Marshall Memo 787
A Weekly Round-up of Important Ideas and Research in K-12 Education
May 20, 2019
1. Pushing back on eight outmoded beliefs
2. Breaking free of the five-paragraph essay
3. Dealing with classroom insensitivity by “calling students in”
4. Key considerations in staff discussions about race
5. Seven learning-to-learn skills for adolescents
6. Carol Ann Tomlinson on what teenagers need in school
7. Using “group contingencies” in elementary classrooms
8. Paul Bambrick-Santoyo on data-driven instruction going off the rails
9. A West Virginia middle school maximizes engagement
10. How young children develop agency, literacy, and numeracy
11. Short item: A video of a lesson that went wrong
“To a degree that most of us would prefer not to acknowledge, classroom practice tends to run less on research and empirical evidence than on some combination of philosophy, faith, or personal preference.”
Robert Pondiscio in “What We Know About Early Learning” in The Education Gadfly,
May 15, 2019, https://bit.ly/2HIiv87(see item #10 for a link to the full report)
“Every day that passes between the assessment and analysis of results is another day in which we teach new material without correcting errors.”
Paul Bambrick-Santoyo (see item #8)
“A valid argument for continuing with use of technology is that eventually, we are bound to come up with more-effective technology strategies. It is certainly worthwhile to keep experimenting. But this argument has been made since the early 1970s, and technology is still not ready for prime time, as least as far as teaching reading and math are concerned.”
Robert Slavin in “Can Computers Teach?” May 16, 2019, https://bit.ly/30tSDFH
“Essentially, the curriculum in high school needs to be more affective. It needs to be more engaging in terms of humor, vitality, joy, and even negative emotions, like strong opinions and anger, to bring out those qualities and channel them, so that they aren’t expressed in dangerous ways outside of school.”
In this article in Leaderboard: Michigan Association of School Boards, Kim Marshall suggests updates to erroneous beliefs that persist among some educators and stakeholders:
•Intelligence and talent are fixed at birth. The “innate ability paradigm” about proficiency at math, art, or dancing pops up all the time – for example, “She’s just not a science person.” The best antidote is Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset, which suggests replacing a fixedmindset with a growthmindset: that although we are born with certain levels of intellectual, athletic, and artistic ability, we can upgrade them through a combination of hard work, strategy, and coaching. Shifting to a growth mindset has a remarkable impact on learning and the ability to deal with challenging situations.
•Poverty is destiny. “There’s no question that growing up poor has an impact on children,” says Marshall, “and intergenerational poverty is especially damaging.” What’s tragic is when schools make things worse by teaching in ways that handicap students who enter with disadvantages – for example, calling only on students who raise their hands or giving homework that requires an Internet connection. But some schools are turning this dynamic around and closing gaps; Education Trust’s website showcases a number of these beat-the-odds schools and what they are doing: https://edtrust.org/dispelling_the_myth/.
•Great teachers are born, not made. “Yes, a few teachers have extraordinary talent from day one,” says Marshall, “but the vast majority grow and develop over time, supported by colleagues, master teachers, professional development, curriculum materials, school leaders, and a burgeoning knowledge base about what works in classrooms.” Even the legendary Jaime Escalante, whose inner-city California students aced the AP Calculus exam, depended on seven years of hard work with feeder-grade colleagues and the support of a strong principal.
•Principals are first and foremost managers. H.S.P.S. (hyperactive superficial principal syndrome) is the fate of all too many school leaders as discipline referrals, cafeteria duty, buses, meetings, and e-mail devour their time. But some principals have figured out how to get into classrooms, orchestrate productive teacher teamwork, and create a culture of purpose, collaboration, and trust. “Superintendents and heads of school play a crucial role,” says Marshall, “ensuring that principals have enough staff, buffering them from unnecessary meetings and demands, and coaching them on the core elements of their jobs.”
•Teacher evaluation makes no difference. There’s widespread cynicism about the compliance-driven traditional model, which rarely improves teaching and consumes huge amounts of administrators’ time. The good news is that a growing number of schools have moved to a better approach: short, frequent, unannounced classroom visits, each followed by a face-to-face discussion focusing on one “leverage point,” then a short narrative summary, with the year’s interactions captured in a detailed rubric analysis with teacher input. This approach has at least twelve benefits: administrators know what’s really going on in classrooms; they can intervene early when there are problems; they get daily insights on students’ learning; they develop greater empathy for what teachers are dealing with; they provide ongoing coaching, and are themselves coached by teachers; they motivate colleagues to reflect on their practice and bring their A game every day; they compare lesson execution with curriculum unit plans and assessment of student work; they cross-pollinate effective ideas from classroom to classroom; they walk the talk, demonstrating genuine interest in teaching and learning; they provide accurate and insightful evaluations; they keep and attract quality staff; and they build trust and credibility with teachers, parents, and other stakeholders.
•Student feedback can’t be taken seriously. It’s common for college professors to get survey feedback from their students, but can elementary and secondary teachers learn anything from their students? Actually, yes: studies have shown that in anonymous questionnaires, K-12 students paint a more-accurate picture of classroom performance than principals’ evaluations and test scores. “Student perceptions have great potential in providing insights on what’s working (and what isn’t) in classrooms,” says Marshall, “– professional development from frontline customers.” But this will happen only if surveys are implemented thoughtfully and focus on coaching teaching practice versus high-stakes evaluation.
•Tests don’t enhance learning. Fierce attacks on standardized testing may be blinding us to the benefits of assessments closer to the classroom, says Marshall. Effective teachers check for understanding and fix learning problems in real time; leverage peer instruction after tests; shift students from fixed to growth mindset about difficulties and failures; and use test data to compare notes with colleagues and improve instruction.
•Teachers can’t be held accountable for student learning. This would seem to be the conclusion from the debacle of using test scores to evaluate teachers. “It turns out that scientific-looking value-added formulae are inaccurate and unreliable at the individual teacher level,” says Marshall, “leading to 15 lawsuits from teachers who were done wrong by the data.” And accountability for “student learning objectives” in non-tested subjects has been undermined by widespread gaming. But there are ways to make student learning part of teacher-administrator conversations without these problems: (a) during classroom visits, looking over students’ shoulders and quietly asking them what they’re learning; (b) chatting with teachers afterward about exit tickets and student work; (c) administrators dropping in on teacher team meetings as they plan assessments and discuss student work; (d) looking at student survey data with teachers; and (e) teacher teams presenting before-and-after assessment results at the end of the school year to document their collective value-add to student learning.
(Originally titled “Engaging Teen Writers Through Authentic Tasks”)
“We have to remember that the purpose of writing is to communicate effectively in the world beyond school,” says Los Angeles teacher/author Heather Wolpert-Gawron in this Educational Leadershiparticle. “If we’re falling asleep as readers, it’s possible that our students are falling asleep as writers.” Wolpert-Gawron remembers the moment she and her middle-school colleagues realized they were using the wrong approach to writing instruction. Students’ essays were proficient, but they lacked spark. That was because teachers had been putting all their energy into teaching the five-paragraph essay, which sapped any risk-taking. “This kind of over-scaffolding, for many students, might feel like driving a car at Disneyland,” she says. “You’re moving forward, but you’re on a track that doesn’t let you steer or teach you to drive.”
“The teen brain is a powerhouse of connectivity,” Wolpert-Gawron continues. “Behind teens’ frequent evasiveness, there is a vast network of neurons constantly firing and creating pathways brighter than Times Square.” How could teachers move beyond inauthentic, “greyscale” writing and tap into this potential for engagement?
The first step was to look at the characteristics of real-world writing. A sampling of university marketing brochures, medical reports, and lawyers’ opening and closing statements revealed these characteristics: a variety of text structures; different ways of presenting evidence; writing organized around the purpose; varied paragraph lengths; a blend of genres; academic language specific to the content area; and effective use of data and statistics.
Drawing on these models, Wolpert-Gawron’s team decided to use two strategies to get students more engaged in their writing:
•Role-playing– Students were asked to pretend to be someone else – perhaps an engineer – and produce the kind of writing typical of that profession. In one exercise, students role-played a doctor working with an adolescent who showed signs of learned helplessness. The task was to write a mock medical report for the teen’s parents aiming to convince them of the brain’s plasticity and debunking the myth of static intelligence. Students had to compose a cover letter and include background information, evidence, and recommendations, and use research and data, argumentative writing, and summarizing skills.
Another simulation: students were asked to imagine they were astronauts who had landed off-course on Mars. Groups of students debated the tools and equipment they would need to survive, collaborate, and search for a beacon. They then produced individual essays describing their plight, outlining a plan, and persuading fellow astronauts to follow it.
•Student choice– Teachers began to give students some options on four dimensions of their writing: the topic; whether or not to use an outline or graphic organizer; resources; and the structure of their product. “At the same time,” says Wolpert-Gawron, “it is important to note that we shouldn’t give students the run of everydecision allthe time. Research has found diminishing returns when students have too many choices.”
Since introducing role-playing and increasing student choice, and continuing to plug
away at grammar, syntax, and spelling, “the writing that students have submitted has been
unique and full of voice” says Wolpert-Gawron. “This approach elicited more creativity, and as a result, a higher qualityof writing.” As the teacher team reads over students’ essays, there are comments like, “Who has this awesome student?” “This is so funny!” and “Oh my gosh, listen to this line!”
In this article in Teaching Tolerance, Loretta Ross (Arizona State University) asks what a teacher should do when a student cluelessly says something biased or stereotyping and there’s a ripple of tension in the classroom. Many educators’ impulse is to call out the malefactor, holding him or her accountable for violating classroom norms. “Calling out is intended to shame, encouraging others to exclude the person called out without any discussion of details that may shed light on what the conflict may actually be,” says Ross. “Calling people out shuts down listening and escalates the conflict.”
She suggests a different strategy: calling the student in. “Calling in is speaking up without tearing down,” says Ross. “A call-in can happen publicly or privately, but its key feature is that it’s done with love. Instead of shaming someone who’s made a mistake, we can patiently ask questions to explore what was going on and why the speaker chose their harmful language.” If handled well, this approach allows all parties to move forward together. Some examples:
A more detailed scenario: A boy denies that he’s the beneficiary of white privilege, arguing that his parents worked hard. A calling-out approach would brand the student as a member of a privileged class who won’t acknowledge his advantages. A calling-in approach regards him as someone who doesn’t understand, and he’s asked if he’s ever been walking down the street and stopped by the police for no reason. “This question – a form of calling in – encourages the student to rethink his position,” says Ross. “It highlights the experience of the student rather than labeling him with an identity he’s not open to. Most importantly, it helps clarify a key misunderstanding by helping show the student that privilege doesn’t necessarily mean a lavish lifestyle, and that privilege and hard work aren’t mutually exclusive.”
Of course it’s possible the boy would have the same reaction to being called in as if he were called out – defensive, upset, ashamed. Calling in takes practice, and Ross suggests using small incidents – or make-believe scenarios – to build a classroom culture where calling in becomes the norm. “Calling in prevents differences in understanding from escalating into conflict,” she says. “It means exploring the underlying issues precipitating a situation.”
“Discussions about equity in education often lead participants to confront, perhaps for the first time, the long and ugly history of discrimination toward poor children and children of color in our schools,” say Gislaine Ngounou (Nellie Mae Education Foundation) and Nancy Gutiérrez (NYC Leadership Academy) in this Kappanarticle. Dealing with the emotions that inevitably surface takes great skill, say the authors. They have found that productive discussions about race and equity require: (a) a systematic focus on the whole school or district; (b) participants’ willingness to experience some discomfort; (c) participants being willing to tell their own stories about race; and (d) a recognition that there probably won’t be a satisfying sense of closure.
In addition, say Ngounou and Gutiérrez, it’s helpful to have an interracial team facilitating such discussions. They suggest three principles for team facilitation:
“The Value of Interracial Facilitation of Racial Equity Training” by Gislaine Ngounou and Nancy Gutiérrez in Phi Delta Kappan, May 2019 (Vol. 100, #8, p. 56-61),
https://bit.ly/30GB0m6; the authors can be reached at [email protected]and [email protected].
(Originally titled “Learning to Learn: Tips for Teens and Their Teachers”)
“Many teens today don’t have effective learning skills – and they need them more than ever,” says Ulrich Boser (The Learning Agency) in this article in Educational Leadership. Boser and his colleagues have found the following strategies especially helpful to middle and high-school students:
•Actively retrieve and explain. Re-reading notes and highlighting textbook material is too passive, says Boser. Much more effective is testing oneself or explaining material so it makes sense to another person. Low-stakes classroom quizzes also help solidify memories and pinpoint problem areas.
•Focus. Trying to study while listening to music, watching YouTube, texting, or doing Snapchat and Instagram is inefficient because short-term memory is compromised. Difficult though it may be, teens learn far more when they tune out distractions.
•Check for understanding. “Adolescents can be naively overconfident about what they actually know,” says Boser. Teachers should encourage them to regularly ask themselves whether material makes sense.
•Find the deep features. Learning sticks when students dig for concepts, connections, and underlying structure. Comparing and contrasting are good ways to probe these levels.
•Embrace feedback. Teachers should encourage students to get over their natural hesitation and seek feedback from peers and adults – something that’s common in sports.
•Being aware of feelings. Teens are subject to emotional and hormonal surges and downswings. Being aware of these and practicing meditation – or simply counting to ten before acting – can make a big difference. It’s also helpful if teachers break up intense academic work with short breaks.
•Reflect. Adolescent learners should be prompted to ask questions like, What are my assumptions about what I’m doing? How has my thinking changed because of this experience? What could I do next time to improve my practice?
(Originally titled “Being a Guiding Light Teens Need”)
In this article in Educational Leadership, Carol Ann Tomlinson (University of
Virginia) says that adolescents “are cocky – and terrified. They know everything and, for all practical purposes, nothing. They long to be accorded the privileges of adulthood while yearning (if they are lucky) to crawl back into a parent’s lap. They are becoming many things, and the becoming is awkwardly incomplete. They often see themselves as wonderful when adults see them as maddening, and as maddeningly inadequate when adults see them as wonderful.”
Drawing on the work of Max van Manen, Tomlinson says teens need adults to do the following for them:
•Embrace– Seek to know them, respecting who they are and may become. “Students who have teachers who see them in this light, are, I believe, far more likely to traverse adolescence – and beyond – successfully,” says Tomlinson.
•Invite– Create classrooms where students “feel seen, known, appreciated, challenged, and supported.”
•Lead– “A strong leader listens more than speaks,” she says, “learns more than tells, has a sharp sense of direction, and communicates that direction clearly.”
•Trust– Adolescents should do challenging work and use their developing judgment in significant ways – with support developing the skills, attitudes, and habits of mind they need to be successful.
•Embody– Effective teachers don’t just cover their subject. “Rather,” says Tomlinson, “they help students see the poetry and drama in their lives, show them the long parade of human triumph and folly, enable them to lend their voices to the human song, and guide them to wonder at the reliability and flux in the natural world.”
In this article in Teaching Exceptional Children, Elizabeth Pokorski (Vanderbilt University) distinguishes between an individual contingency – for example, “Monique, if you finish your worksheet, you can go out to recess” – and a group contingency, which applies to all students. Group contingencies are often more efficient and effective than addressing behavior one student at a time, says Pokorski, especially with young children and students with special needs. There are three types of group contingency:
- Independent – All children who engage in the behavior will receive the reinforcement – for example, “Anyone who cleans up his or her toys can go outside and play.”
- Interdependent – The entire group must engage in the behavior for all to receive the reinforcement – for example, “If everyonecleans up their toys, we can all go outside and play.”
- Dependent – This requires one or more specific children to engage in the behavior for the whole group to receive the reinforcement – for example, “If Marissa and Charlie clean up their toys, we can all go outside and play.”
All three can work well to increase positive classroom behaviors, including academic skills, conversational volume, and physical activity, But independent and interdependent group contingencies have stronger empirical support, says Pokorski. “Further,” she adds, “they are potentially more ethical than dependent group contingencies, which can result in pressure or shaming by peers if not carefully implemented.”
Pokorski provides a detailed step-by-step guide for successful implementation of group contingencies:
•Plan– Through observation of children, determine the target behavior, desired level of behavior, children not performing at the desired level, the context, and reinforcement for performing the behavior at the desired level.
•Develop– Choose the type of group contingency, compose a contingency statement, design a contingency system (visual tracking, reinforcers, data collection), and determine the type of student training and materials that will be needed.
•Implement– Initially aim for child success (versus 100 percent implementation), explain any changes in the system using visual supports, provide behavior-specific praise for target behavior, provide reminders of goals and reinforcers if needed, and collect data on progress children are making.
•Modify– Examine and adjust, as needed, the target behavior, behavior requirement or session length, type of group contingency, amount or type of reinforcement, and the appeal of the system to students.
•Generalize and maintain– Continue collecting data and modifying as needed, consider increasing the goals and using the system during different times of day or with a different behavior.
In this excerpt from his book, Driven by Data2.0, Paul Bambrick-Santoyo (Uncommon Schools) lists some mistakes he’s observed in schools implementing teacher team analysis of interim assessment results:
•Inferior assessments– “Without well-thought-out and carefully written tests, effective analysis of student strengths and weaknesses is impossible,” says Bambrick-Santoyo. “Too often, educators roll out assessments that aren’t sufficiently rigorous, only to be shocked and dismayed when their students don’t do well on state tests, AP exams, or SATs.”
•Secretive interim assessments– Letting teachers see interim tests in advance provides clarity on outcomes and a clear target for curriculum planning. And, assuming trust in teachers’ honesty and integrity, assessments don’t need to be rewritten every year.
•Too-frequent assessments– “A huge misconception is that data-driven instruction means more assessment,” says Bambrick-Santoyo. If educators want to see the forest for the trees and have time to focus on improving teaching and learning, less is more.
•Curriculum/assessment disconnect– A tight alignment between what’s taught and what’s tested is essential – otherwise teachers will be teaching one thing and assessing something else, and will rightly complain that the tests are unfair.
•Delayed results– “Every day that passes between the assessment and analysis of results is another day in which we teach new material without correcting errors,” says Bambrick-Santoyo.
•Separation of analysis and re-teaching – Prompt follow-up in classrooms is essential to improving instruction and learning.
•Not making time for data– Team meeting time to analyze test results, reflect on effective and less-effective practices, and plan immediate follow-up with students must be built into teachers’ and administrators’ calendars, says Bambrick-Santoyo.
“The Seven Mistakes That Matter” in Driven By Data 2.0by Paul Bambrick-Santoyo (Jossey-Bass, 2019, p. 5-7)
“The Science of Early Learning: How Young Children Develop Agency, Numeracy, and Literacy” by Dylan Kane, Callie Lowenstein, Rachel Robertson, Daniel Ansari, Stephanie Carlson, and Anne Castles, Deans for Impact, 2019 (spotted in The Education Gadfly)
https://deansforimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/The_Science_of_Early_Learning.pdf
A video of a lesson that went wrong – In this much-viewed 2013 Teaching Channel video, https://www.teachingchannel.org/video/lesson-gone-wrong-tchers-cut, award-winning high-school teacher Sarah Brown Wessling provides commentary on her lesson stumble and how she fixed the problem for the next group of students.
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About the Marshall Memo
Mission and focus:
This weekly memo is designed to keep principals, teachers, superintendents, and other educators very well-informed on current research and effective practices in K-12 education. Kim Marshall, drawing on 48 years’ experience as a teacher, principal, central office administrator, writer, and consultant lightens the load of busy educators by serving as their “designated reader.”
To produce the Marshall Memo, Kim subscribes to 60 carefully-chosen publications (see list to the right), sifts through more than a hundred articles each week, and selects 5-10 that have the greatest potential to improve teaching, leadership, and learning. He then writes a brief summary of each article, pulls out several striking quotes, provides e-links to full articles when available, and e-mails the Memo to subscribers every Monday evening (with occasional breaks; there are 50 issues a year). Every week there’s a podcast and HTML version as well.
Individual subscriptions are $50 for a year. Rates decline steeply for multiple readers within the same organization. See the website for these rates and how to pay by check, credit card, or purchase order.
Website:
If you go to http://www.marshallmemo.comyou will find detailed information on:
• How to subscribe or renew
• A detailed rationale for the Marshall Memo
• Publications (with a count of articles from each)
• Article selection criteria
• Topics (with a running count of articles)
• Headlines for all issues
• Reader opinions
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• The current issue (in Word and PDF)
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Core list of publications covered
Those read this week are underlined.
All Things PLC
American Educational Research Journal
American Educator
American Journal of Education
AMLE Magazine
ASCA School Counselor
District Management Journal
Ed. Magazine
Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis
Educational Horizons
Educational Leadership
Elementary School Journal
English Journal
Essential Teacher
Exceptional Children
Go Teach
Harvard Business Review
Harvard Educational Review
Independent School
Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy
Journal of Education for Students Placed At Risk (JESPAR)
Kappa Delta Pi Record
Knowledge Quest
Language Arts
Literacy Today (formerly Reading Today)
Mathematics Teacher
Middle School Journal
Peabody Journal of Education
Phi Delta Kappan
Principal
Principal Leadership
Reading Research Quarterly
Responsive Classroom Newsletter
Rethinking Schools
Review of Educational Research
School Administrator
School Library Journal
Social Education
Social Studies and the Young Learner
Teaching Children Mathematics
Teaching Exceptional Children
The Atlantic
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Journal of the Learning Sciences
The Language Educator
The Learning Professional (formerly Journal of Staff Development)
The Reading Teacher
Theory Into Practice
Time Magazine