Implementing Science-based Instruction to Promote Learning for All

Effective Schools Research identifies the following correlates are present in all cases of an effective school:

1.      Clear and focused mission

2.      Climate of high expectations

3.      Instructional leadership

4.      Opportunity to learn/student time on task

5.      Frequently monitoring student progress

6.      Safe and orderly environment

7.    Home-school relations (Lezotte, 1991)

The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), reauthorized as No Child Left Behind (NCLB, 2001), requires instructional leaders utilize strategies, approaches, and program initiatives that are scientific or research based and frequent monitoring to close identified achievement gaps.  Prospective teachers and in-service teachers both benefit from understanding the seven correlates of Effective Schools Research, which includes these two variables within an inter-connected system.  Given any system is a "network of interdependent components that work together to accomplish the aim of the system" (Deming (1993), institutes of higher education (IHE) and other teacher preparation programs should increase expectations for knowledge of systems and the ability to think systemically. 

Given the interdependency of the seven correlates of Effective Schools, school leaders must approach them with the view of implementing them all at once.  Thus, a clear and focused mission as well as strong instructional leadership is required to move the other interdependent correlates from being an ideal to effective practice.  Since Effective Schools Research demonstrates that a result of schools ignoring the interdependence among the seven correlates is slow progress, then without strong, respected instructional leadership that can help bring consensus for a clear and focused mission, confusion about how to incorporate all the correlates simultaneously would prevail.

An Effective School’s mission, grounded in the seven correlates for reform, would expect success regardless of socioeconomic status (SES) of its students.  Stakeholders would therefore need to make the interconnected seven correlates more powerful within its mission than the power of the low SES to deny opportunity.  “Effective indicates that a school, teacher, or district is doing the right job.  Based on our definition of an effective school, this term specifies that the school must attend to the twin policy pillars of quality and equity.  Effective schools research has shown that the practices among effective schools have consistently been found to be more alike than different” (Lezotte & Snyder, 2011, p 17).

Frequent monitoring for success is more than testing (Lezotte & Snyder, 2011).  States utilizing large-scale testing to make high-stakes educational decisions must ensure alignment between such tests and the state’s curricula or learning standards.  Alignment provides a fairer measure of student learning.  As states became increasingly reliant on large-scale educational assessments, experts began to explicate scientific–based guidelines for developing and implementing assessment and accountability programs (Baker, 2001).  “Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing" (1999) was jointly published by APA, the American Educational Research Association and the National Council on Measurement in Education.  Guidelines.  Forthcoming is a 2012 revision.  State test developers have since found the following standards useful:

·         Utilize tests only for their validated purpose.

·         Avoid making high-stakes decisions based on the results of only one test.

·         Align tests to the states' curriculum standards, so that teachers can prepare students to succeed.

·         Ensure tests only measure the academic domain of interest, without unwittingly emphasizing extraneous factors.

·         Adjust test sensitivity based on school quality differences.

Educational psychology links the science of psychology with educational practice and provides teachers with evidence-based knowledge to support their day-to-day decision-making in the classroom.  (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2009).  The science element of educational psychology involves formulating theories and conducting research on those theories.  All teachers should practice action research.  As both consumers of research and practitioners of research, it becomes important for pre-service and in-service teachers to understand guidelines for what constitutes reputable research.

·      Avoid using newspaper and magazine articles, as they are not research articles.

·       Avoid Internet searches using search engines, because they may not yield credible sources.

·     Find and utilize peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals at a local university library.

·      Find and utilize peer-reviewed articles in databases such as ERIC and PSYINFO.

·      Bookmark websites of professional associations and monitor them for links to new education research.

·         American Educational Research Association (AERA)

·         American Psychological Association (APA)

·         Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) (Bohlin, Durwin, & Reese-Weber, 2009)

Since 2006, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) has been actively advocating for educators, policymakers, business leaders, families, and community members to work together on a whole child approach to education.  The whole child approach to learning, teaching, and community engagement has been grounded in the belief that “each child, in each school, in each of our communities deserves to be healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged” (ASCD, 2010).  These fundamental tenets have long been seen as essential for ensuring students become college-, career-, and citizenship-ready, a desired outcome of the Effective Schools Movement.

In order to effectively lead a school using a whole child approach to education, a principal needs to be “visionary; effective instructional leaders; active learners; and influencers within their staff and the community” (ASCD, 2010).  As can be expected, the Whole Child Approach to education promotes policies and practices aligned to support the whole child.  This requires a change in how adults currently work together to educate children.  Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) have emerged as perhaps the best, most agreed upon means of continual improvement in instruction and student performance.  PLCs are evidenced in a single school or online.  Models include study groups, action research teams, communities of practice, or conversation circles.  The essential focus of any PLC is for educators to work together, with a shared focus on learning and accountability to help all students learn at high levels.

Just as public schools needed to establish metrics for accountability of their teaching and learning mission, so too would institutes of higher education (IHE) and teacher preparation programs need to establish better metrics for measuring the competencies of their graduates, including knowledge of systems and ability to think systemically.  To address this, IHE and other teacher preparation programs must recognize the aim for graduating “instruments of systems change” rather than merely preparing individuals to administer curriculum.  Basile and Nathenson-Mejía (2003) suggests the process for problem-based learning creates a healthy environment for reflection, discussion, and problem solving.  Their study illustrates how teacher candidates move from micro-reflection to self-reflection to macro-reflection resulting from a year-long engagement in a teacher education program within a professional development school.  Implications from their study suggest that problem-based learning is a valid process for the enculturation of teacher candidates to schools and to the profession of teaching.

References:

Bohlin, L., Durwin, C., & Reese-Weber, M. (2009). Ed Psych: Modules. NY: McGraw-Hill.

Lezotte, L. W. (1991) Correlates of Effective Schools: The First and Second Generation.

            http://www.effectiveschools.com/images/stories/escorrelates.pdf

Lezotte, L. W., & Snyder, K. M. (2011). What effective schools do: Re-envisioning the correlates. 

            Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.

Schmoker, J, (1999) The Key to Continuous School Improvement (2nd edition) ASCD

Time to Prioritize: Educational Values Compared to Unlimited Texting and 57 TV Channels

In an age of questionable priorities should anyone be amazed that Colorado school districts excessing 20% of its teaching staff does not result in public outrage?  Massachusetts experienced similar cuts in teaching staffs during the 1990-91 economic recession.  Given such layoffs, would anyone question the exacerbation of the opportunity gap created by school budgets reliant on property taxes?

Related to educational values, should there be more outrage over what is happening in your district?  If you are satisfied with the level of layoffs in teaching and support staff, does the outrage then need to center on having too many staff for too long?  By contrast, do layoffs to teaching and support staff cause you to question how your school district will implement effective instruction?  In either case, should there by outrage focused upon forcing children's education to be victimized by politics?  Perception in the debate means a great deal.  This is why core educational values need to be reinforced and held accountable by measurable goals.  

It is a fact that we live in an age in which Consumer Reports identifies the average family paying $1800 annually for cell phone service and CNN reports many families spending $1200 per year for cable television.  Yet, people complain about property taxes being too high despite property taxes being the most common source of revenue for public education.  Is it ethical for local political leaders to focus constituent outrage on property taxes without focusing on how school funding is reliant upon this revenue stream?

We are spending hundreds of millions of dollars nationally to assess student progress, or lack thereof.  Given the wide disparity in average state expenditure per pupil, there is room for accountability in the debate referenced above.  For instance, in the 2003-04 school year, state's per-student expenditures ranged from a high of $13,338 in New Jersey to a low of $4,991 in Utah.  If New Jersey students were rated in the middle of the pack on NAEP testing would New Jersey residents have a legitimate complaint about the use of their taxes for school revenues?  By contrast, if Utah residents saw their students' NAEP scores merely average compared to other states on the NAEP list of scores, would anyone be surprised?  Unfortunately, the latter is more consistently true than the former, which should be supportive data for proponents of increasing public revenues for public education. 

Where does accountability fit into the funding debate considering ethical public education is evidenced by equity in quality (Ravitch, 2011)?  Lips (2006) suggests "we won't see widespread improvements in American education until we as taxpayers begin to recognize the costs of the current American education system and demand something better" (para. 12).  Do you believe it is important for all educational institutions to have measurable systemic and educational goals that are based on a "learning for all" mission grounded in a clear vision illiminated by solid ethics?  Will explication of the seven correlates for Effective Schools help all Americans become more willing to pay for a world-class public education?  Is this the next level of communication necessary to hold each other accountable for educational results beyond AYP test scores?    

Why Does an Educational Change Leader Need to Develop a Learning Organization?

      As noted in the previous post, action research is a process in which educators systematically investigate instructional practices and techniques in order to improve their teaching.  As part of the process, the impact of a specific instructional practice on student learning is measured.  The results become the basis for educational planning, innovation, and effective decision-making.  Therefore, by utilizing action research, the educational leader increases development of the disciplines required to promote a learning organization. 

      Themes and theories identified in the literature in relation to the concept of a learning organization were developed from 1990-1999.  In addition to Senge’s (1990) systems model, Steiner's (1998) organizational learning model garnered a lot of attention.  The five primary disciplines of a learning organization were identified by Senge (1990) as: systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning.  By utilizing these disciplines, facilitating the learning of teachers and students, and transforming itself as part of a continuous improvement process, a school will thereby begin to exhibit the essential features of a learning organization.

      An effective change leader’s new role and additional responsibilities would be to support staff transitions throughout the change process.  This is optimized by helping build resiliency during change.  It is also essential for the change leader to willingly destabilize the system to promote innovation, provide workplace balance, and thereby create a learning organization.  Since this requires a change in the educational leader’s primary purpose, the creation of organizational structure that encourages a culture of learning (Senge, Kleinder, Roberts, Ross, and Smith, 1994) requires the right people becoming part of the organization.  Therefore, the role of an educational change leader needs to be much more proactive, inclusive, trusting, trustworthy, and supportive.  Being proactive will mitigate reacting to or worrying about conditions over which they have little or no control. 

      As a result, the proactive educational change leader is better able to focus time and energy on what can be controlled.  Covey (1989) identified the importance of allowing problems, challenges, and opportunities to fall into two areas--Circle of Concern and Circle of Influence.  Proficiency in this area allows the educational change leader to attend to the appropriate details within his or her sphere (Senge et al., 1994).  Ironically, the result can then be a school that is a learning organization prepared to promote learning for all!

 References

Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic. New

            York: Free Press

Senge, P.M. (1990). The fifth discipline. London ENG: Century Business

Senge, P. M., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., & Smith, B. J. (1994). The fifth discipline

            fieldbook: Strategies and tools for building a learning organization. New York:

            Doubleday.

Can Action Research Result in Effective Professional Development?

           Action research is continual professional development and provides a direct route to improving teaching and learning (Calhoun,2002).  Using the process to facilitate school-wide change offers the opportunity to transform the school’s climate.  Teachers and administrators work together to create a professional community in which all contribute to the plan.  As the principal begins to investigate the practicality of implementing action research school-wide, the following questions should be addressed:

 •                      What does the disaggregated classroom data reflect about student and teacher learning?

•                      What do teachers need to learn in order to impact specific student learning needs?
•                      How is the school going to support teacher learning to ensure student achievement?
•                      How will teachers and the school evaluate classroom instruction and professional learning? What evaluation tools will be used?
•                      How will teachers and the school use the information collected through the evaluation to make specific and targeted decisions regarding research-based instructional strategies?

            Action research is a process in which teachers systematically investigate instructional practices and techniques in order to improve their teaching.  The impact of a specific instructional practice on student learning is measured.  The results become the basis for educational planning and decision-making.

            The principal can learn a great deal from the resources available to communicate effectively with teachers, other administrators and district staff, and parents.  If there is a university in the area, consult with faculty to assist with professional development or mentoring of teachers or principals.  As the principal guides the staff toward successful implementation, questions will continue to need answers and the level of understanding will continue to improve.  It is important to be a risk-taker and demonstrate the what, why, and how of action research.  In this way action research results in effective professional development.

Foresight is Necessary to Effectively Use a Process for Closing the Achievement Gap

        The achievement gap between economically poor and disadvantaged students and their non-disadvantaged counterparts is nothing new.  Evidence suggests that it can be mitigated using a four-step Targeted Accelerated Growth (TAG) loop process: (1) discovering through the administration of diagnostic assessment the sub-skill deficiency, (2) providing increased direct instructional time, (3) focused teaching to the deficient sub-skill, and (4) retesting to assure that learning has actually occurred (Fielding, Kerr, & Rosier,2007, p. 19),  Despite documented success of the process,  the field seemingly refuses to use the foresight needed to improve learning for all.

        As noted by Fielding et al., (2007), "layers of processes, some of which may not even currently exist in your district, must be carefully added and must work together.  In addition, the governance structure must interact in different ways to create and sustain these changes" (p. 20).  

        The TAG loop process is a process not a linear model.  With any process foresight is needed to accept changes resulting from the interpretation of reliable data.  This is crucial for success based on application of correct micro-adjustments.  It takes foresight from educational leaders and stakeholders to utilize diagnostic testing and professional development for the teaching staff to ensure they are able to effectively use data.  This is the piece that allows proportional increases in instructional time to be well-developed.  Without data gathering and understanding how to use it diagnostically-little else to promote an effective process is truly possible.  Unfortunately, too often well-intentioned administrators convey the need for change without teaching stakeholders, including staff, how to interpret the meaning of the data.  Using data to frequently monitor student progress is one of the seven correlates of reform posited by Effective Schools Research.

       College Park Elementary School has a preponderance of students whose parents are employed by the University of Maryland.  By contrast, Columbia Park Elementary School is located in an impoverished neighborhood near the District of Columbia.  College Park students scored at the 90th percentile on average, while Columbia Park scored at the 94th percentile (Comer 1998).  How is this possible?  Columbia Park Elementary School is able to consistently exhibit the seven correlates of Effective Schools:  

•           Safe and Orderly Environment

•           Clear and Focused Mission

•           Climate of High Expectations for Success

•           Opportunity to Learn & Student Time on Task

•           Frequent Monitoring of Student Progress

•           Positive Home-School Relations

•           Strong Instructional Leadership

         The illustration exemplified in Comer’s study proves it is not who goes to the school but what goes on in the school that matters.  How many of the seven correlates are evident in your school?  If some are not evident, what are you prepared to do to raise awareness of the need to utilize all seven correlates to promote learning for all?

Reference:

Comer, J. P. (1998). Educating poor minority children. Scientific American, 259(5) 42-48.

Fielding, L., Kerr, N., & Rosier, P. (2007). Annual growth for all students, catch-up growth for  

         those who are behind. New York: Foundation Press

Lezotte, L. W. (1991) Correlates of Effective Schools: The First and Second Generation.  

          http://www.effectiveschools.com/images/stories/escorrelates.pdf

The Need for Active Listening....wait, what???

As an element of emotional intelligence, social awareness is defined as the ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on with them.  This often means perceiving what other people are thinking and feeling even if you do not feel the same way (Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2002).  Perceiving emotions in others requires much greater listening than that done with one’s ears.  Being socially aware, which is certainly a core competency of any leadership model, requires listening and observing skills.  The effective leader and the efficient learner both understand the importance of watching and listening to people in order to “get a good sense of what they are thinking and feeling” (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009, p. 38)

Active listening is a core element for building strong collaborative partnerships, which is important for lifelong learning because, “the weaker the connection you have with someone, the harder it is to get your point across” (Bradberry & Greaves, 2009, p. 44).  Based on the information process model of learning (Ashcroft, 1994), active listening therefore promotes active learning.  As described by Gordan (1970), active listening requires the effective use of silence, paraphrasing, acknowledging without judgment, clarifying, and exhibiting empathy.  Covey (1989) exemplified four aspects of listening that includes:

·         Ignoring, (obvious),

·         Pretending, this usually involves hearing but not processing the information,

·         Selective listening, this involves processing only parts of the message,

·         Attentive listening involves paying attention and focusing on what you are hearing.

·          

Traits that affect listening effectiveness were described by Pearce, Johnson, and Barker (2003), in Table 1 (as in Ladyshewsky& Vilkinas, 2011):

·        

Objectivity Staying neutral and not getting involved emotionally, enhances listening.

Age Listening increases with age, until you get very old.

Open Mindedness Having an open mind improves your ability to listen.

Level of self-centeredness Over-preoccupation with self-image, knowledge or importance reduces effective listening.

Focus Don't do multiple tasks when trying to listen.

Intelligence A moderate relationship exists between intelligence and listening.

Level of anxiety and stress Stress lowers our ability to listen.

Managerial rank Managers tend to listen better than subordinates.

Presence of problems Diminishes hearing.

Gender Women are generally considered better listeners; men prefer to listen to the general, women to the details.

References:

Ashcraft, M.H. (1994). Human memory and cognition (2nd Ed.). NY: Harper Collins

Bradberry, T., & Greaves, J., (2009) Emotional Intelligence 2.0.  Talentsmart Service

Covey, S. R. (1989). The 7 habits of highly effective people: Restoring the character ethic. New

            York: Free Press.

Dittmar, J. K. (2006, Fall). An interview with Larry Spears: President & CEO for the Greenleaf

            Center for Servant Leaders. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies.

Goleman, D., Boyatzis, R., & McKee, A. (2002). Primal leadership: Realizing the power of

      emotional intelligence. Boston: HBS Press.

Gordon, Thomas. (2000). 1st rev. pbk. ed edition Three Rivers Press. ISBN 0609806939

Ladyshewsky R. Vilkinas, T.  (2011). Academic leadership: Fundamental Building Blocks for Fieldwork Coordinators [Resource book]. Strawberry Hills, New South Wales: Australian Learning and Teaching Council

Pearce, C. G., Johnson, I. W., & Barker, R. T. (2003). Assessment of the Listening Styles

            Inventory: Progress in establishing reliability and validity. Journal of Business and

            Technical Communication, 17(1), 84–113.

The Need for Publicly Funded Pre-school in the United States

Who would possibly disagree with the statement that “it seems to be a form of insanity for a society to allow the 'gap' to grow between advantaged and disadvantaged students to increase during the 0–5 years and then demand that the schools are responsible for closing the gap" (GCU, 2012, para 7)?  Research by Christina and Goodman (2005) indicates that high-quality early education programs can produce substantial long-term benefits for children, families, and society.  Armed with this knowledge, many states began mounting ambitious efforts to implement high-qualitypre-kindergarten programs at universal scale.  Their Rand Research Brief described some of the progress states have made and identifies significant policy and practice issues. 

The first few years of life are critical for a child's cognitive development and learning.  Barnett's (1998) evaluations of well-run prekindergarten programs found that children exposed to high-quality early education were less likely to drop out of school, repeat grades, or need special education, compared with similar children who did not have such exposure.  Despite good research linking effective pre-K programs with later academic success, Shore (2002) still found early care and education in the United States was essentially a non-system consisting of a "patchwork of programs."  After publication of the Rand Education Report (2005) most states began to embrace the value of high-quality early education programs.  By 2007, as a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, Barack Obama was expressing his plans to make universal Pre-K programs a national priority.  Then came a national and international recession and this plan has not seen the limelight.

Too often our elected officials make short-term decisions that don't result in long-term solutions.  As educators, we need to be advocates for the currently unheard voices of our youngest students.  Absence of action to advocate on behalf of your future students may easily result in millions of these students twenty years from now hopelessly asking, "why didn't you do something to help?"  I encourage all educators to be proactive and advocate for universal pre-K so that day may not ever be realized. 

References:

Christina, R., Goodman J.V. (2005) Going to Scale with High-Quality Early Education. The

Rand   Corporation.  http://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR237.html

Grand Canyon University (producer). (2012, January). EDA810 Module 8 Lecture

Slaby, R., Loucks, S., & Stelwagon, P. (2005). Why is preschool essential in closing the

            achievement gap? Educational Leadership & Administration, 17, 47-57.