Do you really know if a child is ready for the next instruction?

Teaching Tool – Conceptualizes and connects appropriate instructional designs to the learning needs of a diverse array of children, including motivation for learning, reinforcement, retention and transfer of learning, extension of learning, and readiness for future learning. (Please see the blog posted on 2/26/2013)

Teacher talk about the abundance of educational testing today can sound a lot like Samuel Coleridge’s lament in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

“…water, water everywhere

Nor any drop to drink.”

The school year calendar includes many dates committed to state, local and classroom tests, but is anyone really drinking of the data that accurately tells them “this child is ready for the next learning activities right now,” if they are to improve that child’s academic achievement? Sadly, the answer is “not enough.” So much of the data meets mandated needs. That river of data contains too much water. We need the water of data in smaller, time-sensitive modules so that we can say with confidence that “this child is ready for what they must learn next.”

A teaching tool that barely gets lip service is the opportunity for a teacher, of any subject, to consistently understand what children know, can do, and if they understand the content, skills and processes they are learning on a frequent basis. More often than not, an individual child’s readiness to learn a next set of content or skills or engage in a next thinking process is bundled in with the class. Or, it is bundled in with other children who demonstrated similar learning readiness “back when.” If a teacher is to cause an individual child to consistently achieve quality learning outcomes, the teacher must know what the child knows – consistently.

Immediately, the “Ya, buts…” form up in a long line of explanations as to why a teacher of 20 – 30 students in a class cannot consistently know the status of an individual child’s learning.

“There is not enough time in a class period to teach what needs to be taught. We would never accomplish all that we are supposed to teach in this class or grade level.”

“If I take the time to assess each child as often as you are implying, what will I do with all of the other children?”

“I am so saddled with trying to incorporate the Common Core Standards into my daily teaching that I don’t have time or energy for one more thing!”

These are two reasonable retorts. However, they fail to answer the real question. That question is, “If you don’t consistently know a child’s readiness for next learning, how can you assume that the child will learn what you propose to teach?”

Why this must be done.

We assume many things when we begin a new unit of learning. First and foremost, we assume that children recall the prior learning that is required for the new learning. And, we assume that they recall it accurately. If they do not, pre-teaching or re-teaching is required. These spot assessments check for accuracy and completeness of prior learning as readiness for next learning.

Children learn at different speeds and with different efficiencies. If this was a walking assignment, once the word “Go” is given, the progress of children begins to spread out over the course they are to walk. The same is true of their learning in a unit of instruction. Once the unit is underway, we cannot assume that all children will progress with the same rate and degree of learning. These spot assessments help us to confirm progress and correct for inaccuracies before the inaccuracies become permanent errors in thinking.

In the aggregate, it is a much more efficient use of time to spot check and correct inaccuracies and/or provide confidence in accurate learning at the time of initial learning than it is to address these errors at the end of the unit or later in the year or through summer school.

When to do.

Prior to beginning a new unit of instruction.

Prior to beginning a new area of content or set of skills or thinking processes within a unit.

Prior to the culminating assessment of the unit’s learning.

What to do.

Using backward design, formulate a task or set of oral questions that you can provide to a child(ren) that will give you an accurate description of the accuracy and completeness of the child’s understanding of what they have been learning.

Create this set of tasks or questions prior to beginning a unit of instruction so that they are aligned with the unit’s objectives (CCSS or other) and provide an incremental preparation for the child’s success on the unit’s culminating assessment activity. (Increasingly, culminating activities will not/cannot be selected response tests. They will need to/must associate with an integration of content, skills and problem solving in a reasonably complex task.)

In your daily instructional design, while children are doing independent practice or collaborative group work, sit with a child or with children in a cooperative group and give them your task or ask your questions.

This task or set of questions needs to be the same set for all children. As you would accommodate the special education learning needs of children or their ELL needs, also do so with parallel accommodations in this spot assessment. Do not simplify or reduce the quality of the task/questions or the scope of the task/questions. Expect all children to reach the same high quality learning outcomes.

In support of this.

Principals must understand and support this need through the provision of teacher aide time or rotating substitute teachers to classrooms so that subject area teachers can do spot assessments and then study and consider what they are learning through spot assessments. Again, the expense of later remediation both in terms of student learning and financial cost is greater if it is delayed.

The teacher’s capacity to consistently check for each child’s accuracy of learning and readiness for next learning should be made part of the “best practices” by which all teachers are evaluated. If this is not made important to and through the principal or teacher evaluator, then the assurance that all children are being efficiently and effectively instructed cannot be realized.

In 1970 the baby boom bulge was in full bloom and there was a national teacher shortage. Recruiters from all over the United States visited the University of Iowa campus with employment contracts in their pockets. By May 1, I held contracts from three school districts in three different states – the choice of where to begin my career as an educator was mine. I would graduate in June with teaching licenses for secondary English/language arts and social studies and was prepared to coach wrestling and baseball. I had the teaching tools that were heavily sought by school districts.

What tools would these have been? The first tool was being licensed, in two subject areas and the capacity to teach a cross-discipline assignment, in a subject(s) that matched employer needs. The fact that the Iowa School of Education was highly respected embellished this tool. Further, I was fortunate in being trained by two outstanding professors, John Haefner, nationally known in the social studies, and Barbara Olmo, one of the first practitioners of inquiry-based pedagogy. Thanks to their preparation, I was confident in my ability to design and deliver instruction.

I owed a second tool to Dr. Olmo. She was insistent in that quality instructional design begins with an assessment of student learning first, very predictive of the backward design espoused by Grant Wiggins’ Understanding by Design. This is a super tool! According to Dr. Olmo, “Thou shall not test before a child is ready to pass the test. If not ready, keep teaching.” And, “Assessment must be in the same mode as the instruction.” It sounded like a Paul Masson wine add, but it was a key to effective and efficient assessments.

There are teacher characteristics that are not teaching tools, yet have historically been placed in a teacher’s professional file as if they are significant. Often times, these characteristics are treated as if they are tools. Many non-teachers like and have empathy for children. Non-educators can manage student behavior and create an orderly classroom conducive for learning, participate in staff meetings and professional development activities, and obtain advanced degrees through graduate studies. I like these characteristics and they add value to a teacher’s professional life, but they are not necessary for causing all children to learn a continuously complex and diverse curriculum of content, skills and thinking processes.

In 2013 two tools are not enough. It is overly simple to say that the requirements for being a teacher have changed. Teacher effectiveness is the topic of national and state-based studies and discussions. Interestingly, effectiveness is no longer a subject for educators and educational organizations; it is a political football being kicked by many players.

The Wisconsin Framework for Educator Effectiveness initially attached Charlotte Danielson’s A Framework for Teaching as a template for teaching practices.

Domain 1: Planning and Preparation

• Demonstrating Knowledge of Content and Pedagogy
• Demonstrating Knowledge of Students
• Setting Instructional Outcomes
• Demonstrating Knowledge of Resources
• Designing Coherent Instruction
• Designing Student Assessments

Domain 2: The Classroom Environment

• Creating an Environment of Respect and Rapport
• Establishing a Culture for Learning
• Managing Classroom Procedures
• Managing Student Behavior
• Organizing Physical Space

Domain 3: Instruction

• Communicating with Students
• Using Questioning and Discussion Techniques
• Engaging Students in Learning
• Using Assessment in Instruction
• Demonstrating Flexibility and Responsiveness

Domain 4: Professional Responsibilities

• Reflecting on Teaching
• Maintaining Accurate Record
• Communicating with Families
• Participating in a Professional Community
• Growing and Developing Professionally
• Showing Professionalism

The WI Department of Instruction now is looking at other models, as well as Danielson. I like and have used the Danielson template. However, one of the faults of conceptualizing a new description of teacher tools is a constant look back at descriptors of the past. Teaching in the next decade cannot be conceived of as being in a classroom or with a class of children. Teaching tools need to be applicable anywhere, with any learners, and with non-traditional parameters. Consequently, the teaching tools I describe will not be “placed.”

I start with the two essential tools of the 70s.

Highly knowledgeable of a subject area content and the thinking processes inherent in that subject area (70s)

Skillful in the cycle of assessment for learning, instructional design, instructional delivery, and assessment of learning (70s)

These two tools can get you started, but teachers need the next three to complete their work of causing all children to learn.

Conceptualizes and connects appropriate instructional designs to the learning needs of a diverse array of children, including motivation for learning, reinforcement, retention and transfer of learning, extension of learning, and readiness for future learning.

Evaluates ineffective as well as effective learning and designs multiple reteaching strategies to extinguish incorrect and inappropriate learning to replace it with correct and appropriate learning.

Communicates learning needs and learning results to parents, significant adults and other professional educators and involves others in enacting the teacher’s instructional design.

My experience as a principal and superintendent working with thousands of teachers tells me that most teachers present one, two or three of these tools when they are hired to their first assignment. Now and again, a four-tool candidate sits with you and you pray that you don’t do anything to cause this person to reject your a job offer that wants to leap from your lips. The work facing educational leadership is assisting teachers with some tools to grow more tools; to help good teachers to become better teachers and better teachers to become elite teachers.

In the next blogs, I will discuss strategies for growing teacher tools.

Perhaps Charles Dickens gazed into a crystal ball and squinted at public education in Wisconsin in 2013 when he penned these words to begin A Tale of Two Cities in 1859.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.”

As a one-time English teacher, these words echo in my ears as my eyes read each day about the challenges school districts face in retaining, finding and developing the instructional capacity they need to meet the uphill mandates of state and federal governments. On the one hand, I read the words of legislators who declare that school boards now have the economic tools to make school districts more cost effective (read that as “do more with less funding”) and the curricular guidance to raise the educational achievement of every child. The curricular guidance is the adoption of Common Core State Standards, Teacher Effectiveness standards, and the transparency of School Report Cards with the requirement that school boards enact these on a short time line.

The upshot is that teachers who qualify for retirement are leaving the classroom, teachers who have lost wages and been handed increased out-of-pocket expenses required by their employment are leaving their classrooms, and school boards are challenged with finding teachers to fill an enormous number of classroom assignments.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (2/21/2013) reported that “Even if Milwaukee Public Schools hired every person who graduated from a Wisconsin college with a teaching certificate between last December and August, it still wouldn’t have enough qualified teachers to fill an onslaught of expected vacancies this fall, according to new details from the district.”

“The district’s plan to hire 700 teachers by summertime includes hiring, at times, 50 teachers per week from April 5 to July 12. The district’s human resource department says it anticipates and will prepare for “continuous vacancies” throughout the year.”

If Milwaukee is successful, can the other 430+ Wisconsin school districts also meet their employment needs?

Who will be these new teachers? To borrow from Dickens’ “incredulity,” we have created an employee environment that his shucking off many effective, veteran teachers with an assumption that their replacements await and are ready to fill their vacated positions. During the 37-year span of my career as a school and district administrator, I participated in the hiring of 100s of teachers. I borrow again, this time from the movie Moneyball, to describe the dilemma administrators face in hiring excellent teachers. Baseball scouts from the New York Mets are explaining to Billy Beane’s parents why they believe he is a talented baseball player.

Billy’s Dad: Tell me why you are so interested in Billy? What is it that makes him special?
Scout #1: It’s very rare that you come upon a young man like Billy. Who can run, who can field, who can throw, who can hit and who can hit with power. Those five tools, you don’t see that very often.
Scout #2: Most of the youngsters in the league that we have an interest in have one or two tools and we’re hoping to develop an extra one. Your son has five, I mean we’re looking at a guy that’s a potential superstar for us in New York and the time is right now to get him started.

It is a truth – few teachers have “all five tools” (read that as being extraordinary, talented instructors with a passion for their work and a compassion for the children they teach and the ability to cause children to learn and understand). Try as school boards might to hire “five tool” teachers, these teachers are rare. When the board posts for the employment of a teacher, the board hopes that “five tool” teachers will apply, but more often the board is fortunate to attract several two or three tool teachers in their application pool. Teachers with multiple tools will have competing employment offers because they have the skills and talents that many school boards want. Because of this competition, a school board must make an “attractive” offer if it wants to finalize a hire. Sadly, boards are very limited in poofing up an employment offer given reduced state aid and governmental encouragement to limit teacher compensation. The result is that boards frequently are lucky to hire “one and two tool” teachers with the anticipation that through professional development a rookie teacher will learn one or two additional tools.

A contemporary school faculty meets its challenges in the aggregate. In the absence of “five tool” teachers, administrators assemble teams of teachers whose combined talents meet the curricular and extracurricular needs of their children. Recently, I talked with a “five tool” teacher who will leave the profession within the year. She excels as an AP teacher, athletic coach, newspaper advisor, letter club advisor, and mentor to students. She is esteemed by students, parents and students. It is unlikely that a “five tool” teacher will become her replacement. It is more likely that a “two or three tool” teacher will be hired to teach the assignment and other teachers or lay/community persons will need to fulfill her extracurricular roles. Schools need to meet the departure of veteran, highly effective teachers through the aggregate of several teachers and others.

Staffing a school faculty has become more and more difficult and the binding limitations of political/economic-driven legislation is making the creation of a “many tooled” faculty extremely difficult.

When I was a working school superintendent, I would rise in the dark on mornings when significant snowfall was predicted and drive the back roads to discern if school buses would be able to drive their morning routes. My priority was making an informed and safe decision about closing school, delaying the start of the school day, or opening on our regular clock schedule. Sometime this was a tough call as critics called if school was open and other critics called if school was closed and almost no one liked a delayed start.

As a retired superintendent, my early morning priority is to assure that the satellite dish is clear of snow so that my wife and I can watch the Golf Channel. When the snow flies I roll out the green practice mats and Michael Breed helps me with my short game. Determining the degree of the wedge I will work on is another tough call, but I am up to the challenge.

One person’s snow day may not be the same snow day for another.

Never bet against self-interest.

Simple enough, but what does this statement mean?

In any human interaction, each individual will have a set of intrinsic needs that will bias and shape the manner in which they act in any and every scenario they enter. Boil it down and you will reach these concepts – “this is my bottom line” or “beyond this point there can be no further discussion” or “this is my must have.” Every conversation contains these concepts, although many conversations do not push far enough to expose them.

In our undergraduate days, we learned about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Maslow conceived of the lower four sets of needs as “deprivation needs.” When aspects of these needs are not satisfied, the individual is motivated to take action to satisfy the need. Hunger spurs action to find food and thirst the action to find water, just as feeling cold spurs the action to find warmth and endangerment the action to feel physically safe. When the physiological and safety needs are met, an individual has the opportunity to be motivated to fulfill the needs for “love and belonging” and “esteem.” Self-actualization is different – it is not a deprivation need, but a need to become the person the individual aspires to be.

It is with interest and frustration that many of the contemporary issues that face us today should exist on the plane of community welfare or doing what is best for others without prejudice but fall quickly to the “bottom line.” Opportunities to show respect for others and their points of view and to engage in consensual problem-solving to0 frequently dissolve into conflicts with “no conversation necessary.” The outcome is defined by self-interest.

So, let’s examine the players in the issue of school choice and how they are influenced by their needs.

Who are the self-interested players of school choice? In the first rank are the parents. Parents who demand the right to choose how their child will be educated face off with parents who are committed to a traditional neighborhood school for their children. In the second rank are the educators. Charter and alternative education providers who find the opportunity to create an elective and selective schooling oppose school boards and teachers who are committed to traditional or reformed public schools. These players are engaged at various need levels, ranging from moral choice and “inalienable rights” to tradition and family loyalty to job security and livelihood.

Parents typically begin with higher motivational characteristics. Choice parents embraced self-actualizing growth needs early in the campaign and interlaced a lot of esteem issues. Gradually, as recent and ongoing studies that are indicating that charter and choice have a significant effect upon the achievement of disadvantaged, urban children but little effect upon the achievement of advantaged children, their self-interest is sliding toward esteem and belonging. Initial interests of public education parents lay in esteem and belonging to the community of their school-life that they knew as children. As the conversation continues, traditional parents have migrated toward safety needs.

Another and distended rank of self-interested players includes taxpayers and social reformers. Taxpayers who live in the school neighborhood and understand that a decline in the reputation of the community school lowers local property values have a vested interest in this discussion. Typically, these folks do not have children in school and are viewed as protestors against change. Taxpaying property owners strive to protect their economic self-interest, which is a safety need, with a small helping of community development, which is belonging.

A smaller number of players are the reformers who initially saw charter schools as a strategy for improving education for disadvantaged, urban children. They have been joined by new realists who understand that the value added nature of public education cannot be abandoned but must be reformed to accommodate 21st century problems. Reformers struggle with the data and the difficulty of empirically proving their point of view. Without empirical data proving which source of education is better in causing children to learn, reformers will raise their motivation to self-actualization and toil on to create better schools.

A last rank of players includes the politicians and national political-financial interest groups. Choice is not necessarily partisan, but more commonly is a Republican initiative for divesting Democratic policies and entitlement programs. In my state of Wisconsin, the Governor and his Republican majority are committed to forcing school choice options, initially in all urban and large enrollment communities, and indubitably in all schools. For the Governor, the question of choice is not open to discussion. His political strategy and maneuvering is thoroughly funded by conservative, Republican money, such as The Heritage Foundation.

It may be best to characterize the motivational needs of politicians and financiers as base. I recall a Wisconsin legislator’s guidance to newly elected state representatives when he said, “Now that you are elected, your job is to be re-elected.” Campaign rhetoric is abandoned. Securing election leads to party strength and incumbency leads to party dominance and once dominant a party enacts policies that will ensure the likelihood of continued dominance. This is not self-actualization, but a basic, physiological need.

A second need of politicians is to influence governance while you can because when you have power you can enact your will with the realization that the pendulum will swing and another politician will hold your seat at some time in the future. Motivation may be to construct something new or to deconstruct what the opposition has created. Regardless of the homage to citizen freedoms or relief from government or an improved life, politics is about the exercise of power and in the final analysis seldom is able to rise above deprivation needs.

How will the dance be played out? Interestingly, we will not ask children how they wish to be educated, even though many of them are of an age and intellect when they can constructively contribute to that question. And, the dance will not be decided by parents acting in their perception of the best interests of their children. Taxpayers will always be present and never satisfied with the level of any taxation. Reformers come and go with the times and with the latest fad of reforms.

Public education remains a political melody to be played by politicians using the instruments of power. Without exception, their self-proclaimed interest is not in educating children but in determining the management of education. Just examine how many candidates for office stand for educational improvement. “Elect me and I will ….” What’s that all about, Maslow?