Marshall Memo 837
A Weekly Round-up of Important Ideas and Research in K-12 Education
May 18, 2020
1. Ideas for reopening elementary schools with social distancing
2. Keeping track of what’s happening in online breakout rooms
3. Embracing the new normal in videoconference job interviews
4. Orchestrating productive struggle with a fifth-grade math problem
5. Unconscious bias in secondary-school science classrooms
6. Why are the least-experienced math teachers teaching ninth graders?
7. A study of the language math teachers use
8. Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher on truly balanced literacy classes
9. Responses to criticism of social-emotional learning
10. Insights from psychology and neuroscience
11. Short items: (a) Online mental health resources;
(c) An online activity to help students understand place value
“To all ed companies, PD providers, and anyone else who has a product, PLEASE STOP. JUST STOP. Believe me, we know how to reach you, and I will if I need you. Otherwise JUST STOP.”
Twitter message from a frustrated principal, April 2020
“Endurance is patience. It is shortening your time horizon so you just have to get through this day. Endurance is living with unpleasantness. In fact, it is finding you can adapt and turn the strangest circumstances into routine. Endurance is fortifying. It is discovering you can get socked in the nose and take it. Above all, endurance is living with uncertainty. Sometimes it’s remaining quiet in the face of uncertainty because no conjecture will really tell you what is coming. Endurance is the knowledge that the only way out is through and whatever must be borne will be borne.”
David Brooks in “The People Are Leading the Leaders” in The New York Times, May
15, 2020
“Teaching is, in many ways, akin to performing non-invasive brain surgery on a couple dozen patients at a time, creating conditions that rewire students’ brains to retain vast amounts of new knowledge and skills.”
Bryan Goodwin and Darienne Dey in “Elegant Simplicity in Brain Science” in
Educational Leadership, May 2020 (Vol. 77, #8, pp. 82-83); Goodwin can be reached at [email protected].
In this Education Gadfly article, Michael Petrilli suggests guidelines for opening elementary schools in the fall, drawing on advice from the CDC, schools in other countries that have successfully reopened, and K-12 policymakers. Petrilli believes getting adults back to work is a major imperative, and having schools open will make that possible. With the strong likelihood of cuts in school budgets, any plan must be affordable. And no plan can give 100 percent guarantees because the virus will still be around until a vaccine is widely available. But Petrilli believes elementary schools can be reopened if we follow these steps:
• Give students and educators the choice of full-time remote learning for the coming school year. This is a moral and legal imperative for families with medical risks, and for those who want to quarantine pre-vaccine. Schools would need to make remote learning as attractive and effective as possible, which might mean outsourcing some functions to learning providers.
• Have K-3 students attend school Monday to Friday while grade 4 and 5 students come to school on alternating weekdays, thinning out the student population to make physical distancing easier. “While it’s hardly ideal,” says Petrilli, “fourth and fifth graders can do some independent work and can be left at home during the school day.” In schools where that doesn’t seem wise, he suggests using middle-school classrooms for grade 4-5 students and having grade 6-8 students spend more time learning independently at home.
• Run buses at 50 percent capacity or less. This might mean staggered bus schedules, more buses, or more students carpooling, walking, and biking to school.
• Require daily screening of adults and students, mask wearing, and frequent hand-washing in organized bathroom visits. And of course any student or adult showing signs of illness would be required to stay home.
• Keep all groups to 10-12 students and use every possible space around the school and every available adult (including volunteers) to supervise all the groups. This schoolwide social distancing means that students wouldn’t mix beyond their mini-homerooms at recess (which would be staggered throughout the day), students would eat in their classrooms, and there would be no assemblies, field trips, or other large-group events.
• Teachers move, students stay put. Homeroom teachers and specialists would rotate from room to room to reach all their students – two groups for homeroom teachers, more groups for art, music, media, physical education, and other specials.
• Have a clear plan if there’s an outbreak. If someone in the school community tests positive, the school would be closed for deep cleaning, contacts traced and tested, and if necessary, quarantined. It might be necessary for the school to be closed for two weeks to ensure there’s no super-spread to the community.
“Practical Tips for Teaching Online Small-Group Discussions” by Rhonda Bondie in ASCD Express, April 23, 2020 (Vol. 15, #16); Bondie is at [email protected].
In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, search consultant Kim Brettschneider says that virtual interviews have advantages (no travel, for one thing), but she’s also seen a number of snafus, including:
“Some of those mistakes are recoverable and some aren’t,” says Brettschneider, “yet most are entirely avoidable.” Her suggestions:
• Consider an artificial background. If an attractive, office-like background or a plain wall isn’t available, use a virtual backdrop from your video service. Not a forest or a beach, though, and keep in mind that if a curious pet or a bored spouse gets within two feet of the camera, they will unexpectedly “pop” through the virtual background. It’s a good idea to do interviews behind a locked door, or perhaps with a child sitting next to you with “work” and crayons, and introduce him or her at the beginning of your interview.
• If life happens, roll with it. “Pick up your toddler, give your dog a bone, and continue with the interview,” advises Brettschneider. “Everyone is much more understanding of awkward live moments during this time of quarantine.” Such moments may even work to your advantage, making a human connection.
• Make muting the default. “Play it safe if you are worried about a sudden meow, bickering children, or loud blenders in the background,” says Brettschneider. Mute your sound and have a finger on the unmute button (in Zoom, it’s the space bar) so you can speak on cue. In addition, shut down e-mail and online chat programs.
• Practice like a TV analyst. It’s a good idea to rehearse talking points beforehand, perhaps recording yourself and watching with a critical eye. But for the actual interview, Brettschneider says, “what matters most is to be fully attentive… and ready to improvise based on what you hear. Active listening is even more important in a video interview because you can’t take in as many visual cues as you do in a face-to-face conversation.”
• Have your notes on the screen. Be familiar with how to minimize your image so you can sneak a peek at important lists you’ve prepared.
• Make eye contact with the camera. Center your torso on the screen, look up at where the camera is, and glance only occasionally at notes and the faces of interviewers.
• Have your own name at the bottom of your screen. If you’re using someone else’s computer, be sure to change it in settings, and consider doing a dry run of the interview with a critical friend to pick up any other possible distractions.
• Be prepared for a connection freeze. This happens, and if it does, have your cellphone handy (silenced) with the main interviewer’s number programmed in so you can make a quick call while you reboot and reconnect. It’s also wise to pause after each answer in case there’s an audio lag, giving interviewers a chance to follow up without being interrupted.
• Smile early and often. “You are on camera with your future colleagues,” Brettschneider concludes. “Smile (naturally), sit up straight, and speak clearly. Enjoy the chance to talk about your proudest moments… In some ways, a flat screen levels the playing field and allows more equal opportunity to shine in an interview setting and demonstrate advantages.”
In this article in Mathematics Teacher: Learning & Teaching PK-12, Katherine Baker (Elon University), Naomi Jessup (Georgia State University), Victoria Jacobs (University of North Carolina/Greensboro), Susan Empson (University of Missouri/Columbia), and math coach/consultant Joan Case describe Ryan, a fifth grader, working on this math problem:
Ryan asks for clarification on the number of pizzas and starts drawing and dividing up his pictorial pizzas. He makes mistakes, asks for help, comes up with an incorrect solution, and shows some signs of frustration – scratching his head, scrunching his face, looking down, and folding his hands in front of his face.
“Taken out of context,” say the researchers, “these expressions and gestures could indicate that Ryan was distraught, but in this context, they all seemed to be signs of his thinking. Other students may be more verbal, some may sigh, some may tap a pencil, and some may be even more visibly frustrated. By expecting variety, you will become attuned to how particular students in your classroom look and sound during their productive struggles.”
In this article in Urban Education, Michael Shepherd (California State University, Fresno) reports on his study of 128 California teachers evaluating the verbal responses of ninth graders to open-ended science questions. The teachers (a racially and gender-diverse sample from private, charter, and traditional public schools) listened to a randomized mix of recordings of identically worded student responses to these questions (three examples of the stock responses are included after each question):
In this article in Education Week, Mark Lieberman reports that some educators are pushing back on the longstanding practice of assigning rookie teachers to the most challenging high-school math classes, while more-senior teachers get their pick of desirable courses – where students are better prepared and less likely to cause discipline problems. What’s perverse about this, says Lieberman, is that lower-level math classes tend to have students with more learning difficulties, as well as a higher proportion of ELLs and students of color; these students especially benefit from seasoned, highly effective teachers. The discipline problems in lower-track classes may be partly the result of instruction that fails to engage students and help them overcome longstanding anxiety, low self- concept, and a fixed mindset about math. Poor achievement in ninth grade can throw students off for the rest of their high-school careers.
Another dimension of tracked math departments is that teachers of color are often assigned to the lower-level courses, with the rationale that they are better able to relate to the those students and get better results. This may be true, says Lieberman, but teachers who are relegated to those courses don’t get to teach AP and other higher-level classes, and often aren’t nourished with the kind of attention, feedback, and training they need and deserve.
Over time, tracked teaching assignments can contribute to teachers getting in a pedagogical rut, as well as producing exhaustion and high turnover. That, in turn, means many teachers in the math department are new, inexperienced, and have provisional credentials, which can lead to more burnout, turnover, and discouraging student achievement.
One solution being implemented in a number of schools is rotating math teachers through all courses they’re qualified to teach. This has several advantages:
“Time to ‘Detrack’ Math Teachers, Reformers Say” by Mark Lieberman in Education Week, May 6, 2020
In this article in Mathematics Teacher: Learning & Teaching PK-12, Tracy Dobie (University of Utah) and Miriam Gamoran Sherin (Northwestern University) describe three ways in which the pedagogical language math teachers use can be helpful to clarify intent and improve practice:
• Naming my practice – For example, a high-school teacher encountered the term cognitive demand and realized, “It was something I was doing, but I didn’t have a phrase for it… students are doing the heavy mental lifting.” Learning the term didn’t change what this teacher did with students, but it gave her the language to describe it more precisely, make connections to other practices, and enhance discussions with colleagues.
• Sharpening my practice – A middle-school teacher learned about 5 Practices, a protocol for encouraging productive math discussions, and found it made him more intentional in classroom dialogues. “I could ask myself, is it an assessing question or an advancing question?” he said. “And is that what I want to be asking now?”
• Rethinking my practice – An elementary teacher learned the term productive struggle in an online course and realized that she’d never seen struggle as a positive thing for her students. “After I learned about productive struggle, it made sense,” she said. “Young children are building their identities as mathematics learners and need a sense of self-efficacy, and it’s important for them to feel capable of pushing ahead without teacher intervention.”
Working with researchers in nine other countries, Dobie and Sherin found similarities in conceptual language, but several countries had unique terms:
“What’s In a Name? Language Use As a Mirror Into Your Teaching Practice” by Tracy Dobie and Miriam Gamoran Sherin in Mathematics Teacher: Learning & Teaching PK-12, May 2020 (Vol. 113, #5, pp. 354-360), the e-link works for NCTM members; the authors can be reached at [email protected] and [email protected].
In this article in Principal, Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher (San Diego State University and Health Sciences High and Middle College) review the long and “fraught” debate over how to teach reading, and list four things that school leaders and policymakers should look for in well-taught reading classrooms:
• Balance in skills and knowledge – All students are systematically taught the foundational skills of phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency so they can break the code and have access to the written word. “But skills instruction without equally robust attention to knowledge-building won’t deliver breakthrough results,” say Frey and Fisher. That means vocabulary building and instruction in literature, science, social studies, and the arts from the earliest grades.
• Balance across domains – Are students having “a rich set of daily experiences” in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing? ask Frey and Fisher. “Are students regularly engaged in learning that requires them to formulate ideas, ask questions, and exercise critical thinking?”
• Balance in narrative and informational texts – Nonfiction texts, readalouds, and writing are just as prominent in classrooms as fiction and make-believe. Classrooms have a wide variety of books, magazines, and other media.
• Balance in direct and dialogic teaching – Students get a full range of learning experiences, including teacher mini-lectures, discussions, small-group collaboration, and working on their own. “When observing discussions,” say Frey and Fisher, “watch to see whether the teacher shares responsibility for discussion with students, and note cognitively challenging questions. Listen for periods of 30 seconds or longer when students are speaking instead of the teacher.”
(Originally titled “The Sciences of Teaching”)
“Teachers shape young lives and build young brains every day,” say Carol Ann Tomlinson (University of Virginia/Charlottesville) and author/consultant David Sousa in this article in Educational Leadership. “The more we know about the how and why of doing those two things, the more the learners in our care will benefit.” Tomlinson and Sousa summarize some of the key findings from the psychology and neuroscience of learning – and suggest how schools can tap them to continuously improve teaching and learning:
• Growth mindset – Learning is boosted when educators and parents are aware of their own mindsets, explain, teach, and reflect often with students on how growth mindset works, establish a conducive classroom culture, and empower students to control their own metacognition.
• Prior knowledge – Teachers must constantly connect what’s being learned to what students already know – and be aware of the variations in each student’s fund of knowledge. It’s helpful when learning units are built around big ideas and key concepts tied to students’ interests and insights.
• Social-emotional skills – Effective teachers cover knowledge and skills and link them to their emotional significance, crafting assignments that ask students to use knowledge and skills to solve real-world problems.
• Diversity – The best schools are keenly aware of the panoply of differences in each classroom, make students partners in creating learning environments that work for them, and help students build on their strengths and work through their learning difficulties. It’s especially helpful when students have voice and choice in their learning.
a. A Detailed Guide for Online Learning – This 11-page guide has practical advice and numerous links for engaging students online and building lasting learning through taking in new content, strengthening long-term memory, and retrieving what’s been learned.
b. Comprehensive Online Mental Health Resources – This website, created by Sam Dylan Finch, covers a wide range of issues: emotional, physical, situational, relational, and more.
c. An Online Activity to Help Students Understand Place Value – This website, created by Daniel Scher, helps students visualize numbers and place value on a number line. Students guess the location of a red dot on the line and then zoom out to get a more precise sense. There are multiple problems.
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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 50 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.com you 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
• About Kim Marshall (bio, writings, consulting)
• A free sample issue
Subscribers have access to the Members’ Area of the website, which has:
• The current issue (in Word and PDF)
• All back issues (Word and PDF) and podcasts
• An easily searchable archive of all articles so far
• The “classic” articles from all 16+ years
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: Learning & Teaching PK-12
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