Research Basis for Observing for Evidence of Learning

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Research Basis for Observing for Evidence of
Learning

• Dave WeaverRMC Research Corporation

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Research Results Converge Reading

• Reading50 years of research
• Effective reading instruction requires a balanced
  blend of
• Phonemic awareness
• Decoding
• Vocabulary development
• Reading fluency, including oral reading skills
• Reading comprehension strategies
• Any single approach is inadequate

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Research Results Converge Mathematics

• National Math Panel Report
• Effective mathematics instruction requires a
  balanced blend of
• Computational fluency
• Concept development
• Problem solving
• Any single approach is inadequate

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What About Science?
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Science Is Different FromLanguage Arts and Math

• Language Arts ( Reading) and Math
• Are skills created by people
• Involves learning established conventions
• Science
• Understanding how the world works
• How to create new knowledge
• Living in the world creates a working
  understanding which may or may not be
  scientifically valid

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Importance of The Learning Theory in Science

• Working knowledge is entrenched and difficult to
  overcome
• Sometimes called Private Universe
• Key concepts must be internalized
• Sometimes called Big Ideas or Enduring
  Understandings
• Requires greater attention to the learning theory
  embodied in the instructional materials

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Most Current Publication

• Banilower, E., Cohen, K., Pasley, J., Weiss, I.
  (2008). Effective science instruction What does
  research tell us? Portsmouth, NH RMC Research
  Corporation, Center on Instruction.
• Posted in documents section of the OEL website

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Key Points fromEffective Science Instruction
What Does Research Tell Us?
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Reform vs. Traditional

• Traditional instruction
• Teacher delivered information and independent
  student work
• Reformed instruction
• Small groups of students participating in
  hands-on activities

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Debating Which Is Best Misses The Point!

• Current learning theory focuses on students
  conceptual change, and does not imply that one
  pedagogy is necessarily better than another.
• (Banilower, 2009)

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Elements of Effective Science Instruction

• Eliciting Prior Understanding
• Intellectual Engagement
• Use of Evidence
• Sense-Making
• Motivation

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Eliciting StudentsPrior Understanding

• Students come with ideas and beliefs that can
  either facilitate or impede learning
• Their Private Universe
• Instruction is most effective when it
• Elicits students initial ideas,
• Provides them with opportunities to confront
  those ideas in light of new evidence,
• Helps them formulate new ideas based on the
  evidence, and
• Encourages students to reflect upon how their
  ideas have evolved.

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Intellectual Engagement

• Students must do the intellectual work and the
  thinking
• Must involve meaningful experience that engage
  students intellectually with important science
  content
• Activities must be explicitly linked to learning
  goals
• Students must understand the purpose of the
  instruction
• Must engage with ideas, not just the materials

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Use of Evidence

• Lessons must provide multiple opportunities for
  students to
• Make claims and conjectures
• Back up their claims with evidence
• Use evidence to critique claims made by other
  students
• Science discourse

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Sense-Making

• Lesson must provide opportunities for students to
  make sense of the ideas with which they have been
  engaged in order to draw appropriate conclusions
• Closure
• Reflection
• Meta-cognition
• Application to new situations

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Motivation

• Types of Motivation
• Extrinsic Motivation (Accountability)
• Deadlines, competition, tests, grades
• May actually be detrimental
• Intrinsic Motivation
• Stems from intellectual curiosity, personal
  interest or experiences, desire to resolve
  discrepant events or cognitive dissonance
• Appropriate blend is needed

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Research On Effective Science Instruction is Also
Converging

• Considerable evidence from research shows that
  instruction is most effective when it elicits
  students initial ideas, provides them with
  opportunities to confront those ideas, helps them
  formulate new ideas based on evidence, and
  encourages students to reflect upon how their
  ideas have evolved.
• (Banilower, 2009)

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Untrenching Their Private Universe

• Without these opportunities, students may fail
  to grasp the new concepts and information that
  are taught, or they may learn them for purposes
  of a test but revert to their preconceptions
  outside the classroom
• (National Research Council, 2003, p. 14)

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Effective Science Instruction
Elicit Prior UnderstandingIdentify InitialIdeas
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What Does this Mean for OEL?

• Observing for Evidence of Learning (OEL) is both
• a PURPOSE and
• a PROCESS
• That empowers schools to effectively improve
  science teaching and learning

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What is the Purpose?
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A Common Issue in Schools

• In most instances, principals, lead teachers,
  and system-level administrators are trying to
  improve the performance of their schools without
  knowing what the actual practice would have to
  look like to get the results they want at the
  classroom level.
• (City, 2009, p 32)

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OEL Purpose a Theory of Action

• If teachers use appropriate instructional
  strategies and instructional materials to
• Elicit students initial ideas,
• Engage students intellectually with important
  science content,
• Provide opportunities for students to confront
  their ideas with evidence,
• Help them formulate new ideas based on that
  evidence, and
• Encourages students to reflect upon how their
  ideas have evolved
• Then student science achievement will increase.

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In Other Words

• Student science achievement will increase if we
  consistently apply what we know about how
  students learn science!

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The OEL observation rubric was designed to
address this vision of effective science
instruction articulated in the OEL theory of
action.
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What is the Process?
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The OEL Professional Development Model

• Teams of teachers
• Lead by a trained facilitator
• Periodically engaged in OEL cycles
• That implement the OEL essential elements
• With fidelity

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Essential Elements

• Collaborative Lesson Development Phase (Day 1)
• Teachers develop statements that clearly identify
  the big ideas students will learn
• Teachers check their own understanding of the big
  ideas through discussion of the science content
• Teachers collaborate to develop a lesson that
  employs activities to address the big ideas
• Scientists provide guidance on the units
  scientific content
• Lesson Delivery and Observation Phase (Day 2)
• A teacher conducts the lesson according to the
  team lesson plan
• The other teachers observe students and collect
  data on evidence of student learning
• Observers maintain the integrity of their role

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Essential Elements

• Individual Reflection Phase (Day 2)
• Teachers reflect on the student experience
  observed by honestly asking themselves Was it
  evident that the students gained a deeper
  understanding of the big ideas addressed?
• Team Debriefing Phase (Day 2)
• Teachers discuss the evidence of student learning
  observed that relates to the big ideas
• Teachers maintain the focus of the debriefing on
  student learning rather than student actions

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Essential Elements

• Collaborative Generalization to Practice Phase
• Teachers make connections between student
  learning and successful aspects of the lesson
  design
• Teachers make connections between the
  instructional strategies used in the lesson and
  student learning
• Teachers make generalizations about how effective
  strategies can be applied to future lessons
• Individual Implementation (Ongoing)
• Teachers consider successful teaching and
  learning strategies for their own lesson planning
• Teachers enact effective strategies in their own
  classroom

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Where OEL Came From

• Cobbled together by incorporating the best
  aspects of other school-based PD models such as
  Lesson Study and Professional Learning
  Communities
• Pilot tested in upper elementary mathematics
  classes in Clark County Schools in Las Vegas,
  Nevada

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OEL Research Project

• 5-Year NSF grant to research OEL in middle school
  science in Seattle, Bellevue, Highline, and
  Shoreline School Districts
• Preliminary results are very promising
• Results reflect effectiveness of process only
• Trend Analysis
• Mean values adjusted for percentage minority and
  free or reduced-price lunch.
• Mean values weighted by the number of students
  assessed.
• A total of 5,173 students were assessed in 2006,
  5,040 were assessed in 2007, and 5,014 were
  assessed in 2008.

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Rationale for OEL

• We learn to do the work by doing the work,
• Not by
• Telling other people to do the work,
• Having done the work at some time in the past,
  and
• Hiring experts who can act as proxies for your
  knowledge about how to do the work.
• (City, 2009, p 34)

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OEL is About Doing the Work

• Teams of teachers working collaboratively
• To continuously improve instructional practices
• By consistently enacting what we know about how
  students learn science
• To improve student understanding of science and
  improve student achievement

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What OEL Does

• Puts educators in a position of having to
  actively construct their own knowledge of
  effective instructional practice
• Developes, with colleagues who have to work
  together on school improvement, a shared
  understanding of what they mean by effective
  instruction.
• (City, 2009, p 10)

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OEL Deprivatizes Practice

• Most people in schools work in siloed cultures
  characterized by independence and autonomy.
• (City, 2009, p 62)
• It is clear that closed classroom doors will not
  help us educate all students to high levels.
• We can do more together than we can individually
  to improve learning and teacher.
• (City, 2009, p 3)

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Based on Student Observation

• The only way to find out what students are
  actually doing is to observe what they are
  doing.
• What predicts performance is what students are
  actually doing.
• (City, 2009, p 30)

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Must Read List

• Banilower, E., Cohen, K., Pasley, J., Weiss, I.
  (2008). Effective science instruction What does
  research tell us? Portsmouth, NH RMC Research
  Corporation, Center on Instruction.
• National Research Council. (2003). How people
  learn Brain, mind, experience, and school. J. D.
  Bransford, A. L. Brown, R. R. Cocking (Eds.).
  Washington, DC National Academy Press.
• City, E., Elmore, R., Fiarman, S., Tietel, L.
  (2009). Instructional rounds in education.
  Cambridge, MA Harvard Education Press.

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Questions?

• Dave Weaver
• RMC Research Corp.
• Portland, Oregon
• [phone]
• dweaver_at_rmccorp.com

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RMC Research Evaluation Activities

• Online Survey
• OEL Facilitators, science teachers, principals
• Spring
• Access to OEL Online Database
• OEL Activity Log
• One entry for each OEL cycle
• Link to participants
• Seeded with all science teacher in participating
  schools