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Our expert researchers, evaluators, and veteran educators synthesize information gleaned from our research and blend it with best practices gathered from schools and districts around the world to bring you insightful and practical ideas that support changing the odds of success for you and your students. By aligning practice with research, we mix professional wisdom with real world experience to bring you unexpectedly insightful and uncommonly practical ideas that offer ways to build student resiliency, close achievement gaps, implement retention strategies, prioritize improvement initiatives, build staff motivation, and interpret data and understand its impact.

Nov 13
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What’s in a name? Recognizing the distinction between cooperative and collaborative instruction

By Blog, Everyday Innovation 2 Comments

Walk into a classroom and you are likely to see small groups of students working together. Group learning has become as ubiquitous to modern instruction as rote recitation was during most of the last century. This pedagogical shift makes perfect sense. Classrooms are more diverse than ever, and group-oriented instruction provides a means for addressing both learning and cultural differences while maintaining focus on the curriculum. Despite this prevalence, there is confusion around what constitutes effective group instruction.

In general, group-oriented instruction is divided into two categories – cooperative learning and collaborative learning. A cooperative lesson is designed such that group members work toward a shared learning goal (positive interdependence) while being held accountable for their own learning through individual assessments or comprehension checks (individual accountability). Furthermore, cooperative groups receive explicit instruction in how to effectively work together (group processing skills). Collaborative learning, on the other hand, lacks these elements. A collaborative lesson may simply have students work together with thought to neither the goal structure nor mechanisms for individual accountability. Unfortunately, most group-oriented instruction is collaborative, not cooperative.  Without these critical elements, group-oriented instruction is often ineffective, plagued by intra-group competition and unequal distribution of labor (and learning!)

A number of well-developed instructional methods such as Learning Together, Jigsaw, and Student Teams-Achievement Division meet the level of cooperative learning; for an overview of the basic concepts involved, see this site. Whether you use one of these techniques or design your own, learning to recognize the difference between cooperative and collaborative instruction can make all the difference.

Charles Igel is a Researcher within McREL’s Research and Evaluation department.

Oct 13
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Finding motivation to put forth the effort

By Blog, Classroom Instruction that Works 15 Comments

One of the research-informed strategies from the book, Classroom Instruction that Works, is Reinforcing Effort. Many students don’t make the connection between success and effort. Often they think that other students achieve because of luck, who they know, or born-in abilities. If children don’t think that they have any of these factors in their favor, they may assume that they have no effect on their chances for success. It is up to the community, parents, and educators to make sure children do understand that effort can result is achievement. It’s at the core of the American Dream.

McREL is often called to struggling communities where motivation is a big issue. Many of these communities have the most difficult of circumstances such as high poverty, unemployment, teen pregnancy, drug use, and violence. Yet, once in a while we come upon a community that despite the odds, is succeeding in motivating their students to succeed. Some of the schools in these communities were documented in McREL’s Schools that “Beat the Odds” report. When we look closely, we find school leaders that look for ways to motivate students. Sometimes it’s simply finding a way to reward good behavior. For instance, a high school principal in Poplar, Montana makes a small difference by realizing that students want a safe place to socialize with friends. So she provides a supervised common area for students in order to motivate them to try harder in school. They can play the Wii video game, socialize with friends, or just relax with a book as reward for their efforts in school.

Increasing student effort boils down to finding out what is important to them and finding ways to use it for motivation. A large example of this is Project Citizen (http://www.civiced.org/index.php?page=introduction). As you can see from the embedded movie below, Project Citizen Educators from around the world help students find an interesting community problem. Then they work together to find solutions. Not all problems get fixed, but enough do to teach the lesson that effort does pay off in success.

Having positive role models also improves intrinsic motivation to succeed. If students see successful people like themselves, they believe that they can do it too. One of the best ways to provide genuine role models is by using the ones already found in your schools. For instance, a school counselor could start a peer-partner program that connects screened and trained role models from upper classmen at the high school with struggling students in the middle school. Or, educators could put together a summer camp to motivate urban boys or girls using young successful students from their own community. An example of this is shown in the video below.

Sometimes you may need to find mentors from higher education to motivate students. In the video below, the Expanding Your Horizons program is shown to motivate girls to pursue STEM fields.

McREL is also doing work in this area. We have begun work on a three-year project to design and study the effects of a two-week, summer science program designed to encourage high school students to enroll in high school chemistry call “Cosmic Chemistry”. In what ways have you seen schools in struggling communities beat the odds and motivate students to put forth a strong effort?

by Matt Kuhn

 

Oct 01
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Would the “instructional rounds” concept work in your school district?

By Blog, Leadership Insights 14 Comments

Recently, as I have traveled to several school districts in the United States, I have been invited into some conversations about the concept of “instructional rounds”.  As I have listened, I have learned about the application of using the concept of “rounds” in the educational setting, which is quite similar to what is used to develop new interns and residents in the medical profession.

Since I work with leaders at all levels in school systems, I began to wonder how a school district would implement the instructional rounds model, so I did some investigating. I came across a new book by City, Elmore, Fiarman, and Teitel (2009) that is dedicated solely to this concept. The book, titled Instructional Rounds in Education:  A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learning provides a thorough view of the concept, and the authors make some recommendations that potentially could transform some systems.

Essentially, the premise of instructional rounds assumes that educators usually do not have a common set of shared practices that are effective – meaning that educators ranging from teachers to superintendents do not have a core set of shared practices. This distinguishes education from other professions. Instructional rounds are a process for bringing effective shared practices to the forefront of a school system:

“The basic idea is to put all educators – principals and central office administrators as well as teachers – into common practice disciplined by protocols and routines and organized around the core functions of schooling in order to create common language, ways of seeing, and a shared practice of improvement (City, Elmore, Fiarman, and Teitel 2009).”

The authors of Instructional Rounds in Education (2009) have tested this concept in several school systems in the United States and have found it to be successful.

My questions to the educational leadership blogosphere are:

  1. Does the concept of “instructional rounds” have the potential to be implemented into your school system? What would it take to do so?
  2. Do you think this idea will bring about successful practices if implemented?
  3. What systemic changes would cause the “rounds” concept to succeed?
  4. What systemic barriers would cause the “rounds” concept to fail?

 

 

Sep 22
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The skills teachers need

By Blog, Future of Schooling 8 Comments

It’s inevitable: in the very near future, most educators will be teaching online or at least will be facilitating hybrid classes that include face-to-face and online components. (See Christiansen, or this NY Times article that outlines a recent study on the effectiveness of online learning from the U.S. Department of Education.) We can assume the Internet isn’t going away. We can assume that today’s interactive whiteboards will continue to morph and evolve into interactive walls, tables, and desktops. We can assume that humans will continue to find new and innovative ways to organize and communicate. And, yes, we can also assume that there will be those who will find innovative ways to use the Internet for harm or for personal gain.

So what skills do teachers (and students) need now so that they can seamlessly make this transition to a more connected, more technology-rich world? Here’s my list of knowledge and skill statements, which I’m sure will continue to grow and morph.

  • Knows how to create and organize an aesthetic online environment that is user-friendly to the people who will be learning in this area and anticipates possible user mistakes or misuses.
  • Not only knows how to quickly set up a presentation in order to bring in multimedia (see “learning styles”), but also knows how to use an interactive whiteboard to create virtual manipulatives for students. In addition, can teach students how to create their own virtual manipulatives.
  • Can teach students how to navigate the vast world of the Internet to find accurate information, to recognize bias, and to make sound decisions on which sources he/she will use.
  • Teaches safe and responsible use of Internet tools so that students use the best of social networking without endangering their safety, money, friends/family, or online identity.
  • Accesses multiple methods of teaching a concept. Teaches students to do the same.
  • Is able to troubleshoot when something isn’t working quite right. Teaches students to do the same.
  • Chooses the best tools for any given assignment. (Don’t set up an entire wiki when sharing a simple Google doc will do.)
  • Knows and teaches basic skills such as file management, creating presentations, managing email.
  • And finally, knows when it’s time to turn off the technology and engage students in face-to-face discussions, going outside, conducting an experiment, brainstorming, acting, drawing, painting, building.

Did I miss anything? I’m sure I did. I’d love to hear your comments and suggestions.

 

Sep 10
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Homework and practice have a sister

By Blog, Classroom Instruction that Works 21 Comments

In our work with districts across the county, we often find that homework and practice is a bone of contention in many schools. Many issues arise if the strategy of homework and practice (H&P) is misapplied. Sometimes H&P is too large a part of the students’ total grade. This enables some students to pass a class without really showing that they know the subject. Other times H&P is not differentiated enough resulting in some students finding the work too frustrating and others seeing it as a total waste of their time. Furthermore, the purpose of an H&P activity might not be communicated well to the students or the activity really has little or no purposeful connection to the learning objectives at all. For instance, we have all seen busy work such as word searches assigned as homework for homework’s sake. If the teacher, and more importantly the students, cannot readily tell you why an H&P activity is important, than it probably does not have a good purpose and should not have been assigned in the first place.

But the problem I find most egregious is when there is no opportunity for feedback on H&P activities. When you practice something you are trying to see what you are doing well and what you need to change about what you do not do well. This requires feedback, usually from someone as skilled as or more so than you in the subject. This is why master teachers pair homework and practice with its sister strategy, providing feedback.

Providing feedback can be tiered to give every opportunity to the students to receive the guidance they need to learn. For instance, teachers could lead students through checking the work and accuracy of their math homework (whole group feedback). Then the students could pair up and discuss how to solve the three practice problems that were most challenging to them (peer feedback). Then the teacher could encourage students to revise their work based on the feedback (mastery teaching). Finally, the teacher could collect a random assignment at the end of the week for in-depth feedback by the teacher (expert feedback).

In any case, students should have the opportunity for meaningful practice that includes criteria-based corrective feedback. These feedback should be both positive and negative in that is lets the students know what they are doing well and not well and how to improve it. Then the students should have the opportunity to act on this feedback to make the corrections. Sports coaches and master teachers know this practice and feedback loop very well. Do you have an example of a practice/feedback loop that you use with your students?

By Matt Kuhn – Curriculum & Instruction Consultant – STEM

Aug 04
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The problem with “problem solving”

By Blog, Classroom Instruction that Works 3 Comments

There is a big difference between generating and testing hypotheses – problem solving and doing practice problems. The difference lies in the level of critical thinking required. These two instructional strategies are often confused by instructional leaders. This isn’t surprising since most text books rarely differentiate between the two.

When we train school leaders to conduct walkthroughs with McREL’s Power Walkthrough software, we make sure they can distinguish between the two. Let’s look at an example of this distinction. We might walk into a classroom and see students quietly completed a worksheet that asks them to find and correct ten “problems” with grammatical errors. These are language arts practice problems. On the other hand, students could be contemplating possible solutions to a community problem such as homelessness in Miami. In this second example, students would be using the problem solving process to define the problem, analyze and hypothesize multiple solutions, weigh these solutions against each other, and plan for action.

I am not implying that it is not worthwhile for students to do practice problems. Practice is important for building the foundational skills students need. Nonetheless, if we want students to think critically, we cannot be satisfied with just doing practice problems. We have to build upon the foundations laid by them by providing students opportunities to analyze, evaluate, and create through problem solving. Do you have an innovative example of generating and testing hypotheses – problem solving? If so, share it with us in a reply to this posting.

Aug 03
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Why don’t people and systems change — even when the writing is on the wall?

By Blog, Leadership Insights One Comment

I recently read a book that has caused me to look deeper at the actions of some educators I have come into contact with over the past few years in multiple contexts – both as a McREL consultant and a parent. The book is called Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, Ori and Rom Brafman (2008) and as the title indicates, it focuses on looking deeply at the “why” of irrational human behavior. Now, before you start to characterize me as somebody who views the glass as being half empty, please know that I see much more that is positive in my roles, but I am still troubled by this notion of rational and intelligent people engaging in irrational decisions.

Here is a real-life example I will apply to the concepts in the book. For obvious reasons, this has to be anonymous since I am highlighting irrational behavior:

Over the past three years, I have watched a school district fall from being one of the best district’s in a particular state to one that is now below average as measured by student achievement, property values, community support, employee satisfaction, and compensation. I know what you are thinking now is probably the usual “suspects” that we often believe as educators cause such rapid declines in school systems – demographic changes, budget cuts, mass teacher turnover or retirements, etc. This example, however, does not include these “suspects” except for the economic downturn that is currently affecting all school systems in the US.

This example follows the characteristics illustrated in Sway:

  1. Loss Aversion – some of us are so afraid of loss that we simply will do anything necessary to keep things the same. In the school district example, the school board, superintendent, principals, teachers, and parents were not able to understand that “losses” were necessary in order to stay current and relevant. This district continued to build schools and new facilities, even when enrollment projections were in decline. Rather than close or re-utilize schools that were under-enrolled, this district built more schools and continued to expand capacity in the face of declining enrollment.
  2. Commitment – this characteristic goes closely with the first one. When we are afraid of loss and so committed to one way of doing business, we cannot let go or see the writing on the wall when changes need to be made. In the district example, once a commitment was made to expansion and building more schools, it was almost etched in stone. This made perfect sense in a different time when there was exponential growth and a robust tax base. This district was not able or willing to look long-term at the reality of over-building, nor were they able to sustain it. They were so “committed to their commitment” that changing the focus in light of leading indicators was not an option. This led to a reaction that was quite predictable – closing and consolidating schools to save money and more effectively use facilities which led to upheaval in the community.
  3. Value Attribution – by placing value on certain ideas or ways of doing business, we can be blinded by the amount of value we place on a single idea or group of ideas. In the district example, building and maintaining new schools was truly a core value of the district culture. The entire community came to know this district largely because of their shiny and new school facilities and the fact that schools were minimally populated or utilized by students. This was largely touted as a characteristic that set the district apart from others in the area and used widely by realtors, city council, businesses, and others to draw homebuyers and new residents  to this geographic area.
  4. Diagnosis Bias – in concept, bias exists when we view our world through a certain lens and close our minds to other explanations. A good example of this is the emergency room doctor who spends his day diagnosing and treating a relatively predictable array of injuries and ailments including flesh wounds, broken bones, heart attacks, stomach flu, etc. Not to be taken lightly for certain, these diagnoses become so common that the ER doctor (or any doctor) can easily mis-diagnose a patient by incorrectly focusing on the most obvious symptom. On the rare occasion that a patient shows up with an atypical ailment, the doctor is likely to mis-diagnose if the symptoms are similar to common ailments because of Diagnosis Bias. Now to the school district example where Diagnosis Bias is found in a history where funds are spent to build new schools on a priority basis. In this example, the diagnosis is incorrect – new schools with small student populations are needed to effectively educate students in this community. While this diagnosis may have never been correct, it is a core value of the community and very difficult to challenge or change. It has become an expectation.
  5. Procedural Justice and Fairness – as a culture, Americans value justice, fairness, and procedures that ensure fair treatment. This value is found at the core of our justice system and is embedded in modern society – actually nested in the concept of the “American Dream”. The problem occurs when procedures and protocols based on the idea of fairness cloud perceptions. In the district example, we have a community that values new school facilities with few students enrolled. The question becomes: How does this cycle get broken when money gets tight? The expectation of fairness means that an older school building with a large student population would not fit in this district. In the interest of fairness, it is easier to stick with an old value that is not economically feasible or sustainable and not think long term about what happens when resources are limited.

How does this story end? It is difficult to tell currently, but based on this model, we can be fairly sure that the district will continue to suffer through many of the phases of a difficult change process as they grieve for inevitable losses. Blame will be placed on many and school board and staff turnover has already begun, but it will be hard to see this problem through any other realistic lenses. The school board and leadership, whether new in the district or veteran will have to look at the obvious problem with few solutions to keep the status quo. Schools will have to be closed, consolidated, and re-utilized in order to stay within budget. The community will be forced to shift their value system out of economic necessity.

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