Handling Seven Interpersonal Challenges with Skill and Grace

        In this article in Psychology Today, Mary Loftus says that “it is one of the operating principles of social psychology that even the most minute encounters can have large effects on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors… If there is a unifying theme to the findings, it is that the most successful encounters accommodate, even anticipate, the respondent’s point of view. That is, if we want something only another person can give – friendship, acceptance, forgiveness – we need to factor in the other person’s mindset into our requests and behaviors.” Here are a few examples:

        • Getting an honest answer – “When you want to hear the unvarnished truth, you have to ask for it,” says Loftus. General questions (What can you tell me about this job?) yield little useful information and may even elicit a misleading response. Positive-assumption questions (There aren’t any problems in this school, are there?) are equally unhelpful. Researchers have found that negative-assumption questions, communicating that you assume there will be difficulties and drawbacks (What are the worst parts of this job? What mechanical problems does this car have?) are the best for getting the truth.

        • Framing criticism – People don’t like to be told they’ve messed up, and even constructive criticism is often met with defensiveness, says Loftus. “There is mounting evidence that criticism can be damaging to all relationships and individual mental health… We are social creatures, and the way we say things has real power. To show care when choosing how to phrase something is a way to honor, and safeguard, any relationship.” So skip the complaining and go straight to the explaining, advises psychologist Susan Heitler. With children, it’s better to say what you would prefer them to do rather than criticizing what they have not done or done incorrectly. Compare these two approaches by a parent concerned about a messy playroom: “This place is a mess! What have you been doing? You haven’t picked up one thing. No one is coming over this weekend until this room is spotless.” versus “I’d love to see your playroom cleaned up by this weekend so you and your friends can have fun downstairs.”

        • Responding to a compliment – There are three internal questions when someone says something like, “That’s a beautiful sweater”: (a) Do we agree or disagree with the statement? (b) Do we accept or reject it? and (c) How can we avoid seeming proud or conceited if we accept the compliment? Studies reveal that two-thirds of people respond inappropriately to positive comments, says Loftus, and people tend to respond better to compliments from men than from women. Here are some possibilities:

• The praise upgrade: “Yes, it really brings out the blue in my eyes.”
• The follow-up: “Do you really think so? Do you want to borrow it?”
• Deflecting: “It was on sale at Walmart, and they didn’t even have the color I wanted.”
• Rejecting: “It’s itchy; I hate it.”
• Adding a relevant, related comment: “Thanks, it’s my favorite too.”

“But nothing tops a smile, looking the complimenter in the eye, and saying, ‘Thank you,’” says Loftus.

        • Giving praise – “Praising someone’s ability to work hard is more effective than gushing about how brilliant she is,” says Loftus. People who are praised for ability don’t try as hard at future tasks because they come to believe that success should come naturally and having to work hard shows a lack of innate ability. Praise for talent and “smarts” can also lead to people going to pieces when they encounter frustration, setbacks, or failure. “The ideal is to help someone think positively but realistically about achieving goals while praising their hard work,” she says. “When praised for persistence, those who think the path ahead will be difficult invest more effort.”

        • Persuading people – To change someone’s mood, mind, or willingness to do something, we shouldn’t think in terms of winning an argument, says Loftus. Think instead of how to win agreement without stirring up bad feelings. Avoid the undebatable, focus on goals, watch for persuadable moments, express similarities and shared values, show you have their best interests at heart, cite peers who have taken this route, and be agreeable.

        • Apologizing – It’s hard to say you’re sorry, and simply bringing yourself to apologize when you’ve made a mistake is the most important step, says Loftus. Insincere apologies are worse than none at all. The best apologies have five components:

• A simple expression of regret – for example, “I’m sorry.”
• An explanation of the cause – “I forgot to call you the other day with the information.”
• Taking responsibility – “I blew it.”
• A promise of forbearance – “I promise nothing like this will happen again.”
• An offer of repair – “What can I do to make it up to you?”

The more of these elements an apology contains, the better. But don’t apologies result in negative consequences? Apologizing certainly makes it clear that you did what you did, but researchers have found that it reduces sanctions, anger, and negative evaluations. Do women apologize more than men? Yes, say social psychologists Karina Schumann and Michael Ross (University of Waterloo in Ontario). Why? Because men seem to have a higher threshold for what constitutes offensive behavior.

        • Complaining – “Both direct observation of experts and psychological research point in one direction,” says Loftus: “A successful complaint usually boils down to being really nice and staying very calm, but never settling for less than you believe is fair.” Ideally there are three components:

• Say something positive – for example, “This is one of our favorite restaurants.”
• Make your complaint or request – “But tonight the cheese bread was burned. Could we possibly get another order that is less crisp?”
• Follow up with a statement of gratitude – “Thanks so much, you’re a dear.”

This approach is most likely to get the problem solved and maintain good relationships.

“Smooth Encounters” by Mary Loftus in Psychology Today, April 2013 (Vol. 46, #2, p. 69), no e-link available

Stephen Anderson

Expectations For Student Learning: ACADEMIC

Expectations For Student Learning: ACADEMIC Central High School Students will demonstrate: 1. Responsibility for their own learning. 2. Ability to research and to synthesize information. 3. Effective reading, writing and speaking. 4. Competence generating solutions to authentic life situations. Expectations For Student Learning: SOCIAL Central High School students will demonstrate: 1. Appreciation for the unique contributions of each individual. 2. Cooperation in achieving a common goal. 3. Understanding of basic social values that promote moral and ethical conduct. 4. Skills that lead to non-violent conflict resolution. 5. Connections between education and life-choices.

Stephen Anderson

An example of higher order thinking

Higher-order thinking

Are students using higher order thinking operations within a critical framework?

• Explanation
• Continuum of practice
• Example

Explanation

Higher-order thinking requires students to manipulate information and ideas in ways that transform their meaning and implications. This transformation occurs when students combine facts and ideas in order to synthesise, generalise, explain, hypothesise or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation. Manipulating information and ideas through these processes allows students to solve problems and discover new (for them) meanings and understandings. When students engage in the construction of knowledge, an element of uncertainty is introduced into the instructional process and makes instructional outcomes not always predictable; i.e., the teacher is not certain what will be produced by students. In helping students become producers of knowledge, the teacher's main instructional task is to create activities or environments that allow them opportunities to engage in higher-order thinking.

Lower-order thinking occurs when students are asked to receive or recite factual information or to employ rules and algorithms through repetitive routines. Students are given pre-specified knowledge ranging from simple facts and information to more complex concepts. Such knowledge is conveyed to students through a reading, work sheet, lecture or other direct instructional medium. The instructional process is to simply transmit knowledge or to practise procedural routines. Students are in a similar role when they are reciting previously acquired knowledge; i.e., responding to test-type questions that require recall of pre-specified knowledge. More complex activities still may involve reproducing knowledge when students only need to follow pre-specified steps and routines or employ algorithms in a rote fashion.

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Continuum of practice

1. Students are engaged only in lower-order thinking; i.e., they either receive, or recite, or participate in routine practice and in no activities during the lesson do students go beyond simple reproduction.
2. Students are primarily engaged in routine lower-order thinking a good share of the lesson. There is at least one significant question or activity in which some students perform some higher-order thinking.
3. Almost all students, almost all of the time, are engaged in higher-order thinking.

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Example

The topic of a year 2 Maths lesson was classification and grouping generally and, more specifically, set theory. The teacher brought in a range of diverse objects. Students, in groups, had to categorise them according to criteria which the students themselves determined in their groups.

At the end of that part of the lesson, the groups rotated around the classroom and in groups suggested the basis of classification. The teacher then gave hula hoops to each group and asked them to place them in an overlapping set fashion. Instructions were given as to what was desired, with the request that objects in the overlapping or intersecting set had to have characteristics in common with each of the hoops. The groups did this and again rotated and discussed the basis of the classification.

The basis of the classification was determined by the students and could be determined for a variety of reasons for example, they were all yellow, or all dirty, all cubes etc. Students simply had to articulate reasons and justify their classifications. The lesson concluded with the teacher making comments regarding the use of symbolic representations in Maths.

 

 

Stephen Anderson

Teaching the way YOU Learn

Think about how you learn best.  What motivates you?  Excites you?  Encourages you to know more about a subject?  If you could learn using any instructional strategy you wanted, what would you choose?

Next, think about how you teach.  What is comfortable for you?  What strategies do you enjoy using most and are your “Go-to” instructional methods?  If you’re having a tough day and didn’t get the time you wanted to plan a stellar new lesson, what practices do you rely on? What methods do you struggle with, enjoy using the least, or possibly avoid?

Now, think about how your students learn.  What motivates them?  Excites them?  Encourages them to know more about a subject?  If they could direct how you teach, what would have you do?

For some students, how they learn and how I learn fit very well.  When I plan lessons and think about learning, I feel I can do pretty well by them.

For other students who learn differently than I do, it can be a struggle.  I have to consciously make an effort to include instructional strategies that I don’t like, because I don’t learn that way.

I am more of a visual and auditory learner.  It’s pretty easy for me to come up with teaching techniques that utilize these types of learning.  I am not a very good hands-on learner.  I have to work pretty hard to come up with something that engages my students who learn this way.  I have been lucky enough to work with some fantastic colleagues who are hands-on learners.  They have helped me to develop a better understanding of this learning style and how to better integrate it into my own teaching.

When I discuss with students what works for them and what they’d like to see more of in my classes, competition is almost always one of the responses.  I struggle with competition.  I am not a competitive person and I don’t understand this mindset very well.  It’s actually something that can set me on edge.  When I think about the students I have difficulty motivating or don’t connect with as well as I’d like, many of them have a competitive nature.

So I’m asking for your help.  I am looking for resources and instructional strategies on how to better reach my competitive students.  What works in your classroom?  Are you someone who enjoys competition?  How do you leverage that for your own learning or teaching?  What instructional strategies do you find comfortable or challenging?  Do you find yourself teaching how you learn?

Stephen Anderson

Teaching Students with Asperger to Deal with Anxiety

        “Anxiety can be understood as a hidden disability,” say Jessica Minahan (a Newton, Massachusetts special educator) and Nancy Rappaport (Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance) in this Kappan article. They believe anxiety is the culprit in many of the behavior problems experienced by children with Asperger syndrome. Standard behavior modification approaches (stickers, points, praise) are ineffective and can make things worse, say Minahan and Rappaport: “If students with Asperger are to succeed in school, they need a prescribed behavioral intervention plan that addresses anxiety, explicit instruction in underdeveloped skills leading to anxiety, which helps them learn alternative, more appropriate responses to use when they’re flooded with anxiety, and includes accommodations that teachers can use while students learn new skills.”

        Some students show obvious signs when they’re anxious – flushed cheeks, tense muscles. But with others, there aren’t clear signs until they act out and anxiety is expressed indirectly – increased insistence on routines and sameness, preference for rigid rules, repetitive behavior, anger outbursts, and silly behavior. Minahan and Rappaport use the analogy of a shaken can of soda: you can’t tell it’s been shaken by looking at it (the student looks fine); you only find out when you pop the can open (the student inexplicably explodes). Anxiety also undermines students’ academic performance by the effect it has on working memory, attention, and other abilities.

        “A student’s anxiety-related behavior is often motivated by escape or avoidance,” say Minahan and Rappaport – asking to see the nurse when a writing assignment is handed out, or cursing just before a math test. “If the teacher responds with a time-out or sends the student to the office,” they say, “this may accidentally reinforce the avoidant behavior…” What’s needed is explicit instruction in the following underdeveloped skills:

• Self-regulation – the ability to calm oneself and manage frustration;
• Thought-stopping and thought-interruption – the ability to short-circuit a cycle of negative thinking by refocusing attention on a replacement thought;
• Thinking traps – the ability to recognize common thought patterns that can increase anxiety and learn how to manage those thoughts;
• Social skills – the ability to take another person’s perspective and use conversation skills;
• Executive functioning – the ability to think before acting and follow sequential steps to complete a task effectively;
• Flexible thinking – when anxious, this can help a student avoid becoming upset when things don’t turn out as expected.

“These skills must be explicitly taught if the student is to change his or her behavior over the long term,” say Minahan and Rappaport. “Sadly, many behavior plans/programs don’t address these skills.”

        It’s critically important for teachers to backtrack from a behavior meltdown and find the antecedents. These might include unstructured times (cafeteria and recess), transitions, writing demands, social demands, and unexpected events. “Ninety percent of every behavior plan should be dedicated to antecedent management,” say Minahan and Rappaport. “Students will continue to require accommodations until they develop the skills to cope and can succeed without them.” For example, a student might be given two 10-minute anxiety-reduction breaks during each day, and these shouldn’t have to be “earned” by good behavior. Academic accommodations are also important – for example, previewing a math worksheet early in the day and doing the first problem with the student, or providing a list of commonly misspelled words. Students need to be coached from statements like “I’m a horrible speller” to saying “I’m not a great speller, but I have a strategy.”

        Students with anxiety issues also benefit from cognitive behavior coaching. It’s a big step when they can understand that emotions start small and grow larger – from calm to an explosion – and what the outward signs are. “Once students understand this,” say Minahan and Rappaport, “they can learn to catch themselves at the frustration point and practice a coping strategy to regulate themselves before becoming explosive or shutting down.” A teacher might say, “I notice your face is scrunched, your shoulders are up near your ears, and your fist is clenched. You’re frustrated right now.”

The authors also recommend using an “emotional thermometer” with pictures of various facial expressions and matching emotions and steps to take. Teachers can also provide a “calming box” containing small items the student can use to calm down – putty, a good-luck charm, a “lucky penny”, or noise-reducing headphones.

 

“Anxiety in Students: A Hidden Culprit in Behavior Issues” by Jessica Minahan and Nancy Rappaport in Phi Delta Kappan, December 2012/January 2013 (Vol. 94, #4, p. 34-39),www.kappanmagazine.org

 

 

Stephen Anderson

Why Some Students Are Silent in the Classroom

        Silence in the classroom can be good and it can be bad, says Katherine Schultz (Mills College, CA) in this Educational Horizons article. Getting quiet is wonderful if a class has been rowdy, but silence in response to a teacher’s discussion question can bring a lesson to a grinding halt. Schultz says we may have notions of stereotypically silent students – timid girls and Asians or Native Americans – but should consider other reasons students don’t speak up:

• The student is shy at that particular moment.
• The student lacks the knowledge or facility in English to join in a group conversation.
• The student is following cultural norms of not speaking when there’s nothing to add.
• The student may be momentarily daydreaming.
• The student might be uncomfortable talking about the topic (race, for example).
• The student may need more time to think through an idea.

“Rapid-paced classrooms favor students who can respond quickly and accurately,” says Schultz; “other students may need time to reflect and the opportunity to try out ideas in small groups or through writing. Teachers may need to learn to read students’ nods and facial expressions to understand silence as a form of participation and to understand that students who are silent may be as engaged in learning as the student who speaks frequently, dominating the conversation.”

In her observations of classrooms, Schultz has come to appreciate students who are silent most of the time but have thoughtful comments that drive the discussion forward. This makes her wonder, “Do students have a responsibility to contribute to the silence of a classroom so that others can talk, along with a responsibility to contribute verbally to the discussion?”

Of course some students’ silence means they are opting out of participating in class and missing out on important learning opportunities. There are several techniques teachers use to get silent students talking and broadening class discussion:

• Cold-calling, which may increase the number of students who speak in a class – but doesn’t address the underlying issues that make some students silent.

• Having students turn and talk with a “shoulder partner”, or write silently for a few moments, before sharing thoughts in an all-class discussion. “Writing and talking informally may give students the courage they need for speaking aloud in class and provide them with practice and time to gather their thoughts,” says Schultz.

• Giving students a few moments to reflect and then going around the circle asking everyone to contribute a few words.

 

“The Role of Silence in Teaching and Learning” by Katherine Schultz in Educational Horizons, December 2012/January 2013 (Vol. 91, p. 22-25)

http://pilambda.org/horizons/the-role-of-silence-in-teaching-and-learning/

 

 

Stephen Anderson

Three Case Studies on the Widening Achievement Gap

Three Case Studies on the Widening Achievement Gap

        In this sobering front-page New York Times article, Jason DeParle reports on three young women who were inseparable as high-school students in Galveston, Texas. They were determined, despite humble backgrounds and a high school named “academically unacceptable” by Texas state education officials, to be the first in their families to graduate from college. “I don’t want to work at Walmart,” said one of them. “We wanted to do something better with our lives.”

With the support of Upward Bound, all three graduated from high school and at this point, their stories seemed to validate the American ideal of education as the great equalizer. One was headed for Emory University, another for Texas State University, the third to a local community college. “I felt like we were taking off, from one life to another,” said the first. “I felt like, ‘Here we go!’”

        Four years later, their stories provide sad testimony to how difficult upward mobility is in an age of soaring inequality. “Not one of them has a four-year degree,” says DeParle. “Only one is still studying full time, and two have crushing debts.” The young woman quoted just above dropped out of  Emory and is working as a clerk in a furniture store. “Each showed the ability to do college work, even excel at it,” DeParle continues. “But the need to earn money brought one set of strains, campus alienation brought others, and ties to boyfriends not in school added complications. With little guidance from family or school officials, college became a leap that they braved without a safety net.”

As DeParle tells each young woman’s post-secondary story in depressing detail, these factors stand out:

• One chose an “under-matched” community college, graduated, but passed up an offer to attend a nearby four-year college.
• One missed opportunities to get a much better scholarship deal at Emory because she made errors in her application, and university officials refused to make a retroactive correction.
• The colleges they attended were expensive – there’s been a 60-percent increase in tuition and fees over the last two decades.
• Living in single-parent homes meant there were no fathers to get involved and help out. This may have made the young women more dependent on their boyfriends, some of whom were less than supportive.
• Despite the heroic efforts of a dedicated high-school counselor, the young women didn’t have anything approaching the level of support that most middle-class students have when applying to college and figuring out financial assistance.
• Two of the young women had to deal with crises at home; investing in education was seen as “selfish” by some family members.
• The young women had some ambivalence about rising above their social stratum and leaving Galveston.

These and other factors conspired to sabotage an upward trajectory that had seemed so promising four years earlier. All is not lost, but the news is not good.

“The story of their lost footing is also the story of something larger,” concludes DeParle, “the growing role that education plays in preserving class divisions.” Thirty years ago, the difference in college graduation rates between well-off and poor Americans was 31 points; today it’s 45. While both groups have improved, the affluent improved much more rapidly, widening the gap. There’s also a wider income gap: a generation ago, Americans in the richest 90^th percentile had five times as much income as those in the 10^th percentile; now they have ten times as much. The extra resources at the upper end of the income continuum pay for enrichment programs, travel, college prep, SAT prep, and support applying to college.

 

“For Poor, Leap to College Often Ends in a Hard Fall” by Jason DeParle in The New York Times, Dec. 23, 2012 (p. 1, 28, 29), http://nyti.ms/UmzwHn

 

 

 

New Factors for College-Bound Students to Consider

        In this ASCA School Counselor article, Don Fraser of the National Association for College Admission Counseling suggests that high-school counselors research the following criteria for students to help them become more savvy consumers of higher education:

        • Academic services available – The level and sophistication of support for struggling students is important, even if applicants don’t think they’ll need it.

• Retention efforts and student advising – What is the college equipped to do to help students get through to graduation?

• The retention and graduation rates for the student’s demographic – Overall retention rates aren’t very helpful, says Fraser. If the college hasn’t broken the data down by race and sex, that’s a red flag.

        • Career services available – Are drop-in appointments the extent of support? If so, the college isn’t very invested in helping students find a job after graduation.

• The employment rates for similar graduates – “If your student wants to be a psychology major, then he or she should ask about the post-graduate outcomes for students who graduate with a psychology degree,” says Fraser.

        • Average debt upon graduation – Applicants need to know how well students are funded, on average.

       

“Beyond the Traditional Factors: Learn How You Can Help Your Students Construct a Better

List of Potential Colleges” by Don Fraser Jr. in ASCA School Counselor, November/December

 

 

Stephen Anderson

Fostering a "Growth" Mindset in Students

Fostering a “Growth” Mindset in Students

Parents, teachers, and other adults shape young people’s mindsets by what they say about successes and failures. Praise for being “smart” leads kids to believe that learning should be easy – and if it feels difficult, they’re not smart. Praise for focusing and sticking with a task fosters a much more positive mindset – you can get smart through effective effort.

        Fisher and Frey say educators can foster students’ motivation by the way they talk to them about accomplishments, identity, and agency:

        • Accomplishments – “When teachers phrase compliments so that students understand their own roles in the accomplishment, they will begin to see that their efforts allow them to meet their goals,” say Fisher and Frey. “In doing so, teachers can guide students to ‘attend to their internal feelings of pride’ (Johnston,Choice Words, Stenhouse, 2004), which will build students’ internal motivation and reduce their need for external praise.” Some examples:

• “You figured that out. Feels good, huh? Tell me how you did it.”
• “I bet you are proud of yourself.”
• “Marcos, your group tells me that you were very helpful in figuring out the answer to this problem.”

• Identity – Teachers’ comments can help students build a sense of who they are in the world. Some examples:

• “How are you thinking like a historian today?”
• “Your opening line reminds me of one thing that other authors do. As a reader, I enjoy openings with a startling statement and you really captured that here.”
• “There are so many ways to solve this problem, and I see that you solved it two different ways… I’d bet it was fun to see it work out both ways.”

• Agency – This is the feeling that one’s efforts lead directly to accomplishments, as opposed to luck being the main variable. Teachers can build children’s sense of agency by talking to them in specific ways:

• Asking “Why?” is a helpful way to get students to connect actions to effects.
• “What might you do next?” helps students plan actions that will produce results and also communicates the teacher’s belief that students can and will succeed.
• “You did it, but tell me how,” a teacher might say. “I’m particularly interested in efforts that were and were not helpful.”

Fisher and Frey suggest that when principals visit classrooms, they should listen carefully to teachers’ language and see if it’s appropriately praising accomplishments and building identity and agency.

“Choice Words” by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey in Principal Leadership, December 2012 (Vol. 13, #4, p. 57-59), http://www.nassp.org/tabid/3788/default.aspx?topic=Instructional_Leader_1212

The authors can be reached at dfisher@mail.sdsu.edu and nfrey@mail.sdsu.edu.

Stephen Anderson

Robert Marzano on Analyzing Complex Texts

(Originally titled “Analyzing Complex Texts”)

        In this Educational Leadership column, author/consultant Robert Marzano says that when students analyze a text’s structure, they should be aware of two levels: (a) the overall organization – for example, rising action, climax, falling action in literature or, in non-fiction, presenting and supporting a claim; and (b) the underlying relationship among ideas, including these four:

• Addition: one idea adds to or is similar to another – for example, She is dark and beautiful.
• Contrast: one idea is different or subtracts from another – for example, He is fast but doesn’t like to play sports.
• Time: one idea occurs before, during, or after another – for example, She walked away before he arrived.
• Cause: one idea leads to another – for example, He woke up because the garbage truck made a racket.

When students hear a complex sentence like: Mary called Bill after he left for work, but he didn’t get the call because his cell phone was off, they can probably follow the logic, but when they are reading, they may need guidance analyzing the relationship among ideas. Marzano says students should be explicitly taught the four types of relationships among ideas and use symbols to mark up passages: an equal sign for addition, a not-equal sign for contrast; an arrow for time; and a double-stemmed arrow for cause.

 

“Analyzing Complex Texts” by Robert Marzano in Educational Leadership, December 2012/January 2013 (Vol. 70, #4, p. 84-85), www.ascd.org

 

 

Stephen Anderson

How to Unleash Creativity

        “Most people are born creative,” say Tom Kelley (University of California/Berkeley and University of Tokyo) and David Kelley (Stanford University) in this thoughtful Harvard Business Review article. “As children, we revel in imaginary play, ask outlandish questions, draw blobs and call them dinosaurs.” But as the years pass, formal education takes its toll and many people no longer see themselves as creative.

Kelley and Kelley believe creativity is vital to getting results, and they’re in the business of helping people rediscover their creative confidence, defined as their “natural ability to come up with new ideas and the courage to try them out.” They use “guided mastery” to help people get past fears that inhibit creativity:

        • Fear of the messy unknown – One’s office is cozy and predictable, say Kelley and Kelley: “Out in the world, it’s more chaotic. You have to deal with unexpected findings, with uncertainty, and with irrational people who say things you don’t want to hear. But that is where you find insights – and creative breakthroughs.” Venturing out of one’s comfort zone and treating it like an anthropological expedition is a sure way to fire up creativity.

        • Fear of being judged – “If the scribbling, singing, dancing kindergartner symbolizes unfettered creative expression,” say Kelley and Kelley, “the awkward teenager represents the opposite: someone who cares –deeply – about what other people think. It takes only a few years to develop that fear of judgment, but it stays with us throughout our adult lives, often constraining our careers.” People self-censor ideas for fear they won’t be acceptable to peers or superiors, constantly undermining the creative process. Kelley and Kelley recommend keeping an idea notebook or whiteboard and scribbling ideas – good, bad, indifferent – with abandon. It’s amazing how much good stuff is written down by the end of each week. They also suggest scheduling “white space” time when the only task is to think and daydream – perhaps while taking a walk. It’s also important to reach an agreement with colleagues to use more supportive language in response to wild and crazy ideas, shifting from “That will never work” to “I wish…” or “This is just my opinion and I want to help.”

        • Fear of the first step – “Creative efforts are hardest at the beginning,” say Kelley and Kelley. “The writer faces the blank page; the teacher, the start of school; businesspeople, the first day of a new project… To overcome this inertia, good ideas are not enough. You need to stop planning and just get started – and the best way to do that is to stop focusing on the huge overall task and find a small piece you can tackle right away.” A boy who procrastinated on a school report on birds till the night before it was due was on the verge of a panic attack, but he got some great advice from his father: “Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.”

        • Fear of losing control – Many people think they have to solve problems or come up with answers by themselves. Kelley and Kelley say that when we’re stuck, we need to let go and reach out for help. “Confidence doesn’t simply mean believing your ideas are good,” they write. “It means having the humility to let go of ideas that aren’t working and to accept good ideas from other people.” Call a meeting of people who are fresh to the topic and brainstorm. Let the most junior person in the room lead the meeting. Look for opportunities to let go and leverage different perspectives.

 

“Reclaim Your Creative Confidence” by Tom Kelley and David Kelley in Harvard Business Review, December 2012 (Vol. 90, #12, p. 115-118), no e-link available

 

Five Myths About the Common Core ELA Standards

(Originally titled “The Common Core Ate My Baby and Other Urban Legends”)

            In this important Educational Leadership article, literacy expert Timothy Shanahan (University of Illinois/Chicago) debunks five myths about the common core literacy standards:

            • Myth #1: The new standards prohibit teachers from setting purposes for reading or discussing prior knowledge. True, the original publishers’ criteria written by lead authors David Coleman and Susan Pimentel in 2011 suggested deemphasizing the common practice of spending time building up students’ background knowledge, establishing the purpose for reading a passage, and asking for students’ predictions. Facing a storm of protest, Coleman and Pimentel retreated and issued an April 2012 revision that eliminated admonitions against pre-teaching.

            “So to clarify, there simply is no ban on pre-reading in the Common Core State Standards,” says Shanahan. But there are significant changes – close reading and re-reading – which suggest that it’s a good idea to get students to plunge into texts without a lot of prior teaching. “The benefit of the pre-reading controversy,” says Shanahan, “is that it’s getting educators to take a hard look at how best to send students into a book – and this rethinking can help us clear up our pre-reading act… Preparing students to read a text… should be brief and should focus on providing students with the tools they need to make sense of the text on their own.”

            • Myth #2: Teachers are no longer required to teach phonological awareness, phonics, or fluency. Not true, says Shanahan. The common-core standards are strong on phonological awareness K-1, phonics K-3, and fluency K-5. So how did this myth get started? Perhaps because the new literacy standards began with comprehension, which is the reverse of the sequence in many previous standards documents.

            • Myth #3: English teachers can no longer teach literature in literature classes. Nonsense, says Shanahan. What the new standards do is give informational texts equal billing with novels, stories, poems, and plays in the elementary grades and 30 percent of classroom time in the upper grades – but that includes science and social studies. English teachers can continue to teach literature, as they have always done.

            • Myth #4: Teachers must teach students at frustration levels. It’s true that the common-core standards call for students to work with more-challenging material at each grade level than has been typical in basal readers in recent years. This is based on research showing that students make less progress when they read easier texts – and the urgent need to prepare students for the literacy demands of college and the workplace. But the higher reading levels in the new standards should not lead primary-grade teachers to push students beyond what is required by the common-core (which is similar to previous expectations) in order to prepare them for more-demanding grade 2 standards. And all teachers should give their students a mix of reading material – more-demanding material for close reading and direct instruction, easier material for fun reading.

            • Myth #5: Most schools are already teaching to the new standards. Baloney, says Shanahan: “We are going to have to make some real changes in our practices.” These include (a) less emphasis on pre-reading and more on close reading, re-reading, and follow-up;

(b) building students’ skills and motivation to tackle difficult texts without telling them what the texts say; (c) an increase in critical analysis and synthesis of information from multiple texts; (d) a greater emphasis on informational texts in upper-grade social studies and science classes; and (e) more student writing about the ideas from texts than personal thoughts.

“Each one of these changes is considerable and will require better and more appropriate professional development, instructional materials, and supervision,” says Shanahan. “Educators who shrug off these changes will face a harsh reality.” The fact is that 40 percent of students who currently meet state standards need remediation when they get to college and many fail to graduate. The new standards are in line with what students need to know and be able to do to succeed in college and careers. Shanahan believes they will give teachers, students, and parents a much more accurate picture of where students stand, and what they need to succeed.

“The Common Core Ate My Baby and Other Urban Legends” by Timothy Shanahan in Educational Leadership, December 2012 (Vol. 70, #4, p. 10-16), www.ascd.org; Shanahan can be reached at shanahan@uic.edu. 

Making Feedback to Students Effective

(Originally titled “Know Thy Impact”)

        “Gathering and assessing feedback are really the only ways teachers can know the impact of their teaching,” says Australian educator John Hattie in this Educational Leadership article. The problem is that not all feedback is effective. Hattie offers these suggestions for making feedback work:

        • Clarify the goal. “The aim of feedback is to reduce the gap between where students are and where they should be,” says Hattie. “With a clear goal in mind, students are more likely to actively seek and listen to feedback.” The teacher might provide scoring rubrics, a completed example, the steps toward a successful product, or progress charts.

        • Make sure students understand the feedback. “When we monitor how much academic feedback students actually receive in a typical class, it’s a small amount indeed,” says Hattie. Teachers need to check with students to see if they’re getting it. This may involve asking them to interpret written comments and articulate next steps.

        • Seek feedback from students. Do they need help? Different strategies? Another explanation? Teachers who listen to students can adapt lessons, clarify work demands, and provide missing information, all of which helps students do better.

        • Tailor feedback to students.   Novice students benefit most from task feedback, somewhat more proficient students from process feedback, and highly competent students thrive on feedback aimed at self-regulation or conceptual understanding.

• Task feedback – How well the student is doing on a particular task and how to improve.
• Process feedback – This might be suggested strategies to learn from errors, cues to seek information, or ways to relate different ideas.
• Self-regulation feedback – This helps students monitor, direct, and regulate their own actions as they work toward the learning goal – and helps build a belief that effort, more than raw ability, is what produces successful learning.

To move students from mastery of content to mastery of strategies to mastery of conceptual understanding, teachers need to give feedback that is at or just above their current level.

        • Use effective strategies. One tip is to scope out entering misconceptions and have students think them through. Another is providing students with formative assessment information, giving them specific information on strengths and weaknesses. A third is to start with effective instruction and learning experiences. “Teachers need to listen to the hum of students learning, welcoming quality student talk, structuring classroom discussions, inviting student questions, and openly discussing errors,” says Hattie. “If these reveal that student have misunderstood an important concept or failed to grasp the point of the lesson, sometimes the best approach is simply to reteach the material.”

• Avoid ineffective feedback. Researchers have found that praise and peer feedback are problematic. “Students welcome praise,” says Hattie. “Indeed, we all do. The problem is that when a teacher combines praise with other feedback information, the student typically only hears the praise… The bottom line seems to be this: Give much praise, but do not mix it with other feedback because praise dilutes the power of that information.” As for peer feedback, Graham Nuthall monitored students’ peer interactions through the school day (using microphones) and found that most of the feedback students receive during the day is from other students – and much of it is incorrect. Peer feedback needs clear structure, such as a rubric and a set of guiding questions.

        • Create a climate of trust. Students must understand that errors and misunderstandings are part of learning and not be afraid of negative reactions from peers – or the teacher – if they make mistakes.

 

“Know Thy Impact” by John Hattie in Educational Leadership, September 2012 (Vol. 70, #1, p. 18-23), www.ascd.org; Hattie can be reached at jhattie@unimelb.edu.au

 

Stephen Anderson

Principal,

Student Survey Data As Part of Teacher Evaluation

Student Survey Data As Part of Teacher Evaluation

        In this important Kappan article, Harvard senior lecturer Ronald Ferguson describes a scenario in which a principal peeks into a classroom and likes what she sees (students are busy and well-behaved) and the teacher and principal are pleased with his test-score results (they’re almost always above average). But the students, if asked, would have told a very different story: lessons are uninteresting, assignments emphasize memorization more than understanding, and the teacher seems indifferent to their feelings and opinions. In short, it’s not a happy place and there is no love of learning.

        Universities routinely survey students on how professors are performing, but until recently, K-12 students have not been given the chance to evaluate their teachers. This is because, although students spend hundreds more hours in classrooms than any administrator, people doubt that students can provide valid, reliable, and stable responses about the quality of teaching.

        The Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project has put those doubts to rest. Comparing value-added analysis of test scores, classroom observations, and student perception surveys (using Ferguson’s Tripod questions), researchers have found that students provide accurate, helpful information on their teachers’ performance. “[S]tudents know good instruction when they experience it as well as when they do not,” says Ferguson. The research design was careful to control for students’ family background and isolate each teacher’s characteristics and impact on learning.

These robust findings notwithstanding, Ferguson offers two caveats about using student survey results to evaluate teachers:

• Any method of assessing teacher effectiveness is prone to measurement error.
• Teachers may temporarily alter their behaviors to improve their survey results, especially if students’ opinions have high stakes.

These concerns lead Ferguson to say, “No one survey instrument or observational protocol should have high stakes for teachers if used alone or for only a single deployment.” He supports the idea of student surveys being one of several measures used to evaluate teachers.

        Over the last eleven years, almost a million K-12 students have filled out anonymous Tripod surveys on their teachers, and Ferguson and his colleagues have refined the questions to the point where they pass muster with other researchers. The survey questions are grouped under seven headings, and students respond by rating their agreement or disagreement with each statement on a 5-4-3-2-1 scale:

        • Care. This goes beyond a teacher’s “niceness” to encompass demonstrated concern for students’ happiness and success. A sample question: My teacher really tries to understand how students feel about things.

        • Control. These questions measure management of off-task and disruptive behaviors in the classroom. A sample question: Our class stays busy and doesn’t waste time.

        • Clarify. This addresses the teacher’s skill at promoting understanding, clearing up confusion and misconceptions, differentiating, and helping students persevere. A sample question: My teacher has several good ways to explain each topic that we cover in this class.

        • Challenge. This covers effort and rigor and measures whether the teacher pushes students to work hard and think deeply. Sample questions: In this class, my teacher accepts nothing less than our full effort and My teacher wants us to use our thinking skills, not just memorize things.

        • Captivate. Do teachers make instruction stimulating, relevant, and memorable? Sample questions: My teacher makes lessons interesting and I often feel like this class has nothing to do with real life outside school.

        • Confer. This covers teachers seeking students’ points of view and allowing them to express themselves and exchange ideas with classmates. A sample question: My teacher gives us time to explain our ideas.

        • Consolidate. This measures whether teachers check for understanding and help students see patterns and move learning into long-term memory. A sample question: My teacher takes the time to summarize what we learn each day.

        Ferguson notes that five of these areas measure teachers’ support of students – Care, Clarify, Captivate, Confer, and Consolidate – and two measure “press” – Control and Challenge.

        What have the survey results revealed about teachers? Even lower-elementary students express clear distinctions among teachers, with greater variation within schools than between schools. Overall, the MET study has shown Tripod survey results to be valid and reliable predictors of student learning in math and ELA – in fact, more reliable than administrators’ classroom observations. Students whose teachers scored in the top quarter on Tripod questions learned the equivalent of 4-5 months more per year than students whose teachers scored in the bottom quarter. The differences in ELA were about half as large as in math.

        Not all the Seven C items are equally predictive of student achievement. When Ferguson asks audiences which of the Seven C’s they think are most important to student achievement, most pick Care. But that’s not what the MET data show. Here are the seven survey questions that correlate most strongly with achievement gains:

• Students in this class treat the teacher with respect.
• My classmates behave the way my teacher wants them to.
• Our class stays busy and doesn’t waste time.
• In this class, we learn a lot every day.
• In this class, we learn to correct our mistakes.
• My teacher explains difficult things clearly.

However, the difference between these and other Tripod items is not large, says Ferguson: “Educators should keep all of them in mind as they seek ways to improve teaching and learning.”

        What about student outcomes beyond test-score gains? “We also want attentiveness and good behavior, happiness, effort, and efficacy,” says Ferguson. The good news is that he and his colleagues have found “the same teaching behaviors that predict better behavior, greater happiness, more effort, and stronger efficacy also predict great value-added achievement gains.” It’s not either-or; it’s both, and student survey results, used wisely, can help give teachers and administrators valuable data to improve teaching and learning.

 

“Can Student Surveys Measure Teaching Quality?” by Ronald Ferguson in Phi Delta Kappan, November 2012 (Vol. 94, #3, p. 24-28), http://www.kappanmagazine.org; Ferguson can be reached at ronald_ferguson@harvard.edu

 

Stephen Anderson

Principal,

Charlotte Danielson on Effective Observation and Follow-Up

(Originally titled “Observing Classroom Practice”) “Classroom observations can foster teacher learning – if observation systems include crucial components and observers know what to look for,” says teacher-evaluation guru Charlotte Danielson in this Educational Leadership article. To be fair, “the judgments that are made about a teacher’s practice must accurately reflect the teacher’s true level of performance.” Although some of teachers’ work is “behind the scenes”, Danielson believes the most important parts of teaching can be observed in classrooms. A teacher who is ineffective in front of students can’t be considered competent. What should administrators look for in classrooms? Danielson believes that every district needs a research-based instructional framework (hers, for example) that gives everyone a detailed, well-crafted, agreed-upon definition of teaching at different levels of effectiveness. The framework should be validated, meaning that teachers who do well on the rubric produce significant gains in student achievement. Administrators should also be clear on what evidence they must gather to score teachers, and the evaluation process should be supported by training ensuring that different administrators would give pretty much the same ratings to the same teacher. In addition, it’s important that teachers have a clear picture (ideally through videotapes) of performance at different levels. Danielson believes administrators need to be proficient in four areas to conduct effective classroom observations, and should be certified in these before conducting high-stakes evaluations: • Collecting evidence – She says administrators should write down what they actually see and hear in classrooms, not their opinions or interpretations. This might include something the teacher says (e.g., “Can anyone think of another idea?”), what students do (e.g., taking 45 seconds to line up), or something else (e.g., backpacks strewn in the middle of the floor). It’s hard for many administrators to refrain from making judgments, says Danielson, but it’s important to separate evidence from conclusions, especially when there’s disagreement about a teacher’s level of performance. • Deciding on rubric scores – This is where the administrator takes the evidence gathered in the classroom and finds the rubric language that provides a valid interpretation and judgment. Ideally, different administrators observing the same classroom will identify the same rubric lines and the same 4-3-2-1 levels of performance. This is relatively easy for low-inference items (did the class start on time?) but considerably more difficult for items like a teacher using questioning and discussion to deepen understanding. • Conducting professional conversations with teachers – Although there are times when administrators need to tell teachers bluntly that something must change, the focus in most follow-up conferences with teachers, Danielson believes, “should be dialogue, with a sharing of views and perspectives. After all, teachers make hundreds of decisions every day. If we accept that teaching is, among other things, cognitive work, then the conversations between teachers and observers must be about cognition.” These conversations “are the best opportunity to engage teachers in thinking through how they could strengthen their practice.” This, of course, has implications for how administrators are trained and supported. • Making the teacher an active participant – In most conventional evaluations, says Danielson, teachers are passive recipients and the administrator does almost all the work – not the best strategy for bringing about adult learning. To change this one-sided dynamic, Danielson suggests the following steps. First, both teacher and administrator become conversant with the evaluation rubric. Second, after a classroom observation, the administrator shares his or her low-inference notes with the teacher and accepts additions and edits from the teacher’s perspective. Third, the teacher and administrator independently align the observation notes with the rubric, identifying which cell accurately describes and evaluates what was taking place in the classroom. Finally, they meet and compare their rubric scores and discuss any differences. “Observing Classroom Practice” by Charlotte Danielson in Educational Leadership, November 2012 (Vol. 70, #3, p. 32-37), http://www.ascd.org; Danielson can be reached at info@danielsongroup.org. Stephen Anderson