confronting the elephant in the room: overcoming common challenges
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Confronting the Elephant in the Room: Overcoming Common Challenges. Ohio Annual Statewide Education Conference 2012 Columbus, Ohio, November 1, 2012 Dave Weaver Director of Educational Evaluation and Technical Assistance Services RMC Research Corporation, Portland, Oregon. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
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Confronting the Elephant in the Room:
Overcoming Common Challenges
Ohio Annual Statewide Education Conference 2012
Columbus, Ohio, November 1, 2012Dave Weaver
Director of Educational Evaluation andTechnical Assistance Services
RMC Research Corporation, Portland, OregonNovember 2012
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Session Purpose• Identify challenges that limit
effectiveness of school improvement efforts
• Show how highly effective schools address these challenges
• Present relevant research findings• Identify concrete steps that SIG
schools can take to increase the likelihood that school improvement efforts will be effective
November 2012
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What Has Been Tried ???
November 2012
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Common SEA Approaches• Raise standards and expectations• Clarify content at each grade• Adopt curriculum materials• Align content with standards and
assessments• Interpret data to change practice• Provide professional development• Reorganize administrative control• Require and monitor improvement
plans• Send in experts• Many others . . . November 2012
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Common School Approaches• 3 out of every 4 SIG schools
nationally implemented the transformation model• Replace principal• Increase teacher and leader
effectiveness• Comprehensive instructional reforms• Increase learning time• Create community-oriented schools• Provide operational flexibility and
sustained supportNovember 2012
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Common School Approaches• Develop another plan• Hire consultants and experts• Purchase new curriculum
materials• Align content with standards and
assessments• Provide professional development• Test kids more• Purchase technology• Others . . . November 2012
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The Overall Effect Is Mixed• With respect to overall student
achievement:• A few move in the desired direction• Some stay the same or increase only
on pace with AYP expectation• Some continue to get worse and fall
further behind the AYP pace• Chronically low performing schools
seem to be unaffected by the best ideas about school improvement
November 2012
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These efforts are necessary,but not sufficient to achieve the desired improvement in
student learning
What we have learned . . .
November 2012
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WHY??Some Common ReasonsCity, E., Elmore, R., Fiarman, S., & Teitel, L. (2009), Instructional Rounds in Education. Harvard Education Press: Cambridge, MA.
November 2012
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Challenge 1–Lack of Vision & Purpose
• “In most instances, principals, lead teachers, and system-level administrators are trying to improve the performance of their schools without knowing what the actual practice would have to look like to get the results they want at the classroom level.”
(City, 2009, p 32)• There is often a “lack of an agreed-
upon definition of what high-qualityinstruction looks like.”November 2012
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We know a lot about how
students learnThe problem is that this knowledge is
not consistently applied in daily instructional practices
November 2012
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Challenge 2–Sanctioned Private Practice
• “Most people in schools work in siloed cultures characterized by independence and autonomy.”
(City, 2009, p 62)• Chronically failing schools “are
organizations that support the private practice of teachers”
November 2012
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Sanctioned Private Practice• “When you push hard on an
essentially atomized culture with a strong set of external forces you too often get more atomized culture, not a more coherent one.”
(City, 2009, p 37)• Sanctioned private practice of
teachers is an equity issueNovember 2012
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Challenge 3–Lack of Process• “The problem is not that schools don’t
have access to knowledge. Low performing schools are overwhelmed with people from multiple sectors and multiple levels of government telling them what to do.”
• It certainly isn’t because they aren’t trying—“Most educators are working at or very near the limit of their existing knowledge and skill.”
November 2012
(City, 2009)
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“The problem is that they don’t have a process for
translating that knowledge systematically into
practice.”It is often left entirely up to the teacher
to determine how to use what they learned through professional
development!
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See the Elephant
Yet?
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The Bottom Line:Schools that . . .
• Have no clear vision of what effective instruction looks like in practice,
• Sanction the private practice of teachers, and
• Have no mechanism in place to put research into practice
have little chance of improving what goes on behind the classroom doorNovember 2012
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Few school improvement efforts
address these challenges EXPLICITLY!
What goes on behind the classroom door remains
unchanged!
November 2012
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How Highly Effective Schools Address These
Issues
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Characteristics of Effective Schools
• An instructional vision of effective learning experiences for students
• Job-embedded professional development
• Schoolwide collaborative culture
• Vertical and horizontal articulation of curriculum and instruction
• Leadership support, and encouragement
November 2012
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Instructional Vision• “Develop, with colleagues who have
to work together on school improvement, a shared understanding of what they mean by effective instruction.”
(City, 2009, p 10)• Build vision and purpose around
knowledge of how students learn the subject (cognitive science)• Most instructional practices fail to
effectively apply what research tells us about how students learn a given subject.
November 2012
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Developing Useful Vision Statements
• Vision statements must be useful for improving instructional practice
• A useful vision statement IS NOT:• A nebulous goal that no one can
disagree with• Specific strategies the teachers should
do• A useful vision statement IS:
• Grounded in cognitive science• A description of what students do to
learn• Recognizable when students are
doing it• Believable
November 2012
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Science Example• Students learn science when they:
• Articulate their initial ideas,• Are intellectually engaged with
important science content,• Confront their ideas with evidence,• Formulate new ideas based on that
evidence, and• Reflect upon how their ideas have
evolved
November 2012
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Early Reading Example• Students learn to read best when
they are engaged in a blend of learning experiences that focus on the development of:• Phonemic awareness• Phonics• Vocabulary• Fluency• Comprehension
(NICH, 2000)November 2012
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Math Example 1 (National Math Panel)
Students learn mathematics best when they are engaged in a blend of learning experiences that focus on the development of:• Computational fluency
• Efficiency, Accuracy, and Flexibility
• Conceptual understanding• Problem solving
November 2012
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Math Example 2 (CCSS)
If teachers use developmentally appropriate yet challenging tasks and activities that engage students in:
• Explaining and justifying their reasoning mathematically
• Identifying and verifying conjectures or predictions about the general case (generalization)
• Using representations (symbolic, notation, graphs, charts, tables, and diagrams) to communicate and explore mathematical ideas
• Applying mathematical skills and concepts to real-world applications
Then student achievement and interest inmathematics will increase.
November 2012
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A General Instructional Vision
Efforts To Provide a Clear
Vision of Effective
Instruction
Kennewick School District, Washington
November 2012
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Discussion Activity 1• To what extent does your school
improvement plan explicitly address an instructional vision?
• If you have an instructional vision, does it meet the criteria of grounded in cognitive science, describes what students do to learn, is recognizable, and is believable?
• What steps must you take next?November 2012
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Job-Embedded PD• The mechanism whereby teachers
put research into practice• When teachers collaboratively
work on enacting the instructional vision to make instruction more effective and consistent among teachers
• “Puts educators in a position of having to actively construct their own knowledge of effective instructional practice”
(City, 2009, p 10)November 2012
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Key Elements of Job-Embedded PD
• The purpose (Learning Theory Driven PD)• Enacting the instructional vision • Achieving vertical & horizontal
articulation of instruction• The process
• Structured process that teachers recognize as professional development separate from meetings
• Applicable to unique contextual and instructional needs
• The commitment• Expectation to apply learning to practice
November 2012
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Discussion Activity 2• To what extent does your school
improvement plan explicitly establish job-embedded professional development?
• To what extent does the PD have a clear purpose and process, and requires commitment to change practice?
• What are your next steps?November 2012
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How do we know learning theory
driven PD works?
November 2012
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Observing for Evidenceof Learning
Project Director: Caroline Kiehle, M.Ed. [email protected]
Senior Researcher: David Weaver, M.S. [email protected]
Funding support by: • National Science Foundation• Department of Education through Washington
State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction
• The Seattle FoundationNovember 2012
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OEL PurposeIF science teachers use effective instructional strategies and instructional materials to:• elicit students’ initial ideas,• engage students intellectually with important
science content,• provide opportunities for students to confront
their ideas with evidence,• help students formulate new ideas based on that
evidence, and• encourage students to reflect upon how their
ideas have evolved,THEN students’ will have a deeper understanding of science and their science achievement will increase.November 2012
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OEL Process: The OEL CyclesGuiding Questions • What do the
students understand as a result of this lesson?
• What specificevidence shows us that the learning occurred?
• Which effective teaching moves can be generalized from this evidence of learning, and be used regularly in our classrooms?
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Quasi-Experimental Analysis ofSchool–Level Science
Achievement Data• School is the unit of change• 2004-2010 Grade 8 Measures of Student
Performance (MSP/WASL) data for science
• 21 Middle Schools involved in OEL in 2010
• Identified matched comparison schools for each OEL school
• Compared performance of OEL schools to matched comparison
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Demographic Comparison of OEL and Comparison Schools
November 2012
Category OEL SchoolsComparison
SchoolsN 21 21Enrollment 15,268 14,315Percent Asian 24.30% 17.10%Percent Indian 1.50% 1.70%Percent Black 13.20% 12.60%Percent Hispanic 13.70% 11.50%Percent ELL 7.90% 4.90%Percent FRL 36.20% 37.20%
OEL Schools Compared to a Matched Set of Nonparticipating Schools
38April 2011
Significant Gap
39April 2011
OEL Schools Compared to a Matched Set of Nonparticipating Schools
40April 2011
OEL Schools Compared to a Matched Set of Nonparticipating Schools
41April 2011
Comparison of Low Socioeconomic Schools
42April 2011
Comparison of Low Socioeconomic Schools
43April 2011
Comparison of Low Socioeconomic Schools
44April 2011
Comparison of Low Socioeconomic Schools
Gains in Student Achievement 2006 to 201011.60
9.25
18.17
24.50
8.23
13.89
10.17
22.06
29.18
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
State Average
Comparison
OEL Schools
Seattle OEL Schools
High-SES Comparison Schools
High-SES OEL Schools
Low-SES Comparison Schools
Low-SES OEL Schools
Low-SES Seattle OEL Schools
Gains in Percentage of Students Meeting the Standard
45April 2011
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Why was this
project effective?
They saw the
Elephant in the
room and addressed
it!November 2012
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It Was Effective Because . . . • Provided a clear vision (based on cognitive
science) of what effective science instruction looked like in practice
• Deprivatized practice by establishing schoolwide collaboration among teachers through observation
• Contributed to vertical and horizontal articulation of instruction
• It established a well-defined process for teachers to put that vision into daily instructional practice through Job-embedded professional development
• Generalization to practice stimulatecommitmentNovember 2012
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Collaborative Culture• Deprivatize Practice
• “It is clear that closed classroom doors will not help us educate all students to high levels.”
• “Everyone is obligated to be knowledgeable about the common task of instructional improvement and everyone’s practice should be subject to scrutiny, critique, and improvement.”
• “We can do more together than we can individually to improve teaching and learning.”
(City, 2009, p 3)
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Collaborative Culture
You know you have established a collaborative culture when discussions
among teachers are about“our students”
rather than about“my students”
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Articulation of Curriculum & Instruction
• “Effective schools are coherent learning environments for adults and students.”
• “Coherence means that the adults agree on what they are trying to accomplish with students and that the adults are consistent from classroom to classroom in their expectations for what students are expected to learn.”
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Articulation of Curriculum & Instruction
Horizontally• Ensuring that ALL students in a
given grade/subject receive the same and best instruction regardless of teacher assignment
Vertically• Ensuring that there is a coherent
sequence of curriculum and instruction as students progress through the grades
November 2012
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Administrative Leadership• Administrative leadership that
believes in, helps establish, and proactively aligns policies and procedures to support the key characteristics of effective schools• An instructional vision of effective
learning experiences for students• Job-embedded professional
development• Collaborative Culture• Vertical and horizontal articulation of
curriculum and instructionNovember 2012
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Instructional LeadershipInstructional leadership that has the respect and credibility to influence instructional practice.
• Knows what science tells us about how students learn
• Has a clear understanding of effective learning experiences for students
• Has experience engaging students in the effective learning experiences
• Is creditable among peers• Capable of coaching teachers and
facilitating PDNovember 2012
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Discussion Activity 3• To what extent does your school
improvement plan address . . . • Collaborative culture?• Vertical and horizontal articulation
of curriculum and instruction?• Administrative and instructional
leadership?• What steps do you need to take
next?November 2012
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Where to Start???1. Administrative Leadership2. Instructional visions3. Use job-embedded PD to:
• Align instruction with vision• Work toward vertical & horizontal
articulation• Build collaborative culture & deprivatize
practice4. Establish instructional leadership to
support and guide the process5. Monitor and evaluate the process
• Are students engaged as describedin the instructional vision?November 2012
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Let’s Review• Common Challenges (The Elephant)
• Lack of vision & purpose• Sanctioned private practice• Lack of process
• Characteristics of High Performing Schools• Instructional vision• Job-embedded professional
development• Collaborative culture• Vertical and horizontal articulation• Leadership support, and
encouragement
November 2012
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Questions?Dave Weaver
Director of Educational Evaluation & Technical Assistance Services
RMC Research Corporation111 SW Columbia Street, Suite 1200
Portland, OR 97201-5843(503) 223-8248 Ext. 742 (800) 788-1887 Ext. 742
November 2012