The Missing Measurement

Beating the Odds?Average Scale Score Gains measured

in 4 Minnesota Classrooms based on

NWEA Grade 4 (same school/year) results:SS +8 expected Spring to Spring•Classroom 1: SS + 5.4•Classroom 2: SS + 11.4•Classroom 3: SS + 13.7•Classroom 4: SS + 21.1

School ImprovementCurriculumInstructionParental Involvement

CurriculumCan be found in a 3 ring binder in the

curriculum director’s office and sometimes in the department chair’s office

Often based on a text book or text book series

Most often left to the teacher to decide what to cover, emphasize, leave out----------or substitute

Seems to be different for each teacher or hour

(No one usually measures what actually is taught)—Is often changed because it does not seem to work

InstructionIs left up to the teacher to decide

what to doIs often based on what the teacher is

comfortable doingIs usually different for each teacherMay or may not be appropriate for

the materials being used(Teacher appraisal looks at what the

teacher is doing---while the most important part of lesson design is what the students are to do)

Curriculum vs Instruction

Modern curriculum materials (especially math based on NSF) use assumed lesson designs. All research is based on using the recommended lesson designs.

These lesson designs put the student at the center doing explorations to construct specific understandings.

There is often a disconnect between the lesson design designed by the textbook author and the lesson design implemented in the classroom

(Teacher appraisal or even walk-throughs do not measure lesson design)

No Child Left BehindRequires schools to improve the student

performanceRequires an improvement plan based on

improving curriculum and the delivery of that curriculum

No longer allows hap-hazard design of curriculum that is different from room to room

No longer allows hap-hazard lesson designs that do not work with the students walking through the door

Expects that modifications to curriculum and curriculum delivery are based on data.

What Research Says!Zemelman, Daniels, & Hyde.

(2005). Best Practice, Today's Standards for Teaching & Learning in America's Schools, Third Edition

They compiled recommendations from educational experts and found that:

LESS!whole-class, teacher

directed instruction student passivity: sitting,

listening, receiving and absorbing information

presentation, one-way transmission of information from teacher to student

prizing and rewarding of silence in the classroom

classroom time devoted to fill-in-the blank worksheets, dittos, workbooks, and other “seatwork”

attempts by teachers to thinly “cover”

rote memorization of facts and details

emphasis on the competition and grades in schools

tracking large amounts of materials in every subject area or leveling students into “ability groups”

use of pull-out special programs

use of and reliance on standardized tests

MORE! experimental, inductive, hands-on

learning

active learning, with all the attendant noise and movement of students doing, talking, and collaborating

cooperative, collaborative activity; developing the classroom as an interdependent community

emphasis on higher-order thinking; learning a field’s key concepts and principles

attention to affective needs and varying cognitive styles of individual students

deep study of a smaller number of topics, so that students internalize the field’s way of inquiry

choice for students

reading of real texts: whole books, primary sources, and nonfiction materials

heterogeneous classrooms where individual needs are met through individualized activities, not segregation of bodies

varied and cooperative roles for teachers, parents, and administrators

reliance on descriptive evaluations of student growth, including observational/anecdotal records, conference notes, and performance assessment rubrics

diverse roles for teacher, including coaching, demonstrating, and modeling

responsibility transferred to students for their work: goal setting, record keeping, monitoring, sharing, exhibiting, and evaluating

What Gets Measured Gets Done!

Most school improvement plansMost curriculum adoptionsCurriculum delivery systems

Are Missing a Measurement tool!

Enduring understandings about any school reform effort

What gets measured gets done.What happens in the classroom is the

true indication of whether any reform effort has had the intended effect.

Improvement in student achievement only happens when the learners become more successful.

The need for quality information

“Organizations need to turn ‘information’ into ‘information that cannot be ignored’ and then confront the ‘brutal facts of reality’ in the data.” In other words given our mission and desired results, what data are needed and what do those data tell us, especially about what is not working well?”

-- Jim Collins (2005)

The need for quality information

“When teachers see what they are doing it is not often what they think they are doing.”

-- Robert Marzano

Adopting a professional perspective to the analysis

Professionals deal with results; they do not have license to violate principles and best practices. Their freedom involves the ability to innovate tactfully and creatively, given the desired results that obligate them and the principles and a body of best practice that the profession endorses as the general path to cause those results.”

-- Wiggins and McTighe (2007)

In Classrooms that Beat the OddsThe students are expected to be able to do the work

The lessons are similar to the author’s intent

There is high cognitive content to the lessons

What Looking at Learning measures:

Who is leading the classHow the class is grouped (whole, small

group, individual, small group/individual)What are the students being asked to do?What is the cognitive reason for the

activity (from the student’s point of view)What percentage of the students are

engage in doing the activity?

What Looking at Learning measures:

All of these things are measured on a second to second basis during the class

Most observations take between 20 and 60 minutes to complete

Any observations can be viewed singly or in an aggregate

Sample Graphs

(taken from actual observations)

What we expect to see in a typical math lesson:

What we expect to see in a typical math lesson:

What we expect to see in a typical math lesson: