data to Improve Learning
  for All A Collaborative Inquiry Approach.
  Thousand Oaks, CA Corwin Press. 2009.
• Reeves, D. B. Reframing Teacher Leadership to
  Improve Your School. Alexandria, VA ASCD.
  2008.
• Walsh, J. A. and Sattes, B. C. Quality
  Questioning Research-Based Practice to Engage
  Every Learner. Thousand Oaks, CA Corwin Press.
  2005.
• Wellman, B. and Lipton, L. Data-Driven Dialogue
  A Facilitator's Guide to Collaborative Inquiry,
  2004. Sherman, CT MiraVia. 2004.