Tag Archives: teaching tools

No Time For Dull Teaching Tools

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I turn wood on a lathe.  A sharp edge on a steel tool is required to ensure clean cuts expose the beauty of the wood and the shapes I design.  As a rule, I sharpen a chisel or gouge after 15 to 20 minutes of use.  The contrast between using a sharp or dull chisel is apparent when I stand back and examine my work.  Dull tools leave torn and ragged wood fibers, uneven edges, and the appearance of sloppy craftsmanship.  Products I will not display.  Who would choose to use tools that are not sharp?

How does this apply to causing learning?

Professionally speaking, sharp tools also cause better results.  A professional tool is a strategy or methodology used to cause a positive response or to eliminate an unwanted outcome.  Some professional tools are hardened steel, but most are mental or dispositional or best practices for doing the work.  Prospective teachers in their teacher preparation programs learn a variety of pedagogical strategies for causing children to learn content, skills, and ways of considering their world.  They take methods classes and use student teaching to practice and learn to apply the strategies of teaching.  This is an introduction to the tools of their profession.

A teaching tool is the philosophical construct used to design units and lessons of instruction.  Sharply cut designs engage children with questions and problems and ideas that get into each child’s head at the start of a unit or lesson.  Good designs cause children to want to know what comes next.  Every lesson in a unit needs to fit into this pre-conceived pathway along which the teacher uses other specific teaching tools to shape student knowledge, skills, and dispositions for learning. 

Teaching tools include strategies for introducing and engaging children in a daily lesson, leading a discussion with insightful questions, using positive reinforcement to strengthen learning outcomes, or reflection and reteaching to correct or strengthen lesson outcomes.  Drill down on any of these, the use of positive reinforcement for example, for the explicit words, phrases, body language, and context for giving a child reinforcing positive messages.  Each teacher will find their personal use of specific words, a way of saying those words, and a way of looking at a child when saying the words that causes the most positive reinforcement for that child.  This is a sharp tool.  Conversely, using the dull tool of a casual comment leaves a child unsure of the strength of their learning, uncertain that their learning matters, and more likely to disengage.

While there are general pedagogical tools used by all teachers, there also are grade level and subject area tools that are required across the 4K-12 continuum.  Down on your knees physical proximity to a young student works wonders but not so much with a high schooler.  Shared glee with a kindergarten child is not only contagious but an essential tool shaping their young ownership of their learning.  Inquiry and problem-based learning strategies are strong tools for social studies teachers.  Sharply honed lessons with timely propositions, strategic access to resources, time outs for “tell me what you know and what you need to know next”, and opportunities for differentiated presentation of results hook children into being avid learners at all ages. 

Specific tools are used by teachers of children with special education and gifted educational needs.  Some exceptional needs children need tasks and ideas broken down into smaller tasks and ideas with special consideration for sequencing and pacing and reinforcement.  Others require more room for creativity than the classroom and teaching skills and mentoring that push the teacher as much as the student.

And, the universe of teaching tools is constantly being added to and modified, even though we think good teaching practices are timeless.

How often does an educator stand back to inspect the effects of her teaching tools – the sharpness of her teaching practices?  Inspection is a meta-self-analysis of a teaching practice and the individual tools a teacher uses to shape student learning.  It requires taking lessons apart after they are taught for tool inspection.  “What did I say and what did I do?  And, how did students respond?”. 

Once examined, how often do we resharpen our teaching tools?  Sharpening is focusing on the “What did I say and what did I do” that could be reworded to provoke a clearer meaning, a more specific direction, a more illustrative modeling, or a leave a student with a better understanding.  Sharpening is changing unit and lesson designs to ensure that the next time the lesson is taught, the teacher will use these sharper tools.

The children we teach are our products.  Sharp teaching tools cause children to be successful learners and achieve educational outcomes we can be proud of displaying.  Just as in wood turning, dull teaching tools cause dull products.  How often do we inspect – not often enough.

Why is thus?

  • Every teacher is the product of a teacher-as-student academic preparation program.   The teacher-as-student learns the content knowledge and skills to be taught and the pedagogical tools of teaching.  Colleges and post-baccalaureate teacher prep agencies provide the prospective teacher with an initial toolbox of teaching skills.  Learned and practiced in student teaching, these are the tools a teacher brings to her first classroom.  This academic and sheltered preparation is intended to be adequate for her to be a successful teacher of children.
  • The first year on the job is a test drive of teaching skills.  Just like a new car owner test drives a vehicle that has passed assembly line inspections yet needs to be road tested to create confidence and assurance, a first-year teacher tests her tools against the realities of school and a classroom of children.  Absent mentor observation and coaching, the test driver also is test assessor.  Yikes!  It is hard to make critical self-assessments while trying to steer a test drive.
  • We assume that continuous practice keeps teaching tools sharp.  However, the school year is a constantly moving conveyor belt of units and lessons.  The school calendar does not stop for an inspection of tools, or the effects caused by teaching tools.  A teaching tool literally is used and placed back in the teacher’s toolbox for a next use without dedicated inspection or consideration of its sharpness.  The pace of schooling creates its own obstruction to tool inspection and sharpening.  The calendar presents little to no time to do so.   
  • Each child and class of children is like a new specie of wood to be turned on a lathe.  A teaching strategy that worked well in causing one child or one class to learn may not be as efficient or effective with other children.  Tools are constantly being modified rather than remaining constant, hence sharpening a tool is sharpening a constantly changing tool.
  • Teacher evaluation systems take a broad view of teaching effectiveness and efficiency.  Pedagogical skill is less than 25%, perhaps 10%, of the evaluation process.  Wisconsin’s Effective Educator system looks at planning and preparation, learning environment, instruction, and professional responsibilities.  Inspection of effective teaching tools is smothered by non-instructional concerns.  Combine a flaccid EE with the statutory fiat prohibiting the use of student achievement scores on state mandated assessments to describe a teacher’s effectiveness and the sharpness of teaching tools falls out of evaluation conversations.

What to do

When facing obfuscation, don’t go there.  Obfuscation is all the reasons we tell ourselves or others that the status is okay or even very good.  Or, it is the reasons we accept for why we cannot change.  Instead, make new declarations for improvement of teaching tools at the school site level.

Principals need to declare that the conscientious use of universal learning designs is prioritized by all teachers.  If adopting UDL, declare that a teacher’s application of UDL will be part of the teacher’s professional development and professional evaluation.  Tools that are embedded in UDL need constant professional discussion, demonstration, refinement, and critical examination.  Walk the talk of engagement, representation, and action/expression.

Use lesson studies.  Record teachers’ classroom teaching and establish collegial, non-evaluative study groups to provide the teacher with feedback on what they see in the recordings.  When every teacher records and every teacher provide feedback, every teacher grows sharper teaching practices.

In the sequence of professional development make learning new teaching tools, refining teaching tools, sharing knowledge and experience of teaching tools, and evaluating the effectiveness of teaching tools in causing student learning an essential part of the school culture.  Important things in school a given time in the calendar; give discussion and examination of teaching important.

Don’t abide teaching that is chronically not sharp.  I have known some great people, really kind and caring people, people who will do everything asked of them at school, who could not teach a coherent lesson.  They did not have nor did they work at acquiring sharp teaching skills.  Help them find their way to another profession.

The Big Duh!

Teaching children is the most important profession in the world.  It also is incredibly hard.  And, teaching is impossibly hard without efficient and effective teaching skills.  We no longer can assume that skills learned in a baccalaureate program are sharp enough to last a career.  Professional development of our pedagogy needs to be a way of life for every teacher.  If it isn’t sharp, sharpen it.  If it can’t be sharpened, find a new tool.  If professional work isn’t sharp, find a new professional.

Teacher Tool Box: Some Teachers Have Sharper Tools

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It is late August and teachers are returning to school. Classrooms look like tornado zones as teachers unpack supplies and reorganize learning centers. Opened boxes, books, and bins are strewn around the floor. Within days and after much attention, teachers and classrooms will be ready to cause new learning for children assigned to them.

My observations are not entirely casual. I am looking for teachers who know what they are doing and why they are doing it. I am looking for teachers who are restocking their tool boxes of teaching competence. Without my stopping what they are doing, as if I could, we engage in the annual conversations of getting ready for school.

Two distinct impressions rise from these observations and conversations. Two distinctly different teacher-types emerge. I have talked with teachers who confidently know what they are doing and are doing it. And, I have talked with teachers who think they know what they are doing and are trying to do it. On the first day of school, their classrooms may look similar, but on the second day of school what these two teacher-types do in the teaching of children will be dissimilar.

In the school gym, parents are engaged in the annual chore of school registration. They are updating demographic data about their children, paying school fees, and, most importantly, receiving their children’s classroom assignments for the new school year. The last item lists the names of the persons each child will have as her and his teachers this year. Some parents smile, some frown, and some don’t know enough to do either.

Why is this thus?

Frommers, Fodor’s, Concierge and Lonely Planet do not publish a travel guide for how to best traverse K-12 classrooms, but local parents know the best pathways. The knowledge of which teachers are best at causing children to learn their grade level and course curricula is an unwritten document, but in the parking lot on registration day there will be many conversations about which children will have the best travel guides or teachers this school year. This knowledge is performance-based and data-documented. It is not just preferential. As the mothers of children in the parking lot tell me, “Look it up. Some teachers always produce better test results than other teachers. And, the children they taught do better on tests the next school year. Some teachers send more children to the office for behavior problems; they don’t know how to keep kids learning so kids get distracted and misbehave. I want my child to have the teachers that know how to teach and produce the best learning results.” Parents, especially mothers, know.

Each teacher in the school is licensed by the DPI to teach their assigned classes and courses. Each teacher has earned a baccalaureate degree or added a post-grad degree as preparation for their professional work. Most teachers in the school are veteran teachers with several to many years of on-site experience. Yet, differences exist.

• There is a difference between having teaching tools and having sharp teaching tools.

Some teachers sit with children in a reading group, listen to children read, and smile or frown. Children take turns reading and demonstrating their ability to sound out new words, read fluently, and follow along. Other teachers listen to children read. This teacher stops the reading to assist a child phonetically pronounce a new word, to ask children what new words mean to build vocabulary, and to ask children to explain what they understand from their reading. This teacher has individual children read, children read aloud together, and has children listen to the teacher model reading a sentence or paragraph before a child is asked to read the same sentence or paragraph. One teacher uses the tool of reading groups while another teacher exercises the sharper tools of teaching reading in a group.

• There is a difference between teaching and knowing how to teach to teach to each child.

From the doorway, daily teaching can look the same in most classrooms. From a seat in the classroom, it is apparent that some teachers make a lesson plan, walk through the steps of their lesson plan calling on some children, asking children to “show their work”, moving from one subject to the next, and tomorrow they will do the same. From a seat in another classroom, it is apparent that this teacher works their lesson plan, engaging every child, asking children to demonstrate and explain their thinking, and staying with the lesson until satisfied that every child is ready for a next lesson. It is apparent that when a teacher kneels next to a child’s chair, one teacher encourages a child to finish the assignment and another teacher provokes the child to do learn from the assignment.

• There is a difference between teaching and knowing when and how to continue teaching and to teach differently.

Every teacher sets a curricular calendar. With approximately 180 days of school, a schedule must be maintained to assure that all the curriculum is taught. Some teachers are driven by the curricular calendar while some teachers are driven by the curriculum on the calendar. The first teacher will move to the next lesson and the next chapter because time is important. Another teacher will stay with a lesson until all children have learned its objectives before moving to a next lesson. This teacher will teach and re-teach and her re-teaching purposefully will be different than her first teaching. If a child did not learn from the first teaching, it is unlikely a repeat of the same teaching will cause a different result. A sharper teaching tool is differentiated teaching to meet the needs of the child and the time and place of the child’s learning.

• There is a difference between giving tests of learning and using tests for learning.

A test may signify for a teacher that a chapter or unit has been completed. For this teacher, a test says it is time for children to move to the next chapter or unit of teaching. For another teacher, a test signifies how well the teacher has taught the chapter, unit or semester and if the teacher is ready to move to the next. This teacher looks at the results and, if the results are not good for all children, the teacher uses test data to selectively correct or strengthen what students did not learn “well enough”. A move to the next chapter or unit happens when learning not time indicates it is time for what comes next.

• There is a difference between looking like you are doing and actually doing. In other arenas, this is the difference between talking a good game and playing a good game.

Some teachers know the talk. They can tell you what is happening in their classroom. They hand you chapter books and point at learning centers and at posters on the wall. Other teachers can explain the talk. They can tell you why what is happening in their classroom is necessary for each child’s learning, how they will know that each child has learned from what is happening, and when it will be time to change what is happening in the classroom and what that change will look like.

• There is a difference between being liked as a teacher and being esteemed as a teacher.

If this difference needs explaining, a reader will not understand the difference.

Parents in the parking lot know these things. They know that some teachers are expert teachers with sharp teaching tools. They want these teachers to be their child’s teachers. Sadly, some children will have other teachers. Teaching tools really matter.

Lesson study: Sharpening Your Teaching Tools

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I planned the lesson. I taught the lesson. I examined student work resulting from the lesson. I evaluated the effectiveness of the lesson. I taught similar lessons in similar ways. I taught this lesson again the next year.

Almost anything we purchase today has a consumer rating or a list of consumer reviews. These inform us of how the item of interest compares to quality standards and of the satisfaction, praises and complaints of other purchasers. Homemade things do not have these ratings and reviews. A teacher’s lesson plan is a homemade product. So, how do we understand the quality of a lesson plan?

Self-reflection and self-evaluation are components of professional work. These are built into a teacher’s mindset as she progresses through a teacher preparation program albeit as an abstract application. Once in a classroom assignment, the daily process of constant and continuous lesson planning and teaching day after day can move self-reflection and self-evaluation to the “back burner” of daily demands. Reflection and evaluation give way to the demands of the next lesson.

At some point in a loop of lesson planning, teaching and lesson review, objectivity is obscured by all of the “I”s. When a person’s professional perspective is formed by looking in the mirror and confirming “I look fine. I am fine. My work is fine”, a person should wonder “How do others see me and my work.”

(Disclaimer – this is not the professional evaluation of Educator Effectiveness or a demonstration of Frameworks for Teaching (Danielson). This writing is pointed at daily lesson work and how a teacher professionally improves her lesson planning.)

It is clear to say that no teacher designs a lesson plan for the purpose of failed teaching and learning. Lesson plans are created with every good intention and design for causing children to learn. Given every good intention, how does a teacher add perspective to the improvement of her lesson plans?

Lesson studies are not a new concept. Japanese Lesson Studies were introduced when Japan undertook a national initiative to improve its international ranking in educational performance assessments (TIMSS). I will use the term “Lesson Studies” to refer to a variety of models for peer teachers to review and critique lesson designs.

Lesson studies are a teacher-centered and teacher-led process for teachers to share lesson/unit plans with a small group of colleagues for the purpose of peer critiquing. Three to five teachers form a study group and take turns presenting a lesson plan for peer review. Principals and administrators do not participate in lesson studies.

A model for lesson study process looks like this.

Background – A teacher gives the peer group a contextual background for the lesson. Peers must know the grade level or course the teacher is teaching and where in a unit of instruction the lesson fits. Information includes a background of the students and prior lessons leading up the lesson of interest. Data may indicate base line pre-unit assessments. Information also may include any special considerations for children, classroom conditions, school life or other externals that affected her lesson design.

The Lesson – The teacher presents the lesson in the format of the school’s lesson design format. Using a common format gives peers a common language and scheme for understanding presented lessons and decreases time needed to conceptualize how the presented lesson is formatted. If the school does not subscribe to a common lesson planning format, the presenting teacher explains her preferred format. The presentation is a brief, yet detailed description of lesson objectives and teacher planned actions, in-lesson decisions, and responses to students as the lesson unfolded. It is important for the peers to understand all the intentional teaching acts made by the teacher, planned and unplanned.

Clarifying Questions – The peers ask questions to fill in their understanding of the lesson. The questions deal only with the lesson. Questions such as “Why did you…? and “How did you…?” are common. It is easy to pile on questions, so peers keep questions to those which illuminate teacher behaviors and decisions.

Student Outcomes – The teacher lays out examples of student work, performances, and assessments completed during and as a result of the lesson. These artifacts connect the objectives, lesson design, and teaching acts and decisions to the outcomes of the lesson. Samples are pre-chosen to reflect a range of successful to unsuccessful student work.

Consideration – The peers take several minutes to individually consider the presentation and artifacts and construct comments and feedback they will give the the teacher.

Feedback – Peers take turns with their commentary. Each peer is required to make a comment and provide feedback. Comments are to be critical yet not criticizing. Peers should consider pedagogical technique, theory into practice designs, clarity of teacher talk and input to students, and how the lesson produced its desired outcomes. Peers recognize that some outcomes will not be known until subsequent lessons are taught.

Commentary and feedback are the heart of the lesson study. Trust is a big deal. The teacher group trusts that all comments are designed for improvement. Additionally, what is said in the study stays in the study.

Although it is easy for peers to say “I would have…”, how a peer would have taught the lesson is not a subject of the study. Peers are neutral and objective reviewers of the lesson presented.

Teacher Reflection – The presenting teacher summarizes the comments and feedback she received. Presenting teachers should take notes as they listen to peer feedback to assure that they have a record of the comments and feedback. Peers listen to the reflective summary to assure that the teacher has properly understood the feedback. Needed clarification is given to assure a fidelity of what was said and what was heard.

Debriefing – Before disbanding, the teacher and peers review the purpose and design of their lesson study and reflect upon how this study complied with those. They also set the time, place and presenter of the next lesson study.

A lesson study requires 50-60 minutes of group time. It is essential that enough time is allocated so that teacher reflection, the last and perhaps most important component of the study, is conducted without interference from the clock. Early practitioners of lesson studies want to present lessons they confidently believe caused positive student outcomes. Experienced practitioners present lessons that are essential for student learning in meeting grade level and course standards. They choose these lessons to improve the lesson’s success for all children.

Once lesson study groups are formed and working, they schedule weekly lesson studies. If the study group includes four to five members, weekly meetings allow each member to present seven to eight lessons per school year. Eight lesson studies combined with self-reflection and self-evaluation of lesson plans provide a teacher with balanced insights into the effectiveness of her lesson planning skills.

The following links point to resources that can assist a teacher in creating a collegial and collaborative lesson study process.

https://www.uwlax.edu/sotl/lsp/guide/planstudy.htm

https://schoolreforminitiative.org/doc/tuning.pdf

https://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/global_learning/2016/04/using_japanese_lesso

https://achieve.lausd.net/cms/lib/CA01000043/Centricity/Domain/435/13%20%20TTLP.pdf