Dina Strasser's take on Chapter 4 of Marzano's Art and Science of Teaching.
She's a better teacher than I am. She's a better blogger than I am, she's a better analyst and applied researcher than I am. And dammit, she's better at sarcasm than I am, too.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Insufficient answers to pressing questions
Bob Herbert describes extraordinary results in a charter school (2 charter schools, actually--a middle school, and a high school that they made in response to their initial success in the middle school). 48 of 48 students in the graduating class are going on to college. All of these students face the difficulties educators point to--poverty, first to attend college, etc.
Eduwonk (hat tip for the article) frames this as the reason to have charter schools.
But my fundamental question remains unanswered--why can't we do this with public education? Why don't we? I think Eduwonk would say "Teachers' Unions! Vested Interests! Education Lobbyists!" Is my industry so politically powerful? Is it so short-sighted that we'd betray our professional principles and destroy our credibility?
At the same time I write this post, I happen to be listening to a Smithsonian Folkways podcast about labor movement folk songs, and it occurs to me that I toe the Union line pretty strongly. So let me clarify: I, of course, celebrate the success of all the students of Gaston Prep Middle and the high school (unnamed in the article). I honor the tremendous effort and sacrifice, and admire the professional dedication, of Tammi Sutton and Caleb Dolan, the educators responsible for creating and driving the schools that have helped this graduating class. I look forward to continued success from these schools. I don't question that in another educational setting these students would not have met anywhere near the same degree of success. I look forward to continued success from these schools.
What I question is, why wouldn't these students have had the same degree of success in their local public schools? What did this school do that public schools don't do? Why don't they do it?
The heart of my criticism of charter school is this: Charter schools and similar reform efforts are based on the notion of competition between education providers. The theory runs thus: as charter schools show their worth, non-charter schools will have to reform and improve student services, or parents will choose schools that will do the best job by their students. "Free and open market forces" will decide the distribution of limited resources--the victors will survive, the failures will dissolve. With the failure of just a few schools, we'll achieve a much higher degree of educational efficacy in education. And maybe that's the case.
But we already have a system of distribution of limited resources. It's called the "public education system." It is not immune from criticism: It is a near-monopoly; it's a bulky bureaucracy with many share-holders whose objectives sometimes work at cross-purpses; change is nearly impossible; every rule change has a million unintended consequences. Public schools fail a huge number of students, and these students are disproportionately the ones who most need help from the public sector--minorities and special-needs students.
But, and here's the rub of it, I think, charter schools and other competitive systems of education reform seek to dilute pools of limited resources, in effect robbing Peter to pay Paul. This inevitably leads to incentivizing "trade secrets," which is the opposite of what we want. If a school finds something that works that nobody else is doing, we want people standing on the rooftops screaming about it. We want successful teachers to be rock stars, the subjects of articles and TV specials, teacher educators, article-writers. We want their techniques studied, spread, maximized. To that extent, anything that charter schools can do to make us better, I'm all for it. I remain extremely sceptical, however, that diffusing the nation's education resources is the best way to do that.
Eduwonk (hat tip for the article) frames this as the reason to have charter schools.
But my fundamental question remains unanswered--why can't we do this with public education? Why don't we? I think Eduwonk would say "Teachers' Unions! Vested Interests! Education Lobbyists!" Is my industry so politically powerful? Is it so short-sighted that we'd betray our professional principles and destroy our credibility?
At the same time I write this post, I happen to be listening to a Smithsonian Folkways podcast about labor movement folk songs, and it occurs to me that I toe the Union line pretty strongly. So let me clarify: I, of course, celebrate the success of all the students of Gaston Prep Middle and the high school (unnamed in the article). I honor the tremendous effort and sacrifice, and admire the professional dedication, of Tammi Sutton and Caleb Dolan, the educators responsible for creating and driving the schools that have helped this graduating class. I look forward to continued success from these schools. I don't question that in another educational setting these students would not have met anywhere near the same degree of success. I look forward to continued success from these schools.
What I question is, why wouldn't these students have had the same degree of success in their local public schools? What did this school do that public schools don't do? Why don't they do it?
The heart of my criticism of charter school is this: Charter schools and similar reform efforts are based on the notion of competition between education providers. The theory runs thus: as charter schools show their worth, non-charter schools will have to reform and improve student services, or parents will choose schools that will do the best job by their students. "Free and open market forces" will decide the distribution of limited resources--the victors will survive, the failures will dissolve. With the failure of just a few schools, we'll achieve a much higher degree of educational efficacy in education. And maybe that's the case.
But we already have a system of distribution of limited resources. It's called the "public education system." It is not immune from criticism: It is a near-monopoly; it's a bulky bureaucracy with many share-holders whose objectives sometimes work at cross-purpses; change is nearly impossible; every rule change has a million unintended consequences. Public schools fail a huge number of students, and these students are disproportionately the ones who most need help from the public sector--minorities and special-needs students.
But, and here's the rub of it, I think, charter schools and other competitive systems of education reform seek to dilute pools of limited resources, in effect robbing Peter to pay Paul. This inevitably leads to incentivizing "trade secrets," which is the opposite of what we want. If a school finds something that works that nobody else is doing, we want people standing on the rooftops screaming about it. We want successful teachers to be rock stars, the subjects of articles and TV specials, teacher educators, article-writers. We want their techniques studied, spread, maximized. To that extent, anything that charter schools can do to make us better, I'm all for it. I remain extremely sceptical, however, that diffusing the nation's education resources is the best way to do that.
Monday, June 8, 2009
Activity analysis: "¡Somos Arqueólogos!"
One of the things I should do a lot more of is examining my activities to see if they're doing what they should, and how to improve them. My methodology teacher, Michael Braun (maybe more about him someday--he also taught me Spanish in high school, and looking at his classes would probably go a long way towards explaining why I think about teaching Spanish the way I do), suggested keeping a binder with assignment sheets in it, and writing notes on post-it notes. I'm going to work on having that system in place by the start of the next school year, but in the meantime, I offer you this:
¡SOMOS ARQUEÓLOGOS!
Imagínate que eres arqueólog@, quinientos años adelante de hoy. Tú (arqueólog@) descubriste la casa en que tú (estudiante) vives.
¿Cómo es este domicilio tan raro? Identifica 5 cosas en la casa. ¿Cómo son estos artefactos? ¿Para qué crees que sirven? (Acuérdate: Tú vives en el futuro. El mundo es muy distinto. Imagina que no sabes nada de la vida actual.)
[Imagine you're an arqueologist, five hundred years from now. You (the archaeologist) have discovered the house in which you (the student) lives.
What is this strange structure like? Identify 5 things in the house. What are these artifacts like? What do you think they're for? (Remember: You live in the future. The world is very different. Imagine you don't know anything about life today.)]
LEVEL: This project was designed for 2nd-year high school students. There's no reason it couldn't be adapted for 1st-year students, or indeed for any time a description of the house becomes necessary.
OBJECTIVE: Students will describe objects in their house from the perspective of someone who doesn't know what they're for. This will help them think of common household objects in Spanish, contextualize vocabulary of common household objects, and establish background knowledge for comparisons of common household items in their house and a house in a Spanish-speaking country. It will also provide students with the vocabulary and language necessary to describe their houses to other students in Spanish.
ASSOCIATED STANDARDS:
1.1.N.RW.g Ask questions in writing about the attributes of places and things in their immediate environment and answer using a list of traits
1.2.N.R.c Understand written interpersonal communication on topics of personal interest such as preferences, family life, friends, leisure and school activities, and everyday occurrences (email, letters, messages, notes, and text messages)
1.3.N.W.c Write brief personal descriptions on familiar topics in Spanish such as self, friends, family, home and school
ASSUMED KNOWLEDGE: Students are expected to have an awareness of, but not yet be entirely comfortable with, the vocabulary of household items, and have a good working knowledge of words that describe physical features of objects (size, color, etc.).
ASSESSMENT: Students show their comprehension of the knowledge by successfully communicating with other students about the objects in their house. This is a formative assessment of vocabulary; it's also a practice activity for other activities to come.
STUDENT OUTPUT: Students' responses ranged from 3-5 word descriptions for each item to a bullet-pointed list in English.
THOUGHTS: I continually butt up against the difference between World Languages and core-content classes, just in terms of learning matter. In this activity, students aren't expected to learn anything new, they're expected to think about what they already know in a different way. This is designed to permit students' minds to focus exclusively on the language acquisition. I recently went to a conference that suggested it might be better on all levels if students are engaging in the culture at the same time as the language.
CHANGES: First, I need to clarify the expectations. Students did not know what was expected of them. Second, rather than having students imagine their own house a different way, it might be better to have them "excavate" a typical house of the Spanish-speaking world, being sure to include a few things the students probably don't have in their own house. (I still think it's important for students to look at their own activities in a new way, but maybe this isn't the format for it.)
¡SOMOS ARQUEÓLOGOS!
Imagínate que eres arqueólog@, quinientos años adelante de hoy. Tú (arqueólog@) descubriste la casa en que tú (estudiante) vives.
¿Cómo es este domicilio tan raro? Identifica 5 cosas en la casa. ¿Cómo son estos artefactos? ¿Para qué crees que sirven? (Acuérdate: Tú vives en el futuro. El mundo es muy distinto. Imagina que no sabes nada de la vida actual.)
[Imagine you're an arqueologist, five hundred years from now. You (the archaeologist) have discovered the house in which you (the student) lives.
What is this strange structure like? Identify 5 things in the house. What are these artifacts like? What do you think they're for? (Remember: You live in the future. The world is very different. Imagine you don't know anything about life today.)]
LEVEL: This project was designed for 2nd-year high school students. There's no reason it couldn't be adapted for 1st-year students, or indeed for any time a description of the house becomes necessary.
OBJECTIVE: Students will describe objects in their house from the perspective of someone who doesn't know what they're for. This will help them think of common household objects in Spanish, contextualize vocabulary of common household objects, and establish background knowledge for comparisons of common household items in their house and a house in a Spanish-speaking country. It will also provide students with the vocabulary and language necessary to describe their houses to other students in Spanish.
ASSOCIATED STANDARDS:
1.1.N.RW.g Ask questions in writing about the attributes of places and things in their immediate environment and answer using a list of traits
1.2.N.R.c Understand written interpersonal communication on topics of personal interest such as preferences, family life, friends, leisure and school activities, and everyday occurrences (email, letters, messages, notes, and text messages)
1.3.N.W.c Write brief personal descriptions on familiar topics in Spanish such as self, friends, family, home and school
ASSUMED KNOWLEDGE: Students are expected to have an awareness of, but not yet be entirely comfortable with, the vocabulary of household items, and have a good working knowledge of words that describe physical features of objects (size, color, etc.).
ASSESSMENT: Students show their comprehension of the knowledge by successfully communicating with other students about the objects in their house. This is a formative assessment of vocabulary; it's also a practice activity for other activities to come.
STUDENT OUTPUT: Students' responses ranged from 3-5 word descriptions for each item to a bullet-pointed list in English.
THOUGHTS: I continually butt up against the difference between World Languages and core-content classes, just in terms of learning matter. In this activity, students aren't expected to learn anything new, they're expected to think about what they already know in a different way. This is designed to permit students' minds to focus exclusively on the language acquisition. I recently went to a conference that suggested it might be better on all levels if students are engaging in the culture at the same time as the language.
CHANGES: First, I need to clarify the expectations. Students did not know what was expected of them. Second, rather than having students imagine their own house a different way, it might be better to have them "excavate" a typical house of the Spanish-speaking world, being sure to include a few things the students probably don't have in their own house. (I still think it's important for students to look at their own activities in a new way, but maybe this isn't the format for it.)
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
More reflecting than a diva's dressing room
SY 2008-09 is finally put to bed, and there's an awful lot to think about. I'm going to go into some of these points more fully in later posts, because I'm trying to get down everything there is before I forget about it.
FINAL EXAMS: The importance of comprehensive final exams became more clear to me than ever before; also, the limits of paper-pencil tests over the course of 3 days. If we're really going to test students' learning of Spanish, more and more I'm thinking that portfolios are the way to go. Note to self: find model portfolio evaluation systems. (Students present portfolios en español as final exam? That's in presentation mode of communication.)
STANDARDS-BASED GRADING SYSTEMS: My school is running on two fundamentally different grading systems, and I suspect that many others are, as well. The bulk of grades is based on the number of standards that students master (at some point, the definition of "mastery" becomes EXTREMELY important). Yet every trimester, we have to give students a letter grade for their cumulative GPA. We come up with arbitrary, counter-intuitive formulae to bridge the gap. To confuse the issue, the final exam isn't directly weighed into our "standards assessment / employability skills" formula, but it's worth 10 % of the final grade.
SYLLABI: For the next school year, we're going to have syllabi detailing what we'll be teaching, what standards the students will be held accountable for, and (presumably) how we're going to know, i.e., what assessments we'll be using. This is entirely a good thing, and by now for most of us it should simply be a matter of taking the information off of our curriculum document and putting it on to a piece of paper that students can read. We ARE all keeping our curriculum document up to date, right? Right? (trails off sheepishly)
SW-PBS: I found out yesterday that my school did not receive the Mi-BLSi grant we applied for. This means, among other things, that the system we grew last year will have to serve us for at least one more year. The good news is that the ISD's capacity for supporting the PBS program has increased substantially--our advisor has new resources to bring to bear, as well as new workers in the ISD itself. One of the main sticking points appears to be ongoing teacher training time, and that looks to be a BIIIIIIG deal.
STUDENTS LEARNING SPANISH: I'm still pondering what the results of the final exam mean. Most of my students did much better than they expected to (and as well as I expected them to), but fell down in some surprising ways--writing section, I'm looking at you here. So something's got to give there. In addition, I'm not sure that they learned to converse in Spanish as well as I'd hoped. So there's something to work on, too.
K-8 PROGRAM: Weaknesses in this program and its director are showing through the whole plan. Next year, there will be a year-long 8th grade Spanish program, so we're going to have to step it up a noch. I expect there will be a year-long 7th grade program the year after that, so I'm going to have to get a lot better really fast.
No doubt, more to come.
FINAL EXAMS: The importance of comprehensive final exams became more clear to me than ever before; also, the limits of paper-pencil tests over the course of 3 days. If we're really going to test students' learning of Spanish, more and more I'm thinking that portfolios are the way to go. Note to self: find model portfolio evaluation systems. (Students present portfolios en español as final exam? That's in presentation mode of communication.)
STANDARDS-BASED GRADING SYSTEMS: My school is running on two fundamentally different grading systems, and I suspect that many others are, as well. The bulk of grades is based on the number of standards that students master (at some point, the definition of "mastery" becomes EXTREMELY important). Yet every trimester, we have to give students a letter grade for their cumulative GPA. We come up with arbitrary, counter-intuitive formulae to bridge the gap. To confuse the issue, the final exam isn't directly weighed into our "standards assessment / employability skills" formula, but it's worth 10 % of the final grade.
SYLLABI: For the next school year, we're going to have syllabi detailing what we'll be teaching, what standards the students will be held accountable for, and (presumably) how we're going to know, i.e., what assessments we'll be using. This is entirely a good thing, and by now for most of us it should simply be a matter of taking the information off of our curriculum document and putting it on to a piece of paper that students can read. We ARE all keeping our curriculum document up to date, right? Right? (trails off sheepishly)
SW-PBS: I found out yesterday that my school did not receive the Mi-BLSi grant we applied for. This means, among other things, that the system we grew last year will have to serve us for at least one more year. The good news is that the ISD's capacity for supporting the PBS program has increased substantially--our advisor has new resources to bring to bear, as well as new workers in the ISD itself. One of the main sticking points appears to be ongoing teacher training time, and that looks to be a BIIIIIIG deal.
STUDENTS LEARNING SPANISH: I'm still pondering what the results of the final exam mean. Most of my students did much better than they expected to (and as well as I expected them to), but fell down in some surprising ways--writing section, I'm looking at you here. So something's got to give there. In addition, I'm not sure that they learned to converse in Spanish as well as I'd hoped. So there's something to work on, too.
K-8 PROGRAM: Weaknesses in this program and its director are showing through the whole plan. Next year, there will be a year-long 8th grade Spanish program, so we're going to have to step it up a noch. I expect there will be a year-long 7th grade program the year after that, so I'm going to have to get a lot better really fast.
No doubt, more to come.
Monday, May 25, 2009
It's all about the students
This blog post is directed at my students, but it's part of a broader conversation that all of us should spend a lot of time on. It's a continuation of some conversations we've had about school rules, why we have specific school rules, and how, when, and why to work to change them. Students, this post turned out a lot longer than I meant. If you want to skip the essay and just leave your thoughts about our school's rules, policies, and expectations, just go straight to the comments. Please remember to be respectful; I don't want to have to delete comments for inappropriate language. (Imagine you're, maybe not in school, but at least in the parking lot outside with our principal standing nearby.)
Our school board sets the school rules; these are the things that are included in your planners that we go over at the beginning of each school year, and that the school-based adults should be reinforcing all year long. This includes the school cell-phone policy (you don't have one on school; if a teacher needs you to have one for a project, give it to that teacher before school starts and pick it up after school ends), the dress code (nothing distracting; no sleeveless shirts for men, no shoulder straps thinner than 3 inches for women, no shorts or skirts that come up higher than the fingers), the tardy policy, the graduation requirements, etc. The school board consists of people who have a stake in the performance of the school. In our case, it's mostly your parents, but it can also include local business officials, education professionals (usually ones who don't work for the school), and others. Their motivation in setting the rules is to keep you safe in school, and to provide you with the best education possible. They usually work with the schools' administration to make the rules.
We also have a set of school behavior expectations--Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be Responsible. (If you poke around in the archives, you'll find out more about how these came to be than you ever wanted to.) The Bobcat Code is another way of repeating the same basic ideals. Every community has rules about appropriate behavior, and these expectations are intended to tell us all what those are for our community. It's not just to tell students how to behave. It's also to tell teachers and staff how to behave, what to celebrate, who our good citizens are, things like that.
Each teacher has their own set of guidelines, too: rules, behavior expectations, and classroom procedures. The purpose of these guidelines is to codify how teachers and students interact. You can tell a lot about a teacher by their classroom guidelines.
All of these different levels of "rules" and "expectations" have one objective: to make school the best learning environment for you possible. In order for that to be true, the following things have to happen:
In any case, with any rules change, be prepared to justify how the change will help your education. Once, I asked students what they thought about school policies. One student responded, "There should be a boxing ring where students who aren't getting along can beat each other up." We asked how it would help their education to get into fights. The response: "It wouldn't. But it would be fun." Whether it would be fun or not, it would be at the expense of the safety of the students, it would take away from learning, and it wouldn't work as well as more productive, non-violent means of problem-solving. So that's an example of a bad policy change.
SO....after all that, what do you think about our school policy? What works, what doesn't? What could work better?
Our school board sets the school rules; these are the things that are included in your planners that we go over at the beginning of each school year, and that the school-based adults should be reinforcing all year long. This includes the school cell-phone policy (you don't have one on school; if a teacher needs you to have one for a project, give it to that teacher before school starts and pick it up after school ends), the dress code (nothing distracting; no sleeveless shirts for men, no shoulder straps thinner than 3 inches for women, no shorts or skirts that come up higher than the fingers), the tardy policy, the graduation requirements, etc. The school board consists of people who have a stake in the performance of the school. In our case, it's mostly your parents, but it can also include local business officials, education professionals (usually ones who don't work for the school), and others. Their motivation in setting the rules is to keep you safe in school, and to provide you with the best education possible. They usually work with the schools' administration to make the rules.
We also have a set of school behavior expectations--Be Safe, Be Respectful, Be Responsible. (If you poke around in the archives, you'll find out more about how these came to be than you ever wanted to.) The Bobcat Code is another way of repeating the same basic ideals. Every community has rules about appropriate behavior, and these expectations are intended to tell us all what those are for our community. It's not just to tell students how to behave. It's also to tell teachers and staff how to behave, what to celebrate, who our good citizens are, things like that.
Each teacher has their own set of guidelines, too: rules, behavior expectations, and classroom procedures. The purpose of these guidelines is to codify how teachers and students interact. You can tell a lot about a teacher by their classroom guidelines.
All of these different levels of "rules" and "expectations" have one objective: to make school the best learning environment for you possible. In order for that to be true, the following things have to happen:
- The rules have to be directed towards improving your learning experience. (That's why we don't have a "Buy American" clause in the policies--it's got nothing to do with your learning.)
- You, the student, as well as we, the teachers, have to know what the rules are, what they're for, and what the consequences of following and not following them will be.
- The staff has to apply those rules consistently, re-teach them regularly, and be prepared to explain (in an appropriate time and place) what the educational value of a rule is.
In any case, with any rules change, be prepared to justify how the change will help your education. Once, I asked students what they thought about school policies. One student responded, "There should be a boxing ring where students who aren't getting along can beat each other up." We asked how it would help their education to get into fights. The response: "It wouldn't. But it would be fun." Whether it would be fun or not, it would be at the expense of the safety of the students, it would take away from learning, and it wouldn't work as well as more productive, non-violent means of problem-solving. So that's an example of a bad policy change.
SO....after all that, what do you think about our school policy? What works, what doesn't? What could work better?
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Why you go to school / Merit Pay
Students--The blog post I promised you is coming. After our incident on Friday, it's more important than ever to have the conversation we started over a week ago. But in the meantime, this:
Girls poisoned to prevent their education
If I could think of no other reason for you to go to school, I'd always have "Because the Taliban don't want you to."
I blog about this so often, you'd think I don't think about anything else. But I do. Really.
Merit pay doesn't work.
I have read neither the blog nor the study. I can't believe that anybody thinks this is the final word on the issue, though.
Hat tip to Alexander Russo for both of these stories.
Girls poisoned to prevent their education
If I could think of no other reason for you to go to school, I'd always have "Because the Taliban don't want you to."
I blog about this so often, you'd think I don't think about anything else. But I do. Really.
Merit pay doesn't work.
I have read neither the blog nor the study. I can't believe that anybody thinks this is the final word on the issue, though.
Hat tip to Alexander Russo for both of these stories.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Never work harder than your students, Cha. 4
Support your students
Jackson starts off this chapter by defining the "Curse of Knowledge," knowing something and being unable to imagine what it's like not knowing it. She suggests that it's one of the big reasons that teachers have a hard time teaching until the remediation stage. Then, she suggests that by having remediation plans without intervening during instruction is tantamount to planning on our students' failure. This, of course, leads to frustration all around.
The mitigation to this--the principle for this chapter--is to plan interventions in to the lesson. In the planning stages of a class or a unit, a teacher decides what students should know. (This is reflected in "standard and benchmarks" and whatnot.) He then breaks that up into smaller bits, steps and stages of learning goals to put together some kind of continuity plan so that he's not just randomly pulling activities out of his file drawer. Then, he builds in learning supports over the course of the unit, so that when students trip up, they have a system to help them keep their footing.
Jackson identifies the following elements of an effective intervention system:
Our school has an "Interventions" class this year, a class we've been struggling with getting right all year long. We know that we need a mechanism to help students learn content they may have missed the first time, and this year it took the form of a 1-hour-a-day class. We've had trouble organizing the class logistically, re-teaching standards, getting students into and out of Interventions, and keeping occupied those students who don't need to make up standards. This chapter reads like Jackson has been through a number of projects like that. She's taken those experiments and tried to turn them into something.
Jackson starts off this chapter by defining the "Curse of Knowledge," knowing something and being unable to imagine what it's like not knowing it. She suggests that it's one of the big reasons that teachers have a hard time teaching until the remediation stage. Then, she suggests that by having remediation plans without intervening during instruction is tantamount to planning on our students' failure. This, of course, leads to frustration all around.
The mitigation to this--the principle for this chapter--is to plan interventions in to the lesson. In the planning stages of a class or a unit, a teacher decides what students should know. (This is reflected in "standard and benchmarks" and whatnot.) He then breaks that up into smaller bits, steps and stages of learning goals to put together some kind of continuity plan so that he's not just randomly pulling activities out of his file drawer. Then, he builds in learning supports over the course of the unit, so that when students trip up, they have a system to help them keep their footing.
Jackson identifies the following elements of an effective intervention system:
- The Plan is developed before students begin to fail.
- The Plan has a red flag mechanism that triggers action--objective, based on learning objectives (not behavior).
- A concrete procedure is in place such that when the conditions are met (less than 76%, missed standards, whatever), the procedure kicks right in. It's in the letter home, the syllabus, the class's website, on refrigerator magnets. Everybody understands the procedure, what it's for, when it happens. It's not punishment and it's not busywork.
- Students have shared accountability in this Plan. They have a well-defined job and responsibility for their learning.
- Anticipate confusion. Having once been learners of our subject ourselves, and having taught our subject every year more, we have a pretty good idea where our students will get tripped up. Prepare your students for those moments and have a variety of teaching strategies in your pocket.
- Pinpoint confusion and uncover misconceptions. Know where your students are getting tripped up. She points out that this is tricky, because you can get right answers using wrong strategy. This action step (or whatever it is she calls it) addresses the strategies that students are using, and making sure that they're using the correct strategies.
- Demystify the process. The process of education makes sense to educators. We live it, we dedicate ourselves to improving it, we've invested huge amounts of time to thinking abstractly about it. This is not so for student. Help them to understand why they're doing what they're doing.
- Gradually remove supports as students improve. Make it clear that some of your "crutch" methods may be necessary now, but they won't be available forever. She makes the point of saying that, rather than changing the learning activities, try keeping the learning activities the same and changing the students' relationship to it. I'm not exactly clear what she means by this, or what this would look like in an WL class, but I get the shape of what she's saying.
- Support the learning of students who have already mastered the learning goals. The teacher prep looks nearly the same for this step as the previous. Instead of taking the ambiguity out of a learning objective, leave some of the (learning-goal-relevant) ambiguity in. The students who already know a lot need to learn, too.
Our school has an "Interventions" class this year, a class we've been struggling with getting right all year long. We know that we need a mechanism to help students learn content they may have missed the first time, and this year it took the form of a 1-hour-a-day class. We've had trouble organizing the class logistically, re-teaching standards, getting students into and out of Interventions, and keeping occupied those students who don't need to make up standards. This chapter reads like Jackson has been through a number of projects like that. She's taken those experiments and tried to turn them into something.
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