October. Four weeks into the school year and it’s time to adjust. Unless a teacher is gifted with the “all seeing eye”, true omniscience, the reality of September’s class time changed any informed assumptions a teacher made before the first day of school about a child’s readiness to learn and anticipated success in learning. Summer regression, summer experiences, the effects of time on a child’s interests and preferences, and how a child reacts to September’s instruction and new teachers alter the best of assumptions and plans. Adjustments are a necessary stage in successful teaching that is committed to causing every child to learn.
Decades ago, a principal would ask to see a teacher’s instructional units and lesson plans at the beginning of the school year. A teacher prepared units and lessons for the entire 36 weeks of a school year. This meant the teacher was locked and loaded with a plan for teaching. It is also true that decades ago teachers did not use universal screening and most school assessments were summative. We taught the “book”. There was a test at the end of each chapter or unit that preceded the beginning of the next chapter or unit. Teach and test, teach and test. The school report card was a single indicator, usually the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills and a child’s ITBS scores marked her school standing for the year. Instruction was a straight line continuum from September until June. Decades ago.
Today, adjustments in instruction are the name of the teaching game. Adjustments to instruction begin in student teaching when teachers-in-training must demonstrate their proficiency using adjusted instruction to qualify for an initial teaching license. As a consultant working with the DPI on educator preparation programs, I have firsthand experience in creating standards-based pre-student teaching and student teaching requirements. Student teachers must demonstrate their ability to “plan, teach, assess, adjust teaching, and assess again” to pass their clinical semester. The emphasis is on each child learning from the lesson and units not the coverage of texts or a calendar of class time.
Teaching student teachers to make in-unit adjustments is easy. They do not know a different process. Working with veteran teachers to stop the progression of a unit because some children were not successful learners and to adjust teaching to cause them to be successful is a more difficult professional challenge. Adjustment is not reteaching but teaching differently. “Why now?” and ““why me?” are common responses. “Because you are responsible for the success of every child” is the singular answer.
The best “… teach, assess, adjust…” process is collaborative. Explaining one’s work and thinking and planning to another educator provides a teacher with a reality check. “Does it make sense?” It is easy for a teacher in a closed classroom to recline into the flow of school weeks and the check off of the units and chapters and activities taught. This is especially true if principal visits to the classroom are infrequent and aligned only with annual evaluations or effective educator documentation. Better practice is for the principal to make many informal “look ins” and “check ins” across a semester. Looking in is a physical, first person, in the classroom visualization of teaching and learning. “Checking” is a conversation about the teaching that is more than a “how is it going?”. Checking in asks the teacher to provide stories, in-class data, and to explain how reflection informs her ability to bring all children to success.
Collaboration may be easier between teachers than a teacher and principal because evaluative accountability is not present. Lesson studies create a “let’s focus a group conversation on a lesson I just taught. Here are the assessments from that lesson. What is the best next thing to do?”.
Adjusting is not a negative. Some may perceive the need for a teacher to adjust and teach again as a failure of initial teaching. Far from it. Even when a lesson is aimed properly at children’s readiness to learn and all children have the prerequisite information and skills for the new lesson, the nature of challenging material and rigorous expectations will mean that 20-30% of the children will not achieve solid and secured learning with initial instruction alone. Challenging and rigorous learning goals mean that some children need adjusted and extra teaching to achieve success. If the lesson target is too easy to achieve, it was not properly targeted and not worth the time to teach. Good planning expects adjustments to teaching.
It is October, a time for serious consideration of effectiveness of your first units to instruction considering the data from multiple assessments now at hand. Consider your assumptions about your class and about each student. Consider your assumptions about the rigor of your lessons and how you challenged all children. Consider the effectiveness of your tier 2 in-class grouping of children who needed adjusted instruction to be successful learners in September. Consider the adjustments you need to make in the units and lessons to be taught during the next eight months to cause every child to learn.
This will not be the only time for instructional adjustments. Adjustments should occur continuously throughout the school year. October, though, is a wonderful second month of school for principals to do their diligence and assure that the entire faculty is in adjustment mode. October adjustments set the tone for best instructional practices throughout the school year.
So that the rest of the staff does not feel left out, October also is prime time to review school lunch menus, assignments of aides for instructional support, routines on the school bus as the weather turns cold, the maintenance of outdoor fields for winter, protocols for safety and security, and every other thing that seems routine in the school. Check it out now and make necessary adjustments.