Keeping a Focus on Learning

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     At Decker Middle School I have a principal who understands the difference between a focus on teaching and a focus on learning.  And, I don't have to say that because I want a raise - I am being sincere.

     He has really opened my eyes to the difference between these two and now he is starting to get through to our staff on how they are different.

    This afternoon he met with the department heads and we discussed how things are going so far this year.  I won't get into their responses here but I would like to make some observations:  (1) he is new to the school,  (2) I (the only instructional coach and a rookie at that) am new to the school,  (3) the superintendent and a large percentage of his curriculum and instructional staff are new to the district, and (4)  there are a lot of new systems and technologies in place to work with curriculum.

    All of this newness has added to what would normally be a stressful part of any school year - the first 90 days.  The biggest "new" expectation would be in our cycle of instruction.  First we look at the core curriculum in 3-week bundles.  Next we look at what the district pacing guide says should be taught during those 3 weeks and we look at those standards that should be included in the 3 weeks.  Finally we select a few standards that are considered the most important and we label them our Power Standards. (See my earlier posts on this: here and here )

    After we select our power standards we lay out our 3 weeks with what standards will be addressed each day of the 3 weeks.  Next we plan a 10 question formative assessment that is given towards the end of the 3 weeks.  This is so the teachers will be able to see how our students have done on the power standards and to set up plans for any reteaching that will need to be accomplished during the week after the assessment.  Once the test is given our teachers are expected to analyze the data and write down a plan about reteaching skills that were not mastered.  They are also expected to discuss, with others in their subject area, the successes or failures that other teachers may have had so that instruction can be modified for success.

   This process repeats every 3 weeks.  This week was the week for re-teaching from the third cycle.  But it also is the point where they are planning the assessment for the fifth cycle.  Next week they will be giving the assessment for the fourth cycle.  At the end of the sixth cycle they will also have to give their semester exam - a summative assessment that coincides with the cycle assessment.  Oh, and by the way, our teachers also have to turn in lesson plans each Monday for the week.  This is definitely NOT like it was when I first started teaching in 1992!

   All of these data driven decisions are for one reason - to help our students learn.  It really is all about their success as learners.  Our teachers would not be working this hard if all they wanted to do was be good at teaching.  I know a lot of teachers who can give awesome lectures and tests that make you think.  But how many of them really know how much each of their students learned?  They can tell you how many A's, and B's they gave though.

    At our school we are all about how our students are learning (or not learning).  And, we are all about improving on successes and stopping failures during our process of analyzing results.   This, in a nutshell, is a LOT of work for our teachers.  It has also been a lot of work for our administrators and our lone instructional coach (me).  But we are banking on this being a very successful year - followed by another, even more, successful year next year.  We owe that to our students and we owe that to our future leaders.

Power Standards to Project Planning

At Decker Middle School we are using a Power Standards Protocol to choose those state standards that have the most bang for the buck.  Since we are in Texas we don't need no stinkin Common Core Standards, but you could do the same thing with those standards.

So, you've selected your power standards and you want to now do some project ideation.  What I would say is that you have already missed some of the best project idea brainstorming time - if you have completed the Power Standards Protocol and you haven't completed a project planning form while you were selecting the power standards.  Let me show you what I mean.

Let's say you are looking at selecting power standards for 6th grade English.  Here is the form we are using to select our power standards.  We look at what standards are to be covered during a set period (in this case 3 weeks).  We look at whether the standard is a Readiness or Supporting standard.  And then we look at how we have done on state standardized tests with these standards.

But the first and last conversations we have about those standards are a ranking of importance.  Here is where you have the chance to have those tough discussions.  Does the standard have endurance?  Does it have leverage.  How does it fit in the student's readiness for deeper learning?

Now look at this form, from the Buck Institute, for planning your projects.  Notice that there is a space for Content and Skills Standards to be addressed.  You should have this form right next to you as you are addressing the conversations about ranking.  When you are discussing endurance, leverage, and readiness you will, undoubtedly, talk about how you have presented and assessed each standard.  You should also have discussed how important it will be in future classes.

This is where I envision someone saying, "What if we do.......?"  POOF!  You have an idea of what you want to do for the next project.  And, you can start looking at the scaffolding based upon the other standards that need to be addressed during the project time frame.

The Project Planning Form is often forgotten when, ironically, you are planning for your subject area.  Take the time to have a planning form with you whenever you are discussing your content.  I would even say you should have one out as you are having discussions with other teachers about their content.   You might discover a cross-curricular project lying in the conversation.  That makes me think of a possible project, got to run......

Using A Power Standard Protocol

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Many teachers get stuck at the project ideation stage when they consider using PBL in their classes.  What standards will they use?  How do they convert the standards to a step or concept in a project?  Should they come up with a project idea and then figure out what standards "fit" the project?  What do they do if they don't have a good imagination or they aren't creative?

Once a teacher has been "doing PBL" for a few years they will discover that they can choose whether to take standards and think of a project idea around those standards, or, take a project idea and fit standards into that idea.

Since I have immersed myself into looking at standards, in my new job as an instructional coach, I will base this post on going from the standards to the project idea.

Our district is currently using a Power Standards Protocol, as first mentioned in Larry Ainsworth's Power Standard's book.  If you use this process, along with your district's curriculum guides, you will be set up for creating projects that are fully standards based.

To use the protocol you first need to have your district curriculum for the year.  Many districts call this a Year at a Glance or YAG.  Within your YAG, or equivalent document, you will have standards that you will be expected to cover during set periods or within designated "Units."  If you're lucky your district will have given the units a theme or big idea.  Having a theme or idea will immediately translate to a project idea and you are already heading in the right direction.

But no matter how it is presented to you, there will be standards that are expected to be taught and here's where the Power Standards Protocol comes in.  Power standards are those standards that have endurance, leverage and/or readiness.  

Endurance standards are those standards that will be important for students throughout their academic life and beyond.   For example understanding whether a math answer is reasonable is a standard in many math courses and at many grades.  It is also important in life - when you get that car loan does the monthly bill seem reasonable?  That standard has endurance.

Leverage standards are those standards that will be important in multiple classes.  For example understanding how to read data in a graph is important in math, in social studies, in science and in many other courses.  That is a standard that has leverage.

Readiness standards are those standards that help build a foundation for success in the next course or grade.  For example basic arithmetic standards for adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing are required to be successful in subsequent math classes.  This example is also a standard that has leverage and endurance.  So, some standards have all three requirements.  And, these are standards that are more powerful - hence power standards.

These days we also look at how standards effect the successful completion of state standardized tests. And so the ideas of endurance, leverage, and readiness must also be discussed in relation to these tests.  Results from the previous year for individual students or for specific grades can, and should, be added into the discussion of which standards are Power Standards.  If only 44% of your students got the correct answer for questions involving a certain standard and there were 8 questions from that standard on the latest test, then this standard might be a power standard.

So, look at the standards that you have to cover in your next unit.  It is a good idea to make an initial prioritization based upon your knowledge of your content and any other relevant factors.  Then look at the data from previous years as well as the leverage, endurance, and readiness qualities.  This will often change your initial prioritization.  Now you are ready for a final prioritization of the standards for that unit.  

It is important to understand that prioritizing the standards does not imply that you don't have to cover those standards that received the lowest priority.  Every standard will have to be taught and assessed.  But, those standards with  the highest priority will be your power standards and you will want to make sure that you plan to teach, assess, and reteach (if necessary) these standards.  And, you will want to have these standards as key components of your project.

One way to emphasize the power standards is to have them listed in your rubrics.  We like to use 4-column rubrics with the first column listing the standards to be covered in the project.  You may also want to have line items in the rubric that address these standards specifically.  If students know that they are required to master a certain standard or task then they are more willing to take them seriously.  Make sure they are aware of what standards they are expected to learn and they will take charge of their learning.

Data mining is now an expected skill in education.  And, I would say, this is one of the more important tasks teachers learn in their first few years in the classroom.  Through the process of finding the power standards teachers now know what key topics their students need to learn to be successful in the classroom and in the students' future classes.  Knowing their power standards can turn teachers into power educators.

It's That Time of Year, Again

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     I had a conversation with a teacher today that was very refreshing and revealing.  It seems I'm not alone in feeling like I am giving up on some of my students.  The last few years I have really just gotten tired around the first of May and there are some students who I just don't want to deal with any more.

     My liberal, help-the-world, brain feels incredibly guilty about this.  And the advice given to me by my father-in-law when I went into education, "you can't save them all," seems to make more sense every day.

     I wrestle with myself as I write my agenda for the next day - will Jimmy be able to understand and will he do his work with his group, or will I have to deal with his off task behaviors (again)?  And will I just give up and let him be off task - as long as he isn't disturbing anyone else?

     This mental state is especially acute this year as I sit between jobs.  I'm 90 (98?) % sure that I will not be back at Manor New Technology High School in the fall.  The students feel that I'm 100% gone and they are yelling at me for not being there for them next year.  With 10 school days left I am really getting, what we would call in the Navy, a short timer's attitude.  "I'm so short I can barely see over my shoe laces;" "I'm so short I need help getting up to each rung on the ladder," etc..

     I'm convinced that this happens more these days because of all of the standardized testing.  (It's NOT because I'm getting old!)  Once the testing is done the teachers are tired and the students have decided that there isn't anything else to work for.  It is really bad for AP students who, literally, are finished with their classes and have taken their AP exams.

     And so my wish for these last 10 days is additional energy.  A little more positive attitude on my part would be nice as well.  I have my students for 180 days.  They deserve my attention for all of those days.  I can rest in the 2 or 3 days between the end of the school year and the start of my new job that might, just maybe, be happening.  Wish me luck.

     If this new job happens I will be filling the pages of this blog with information from my experiences there.  And, yes, it will be a PBL environment.  Once you have taught with PBL you won't ever go back to the regular classroom.

The Cost of Field Testing

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     This week our Freshmen students took the first two tests in the latest version of Texas' standardized testing program STAAR (State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness).  At the same time our Juniors were being tested in a field test on the same subject areas.  I had the opportunity to be one of the proctors for the Junior tests.

     I want to make sure that I say, up front, that the staff here tried to take these field tests very seriously.  We tried to get the students "excited" (if that's even possible) about taking them.  We went through all of the steps you do when you are administering the test as it is required by law.  The one thing we could not control was how the students would act during the testing.

     Student conduct on field testing drives me crazy and makes me do things like write this post.  As someone with a degree in mathematics (specifically statistics), I question the validity of data obtained from this "random sample" of students taking the tests.  Yes, you can randomly select schools to do the field testing.  But the data will be incredibly skewed by the attitudes of the test takers at those schools.  And, high schoolers WILL skew data if they decide to do that.

    Anyone who has seen Freshmen take a standardized test knows that there will be a certain percentage of students who will "christmas tree" the test.  Christmas treeing is quite fascinating.  Some students will select a letter to bubble in, say an A, and the entire test will be that letter.  Most students just bubble in A,B,C,D,A,... so there is a beautiful pattern of diagonal dots.  Others who are more imaginative will turn the answer sheet sideways and will try to spell out a message such as THIS TEST SUCKS with the dots.

     In Texas students get it in their head that the only test that "matters" is the tests they take as Juniors.  That allows for a huge (still less than 10% ?)  percentage of students christmas treeing as Freshmen.  That number, from experience not official data, is cut in half during the sophomore tests.  But there are a LOT of students doing this and it effects the score schools receive for the tests.  When this happens throughout the state the end results from school to school are statistically relevant and so we can justify the scoring that is used by the state to grade the school.

     Now when you place the fact that a percentage of high schoolers WILL not take a test seriously if it "doesn't count."  And, you then make that test a four hour test where they have to read passages and write essays and the "give-a-darn" (GAD) factor drops to a minimum level.   When the GAD reaches a critically low level some interesting things can happen.

    Take, for example, the student who christmas treed the entire test answer book even though the book was for two different tests and the test had a line that said "STOP and turn your test into the administrator" after the first test.  What was he thinking?  He was thinking "I want to finish this test as soon as possible so I can get out of here."  Or the students who were discussing (after the test had ended) what they had written.  As I was telling them that they can not discuss the test I heard one say that they had written Taylor Swift lyrics as their essay.  What they were doing was imaginatively writing essays that meant something to them - no matter what the prompt was about. (But it DOES make you wonder what the prompt was - was it really that bad or did they never even read it?)

     We have pretty darn good students.  They perform at a high level when they are asked and when the result of their efforts is meaningful to them.  If our school could be graded by the results of tests on every subject except math we would have received the highest rating given to schools in Texas in 2011.  These kids know how to take standardized tests and they know how to do well on them.

     So, how much did it "cost" to take the field test?  Well there were tests and answer booklets printed for our entire Junior class.  The Juniors lost about 5 or 6 hours of instructional time over two separate days.  Teachers were out of their classrooms monitoring the testing and administrators were involved with testing instead of being available for students, parents, and teachers.  Now that the tests have been given they will have to be graded - how much of the contract is taken up by that cost?

     The entirety of the cost can only be estimated. But the bottom line is that whatever dollar amount you want to assign to this field test has to be evaluated towards the validity of the test results.  I would estimate that between 20 and 40% of our students ended up not completing the test in a serious fashion. I would also be bold enough to say that another 10 to 20% wanted to just get it over as fast as possible. The end result is I can safely say that at least 50% of the students gave less than their full effort on that field test.  So how relevant will the data be from this test?  Not relevant at all and that is money that has been totally wasted.

What A PBL Teacher Does on Vacation

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     Today is the first day of my Spring Break and I am relaxing by watching NCAA Basketball, keeping tabs on SXSWi, thinking about how I will be mentoring a school doing a school-wide pbl, and planning my classes for when the break ends.

     There are teachers who will not do anything teaching related.  There are teachers who will travel and will not allow school to enter their minds.  And, there are teachers, like me, who other teachers will accuse of having no life.

     To me you can never really leave the classroom too far behind.  As a pbl teacher I am accustomed to reflecting on how projects are going and what, if anything, will need to change to make the learning successful.  And that's where I sit today.  The project I am leading in my freshmen class is not going exactly the way I wanted and we, for the first time, have a true client to report to.  But my students don't really have an understanding of what is required for this to be a success.

     In my junior class my students have checked out and are not focusing on what they need to do to be successful in their project.  The problem with this group of students is that they created the project.  They asked to do the project.  But they have not embraced actually doing the project and that needs to change.

     I teach two different classes with two unique problems.  My freshmen are in a class they are required to take and they will respond to whatever I ask of them with a minimum of resignation that the work has to happen.  My juniors are in an elective that all but one or two are in reluctantly.  They do not want to learn about  digital electronics and the maximum I can expect is the minimum needed to pass.

     I look at the coming week away from the classroom as a chance to regroup with both classes.  I will take the time to create new projects that can be launched as soon as needed after the break.  With my juniors I may decide that it means a total regroup immediately upon returning to class.  With my Freshmen I know that it will be a minimum of 2 weeks before I launch the next project but I can find ways to make the wrap up of this project go smoother.

    An additional element in my planning is that we are moving into the standardized test season.  I can expect tests during every week between the week we get back and the middle of May.  Some weeks will only effect the freshmen and some weeks will only effect the juniors.  Other weeks will effect both groups of students.  These testing breaks can really effect the flow of a project and must be planned for up-front.

     So I'm on Spring Break.  So what.  I've got a lot of work to do.  And the work I do this week will keep  the months of April and May that much more enjoyable.  I'll get my break in June.  Then I just have to start planning for the 2012-2013 school year.  Or should I start planning that now?

Manor Plays the State Assessment Game

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     Today I attended our district's meeting to lock in details for how the state's new End of Course (EOC) exams will effect our students.  We met to discuss key issues concerning how we would convert the scale score to a grade and how (or if) these exams would effect the Grade Point Average (GPA) and Class Rank.

     Before I say anything further I want to say that I was very impressed with how we really attempted to interpret "suggestions" by the Texas Education Association (TEA) regarding these topics.  This was really made evident when we heard anecdotal accounts of what other districts in the area were considering for their answers to the same questions.

     What was frustrating, for all, was that fine line we kept treading between what is best for the district and what is best for our students.  We looked at how tests would be perceived by students.  How students AND parents would view the results of the tests.  And we discussed whether we needed to have the results effect class rank (which lead to thoughts of parental and district law suits over said results).

     The first item of business was to decide how we wanted to convert the state scale score to a graded score to be averaged into the student's grade.  This seems minor but in previous meetings we had, pretty much, decided to no longer award 0.5 credits for completion of each semester and just award 1.0 credit for completion of the entire year.  As for the grading score we had to start with a fictitious scale score because the state hasn't created one yet.  And, each test will have a sliding score along that scale for passing and failing.  By the end of the meeting we had agreed to a set score for the categories of  minimum, satisfactory, and advanced.  What we all agreed to not do is have a graduated scale but one set score for each of the  categories.

     What we ended the meeting with was discussing what the minimum score would be.  We never locked in a value but we are definitely willing to hold our students more accountable to the results of the test than other districts in the area.  One district, it is said, is considering having a score of 100 for a satisfactory score and a 70 for anything below that score.  So, no matter how their students do on the test, they will pass it.  Sign your name?  You passed.  Are you kidding me?  We never came to consensus but let's say we are willing to go below a 70 for scores below that mark on the state scale score.

     An interesting phenomenon occurred as we were in this discussion.  We, as educators, are willing to fight for the rights of those kids in "the danger zone," (just at passing going into the EOC) but we don't always think about how our top tier of students will do on these tests.   We were able to have some good thoughts on how these scores would effect GPA and Class Rank.  We came to consensus that the tests would be included in these two areas but we didn't just gloss it over.  We really took our time considering all of the angles.

     It is worth noting that a definite feel of affluent districts versus less-affluent districts came out of our discussions.  It really seemed to most of us that some districts are doing things in anticipation of lawsuits and are almost daring the state to create mandates that are worthy of bringing forth litigation.  Many of the other districts, like ours, are trying to give a good faith effort to impose changes that will reflect the intentions of the TEA.  We will be ready in January to present our decisions to the school board for their blessings and, come May, our students will have a system in place to convert their score on the EOC exams to a grade that will be averaged in with their other grades for the year in that subject.

     Once more I am pleasantly surprised at how our school district is able to come to consensus while letting all sides present opinions.  I think we can all agree that TEA really hasn't been able to think through with this albatross they've strung around our necks.  But we don't plan on drowning.  We're treading water and moving towards the high ground.