By Kathy Glass
Many academicians have espoused the efficacy of using essential understandings (EUs) and guiding questions (GQs) as a driving force in curriculum design and instruction. Lynn Erickson crystallizes the relationship between concepts and facts as she mentions their “synergistic effect.” She states: “This factual/conceptual integration of thinking should be a conscious design goal for curriculum and instruction” (2007). Most people don’t remember a litany of facts; however, if tied to concepts so there is a home base, then people are much more likely to recall these facts. KUDs – what we want students to know, understand, and do – form the basis for a unit and emanate from standards. It is imperative that teachers present and teach the factual information (“know”) and skills (“do”) with the end goal to have students use them to make sense of a greater realization expressed in EUs and GQs. read more…
Effective Leadership:
One on One Conversations by Stanley S. Kogut, Jr.
“Individual conversations with staff, customers, partners, and community members provide more specific information and opportunities to influence than any other activity.”
Face to face conversation is an essential way of communicating across all activities of life. Individual conversations with staff, customers, partners, and community members provide more specific information and opportunities to influence than any other activity. So how does a leader use this method to benefit the organization?
Let me share a story about hiring a Director who reported to me. During the interview process there were some questions raised about this person’s ability. I met with the candidate myself and spent almost two hours with him asking some very difficult questions, which the person responded to with candidness and sincerity. The person was hired, did a fantastic job, and became a credit to the organization.
About a year later, this person was hiring an individual in his area and I asked to meet with the person. The administrator requested to be part of the meeting. We had a very pleasant conversation which lasted less than a half hour. After the meeting the administrator asked if he could talk to me. As soon as the door was closed, he said the reason he wanted to be there when I met with the candidate was that he was worried I would grill her too hard and she might not join us. After a short pause he asked me why I was so easy on her but so tough on him. I replied that I was accountable for him while she was his direct report and he would be accountable for her and it was his responsibility to ensure she was a good fit for the job and the organization.
Conversations such as these can help promote the culture the leader is trying to instill one individual at a time. Working with staff one on one, either face to face, or through electronic formats helps to build rapport and trust. In her book Confidence, Rosabeth Kanter spoke about the importance of accountability: “People become more accountable when they feel responsible to others, when they know how to connect their own and others’ contributions to produce a victory for the team. . . .”
Individual conversations give leaders opportunities to teach and learn, to probe and lead. Keeping individual lines of communication open within the organization and the community you serve provides for opportunities to deliver the message in a very powerful yet personal way.
Read this article on the HOPE Foundation Web site.
Stanley S. Kogut, Jr. is superintendent of Ingham Intermediate School District in Mason, MI (www.inghamisd.org). He began his career in 1972 as a biology teacher. After graduating from law school, he worked in the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office, as an assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, and in private practice in Birmingham. He attended Wayne State University School of Law where he obtained a Juris Doctorate and a Master of Law Degree, specializing in labor law.
Aligning Research with What Works Best
Commentaries on Leadership: Interpersonal Accountability as a Hallmark of Continuous Improvement
Commentaries on Leadership:
Interpersonal Accountability as a Hallmark of Continuous Improvement
by Dennis Sparks
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“We define integrity—a key ingredient in character and a primary spiritual muscle—as doing what you say you are going to do when you say you are going to do it.” — Jim Loehr & Tony Schwartz |
I believe
I believe that interpersonal accountability among educators is an essential element in the culture of schools that continuously improve teaching, learning, and relationships. While external accountability of various types will always be attached to public funding, it is insufficient to guide and motivate day-to-day advances in professional understanding and practice.
Interpersonal accountability begins with a clear set of goals to which teachers and administrators aspire and agreements regarding actions they will take to ensure that all students achieve to their full potential. For instance, educators may agree to be fully engaged and present during meetings and promise their colleagues to complete in a timely manner particular tasks related to curriculum, pedagogy, or assessment. And because team members are first and foremost accountable to one another, breakdowns in agreement keeping are addressed by peers rather than by “superiors” in the organization. Such peer-to-peer influence is the hallmark of interpersonal accountability.
What you can do now
Prepare an “I believe” statement about interpersonal accountability as a means of establishing direction and sustaining motivation in improvement efforts. After writing your statement, share it with colleagues for the purpose of better understanding your own views and those of others. To promote learning and to counter the debate and defensiveness that often occur when individuals advocate the “truth” of their points of view, I encourage you to offer your belief in the spirit of mutual inquiry with a genuine openness to being influenced by others.
| Dennis Sparks is emeritus executive director of the National Staff Development Council (nsdc.org) and serves as a “thinking partner” to leadership teams of education organizations. He is the author of the best-selling book Leading For Results (corwinpress.com), and his Leading Through Learning essays are co-published by NSDC and Phi Delta Kappa International (pdkintl.org/publications/leading.htm). He can be reached at dennis.sparks@comcast.net. |
Commentaries on Leadership:
Nurture Trust
by Dennis Sparks
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“The research suggests that walk-throughs can play a constructive role only when districts make their purpose clear and carry them out in a climate of trust.” — Jane David |
I believe
I believe that few responsibilities of school leadership are more important than the intentional development and maintenance of trust. Trust is a core element of school cultures that continuously improve teaching, learning, and relationships in schools. The success of structural changes (like creating new positions) and technical skills (conducting productive walk-throughs) ultimately depend on the quality of relationships among the adults in schools. And because relationship qualities such as trust can be difficult to repair once damaged, it is essential that they be carefully nurtured and maintained by school leaders. A core attribute of a culture of trust is leaders’ trustworthiness as demonstrated by their honesty and ability to consistently do what they say they will do. It is essential that leaders truly embody the trust that they seek in their organizations.
What you can do now
Prepare an “I believe” statement about the intentional development and maintenance of trust in schools. After writing your statement, share it with colleagues to better understand your own views and those of others. To promote learning and to counter the debate and defensiveness that often occur when individuals advocate the “truth” of their points of view, I encourage you to offer your belief in the spirit of mutual inquiry with a genuine openness to being influenced by others.
| Dennis Sparks is emeritus executive director of the National Staff Development Council (nsdc.org) and serves as a “thinking partner” to leadership teams of education organizations. He is the author of the best-selling book Leading For Results (corwinpress.com), and his Leading Through Learning essays are co-published by NSDC and Phi Delta Kappa International (pdkintl.org/publications/leading.htm). He can be reached at dennis.sparks@comcast.net. |
Engage the Neural “Processor”
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The following is an excerpt from: Engaging Every Learner Contributors: Alan Blankstein, Pedro Noguera, Stephen Peters, Alan Boyle, Thomas Guskey, Antoinette Mitchell and others…
Benjamin Bloom outlined a specific instructional strategy… labeling it learning for mastery (Bloom, 1968), and later shortening the name to simply mastery learning (Bloom, 1974). With this strategy, teachers first organize the concepts and skills they want students to learn into instructional units that typically involve about a week or two of instructional time. Following initial instruction on the unit, teachers administer a brief assessment based on the unit’s learning goals. Bloom recommended calling this a formative assessment, borrowing a term that Scriven (1967) had coined a year earlier to describe the informative, rather than judgmental, aspects of program evaluations. Instead of signifying the end of the unit, this formative assessment’s purpose is to give both students and teacher information, or feedback, on each student’s learning progress. It helps students and teachers identify specifically what has been learned well to that point and what has not (Bloom, Hastings, & Madaus, 1971).
Paired with each formative assessment are specific corrective activities for students to use in correcting their learning difficulties. Most teachers match these correctives to each item or set of prompts within the assessment so that students need work on only those concepts or skills not yet mastered. In other words, the correctives are individualized. They may point out additional sources of information on a particular topic, such as page numbers in the textbook or workbook where the topic is discussed. They may identify alternative learning resources such as different textbooks, learning kits, alternative materials, CDs, videos, or computerized instructional lessons. Or they may simply suggest sources of additional practice, such as study guides, independent or guided practice activities, or collaborative group activities. In most classrooms, teachers direct the corrective activities. But in some, students work independently or in small groups.
With the feedback and corrective information gained from a formative assessment, each student has a detailed prescription of what more needs to be done to master the concepts or skills from the unit. This “just-in-time” correction prevents minor learning difficulties from accumulating and becoming major learning problems. It also gives teachers a practical means to vary and differentiate their instruction in order to better meet students individual learning needs. As a result, many more students learn well, master the important learning goals in each unit, and gain the necessary prerequisites for success in subsequent units.
When students complete their corrective activities after a class period or two, Bloom recommended they take a second formative assessment. This second, parallel assessment covers the same concepts and skills as the first, but is composed of slightly different problems or questions, and serves two important purposes. First, it verifies whether or not the correctives were successful in helping students overcome their individual learning difficulties. Second, it offers students a second chance at success and, hence, has powerful motivational value.
Some students, of course, will perform well on the first assessment, demonstrating that they have mastered the unit concepts and skills. The teacher’s initial instruction was highly appropriate for these students, and they have no need of corrective work. To ensure their continued learning progress, Bloom recommended these students be provided with special enrichment or extension activities to broaden their learning experiences. Such activities often are self-selected by students and might involve special projects or reports, academic games, or a variety of complex problem-solving tasks. Materials designed for gifted and talented students provide an excellent source of enrichment or extension activities.
Through this process of formative classroom assessment, combined with the systematic correction of individual learning difficulties, Bloom believed all students could be provided with a more appropriate quality of instruction than is possible under more traditional approaches to teaching. As a result, nearly all might be expected to learn well and truly master the unit concepts or learning goals (Bloom, 1976). This, in turn, would drastically reduce the variation in students’ achievement levels, eliminate achievement gaps, and yield a distribution of achievement more like that shown in Figure 6.3 (See p. 107 of Engaging Every Learner). In describing mastery learning, however, Bloom emphasized that reducing variation in students’ achievement does not imply making all students the same. Even under these more favorable learning conditions, some students undoubtedly will learn more than others, especially those involved in enrichment activities. But by recognizing relevant, individual differences among students and then altering instruction to better meet their diverse learning needs, Bloom believed the variation among students in terms of how well they learn specific concepts or master a set of articulated learning goals could eventually reach a vanishing point (Bloom, 1973). As a result, gaps in the achievement of different groups of students would be closed and all students could be helped to learn excellently.
References:
- Bloom, B. S. (1968). Learning for mastery. Evaluation Comment, 1(2), 112.
- Bloom, B. S. (1973). Individual differences in school achievement: A vanishing point? In L. J. Rubin (Ed.), Facts and feelings in the classroom. New York: Walker.
- Bloom, B. S. (1974). An introduction to mastery learning theory. In J. H. Block (Ed.), Schools, society, and mastery learning. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
- Bloom, B. S., Hastings, J. T., & Madaus, G. (1971). Handbook on formative and summative evaluation of student learning. New York: McGraw-Hill.
- Scriven, M. (1967). The methodology of evaluation. In R. W. Tyler, R. M. Gagne, & M. Scriven (Eds.), Perspectives of curriculum evaluation (pp. 39-83). AERA Monograph Series on Curriculum Evaluation, No. 1. Chicago: Rand McNally.
By Ruth Nelson
Thomas Guskey, Ph.D., professor of educational psychology at the University of Kentucky, sat down with me to discuss the recent focus districts have placed on assessments and the resulting challenges.
Thomas, I am on the Board of a school district currently doing an assessment audit. We are finding we are testing our kids a great deal and are concerned that all this testing might not be the best use of teacher and student time. Can you shed some light on how to go about reviewing or setting up an assessment plan? read more…
By Judy Willis
Excerpts from Chapter 1: Memory, Learning, and Test-Taking Success
(This book is available through ASCD; www.ascd.org)
The more ways something is learned, the more memory pathways are built. This brain research discovery is part of the reason for the current notion that stimulating the growth of more dendrites and synaptic connections is one of the best things teachers can learn to do for the brains of their students. read more…
By Ruth Nelson
January is a month of new beginnings and so an appropriate time to spend some time reviewing the past year and looking forward to what the coming years may bring in K-12 education. To help me in this endeavor, I was fortunate to have a conversation with Virginia B. Edwards, the long-time Editor-in-Chief of Education Week and President of Editorial Projects in Education (EPE). Education Week just unveiled its 16th annual report card on education policymaking called “Quality Counts 2012.” read more…
