TEACHING FOR
Student Achievement
A Guidebook for
Effective Teaching in
High-Need Schools
TEACHING FOR
Student Achievement:
A Guidebook for
Effective Teaching in High-Need Schools
About the New Teacher Project
The New Teacher Project (TNTP) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to partnering with educational entities to enhance their capacity to
recruit, select, train, and support new teachers effectively. With the conviction that the recruitment and retention of effective new teachers
must be an integral aspect of any school reform movement, TNTP is dedicated to ensuring that all of our schools are staffed with highly
qualified teachers. We believe that outstanding individuals must be aggressively recruited into teaching, that only the most qualified candidates should be selected to have the privilege of teaching children, and that these new teachers must be trained and supported in a way
that maximizes their effectiveness in attaining gains in student achievement.
TNTP was formed in 1997 to address the growing issues of teacher shortages and teacher quality throughout the country. TNTP has a
diverse staff of over 60 people, including former educators, education policy experts, and strategy consultants from top-tier private sector
firms. We have worked with school districts and state departments of education to significantly improve the quality of their teaching
forces.
This year, our clients include school districts in New York City, NY; Washington DC; New Orleans, LA; Atlanta, GA; and Baltimore, MD,
among others. We have attracted and prepared over 10,000 new, high-quality teachers and launched 39 programs in 18 states since 1997.
The scale of involvement with our clients is significant, with TNTP alternate route programs in 2002 responsible for delivering more than
20% of all new teachers in New York City; Washington, DC; Atlanta; Kansas City, KS; Kansas City, MO; and San Jose, CA.
Acknowledgements
TNTP would like to thank the many teachers who have committed to applying the Teaching for Student Achievement Framework in their
classrooms and sharing examples for inclusion in this guidebook.
Additionally, we would like to acknowledge assistance of this draft from the talented writers and researchers at Teach For America, who
amiably inspired and co-authored portions of this guidebook.
All rights reserved. No part of this Publication may be reproduced, stored, in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
©2004 The New Teacher Project, Inc.
Printed April 2004
Table of Contents
Introduction
2
What is Teaching For Student Achievement? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
The Teaching for Student Achievement Framework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Part One: Instructional Design & Delivery
ruction
Chapter 1: Setting Challenging Academic Goals
10
12
Can Your Students Do It?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
How To Set Your Big Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Conclusions and Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20
Chapter 2: Assessment: Beginning with the End in Mind
21
What is Assessment and Why is it Important? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Integrating Assessment and Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Overview of Assessment Categories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Diagnostic Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Formative Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Summative Assessments. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Chapter 3: Standards-Based Instructional Planning
64
What is Standards-Based Education and Why is it Used? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
The Unit-Planning Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Designing Effective Standards-Based Lesson Plans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Lesson Plan Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Summary of Standards-Based Planning Steps. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Chapter 4: Differentiated Instruction
94
Why Differentiate Instruction? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Differentiated Instruction Defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
TABLE OF CONTENTS
i
A Framework for Viewing Student Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Key Aspects of Differentiated Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
How To Differentiate Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Chapter 5: High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS)
109
How to use the HITS: The Process of Instructional Decision-Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
HIT #1-Identifying Similarities and Differences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
HIT #2-Summarizing and Note Taking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
HIT #3-Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
HIT #4-Homework and Practice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
HIT #5-Non-Linguistic Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
HIT #6-Cooperative Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
HIT #7-Generating and Testing Hypotheses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
HIT #8-Activating Prior Knowledge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Part One: Supplements
151
Supplement 1.1 Strategies for Maintaining Assessment Records
152
Devising a Grading System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Calculating Grades . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Recording Grades and Reporting Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Supplement 1.2 Learning Theory
160
What is Learning Theory? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Memory Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Cognitive Development Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172
The Wellness and Learning Connection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
Supplement 1.3 Special Education
193
A Brief History of Special Education in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Least Restrictive Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
The Individualized Education Program (IEP). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 199
Getting In and Out of the Special Education System. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Understanding Disability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
Discipline Issues and Special Education Status . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Differentiated Instruction and Special Education Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
Overarching Strategies for Addressing Learning Differences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
Systemic Concerns about Special Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Racial Inequality in Special Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
The Promise of Special Education. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
Supplement 1.4 English Language Learners (ELLs)
225
A Brief History of Bilingual Education in the United States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Second Language Acquisition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
Misconceptions about ELLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Common Instructional Models for ELLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Guidelines for Designing Instruction for ELLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
Effective Strategies for General Educators to Help ELLs Achieve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 238
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
Glossary for Teachers of ELLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
Part Two: Classroom Management & Culture
Chapter 6: Creating a Positive, “No Excuses” Classroom Culture
248
251
What is Classroom Culture?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
Rituals and Celebrations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
Instill a Passion for Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267
The Physical Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Conclusions and Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272
Chapter 7: Rules and Consequences
274
Determining Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
Determining Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Aligning Your Expectations with Those of Your School. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
Teaching Rules and Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Chapter 8: Procedures
291
The Need for Procedures and Routines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
Developing Procedures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
Common Procedures and Routines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
Minimizing Classroom Inefficiencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 311
TABLE OF CONTENTS
iii
Chapter 9: Carrying Out Disciplinary Actions
312
The Difference Between Authority & Discipline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 312
Why Do Students Misbehave?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
When Do I Respond to Student Misbehavior? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
Responding to Minor Interruptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 320
Responding to Chronic Interruptions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Implementing Consequences Effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322
Responding to Major Interruptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
Behavioral Interruptions in the Context of the Larger Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328
How to Avoid Power Struggles – Let Go of Your Ego . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
The Role of the School’s Administrators in Handling Discipline Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Chapter 10: Classroom Management Styles
335
Teacher Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
Interventionist Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
Interactionalist Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 341
Non-Interventionist Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
Chapter 11: Family Involvement
350
Communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 350
Participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 356
Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359
Conclusions and Key Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
Conclusion
364
Part Two Supplement
366
Supplement 2.1: Understanding School Violence
367
The Problem with Defining School Violence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
Fighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
Bullying . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
Sexual Harassment in Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372
Gun Violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374
Conclusion and Key Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 377
iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Bibliography
392
List of Tables
Table 1.1: Goal Setting Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Table 2.1: When to Use the Three Types of Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Table 2.2: Commercially Produced Diagnostics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Table 2.3: Test and Quiz Item Uses and Examples. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
Table 2.4: When to Use Rubrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Table 2.5: Details of Portfolio Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Table 2.6: Examples of Performance Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Table 2.7: Product Possibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Table 3.1: Common Unit Plan Formats . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Table 3.2: Example of a Second Grade Math Long-term Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Table 3.3: Creating Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Table 3.4: Bloom’s Taxonomy and “Useful Verbs” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Table 3.5: The Structure of the Seven-Step Lesson Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Table 3.6: The Structure of the Five-Step Lesson Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
Table 4.1: Comparison of Differentiated and Traditional Classrooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Table 4.2: Examples of Flow of Instruction in a Differentiated Classroom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Table 5.1: HITS by Percentile Gains in Student Achievement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Table 5.2: Example Rubric Scoring System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Table 5.3: Blank K-W-L Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Table 5.4: Sample K-W-L Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Table 5.5: Sample Brainstorming Sequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Table 1.2.1: Overview of Selected Learning Theory Topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Table 1.2.2: Definition and Examples of Each Level of Cognitive Understanding . . . . . . . . 163
Table 1.2.3: Gardner’s Seven Intelligences. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Table 1.2.4: Examples of the Triarchic Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Table 1.2.5: Implications of Development for Teachers of Primary Grades. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Table 1.2.6: Implications of Development for Teachers of Upper Elementary Grades . . . . 175
Table 1.2.7: Implications of Development for Teachers of Junior High Students . . . . . . . . . 176
Table 1.2.8: Implications of Development for Teachers of High School Students. . . . . . . . . 177
Table 1.3.1: Categories of Disability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
Table 1.3.2: General Types of Accommodations and Modifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Table 1.4.1: Important Legal and Court Rulings Impacting English Language Learners . . 227
Table 1.4.2: Typology of English Language Learners Instructional Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Table 1.4.3: ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Table 1.4.4: Ten Things the Mainstream Teacher Can Do Today to Improve Instruction
for English Language Learners. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
TABLE OF CONTENTS
v
Table 6.1: Examples of Classroom Values from KIPP Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
Table 7.1: Relationship between Various Rules and Guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
Table 7.2: Characteristics of Effective Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
Table 7.3: Descriptions of Potential Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
Table 9.1: Methods of Addressing Minor Interruptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
Table 9.2: Comparing Responses to a Minor Interruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
Table 9.3: Disruptive Student Behaviors and Instructor Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
Table 10.1: Responses to Various Problem Behaviors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
Table 10.2: Summary of Classroom Management and Discipline Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 348
Table 11.1: The Four P’s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
Table 2.1.1: Olweus Interventions and Risk Factors to Decrease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
Table 2.1.2: Student Education about Harassment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
List of Figures
Figure 1: Achievement in America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Figure 2: Framework Design . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Figure 3: Examples of Holistic and Analytic Rubrics4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Figure 4: Sample K-12 McREL Content Standard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Figure 5: Sample Standards Document . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Figure 6: Relationship Between Standards, Units, and Lessons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Figure 7: Lesson Plan Framework. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Figure 8: A Conceptual Map for Differentiated Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Figure 9: The Flow of Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Figure 10: Student Mind Map . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Figure 11: Sample Advance Organizer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Figure 12: Special Education Placement Continuum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Figure 13: Cummin’s Quadrant System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Figure 14: Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Figure 15: Teacher Behavior Continuum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
List of Teaching Tools
1.1 Big Goals Example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.1: Diagnosis Interest & Readiness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
2.2: Sample Diagnostic (elementary math) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
2.3: Guidelines for Creating Quality Summative Assessments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
2.4: Sample Items to Include in a Portfolio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
3.1: Unit Plan Template. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
3.2: Strategies for Opening a Lesson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
3.3: Strategies for Closing a Lesson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
3.4: Lesson Design Checklist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.1: Graphic Organizers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
5.2: Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Create Effective Questions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
1.2.1: How to Identify Your Best Learning Style (for Children). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
1.2.2: Nutrition, Health, and Fitness Related Internet Resources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
1.2.3: Common Student Health Issues: Causes, Signs, and Impact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
6.1: How to Manage Classroom Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
7.1: Sample Timeline for Teaching Rules and Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
8.1: Considerations for Classroom Procedures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294
8.2: Effective Transition Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
8.3: Sample Sponge Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 302
8.4: Identifying Classroom Inefficiencies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 304
8.5: Substitute Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
9.1: Questions to Consider When Consequences Don’t Seem to Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
11.1: Sample Introductory Letters to Families. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
11.2: Informing Families of Student Progress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
TABLE OF CONTENTS
vii
How to Use This Guidebook
This Guidebook serves as the central text for your Advisory Sessions. It
presents the argument that your chief responsibility as a new teacher is to
immediately effect gains in student achievement, while contending with
the countless challenges of working in a high-need school. Our experience
has shown that new teachers can and do make substantial progress with
students. What separates the highly effective teachers from the rest is a
strong commitment to making student achievement the number one goal
for their students and investing their students to work relentlessly in that
pursuit.
We have captured what effective teachers in high-need schools do in
what we call the Teaching for Student Achievement (TfSA) Framework.
This Framework (see opposite page) is a research and data-driven instrument, which helps novices learn the language and tools of effective educators. We expect that you will use the framework and toolkit to approach
problems you encounter critically, reflectively, and decisively. We have
seen repeatedly how dedicated new teachers take the TfSA Framework and
use it to realize significant gains in student achievement.
This Guidebook is divided into two parts. Each part corresponds to
one of the two major TfSA Framework components (Instructional Design
and Delivery and Classroom Culture and Management) as shown on the
following page. Within each framework component, there are specific
framework elements which comprise the chapters of this guidebook. These
chapters contain the theories which inform the TfSA Framework, examples
of potential scenarios, special topics to pay particular attention to, and
practical tools which translate the theory into practice. In addition to these
chapters, there are several supplements which cover specific topics and
issues of particularly relevant to teachers who work in high-need schools.
The TfSA Framework and Guidebook support one strand of the training you will during your pre-service training. Neither the TfSA Framework
nor the Guidebook are intended to be lone references. No single text can
cover everything you need to know to be an effective teacher, but the TfSA
Framework and guidebook will give you a solid base for being an excellent
teacher and provide you with insight for identifying further resources and
future training you may want to undertake in support of Teaching for
Student Achievement.
viii
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDEBOOK
The Teaching for Student Achievement Framework
HOW TO USE THIS GUIDEBOOK
ix
Introduction:
Teaching for Student Achievement
E
ffective teaching doesn't happen by accident; it happens by design. You
can't wing it, fake it or force it-though rest assured there will be
moments this year when you resort to all three. Our goal is to help you
become an effective teacher. But before you can become one, be aware that
you may need to completely redefine your impressions of what constitutes
effective teaching.
Challenge the assumptions you have about teaching. Traditional techniques are not automatically outdated, and alternative or progressive methods are not inherently superior. Your old public school teachers didn't do
everything wrong, and today's suburban and private school teachers don't
necessarily do everything right. Much of what you read in this Guidebook
may surprise you. For instance, has it occurred to you to consider the benefits of the old one-room schoolhouse? Would you consider homework and
note taking to be up-to-date tools of the trade? Is a "hands-on" lesson automatically worthy?
! Achievement in
America:
www.edtrust.org
! “Hope for Urban
Education: A Study of
Nine High Performing,
High Poverty Urban
Public Elementary
Schools.” (Johnson and
Asera)
We encourage you to question stereotypes. New teachers aren't universally naive, and veteran teachers aren't always masters. Young teachers
aren't all fresh and full of energy and potential, nor are all veterans bitter,
worn-out, and uninspired. All private schools aren't stellar, nor are all innercity public schools suspect.
The public is constantly bombarded with horror stories about the failures of our public schools and our public school teachers in particular.
Unfortunately, many of these failures do exist. Importantly, many successes
exist too, but, frustratingly, they are much less likely to garner widespread
attention. Rarely do we get to hear about the schools where the teachers,
administrators, parents and students come together to single-mindedly
focus on achievement-the schools where failure is not an option, and
progress is always possible-in other words, the effective schools. This
Guidebook is here to assure you that they exist, to introduce you to their
methods, and to prepare you to do the same in your classroom.
We're less interested in what's trendy, and more interested in what
works. Above all, consider this Guidebook to be a trusty source of what
works. Read it, digest it, embrace it, agree with parts, disagree with parts,
set it down, resist it, ponder it, and return to it. In other words, engage the
material.
As teachers ourselves, we would never want you to take anything at face
value. We implore you to question every element of this text, because when
you genuinely internalize and understand the methods and the messages
2
INTRODUCTION
embedded within, you'll be in a position to
help your students excel toward the most
rigorous academic standards.
Effective teachers get the job done.
Nothing is more important to us than helping you become an effective teacher. What
does "the job" entail? Your professional
duty can be summarized in four words:
Teaching for Student Achievement.
What is Teaching for Student
Achievement?
Teaching for Student Achievement is
about ensuring that your students make
dramatic academic progress. It’s not about
getting them to “like” school. It’s not about
making your students happy. It’s not about
getting them to think you’re cool. It’s not
about boosting their self-esteem. It’s not
even about fighting racism, poverty or
injustice. It is a single and devoted mission
to tangibly improve your students’ achievement.
Meet three teachers—Pilar, Malcolm and
John—who have struggled to understand
what it means to teach for student achievement.
Pilar:
Befriending Bureaucracy
As a successful and well-paid paralegal in a major corporate law firm, Pilar took a big risk giving up her career.
She worried that by starting over again, she would essentially lose all that she had already accomplished in her
twenties. A highly effective and highly motivated worker, she knew she could do anything she put her mind to.
And yet, she had worked so hard to prove herself and to earn respect in her field—was her school now going to
treat her like a neophyte? Could she deal with being the “new kid” all over again? Her new salary depressed and
concerned her. How was she supposed to pay her student loans and her car loan? Was the salary an indication of
how little her work would be respected? And yet, she came back to the reasons she had decided to teach.
She had often felt a lack of satisfaction with her career. She wished that she wasn’t so far removed from the people benefiting from all of her hard work. Her parents had encouraged her to go to law school, and yet the lawyers
in her office seemed neither happy nor satisfied. She always liked kids and having heard about the severe teaching
shortage in urban areas, realized it was a role she could fill. She knew these schools were full of problems and she
saw herself as someone uniquely suited to problem solving.
Pilar’s first year in the classroom consisted of one shock after another. At her law firm, resources were plentiful.
It never occurred to her that she wouldn’t be given the tools she needed to do her job. At the firm, she just filled
out a single purchase requisition form and whatever she needed was delivered overnight. At her school she had to
fight and plead for even the most basic materials. In the end, she often ended up just buying them herself. But
more than anything else, what she found the most oppressive was the bureaucracy. In the for-profit world, productivity and efficiency ruled. But, in this new environment, she discovered suffocating regulations that she hindered her efforts more than they helped. She became demoralized by the cumbersome process of completing the
required forms and obtaining the required signatures just to plan field trips, order new classroom furniture or
refer a student for special education services. She could see why so many teachers stopped bothering to try to
make changes.
And yet, she knew she had no intention of giving up. More and more she revered the sanctity of her own classroom. Gradually, she identified those colleagues who were as driven as she was to improve the system. They
shared their tricks of the trade and helped her navigate her way through the bureaucracy. As she established
more meaningful relationships with her administrators, she discovered they were often willing to support her
ideas, and they, too, helped her maneuver around the inevitable roadblocks.
Pilar was committed to improving her kids’ test scores, but now understands that she can’t do it alone. At the
end of the year, she has lost neither her initiative nor her motivation, but she now possesses a more sensitive and
realistic understanding of the inherent difficulty of changing an institution.
INTRODUCTION
3
Malcolm: Results are Not All Fun and Games
At the end of Malcolm’s first year of teaching, he is filled with a tremendous sense of pride. It has been the hardest
year of his life, but he has survived, and recognizes how much better he will be next year. Although he knows he
isn’t close to being the expert teacher he strives to become, he also knows that he is a lot closer to being that teacher
than he was nine months earlier. He entered the classroom right out of college, empowered to make a difference, but
terrified by his lack of experience. How, his parents had asked, did he expect to be able to succeed in these classrooms when seasoned, experienced teachers had failed? He couldn’t answer them, but he knew he had to try.
Kids always seemed drawn to him. He knew he was charismatic, creative and energetic and could always hold a
crowd’s attention. He had been active in his college drama program and couldn’t wait to put on a good show for
his class. He knew his youthful enthusiasm would appeal to his students, but he feared it might threaten and
annoy his colleagues. He hoped to learn from his fellow teachers, but also, when necessary, to present an alternative to them. Would this be possible?
The year turned out differently than he could ever have imagined. There were small, satisfying victories, along
with significant and humbling defeats. Early in the year it was clear that his students loved him. They laughed
at his jokes, appreciated his funny ties, inquired about his love life, and looked forward to his entertaining teaching methods. But test after test in the first semester demonstrated that his kids weren’t learning the material
even though he was presenting it in such creative ways. They enjoyed his lessons, but they weren’t learning. He
spent much of his winter break rethinking his entire approach to teaching and reworking his lesson plans. Next
semester, there would be less style and more substance. Class time became less about having fun and more about
seeing tangible results. His lessons lost some flash and his students noticed there were fewer games, but they still
seemed to appreciate the sense of humor he was able to inject into the classroom. By the end of the year he clearly
understood and embraced the difference between entertaining his students and teaching them.
John: Appreciating the High-Need Challenge
Although this was John’s seventh year in the classroom, in many ways it felt like his first. Now that this first
year in his new school was over, he realized how sheltered and naïve he had been. Switching from the suburbs to
the inner city changed almost every aspect of his teaching experience. As a student, he had attended a good public school and then went on to an Ivy League college on scholarship. His parents, both teachers themselves, were
delighted when he decided to enter the same profession. After receiving his master’s in education at another Ivy
League school, he began teaching middle-school English in an affluent suburb near his hometown (much like the
system in which his parents taught). He had a lot of student loans, and the school had one of the highest starting
salaries in the entire state. The school also had a very strong swimming program, and he loved serving as the
assistant coach on the team. His colleagues were generally strong teachers and he learned a lot from their experience and poise. But after six years, he started feeling restless, bothered by how comfortable it had all become. He
began to realize that he craved a different kind of challenge.
While everyone in his current school worked hard and delivered a quality program, he wondered if perhaps there
were other schools were he could make a greater contribution. He yearned for the strong sense of purpose that a
struggling school might offer. He knew he had been fortunate in receiving the best education our nation provides, and felt that it was his duty to return what he had been given to those students who needed it the most.
While he had always been considered a strong classroom instructor, there had been times this year when he felt
like a beginner. Why weren’t his usual methods working with his new kids? While he had expected some of them
to be below grade level, he never expected the huge majority to be so far behind. How could their prior teachers
have let them get so behind? How could he be expected to get them all back on grade level in one year? Was he
even expected to? He had been disappointed to learn that his new school didn’t have either a pool or a swim
team, but had realized that the urge to teach these students was stronger than the urge to coach. He connected
with a few of the kids early on, but the majority seemed indifferent and hostile towards him. It seemed to him
that they were rarely willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. The language barrier with many of his students’ parents was exhausting, and he found the cultural barriers overwhelming. He wanted to be sensitive to
the differences but didn’t always know what that entailed.
He came to realize how easy he had had it before. His new students had clearly not had the same opportunities
and even basic skills that he had taken for granted in his previous position. It was a realization that both saddened and angered him. He knew deep down that he was capable of teaching his new students; it just took him
the whole year to fully appreciate just how different the realities were between well-financed suburban schools,
and their under-financed urban counterparts.
4
INTRODUCTION
It took Pilar, Malcolm, and John a whole
year of teaching to understand the difference between “regular” teaching and teaching in a high-need school. They’re not alone.
During the last century, the focus of
schooling was on compulsory attendance
through the 1960s and equality of access from
the 1970s through the early 1990s. Only
recently has achievement (for all students)
figured prominently in education reform. The
recent attention to student achievement is in
response to the push by state and local government for increased accountability and to
the standards movement that has delineated
more explicitly what students should know
and be able to do.
The focus on achievement has renewed
efforts to address the “achievement gap.”
Although various perspectives of the
achievement gap exist, the fact of the matter
is that many students in many schools are
not achieving at the highest levels possible.
In her address, Achievement in America
(2002), Kati Haycock, director of the
Education Trust, describes these inequities.
A small portion of her assessment of the
achievement gap is presented in Figure 1.
Although the statistics in Figure 1 are
striking, race alone, of course, does not
explain the entire picture. Of all students
who have graduated from college by age 24,
48% come from high-income families, while
Figure 1: Achievement in America
High School Graduation Rates:
91% of Whites graduate
87% of African-Americans graduate
62% of Latinos graduate
Of Every 100 White Kindergarten Students:
91 graduate from high school
62 complete at least some college
30 get at least a bachelor’s degree
Of Every 100 African-American Kindergarten Students:
87 graduate from high school
54 complete at least some college
16 get at least a bachelor’s degree
Of Every 100 Latino Kindergarten Students:
62 graduate from high school
29 complete at least some college
6 get at least a bachelor’s degree
Percentage of 10th Graders Enrolled in College Preparatory Classes:
42% of Asian students
34% of White students
25% of African-American students
22% of Latino students
Source: Haycock, K. (2002). Achievement in America.
INTRODUCTION
5
only 7% come from low-income families.
Low-income students are less likely to be
enrolled in college preparatory classes, and
racial breakdowns reflect this as well. The
magnitude of the achievement gap is staggering. For example, seventeen-year-old
African-American and Latino students perform math and reading at the same levels as
thirteen-year-old White students.
How can these differences in performance be explained? As Haycock (2002) and
other prominent researchers explain (Jenks
and Phillips, 1998) many people tend to
blame the low-performing students and
their families themselves for the stunning
achievement gap. According to Haycock,
adults say of the struggling students,
“’they’re poor, their parents don’t care, they
come to school without breakfast, not
enough books, not enough parents.’” In
other words, few hold the teachers or
the schools (whose very job it is, after
all, to educate) responsible for providing
sub-par education.
When these students themselves are
asked to explain their low performances,
their answers differ markedly. Haycock
explains that students say, “‘some teachers
don’t know their subjects, counselors underestimate their potential, principals dismiss
concerns, curriculum and expectations are
low.’” In other words, these students directly fault their teachers and their schools. To
put it more strongly, struggling students
believe they could be better students if they
had better teachers and attended better
schools.
Additional Information
This icon, usually located
at the beginning of each
chapter, indicates additional readings or Internet
resources which complement the chapter. You can find the articles
referenced here at your institute site.
The statistics back up the students’ perspective. Fewer than three in ten students
think their school is very academically rigorous. Even more disturbing are the documented lack of expectations that teachers
have for their students. When asked, 71% of
all secondary students said they wanted to
attend a four-year college. Their parents
expected 52% of them to do so, while their
teachers only expected 32% of them to
do so.
Low expectations play a role in the
achievement gap, but its roots are more
complex and varied—politics, social neglect,
flawed educational polities, and ignorance,
all contribute. How can we close this gap?
By teaching for student achievement. How
does one teach for student achievement?
In the meantime, remember that you
will be teaching in very specific schools—
schools we refer to as high-need. We define
a high-need school as one that faces serious
challenges in garnering the human, fiscal,
and social resources to meet the educational
needs of its students. This lack of resources
and/or the inordinate amount of energy
expended on acquiring them compromises
the educational opportunities of the students attending the school. Generally, highneed schools have disproportionately high
numbers of students from low-income families, high teacher turnover, inexperienced
staffs, crumbling physical plants, shortages
of essential supplies and materials, and
ineffective (or nonexistent) organizational
systems.
It is important to keep in mind that
although low student performance often
characterizes high-need schools, simply
because a school has one or more of these
characteristics does not necessarily make it
low performing. There are many impressive
documented examples of high achieving,
low-income schools, and we have learned,
and continue to learn a great deal from
them.
For example, in a recent report entitled
6
INTRODUCTION
Dispelling The Myth (Jerald, 2001), The
Education Trust identifies 3,592 high-performing, high-poverty schools (in which at
least 50% of the students are low-income,
and the schools rank in the top third of all
schools at a particular grade level). They
name 2,305 high-performing, high-minority
schools (in which at least 50% of the students are African-American or Latino, and
the schools rank in the top third of all
schools at a particular grade level). And
they identify 1,320 high-performing, highpoverty-and-minority schools. All told,
these schools serve over two million public
school students.
In other words, the students were
right—they could perform better if given
the chance.
Despite years of controversial research
to the contrary, study after study strongly
demonstrates that schools greatly affect (for
better and for worse) student performance
(Marzano, 2001). The bottom line: Schools
matter, teachers matter, and, of course,
students matter.
As a first-year teacher in a high-need
school, you are not likely to be able to make
school-wide changes. You are not likely to
be able to compensate for your students’
backgrounds or home lives. You are, however, in complete control of your own teaching. How you teach, the classroom environment in which you teach, and what you
teach will all determine how successful a
teacher you will be.
How Will Your Success Be Measured?
Not by how much your students like
you. Not by how happy your students are.
Not by how many sports teams you start or
extra-curricular activities you lead. Your
success as a teacher will be measured by one
standard only—your students’ achievement.
Where were they performing at the beginning of the school year, and where are they
performing at the end of the school year?
INTRODUCTION
You, as the teacher, will counter the persistence of the achievement gap and realize
the disappearance of the achievement gap.
The Teaching for Student
Achievement Framework
Teaching is a complex activity.
Teaching is part art and part science. Over
the course of your training you’ll begin to
understand both the technical aspects of
teaching, such as writing a lesson plan and
using high impact teaching strategies, and
the art of teaching, such as how to talk and
carry yourself in a manner in which you
instantly command respect from students.
Both parts of teaching are difficult, and
admittedly one text cannot help you master both.
Literally thousands of texts have been
written about teaching and hundreds of
schools of education exist to train teachers
how to teach; some are more effective than
others. The TfSA Framework emphasizes
what we’ve learned based on our work with
thousands of beginning teachers.
Figure 2 presents a diagram of the TfSA
Framework.
There are two major interrelated components of the framework—Instructional
Design and Delivery, and Classroom
Culture and Management. We believe that
teachers who develop knowledge and skills
in both these areas are best positioned to
address achievement gaps where they exist
and become effective teachers in high-needs
schools. We’ve divided each of the components into smaller parts, which correspond
to the chapters in this guidebook. In the
Instructional Design and Delivery component the chapters include:
"
Academic Goal Setting
"
Assessment of Student Learning
"
Standards-Based Unit and Lesson
Design
7
Figure 2: Framework Design
"
Differentiated Instruction
"
High-Impact Teaching Strategies
In the Classroom Culture and
Management component the chapters
include:
"
Creating a Positive, “No Excuses!”
Classroom Culture
"
Involving Families in Student
Achievement
"
8
Managing Student Behavior and
Addressing Misbehavior
"
Selecting a Classroom Management
Model
You’ll also examine issues related to the
core framework such as fostering student
achievement among English Language
Learners and students identified for special
education, understanding school violence,
and socio-cultural issues enmeshed in closing the achievement gap.
Throughout this text we will return to
TfSA Framework frequently. Hopefully,
when you’re finished reading this book,
INTRODUCTION
you’ll have a thousand new questions, each
more sophisticated than the one before it
about teaching and learning. However, one
question we hope will be thoroughly
addressed is: What is my goal as a new
teacher? The answer to that question is to
do all that you can to teach for student
achievement.
INTRODUCTION
Teaching Tools
Throughout this
guidebook we have
provided you with
practical tools that
you can use immediately in the classroom. Whenever possible we’ve tried
to include examples of tools for each
grade level—elementary, middle, and
high school. Tools are designated by
the icon shown above. Remember,
learning to teach is not about accumulating teaching tools or items in “a
bag of tricks.” Rather, let the tools in
presented in this Guidebook form the
basis of an instructional repertoire
that you use deliberately to get the
desired result you want from your
students.
9
Part One:
Instructional Design and Delivery
T
he first part of this guidebook covers Instructional Design and
Delivery. As you begin to think about how you will approach teaching
for student achievement, the major part of that challenge consists of your
instructional responsibilities. What are your students capable of achieving?
How will you know if they have achieved it? What content are you
required to cover? What content can they manage? How will you teach
that content?
These are the questions we will address in the next five chapters. As you
will discover, student achievement depends primarily on your ability to
design and deliver effective and compelling instruction. This section goes to
the heart of what it is to teach, and will provide you with the operative tools
to draw upon in the classroom in order to skillfully educate your students.
We should note that this guidebook adopts an approach known as
“standards-based instruction.” At its core, a standards-based approach to
instructional design and delivery means identifying the standards for what
your students should know and be able to do, and designing and delivering instruction that brings students from where they are currently performing to where they need to be performing.
The Education Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising student achievement for all students K-16, sums up the importance of the
standards-based approach best, noting that:
Norm-referenced [i.e. traditional] education has served no one well, but minority, disadvantaged, poor, and immigrant children may have suffered most. No
matter how much they improve, they seem never to catch up with their peers
in more advantaged socioeconomic groups, and they never know exactly what
the educational system is supposed to teach them. They are running blindfolded in a race where some others can see the finish line.
Standards should remove the blindfold and make the tape clear to everyone,
because standards are public statements of what all students should know and
be able to do. Here in the United States, we are just beginning a public conversation about what we expect students to know and be able to do. This conversation is complex because of the rich diversity of views and perspectives in this
country, but constructing a common vision—and then using it to rethink
schooling—is essential to the survival of public education (Mitchell, 1996).
We know you care about the survival of public education, or you
wouldn’t be reading this page right now. Presumably, you have many
thoughts of your own about the methods and techniques you hope to
employ in your classroom; we certainly hope you do. The purpose of this
PART ONE: INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND DELIVERY
10
guidebook is not to assert the supremacy of
our ideas over yours. On the contrary, we
hope to give you a concrete blueprint that
you will eventually enhance with your own
emerging expertise. Consider this blueprint
to be a map, pointing you down the hardearned path that expert teachers before you
have traveled.
These teachers—that rare breed who
have mastered the elusive art of teaching—
have been observed, studied and scrutinized. The lessons that have been learned
from their remarkable success will help you
to incorporate your more abstract conceptions about what might work into tangible
plans that will work.
Description of Each Chapter
Chapter 1 (on “Setting Challenging
Academic Goals”) introduces you to the
concept of establishing the highest possible
expectations for your students’ academic
growth. You will be encouraged to raise the
bar as high as you can reasonably raise it,
and to define and state an ambitious classroom goal. We will advise you on how to
motivate your students, and infuse your
instruction with a healthy dose of urgency
to enable you and your students to ultimately achieve that audacious goal.
Chapter 2, on “Assessment,” examines
the most effective and progressive ways to
determine whether or not your students are
internalizing the information you teach. A
major theme of this chapter is the notion
that your assessment efforts will not be the
culmination of your instruction; rather,
your instruction will be saturated with constant assessment of student progress. We
will discuss the absolute necessity of combining instruction and assessment, so that
your instruction consistently assesses, and
your assessments consistently instruct.
mandated by districts, states and the federal
government. Our discussion includes the
arguments for and against standards and
acknowledges some of the controversies
related to this approach. We cover how to
understand the mandated standards, how
to design instructional units and lessons
based on the standards, and how to prepare
students to demonstrate mastery of the
standards through assessments.
Chapter 4, on “Differentiated Instruction,”
details how to address the diverse, and in
many cases, competing needs of the students
in your class. Since all students will not be
performing at the same level, we will show
you how to tailor your instruction in order to
best serve the wide variety of student performance levels that you are likely to
encounter. Our introduction to this philosophy of instruction will show you how to differentiate by student readiness,
student interest and student learning profile.
Finally, Chapter 5 discusses “High
Impact Teaching Strategies,” or HITS.
Instructional decision-making requires
deliberate choices about the strategies you
will use with your students. These eight categories of instructional methods are the
tools of the trade that you will employ on a
daily basis. In this chapter will detail the
methods with the most convincing record of
improving student achievement.
As you will discover when you step foot
in your classroom, instructional design and
delivery is a complex, vibrant and holistic
process. All of the components operate
simultaneously rather than in the linear
manner presented here. But, by isolating
each component, we give you an opportunity to focus on each instructional element
that you will encounter and to begin to
refine your understanding of each one.
Chapter 3, on “Standards-Based
Instructional Planning,” offers an overview
of the educational achievement standards
11
PART ONE: INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN AND DELIVERY
Chapter 1
Setting Challenging Academic Goals
“This Nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before
this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning
him safely to earth.”
—President Kennedy, May 25, 1961
“That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”
—Neil Armstrong, July 20, 1969, from the Moon
As Neil Armstrong so eloquently expressed, his one little step symbolized the far greater attainment of a bold and audacious goal—a goal so
remarkable that even those who hadn’t directly participated in it found
themselves joined by a collective sense of accomplishment. If mere
bystanders and ordinary citizens swelled with such identifiable pride,
imagine the exultation of the actual participants who experienced fulfillment of their achievement.
This is the power of a goal.
! “The Jamie
Escalante Math
Program.”
(Escalante and
Dirkmann)
Your students will crave success, but many of them may never have
achieved it. Creating an academic goal is a dynamic and effective way to
communicate your faith in their abilities, and to tangibly convey the magnitude of your expectations of them. Maybe your goal is for every one of
your 3rd grade students to demonstrate one-and-a-half years’ worth of
progress in reading proficiency by year’s end. Maybe your goal is for 85%
of your students to pass an 8th grade standardized math test. Simply by
stating the goal, you have affirmed your belief in your students’ potential.
You have also demonstrably raised the proverbial bar for which your students must now reach.
In some ways, drawing an analogy between humankind’s first trip to
the moon and your first year of teaching might seem absurd. (Clearly, you
will lack both a decade’s worth of time and a multi-billion-dollar budget.)
At the same time, President Kennedy’s public and determined commitment to his ambitious goal was a good part of the reason we actually
reached the moon. And while formulating an ambitious goal might initially seem overwhelming at best and futile at worst, you will find that just
the act of making a commitment to realizing that goal for your students
will, in and of itself, have much to do with whether or not you succeed in
meeting it. True, one doesn’t have to specifically and consciously set a goal
in order to achieve its ends—but one is much more likely to ultimately
achieve those results if those results have been developed and publicly
stated at the outset.
CHAPTER 1
12
Teachers who commit themselves to an
audacious goal for their students’ academic
achievement are far more likely to demonstrate dramatic gains in their students’ academic progress. Until you dream it, how is
it possible? Until you define it, what are
you working towards? Think of the
Olympic athlete who knows the exact time
she needs to break to become the world
record holder in her event. Her goal—
defined by a fraction of a second—could not
be more precise, and will consume her for
years. Every training session, every race is a
part of the greater goal of working towards
a seemingly unachievable finish time. She
and her coach will constantly assess her
progress and fine-tune her approach to
assist the endeavor. There is no question,
and no doubt about the end goal, and her
coach asserts his confidence in her ability
simply by virtue of his continued presence.
Regardless of whether or not that specific
goal is achieved, progress will be made
because of it.
We have discovered that the teachers
who create the most dramatic gains in student achievement are the ones who establish big goals—the equivalent of “landing
on the moon” or breaking the world record
for their classrooms. Robert Marzano (2003)
identifies establishing challenging goals to
be such a crucial component of improving
academic performance. We discuss these
strategies in Chapter 5. In his view, it is
vital that academic goals be sufficiently
challenging for all students, especially those
from low socio-economic backgrounds. To
be effective, he says, goals must convey
“high expectations and pressure to
achieve.”
Unfortunately, little research and writing in education exists about the importance
of teachers establishing these big, ambitious
goals for their students. Consequently, it is
an underused and underappreciated technique. But we have seen over and over
again that the act of establishing an ambitious goal leads a teacher to behave differently—to be creative and persistent in the
13
face of pervasive challenge and to approach
instruction with a rare level of urgency.
Consider the benefits of using a Big Goal
in the classroom:
"
Motivation. A Big Goal helps provide
the teacher and students with the
motivation necessary to persist in
spite of inevitable obstacles, in part by
making clear the tangible, significant
payoff of persistence.
"
Urgency. A Big Goal will lead both the
teacher and the student to proceed in
the classroom with a sense of urgency
that will otherwise likely be lacking
(especially in an under-resourced
school).
"
Focus. While administrative demands
will never disappear, having a Big
Goal helps the teacher stay focused
on what matters most and develop
efficient and creative ways to handle
the unavoidable administrative
demands.
"
Creative Thinking. Having a clear,
measurable goal forces “out of the
box” thinking and action, a necessity
for dramatic progress to occur given
the bureaucratic nature of the system.
Motivation. Urgency. Focus. Creative
Thinking. Closing the achievement gap will
require copious amounts of all of these
essential qualities (and more). Establishing a
Big Goal can help you refill and maintain
your supply of these qualities (a supply that
will inevitably run low throughout the
year).
Let’s consider the case of a teacher we’ll
call Joe on the following page.
The power of establishing such a Big
Goal is precisely that it puts all of Joe’s concerns in perspective—it forces him to identify what is possible and within his control,
and what isn’t. First, he must assess if the
goal is even worth attaining. Even in his
moment of doubt, Joe instinctively realizes
the value of the goal—if it were achieved, it
CHAPTER 1
Joe
Joe is by all traditional standards a great teacher. His principal raves about him. He exudes enthusiasm. He clearly
loves his kids and loves teaching. He is about to enter his fourth year.
When asked what he aims to accomplish during the upcoming year, Joe outlines various goals he had set for himself—
among other things, he aims to become a better writing teacher by testing out some new strategies he learned in a
writing workshop. His answer is entirely about his own development—becoming a better writing teacher. He does not
speak of his students’ achievement—of their becoming better writers.
When asked where he thinks his new students will be performing at the start of the year, Joe says that based on previous experience it would be impossible to predict other than knowing they will be considerably below grade level. He
has always felt great frustration at not being able to control or standardize where his students begin. Asked what
might happen if he resolved that next year his students would end the year on grade level—something within his control— Joe responds without hesitating: “That would change everything.”
Joe starts thinking about this possibility. “It seems so obvious, so why wouldn’t everyone work towards this goal?”
But then he reconsiders, saying, “I don’t know if I could do that in this school.” He starts talking about all the potential obstacles. He says, “There’s so much that comes at me that has nothing to do with working toward that goal—so
much paperwork, so many behavior problems. There are so few expectations of these kids. How would they suddenly
adapt to such high standards? I’d have to rearrange all of my lesson plans and restructure how I spent my entire day.
There would just be so many challenges—just think of how much more homework my kids would have to do. I can’t
get them to do even the limited amount I assign now. How would I get them to do even more?”
Talking and thinking through all these challenges however, Joe never states that his students don’t have the capacity
to meet that goal. He instinctively thinks they have the potential to be on grade level by the end of the year; the problem lies not with them, but with all the overwhelming things that would have to change to enable them to reach that
potential.
would put his students on a whole new
track in life. Instead of being written off and
dismissed as under-achievers, his students
would present themselves and see themselves as serious scholars, prepared to tackle
new and worthy academic challenges.
Second, just establishing the goal of gradelevel performance would lead Joe to operate
differently. He would need to change how
he spent his time, fighting to stay focused
on reaching the goal, rather than letting
himself be distracted by those other “priorities.” (What, in the end, could be more
important than the achievement of this
goal?) He would need to convince his students to apply themselves toward reaching
the goal and go on an all-out mission to
accomplish it.
In the best-case scenario, they would
reach their goals. In the worst-case scenario,
they merely make substantial gains while
trying.
CHAPTER 1
Can Your Students Do It?
Believing in your students is, of course,
the first step. We assume if you didn’t
believe in them, you wouldn’t be in this
program. As disturbing as it is, there are
those who simply do not believe that the
big goals we discuss here are reasonable or
attainable. The authors of The Bell Curve
imply so, and many scholars and policymakers have argued that additional
resources should not be invested in some
public schools because it is impossible to
overcome the socioeconomic factors facing
low-income communities. Thus, the cycle
of low expectations continues (and the
achievement gap widens). Many children in
these communities have so internalized
these minimal societal expectations that
they may not believe they are capable or
deserving of more either.
14
Successful teachers strongly disagree.
This is why you have committed yourself to
closing—not rationalizing—the achievement
gap. Successful teachers want to change
your students’ life prospects through their
education. Your task now is to determine
what type of specific academic gains you
should pursue with your students to make
an appreciable difference in their lives.
What can you do in one year to compensate
for the inequities of the system
and help catch your students up to their
peers raised in wealthier communities?
“Big Hairy Audacious
Goals”—(BHAGs)
Built To Last, the book on organizational theory by Collins and Porras,
suggests that what they call Big
Hairy Audacious Goals (or BHAGs)
meet the following criteria:
1. A BHAG should be so clear and
compelling that it requires little
or no explanation. Remember,
a BHAG is a goal—like climbing
a mountain or going to the
moon—not a “statement.” If it
doesn’t inspire people then it’s
just not a BHAG.
2. A BHAG should fall well outside
the comfort zone. People in the
organization should have reason
to believe they can pull it off, yet
it should require heroic effort
and perhaps even a
little luck.
3. A BHAG should be so bold and
exciting in its own right that it
would continue to stimulate
progress even if the organization’s leaders disappeared before
it had been completed.
4. A BHAG should be consistent
with a company’s core ideology.
15
How to Set Your Big Goals
We have developed a series of ambitious
yet realistic targets, presented in Table 1.1
and Teaching Tool #1.1, that we believe will
make a truly significant impact on students’
academic futures. As you can see, these
“significant gains” differ according to classroom assignment.
By basing your Big Goal on recommendations like these and consistently measuring your progress, you will be on track to
narrow the achievement gap. The trick is
figuring out exactly how to translate these
target recommendations into a Big Goal that
applies to your specific grade level, subject
area and group of students—and how you
can rally your class around your truly ambitious vision.
We recommend the following the
process:
1. Determine where your students
should be performing on an absolute
scale at year-end.
2. Determine where your students are
currently performing.
3. Determine what dramatic, measurable
gains would look like for your students.
4. Devise a clear, simple and measurable
statement toward which all of your
students, regardless of current performance level, can work. This is your
Big Goal.
Let’s examine each of these steps more
completely.
Determine Where Your Students
Should Be Performing
You should begin by conceiving of the
ideal “finish line” for all of your students.
We define “significant gains” on a relative
rather than an absolute scale, where applicable. This is to acknowledge that students
begin at wildly varying starting points and
that they should all be challenged to move
CHAPTER 1
TEACHING TOOL #1.1
Big Goal Examples
Elementary School: “100 Words per Minute”
Ms. Gutierrez learned that primary students are supposed to be reading with the fluency of 60
words per minute by the end of first grade, gaining 30 w.p.m. every subsequent year. With her first
and second grade reading classes, she set the target of “100 words per minute by the end of the
year,” a chant her students came to sing whenever asked about their classroom goal. “That is where
I felt they needed to be in order to be truly ready for third grade.... and if my first graders were
ready for third grade too, then so be it.”
Middle School: “Two Years of Work in One Year”
Ms. Chang, a teacher assigned to a class of students repeating the sixth grade, has a sign on her desk
that reads “two years of work in one year.” She diagnoses her students at the beginning of the year
and knows what each of her students will need to accomplish to have advanced two grade levels.
Her principal agreed that if her students did achieve such growth over the year, he would consider
advancing them a grade level. This was a tangible goal that her students found motivating.
High School: “A College-Level Research Paper”
Ms. Gunderson, a new English teacher, realized that she could sum up the vast majority of her writing class’s learning goals into “the ability to produce a college-level research paper.” Her high
school students spent the semester building writing skills—grammar, word choice, structure, punctuation, library techniques and argumentation devices—to achieve this Big Goal. The successful
completion of the final research paper represented a huge stride for her students, since some struggled to produce effective paragraphs before entering her class.
significantly forward from where they are.
You cannot change where a student starts,
you can only influence where he or she
ends up—accept this, and respect the student’s current performance level. Notice we
say “performance” level—not “ability”
level; “ability” suggests an innate and
immutable level of skill, while “performance” more accurately reflects the evolving
nature of knowledge attainment.
Knowledge, after all, is learned—not genetically inherited or pre-determined.
Regardless of where they start, we
believe that all children are, in the end,
capable of reaching the goals set by state
education agencies and need to reach those
goals in order to be young adults who can
CHAPTER 1
pursue any career path they choose. Your
ultimate goal, of course, is to help your students reach their grade level or above to be
on track to graduate with the knowledge
and skills they need to be educated, selfreliant, productive citizens.
But what does “on grade level” mean?
As we will explain in much greater detail in
the upcoming Standards-Based Instruction
chapter (Chapter 3), districts and states
have developed standards—lists of legallymandated learning goals for students of a
certain grade level. Examining standards
and state-mandated tests, as well as appropriate national exams (the SAT achievement
tests and the New York Regents for many
secondary subjects, for example), will begin
16
TABLE 1.1: Goal Setting Targets
ASSIGNMENT
TARGET GOAL
Elementary
An average of 1.5 grade levels of growth in literacy
and math.
Secondary
Mastery (90% proficiency or greater) of ambitious,
grade-level content area goals
Special Education
One of the above, or the mastery of ambitious academic
and/or behavioral Individualized Education Program
(IEP) goals.
to give you a good idea of what students
are expected to know, understand and be
able to do across your state and the country.
Examining a district mathematics exam, for
example, might alert you to the fact that
fourth graders should be able to show various ways of solving the same problem.
Conversations with colleagues or peers you
respect can be very helpful. Comparing the
types of expectations that other teachers
may have for similarly-aged students and
scrutinizing student work from stellar
schools will allow you to get a more holistic
sense of what grade-level work should look
like. As you cull this information, develop a
list of end-goal accomplishments that students performing at grade-level should be
able to demonstrate.
Determine Where Your Students
Are Currently Performing
Once you have your ideal vision of performance in mind, you will need to assess
your students’ current performance levels.
(This process is referred to as “diagnosis” or
determining student “readiness levels,” and
will be detailed in the next chapter, on
Assessment). You may learn, for example,
that your eighth graders should be able to
17
produce five-paragraph persuasive essays.
Yet, after a diagnosis of your class, you may
discover that some of your students are
unable to even write an effective sentence. If
you geared your instruction to the students
ready to write the composition, you’d risk
leaving your low-performers behind. If you
brought all of your instruction down to the
third-grade level, you’d be holding back
your high-performers. By collecting this
information, you can begin to set ambitious,
but realistic goals to plan targeted instruction that will reach all skill levels in your
class—a practice called differentiated
instruction (which will be detailed in
Chapter 4).
In addition, performing an initial diagnosis of your students is also vital because it
provides a starting point from which you
can later evaluate progress. It is not enough
to believe that we have made a difference. It
is our job to prove that with extraordinary
effort, our students can achieve what others
deem impossible. Students themselves also
need to experience the personal and academic success that dramatic progress would
represent. The effects of measurable gains
on students can be electrifying.
CHAPTER 1
Determine What Dramatic,
Measurable Gains Will Look Like
Stating a goal to mold your students into
“math machines” or “outstanding critical
thinkers” is too vague to be effective. A Big
Goal should have a measurable outcome; its
attainment will be self-evident and non-subjective. Once you determine where each of
your students stands on a continuum, you
will need to research and develop measurable goals that will move every child substantially and incrementally forward. You
may realize that one group of your students
would make a year and a half’s worth of
progress by being able to add and subtract
whole numbers, while another group would
have to complete word problems to represent equivalent progress. Ensuring that you
can measure this progress gives you a point
of reference and allows you to know when
you’ve reached your goals so you can continue to drive your students even further
ahead.
You will also need to find ways to
address grade-level standards for those who
do not have the necessary prerequisite
knowledge. Remember that students with
lower skill levels can, in many cases, still
grasp grade-level ideas (and beyond). Just
because a student is incapable of writing
about an idea doesn’t mean he or she is
incapable of thinking about it. If standards
mandate that your students produce a persuasive essay, you can teach all of your students the concepts involved (techniques of
persuasion, the structure of an argument),
but you may work on different skills and
layers of sophistication with particular
groups of students, depending on where
they’re starting.
This is an essential point because students in low-income areas have been historically denied access to exploration of how
the world works, the perspectives of the
world’s greatest thinkers, and conceptual
and analytical approaches to learning.
Students in high-income areas routinely
CHAPTER 1
receive higher quality instruction and are
better equipped to attend college and be
productive and participative citizens capable of fighting for their priorities and interests. Teachers who push basic skills to the
exclusion of content and context deny their
students the exposure to those very disciplines that might actually ignite a passion
for learning. Your Big Goal may be focused
on progressing your students by equipping
them with the foundational knowledge they
lack, but you should not be neglecting the
complex and fascinating concepts that can
propel mere academic exercises into intellectual journeys.
Devise a Clear, Simple and
Measurable Statement
You can approach the actual formation
of the Big Goal in different ways, though it
must always represent a dramatic gain in
student achievement. Some teachers decide
that it would be both realistic and ambitious
A Note on
Special Education
Special educators should keep in mind
that working to move students with
special needs into mainstreamed classrooms often represents a truly “dramatic gain” for these students; some
children, especially children of color,
are inappropriately placed in special
education or are placed in an environment more restrictive than necessary
to address their special needs.
Some will conclude that “dramatic
gains” in the life of a particular student with specific behavioral disabilities and/or students with limited lifeskills may mean setting goals on
behavioral growth. Other special education teachers will find they need to
rewrite IEP’s for their students, based
on more ambitious academic goals.
18
to set an absolute goal—like having all students score at least 600 on the SAT II U.S.
History Achievement test and draft research
papers judged 3 or better on a nationally recognized scoring guide—with the phrases
“at least” and “or better” accounting for the
differences in the classroom. These teachers
still know where each individual student
has begun and can target instruction and
celebrate progress accordingly, but they
have also found a way to rally students
around a shared objective.
A goal for a high school writing class
might be “the ability to produce a collegelevel research paper.” The class would
spend the semester building writing skills—
grammar, word choice, structure, punctuation, research and library techniques and
argumentation devices—to achieve this Big
Goal. Perhaps the teacher could find a university English professor willing to assess
and grade the papers applying the standards used for college freshmen.
Some teachers take their goal and frame
it in the form of a challenge that resonates
powerfully with students and pushes them
out of their comfort zone. (Escalante &
Dirkman, 1990), the teacher who inspired
the film Stand and Deliver, wrote about the
challenge he presented to his students—to
take the AP Calculus exam:
“Get a good education” may be too nebulous for easily distracted young minds.
Their focus easily shifts to other more
pressing problems, particularly when
they are living in poverty. The AP test
provides a formidable opponent that galvanizes each of the students and their
teacher in a united charge toward a tangible and inexorable deadline: the second
week of May. Over the years I have
found it easy to focus student attention
on this challenge and its very real
rewards of possible college credit and
advanced placement in college mathematics courses.
Notice that being able to take the AP cal-
19
culus exam would signal that Escalante’s
students had achieved his Big Goal: learning six years of math in three years. He did
not expect all of his students to score a level
“5” on the test, but his students knew that
they were setting a high bar for themselves
simply by preparing for it. He further
explains:
Those who sit for the exam have already won
the real game being played. They are winners because they have met a larger challenge than any single examination could
present. They have attained a solid academic
background in basic skills, especially math
and science, and are prepared to move on
and compete well against the challenges of
both higher education and life.
Your goal should be inspiring, and a bit
intimidating. Mere hard work should be
insufficient for its attainment; students must
know that it will require zealous commitment, tenacious resolve and continual rallying for the cause. It should be constantly
communicated to students that they will be
expected to work harder on this goal than
they have ever worked on anything
before—and they should understand what
makes its attainment so vital. (For example,
bombard them with statistics comparing
quality of life and earnings of college graduates with non-college graduates). Invest
them in the urgency you feel, and enlist
their natural enthusiasm to your cause.
Goal setting offers a way to tangibly
package your expectations—but like any
product, they must be carefully designed
and deliberately marketed. Come up with
slogans, chants or rallying cries to keep
your students focused on the goal. Create
the sense that you are a team, working
together. Teachers who develop “kidfriendly” packaging around their original
goal find students more engaged and more
apt to make higher-order connections to the
material they are studying.
Select a tangible accomplishment that
could simultaneously inspire your students
CHAPTER 1
and represent significant gains for them. For
example, some teachers challenge their elementary readers to read more challenging
books. She does this, in part, by providing
each student an individualized reading list.
The reading lists suggest progressively more
difficult books available in the class or
school library. The teacher updates reading
list each report card period. A math teacher
might offer that if students learn their multiplication, division, fraction and percentage
skills, the class will be given the privilege of
running a school store.
Whether it is success on a standardized
test that would represent grade level gains,
mastery of a content area, or the ability to
complete high-level problems or projects
incorporating all of a course’s knowledge
and skills, a Big Goal is an ambitious, measurable target that represents significant
gains in student achievement. As we have
said, the results of having an ambitious goal
are tremendous: Having a vision of what
your students would be able to do by the
end of the year will enable you to motivate
both yourself and your students.
But be aware, it would be unfair and
counter-productive to set your students up
for failure by grandly proposing a challenge, and then failing to provide the support necessary to see it achieved. Do not
propose a challenge until you are convinced
that you have the means and the commitment to see it through. Be prepared for your
challenge to immerse itself into your
instruction every day of the school year. It is
not something you will occasionally revisit,
but something that will dictate the daily
course of events in your classroom.
"
Determine where your students should
be performing on an absolute scale at
year-end.
"
Determine where your students are
currently performing.
"
Determine what dramatic, measurable
gains would look like for your students.
"
Devise a clear, simple and measurable
statement toward which all of your
students can work, regardless of current performance level.
Setting goals for your classroom involves
a combination of boldly determining where
you want your students to be, and being
cognizant and realistic about where your
students begin. Some beginning teachers in
struggling schools find the achievement gap
so daunting that they avoid measuring precisely how far below grade level their students are. We strongly advise against the
denial method. You cannot begin to close
the gap until you grasp just how wide it is.
As so many teachers in high-need
schools have done, you can affect significant
academic gains for your students in your
first year of teaching. This is your Big Goal.
Conclusions and Key Points
This chapter reviewed the importance
and value of setting rigorous academic goals
for your students. The following key points
were emphasized:
CHAPTER 1
20
Chapter 2
Assessment: Beginning with the End
in Mind
How will you know if your kids are learning? How will you know if
you are closing the achievement gap? In other words, how will you know
if you are doing your job?
If you were a doctor, job performance would seem straightforward. If
your patient’s health improves, you will have done your job well. As a
teacher, your job is just as straightforward. If your students’ achievement
substantially improves, you will have done your job well.
! Assessment Primer
(Brissenden and
Slater)
! www.exemplars.com
CHAPTER 2
Imagine you are a doctor. A patient comes to see you. He or she is sick
and needs your help. Assuming this is a new patient about whom you
know nothing, you might first look over pre-existing medical records. You
will then need to take a thorough medical history. Next you would want to
examine the patient to determine the status of the patient’s health. Only
then might you venture to make an initial diagnosis and recommend a
course of action. After an initial period of treatment, you would have the
patient return to assess his or her progress and response to the treatment.
After your follow-up exam, you would likely make adjustments—perhaps
switching a medication, fine-tuning a dosage, or even changing your diagnosis entirely. You would continue this process until both you and the
patient were satisfied that the patient’s health had sufficiently improved.
As a teacher, you are charged with fostering your students’ achievement. Think of the care a student needs. Just the like physician, you must
diagnose your students’ current level of performance—what does he or
she currently know and how does it compare to what he or she needs to
know? Just like the physician you will need to investigate your students’
prior learning history and make an initial diagnosis, plan an appropriate
course of action, and follow-up with frequent evaluations, making adjustments along the way until both you and your students are satisfied that
their academic growth has sufficiently progressed. The skilled doctor diagnoses ailments, then treats, and then continually asks, “how well is the
patient responding to my treatment?” The skilled teacher diagnoses readiness, then teaches, and then continually asks, “how well is the student
responding to my instruction?” This is the process we refer to as assessment—and it will play a vital role in gauging both you and your students’
success in the classroom, and in closing the achievement gap.
21
What Is Assessment and
Why Is It Important?
Assessment is not, as it used to be
considered, a one-time process of giving
students grades. Assigning grades—while
important—is merely a record-keeping
issue. Assessment is a much broader ongoing process of determining the level at
which your students are performing and
whether your instruction is working.
Inadequate assessment plays a large role
in the achievement gap. Far too often,
struggling students are taught one body
of knowledge and then tested for another.
There is little correlation between what
they are taught and how they are tested.
Students, their parents, and especially
their classroom teachers need to know the
information for which students will be held
accountable. Standards-based instruction
goes a long way towards ensuring this
accountability, but only when assessment
methods are carefully aligned to the concepts embedded in the standards being
covered.
The gravest mistake many teachers
make regarding assessment is to approach
assessment haphazardly. Too often, teachers
deliver lessons, decide what was taught,
and then create exams to assess whether
students absorbed the material that was
covered. It is essential that you reverse this
process. Your assessment
methods—and they will not be limited to
exams—must inform your instructional
intentions from the moment a lesson is conceived.
Purposes of Assessment
Assessments must not measure what
was already taught, but must offer an integrated barometer of how students are progressing before, during and after a lesson or
unit. (Inherent in this reversal is the essential requirement that you create effective,
compelling assessments; if you design a
22
dumbed-down assessment, you’ll have no
choice but to dumb down your instruction.)
Indeed, the assessments we choose will
communicate a great deal to our students
about our instructional priorities. Students
tend to consider the material on which they
are assessed to be the essential information
“that matters.” Thus, if you don’t assess it,
you consciously or unconsciously send the
message that it is unimportant. The more
your assessments demand of your students,
the more your students will learn and the
closer you will come to closing the achievement gap.
Your assessments, which will be constantly executed in a variety of forms (to be
detailed shortly), will shape your instruction—not the other way around. You must
decide what your students need to learn,
and appropriately select the assessment
methods that you feel are best suited to
helping them master that material. The
assessment methods you choose will help
inspire the instructional journey you and
your students embark upon.
There are four primary purposes of the
assessment process. These include determining:
1. Where are your students currently
performing?
2. What progress are students making
during a lesson or unit? Are they
“getting it?”
3. What instructional decisions will the
teacher make based on that (positive
or negative) feedback? What instructional modifications will be necessary?
4. How will the student demonstrate his
or her mastery of the material?
More than anything else, assessment—in
all its various forms—offers vital feedback
for both students and teachers; this is a
point to which we will return over and over
again. Students, who must learn to selfassess progress if they are to be active players in their own education, must be able to
CHAPTER 2
determine how successfully they are learning material. Teachers, who will be held
accountable for their student’s achievement,
must know how well their instruction is
working. If students demonstrate mastery
of the material, a teacher can be assured
that he or she is on the right track. If students fail to demonstrate mastery of the
material, a teacher must use this vital feedback to reconsider and revise his or her
instructional methods.
Brissenden, Slater, and Mathieu (2002)
pose a series of essential questions for both
students and teachers that effective classroom assessment should help answer.
Through the use of functional classroom
assessments, students should be able to
determine the following:
"
Do I know what my instructor thinks
is most important?
"
Am I mastering the unit/course
content?
"
How can I improve the way I study
in this unit/course?
"
What grade am I earning in the
unit/course?
Through the use of their assessments,
teachers should be able to determine the
following:
"
To what extent are my students
achieving the stated unit/course
goals?
"
How should I allocate class time for
the current topic?
"
Can I introduce this topic in a more
effective way?
"
What parts of this unit/course are my
students finding the most valuable?
"
How will I change this unit/course the
next time I teach it?
"
Which grades do I assign my
students?
Notice that grades are but one of the
CHAPTER 2
many issues to be determined. Remember:
Assessment results are as much a reflection
of a teacher’s success as they are a reflection
of a student’s achievement.
Integrating Assessment and
Instruction
You should not isolate assessment from
instruction. They are not two separate
endeavors, but rather are integrally related
components of your teaching. You won’t
teach-teach-teach and then culminate your
teaching with an assessment. The lines
between the two will be much less distinct.
Think of a cyclical process where you
“teach-assess-teach-assess-teach-assess”
(though the cycle won’t necessarily be this
regular and predictable). Your teaching and
your assessment will be inextricably and
seamlessly woven together so that one is
always affecting the other. Meaningful
assessment will be instructive in and of
itself. In other words, your students must
learn from the process of being assessed. If
only the teacher benefits from an assessment (from getting a measure of student
achievement in the form of grades) then the
students’ time is being wasted—and in a
high-need school there is no such time to
waste.
Assessment Golden Rule
There is a golden rule of assessment that
we urge you to follow: “Assess it the way
you taught it.” Would you teach a kid how
to ride a bike and then have her complete a
multiple-choice test to see if she succeeded
in learning to ride? No—you would put her
on a bicycle. If you were teaching your students how to write a persuasive essay,
would you give them a True-False test to
accurately measure their writing skills?
No—you would have them write a persuasive essay. If you are teaching your students
complex concepts that you can’t assess their
23
understanding of with a simplified fill-inthe-blank test; you need them to apply the
complex concepts they have been studying.
When you teach material the way you
plan to assess it, some might accuse you of
“teaching to the test.” We would argue that
as long as your “test”—whatever form it
takes—is instructionally sound and mentally rigorous, then teaching to the test does
not have to be a bad thing, and in fact, will
be advisable. Just as educators have discovered that instruction is effective when tackled in a holistic way, so too have they realized that assessment must be holistic.
Holistic Assessment
What does “holistic assessment” look
like? For starters, it should measure more
than one piece of knowledge or one skill at
a time. As a student, you were most likely
assessed by more traditional methods—
those which asked you to perform an isolated task or more often, to identify isolated
bits of knowledge. As an adult, how often
in your professional life are you asked to
perform isolated tasks or to recite isolated
facts? And in the rare event that you are
asked to produce such information, how
often are you given a time limit of under an
hour and how often are you prohibited
from accessing useful resources or from
working collaboratively with your peers? Is
our goal to teach our students how to take
one-dimensional tests or to teach our students how to function in a multi-dimensional society and flourish as life-long learners?
Measuring What Matters
Effective assessments must present realworld dilemmas that will prepare students
for the actual challenges they will face as
adults in our society. The Department of
Labor report entitled What Work Requires of
Schools (as cited in Marzano, Pickering &
McTighe, 1993) identifies these challenges
as the ability to:
24
"
Think creatively
"
Make decisions
"
Problem-solve
"
Learn how to learn
"
Collaborate
"
Self-manage
These are all-encompassing skills that
will require deliberate practice and to which
students must be continually exposed if
they are to truly gain command of them.
But remember—it’s not enough to simply
devise dynamic, engaging lessons that
require your students to employ these life
skills. You must devise assessments that
measure their progress of mastery of these
skills as well.
Far too often, teachers design exceptional lessons that culminate in woefully inadequate assessments. Keep in mind students
tend to assign significance to test content,
rather than lesson content. If your lesson
content is to be indistinguishable from your
test content, then an exceptional lesson by
definition, must also contain exceptional
assessments. If you accept the value of
teaching dynamically, then embrace the
value of assessing it dynamically.
However, it is not enough, of course, to just
assess dynamically. You must also assess
appropriately. This process means carefully
selecting the type of assessment so that it is
aligned to your learning objectives. With
that in mind, let’s begin exploring the different types of assessments.
Overview of Assessment Categories
Generally, educators categorize assessments as formal or informal. Formal assessments include standardized exams such as
those developed by a state department of
education to measure achievement on state
standards (e.g., California Test of Basic
Skills). You will have no control over the
CHAPTER 2
timing, design or content of these types of
formal assessments. Informal assessments
refer to the teacher-made varieties that
check for a student’s understanding of lesson objectives. Since this is where your
influence and impact can be felt, we will
focus on informal assessments with an
emphasis on checking for students’ understanding before, during and after a lesson
through a variety of means.
Remember—informal assessment occurs
constantly. You must get in the habit of subjecting your students to daily, hourly, and
even minute-by-minute assessment of their
progress. You must also get in the habit of
processing your students’ progress in the
context of what it reveals about your own
instructional effectiveness—if they’re confused, what do you need to do differently?
What should you change this minute? What
should you change about tomorrow’s lesson? What should you change about your
next unit? Your students’ progress will
always serve as the indicator of your own
performance. If you fail to monitor their
development, you will never be able to
improve your own and vice versa.
There are three basic types of informal
assessments that you will be expected to
design and deliver. They are as follows:
1. Diagnostic Assessments. Determine
current performance levels by assessing prior knowledge and student
readiness before a lesson, unit or
course.
2. Formative Assessments. Evaluate
student progress or understanding
during a lesson.
3. Summative Assessments. Measure
student mastery or achievement at
the end of a unit (through exams,
final projects, etc.). These may also
be referred to as formal assessments
(although they should not be confused
with standardized tests).
Let’s revisit the four purposes of assess-
CHAPTER 2
ment and identify each purpose by the
assessment category that addresses it. The
first purpose was to determine Where are
your students currently performing? which
would be answered by a diagnostic assessment. The second purpose was to determine What progress are students making during a lesson or unit? Are they “getting it?”
These questions would be answered by
formative assessments. The third purpose
was to determine What instructional decisions
will the teacher make based on that (positive or
negative) feedback? What instructional modifications will be necessary? These would be
answered by formative assessments. And
finally, How will the student demonstrate his or
her mastery of the material? would be
answered by a summative assessment.
Unfortunately, in many classrooms there
is an over-reliance on summative assessments in the form of so-called “paper-andpencil-tests,” which do not adequately
address the four purposes of assessment of
which, only the fourth—demonstration of
mastery—necessarily requires a summative
approach.
Teachers often neglect their diagnostic
duties. By doing so they run the risk of
assuming their students know more than
they actually do, or less than they actually
do. Instruction must be carefully calibrated
to exactly match students’ current performance levels. Instruction that is too easy will
bore; instruction that is too difficult will
frustrate and overwhelm.
Formative assessments are also underutilized. Teachers often assume that the
instruction they are delivering is the same as
the instruction their students are receiving.
They fail to concern themselves with student comprehension until the end-of-unit
assessment. Effective teachers use on-going
formative assessments to provide students
with a steady stream of feedback on their
progress. In turn, teachers use this feedback
to evaluate their own effectiveness in helping students learn. Teachers ask probing
questions, identify misconceptions, and
25
demonstrate ways for students to assess
their own learning.
Unfortunately, as we have said, these
“feedback loops” are uncommon in most
classrooms. Instead, there is an almost tragic focus on summative assessments that
overemphasize grading students at the
expense of teaching students. You must
avoid assessing only at a unit’s end, when it
is too late for the results to impact either the
students’ learning or your teaching.
Situations for which each of the three
approaches to assessment is most appropriate are provided in Table 2.1.
Now that we have discussed, in general,
the three types of informal assessments that
you will be relying upon, we can begin to
examine in depth the actual assessment
methods and techniques that you will use in
your classroom. It is important to mention
that although we have categorized assessments by type—diagnostic, formative and
summative—these are somewhat artificial
distinctions. Some types of summative
assessments can be used for formative purposes, and on occasion, you may choose to
use a formative assessment for more summative purposes. For example, you may
need to assess how well your students are
grasping the terminology of a unit. Giving
them a fill-in-the-blank exercise to test their
progress during a lesson can be a useful
exercise—and is a much better formative
activity than a summative one. In each
instance, you must determine your goals
TABLE 2.1: When to Use the Three Types of Assessment
Diagnostic Assessments
Before formal instruction
To determine students’ current levels of performance so that
instruction is meeting students where they are.
To benchmark the current performance level of each student as a
way of measuring future progress.
At the beginning of a lesson
To assess students’ prior knowledge or understanding from previous lessons to guide instruction.
Formative Assessments
Throughout a lesson
To measure incremental student progress, provide guidance for
the teacher in adapting instruction, and provide feedback to students regarding their progress and how they might move forward most effectively.
At the end of a lesson
To assess student progress against the lesson objective to enable
both students and teachers to know where they stand.
Summative Assessments
After a small set of lessons, end of unit, or
group of units
To assess, record, and ultimately report the student achievement
of a set of lesson objectives or unit goals.
26
CHAPTER 2
and intentions. Still, it will be essential for
you to make wise choices about which
assessment techniques you will select and
the appropriate time to use them. There are
a wide variety of sound, solid choices from
each assessment category and you must be
disciplined about varying their use.
Diagnostic Assessment
Before you can begin to decide where
you want your students to go academically,
you must identify exactly where they are
academically. Diagnostic assessments
answer the question, “What do my students
currently know?” Generally speaking, you
will diagnose student knowledge and performance levels at the beginning of the year
(e.g., How well do they read? What are
their basic skills? How well do they write?),
and at the beginning of each unit (e.g., What
do they already know about molecular compounds? How many countries can they
name that participated in WWII? Do they
know what an isosceles triangle is?).
Keep in mind that it would be impossible to close the achievement gap without
knowing just how wide that gap is. In the
case of students performing considerably
below grade level, there is no value—and
indeed, great harm—in denying the extent
of their arrested progress.
We diagnose student readiness for two
main reasons:
1. To have an accurate measure against
which to compare future academic
growth
2. To make modifications to our teaching
(and our lesson plans) to accommodate for below-grade level or abovegrade level performance
It is not sufficient to simply diagnose
your students’ performance levels. You
must also be willing to act upon the information you gather. You may have an exem-
CHAPTER 2
plary lesson plan, but if your diagnostic
efforts determine that your kids just aren’t
ready for it, you will have no choice but to
entirely alter the plan. More accurately,
some kids will be ready for your material
and others won’t. You will then rely upon a
strategy called differentiated instruction,
which will allow you to tailor your teaching
to the varying readiness levels of your students. We will cover differentiated instruction comprehensively in Chapter 4.
Process for Diagnosis of Student Performance
We recommend a four-step process for
determining your students’ current performance levels:
1. Familiarize yourself with what students should know at the previous
grade level, the current grade level,
and the future grade level (or for
upper grades, with what they should
know at the end of a course). To do
this, you should:
a) Review standards documents,
district curriculum guides, formal
assessments and other outside
resources.
b) Read multiple textbooks for your
subject and/or grade level.
c) Read scope and sequence documents.
d) Consult web resources
(www.pinkmonkey.com has a
helpful section on Core Concepts
and Study Guides).
2. Design your own diagnostic exams or
use ready-made, commercially available diagnostic exams (a selection of
which are presented in Table 2.2). For
yearlong or comprehensive diagnostic
assessments, many new teachers find
it helpful to use professionally prepared diagnostic assessments such as
standardized tests. Ask other teachers
at your school, and search on-line for
the materials that best suit your needs.
27
Two ways to get started are to:
a) Find subject area or grade level
assessments.
you are creating your own diagnostic materials:
"
What are your students’ academic
experiences with the topic? (Have they
covered the Depression every year?
What do they remember? Has it been
skipped over every year?)
"
Identify students’ understanding of
common knowledge related to the
topic. Do they know the basics or will
you be starting from scratch? (Do they
know what angles are?)
"
Discover their knowledge of the technical terms, terminology and vocabulary associated with the topic. (Do they
already know the distinctions between
mixtures and compounds, or will you
need to devote considerable time to
review?)
"
Determine students’ knowledge of an
explanatory model. (Ask them to
explain how photosynthesis works.)
Encourage them to draw pictures if
that helps them express their understanding. By examining the way a student processes a conceptual problem,
you can begin to analyze any misconceptions they may have.
"
Inquire about students’ attitudes.
(What do you like about studying
math? What don’t you like? Which
aspects of the Renaissance interest you
the most?)
b) Create your own pre-unit diagnostics (discussed further below).
3. Consult the student’s cumulative
record. Check out the student’s past
grades, standardized test scores, and
other anecdotal data previous teachers
have written about the student.
Warning: Beware of making hasty
assumptions about your students
based on what others say about them.
Seek input from those who know your
students, but keep an open mind and
be prepared to come to your own conclusions. Never allow your students to
feel that a negative reputation precedes them.
4. Use your beginning of the year diagnostics to identify students’ learning
characteristics, learning styles and
learning preferences. Design your
questionnaires to help you get to
know your students as learners. Here
are some possible questions you might
ask on a student questionnaire:
a) Do you prefer to work on the floor
or at your desk?
b) Do you prefer a quiet room or a
noisy room?
c) Do you like to work alone or with
others?
d) Do you like to have as much time
as possible to complete your work
or do you prefer a time limit?
Creating Your Own Diagnostics
There are many ways to develop a diagnostic. Good diagnostics will reveal broad
patterns rather than specific details. You are
looking for general competency indicators,
not recollections of facts and figures. Here
are a few guidelines to keep in mind when
28
There are many approaches to creating
your own diagnostic materials. Here are just
a few ways to reveal your students’ existing
knowledge about a topic:
1. Journal Entries. You might propose a
journal entry that asks students to
reflect upon what they know about a
given topic (e.g., Why don’t we fall off
the planet Earth?). By asking students
to privately consider a topic, you can
preemptively glean information about
their knowledge and/or misconceptions, in this case, about gravity, with-
CHAPTER 2
TABLE 2.2: Commercially Produced Diagnostics*
"
Mathematics Assessment: Cases and Discussion Questions for Grades K-5,
6-12, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM). Consult website
(www.nctm.org) for additional details.
"
Special Educator’s Complete Guide to 109 Diagnostic Tests. This publication
is available from Wiley Publishers, and many online book retailers such as
amazon.com or bn.com. Check for used additions too.
"
Scholastic: Terra Nova Standardized Test Skill Builders, Reading/Math,
Grade 3, 4, 5, 6
"
Scholastic: Standardized Test Skill Builders for Reading, Grades 3-4 and 5-6
(2 books)
"
Scholastic: Standardized Test Skill Builders for Math, Grades 3-4 and 5-6
(2 books)
"
Scholastic: Super Strategies for Succeeding in Language Arts
"
Scholastic: 10 Ready-to-go Math Performance Assessments
"
Scholastic: 40 Rubrics & Checklists to Assess Reading and Writing
Available at scholastic.com.
"
Diagnostic Teaching of Reading: Techniques for Instruction and Assessment
by Barbara J. Walker. This title is available from Prentice Hall and many
online book retailers such as amazon.com and bn.com. Check for used additions too.
"
Princeton Review: High School Review Math I. (Algebra, Geometry,
Probability and Statistics)
"
Princeton Review: High School Review Math II. (Algebra and Geometry,
Probability, Trigonometry)
"
Princeton Review: High School Review Spanish.
"
Princeton Review: High School Review Chemistry.
"
Princeton Review: High School Review Biology.
"
Princeton Review: High School Review Comprehensive English.
Available from www.princetonreview.com
*Consult with your school administrator or department head before purchasing
commercially produced diagnostics since the examples listed above (or comparable
ones) may be available in your school. The cost of these diagnostics ranges significantly. Items mentioned above are for informational purposes. This program does
not endorse any particular retailer or publisher.
CHAPTER 2
29
out subjecting them to potentially
embarrassing public inquisition.
Possible uses for a journal before
instruction include:
a) Writing about what they learned in
a previous lesson
b) Writing about what they liked or
disliked about a previous lesson
c) Writing about what they think they
know about the current topic
d) Writing about what they want to
know about the topic
e) Writing about where they might
seek information about the topic
f) Interviewing a classmate to find out
what she or he knows or wants to
know about a topic
2. K-W-L Charts (See tables 5.3-5.4). The
K-W-L Chart is a graphic organizer
that asks students to consider what
they Know about a topic prior to
beginning a unit, asks them what they
Want to know about a topic they are
about to study, and asks them what
they have Learned about a topic once
they have finished studying it.
3. Pre-Course Tests. Mostly used in middle school or high school, a pre-course
test can be especially useful for teachers of multi-year courses like English
I, English II, or foreign languages to
assess what was learned and to determine students’ familiarity with what
will be learned. Public release “practice” tests of AP tests, and state exams
(i.e. Regents examination), can make
good diagnostics.
4. Pre-Unit Questionnaires. For pre-unit
diagnostics it is often most helpful to
create your own tools so that they can
be geared towards the material you
intend to cover. You will want to elicit
your students’ attitudes (are they naturally engaged or will you need to
generate enthusiasm?), their knowl-
30
edge (are they generally informed or
do they have misconceptions?), and
their past experience with a given
topic (are they bored by overexposure
or is this their first time encountering
it?) in order to best design your lessons and unit. Work to determine
both their general understanding and
general excitement for a topic. One
section of a questionnaire might be
geared towards assessing interest
(what do you want to learn about a
topic?), while another section can be
geared towards readiness (what do
you know about a topic?). See
Teaching Tool #2.1
The diagnostic questionnaire featured in
Teaching Tool #2.1 was designed to assess
student content knowledge. When you are
trying to assess ability or familiarity with a
specific skill, you will need to design your
diagnostic to identify the aspects of the task
that your students have already mastered.
Teaching Tool #2.2 offers an example where
the diagnostic “test” effectively covers the
full range of the hierarchy of skills involved.
Whenever you are diagnosing student
knowledge, be certain to reassure students
that you don’t expect them to know everything about the topic. Inform them that the
questionnaire, by design, will intentionally
contain some information that will be unfamiliar to them. Remove any stress the activity might create by emphasizing that the
activity is for your instructional benefit, and
not a reflection of their intelligence.
Formative Assessment
The goal of your formative assessment is
intensive and focused questioning of your
students. Bear in mind that the format of
the questioning will vary.
As we have said, there will be much
overlap between formative assessment
strategies and summative assessment strate-
CHAPTER 2
TEACHING TOOL #2.1
Diagnosing Interest & Readiness
Interest Questionnaire: What Do You Want to Learn About the Civil Rights Movement?
Here are some of the options for what we might study during our exploration of the Civil Rights
Movement. Which topics interest you the most? Put a 1 next to topics that you are most
interested in, 2 next to topics that you are somewhat interested in, and 3 next to those topics that
don’t interest you at all.
____ Civil Rights Leaders
____ Civil Rights Speeches
____ Racial Violence & the KKK
____ Segregation in America
____ Civil Disobedience & Boycotts
____ Important Court Cases
____ Civil Rights Legislation (Laws)
____ The Role of U.S. Presidents
____ Famous African-Americans who broke barriers
____ in music
____ in politics
____ in sports
____ in Hollywood
____ in art
____ in literature
____ in other:
____ Affirmative Action & the Legacy of the Movement
____ Other (tell me specifically what you would like to study):
Readiness Questionnaire: What Can You Tell Me About the Civil Rights Movement?
1. What role did Martin Luther King play?
2. What role did Malcolm X play?
3. What does segregation mean?
4. What parts of U.S. society were segregated?
5. What did “separate but equal” mean?
6. What was the KKK? What did its members do?
7. Name some of the U.S. presidents who played a role in the Civil Rights Movement:
8. What changed after the Civil Rights Movement?
Adapted Carol Tomlinson (2001). Differentiated Instruction in the Mixed Ability Classroom,
p.69, Figure 10.
CHAPTER 2
31
TEACHING TOOL #2.2
Sample Diagnostic (elementary mathematics)
(a) 17
- 12
5
(b) 15
- 13
2
(c) 433
- 132
301
(d) 337
- 226
111
(e) 654
- 423
231
(f) 43
- 25
12
(g) 63
- 57
14
(h) 562
- 453
111
(i) 667
- 374
313
Analysis: Hierarchy of Skills
Objectives
Score
(1) Subtract two 2-digit numbers.
2 out of 2
(2) Subtract two 3-digit numbers when borrowing is not needed.
3 out of 3
(3) Subtract 2-digit numbers with borrowing from tens’ place. [Items (f) and (g).]
0 out of 2
(4) Subtract 3-digit numbers requiring borrowing from either tens’ or hundreds’
place. [Items (h) and (i).]
0 out of 2
Evaluation and Conclusion
By examining the results of the assessment, it is clear that the student has not mastered objectives
3 and 4. This information would lead the teacher to review the concept of borrowing. It will not
be necessary to go over objectives 1 and 2.
gies, but keep in mind that in general, formative assessments are not used for official
grading purposes (although there might
certainly be exceptions). Despite the overlap, we will try here to identify some of the
formative techniques that can most often
occur throughout the instructional process.
Instruction must be a two-way, interactive process. Your students’ role is not to sit
quietly and absorb the enlightening lessons
you deliver. You must communicate to
them that they have a duty to inform you
when they are confused, to question things
that seem counterintuitive, and to tell you
when the pace of instruction is disabling—
in other words, to provide feedback about
their learning experience as it occurs.
However, since students can be notoriously
non-communicative (and may legitimately
be incapable of articulating their difficulties), it is mainly your responsibility to elicit
32
as much information from them as possible.
Much of formative assessment is designed
to encourage communication. We present
three categories of formative assessment
below: (1) questioning, (2) feedback, and (3)
“tried and true” formative assessments.
Let’s take a look at each of the categories
below.
Questioning
In Chapter 5 we detail this technique
more fully, and identify it as one of the
most effective teaching strategies available.
It should be significant to you that this
strategy falls under both the category of
“teaching strategy” and “assessment
method”—since it is truly where the overlap between instruction and assessment
occurs. As we have said—the line between
teaching and assessing is a blurry one.
CHAPTER 2
You may want to take a moment and
flip to Chapter 5 to briefly skim the section
on questioning. Formative assessment
efforts require not only that you learn to ask
probing questions of students, but that they
learn to be good questioners themselves.
The feedback loop will enable you to monitor how students are progressing toward
learning goals.
Feedback
Just as you need to elicit verbal and
written feedback from your students to
gauge how successfully they are internalizing material, you will need to offer specific
feedback to help them escalate their pace of
learning. Whatever forms your assessment
takes, once your students’ thinking is visible
and you have an accurate picture of student
comprehension, you can then provide helpful guidance and feedback. Consider the following forms of feedback: (1) teacher feedback, (2) peer feedback, and (3) student
reflection.
Teacher Feedback
While providing students with positive
feedback is important, constant and/or
vague praise can cut off discussion and
encourage complacency, or worse—encourage performance for the seeking of external
praise instead of internal satisfaction. When
students demonstrate progress, praise
should be sincere and specific. Examples
include:
"
“You did a terrific job checking your
work and fixing mistakes.”
"
“You provided excellent detail in this
story.”
"
“Your comments in class were helpful
to other students.”
"
“It’s impressive to see how closely you
are listening.”
At the same time, mistakes should be
CHAPTER 2
viewed as learning opportunities and necessary steps to success, not as indications that
the student has failed to learn. For example:
“Let’s look at the subtraction problem and
see if we can find where you made the mistake, and then we’ll try to do it again
together.”
“I want everyone to come over here and look
at Table #5’s lab results. They made a very
common, understandable error that many
of you might also make.”
“I think you made a great attempt to try to
write a powerful conclusion to your essay,
but I don’t think it quite worked as well as
it could have. Let’s look at how we can try
to fix it to make it even stronger.”
You should rarely ignore incorrect
answers (though you may want to hear
other students’ answers before addressing
the mistake), and in fact, you may want to
spend more time analyzing incorrect
answers than you do going over correct
ones. Mistakes represent an invaluable
opportunity to dispel underlying misconceptions (think about how much more you
have probably learned from the mistakes in
your life compared to the successes). All
students will benefit from the process of
discussing errors, and it will help students
overcome their inevitable fears of failure by
reinforcing the notion that “we all make
mistakes.”
Students may feel defensive when they
have made errors, so the tone of your
response will be crucial. Stay positive and
non-judgmental. When providing feedback,
especially when a student has made a mistake, be sure to send the message that you
are glad for the opportunity to clarify misunderstandings and to do a better job of
explaining the new knowledge or skill. In
fact, there will be certain mistakes or comments that offer such a unique opportunity
to expand on a topic that they will override
in importance whatever else you had
intended to do for the moment. We call
these opportunities “teachable moments,”
33
The Teachable Moment
Teachable moments are by nature unpredictable and must be seized when they present
themselves. Perhaps a student makes a significant mistake that all other students will
also want to avoid. Perhaps a student makes a breakthrough that you will want the
entire class to experience and share. Or perhaps a student raises an issue that, because
it is of such weighty consequence, begs for further discussion. Here are some examples:
Elementary School. Ms. Fitzgerald’s 5th graders were experimenting with statistics. They
had applied the concept of averages by calculating the average height of the class, and the
average foot size, and seemed to be grasping their practical use. Suddenly, Luis proposed
that they could find out what the most popular lunchroom food items were by finding the
average for each grade. Ms. Fitzgerald, though admittedly impressed with his application of
the concept, was immediately aware that she would need to stop the lesson and address the
issues Luis’ idea raised.
High School. Mr. Jackson’s 10th grade math class was studying statistics. Mr. Jackson had
supplied comprehensive information about the President’s new tax cuts, and the students were
working in groups to analyze the effect of the tax cuts on different socio-economic groups. He
was excited about the lesson, and knew the numbers would have more meaning for his students because they were related to a real-world issue that would actually affect their lives. His
students worked diligently, but when it came time to make their presentations there was stark
disagreement among the groups about which socio-economic class would benefit the most. Mr.
Jackson hadn’t anticipated that the activity would degenerate into a heated political debate, but
that seemed to be where it was heading. While he didn’t want to discourage their enthusiasm
or intense level of engagement, he also knew he needed to keep them focused on the topic at
hand. After assuring them that their disagreements were shared by some of the most expert
economists in America, he decided to seize the moment to discuss the ways in which statistics
can be manipulated. For example, he explained that if each student in the class had an average
of $50 in the bank, and there were 25 students in the class, the average person in the class was
worth about $50. Now, he explained, if Bill Gates were to walk in the room, and had $50 billion in the bank, the average person in the room would now be worth almost $2 billion each,
but would that actually make any of them wealthier? Students discuss the meaning of arithmetic averages. After further discussing the limitations and potential abuses of statistics, and
asking them to brainstorm other ways in which statistics might be inaccurate measures of
information, he congratulated them on their impressive work, and began explaining that
night’s homework assignments.
Students will almost always revel in the excitement of an unplanned discussion, and
will certainly enjoy the intensity of a controversial issue. A large part of the value of
teachable moments is that you are almost guaranteed to enjoy your students’ undivided
attention—an opportunity you can scarcely afford to waste. In fact, students may well
encourage you to extend the tangent as long as possible, and try to keep you from
returning your original lesson. You will have to be careful not to lose sight of the relative importance of the new issue raised versus your original lesson. Like Ms. Fitzgerald
and Mr. Jackson you will need to carefully consider how much time and passion to
devote to the raised topic and when to return to your lesson plan.
and they offer some of the most rewarding
and satisfying occasions in the classroom
34
because they are generally about things that
truly matter, both to you and your students.
CHAPTER 2
Peer Feedback
Peer feedback generates commentary for
students about their own work and helps
the student providing the input to clarify
his or her own thought process and speaking skills. By offering peer feedback, students learn to communicate and debate
their ideas in a productive way. The practice also sends a valuable message: You care
what students in your classroom think. As
with most new tasks, you will have to teach
your students how to give quality feedback.
Encourage them to offer feedback in a constructive manner by depersonalizing the
process so that it is focused on the ideas and
not the person.
One way to approach peer feedback is to
invite other students in the class to share
their thoughts on a peer’s thought processes
or end result. You might invite class members to direct questions to the student,
asking him or her to explain or justify
how he or she approached the problem.
Alternatively, you can take the role of
facilitator, asking questions to help guide
the students’ feedback. For example:
Mr. Garcia’s 8th graders were working on
geometry problems. He had six students
simultaneously complete the same problem
on the board, showing all their work. When
they had completed their work, he asked the
participating students to return to their
seats. He then asked the rest of the class to
evaluate the solutions that had been applied
and to assess which problems had been executed most accurately. After giving them a
few minutes to look over all the work on the
board, he began questioning the class about
its findings.
Another helpful method can be to distribute checklists, questionnaires or instructions detailing what students should look
for in their peers’ work. For example, if students are editing one another’s essays, you
might hand out a form with the following
questions on it:
"
Does the essay have an introduction?
Circle the entire introduction.
"
Does the essay have a conclusion? Put a
rectangle around the entire conclusion.
"
Does the essay provide sufficient evidence to make its argument?
Underline each piece of evidence with
one line.
"
If there is not enough evidence, or if the
evidence is unconvincing, make suggestions at the bottom of the page for
further evidence that might be used.
"
Are transition sentences used?
Underline each transition sentence
with two lines.
"
If transition sentences are not used,
indicate where they are needed with
arrows.
"
What do you like most about this
essay?
"
What do you think could make this
essay better?
“Does this approach make sense to you?
Why or why not?”
“How would you have approached the
problem?”
“Would you have done it differently? Why
or why not?”
When the whole class is focused on one
student’s work, it is especially important
that the focus does not become directed at
the student as opposed to his or her work;
to avoid this counterproductive dynamic, it
is often helpful to have the student join his
or her peers in evaluating the work.
Alternatively, rather than focusing on just
one student’s work, you can also call upon
students to evaluate all the different solutions that have been presented, compare
and contrast them, and select the ones they
think make the most sense. Here is an
example:
CHAPTER 2
By providing students with the structure
they need, they will be able to offer more
valuable feedback to their peers, and will
35
also begin to internalize the process they
need to go through when evaluating their
own work.
Student Reflection
While both teacher and peer feedback
are important parts of a student’s learning
process, the ultimate goal of assessment
should be for students themselves to competently judge where they are against their
goals and what they need to do to improve.
Just as teachers self-assess to evaluate the
strengths or weaknesses of their own performance, students must self-assess their
performance so that they become active participants in their own learning. By asking
themselves certain questions, students will
begin to analyze the quality of their own
work. A third grader can learn to ask herself whether a story she writes has a begin-
Cooperative Learning
and Feedback
Students can provide feedback to each
other in pairs or small groups as long
as there is sufficient structure to guide
their interaction. A smaller, more intimate setting is often less threatening
for the student receiving the feedback.
A common use for peer feedback is a
writing workshop. Most teachers find
it helpful to provide students with one
or two very specific skills to look for
in peer review. A third-grade group
might start by looking only for capitalization and end-of-sentence punctuation, while a seventh grade group
might start by looking only for effective use of adjectives. As students
become more comfortable and adept
at the process, you can add items to
the focus list. While writing is an obvious task to which you can apply peer
feedback, the same principles could
apply to an oral presentation in history, a lab report in chemistry, or so on.
36
ning, middle and end. By practicing this
skill, she can be her own editor. Similarly, a
tenth grader can learn to ask himself
whether he has provided adequate evidence
to support his point—be it on a history
report, a geometry proof, or a science lab.
For students to be able to accurately selfassess, they must have a clear vision of
what constitutes quality work. Unless they
know what they are working towards, they
will be unable to measure how close they
are to achieving that goal. By presenting
them with a detailed model of a successful
book report, project, essay, or presentation
of any type, they are more likely to hit that
target and ultimately more likely to internalize the high standards you have established.
Teachers can actively support selfassessment by assigning formal or informal
writing prompts that ask students to reflect
upon their performance or progress to date.
You might inquire about the following:
"
What did you learn today?
"
What were the most important parts of
today’s lesson?
"
Are you still confused about anything?
"
What was the most enjoyable part of
the lesson/unit?
"
What was the least enjoyable part of
the lesson/unit?
"
What did you find the most difficult
part of the lesson/unit?
"
What do you think you did that was
the most impressive?
"
What did you do that could still use
improvement?
"
What did I do that might have made
things easier for you?
"
What did I do that might have made
things harder for you?
"
What might have made the lesson
more interesting for you?
CHAPTER 2
Just as we encouraged you to create preunit diagnostic tools, we now encourage
you to create post-lesson or post-unit reflection tools that will help your students to
digest what they have just experienced and
provide you with valuable feedback on
what they did in fact experience. You might
even consider grading students on their
self-reflections. How much effort did they
put into their analyses? How accurate were
their evaluations? How sophisticated were
they?
After students have completed an
important assignment, you might assign
that they review and edit their own work
before you see it for the next night of homework. Give them a checklist of everything
they need to assess (it should be the exact
criteria that you will ultimately use to assess
their work). Or, pair up the entire class so
that each student has a partner to edit his or
her assignment. Both students the student
who is assessing and the student who is
receiving peer feedback will benefit from
the reviewing process.
Other Formative Assessment Techniques
Besides questioning and feedback methods, there is an assortment of “tried and
true” formative assessment techniques to
complement questioning and feedback.
Many of these techniques are repeated elsewhere when we detail teaching strategies.
Hopefully, you’re beginning to understand
that good assessment is good instruction.
Separating teaching strategies and assessment strategies is difficult since they are so
inextricably linked. Some of these reliably
effective formative assessments include:
graphic organizers, journals, whole-group
assessments, observation, the minute paper,
weekly reports, and interviews/conferences.
Graphic Organizers
As we will discuss in detail in Chapter 5
(covering High Impact Teaching Strategies),
CHAPTER 2
graphic organizers offer a terrific way for
students of all ages to visually process
information and for teachers to gain insight
into a student’s reasoning. Have students
generate their own graphic organizers (or
work in pairs) in order to demonstrate their
comprehension of a concept or process.
Concept maps (also called mental mapping,
concept webbing or clustering) in particular
can offer a glimpse of a student’s thinking
process, and can visibly demonstrate voids
in their understanding. You can assess students on the accuracy of their relationships
and associations, and on the depth of their
presentation.
Journals
Journals are a versatile method of assessment that can be utilized before, during and
after instruction. They can provide a longitudinal record of student work from the
beginning of the school year until the end.
Students can use journals as a reference tool
when they need to refresh their memory of
a prior learning experience. As an assessment tool, teachers can understand what
students think, feel, or remember about a
particular idea or lesson. Through a journal,
a student and teacher can have a private
dialogue where both can ask questions or
make responses without having to share
those ideas with the entire class. Journals
offer a tremendously effective way for students to communicate to you how they are
progressing, or simply for them to express
themselves and commit those thoughts to
paper. Encourage students to use drawings
or symbols if they help to express themselves more effectively. Bill Heinmiller
(2000), an Ohio physics teacher, explains
how he uses weekly journal prompts as a
formative assessment tool
in his physics class. Examples of his
prompts are:
"
How can the coefficient of friction be
determined by knowing only the angle
of an inclined plane?
37
"
Discuss the similarities and differences
between gravitational, electric, and
magnetic fields.
"
Describe the concepts of sound as they
relate to your favorite music.
"
assess the understandings of your entire
class. The following methods offer effective
ways to do so in a timely and efficient manner.
"
How has physics affected your
worldview?
Other examples of journals as assessment tools include:
"
Writing about perceptions/understandings of a topic
"
Applying knowledge to a new situation
"
Explaining concepts or processes in
their own words
"
Grappling with some of the more consequential aspects of a topic
"
Expressing frustration or confusion
"
Writing about attitudes/feelings about
a topic
"
Responding to class demonstrations or
lab results
"
Interviewing a classmate about their
understandings of a topic
"
Creating a written test of a topic
(fill-in-the-blank questions, true-false
questions, matching, etc)
You can see how journal prompts can be
either vague or extremely focused. You will
need to decide which journal entries to
review and whether or not to formally
respond to them. While you don’t have to
respond to every entry, you will have to
offer feedback frequently; otherwise students won’t take the exercise seriously
enough to make it worthwhile. In general,
in order to encourage a free flowing
thought process, students should not be
expected to carefully edit journal entries.
Whole Group Assessments
You will often find that you want to
38
Thumbs/Up/Thumbs Down. After a
teacher asks a question, the students
use their thumbs to indicate the following responses: (1) Thumb up –
Affirmative; (2) Thumb flat—
Uncertain; and (3) Thumb down—
Negative. For example:
A teacher calls on a student to solve a
math problem. After the student finishes
the teacher asks the class if the solution is
correct. The teacher instructs the class to
respond using “thumbs up/thumbs
down.”
"
Fist to Five. After a teacher asks a
question, the students hold up their
hands or fingers to signal agreement
or disagreement. For example holding
up five fingers indicates “strongly
agree” while holding up two fingers
might mean “somewhat disagree.” A
fist would indicate strongly disagree.
(Hint: Avoid creating a signal using
just one finger. The temptation may be
too great for some of your students to
misbehave). For example:
The teacher has been leading a unit on the
Bill of Rights. The teacher assesses the
position of the entire class by asking students if they believe that curfews are
legal. Students physically respond with
“Fist to Five.” The teacher notes the
views or the majority of the class and
those who held views on either extreme
and may or may not refer to the responses
at a later time.
Observation, Observational Checklists and
Anecdotal Records.
Teachers can use student observation to
assess student progress for either academic
or social development. It is a non-obtrusive
way to allow students unimpeded activity
CHAPTER 2
which teachers can evaluate. Checklists and
anecdotal records are the tools you will create to track student development and
record your observations. Checklists offer a
more standardized approach—you will simply create a list of criteria or behaviors that
would demonstrate mastery, witness the
student in the process of applying those
behaviors and then note which criteria were
met and which weren’t. Anecdotal records
are written notes that simply describe your
reactions that seem most relevant.
Anecdotal records allow for total freedom
and flexibility for recording your observations. Your questions might determine:
"
Did the student sufficiently complete
the assignment?
"
Did the student experience any difficulties during the process?
"
How did the student work to overcome the difficulties?
"
What skills did the student exhibit in
completing the assignment?
"
Were the skills appropriately applied?
"
Did the student use appropriate
vocabulary and terminology to express
him/herself?
"
Did the student work with confidence?
"
Did the student apply creative solutions?
"
Did the student persevere?
"
Did the student cooperate effectively
with others?
Observation can be focused effectively
by following these steps:
1. Observe several students at a time, or
focus on one student over the course
of a day. Not all students will require
observation, so reserve your time for
those who stand to benefit the most.
2. Determine what will be observed (e.g.,
general phonemic awareness or a specific decoding skill, ability to collaborate, a particular problem solving
CHAPTER 2
skill, work habits at a learning center,
student resourcefulness, etc).
3. Schedule a time to observe (i.e. set
aside time during a lesson where you
can observe students while they work
independently).
4. Record observations. You might keep
anecdotal records in a notebook,
with one page for each student.
Alternatively, you might carry
around index cards that you can
compile later in a folder.
5. Reflect upon observations. Use your
anecdotal record to track a student’s
progress over time and to assess
where the student is against particular
academic or social goals.
Apart from helping you track student
progress, these records can provide concrete
information and documentation when it
comes time to report summative progress to
students themselves, administrators, and
parents.
Minute Paper
This method allows for real-time feedback to enable a teacher to immediately
assess the success of a lesson. At the end of
class, students take one minute, individually or in groups, to write responses to a
short, focused question designed to determine how well students grasped the main
concepts of a lesson. If used frequently
enough, they will become fully integrated
into the lesson itself. Your questions might
ask:
"
What was the main point of today’s
lesson?
"
What was the most surprising element
of today’s lesson?
"
Which part of today’s lesson interested
you the most and why?
"
What was the most confusing part of
the lesson?
39
"
What questions do you still have about
today’s topic?
"
What parts of today’s lesson might
reasonably appear on an end of unit
exam?
"
If you were to write a question about
this lesson on an end of unit exam,
what would the question be, and what
would the correct answer be?
"
Write a newspaper headline and a subheading for a news story about today’s
lesson.
"
Write a five-sentence news story on
today’s lesson (the type that would be
a 20-second segment on TV news).
Explain Newton’s Laws of Motion
"
How will you solve this multiplication
problem?
"
"
40
Ask the student to explain a concept in
his or her own words. For example:
Ask a student to apply knowledge to a
new area. For example:
Given what we know about Thomas
Jefferson, and were he alive today, what
might his position be on immigration
and why do you think so?
"
Ask a student to connect the relationships amongst several concepts or
units. For example:
Example: What ties all of these units
together? What do they all have in
common? What patterns do you see?
Interviews/Conferences
Interviews offer teachers the opportunity
for structured, meaningful, interactive
engagement with a student. Students rarely
get one-on-one face time with teachers, and
interviews offer an invaluable and intimate
setting for incisive inquisition. Unlike the
chief limitation of paper-and-pencil tests,
interviews offer the capability to follow-up
and press a student’s thinking to accurately
identify the root of any misconceptions, to
clarify knowledge, or to further challenge a
student. Interviews consist of deliberate
questions, tasks or problems presented to
the student. They can occur formally or
informally and can be conducted individually or in small groups, in class or outside of
class. You may selectively target certain students who you think stand to benefit the
most from interviews (especially those who
you feel may have more difficulty expressing their knowledge in more traditional
assessment forms). Be sure to take advantage of the interview format to truly assess
how a student is processing information
and not just what information is being
processed. You can use an interview to:
Ask a student to describe a solution.
For example:
"
Present the student with visual graphs
or visual prompts and ask the student
to describe what he or she sees. For
example:
What does this graph indicate?
What is the significance of this photograph? Are there any symbolic images?
What might this painting represent?
"
Require a student to problem solve
an actual or theoretical dilemma.
For example:
Thirty minus twenty equals ten. Can you
make up a story that uses these numbers
and results in ten of something? Make
sure there are boats in your story…Now
continue your story adding this information: fifteen minus what equals ten?
"
Ask a student for feedback about
instruction. For example:
Is peer editing time effective for you?
Why?
"
Assess a student’s attitudes about the
class in general or a long-term unit or
project specifically. For example:
Does this unit still interest you? What
CHAPTER 2
other aspects that we haven’t yet covered
would you like to study?
"
Assess a student’s communication
skills.
When conducting interviews, be sure to
allow adequate “wait-time” and not to
interrupt or put words in the student’s
mouth. Depending on how significant you
expect the interview to be, you may or may
not choose to record (audio or video) the
interview, but you will want to take notes
(during or after) regardless. You must also
consciously decide ahead of time whether
the purpose of the interview is instructive
and tutorial (during which you will want to
intercede and address misconceptions) or
merely informative (during which you will
simply assess performance but not actively
intervene to improve it).
Summative Assessments
Once you are confident that you have
sufficiently covered the contents of a unit
and comprehensively gauged your students’ learning, you will need to officially
measure their growth and achievement with
a summative assessment. When used appropriately, summative assessments can provide students (and parents and districts)
with a useful snapshot of student performance. They prevent end-of-year shocks by
providing periodic glimpses of student
progress. They are also the tools you will
use to assign your students the grades that
will represent their achievement.
Summative assessments must correlate
with the preceding instruction. If your
instruction was complex, the assessment
must be equally complex. For example, if
your instruction was geared towards
enabling your students to competently compare the philosophies of the two dominant
political parties in America, your assessment should require them to explain those
distinctions—not merely to list recent presi-
CHAPTER 2
dents from each party. If your instruction
was more simplistic, your assessment will
have to be simplistic as well. For example, if
your lessons only required students to recognize definitions
of terms, don’t expect them to be able to
generate those definitions on a test.
Most importantly, make your expectations known to your students prior to a
summative assessment. We are doing our
students an injustice if we do not give each
of them specific feedback about their current achievement level, what the academic
expectations of them are, and what the
expected performance level looks like.
Summative assessments must not be mysterious guessing games, and you must never
intentionally play “gotcha!” by trying to
surprise your students with unfair and
unpredictable applications of material.
In fact, if you are truly assessing as
taught there should be few if any shocking
surprises on summative assessments. This
does not mean exams have to be predictable, or that you should give your students the answers to your tests during
instruction; let there be no doubt that we
encourage you to consistently demand
intense intellectual application, especially
on summative assessments. But exams or
projects should never include material that
is beyond your students’ capacities or outside of the realm of issues that were emphasized or covered.
Furthermore, the constant feedback and
daily assessment you will have provided
will alleviate the anxiety related with periodic summative exams. In practice, by the
time you get to a culminating project or
exam, students should be so well versed in
what is expected of them, and in their mastery of the content, that they should be (theoretically) able to accurately predict the
grades they deserve. Finally, follow the
guidelines presented in Teaching Tool #2.3
for creating quality summative assessments.
41
TEACHING TOOL #2.3
Guidelines for Creating Quality
Summative Assessments
1. Vary your assessment types. Give students a variety of ways to express what they know
through a combination of traditional test questions, essays, models, dramatizations, and
journal entries.
2. Teach test-taking methods. If you find that a student is able to succeed in all methods but traditional test questions, you may need to explicitly teach test-taking methods. (Think back to
how helpful an SAT review class may have been for you—most of what these courses teach is
not content but guidance on how to take the test.)
3. Always give clear instructions on assessments.
4. Require students to show their work whenever possible so that you can accurately identify
the source of problems.
5. Order items from easier to harder so students don’t waste all their time struggling on an early
question. (Again, be sure to teach test-taking strategies like skipping difficult questions and
returning to them if time permits).
6. Be realistic about how much time students will need to complete the assessment.
7. Be realistic about how much time you will need to grade the assessment. In general, traditional tests forms are faster to grade, but offer less strenuous mental application. True-False
questions are quicker to assess than short essays. You will need to weigh the advantages and
disadvantages of each assessment you offer.
8. Consider the special needs of certain students. Students with IEP’s (Individualized Education
Programs) may have specified accommodations that you will need to meet (e.g., extra time,
larger print, oral instead of written instructions, fewer answer choices, etc.).
9. Be conscious of potential bias. Do your reading passages make inaccurate assumptions about
cultural values or experiences? Are there racial or gender stereotypes?
Example: Young Emma cried because the thunder ____________ her.
(a) pleased
(b) frightened
(c) delighted
(d) calmed
In this example, the frightened, helpless little girl is a stereotype that is better to avoid.
42
CHAPTER 2
Common Types of
Summative Assessments
Most people are very familiar with summative assessments. They include things
like tests, quizzes, and essays. In addition,
projects are frequently used as summative
assessments. (You may recall the geologic
formations, model roller coaster, or poster
you created as a student.) Other types of
summative assessments, like performance
assessments, may not be as familiar. A
debate or presentation is a type of performance assessment. The section below
describes tests and quizzes, authentic
assessments, performance assessments,
product assessments, and self-evaluations.
Tests and Quizzes
Since pencil-and-paper tests and quizzes
are the most common types of summative
assessments, let’s examine how to strengthen their quality. Always be sure to consider
what a student has demonstrated by correctly answering a question or failed to
demonstrate by incorrectly answering a
question. For example, consider the distinctive purposes of the following four test
questions, remembering there is a time and
place for each question type:
1. True or false: Bill Clinton was a
Democrat.
This question seeks to determine a student’s knowledge of a basic fact. The question does no more than test a student’s
ability to associate a person with a political party. A correct answer in no way
indicates any deeper knowledge about the
party or the person.
2. Fill-in: The political party which generally emphasizes states rights over
federal mandates, prefers a smaller,
less-active federal government, and
espouses the benefits of lower taxation
is the ____________ party.
A correct answer indicates that a student
CHAPTER 2
recognizes the description of the
Republican Party.
3. Multiple choice: The policies and priorities of the George W. Bush administration most closely resemble those of:
(a) Jimmy Carter (b) Bill Clinton (c)
Ronald Reagan or (d) John F. Kennedy
This question asks a student to compare
the policies of one president to those of
several other presidential administrations.
A correct response suggests that a student senses similarities between the Bush
and Reagan administrations (or at a minimum that the student recognizes they are
the only two Republicans). A correct
response does not necessarily indicate a
complex understanding of the policies of
these administrations.
4. Essay: Assess the policies of the
George W. Bush administration to
date that are consistent with the general philosophies and ideals of the
national Republican Party.
This question requires students to be
familiar with both the details of Bush
Administration policies and the beliefs
of the Republican Party, and to be able
to synthesize the two.
Our purpose in this exercise is not to
value some question types at the expense of
others. Rather, it is essential that you appreciate that there are both limitations and benefits to each type. The trick is being able to
appropriately select when to use the different types of questions. The chart in Table
2.3 can help.
Here are a few other guidelines to keep
in mind when crafting questions:
"
Avoid giving away the answer. If you
don’t sufficiently challenge your students, they can’t sufficiently progress.
For example:
(WEAKER) The monetary unit of
Europe is called a _________.
43
TABLE 2.3: Test and Quiz Items (Purposes, Suggestions, and Examples)
Question Type
Multiple Choice
Purposes & Suggestions
Examples
Purposes:
Used to force comparison,
make judgments and distinctions, measures ability to
recognize the correct response
Which of the following is
negatively charged? (a)
proton, (b) neutron, (c)
electron, (d) none of the
above.
Suggestions:
Provide at least four choices.
The correct answer should be
clearly identifiable to anyone
who has learned the material.
The introductory statement
should be brief and direct.
Purposes:
Identifying and classifying relationships and precedent events
Matching,
Sequencing
Suggestions:
Provide clear, simple directions
and model the expected
answering method.
Drawling lines from one item
to the other is more effective
than matching letters, as it
avoids careless errors.
Purposes:
Determining accuracy of
knowledge
True-False,
Yes-No
Suggestions:
Use only affirmative statements
to avoid confusion.
Avoid language that is open to
interpretation (e.g., very, sometimes, often, and occasionally)
44
Which of the following
women was the first
African-American female
writer to be published in
America? (a) Toni
Morrison (b) Harriet
Beecher Stowe (c) Harriet
E. Wilson (d) Phyllis
Wheatley.
Identify the following
items with “C” for
carnivores, “H” for
herbivores and “O”
for omnivores.
Put the following species
of prehistoric humans in
the order in which they
appeared, starting with
the earliest species.
Match the art form with
the artist.
Slopes of parallel
lines are equal. T F
The predominant
language of Latin
America is Latin. T F
The first English settlement in America was
Jamestown, Virginia.
T F
The ocean floor is flat.
T F
CHAPTER 2
(Table 2.3 continued)
Factual
Short Answer,
Fill-in-the-Blank
Purposes:
Recalling and reproducing
information
Define mitochondria.
Suggestions:
Include only one blank space
per sentence.
The McCarthy hearings
were held in what year?
When possible, locate the
blank at the end of the sentence
(this enables the reader to
create context via reading
comprehension).
Purposes:
Summarizing, applying, concluding, evaluating, predicting,
analyzing
Higher-Order
Short Answer
Short or
Long Essay
Suggestions:
Give some indication of the
length of response you expect
(either by specific instructions,
or by the amount of space you
leave).
Purposes:
Organizing ideas, developing
an argument backed up by
supporting evidence, comparing or contrasting, expressing
opinions, demonstrating original thought
Suggestions:
Clearly articulate expectations
in terms of content, form, style
and length.
CHAPTER 2
Draw a diagram of the
solar system.
A polygon that is
not convex is called
__________.
List the four chambers of
the heart.
Summarize the position of
the NRA in regards to the
2nd Amendment.
What is the message of
this advertisement?
Given the data on the
graph in front of you,
what is the relationship
between altitude and oxygen level? How might
this affect people living at
high altitudes?
How might Animal
Farm have played out
differently had the island
been inhabited by girls
instead of boys?
Discuss the debate
amongst those who
think global warming
is a problem and those
who think the science is
unconvincing. Who has
made a stronger case?
45
(STRONGER) France, Germany,
and Spain all use the monetary
unit called a _________. (Euro)
"
Ensure that your answers are as indisputable as possible. Beware of generalizations or assailable positions. For
example:
(WEAKER) Rosa Parks was the first
African-American to refuse to give
her bus seat to a white person in the
segregated south. T F
(STRONGER) Rosa Parks refused
to give her bus seat to a white person
in the segregated south. T F
"
Focus your question as much as
possible. For example:
(WEAKER) Albert Einstein was
famous for ____________________.
(STRONGER) Albert Einstein’s
famous theory (e=mc2) is called the
Theory of ________________.
"
Test only one idea per question so that
you’ll be able to identify which part of
the question the student knows. For
example:
(WEAKER) William Shakespeare, who
wrote Hamlet, was born in 1564. T F
(STRONGER) William Shakespeare
wrote Hamlet. T F
William Shakespeare was born in 1564.
T F
"
Make sure that some of the incorrect
answers of multiple-choice questions
are plausible enough to be tempting.
The answer should not be so obvious
that even people who haven’t studied
the material will be able to figure it
out. For example:
(WEAKER) Average voter turnout in
the past few American presidential elections has hovered around
(a) 100% (b) 2% (c) 99% (d) 50%.
in the past few American presidential
elections has hovered around
(a) 85% (b) 35% (c) 75% (d) 50%.
"
Avoid posing questions in the negative
to avoid confusion. Statements should
be short, precise and positive. For
example:
(WEAKER) Every triangle does not
have 3 sides and 3 angles. T F
(STRONGER) Every triangle has
3 sides and 3 angles. T F
Your goal is to write tests that are valid,
efficient and fair. The more conscientious
you are in creating your tests, the more
reliable and useful the results will be.
Authentic Assessment
Although traditional test questions have
their time and place, their limitations are
significant. To repeat the example we used
before, you wouldn’t give a child a multiple
choice question to see if she or he could ride
a bike. If you want to determine whether or
not your students can competently debate
an issue, the best assessment method would
be to have them actually debate an issue.
Grant Wiggins (1998), author of Educative
Assessment, calls this approach “authentic
assessment” and identifies three essential
characteristics for all assessments:
1. Assessments should be realistic.
Whenever possible, relate assessment
tasks to real-world challenges. For
example:
Instead of offering fill-in-the-blank questions about famous composers, play bits of
famous classical pieces, and have students
identify the composer.
Instead of making up theoretical questions
about pollution, assign your students the
task of measuring and/or researching and
commenting upon actual local pollution
levels.
(STRONGER) Average voter turnout
46
CHAPTER 2
2. Assessments must require “judgment
and innovation.” Student solutions
should require problem solving, creativity, and complex thinking. Ensure
that at least some of your questions
demand higher order thinking. (See
Teaching Tool #5.2) Every question or
task should not result in identical
solutions; divergent thinking should
be encouraged and intrinsic to at least
some of the problems. For example:
Instead of a series of matching questions,
asking students to correctly sequence the
order of events leading up to the
Revolutionary War, have students write
an essay describing the culmination of
events, so that you can be sure they
understand how each event led to the
next. Or assign groups, specify the events
to be covered, and ask them to dramatize
the sequence of events. A third option
would be to give your students the option
of writing a song, rap, poem, or story, or
to prepare a newscast about how colonists
gradually progressed to war.
3. Assessments should demand a “novel
application.” Ask more of your students than simple memorization.
While facts are important, it is what
students can do with those facts that
illustrates whether impressive learning has occurred. A solid measure of
whether or not they have truly internalized material is whether or not
they can apply it to a new situation.
For example:
If your students have been covering the
causes of tornados, assign them the task of
writing a newspaper article about a fictional tornado. Specify the information to
be included: the scientific causes, the specific weather-related phenomenon that
created the occurrence, the exact type and
intensity of tornado, specific instances of
damage, a plausible geographic location,
and the frequency with which tornados of
this intensity occur.
CHAPTER 2
Once you have created authentic assessments, you will need to figure out how to
objectively judge them.
Rubrics
The biggest challenge related to authentic assessments is how to grade them.
Traditional test questions are obviously right
or wrong. Student achievement results can
easily be compared to those of other students through a comparison of the percentage of questions answered correctly. Even
essays, which are more subjective than other
types of questions, will contain specified elements that can be objectively judged. But
evaluating authentic assessments will be
more challenging. Instead of simply determining whether a student’s answer was correct or incorrect, teachers must actually analyze their students’ work. Authentic assessments, therefore, not only demand higher
order thinking skills of students, but of their
teachers as well.
An invaluable tool at your disposal is
the rubric. A rubric is an assessment tool
that clearly defines expectations for student
understanding and/or performance.
Remarkably versatile and adaptable, they
are applicable to all content areas and grade
levels. They can be used to score any type
of student performance, including written
assignments or oral presentations. They
make data that seems prohibitively immeasurable measurable.
A rubric offers a pre-determined set of
scoring guidelines and differentiates
between stellar work, solid work, acceptable
work, mediocre work, and unacceptable
work. A rubric goes beyond a typical test or
checklist by stating explicit outcomes for a
specific performance and delineating different levels of quality for that performance.
(In addition to serving as summative assessment tools, rubrics facilitate formative feedback and support student revision throughout the instructional process). Rubrics are
also helpful in defining student achieve-
47
ment for families.
There are two generally accepted types
of rubrics: holistic and analytic.
1. A holistic rubric combines all assessment criteria together to be assessed
as a whole.
2. An analytic rubric separates assess-
ment criteria and measures each individually.
To give you a clear picture of what a
rubric looks like, two rubrics are presented
in Figure 3, below, one holistic and one analytic. Both assess oral presentations.
Notice that in both rubrics, the language
and the structure are consistent for each level
of a skill (i.e. incorrect sentence structure,
Figure 3: Examples of Holistic and Analytic Rubrics
Holistic Rubric for Oral Presentations
4.
3.
2.
1.
0.
48
The student clearly describes the topic of study and why it was selected.
The delivery is dynamic, well paced, clear, and engages the audience.
The student provides supporting evidence for each conclusion. Eye
contact is sustained throughout the presentation. The student uses visual
aides to engage the audience or to enhance communication. The student clearly demonstrates that he or she has spent time preparing for
the presentation. All questions are fielded and responded to accurately.
The student describes the topic of study, but does not consistently pro
vide evidence for conclusions. The student speaks at an audible tone and
at a clear pace. The student maintains eye contact for the majority of the
presentation. Preparation is evident. The student mentions the visual aid.
Questions are fielded and answered.
The student presents the topic of study, but takes little time to describe it.
The student rarely supports conclusions with evidence. The presentation is
audible but incoherent at times. The student does not maintain eye contact. There is not significant evidence of student preparation. The student
does not reference any visual aid. Questions are fielded and answered
with minimal responses.
The student makes the presentation without clearly stating the topic of
study. The student provides no evidence to support infrequent conclusions. The delivery is difficult to follow. Eye contact is not made. The student provides no visual aid. There is no indication
of preparation. Questions receive little to no response.
No oral presentation is attempted.
CHAPTER 2
(Figure 3 continued)
Analytic Rubric for Oral Presentations
Indicator
Definition of
Topic of Study
Quality of Speech
Quality of Pacing
Eye Contact
Visual Aid
Preparation
Q&A
CHAPTER 2
1
2
3
The student does not
clearly introduce the
topic of study.
The student briefly introduces the topic of study.
The student clearly
describes the topic of
study and de-scribes the
reason for its selection.
Incorrect sentence structure and incoherent
speech.
Mostly correct
sentence structure and
reasonably coherent
speech.
Correct sentence structure and clear speech.
The student either finishes extremely early or
does not
complete the presentation.
The student has to
make dramatic pacing
changes to complete
presentation.
The student does not
make eye contact
throughout the presentation.
The student
uses no visual
aid during the
presentation.
The student clearly did
not prepare before the
presentation (e.g., the
presentation is incomplete).
The student provides
incomplete or inaccurate
responses to questions.
The student completes
the presentation in the
allotted time without
accelerating pace.
The student makes sporadic eye contact
throughout the presentation, or makes eye contact with only a few
individuals.
The student makes consistent eye contact with
various audience members throughout the
presentation.
The student uses but
does not refer
to the visual aid throughout the presentation.
The student uses and
refers to the visual aid
as appropriate throughout the presentation.
The student demonstrates a lack of preparation for the presentation (e.g., the student is
rushing to complete
presentation at the last
minute).
The student responds to
questions.
The student presentation reflects preparation.
The student
accurately responds to
all questions.
49
then mostly correct sentence structure, then
correct sentence structure). Such structural
consistency is important because it helps
students determine the focus and expectations for each category of assessment.
You will notice that neither of these
rubrics addresses the complexity or mastery
of the content that is delivered through the
presentation. If your purpose were simply
to meet the oral language objectives in your
language arts curriculum, you would not
necessarily need to assess content.
However, if you are using the presentation
as an alternate form of assessment of content-area material, you very well might
want to assess both the delivery and the
content. Therefore, depending on your purpose for developing this assignment, you
could choose a variety of options to assess
content-area mastery. Most logically, you
could choose to use two separate rubrics,
one that assesses the delivery and another
that assesses the content. Other options
include adding indicators to the original
rubric so that content is covered within the
same rubric or using some other form of
assessment (such as a quiz or essay) to
gauge content mastery.
Rubrics can be useful either before or
after an assessment:
"
Distribute a rubric before an assessment to guide student work and exemplify expectations.
"
Distribute a rubric after an assessment
to detail feedback and guide student
revision.
uted prior to an actual summative assessment, offer students an accurate and
authentic view of a teacher’s exact expectations. Rubrics, therefore, should be considered an incredible opportunity, as opposed
to the incredible hassle they might appear
to be at first glance. They provide concrete
feedback that tells students exactly where
they stand relative to a skill or knowledge
standard. Since the rubric defines your
expectations, it will effectively justify a student’s grade rather than producing a grade
that may appear random or arbitrary. The
power of the rubric comes from the unique
advantage it offers—it can be used to help
guide students in the preparation leading
up to their delivery, during their delivery,
and during their reflection and revision following the assignment. Table 2.4, on the following page, presents a summary of when
to use rubrics.
Although Figure 3 outlined the use of a
rubric for an oral presentation, be aware
that rubrics can be used for almost any
classroom activity. You can use a rubric to
judge a complex unit-long project, or you
can use it to judge the result of a relatively
simple student-generated graphic organizer.
Once students are familiar with rubrics (and
they must be used frequently if they are to
be effective), enlist students’ participation in
the creation of them. You can even assign
students to create a rubric for an upcoming
assignment and then assess the effectiveness
of their criteria.
"
Determine the knowledge or skills to
be assessed.
"
Define levels of progress or proficiency.
You might also prefer to start with a
more simplified scoring guide than a rubric.
Even a basic checklist can get you started.
Just enumerate the required criteria, and
follow each element with “yes”, “no” or
“partially.” Then indicate whether the criteria was met or to what degree.
As you should begin to appreciate,
rubrics offer an incredibly powerful mode
of assessment because they can and must be
shared with students prior to “taking the
test.” Unlike traditional tests that prohibit
prior access to questions, rubrics, distrib-
How do rubric scores translate into
grades? Depending on the type of assessment system you are using (or that your
school requires), you may find it necessary
to translate a rubric score into a more traditional letter or number grade. It is generally
In order to use a rubric, you first need to:
50
CHAPTER 2
TABLE 2.4: When to Use Rubrics
When to Use Rubrics
Description
Before the
Presentation
The students receive a rubric for oral presentations.
The teacher constantly refers students to the rubric as
they prepare their presentations. The teacher asks students to assess their own presentation to determine
what they need to improve prior to the presentation.
The teacher demonstrates a high-scoring performance
and a low-scoring one.
During the
Presentation
The teacher uses the rubric to assess each student
presentation. Students can also use the rubric to assess
one another and themselves.
After the
Presentation
The teacher returns each assessment. Students are
encouraged to review their assessments and revise
their presentations to meet the standards. If possible,
students are provided the opportunity to present their
revised work.
best to determine in advance how a rubric
number will correspond with a traditional
grade and to share that information with
the students, particularly if they do not
have much familiarity with rubrics. For
example, your criteria for an A grade may
be consistent performance at levels 4 and 5
on a 5-point rubric. On the other hand,
many educators advocate letting rubric
scores speak for themselves. Rubric scores
are much more descriptive than traditional
grades, and they focus students on areas for
improvement and growth, as opposed to a
traditional grade which may not offer the
student concrete areas for improvement.
Now that you have the means to evaluate non-traditional assessments, we will
look more closely at the different types of
summative assessments at your disposal.
Journals. Although most often used
diagnostically or formatively, journals
CHAPTER 2
can be used for summative purposes. If
using it for summative purposes, you
would grade the journal response. Possible
assignments after instruction might include
having students:
"
Write about what they have learned.
"
Write about their reflections of their
own thought processes.
"
Detail what further curiosities about
the topic remain.
"
Apply what they have learned to a
new situation.
"
Create a unit test (you can either
specify the types of questions or not).
For example:
Ms. Jefferies’ 5th grade students have just
completed a unit on Harriet Tubman and the
Underground Railroad. To continue their
thinking on the topic a bit further before
51
TEACHING TOOL #2.4
Sample Items to Include in a Portfolio
A portfolio collection might include:
" Rough drafts
" Projects
" Art work
" Photographs
" Charts
" Video or audio taped performances
" Anecdotal records
" Diagnostic, formative or summative
assessments of any type
" Journal entries
" Student notes
" Administrative data like standardized test
scores or attendance records
" Teacher observations
" Written teacher evaluations
" Interview notes
" Student self-assessments of the portfolio
contents
" Graphs
moving on to the next unit, she assigns a
journal entry. Students are to write a twopage interview with Harriet Tubman. She
asks them to consider the types of questions
they would want to ask Ms. Tubman if they
had the opportunity to meet her, and to
imagine what her responses might be. She
informs them that their interviews will be
evaluated using a 4-point rubric that will
measure historical accuracy, creativity, and
effort. She distributes a copy of the rubric to
each student before they begin the assignment.
Portfolios
Portfolios are collections of documents,
records and student work that reflect the
range and quality of a student’s long-term
academic performance. Taken collectively,
the contents of a portfolio offer a more comprehensive picture of student achievement
52
than would any of the elements by themselves. While they are more common at the
elementary level, high school teachers are
increasingly appreciating their value as
well.
Different portfolios might have different
purposes. Portfolios can be organized by a
content or subject area or by a certain skill.
Some might be artistically oriented, while
others will focus on writing, for example, or
special projects. (See Teaching Tool #2.4 for
ideas of items to include in a portfolio.)
Students can play an integral role in selecting the work they think should be included—a valuable process which encourages
students to reflect upon both their progress
and their achievements.
Portfolios can be used to:
"
Assess student growth and progress.
"
Involve students in reflecting upon
CHAPTER 2
and assessing their own work.
"
Display student progress with parents.
"
Evaluate instructional efficacy over time.
Table 2.5, below, details the different
types of portfolios.
Take care that your students’ portfolios
are deliberately and carefully created. They
should not be random collections thrown
together at the last minute. Make sure that
they contain student work from an entire
semester or year. Don’t collect work one
month, then skip four months, and then
include mostly work from the last month of
school. You will need to be diligent and
organized in your approach, carefully saving and dating all significant or potentially
relevant student work.
To evaluate student portfolios, you will
probably want to create a checklist or rubric
of criteria. Be prepared to evaluate:
TABLE 2.5: Details of Portfolio Types
Portfolio Type
Description
Exhibition
Portfolio
Exhibition portfolios are analogous to an artist’s portfolio of
best work. They can include:
Growth
Portfolio
Process
Portfolio
CHAPTER 2
"
A table of contents
"
A statement of the learning goals demonstrated
"
A brief description of how the individual pieces
fit together
"
An abstract describing why each piece of work
was chosen
Growth portfolios should contain a sampling of student work
that reflects growth in a particular skill area over a period of
time. They can include:
"
A table of contents
"
A brief summary of how these pieces demonstrate growth
"
An abstract describing strengths and weaknesses
of each piece
Process portfolios catalog and display the work leading up to
and including a finished product. This product could range
from a long-term project to an essay. They can include:
"
Drafts
"
Raw data
"
Revisions
"
Final product
"
A brief summary of the significance of each piece
in the process
53
"
The quality of student self-reflections
"
Academic progress—both content and
process oriented
"
Completeness, correctness and appropriateness of portfolio contents
"
Diversity of entries (use of varied
types of documents)
"
Student effort in the work itself and in
the creation of the portfolio
"
Overall portfolio appearance and
organization
If done correctly, portfolios are a particularly satisfying source of documentation
for parents, who are most often expected to
be satisfied with insufficient indicators like
a number or letter grade. Since portfolios
offer such rich, tangible and visual representation of student work, parents will
enjoy a much clearer sense of the work their
children are capable of producing.
Performance Assessments
Performance tasks are truly authentic
assessments because they are designed to be
similar to the complex, real world challenges that adults face every day (e.g., a
lawyer preparing and developing a case, a
doctor diagnosing a patient, a scientist
experimenting, a journalist reporting, an
engineer assessing). Students must demonstrate their ability to complete an actual
process or task, usually by applying concepts, rather than just memorizing concepts.
For example, a student might be asked to
explain historical events, generate scientific
hypotheses, solve current real-life problems,
or conduct research. Since students must
apply their knowledge, they take that
knowledge a step further than if they were
just required to repeat or reproduce it. Their
learning, therefore, is categorized by the
active, rather than passive role they play in
the classroom. Students don’t just read
about science, they “do” science. Students
don’t just read about history, they act like
54
historians. Performance assessments,
because of the increased demand placed on
the student, offer a more multi-faceted view
of a student’s abilities. Because the work is
purposeful, students will eventually come
to find these tasks to be satisfying and fulfilling, although students who have traditionally excelled at paper-and-pencil tests
may find the transition difficult, and may
initially resent the more demanding, complex expectations you have of them.
Hallmarks of performance tasks include:
"
Students are required to make judgments and think of innovations.
"
Students are required to synthesize
their knowledge and apply it.
"
Students are asked to create things or
do actual tasks as opposed to reciting,
responding or listing.
"
Students take part in an iterative
process that may include revisions.
"
Students work independently, in
pairs, or in groups.
Because these tasks are open-ended, students can begin to experience the revelation
of independent thinking and creative problem solving. They are not trying to determine the “right” answer; they are embarking upon an experience of value. It is important to note that performance tasks can be
used for formative purposes as well. Think
of the performance task itself as a practice
session. The teacher can provide as much
flexibility and guidance as necessary, and
the activity may or may not be graded. The
performance assessment, however, is generally used for summative purposes. Teachers
provide little if any interference, and time
limits become much less flexible. (As
always, an assessment should never be
imposed unless the student has had sufficient practice with the task at hand.)
Performance assessments consist of three
elements:
1. The task to be performed
CHAPTER 2
TABLE 2.6: Examples of Performance Tasks
Grades K-2, Mathematics (SOURCE: Exemplars)
Students will be instructed to measure and record the circumference of their own wrists. They will then
record the measurements of five other students’ wrists. Students will then make a graph of the five wrist
measurements. They will use this data to predict the circumference of a peer’s wrist. Students will then ask
three more students for their measurements and record them. Finally, they will compare their predictions to
these results.
Grades 6-8, Language Arts (SOURCE: Paul MacDowell, Portland Public Schools)
You are the president of Eco—Create Inc., a new company that tries to help regions develop using natural
resources. You are trying to obtain funding for a new project in Maine. To help investors understand your
plans, you are creating a presentation that will demonstrate the relationship between 18th century Maine
geography and local, national and global events. Use historical investigation to research how Maine’s geography affected its development. You may want to consider settlement, industry, farming and other important events.
Using the data collected, make a presentation that would support your point of view that Maine is the keystone of the Atlantic Rim based on geographic and historical factors. Use this information to justify your
request for funding to have Maine become a major international trade zone. Be sure you can answer any
questions or rebuttals from the bankers!
You will be assessed on your ability to use historical investigation, your ability to use induction to reach
conclusions, and your ability to communicate effectively in a variety of ways.
Grades 9-12, Social Studies (SOURCE: Paul MacDowell, Portland Public Schools)
As a student council member, you are involved with sending a team of five students to represent the city at
the International Festival in Boston. The team is to provide a “snapshot” of your school and community.
Several students suggested as possible candidates are native born Americans and tension has already started to rise as minority students and recent immigrants claim they are not being adequately represented.
Your job is to develop an equitable, democratic solution to the problem of selecting students.
Based on what you know, set up criteria that would be used to help select students. Your criteria should
include a balance between individual rights and the common good and show equity. Other criteria should
constitute ways to provide a true snapshot of your school. Make sure you consult with groups within your
school for points of view. As you work on your plan, come to at least two conclusions about the benefits
and challenges of a multicultural society. Make suggestions for helping the various groups in your building to communicate and work together more efficiently. After you have developed a plan of action, consider
what options students might have if they disagree with the selection process. Make suggestions about possible procedures to over-ride decisions.
You will be assessed on your ability to make decisions that reflect the balance between individual and group
rights, your ability to analyze perspectives and your ability to work collaboratively.
CHAPTER 2
55
2. The format in which the student
responds
3. The scoring system and written
criteria that will be used to evaluate
the performance (most often a rubric
is most effective)
Table 2.6, on the previous page, features
examples of performance tasks for different
grade spans and subject areas.
occurrences.
"
Watch a 30-minute sitcom. Rewrite the
last 10 minutes of it to change the ending.
"
Select a television advertisement for a
cleaning product. Use the product and
determine the accuracy of the ad’s
claims. Write a report detailing your
findings.
"
Your school owns a large, undeveloped lot adjacent to the playground
that is currently unused. Working in
groups of three, propose a new usage
for the lot, draw to-scale plans, and
create a realistic budget. Make a presentation to the school board to convince them to enact your group’s idea.
As you can see, performance tasks can
last just a few minutes, an entire class period, or even a week or longer. Unlike traditional assessments, the process of performing the task takes on as much significance
as the end result.
The possibilities are endless. Here are a
few other ideas for performance tasks in
elementary schools:
"
Create different seating patterns with
your classmates. Challenge your classmates to decipher the logic behind the
pattern.
"
Interview a local policeman and determine frequency of different types of
crimes that he or she has investigated
over the last year. Graph the results.
"
Measure the area of the classroom
floor. Use any materials available in
the classroom to assist you.
"
Compare the prices of the same product at different stores. Determine why
the prices vary.
"
Design a travel brochure for tourists to
your town.
In middle school, the following examples
may prove useful:
56
"
Test the ground water of a nearby
brook to determine if it is drinkable.
"
Have a local ER doctor visit the classroom to discuss the most common
types of accidents resulting in ER
visits. Divide the class into groups
and have each group create a public
service campaign to help prevent these
And finally, the following examples are
applicable to high schools:
"
Watch a movie (in a theater, or on TV or
video). Choose three main characters
and write a story about the three of
them, putting them in a new situation
different from those shown in the film
OR take a main character from a wellknown film, and write a story where
that character interacts with the main
character from another well-known film.
"
Identify a mystery chemical.
"
Select a vaccine that could help save
lives in a developing country that
lacks quality medical services.
Research the costs of the vaccine per
dosage, determining which drug companies make the vaccine and compare
costs to find the least expensive version. Determine the other expenses
you would need to distribute it to all
the children in the designated country.
Your research needs to include reliable
statistics about population, infection
rates, and costs of transporting, housing and feeding medical staff to the
country. Determine how many lives
would be saved each year by distribution of the dose. Gather all your information, and write a persuasive letter
CHAPTER 2
to an appropriate governmental official, making an argument for why
your plan should be enacted. Find
comparable budgetary expenditures in
the Federal Budget to compare what
the same amount of money is already
being used for.
"
How fast was a car moving before it
crashed if it left 18 feet of skid marks?
"
Pretend that a doctor is being sued for
malpractice. Explain the details of the
case. First, write the closing arguments
for the defense lawyer. Then, write the
closing arguments for the prosecuting
lawyer.
"
Analyze the election data for your
county or voting district for the last 50
years for governorships, congressional
races, senatorial races and presidential
races. Devise a system to chart or
graphically represent the results of all
the races. What patterns of voting can
you identify? Does one party dominate
over another? Was it always this way
or are new voting patterns emerging?
Present your findings to local party
leaders from both major parties and
seek their ideas about the causes of
new local voting patterns or the enduring roots of consistent local voting patterns. Be prepared to present your
findings’ to Mr. Larsen’s 11th grade
Civics class.
It is essential that you provide ample
feedback following a complex, long-term
performance task. It would be inappropriate, unprofessional, and unproductive to
allow your students to devote as much time
and energy as these tasks demand without
comprehensively discussing the strengths
and weaknesses of their performances.
Additionally, you must be cognizant of prerequisite skills and knowledge on these
complex assessments. There is no doubt
that accurate assessment of these complex
tasks require more of you than grading a
multiple-choice test—but the pay-off for
CHAPTER 2
both you and your students will be well
worth the extra time and effort.
Product Assessments
Product assessments are generally longterm assignments that require students to
apply knowledge to a tangible and creative
endeavor. Because students have a tremendous amount of influence over the format
and contents of the end result, students will
feel “ownership” over their creations.
Products are not assigned because students
will have fun completing them, but because
the process of completion will require students to use their knowledge in a novel and
unpredictable way. Products should be
designed to force students to extend their
learning further or in a slightly new direction. Teachers can use products to expose
students to new types of expression, or to
enable students an in-depth exploration of
their favorite format. In general, products
should encourage students to experiment
with new modes of expression, new materials, new resources, and new technologies.
There are several steps involved in the
process of assigning products or creative
performances:
1. Brainstorm ideas for product
possibilities.
2. Finalize each student’s choice of
format (provide several, but not an
excessive number of choices).
3. Present examples of quality products
(use past projects of former students
when available).
4. Discuss time lines and periodic checkin dates.
5. Distribute the rubric that will communicate expectations and evaluation
criteria.
6. Communicate guidelines and other
requirements.
57
7. Help students plan the steps that
project completion will require.
8. Optional: Send a letter home explaining the project and specifying all
deadlines.
9. Provide guidance on conducting
necessary research.
10. Provide on-going support and
analysis of student progress.
11. Product creation (using both class
time and time outside of class).
12. Peer assistance and peer editing.
13. Presentation.
14. Evaluation.
As you can guess from the many stages
involved, products are complex—students
will need considerable guidance and structure. The nature (and challenge) of product
creation demands that teachers find the
right balance between adequately supporting students throughout the process while
still allowing the freedom students need to
generate independent and creative solutions.
For starters, teachers will need to model
what a quality product will look like.
Alternatively, a teacher may find it more
helpful to model a product lacking in quality. If former students’ products are not
available, teachers may need to create their
own models. Teachers will want to establish
several staggered due dates when progress
can be assessed, rather than one ultimate
date when a completed product would be
submitted. In general, the younger the students are, the more frequent check-in dates
they will require for teachers to track their
progress.
As you probably recognize, products
have much in common with performance
tasks and there is much overlap between
them. In fact, a product could be considered
a type of performance task. Both are a type
of authentic assessment rooted in real-world
problem solving. Both emphasize the
process as well as the end result. Both
58
require substantial and on-going support
and guidance while students complete the
assignment. As with performance tasks, students can work on products individually, in
pairs, or in groups. On the following page,
in Table 2.7, is a list of product
possibilities.
Like performance tasks, you can see that
products place a premium on doing. Once
again, we see the emphasis on application
of learned knowledge instead of answering
questions about learned knowledge. Be
wary of forcing one product selection on the
entire class. Much of the benefit products
offer come from students selecting those
modes of expression that most interest
them. You will probably find it counter-productive to force a non-musically oriented
student to write a song (give them the
option of a poem or commercial instead).
You will only frustrate a non-artistic student by forcing him or her to draw a series
of cartoons or pictures. On the other hand, a
non-literary child will likely embrace the
opportunity to express herself through pictures. Whenever possible, let students’
interests influence the shape and form that
their products ultimately take.
There will be many options for the presentation component of the product. Since
having each student present their products
individually to the class can be excessively
time-consuming, you may want to consider
alternative methods. Consider creating an
exhibition to simultaneously display multiple products. Whenever possible, gather
audiences of real-world experts, parents, or
other students to whom you can present the
final creations. Consider media outlets—
small, local newspapers often take an interest in these types of projects, or you could
create a website to present them. After all,
real-world products deserve real-world
exhibition.
Self-Evaluations
We have already discussed student self-
CHAPTER 2
TABLE 2.7: Product Possibilities
Design a Web page
" Develop a solution to a
community problem
" Create a public service
announcement
" Write a book
" Design a game
" Generate & circulate
a petition
" Write a series of letters
" Present a mime
" Design & create
needlework
" Lead a symposium
" Build a planetarium
" Conduct a series of
interviews
" Develop a collection
" Submit writings to a
journal, magazine, or
newspaper
" Interpret through
multimedia
" Design a structure
" Design & conduct an
experiment
" Collect & analyze samples
" Plan a journey or an odyssey
" Make an etching or a
woodcut
" Write letters to the editor
"
Design political cartoons
" Formulate & defend a theory
" Conduct a training session
" Design & teach a class
" Do a demonstration
" Resent a news report
" Write a new law & plan for
its passage
" Make learning centers
" Create authentic recipes
" Choreograph dances
" Present a mock trial
" Make a plan
" Compile & annotate a set of
Internet resources
" Design a new product
" Write a series of songs
" Create a subject dictionary
" Make and carry out a plan
" Design a simulation
" Write a musical
" Develop a museum exhibit
" Be a mentor
" Write or produce a play
" Compile a newspaper
"
Develop an exhibit
" Conduct an ethnography
" Write a biography
" Present a photo-essay
" Hold a press conference
" Develop & use a
questionnaire
" Conduct a debate
" Make a video documentary
" Create a series of
illustrations
" Write poems
" Develop tools
" Design or create musical
instruments
" Develop an advertising
campaign
" Compile a booklet or
brochure
" Draw a set of blueprints
" Present a radio program
" Do a puppet show
" Create a series of wall
hangings
" Go on an archeological dig
" Design & make costumes
" Present an interior
monologue
" Generate charts or diagrams
to explain ideas
"
Source: Tomlinson, C. (2001). How To Differentiate instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms. Alexandria,
VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 89.
reflection as a formative assessment technique. For obvious reasons, student selfevaluations will be most effective and practical for formative, rather than summative
purposes. But it is still worth noting that
self-evaluations, even though they won’t
always be graded, can serve as a vital postunit or post-project assessment by offering
feedback for both teachers and students.
Teachers need to know not only where students are performing, but also how students
feel about their performance level. Do students realize they are struggling? Do they
realize they are succeeding? Do they realize
they could do better? Do they realize they
are improving? Above all, do students have
an accurate and healthy perspective on the
quality of their work?
Here are a few ideas for generating
student self-evaluations at the end of
instructional units or projects:
"
CHAPTER 2
Give your students a rubric or check59
list, and have them score their own
product or performance task. For
example, have them rate their performance for several different criteria
on a scale from 1 to 5. Compare their
ratings with your own assessments
and discuss any major discrepancies.
60
"
Have students write an evaluation
analyzing the quality of their essay,
product or project. Optional: grade
them on the quality of their analysis.
"
Have students complete a questionnaire about their performance. (Did
you try as hard as you could? What
did you find the most difficult? What
will you do differently next time?
What do you wish you had done
differently?).
"
Have students generate a lab assessment, analyzing how their actions
might have skewed lab results or
hypothesizing about how results
might vary by substituting new steps
for others.
"
Have younger students notate their
exams with smiley faces or frowning
faces to indicate their feelings about
certain problems or questions. (Draw
smiley faces next to problems they
liked and frowning faces next to problems they did not like.)
"
Return diagnostic assessments to students (or have them re-read diagnostic
journal entries) to remind them of
where they started. Ask them to assess
their progress and specify remaining
strengths and weaknesses. What
improved the most? What still needs
improvement? What do they still not
know about the topic?
"
Ask students to consider whether or
not their latest work is “portfolio-worthy.” Have them detail why it should
or shouldn’t be included in their portfolio.
"
Have students interview classmates to
determine their classmates’ self-evaluations of their work. By listening to the
self-reflections of others, students will
naturally consider their own progress
as well.
Remember that students need to have a
realistic sense of the quality of their work
before they can set realistic goals for
improving it. Do not assume that students
will instinctively reflect on their work; in
most cases, they will not undergo this
process unless you guide them through it.
Furthermore, initial student assessments
will likely consist of generalities. For example, a student might comment, “I like this
story that I wrote because I did a good job
on it.” You will have to coach them on the
specific criteria to analyze and the specific
elements to address so that they will be able
to say, “I like this story that I wrote because
the characters were very realistic, the story
was unique, and the ending was funny.”
Furthermore, self-evaluations can be
very revealing. Parents can learn a great
deal about their children’s progress and
thought processes through student selfevaluations, and will likely find them
invaluable and enlightening. Only share
self-evaluations with parents if you haven’t
promised confidentiality ahead of time.
Sometimes students will be more candid
with you if they know no one else will be
reading their self-evaluation.
Above all, you must emphasize selfevaluations frequently and passionately
enough that students understand that mastering the process of self-assessing, self-editing, and self-modifying is inherently more
valuable in the long-term, than is a good
grade in the short-term. Make sure they
understand that you (and their other teachers) will not be there for them for the rest of
their lives. Your students must realize that
they themselves will be the only reliable
presence consistently available to make
adjustments to their work.
CHAPTER 2
Studying Student Work
After our detailed discussion of the
advantages and types of different assessment methods, it is worth noting the benefit
of one more simple strategy—analyzing
your students’ work. To glean all the valuable information from the assessments that
you so attentively create, you will need to
do more than just grade them—you will
need to study them. Paying close attention
to your students’ papers, projects and
exams will reveal significant information
about both individual students as well as
across-the-board feedback about your
instruction. What patterns do you see in
your students work? Are all your students
making similar types of mistakes? Are they
progressing at relatively even rates or are
some students progressing drastically faster
or slower than others? From examining
your students’ work, you should be able to
tell if they are just memorizing information,
or if they are actually understanding and
internalizing it.
If student self-reflection is the process by
which students analyze their progress, then
studying student work is the process by
which teachers can assess their own
progress. And, as hard as it may be to
accept, students can’t improve their learning until you improve your teaching. With
this reality in mind, examine your students’
work to determine the following:
"
"
while others are falling further
behind? Did you make appropriate
accommodations for struggling
students?
"
What changes do you need to make
next time to better assist your struggling students?
"
Were your time frames reasonable and
accurate? Did you estimate the correct
amount of time needed for instruction?
For practice? For review? For assessments?
"
Did the unit accomplish what you
wanted it to?
"
What does this work reflect?
Knowledge? Thinking? Both?
Or neither?
"
How might you change the unit for
next time so that it reflects both?
Once you have assessed all of your students and their work, you will want to analyze the results to detect any patterns or
anomalies. You may find it difficult to balance the performance of individual students
with the performance of your class as a
whole. When a few students perform poorly
on an assessment or independent learning
activity, you may need to develop specific
instructional strategies to re-teach those students. The following options may prove
helpful in handling this challenge:
Did you choose the right content for
this unit?
"
Learning centers
"
After-school tutoring
Did you choose the right assessment
methods?
"
Enrichment sessions
"
Extra homework
"
Student or group pairing for those
struggling in similar ways.
"
Did you choose the right instructional
strategies?
"
Did you provide enough practice and
assistance?
"
Was the unit challenging enough?
"
Were your high-achieving students
adequately challenged?
"
Why are some students progressing
CHAPTER 2
You may also want to assign special
learning activities or adapt existing assignments to provide additional opportunities
for these struggling students to master the
material.
When a significant number of your students perform poorly on an assessment, you
61
should evaluate to what degree this reflects
your effectiveness in teaching that specific
lesson. For example, if only one student is
frequently misusing colons and semi-colons
in essays, you’ll need to review this skill
with that individual student (without subjecting the entire class to the review). If
every student in the class misses the same
question on an exam, however, you’ll need
to consider whether the question was fair,
or review whether you adequately prepared
the class for the question. Usually when a
large portion of the class performs poorly
on an assessment, the problem lies not with
the assessment, but with the instruction
itself. You will need to step back and reflect
Don’t Underestimate the Importance of Standardized Testing
and High Stakes Accountability Measures
The use of standards makes it necessary find consistent ways to measure how schools
and students are performing against those standards. As schools are being held more
accountable to results by policymakers, parents, and others the only scalable way to
measure performance, whether or not you believe it’s flawed, are standardized tests.
Thus, standardized testing has become an omnipresent force in the classroom.
If you have strong negative reactions to standardized testing, you’re not alone. Critics
of the “No Child Left Behind Act,” which makes standardized testing a hallmark of the
reform, often refer to it as the “No Child Left Untested Act.” Understandably, you may
cringe at the notion of teaching to the test or even accepting the relevance of high stakes
testing altogether. However, students, and increasingly teachers, are being held
accountable for results on these tests. For example, Algebra is a critical gate-keeping
course, since students who enroll in Algebra are more likely to attend college. Many
schools base entry into courses, like Algebra, on standardized test scores.
Typically, low-performing schools are identified primarily on the basis of standardized
test scores. Therefore, these schools may spend quite a bit of time ensuring that students are “test ready.” Some schools are so focused on the tests, and the testing culture,
that it literally pervades everything about the school—from curricular decisions to
approval of field trips. You may work in an elementary school in which the subjects
are limited to mathematics and literacy only, because those are the tested areas. Or, you
may work in a middle school that stops all regular classes for two weeks in the spring
and requires every teacher to help prepare students for the test. Maybe you’ll work in a
high school where passing a test is a requirement for a high school diploma and, therefore, is as important to students as it is to teachers.
Testing, like it or not, has become a critical part of schooling and affects students in all
schools, not just public, low-performing ones. Parents of students in affluent areas routinely provide their children with private “test prep” courses and are pressing for more
preparation during school time as well. You may know of programs that prepare students for the SAT, ACT, or AP tests. You may have even taken a prep course in the
past. What you might not be aware of is the growing popularity of test preparation programs geared toward elementary test takers. Before you cast judgment on standardized
testing or discount its importance, please consider that these tests have real consequences for students. Especially students in high-need schools where opportunity for
achievement remains a challenge to attain.
62
CHAPTER 2
on why the instructional strategies you
implemented were ineffective. Perhaps your
instruction favored a particular learning
modality at the expense of others. In
preparing to re-teach the material, you may
first want to conduct smaller, more specific
assessments to determine exactly where in
the lesson the students first fell behind.
In some cases, your students may generally understand the new material, but may
need more practice. In other cases, your students may have simply been unengaged.
Perhaps they found the material uninteresting or irrelevant. Or perhaps their performance had nothing to do with your lesson
and/or instructional strategies, and had
more to do with being overwhelmed by
other school or personal responsibilities.
Regardless of the cause, you will need to
identify the roots of your students’ failure
to grasp the material and make the necessary adjustments to improve their performance.
Another valuable option to enhance
your analysis of student work is to rely on
outside perspectives. Seek the input of other
teachers or administrators whose opinions
you respect. Teacher collaboration is not
easy to facilitate, but the benefits can be significant. Ask your peers to evaluate your
students’ work and see if there is consensus
on the work that is exceptional, average,
and below average. Compare the work of
one of your students that you think is
exceptional to the work of one of their students that they find exceptional. Is there
parity? What do they think of your assessment? Do they have assessments that they
have created for similar units that you
might find helpful? Have a group of teachers all examine one another’s rubrics. Is
there agreement on the criteria that matters?
Is there agreement on the designated levels
of achievement? Classroom teaching can be
very isolating—whenever possible, seek to
integrate yourself into a community of educators, both for your emotional sanity and
for your professional development.
CHAPTER 2
Conclusions and Key Points
This chapter discussed the necessity of
constant, on-going assessment in order to
determine whether or not your students are
internalizing the information you teach. The
following key points were emphasized:
"
Diagnostic assessments will help you
to determine where your students are
currently performing.
"
Formative assessments will help you
to determine both what progress your
students are making during a lesson or
unit, and what instructional modifications will be necessary.
"
Summative assessments will help
you to determine whether or not the
student has demonstrated his or her
mastery of the material.
"
Assessment results are as much a
reflection of a teacher’s success as
they are a reflection of a student’s
achievement.
"
Assessment and instruction must be
integrated.
"
Non-traditional assessments, such as
products, portfolios, or performance
evaluations may require non-traditional evaluations like rubrics.
Think back to our opening metaphor of
the teacher as doctor. No one would trust a
doctor whose patients routinely got sicker
or failed to improve. No one should trust a
teacher whose students routinely regress or
whose learning remains stagnant. If a treatment is failing, it is the doctor’s job to
reassess the treatment prescribed. If a student’s learning is lagging, it is the teacher’s
job to reassess the instruction delivered.
Take your job as seriously as if the fate
of your students’ lives were in your
hands—and then calmly remember that in
many ways, it is.
63
Chapter 3
Standards-Based Instructional Planning
You may start your school year with the same anxiety-producing question that has vexed most new teachers: “What will I teach?” For starters,
rephrase your question, to ask, “What do my students need to learn?” The
distinction is significant since it now answers your own question—you
will teach what your students need to learn.
So, what do your students need to learn? The good news is you don’t
have to determine this for yourself, although what you want your students
to learn is certainly not irrelevant. But before we discuss your job preferences, let’s discuss your job requirements. As a public school teacher, the
answer to what your students need to learn comes in the form of yet
another question: What does your district/state/nation want your students to learn? Thankfully, a potentially huge, intangible and amorphous
body of knowledge has been distilled into identifiable categories of educational requirements called standards.
! The resource center at:
http://www.making
standardswork.com
Standards articulate what a student should know, understand and be
able to do by the end of a course (e.g., Physics I), grade level (e.g., kindergarten), or grade span (e.g., 4th-5th grade). Standards identify for you the
content that is valued and required by either national, state or district
decree. Standards-based instruction involves understanding the mandated
standards, designing instructional units and lessons based on the standards, and preparing students to demonstrate mastery of the standards
through assessments.
It may seem incredible now, but less than 25 years ago there was no
consensus on what students needed to know, or even a consensus that
they should all know the same material. Individual teachers were largely
left to decide for themselves what material their students needed to know.
Unsurprisingly, some teachers were more successful at creating bodies of
knowledge for their classrooms than others.
Predictably, affluent schools, which often boasted better-trained, betterpaid teachers and more abundant resources, were generally more successful at delivering a complex, thorough body of knowledge than were their
less-affluent counterparts. While suburban schools often thrived, relishing
and seizing the academic freedom they were granted, many rural and
urban schools--facing the unique challenges presented to their communities (i.e. transient students, high staff turnover rates, culturally diverse
demographics, inadequate funding)—struggled to keep up. As student
learning suffered, expectations languished, and content became increasing-
CHAPTER 3
64
ly diluted. As a result, under-resourced
schools struggled to teach the basics, while
many affluent schools propelled themselves
far beyond. In fact, the National Assessment
of Educational Progress found that students
in high-poverty schools who earned mostly
A’s in English and Mathematics scored the
same on national assessment tests as students who earned mostly C’s in higherincome schools. Problematically, a highschool diploma could not be relied upon as
a consistent measure of learning.
What Is Standards-Based Instruction
and Why Is It Used?
Standards-based instruction became the
solution for addressing the evolving
inequities of school curriculums. The standards-movement was an essential recognition that all American students—regardless
of geography, socio-economic status, or
native language—need to know the same
essential set of skills and information. For
the first time, we, as a nation, created a unified and explicitly stated set of educational
expectations for our public school children.
Do not underestimate the significance of
this endeavor. By doing so, we, as a nation,
have clearly stated that at a minimum, all
students require and deserve this knowledge base.
The emphasis on standards came to the
forefront of American politics and education policy during the George H. W. Bush
presidency when he convened a group of
governors to set broad educational goals
that all of our nation’s students were supposed to meet by the year 2000. Under the
Clinton Administration, Congress passed
the Goals 2000: Educate America Act, which
codified these goals into law and launched
the creation of standards and assessments.
Most recently, under President George W.
Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, the stakes
for under-performing schools were raised as
student performance on these national
65
assessment exams were linked to a school’s
federal funding.
The standards movement, and the related high-stakes accountability testing it has
(perhaps unintentionally) created, has its
critics. Opponents argue that until school
financing is made more equitable, it is unrealistic to expect high-poverty schools to perform at the level of their affluent counterparts. Many parents argue that it is unfair to
use a single test to determine their child’s
fate (since tests are increasingly used to
determine placement in advanced courses
or magnet schools). Some teachers resent
the loss of classroom autonomy that standards have brought, while some administrators and parents resent the loss of local
autonomy and fear the influence of federal
mandates. Many teachers feel forced into
“teaching to the test”—devoting precious
class time to provide strategies and tricks
for answering multiple-choice questions,
while sacrificing the opportunity to promote deeper understanding of the material
or to encourage divergent thinking.
Still, inasmuch as standards help create
a level playing field and demystify the eternal question of what students should know
and be able to do, they play a useful and
vital role in providing struggling schools
with a roadmap for improvement. Until the
academic shortcomings of specific teachers
and specific schools could be measured,
they certainly could not be addressed. The
fact that many students are struggling with
national assessment tests indicates that
there is much work to be done in achieving
the identified standards. Furthermore, effective teachers will understand the difference
between “teaching to the test” and adequately educating their students so that
passing the test is simply an afterthought or
natural conclusion to the academic experience.
The bottom line is that the demands of
the standards-based era hold both teachers
and schools reasonably accountable for their
students’ learning, and provide our educa-
CHAPTER 3
tors and parents with valuable information
on how students’ learning compares with
their national peers. The fact that people are
paying attention to the performance of public schools across the board (as opposed to
neglectful indifference) can be considered
an inherently good thing.
Helpful Definitions
Although the definitions may vary
by state or school district, the
descriptions below will help you to
understand common terms used in
standards-based instruction.
Performance Standards (also
referred to as standards or learning
goals): Set expectations for student
performance, define the quality of
performance, and establish levels of
proficiency at each grade level or by
the end of a course in high school.
Content Standards (or performance
descriptions): Are a subset of performance standards that unpack a
performance standard into teachable
“chunks.”
Benchmarks (also referred to as
indicators, work samples, or exemplars): Describe what proficiency in
or mastery of a content standard
looks like.
Here is a sampling of standards drawn
from several content areas:
"
Math (Kindergarten): The student
interprets multiple uses and forms of
numbers and how they relate to each
other, fluently uses computational
tools and strategies, estimates when
appropriate, and solves real-life and
career-related problems.
"
Social Studies (Grade 2): Students
understand how the origins, evolution,
and diversity of societies, social classes
and groups, have been affected and
changed by the forces of geography,
ideology and economics.
"
Science (Grade 3): Each student uses
scientific methods to ask and answer
questions about the natural world.
"
English (Grade 5): Students use language in a variety of social contexts
and understand the social and cultural
influences on text.
"
Science (Grade 6): Each student examines and understands the origin, history, structure and functions of the Earth
system, solar system, and the Earth’s
place in the universe.
"
English (Grade 7): Students comprehend and compose a wide range of
written, oral and visual texts in the
process of making meaning.
"
Math (Grade 8): The student analyzes
the characteristics of two- and threedimensional geometric objects, uses
visual and spatial reasoning to analyze
mathematical situations, and solves
real-life and career-related problems.
"
Algebra I: The student generalizes patterns and functional relationships, uses
symbols to represent mathematical situations, analyzes change in real and
abstract situations, and solves real-life
and career-related problems.
"
Biology: Each student observes and
investigates organisms, their character-
What Do Standards Look Like?
Standards have many names—don’t be
confused or intimidated by the terminology.
In addition to “standards,” your district or
state may also refer to them as learning
standards, performance standards, competencies, competency goals, or essential
knowledge and skills. Standards also have
varying degrees of specificity. Some will be
maddeningly vague, while others may seem
prohibitively specific.
CHAPTER 3
66
istics, life cycles and environments.
will have to meet.
"
Chemistry: Each student describes the
structure of matter and the physical
and chemical changes it undergoes.
"
Geometry: The student selects and
uses appropriate tools and units for
systems of measurement, applies a
variety of techniques to determine
measurements, and solves real-life and
career-related problems.
"
American History (Grade 12): Students
explain forms of authority in government and other institutions and
describe responsible and irresponsible
exercises of both authority and power.
Robert Marzano (2003) points out that in
an effort to define what students should
know and be able to do at various grade levels or grade intervals, many states created far
too many standards and benchmarks than
could ever be taught over twelve years. In
many cases, it would take creating a K-22
system just to hit all of them. In an effort to
distill national and state standards into a
more manageable (and meaningful) tool for
teachers, the Mid-continent Research for
Education & Learning (McREL) created an
exceptional website feature called the
Compendium of K-12 Standards
(www.mcrel.org) that clarifies some of the
grade level distinctions between broad standards. See a sample McREL standard on the
following page, which shows how McREL
constructs the chronological gradations of a
single science standard from Kindergarten
through 12th grade.
Make sure to obtain the standards your
school district or school uses.
After you have located the content
standards and benchmarks for the course
or grade level subjects you’ll be teaching,
make a hard copy of the standards and refer
to them frequently. Internalize the information to start getting a global sense of what
your students are expected to know and be
able to do by the end of the school year.
Do not feel limited to your own state’s
resources. You should actively compare
your state’s requirements with those of
other states to get a fuller consensus of the
material worth covering. You may also find
that another state’s standards offer more
clarity and specificity than your own. It is
vital that you know where your students
are coming from, where they are and where
they are going. Thus, you will be expected
to know the standards for your grade level
and for one grade level before and after.
Your district may also offer a curriculum
guide that can be especially useful. Be sure
to find out if one is available for your subject and/or grade level. Furthermore,
review the standardized tests your school
offers to determine which standards are frequently tested. These tests will give you an
excellent overview of the district, state or
national expectations that your students
67
Be sure that you fully understand the
correct use and application of standards.
Standards are overarching concepts that
incorporate many different sets of skills.
They are broad guidelines for student
achievement. Do not expect to teach a standard in a single lesson or to even teach a
standard at all; rather you will use the standard to inform your lesson objectives. It will
take multiple lessons, over days, weeks,
months or even semesters for your students
to fully master a single standard. (And be
aware that individual lessons may address
multiple standards.)
Helpfully, your states give you more
guidance than just the standards themselves. Standards often come with related
benchmarks (or learning goals), which identify in further specificity exactly what students should know or be able to do. In
Figure 4, we have labeled the Performance
Standard (which indicates acceptable levels
of performance), the Performance Level,
Content Topic, and the Content Standards
and related Benchmarks, in this case for a
topic from 4th grade mathematics.
CHAPTER 3
Figure 4: Sample K-12 McREL Content Standard
STANDARD 4: Understands the Principles of Heredity and Related Concepts
Level I (Grade K-2)
1. Knows that plants and animals closely resemble their parents
2. Knows that differences exist among individuals of the same kind of plant or animal
Level II (Grade 3-5)
1. Knows that many characteristics of an organism are inherited from its parents (e.g., eye color in human beings, fruit or flower
color in plants), and other characteristics result from an individual’s interactions with the environment (e.g., people’s table
manners, ability to ride a bicycle)
Level III (Grade 6-8)
1. Knows that reproduction is a characteristic of all living things and is essential to the continuation of a species
2. Knows that for sexually reproducing organisms, a species comprises all organisms that can mate with one another to produce fertile offspring
3. Understands asexual and sexual reproduction (e.g., in asexual reproduction, all the genes come from a single parent; in
sexual reproduction, an egg and sperm unite and half of the genes come from each parent, so the offspring is never identical to either of its parents; sexual reproduction allows for greater genetic diversity; asexual reproduction limits the spread
of disadvantageous characteristics through a species)
4. Knows that hereditary information is contained in genes (located in the chromosomes of each cell), each of which carries
a single unit of information; an inherited trait of an individual can be determined by either one or many genes, and a single gene can influence more than one trait
5. Knows that the characteristics of an organism can be described in terms of a combination of traits; some traits are inherited and others result from interactions with the environment
Level IV (Grade 9-12)
1. Knows the chemical and structural properties of DNA and its role in specifying the characteristics of an organism (e.g.,
DNA is a large polymer formed from four kinds of subunits; genetic information is encoded in genes as a string of these
subunits; each DNA molecule in a cell forms a single chromosome and is replicated by a templating mechanism)
2. Knows ways in which genes (segments of DNA molecules) may be altered and combined to
create genetic variation within a species (e.g., recombination of genetic material; mutations;
errors in copying genetic material during cell division)
3. Knows that new heritable characteristics can only result from new combinations of existing genes or from mutations of
genes in an organism’s sex cells; other changes in an organism cannot be passed on
4. Knows that mutations and new gene combinations may have positive, negative, or no effects on the organism
5. Understands the concepts of Mendelian genetics (e.g., segregation, independent assortment, dominant and recessive
traits, sex-linked traits)
6. Knows features of human genetics (e.g., most of the cells in a human contain two copies of each of 22 chromosomes; in
addition, one pair of chromosomes determines sex [XX or XY]; transmission of genetic information to offspring occurs
through egg and sperm cells that contain only one representative from each chromosome pair; dominant and recessive
traits explain how variations that are hidden in one generation can be expressed in the next)
CHAPTER 3
68
Figure 5: Sample Standards Document
By the end of grade four, students understand large numbers and addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and division of whole numbers. They describe
and compare simple fractions and decimals. They understand the properties of, and the relationships between, plane geometric figures. They collect, represent, and analyze data to answer questions.
Performance Standard
Statistics, Data Analysis, and Probability
(Grade 4)
Content Topic
1. Students organize, represent, and interpret numerical and categorical
data and clearly communicate their findings:
a) Formulate survey questions; systematically collect and represent
data on a number line; and coordinate graphs, tables, and charts.
b) Identify the mode(s) for sets of categorical data and
the mode(s), median, and any apparent outliers for numerical data
sets.
c) Interpret one- and two-variable data graphs to answer questions
about a situation.
Students make predictions for simple probability situations:
a) Represent all possible outcomes for a simple probability situation in
an organized way (e.g., tables, grids,
tree diagrams).
b) Express outcomes of experimental probability situations verbally and
numerically (e.g., 3 out of 4; 34).
By the end of grade four, students
understand large numbers and addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and division of
whole numbers. They describe and compare
simple fractions and decimals. They understand the properties of, and the relationships between, plane geometric figures.
They collect, represent, and analyze data to
answer questions.
You can see , in Figure 5, how the more
specific benchmarks offer valuable guidelines to help you start shaping your units
and lessons. Let’s now turn to using the
standards to create long-term plans comprised of lessons and units.
69
}
}
Content
Standard
Benchmarks
Content
Standard
Benchmarks
How Do I Turn Standards into Units?
Now that you have identified the standards that will serve as the basis of your
curriculum, it is time to figure out how to
incorporate them into your daily instruction. This undertaking is called instructional
standards-based lesson planning.
Your state and/or district will provide
the standards. Units and lessons aligned to
the standards may be available as well. In
recent years, many publishers updated textbooks to reflect state and national standards. Despite the more pervasive use of
curricular materials aligned to standards,
CHAPTER 3
we encourage you to start with the standards you intend to cover, determine what
your students must learn, double check that
the materials you are using are appropriate,
and then design your units and lessons
accordingly.
The Unit-Planning Process
Units are simply collections of lessons
linked by a theme, learning goal, or project.
By starting with the standards, you must
first create units based on the standards you
wish to address. Units break down a course
(e.g., U.S. History) or subject-area (e.g.,
Language Arts) into teachable “chunks” of
material. Chunking information into smaller, related parts is an extremely effective
way for students to learn new knowledge
and skills; context is, as always, vital. You
will form units by strategically clustering
standards and benchmarks together. Since
the benchmarks are discrete compared to the
standard itself, focus on clustering your
benchmarks together. Figure 5 shows the
relationship between standards, units, and
lessons.
As you see in Figure 6, units, which will
address specified standards, are broken
down into daily lessons. They are the foundation upon which you will be structuring
your course or subject area instruction. You
must group standards with respect to the
nature of prerequisite skills—based on the
logical, cumulative order dictated by the
fact that certain knowledge and skills must
be addressed before others. Often, conceptual similarity will also dictate which standards and benchmarks are naturally related.
Never lose sight of the goal; the goal is
not covering the curriculum—addressing as
many standards as possible for the sake of
coverage—but using the standards and
benchmarks as a way to address specific
achievement gaps, where they exist,
amongst your students. Of everyone in the
district, you—the classroom teacher—have
the greatest facility and opportunity for
identifying the gaps in your students’
knowledge. Standards-based instructional
planning has great potential to address and
eliminate those gaps. If you find yourself
trying to squeeze in all the benchmarks, you
are teaching for coverage instead of mastery. When this happens, review the diagnostic data (which we discussed in the last
chapter) and focus on bringing students
from where they are to where they need to
be. The number of benchmarks you address
in a unit will depend on their complexity
and the unit’s length. Fewer, more precise
clusters of standards that are essential for
students to achieve are better than long lists
of loosely related benchmarks.
A unit’s length will depend on its content and complexity, your students’ prerequisite skills and readiness levels (to be
Figure 6: Relationship between Standards, Units, and Lessons
Standard
Benchmark
Standard
Benchmark
Lesson
Benchmark
UNIT TYPE
(Thematic,
Goals, Project)
Benchmark
Lesson
Standard
Benchmark
CHAPTER 3
Benchmark
Lesson
70
determined by your diagnostic efforts) and
your own prioritizations of the unit’s material (i.e. how important is the material when
compared with other units? How many
class periods are you willing to devote?). As
a general guide, lower elementary school
units might last from one to two weeks,
upper elementary school units from two to
four weeks, and middle and high school
units from three to six weeks. It is important to keep your students engaged for a
sustained period—long enough for substantive learning to occur, but not long enough
that they (or you) lose interest or become
confused or distracted by excessive information. Units must be coherent, logical and
practical—do not set yourself (and therefore
your students) up for failure by being unrealistic about what can be achieved in a
given time frame. This will take time,
experience, and flexibility to master.
To give you an idea of how to visualize,
organize and structure your units, look at
the Unit Plan Template. (We will cover how
to fill in the template in more detail in the
upcoming section.) This chart gives you a
good idea of all the information you must
predetermine prior to each unit.
As you can see from Teaching Tool #3.1,
you will need to select your standards and
benchmarks, craft your lesson objectives,
choose your instructional strategies (to be discussed in great detail in Chapter 5, specify
the student activities (which allow your students to practice and/or absorb the material),
and determine the type of assessment you
will use to enable your students to demonstrate their mastery of the lesson objectives
(which we discussed in Chapter 2).
Assessment, especially, is one area
where ineffective teachers distort the
process, to great detriment. They often
make the mistake of ignoring the question
of assessment until after their lesson or unit
is completed. They figure they are in a better position to design a worthy assessment
vehicle (e.g., a test, performance, report,
71
project, essay, etc.) once they have finished
delivering their instruction. Once again, we
strongly advocate the reverse approach.
You cannot think of assessment as an afterthought—it must be thoughtfully incorporated into your instructional intentions from
the moment of a lesson or unit’s conception.
You may recall from the previous chapter:
How you teach the material is integrally
related to how you will assess it, so advance
knowledge of your assessment strategy is
crucial.
All of these decisions must be made in
advance—you cannot make this up as you
go along or “wing it.” Think of yourself as
an architect—you could never build a structurally sound, aesthetically pleasing, and
client-satisfying house without a firm set of
detailed blueprints. Consider your unit
plans (and ultimately your lesson plans) to
be your blueprints. Like the architect, you
have regulations (standards) you must
incorporate into your plan. Of course there
will be changes along the way (evolving
client demands, material availability, unpredictable events, etc.), but you must have a
detailed map in place with a clear vision of
what the final project will resemble before
you can responsibly proceed.
There are three unit types from which
you may choose, depending on your unit’s
goals and objectives. The three types are:
1. Goal-based units
2. Theme units
3. Project-based units
A definition and example of each is presented in Table 3.1.
You must habituate constant and ongoing reinforcement of essential standards
and benchmarks. For example, after teaching units on punctuation rules and editing
notation, a 7th grade language arts teacher
will review each topic every time she teaches a unit on another type of writing.
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 3
Unit Title:
Length:
Dates:
What will students learn?
Instructional Strategies
Student Activities
Assessment Type
TEACHING TOOL #3.1
Lesson
How will students
demonstrate they
have learned this?
Unit Plan Template
Standard Benchmark
Ref.
Objective (s)
How will I teach this?
72
TABLE 3.1: Common Unit Plan Formats and Examples
73
Type
Definition
Example
Goal-Based
Goal-based units revolve around
standards focused in the same content area. Goal-based units are coherent because the selected standards
have an inherent connection.
A math teacher identifies
that students have an
understanding of twodimensional geometry and
wants to expand student
knowledge to three dimensions. The teacher pulls
together standards that
include two and threedimensional geometric
concepts.
Thematic
Thematic units integrate standards
from multiple subject areas, focusing
on a common theme. The teacher
might design all classroom activities
around that theme for a week or
more; some teachers create thematic
units that last the whole year.
Thematic units help bring consistency
and structure to student learning, and
make the academic day more cohesive. In addition, students benefit
from seeing several skills and content
areas applied to the same topic of
interest. Thematic units are most
common in elementary classrooms,
where the teacher is responsible for
all content areas.
A math teacher identifies
that students have an understanding of two-dimensional
geometry and wants to
expand student knowledge
to three dimensions. The
teacher combines geometric
standards with science
design standards to create a
unit about packaging. The
students explore the efficiency of different packages
while developing their
geometry skills. They might
further spend time writing
about their creations in language arts and create geometric designs as part of an
art project.
Project-Based
Project-based learning focuses on an
end product. Students learn skills
from the primary purpose of successful project completion. Students are
able to see the utility of skills as they
complete the project.
A math teacher identifies
that students have an
understanding of twodimensional geometry and
wants to expand student
knowledge to three-dimensions. The teacher combines
geometry with science
design standards to create
a unit about packaging.
In order to explore the efficiency of different packages
while developing their
geometry skills, students
will design a package that
is more efficient than an
existing container.
CHAPTER 3
Sequencing and Pacing Units
The next step in lesson planning is to
create a yearlong or course-long instructional plan. Your long-term plans, as we have
discussed, will consist of units and, ultimately lessons based on the standards and
benchmarks. To create a long-term plan, you
must sequence and pace your units so that
students can sufficiently meet or exceed
grade level or course expectations. Pacing
refers to getting from one unit to the next, as
well as the rate at which you complete individual units. Sequencing units refers to how
units progressively build on a student’s
knowledge or skill in a particular subject
area. This step entails plotting your units on
a calendar and strategically organizing their
chronological order to build knowledge
cumulatively. There are other factors you
will need to consider as well—for example,
be sure to complete units that cover tested
standards prior to the testing day.
Consider your yearlong instructional
plan a working document that you will constantly revisit. You will need to consider:
1. Negative feedback from assessments
on student performance. If you give
an end of unit assessment, and threequarters of your students do not pass,
this will have implications for later
units. You will need to rework your
plan to accommodate re-teaching.
2. Positive feedback from assessments
on student performance. You may
learn from a unit pre-test that your students already have a strong grasp of
the content standards and benchmarks
you intended to cover in the unit and
will only require two weeks of instruction rather than four. Student performance, and not a rigidly predetermined
schedule, must be the primary determinant for calibrating your yearlong plan.
3. Unexpected events. Inclement weather, physical plant damages, unscheduled meetings and assemblies, and
personal illness are all examples of
events that will disrupt your well-
CHAPTER 3
intentioned plans. Some teachers pad
a unit with an extra day or two to
account for unpredictable events.
Others prefer to review their daily lesson plans to eliminate material where
possible.
The final step in unit planning will be
plotting your units on a calendar or schedule. When you’re scheduling units consider
the following guidelines:
1. Blackout all school holidays.
2. Mark the following days: beginning of
school, last day of school, grade
reporting dates, testing events, field
trips, and school-wide assemblies.
3. Begin plotting the units, drawing
arrows from the beginning to the end
of the unit. Note pre-and post-test
dates on your calendar. Also, note the
due dates for major projects.
4. Continue plotting the units, by title,
until you reach the last unit or the
end of the school year. If you end up
with more units than days, review
the standards and benchmarks and
either regroup them or eliminate less
essential ones. If you finish and have
several more days than units, review
the standards you omitted and rechunk them.
When you are finished, you should have
an impressive document that will offer an
overall picture of your instructional intentions for the year. Your calendar will
demonstrate to you and others how you
will produce gains in student achievement,
what your students will be learning, what
they will be tested on, when they will be
tested, and when they can expect end of
unit tests or projects. Table 3.2 presents an
example of how an elementary teacher
scheduled various units for her second
grade math students.
How Do I Turn Units into Lessons?
After much build-up and preparation, we
74
TABLE 3.2: Example of a Second Grade Mathematics Long-term Plan
Unit #1 (6wks):
Unit #2 (6wks):
Unit #3 (6wks):
Unit #4 (6wks):
Addition and
Subtraction
Number Patterns
Measurement
Data Analysis
"
Masters addition and
corresponding subtraction facts from 0 – 18
"
Counts and compares
the value of collections
of coins up to $1.00
"
"
"
Identifies types of
patterns in the real
world (repeating,
tessellating, etc.)
"
Recognizes and extends
geometric and number
patterns and explains
the rule
Adds and subtracts
money
Skip counts forward
and backwards by 2’s,
5’s and 10’s from a
given number
"
"
"
"
Weighs objects to the
nearest pound and
kilogram
"
Measures and records
temperature to the
nearest 10 degrees
using F and C thermometers
Determines whether
numbers are odd or
even
Uses patterns to predict
and solve problems
Describes the functional
relationship between
given pairs of numbers
from real-life situations
Estimates and measures length, height and
perimeter using cm,
m, in, and feet
"
"
Tells time to the quarterhour and 5-minute
intervals
Unit #6 (6wks):
Unit #7 (6wks):
Big Numbers and
Basic Algebra
Geometric Patterns
Introduction to
Fractions and Division
"
Adds and subtracts
two- and three- digit
numbers with and
without regrouping
"
Identifies types of
patterns in the real
world (repeating,
tessellating, etc.)
"
Rounds and estimates
sums and differences
of two-digit numbers
"
"
Reads, compares, and
orders whole numbers
to 1,000
Recognizes and extends
geometric and number
patterns and explains
the rule
"
Uses patterns to predict
and solve problems
Uses concrete objects to
model and identify
place value in threedigit numbers
"
Uses attributes to
describe and compare
properties of shapes
and solids
Completes number
sentences with missing
values and operation
symbols
"
Solves number sentences with equalities
and inequalities
"
"
"
Identifies and classifies
plane and three-dimensional shapes and their
geometric relationships
Compares and contrasts two- and threedimensional shapes
and objects
"
Collects, records, and
displays data using
tables, pictographs,
and bar graphs
"
Analyzes and explains
results from a survey
"
Verifies predictions
based on simple probability experiments
"
Uses data to describe
events as more like or
less likely or equally
likely
"
Uses ordered pairs to
locate positions on a
simple coordinate grid
Estimates time and
elapsed time using
minutes, half-hours and
hours
Unit #5 (6wks):
"
75
"
Skills for Morning
Meeting that stretch
across all units
"
Identifies fractional
parts of objects, shapes,
and sets of objects
"
Determines whether
numbers are odd
or even
"
Joins and separates
equivalent sets of
objects to describe multiplication and division
"
Skip counts forward
and backwards by 2’s,
5’s and 10’s from a
given number
"
Uses concrete objects to
model and identify
place value in threedigit numbers
"
Collects, records, and
displays data using
tables, pictographs, and
bar graphs
"
Uses a calendar to
identify dates; communicates time relationships (days in a week,
weeks in a year etc.)
"
Measures and records
temperature to the
nearest 10 degrees using
F and C
CHAPTER 3
are finally ready to discuss the nuts and bolts
of instructional design—how will you create
daily lessons? How will you write a lesson
plan? How do you get the student to actually
meet the standard and ultimately achieve the
big learning goals you set before them?
Let’s start with a quick review: the purpose of lesson planning is to integrate the
standards and benchmarks into your daily
teaching. Lesson planning involves turning
benchmarks into specific lesson objectives,
determining how students will demonstrate
that they have met the lesson’s objectives,
and choosing the most appropriate teaching
strategies to help students learn the objective (we discuss the wide range of effective
teaching strategies in Chapter 5).
Lesson Objectives
Most standards and benchmarks,
remember, are too broad or vague to
address in one lesson. They need, therefore,
to be broken down into smaller pieces
called “lesson objectives.” Lesson objectives
guide your daily process as teachers. The
lesson objectives should drive every instructional choice you make, and they will serve
as the key tool to evaluate your own and
your students’ success on a daily basis. If
students have achieved the objectives, a lesson has been successful; if students have not
achieved the objectives, you must rethink
your approach. Maintaining the alignment
between standard, benchmark, and objective, as well as with the subsequent assessment, is an important key to successful standards-based instruction.
Objectives must include the following
components:
1. Focus on Performance. Lesson objectives always start with the abbreviation SWBAT, which stands for,
“Students will be able to…” This rigid
consistency ensures that the lesson
objectives will be framed in terms of
student learning, rather than on what
the teacher will do.
objective should detail the conditions
under which students will demonstrate mastery.
3. Measurable Outcomes. Objectives
should state how students will
demonstrate whether the objective has
been mastered.
As we have said, a successful lesson is
one in which the objective is met. It is crucial, therefore, that your lesson objectives
drive every instructional choice you make,
that your lesson objective supports your
standards and benchmarks, and that they
are carefully crafted to result in effective
instruction. The techniques you employ,
including both the teaching strategies you
select and the use of an approach called differentiated instruction, will enable your student to reach the objectives. Differentiated
instruction (discussed in great length in the
next chapter) allows you to tailor your
instruction so that all of your students—
whose needs are diverse and varied—can
achieve success in mastering the objectives.
Table 3.3 demonstrates how each component combines to create the full objective,
satisfying all three requirements. As you
see, the objective is incomplete and insufficient until it includes the student performance, the outcome and the conditions. The
more specific you can be about what you
want students to know and do, the greater
the likelihood that they will meet the lesson
objectives you develop for them.
Once you have developed your lesson
objectives, you must sequence them. An
effective sequence follows these guidelines:
1. It is comprised of individual objectives that build on each other logically
and drive toward a clear goal.
2. It builds from concrete concepts to
more abstract ideas.
3. It helps students develop a sense of
where the unit is going.
4. It reinforces previous objectives to
extend student understanding.
2. Clear Conditions. A clear lesson
CHAPTER 3
76
TABLE 3.3: Creating Objectives
Component Description
Examples
The Student Performance
The student will be able to list…
Every objective should be focused upon what
the students will do as opposed to what the
teacher will do.
All students will evaluate…
The student will calculate…
The Outcome
Objectives should state how students will
demonstrate whether the objective has been
mastered.
The student will be able to list the noble
gases and their atomic weight.
All students will evaluate the implications
of the desegregation of Boston public
schools.
The student will calculate the mean distance
between the sun and the earth.
The Conditions
A lesson objective should detail how or with
what students will demonstrate their mastery.
Without using their periodic tables, students
will be able to list the noble gases and their
atomic weight.
Given several Boston Globe articles from different years, students will evaluate the implications of the desegregation of Boston public
schools.
Given the data, the students will calculate,
by hand, the mean distance between the sun
and the earth.
Here is an example from a middle
school classroom:
Mr. Maddin was trying to address the following standard: When writing responses
to literature, students will justify interpretations through sustained use of
examples and textual evidence. He identified three objectives, and sequenced them in
the order that would build upon previous
understanding:
1. Students will be able to articulate the
author’s position succinctly when
reading text.
77
2. Students will be able to identify the evidence that an author uses to support his
or her position when reading text.
3. Students will write a five-paragraph
response to literature that clearly articulates both the author’s original position
and their own viewpoint, and highlights
at least three pieces of evidence from the
original text that support their view.
This specific order ensures that Mr.
Maddin’s students will first master the skill
of identifying the main point before moving
on to the more complex process of deducing
supporting evidence and ultimately applying
CHAPTER 3
that evidence to their own viewpoints.
Writing objectives takes practice and
also involves considering the mental rigor
involved in the lesson. When you understand how to consider and modify the
demands on your students’ thinking (higher
order vs. lower order), objectives become
easier to construct. We discuss mental rigor
in greater depth later in this chapter, however, you may want to turn to that section
briefly now.
“Defining success” will force you to
specify the objectives, assessments and key
points that you consider essential. We’ve
already reviewed both objectives and
assessments. Pay particular attention to the
assessments you choose. Make sure they are
aligned with the objectives you’ve stated.
And, it’s never a bad idea to plainly summarize five key takeaways that students
will have when this lesson is complete.
Lesson Cycle
Designing Effective
Standards-Based Lesson Plans
Lesson plans come in a variety of formats. Despite the format, all lessons have
three components in common. These
include:
1. Defining Success: Does your lesson
have clearly defined goals and assessments to measure progress against
those goals?
2. Lesson Cycle: Does your lesson have
a beginning, middle, and end?
3. Differentiated components: How will
you change the process, products, or
content based on students’ interest,
learning profiles, or readiness levels?
(Discussed in Chapter 4)
See the “Lesson Plan Framework” in
Figure 6. The figure is not a lesson plan
format, per se, although it could be used as
such. Rather, it is more effective if you use
it as a framework to ensure that you have
the necessary components of the lesson.
Two lesson plan formats are discussed in
greater depth later in this chapter (see
Tables 3.6 and 3.7 for a quick overview of
each format). Additionally, your principal
or department chair may require you to
use a specific format. No matter what format you eventually end up using make
sure to attend to the elements discussed
below at the very least.
Defining Success
CHAPTER 3
The lesson cycle consists of the lesson
opening (how will you quickly engage and
captivate your students?), introduction of
new material (how will you introduce new
material to students?), heart of the lesson
(what activities or experiences will you plan
in order for students to learn the new material?), and the lesson closing (how will you
assess that students have met the lesson’s
objectives and provide closure?).
Lesson Opening
Your lesson openings must engage students and seize their attention—you need to
hook them in. From the moment you stand
in front of students and open your mouth,
you need to convince them that your lesson
is worth their time, effort and attention. You
will have a brief and fleeting moment to
capture their interest; do not lose it. Here
are two examples from an elementary and
high school classroom:
Ms. Grady knew that her 3rd graders were
very interested in her personally. She was
one of the youngest teachers they had, and
she constantly had to remind them to stop
prying into her personal life. When her class
was studying heritage and ancestry, she
realized the topic presented a unique opportunity to share a bit of her background with
them and satisfy their curiosities about her.
For her introduction into the topic of family
and ancestry, she created a large personal
family tree. She inserted photos of family
78
Figure 6: Lesson Plan Framework
Defining Success
OBJECTIVE. What will your students know, understand or be able to do by the end
of class?
ASSESSMENT. How will you know
concretely that all of your students
have mastered the objective?
KEY POINTS. What three to five main ideas or steps
will you emphasize in your lesson?
OPENING. How will you focus, prepare and engage students
for the lesson’s objective?
MATERIALS.
INTRODUCTION OF NEW MATERIAL. How will you convey the knowledge and/or skills of the lesson? What will your students be doing to
process this information?
Lesson Cycle
GUIDED PRACTICE. In what ways will your learners attempt to explain or
do what you have outlined? How will you monitor and coach their performance?
INDEPENDENT PRACTICE. How will your different learners attempt the
objective on their own? How will you gauge
mastery?
CLOSING. How will your students summarize what they’ve learned? How
will you reinforce the objective’s importance and its link to past and future
learning?
DIFFERENTIATION. How will you differentiate your instruction to reach
the diversity of learners in your classroom?
79
CHAPTER 3
members, and labeled all her relatives, deliberately including her stepfather, stepmother
and stepsiblings (knowing that many of her
students came from extended and complicated families). When class started, she dramatically revealed her creation. She took about
10 minutes to present her family tree, noting
where her ancestors had come from, and
identifying who had first come to America
and when. Her students were thrilled to look
at the photos (especially Ms. Grady’s wedding photo, giving them their first glimpse of
her husband), and were eager to start exploring their own ancestry.
Mr. Gluckman’s 9th grade students were
studying slavery. To introduce the topic of
the effects that slavery had on early AfricanAmerican families, he chose a seven-minute
heart-wrenching scene from the first episode
of the miniseries Roots. The scene shows
young Kunta Kinte being stolen from his village in Africa and torn away from his family. After watching the scene, his students
were somber, attentive, and ready to explore
the topic further.
Many teachers make the fatal and unforgivable mistake of jumping into lessons without providing any context for what is about
to be taught and why. How often did you
endure your teachers opening a lesson with
monotone statements like the following?
“Okay class, open your books to page 321
and begin reading. When you get to page
332, answer questions 3 through 11 in
your notebook. Any questions?”
When a teacher uses an opening statement like this one, several things are
communicated:
"
The teacher has no passion or interest
for the topic.
"
The teacher doesn’t care if the students
have passion or interest for the topic.
"
The teacher either doesn’t know or
doesn’t care how the lesson relates to
prior learning.
CHAPTER 3
"
The teacher doesn’t care if students
relate the lesson to prior learning.
If a teacher is this disinterested in her
topic, how can she expect her students to
respond any differently?
As a general guide, your lesson opening
should preemptively address and sufficiently answer a student’s reflexive demand,
“Why do we need to learn this?” As annoying
as their whines might be, they deserve to
know why they need to learn a topic and it
is your job to tell them. Effective lesson
openings let students know:
"
What is about to happen?
"
Why is it about to happen?
"
How does it relate to what has been
done previously?
"
How is it going to happen?
Start out your lessons by reviewing what
happened “last week,” immediately pick up
at the point you left off, and end with scenes
(a sneak preview) of what’s coming next
time. Use your shared base of knowledge
(What do we already know? Where were
we? Who did what to whom?) to ignite passion and sustain interest. Connect the lesson
content to your students’ prior experiences
(both those from and outside of your class).
Relate the content to them and to their lives.
Link your lesson openings to broader goals
of the classroom or unit.
Keep in mind that it’s usually not
enough to merely command your students’
attention. You also want to establish continuity between this lesson and previous lessons (if within the same unit) or between
this unit and prior units (if you are starting
a new unit). Foremost, it is vital that your
method of opening a lesson relate to the lesson objective. You will have administrative
logistics that must be conveyed in a lesson
opening as well. Keep the following
requirements in mind:
1. Provide clear expectation for student
behavior. For example:
80
“For the first 10 minutes we will work
individually. If you have any questions,
raise your hand and I will assist you. “
2. Clearly describe the procedure and
what students will need for the lesson.
For example:
“For this lesson you will need your journal, a pencil, a pair of scissors, some glue,
and one magazine, which I will give each
of you. When I say it’s time to start the
last person in each row will get enough
bottles of glue for their entire row. ”
3. Allow students to summarize and
review expectations. For example:
“Can someone explain what we will be
doing for the next ten minutes…
Andres?…Good. Can someone remind us
what materials we will need… Marisa?…
Good. And who will be getting the glue…
Rosa?….Right.”
4. Allow time for questions. For example:
“Does anyone have any questions about
what we are doing before we begin? Is
anyone confused about anything?”
5. Model expectations for student behavior (especially for younger students).
For example:
“Reshma, will you please demonstrate for
the class how we carry our scissors safely?…Tariq, will you show everyone what
working individually looks like?”
(Teaching Tool #3.2 models different
openings for a science lesson at the beginning of an erosion unit.)
Introduction of New Material
If we chose one lesson objective and distributed it to ten teachers, chances are they
would come up with ten different ways to
introduce and deliver the material. The
measure of their effectiveness would not be
the creativity of their approach, but rather
the degree to which all students achieved
the objective. Do not lose sight of your mission—teaching for student achievement. A
81
common pitfall for new teachers is to focus
so much on how they are presenting material that they forget to consider their objective
or the standard(s). For example, a new
teacher may immerse himself in developing
a hands-on math game that will engage his
students, but forget to consider exactly what
mathematical concepts students will learn
through participating in the activity. A
teacher who takes such an activity-driven
approach may discover that students are
well entertained but have not developed the
skills and knowledge expected for their
grade level.
Furthermore, there is a risk of burnout
when a new teacher strives (however
admirably) to make every lesson brilliant.
Not every lesson plan has to or will be brilliant, should be effective. Remember, your
job is to make sure students achieve the
standard. Attempt to balance the energy
and creativity you bring to subject material,
with consistent, solid teaching. If students
are “entertained” in the process, that is a
by-product, rather than the central goal of
planning.
It will take several years of teaching
before you can establish a relatively complete repertoire of pre-existing first-rate lessons. Do not expect to develop your “greatest hits” in your first year alone. Even after
many years of teaching, master teachers
continually update, revise, and reject many
of their long-standing lessons. There is no
way to rush the on-going and gradual
process of building a collection of reliable,
effective and engaging lesson plans. Much
of the expertise the process requires can
only come with the maturity, hindsight, and
experience that multiple years of teaching
grants.
Heart of the Lesson
For every lesson you teach, you will
have many decisions to make. First you
must choose amongst the following
approaches:
CHAPTER 3
1. Lecture
2. Teacher modeling or demonstration
3. Investigation through questioning
(e.g. group discussion, Socratic
method)
4. Student research (where students read
and investigate materials on their
own)
5. Student discovery through an
exploratory activity or game
For every lesson, you will need to assess
your lesson objectives, your students’ needs,
and competing logistical limitations.
Once you have chosen the content you
will cover, you will need to decide the most
effective way to deliver that content. There
are three basic, yet vital factors you will
need to consider when designing your lessons. They are:
1. Mental Rigor
2. Time Dedication
3. Student Grouping
Let’s examine each of those more fully.
Mental Rigor. How mentally taxing do
you want a lesson to be? At what cognitive
level do you want your students to work?
To appropriately adjust the mental rigor of
your instruction, you will need to write lesson objectives which specify the cognitive
level at which you want your students to
perform. Perhaps the most widely cited
approach for aligning lesson objectives with
the cognitive levels of students is from
Benjamin Bloom. Bloom and his colleagues
developed a six-layer classification system
(or taxonomy) for lesson objectives. These
hierarchies organize thinking skills from
lower level thinking (simple recall of facts)
to higher level thinking (synthesis of new
information or evaluation).
Bloom’s Taxonomy includes the following sequential levels of understanding:
1. Knowledge. The lowest level of
Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy. Because
CHAPTER 3
it describes the student’s recall of factual information, this level of taxonomy is dependent chiefly on the student’s memory.
2. Comprehension. Presents the lowest
non-rote form of understanding. A
student knows what information is
being communicated and can make
some use of it without necessarily seeing it in its fullest implications or its
relationships to other information.
3. Application. A student uses abstractions in concrete situations. As its title
implies, this taxonomic level signifies
that the student can intellectually
apply what he or she has learned to
new situations.
4. Analysis. A student can break down a
complex concept into its constituent
parts in such a way that the relationships among those parts are made
clear, and a greater enlightenment
about the sum total of the parts is
achieved.
5. Synthesis. A student blends elements
and parts in order to form a coherent
structural pattern that was not previously present.
6. Evaluation. The highest level of
Bloom’s cognitive taxonomy, evaluation in this context means that the student makes qualitative or quantitative
judgments about phenomenon using
his or her own evaluative criteria or
evaluative criteria supplied by others.
These cognitive levels can be separated
into lower order and higher order skills. A
lower order skill might be hearing a song
and being able to identify the name of it. A
higher order skill would be writing your
own song. As you write your objectives,
you will need to deliberately decide the
appropriate level of challenge for your students.
1. Lower Level Skills. After you introduce new material, students will need
82
time to engage and begin to internalize it. During this critical early phase,
you will need to assess the degree to
which students understand the new
skill or concept. You will probably
rely on knowledge and comprehension activities to reinforce and check
for student understanding of new
vocabulary and concepts. Simple short
answer questions and more rote activities will provide this sort of reinforcement.
2. Mid-Level Skills. When students
have demonstrated basic comprehension of new skills or knowledge, you
might present them with specific sce-
narios that allow them to practice
application (e.g., word problems in
math, or document editing in language arts). Before they practice this
application on their own, the teacher
should, of course, model an example.
3. Higher Level Skills. Once students
have demonstrated the ability to apply
new knowledge, you can use student
practice as an opportunity for complex
thinking, including synthesis and evaluation (e.g., design a science experiment that tests for the physics theory
you have been studying). These types
of activities will require more sophisticated and nuanced judgment on your
TEACHING TOOL #3.2
Strategies for Opening a Lesson
Purpose of Opening
Reviewing and
connecting previous
learning and instantly
engaging students.
Strategies and Examples
Brainstorm
Teacher: “Let us list different components of weather that we just explored and
defined.”
Students: “Temperature, wind, precipitation…”
Teacher: “Thank you. Now, I have a question that I thought about the other day
when the wind was blowing. Does weather influence what the earth looks like?
And if so, how?”
Quickwrite
A quickwrite is an opportunity for students to quickly respond to a question.
There are three distinct benefits of a quickwrite that make it more effective than
oral questioning:
1. It is easier to engage all students.
2. It easier to check the understanding of all students by circulating through
the class.
3. Since no individual pressure is placed on the students, it is easier for them
to formulate answers. A quickwrite would be used in the same fashion as
the oral brainstorm above.
Writing Prompt (on board): “On a piece of paper, list the different components of
weather that we just explored and defined in our last unit.”
Time (1 – 2 minutes)—students write.
Teacher: “What were your responses?”
83
CHAPTER 3
behalf—there’s a reason so many
mediocre teachers rely on multiplechoice exams—but the intellectual
impact for your students is well worth
the added exertion on your part.
Students who have experienced a majority of their instruction and assessment at
lower-levels will likely have a rough adjustment to the higher-level skills which
demand much more of them. All too often
ineffective teachers rely on such lower-level
tasks such as worksheets, simple puzzles,
and copying work from the board, because
they require much less work and effort on
the teacher’s part. Dangerously, and with
Purpose of Opening
Create excitement
around the upcoming
lesson
serious consequence, they also require little
or no mental effort on the student’s part. It
is critical that you challenge your students
to attain higher level skills. Although your
students may rebel initially, in the long run
they will appreciate the gains they are making in student achievement. Also, keep in
mind that your classroom management
skills and awareness of your students’
strengths need to be strong in order to manage the transition between low level tasks
and higher ones.
Remember that your learning objectives,
in your written lesson plan, must indicate
the cognitive levels you intend to impose.
Strategies and Examples
KWL (see Toolkit Connection #14 for more information)
When using a KWL chart to develop interest about new material, you may
need to do a brief introduction of new terms. Without the clarification of terms,
students could struggle to make any contributions.
Teacher: “Does anyone know what the word erosion means?”
“What do you already know about erosion?”
“What are you wondering about erosion?”
Quickwrite
Writing Prompt (on board): “Has the earth always looked like it does today?
If no, how has it changed? What changed it?”
Time (2 – 3 minutes)—students write
Teacher: “I want to record what everyone thinks about this, so I am going to ask
you to share your answers, and I am going to write them on the board. After we
finish the unit we will review our answers to determine how accurate we were.”
Demonstrations
To create excitement around erosion, a teacher brought in a clay model of the Grand
Canyon. The teacher filled the clay canyon with sand. She tilted the Canyon model
and began to pour water from the top of the model and students watched
it flow to the bottom. Over time all of the sand washed away and the canyon
remained. The teacher then asked students to answer the following writing prompt.
Writing Prompt: “How does this demonstration relate to the real world?”
Sensory Activity
Play an audio file that captures the sound of howling wind or a storm. Ask students to write (or draw) as they listen, describing what they think is happening to
the land where this event is taking place. They can then share their descriptions
or drawings with a partner, explaining why they made the choices they made.
The teacher then calls on a few pairs to share what they discussed.
CHAPTER 3
84
TABLE 3.4: Bloom’s Taxonomy and “Useful Verbs”
85
Taxonomic Level
Useful Verbs
Sample Objectives
Knowledge
Recognizing
and recalling
information.
tell, list, relate, locate, identify, record,
write, find, state, name
"
When shown an exclamation point, a student will
identify it by name.
"
The student will be able to
list all of the noble gases
and their atomic weights.
Comprehension
Understanding
the meaning of
information.
explain, outline, discuss, distinguish,
predict, restate, summarize, translate,
compare, describe
"
The student will describe
the use of an exclamation
point.
"
After reading a short
story, the student will be
able to summarize the
main conflict in one paragraph (at least five sentences).
Application
Using information.
solve, show, use, illustrate,
calculate, construct, prepare,
complete, examine, classify
"
The student will use an
exclamation point in a
sentence.
"
Using two distinctly
different algorithms, the
student will be able to
solve two-digit subtraction
problems.
"
The student will identify
an exclamation point’s
misuse in a paragraph.
"
Given a sentence, a
student will be able to
identify the major parts
of speech.
"
A student will use exclamation points, questions marks,
and periods appropriately in
a piece of writing.
"
A student will be able to
create a kite that adheres
to the qualities (e.g., aspect
ratio, surface area to
weight ratio) of a
successful design.
Analysis
Dissecting information into its component parts to see
their relationships.
analyze, distinguish, examine, compare, contrast, investigate, categorize,
identify, explain, separate
Synthesis
Putting components
together to form new
ideas.
create, invent, compose, predict, plan,
construct, design, imagine, improve,
propose, devise, formulate, elaborate
CHAPTER 3
Table 3.4 offers an extremely valuable guide
on how to incorporate the different levels in
your learning objectives.
The “useful verb” column is an exceptionally powerful tool. Digest it fully, and
review it often. Which sounds indicative of
more exciting, powerful learning: listing or
imagining; stating or creating; naming or
assessing? These verbs reveal the very significant differences between learning activities at the lower level and those at the higher level. Remember, not all lessons can or
should be higher level—but you must have
a gradual plan for getting your students to
the point where they are able to routinely
and competently tackle such intellectually
rewarding tasks.
Time Dedication. Generally, as you plan
for higher levels of mental rigor you will
need to provide more time for student execution and completion of the task.
Knowledge and comprehension activities
should be of short duration, so they are
suitable for single class periods or as homework. Application activities can be crafted
to last one class period or even longer,
depending on their complexity. Complex
thinking—such as that demanded by evaluation or synthesis activities—requires think
time. Extended projects best serve these
types of student practice. Keep in mind
these are general guidelines—the time
required to master objectives will depend
greatly upon the complexity of the material,
your students’ performance levels, and the
pre-requisite skills involved.
Student Grouping. As you design your
lessons, you will also need to choose the
most effective and appropriate method of
student grouping. Will your students work
individually, in small groups, or together as
a whole class? There are advantages and
disadvantages to each method. Consider:
1. Whole Groups. Whole groups involve
direct instruction of the entire class by
the teacher.
CHAPTER 3
a) Advantages: Teacher can maintain
the focus of instruction. It is often
easier and less time-consuming to
treat the class as one group.
b) Disadvantages: High levels of
student participation best ensure
student internalization of new
material; whole group activities
provide few opportunities for student involvement. Teachers also
have fewer opportunities to assist
students one-on-one.
2. Small Groups. Students work in group
combinations of pairs, triads, quads, etc.
a) Advantages: Students benefit from
direct exposure to the views of
their peers. Encourages divergent
thinking. Develops students’ communication skills since students are
forced to engage in dialogue about
the subject matter.
b) Disadvantages: Peer interaction
presents opportunity for off-task
behavior. Organizing and instructing groups takes considerable time.
3. Individual.
a) Advantages: Teachers can monitor
students directly and tailor assistance. There are fewer opportunities for off-task behavior.
b) Disadvantages: Students don’t
benefit from access to competing
viewpoints, and can’t receive
assistance or input from peers.
In general, you will need to remember
that cooperative learning consists of complex procedures and behaviors that you will
have to establish and teach students in order
for the group to meet its goals (we will elaborate on this in Chapter 5). Suffice it to say
that when using cooperative groups you
will need to be sure to anticipate any potential areas that might inadvertently promote
student misbehavior and/or confusion.
86
TEACHING TOOL #3.3
Strategies for Closing a Lesson
Strategy
Description
Speed Round
(Teacher-led or
student-led)
This strategy is most effective in closing lessons that were focused on a knowledge, comprehension, or application level. It can be done orally or in writing.
Minute Paper
A minute paper is a quick summary of learning. Each student writes for
exactly one minute on a prompt that you give the class.
Procedure: Pose a series of review questions and call on students at random
to answer—providing wait time after each question to allow students to think
before you select someone to respond. After each response, give the rest of
the class a chance to agree or disagree with the answer. You might have all
students write their responses on individual chalkboards or white boards
before calling on anyone. Alternatively, ask students to come up with their
own questions related to the day’s lesson. Call on one student to share a
question and then choose a peer to respond; that person then asks his or her
own question and calls on someone else, and so on.
Procedure: Give the students a writing prompt, such as, “List as many examples as you can of words that include the phonetic blend ‘cr’.” If time permits,
ask students to share their responses with the class. Collect and review the
responses to make modifications to future instruction. To adapt for very
young students or varied learning modalities, have them draw a “minute picture” in response to a prompt.
One Sentence
Summary
The one sentence summary is even more focused than the minute paper. It is
a general assessment of student understanding of the overall lesson objective.
Procedure: Ask the students to answer in one sentence, “What was the key
point of today’s lesson?”
If time permits, ask students to share their responses with the class. If a wide
discrepancy exists, you will want to reflect on why that might have happened
and how your instruction can be more focused around a concrete goal the
next day.
Paired Summary
Procedure: Place students in pairs to discuss a specific prompt for a short
period of time, maybe 1 to 2 minutes (e.g., “What did we observe about our
bean plants that support what we learned about plant growth?”). Each pair
should jot down the key points of their discussion and then share them with
the class at large. If the class has an odd number of students, the teacher
should pair with a student.
Leave the Carpet
This method accommodates younger students who may not be able to write,
and it can aid in the physical transition from one activity or lesson to another.
(Adapt this activity
for use as students
line up to go to
recess, are dismissed at the end
of the day, etc.)
87
Procedure: Tell students that they can leave the carpet and go back to their
desks once they provide a word that begins with the letter of study (or answer
a question about the book you read, an arithmetic problem, etc.). Provide
think time for students and then ask each student to provide a word. Remind
each student to leave the carpet and go back to his or her desk when they provide a word that starts with the appropriate letter.
CHAPTER 3
Closing the Lesson
A lesson closing reinforces the lesson
objective, checks for student understanding,
assesses lesson effectiveness, and provides
intellectual closure to a topic. An ineffective
lesson closing resembles our example of the
ineffective lesson opening:
“Tonight’s homework is to answer the
questions on p. 29 and to review your
Reconstruction essays. Have a good
day—you are dismissed.”
An effective closing should review, reinforce and conclude:
“To review what we’ve learned today, take a
look at the agenda I have on the board. Let’s
generate three take-home notes that summarize that summarize what we’ve learned
today. Remember a good way to think about
a take-home note is to simply pretend
you’re telling your parent or guardian
what we did in class today. Now, let’s write
these notes in our notebooks under yesterday’s take-home notes. At the end of the
week we’ll use the take-home notes to prepare for our Monday Quiz.”
If you are to accomplish an effective
closing, it is crucial that you explicitly set
time aside for the closure. You should need
no more than 10 minutes at the most for a
typical closing. If you find that you are consistently running out of time for meaningful
closings, you might want to experiment
with a timer or a student timekeeper. You
will want to design a brief activity or discussion that addresses such questions as:
"
What did we learn today?
"
Can students demonstrate achievement of the objective, or progress
towards that objective?
"
What was the significance of what we
learned? Was there an unidentified
greater purpose?
Do not, of course, wait until a closing to
ensure that students are meeting a lesson’s
objectives—you will want to assess your
CHAPTER 3
students’ comprehension throughout a lesson and the entire unit. Use the lesson closing, rather, to sear the information into their
minds. Think of it as a final opportunity for
your students to summarize and reflect on
what has been accomplished, and a final
opportunity for you to verify that they
absorbed all that you needed them to. If an
effective opening seizes student attention
and instantly engages, a closing must
prompt students to think further on the
topic, to sustain their engagement, and capture their interests. If students walk out of
your classroom and instantly forget everything they just learned, your lesson—and
closing—was ineffective. Use these final
moments to impress upon your students the
essential information they should take with
them.
The Teaching Tool #3.3 details some
effective strategies for closing a lesson.
Lesson closure is like looking back on
the trail in order to see where you’ve come
from and how far you’ve progressed. A lesson may have made perfect sense to you as
you were leading the class, but you need to
have ways to discover whether or not your
students have been traveling the same trail
with you. Students will better retain information and skills if they are encouraged to
reflect upon what they learned at the end of
each lesson or unit. Teachers, meanwhile,
gain valuable insight for future instruction.
Lesson Plan Formats
Now that we have covered the lesson
opening, the heart of the lesson and the lesson closing, you need to think about the
organizational format you will choose to
structure your lesson plans. Some administrators will require you to submit your
weekly lesson plans, and you will need to
present them in an acceptable format. There
is no one standard methodology for lesson
plans. Some schools will dictate the exact
format you should use while others will let
88
TABLE 3.5: The Structure of the Seven-Step Lesson Plan & Examples
Lesson Component
Lesson Opening
(5 - 10 minutes)
Introduction of
New Material
(10 - 15 minutes)
Student Practice
of New Material
(20 - 25 minutes)
Description of Component
Example of Component
(1) Objective
Defines the specific, measurable skills or
behaviors students will know and be able
to do by the conclusion of the lesson. You
might also include how the objective connects and leads to the attainment of the
broader curricular goal.
(1) Objective
Students will be able to distinguish and
apply the differences between formal and
casual language.
(2) Motivation
Also called the “focus” or “hook,” this
describes how you will hook students
into the lesson. A motivation can work by
investing the students in the relevance of
the materials to be covered, piquing their
curiosity, or simply warming them up to
the lesson.
(3) Introduction of New Material/
Directed Lesson Sequence
Describes the instructional strategies or
activities through which the bulk of the
new knowledge will be conveyed to students. The strategies can take the form of
direct instruction, a teacher-facilitated
discussion, or student-driven learning
activities like experiments, peer learning,
or the reading of secondary source books.
(3) Directed Lesson Sequence
As a whole group, we will make a Venn
Diagram comparing and contrasting the
two invitations and discussing the differences between the “formal” and “casual”
language exhibited. Using our Venn
Diagram and two invitations, we will then
use a graphic organizer to outline the characteristics of formal and casual levels of language and the contexts in which each is
appropriate.
(4) Guided Practice
Articulates what activities you will use to
enable students to apply new knowledge or
practice new skills with close guidance and
feedback from you and from peers.
(4) Guided Practice
I will read various short texts (dialogues,
invitations, and letters) and ask students
to determine if formal or casual language
is used.
(5) Independent Practice
Outlines how students will practice their
new skills or knowledge independently
to reinforce and demonstrate individual
achievement of the specific objective. This
step may include homework.
(5) Independent Practice
Students will write a letter in response—
using the appropriate language—to the
two invitations they received at the beginning of class.
(6) Alternate and Supplementary
Activities
Identifies additional activities that can
provide enrichment or reinforcement of
the lesson just taught.
Closing
(5 - 10 minutes)
89
(2) Motivation
I will tell students that they have been
invited to two different parties. One is the
White House Inaugural Ball. While I hand
out copies of the invitation to each student,
I will play classical music in the background. We will then read through the
invitation together. Then, I will pass out
the second invitation (to a dance party
hosted by the school student council). I
will play contemporary music while students are receiving this invitation. We will
read through this invitation together.
(7) Assessment
Outlines the assessment strategies that will
be used to measure student achievement of
the specific objective.
(6) Alternate and Supplementary
Activities
For homework that night, students will analyze two letters (one to a friend, one to a manufacturer). They will circle and analyze (in a
Venn Diagram) the differences between the
formal/casual languages used in the two
letters.
(7) Assessment
In the final 5-10 minutes of the class period, I will ask students to stop working on
their letters. I will give each student a
“ticket to leave” (1/4 of a piece of paper)
and ask them to write down a brief
description of the characteristics of formal language and when it is used (in formal language) and a brief description of
the characteristics of casual language and
when it is used (in casual language). If
time permits, I will ask a few students to
share their responses. I will collect
all “tickets” at the door as students are
leaving.
CHAPTER 3
TABLE 3.6: The Structure of the Five-Step Lesson Plan & Examples
Lesson Component
Description of Component
Example of Component
Objective
Students will be able to list and explain
the functions of the skin.
Lesson Opening
(1) Engagement
Outlines strategies for engaging and
investing students in the lesson. This is
similar to the “motivation” step in the
seven-step lesson plan.
(1) Engagement
I will tell students some version of the following story: I went to the doctor the other
day. At the end of my checkup, she told
me about a fascinating study she was
about to begin. She was going to design a
bag in which human beings could live.
This bag would have to allow them to
carry out their normal lives. I thought this
was such a fascinating idea that I volunteered to be a part of the study! Now, I
want to give her a list of functions that my
bag should have, and I need your help
developing that list. I want you to brainstorm with a partner the functions that
these bags should have….Do you have any
questions?… You have 5 minutes.
(2) Exploration
Outlines strategies by which students
first explore new information on their
own, and then draw conclusions based
on their experimentation.
(2) Exploration
Students will brainstorm, with a partner,
the functions they think the bag should
have (for example, most will say that you
should be able to see through it, hear
through it, be able to feel things through
it, receive food through it, etc.)
(3) Explanation
Describes how you will explain or directly teach students the new material and
draw connections to the conclusions
reached in the exploration section.
(3) Explanation
When the time is up, we will generate a
class list on the board. If students have
not thought of an appropriate function
(such as the ability to expel waste, or prevent germs from entering) I will lead them
to that function by asking various questions. When we have generated a sufficient list, I will step back and dramatically
note, “Wait…a…minute…does this list of
‘bag’ functions remind you of anything
that is part of our body already? Let’s
take a look at the chapter in our science
books we were going to start today…”
We will then read the section on skin in
the human body chapter, comparing the
functions of the skin to the functions of
the bag they suggested were necessary.
(4) Application
Describes how students will apply or utilize their new knowledge through specific activities.
(4) Application
Students will work individually as they
use the information in the text to fill in a
graphic organizer on the functions of the
skin. After several minutes, they will
work with their partner to check their
organizer, discussing their similar
answers and correcting their mistakes.
(5) Assessment
Outlines the assessment strategies that
will be used to measure student achievement of the specific objective.
(5) Assessment
With 5-10 minutes remaining in the class
period, I will ask students to do a 5minute quickwrite answering the following: “Name, describe, and give examples
of at least 4 functions of your skin.” For
homework they will write a letter to my
doctor, explaining to her that the “bag”
she would like to invent already exists in
the form of our skin.
(5 - 10 minutes)
Introduction of
New Material
(10 - 15 minutes)
Student Practice
of New Material
(20 - 25 minutes)
Lesson Closing
(5 - 10 minutes)
CHAPTER 3
90
TEACHING TOOL #3.4
Lesson Design Checklist
1. Does my lesson include a Lesson Objective that aligns with standards
and benchmarks?
Yes "
No "
2. Is the objective clear, measurable, attainable, and framed in terms of
student learning?
Yes "
No "
Does my Lesson Opening clearly communicate
" What is about to happen and why?
Yes "
No "
" How it relates to what has been done previously?
Yes "
No "
" How it is going to happen and expectations for student behavior?
Yes "
No "
" Does my lesson opening engage students’ interest?
Yes "
No "
Yes "
No "
Yes "
No "
Yes "
No "
rule, objectives that are at a lower cognitive level require less instructional
time compared to higher cognitive level objectives.)
Yes "
No "
" Does my lesson opening detail how I will check for student
understanding of the instructions?
When considering the Introduction of New Material
" Does my lesson plan describe how the material will be introduced?
" Do I introduce new material in a way that matches the cognitive
level of the lesson objective?
" Do I dedicate enough time to introduce new material? (As a general
" Does my lesson explain how I will group students when introducing
new material (e.g., whole group, small group, or individual)?
When considering Student Practice with New Material
" Does my lesson reflect the level of mental rigor (higher and lower-order
thinking) at which students will be practicing?
" Does my lesson detail the time dedication to student practice
(see time allocations in Tables 3.6 and 3.7)?
" Does my lesson detail how students will be grouped for effective
practice (e.g., whole class, small group, individual)?
" Does my lesson detail how I will check for student understanding both
during and after student practice?
Does my Lesson Closing
" Provide the opportunity for student reflection as to what they learned?
" Provide the opportunity for teacher reflection as to what went well
and not so well?
" Detail how I will check for student understanding when closing
the lesson?
91
Yes "
No "
Yes "
No "
Yes "
No "
Yes "
No "
Yes "
No "
Yes "
No "
Yes "
No "
Yes "
No "
CHAPTER 3
you select your own. To best prepare you
for all possible expectations, we have outlined, in Tables 3.5 and 3.6 the seven-step
and five-step lesson plan formats. The basic
parts of these formats apply to other types
of lesson plan formats you’re likely to
encounter.
Once you have designed and outlined
your lesson, you may want to verify that you
have successfully completed the process. Use
the Lesson Design Checklist in Teaching
Tool #3.4 until you feel that you have internalized the many aspects of the process.
Summary of Standard-based
Planning Steps
In this chapter, we have covered a substantial amount of information, which will,
after time and considerable practice, become
second nature to you. Until that time, let’s
review once more what the entire process
entails.
1. Review national or state standards.
2. Review district curriculum guides.
3. Determine frequently tested standards
and review tests.
4. Use diagnostics to inform unit planning.
12. Script possible questions or brief
activities for lesson closing.
Once you have completed your lesson
plans, your days and weeks can start taking
shape. Much as we created a yearlong schedule of blocked-out units, you will want to
create daily and weekly schedules, structuring your day according to your lesson plans.
Elementary teachers must decide the order in
which they want to teach their various subjects. They will want to establish a set routine, and stick with it so students know what
to expect. (Some schools will mandate certain blocks of your schedule in order to facilitate school wide planning). Middle school
and high school teachers will face less complicated planning since they will mostly
teach pre-scheduled classes. Still, they will
need to carefully design their lesson plans to
reflect and specify daily and weekly activity
for each individual class.
Conclusions and Key Points
This chapter discussed standards-based
instructional planning and emphasized the
following key points:
"
Standards and benchmarks identify
what students should know, understand and be able to do by the end of a
course, grade level, or grade span.
"
Start with the standard you intend to
cover, determine what your students
must learn, and then design your units
and lessons accordingly.
"
Teach for mastery instead of curriculum coverage.
"
Effective lessons clearly define goals
and assessments; have a beginning,
middle, and end; and differentiate
based on students’ interest, learning
profiles, or readiness levels.
"
When designing lessons, consider the
three following factors: mental rigor,
time dedication, and student grouping.
5. Cluster standards and benchmarks into
units.
6. Sequence units on a calendar to develop a yearlong instructional plan.
7. Write lesson objectives that are clear,
measurable and framed in terms of student achievement.
8. Include appropriate cognitive levels in
the objectives.
9. Detail how you will open and introduce a lesson.
10. Select the best method of delivering
content.
11. Decide how students will practice the
material.
CHAPTER 3
92
Think back to our analogy of the teacher
as architect. All architects are required to
design, revise and submit their blueprints to
both their clients and to regulating agencies.
Once the specified requirements are
approved, and the mandates have been sufficiently addressed, the architect can indulge
her artistic sensibilities and infuse the design
with the imaginative constructions and intuitive revelations that will brand the design as
her own. All architects from Frank Lloyd
Wright to Frank Gehry rely on the uniformity
and visually representative logic of blueprints.
Yet they still manage to inject the personal
preferences and philosophies that render the
design a distinct product of their creation.
You won’t be able to access or even identify the qualities of your natural instructional
style right away, yet when you complete the
lesson-planning process with discipline and
ordered intent, you will be laying the
groundwork for your own unique brand of
instruction to emerge.
93
CHAPTER 3
Chapter 4
Differentiated Instruction
Do you believe that all students can learn? This is a recurrent question
of great consequence amongst educators. And, while most teachers intuitively know the answer to be “yes,” they just as intuitively sense that
there are tremendous differences as to how it is that all students actually do
learn. Imagine you have a class of 35 students, with 19 students performing three grade levels below, 9 who perform at grade level, 5 who perform
above grade level and 2 who are on grade level. To complicate matters
30% of your class are English Language Learners, and 10% receive special
education assistance. Although this mix of students may seem exaggerated, many teachers face comparable diversity each day.
As you will see, believing that all kids can learn is entirely distinct from
ensuring that all kids do learn.
You may wonder, why not just group the students homogeneously?
That is, put all the English Language Learners together, all the low performing students together, and all the high performing kids together.
Homogenous grouping or tracking in fact happens in many schools, and
even in high-needs schools. However, the effects of systematically tracking
students have not proven to benefit the kids who are in the lowest functioning group (Oakes, 1985). On the contrary, students in lower performing groups benefit a great deal from attending classes with higher performing students. The trend in special education is towards inclusion and
mainstreaming (see Special Education Supplement 1.3 for more details).
Homogenous Grouping: When is it a Good Idea?
Homogenous grouping when used appropriately can be very beneficial and educationally sound. For example, it may be very beneficial to
group students by performance level. An Algebra teacher, for instance,
may notice that several students are having problems solving equations with two unknowns. Rather than re-teaching the lesson to the
entire class, the teacher may decide to pull these students together
(while the other students are doing independent work) and re-teach
the lesson. In Balanced Literacy Instruction (discussed in the Teaching
for Student Achievement: Introduction to Elementary Literacy), students
are grouped homogenously for various activities. Remember, there is a
distinction between systematic or institutional homogenous grouping—like tracking—and sound educational practices like grouping for
instruction.
CHAPTER 4
94
This means that students with disabilities
are included in the general education curriculum, albeit with modifications and
adaptations. Furthermore, one of the best
ways to learn a new language is to be
immersed in it, so separating out students
who speak a language other than English
seems counterproductive.
This chapter focuses on Carol
Tomlinson’s work on differentiated instruction. She has reached “guru-like” status on
the subject. At the outset we should caution
you that differentiated instruction is tough,
even for veteran teachers. However, you
were recruited largely because the program
determined you to be equal to the task of
ensuring that all your learners perform at
the highest levels. Throughout your training
and beyond, try to amass all the knowledge
and skills related to differentiated instruction that you can. Additionally, consider
differentiated instruction to be an approach
to or a philosophy about instruction, rather
than simply a set of teaching strategies.
Why Differentiate Instruction?
Most teachers rely on a singular and uniform approach to instruction—that is, a
one-size-fits-all program where the entire
class receives the same lectures, completes
the same activities, and takes the same
exams. Begin to think about how this fails
to take the individual student into account.
How is it possible that all students are
ready to receive the same information (i.e.
readiness)? What about those students who
are below or above grade level? What about
those students who don’t speak English as a
first language? What about those students
who struggle with this particular subject or
excel in this particular subject? How is it
possible that all students will find the topic
relevant and compelling? Will students
from different cultures automatically care
about the same things? Will students
instinctively care about a topic just because
the textbook emphasizes it? How is it possi-
95
ble that all students learn best the same
way? Researchers have shown that girls
learn differently from boys. Can everyone
internalize information by listening to a lecture? Will inhibited and shy students
engage as effectively as confident, outgoing
ones?
The answers, of course, are a resounding
no. Implicit in the move away from a singular and uniform approach to a differentiated
one is the recognition and acceptance that
all effective instruction must be student-centered and not teacher-centered. Tomlinson
(2001) points out that traditional teaching
methods “imply that all students need to
learn the same things in the same way over
the same time span”(p. 9). Can you think of
any other endeavor in which this is the
case? Sports? Music? Art? As Tomlinson
(2001) expertly asks, “is your job to teach
lessons or to teach kids?”(p. 10).
Interestingly, as she points out, in the
days of the one-room schoolhouse teachers
practiced this philosophy intuitively. The
inherent constraints presented by a multiage class demanded that instruction be personalized and that the teacher “work sometimes with the whole class, sometimes with
small groups, and sometimes with individuals” (Tomlison, 2001, p. 2). Think back to
Laura Ingalls’ school in Little House on the
Prairie. Laura and her siblings, all different
ages, sat in the same classroom, and yet had
different lessons, different homework
assignments, and often received one-on-one
attention. Because the students were different ages, it was obvious that their needs
were different. It should be no less obvious
that same aged kids will also have different
needs. Keep this image in your mind and
strive to turn your classroom into a oneroom schoolhouse where multiple types of
learning occur simultaneously.
A helpful analogy can be to compare a
teacher to a chef in a restaurant. A chef
must offer a variety of menu options. Not
even the most egotistical chef would ever
assume that one dish would satisfy every-
CHAPTER 4
one. Each customer has a distinct palette,
specific preferences, different appetites,
nutritional needs, allergies, and expectations; so too will your students as they
digest learning material. You must offer
them a full-service menu of teaching methods to ensure that your lessons resonate
with every student. Forcing the whole class
to learn one way, all the time, is like forcing
a whole class to eat the same amount of the
same dish at the same speed at the same
time every day. It is neither enriching nor
nourishing; it is simply stifling and oppressive.
In many ineffective schools, we can see
the results of the lack of differentiated
instruction. In fact, many of the behavioral
and academic problems that students exhibit could be seen as direct consequences of
having been under-challenged or over-challenged. Think about how such students
might respond. Is it hard to imagine a student who is constantly presented with work
beyond his capacity becoming frustrated,
angry, and/or even antisocial? Is it hard to
conceive that an under-stimulated, underchallenged student might become bored,
distant, arrogant, and/or anti-social?
The fact is, students will always learn at
their own pace. That they learn needs to
matter more than when or how they learn.
Tomlinson (2001) explains everyone accepts
that infants will roll, sit up, walk and talk at
different times. Imagine the damage that
could be done “by [forcing] a child to walk
before he could stand, or run before he
could walk, or if [parents] spent every day
in a hovering panic because the child next
door was talking and their child was not.”
She poses the essential question thus:
“Should a teacher silence the student who is
already talking until the other students find
their voice?”
An important distinction: The goal is not
to apply different standards to different
children, but rather to understand which
instructional strategies it will take to help
CHAPTER 4
each child reach the same standard.
Differentiated Instruction Defined
Differentiated Instruction is a philosophy of instruction that devotes itself to
meeting the diverse needs of your students.
Knowing how to meet the varied needs of
individual students in the classroom is
extremely challenging. It is impractical,
inefficient, and undesirable to attempt to
teach each student individually during a
class period. However, learning how to differentiate instruction so that you respond to
the needs of all learners is practical, efficient, and desirable—it is also your job.
This is not a teaching strategy—not one
tool to choose from. Rather, it is an essential
approach you will need to gradually adopt
in order to sufficiently address the varying
needs of the children in your classroom.
This approach requires a set of skills to
holistically apply to every lesson in order to
become an exceptionally effective teacher.
And, as we’ve said, you won’t master it in
your first year. But the sooner you start
incorporating the philosophies and practices behind it, the sooner it will become
your natural mode of instruction.
Tomlinson (2001) characterizes it as “a way
of life in the classroom” (p. 5)—and achieving this way of life is your ultimate goal.
It is not merely asking struggling students “easier” questions, and advanced students “harder” questions. It is not about
giving struggling students less work and
advanced students more work. Nor is it
about offering struggling students multiplechoice tests, and advanced students essay
questions. Why not? Because, as Tomlinson
(2001) explains, “[I]t is not acceptable for
remedial students to do ‘low-level’ tasks
that require only memorization of information and minimal comprehension” (p. 20).
All students across the spectrum of performance levels require and deserve com-
96
plex, engaging work. “If writing one book
report is ‘too easy’ for the advanced reader,
doing ‘twice as much’ of the same thing is
not only unlikely to remedy the problem,
but it could seem like punishment”
(Tomlison, 2001, p. 4). In other words, the
quality of assignments is always more
important than the quantity of assignments.
Your job, as a practitioner of differentiated
instruction will be to:
1. Provide each of your students with
lessons that matter (both to them personally and in the larger sense of relevance).
2. Push each of your students, regardless
of their starting point, beyond their
intellectual comfort zone.
3. Demand more of them than they are
accustomed to giving.
As Tomlinson (2001) defines it, “A good
task for a given student is one that is just a bit
too hard…We err most often as teachers by
planning a single task that is easy enough for
most students to complete” (p. 49). After all,
if our students can do everything we have
asked them to do have we not failed as teachers? A vital part of learning is failure.
When we do appropriately challenge
our students, it is essential that we are there
to support and assist them as they take
those frightening leaps forward. Challenging, but unsupported tasks, will lead to
frustration and opposition. You must
present the challenge, and work with
each student to witness it fulfilled.
In the traditional classroom, teachers
often resort to “teaching to the middle”—
presenting content of average complexity in
order to satisfy the “average” needs of the
class. As we have discussed, this specious
notion of the “average” student is a fallacy—naïve at best, malevolent at worst.
There are no average kids—there are distinct individuals. Watering down content
that might stimulate advanced learners in
order for struggling students to keep up
accomplishes little for either group.
97
Another practice of the traditional classroom that begs improvement is the tendency
for teachers to act as “keepers and dispensers
of knowledge.” Your job is not to dole out
snippets of information on an arbitrary and illsuited timeline. Your job is to maximize the
intellectual growth of your students by
enhancing their understanding of the world in
which we live. As Tomlinson (2001) explains:
Differentiated classrooms move toward seeing themselves as organizers of learning
opportunities. While content knowledge
remains important, these teachers focus less
on knowing all the answers and focus more
on ‘reading their students.’ ‘Covering information’ takes a back seat to making meaning
out of important ideas” (p. 16).
So, what does the differentiated classroom look like? Tomlinson (2001) defines
the differentiated classroom as a place
where:
“the teacher proactively plans and carries
out varied approaches to content, process,
and product in anticipation of and response
to student differences in readiness, interest,
and learning needs” (p. 7).
She offers several apt metaphors for
visualizing the role of the teacher in such a
classroom:
!
Teacher as Director of the Orchestra—
“There’s a time in rehearsals for individual
practice, a time for sectional practice, and a
time for the whole group to work together.”
!
Teacher as Coach—“A good coach has clear
goals for the team, but also for every individual on the team…[the coach] must motivate each player…and build team spirit.”
!
Teacher as Jazz Musician—“A piece
becomes longer or shorter, more plaintive,
or more playful as the mood of the group
dictates. A good differentiated classroom
is jazz!”
Table 4.1 compares differentiated and
traditional classrooms on a variety of
characteristics.
What patterns do you notice about the
CHAPTER 4
TABLE 4.1: Comparison of Differentiated and Traditional Classrooms
Traditional Classroom
Differentiated Classroom
!
Student differences are masked or acted upon
when problematic.
!
Student differences are studied as a basis for
planning.
!
Assessment is most common at the end of
learning to see “who got it.”
!
Assessment is ongoing and diagnostic to
understand how to make instruction more
responsive to the learners need.
!
A relatively narrow sense of intelligence
prevails.
!
Focus on multiple forms of intelligence is
evident.
!
Excellence is defined in large measure by
individual growth from a starting point.
!
A single definition of excellence exists.
!
Student interest is infrequently tapped.
!
Relatively few learning profile options are
taken into account.
!
Students are frequently guided in making
interest-based learning choices.
!
Whole-class instruction dominates.
!
Many learning profile options are provided
for during instruction.
!
Coverage of texts and curriculum guides
drives instruction.
!
Many instructional arrangements are used in
the classroom.
!
Mastery of facts and skills out-of-context are
the focus of learning.
!
Student readiness, interest, and learning
profile shape instruction.
!
Single option assignments are the norm.
!
!
A single text prevails.
Use of essential skills to make sense of and
understand key concepts and principles is the
focus of learning.
!
Single interpretations of ideas and events
may be sought.
!
Multi-option assignments are frequently used.
The teacher solves problems.
!
Multiple materials are provided to students.
!
The teacher provides whole-class
standards for grading.
!
!
Multiple perspectives on ideas and events are
routinely sought.
A single form of assessment is often used.
!
!
Students help other students and the teacher
solve problems.
!
Students work with the teacher to establish
both whole-class and individual learning goals.
!
Students are assessed in multiple ways.
CHAPTER 4
98
differences between the two? Which
method of instruction is more representative of the education you received? Have
you ever experienced elements of the differentiated style? Let’s take a closer look at
each of these elements of differentiated
instruction.
1. Student differences are studied as a
basis for planning. You will determine what your students’ individual
needs and create lesson plans accordingly. You will know who your students are well enough to decide what
and how to best teach them.
2. Assessment is ongoing and diagnostic to understand how to make
instruction more responsive to learner need. Pre-unit assessments will
help you decide what to teach. Postunit assessments will help you to
determine how well you did—not
simply how well your students did.
Consider the use of “exit cards” in
which students can convey at the end
of class what they took from a lesson.
Tomlinson adds, “Think of assessment
as a road map for thinking and planning…Fruitful assessment often poses
the question, ‘what is an array of ways
I can offer students to demonstrate
their understanding and skills?’”
3. Focus on multiple forms of intelligences is evident. You will offer your
students a variety of ways to express
their understanding of knowledge,
without favoring any one style.
Students might draw their comprehension of an idea, dramatize it, create
a model of it, write a letter to the editor about it, or re-write a section of
the textbook to supplement what’s
missing.
4. Excellence is defined in large measure by individual growth from a
starting point. Your students’
progress is not measured in relation to
what their peers achieved or to a fixed
99
standard. Their progress is their
achievement.
5. Students are frequently guided in
making interest-based learning
choices. Students are given options at
every step of the academic unit—from
determining which aspects of a topic
interest them (content) to selecting the
most beneficial means of acquiring the
knowledge (process) to choosing a
method of expressing their knowledge
(product).
6. Many learning profile options are
provided for. You will identify and
accept the ways in which your students learn best, without “tracking”
them or pigeonholing them into fixed
roles. Students can “decide whether to
work alone or with a peer, to sit in a
desk or curl up on the floor with a
book, to accept inevitable classroom
sounds or screen them out by using
earplugs or headphones” (Tomlinson,
2001, p. 64). You will present information in a fashion that is accessible for
many learning modalities (i.e. visual,
auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic).
Regardless of their individual learning
profile, all students will benefit from
multiple and varied exposure to the
same concept. As Tomlinson (2001)
writes, “If a student has heard about
an idea, sung about it, built a representation of it, and read about it, success is far more likely than if one
avenue predominates” (p. 14).
7. Many instructional arrangements are
used. Flexible grouping prevails.
Sometimes the whole class stays
together, sometimes students meet in
smaller groups organized by readiness, interest, or learning profile, and
sometimes you will meet with students individually. Sometimes you
will present information to the class,
while other times students (or guest
lecturers) will present information to
the class. Frequently updated learning
CHAPTER 4
centers and interest centers further
accommodate instructional flexibility.
Exceptional students can engage in
short or long-term independent investigative studies, with appropriate
guidance and structure in place.
8. Student readiness, interest, and
learning profile shape instruction.
Your students’ needs will shape the
content of your instruction. What
ideas are they grappling with? What
current events haven’t yet been incorporated into your teaching materials?
Which skills have they not yet mastered? What might be a more effective
mode of assessment than the one in
the curriculum guide? How might you
tailor a particular lesson for your
kinesthetic learners? How might you
extrapolate the key concepts of a curriculum guide lesson, but transform
them into a lesson your students
might find more compelling? What
alternative assignments might you
create for those students who already
get it?
9. Use of essential skills to make sense
of and understand key concepts and
principles is the focus of learning.
You will minimize memorization and
regurgitation of isolated facts.
Students need to know how to think,
not what to think. Tomlinson (2001)
identifies the following benefits of this
approach (p. 74). Students will:
a) “Understand rather than memorize”
b) “Retain ideas and facts longer
because they are more meaningful”
c) “Make connections between subjects and facets of a single subject”
d) “Relate ideas to their own lives”
e) “Build networks of meaning for
effectively dealing with future
knowledge”
CHAPTER 4
Context is key. Relate all learning to
the actual function the concepts play
in the real world. Explore the
resources of your community at every
opportunity. If an elementary student
challenges the relevance of math,
bring in a chef to discuss how she
uses fractions, or a carpenter to discuss angles, or a pharmacist to discuss volume measurements. Take a
field trip to a local bridge and have an
engineer meet you there to explain
the physics involved (then require
students to construct their own
bridges to span a local brook). Or
instruct your students to find and
interview someone who uses specified skills in their profession. If your
high-school students are studying the
Bill of Rights, examine the amendments that are still controversial
today. Invite a member of the NRA to
debate with a pro-gun control advocate in your class.
10. Multi-option assignments are frequently used. Give your students
choices in how they prefer to learn.
Meaningful choice is more intricate
than simply offering three different
essay questions from which to
choose. A more substantial choice for
exploring a topic could include the
following: writing and performing a
play, creating a newsletter complete
with photos and articles, creating a
multiple-choice exam, interviewing
older students who have already
studied the topic or introducing the
topic to younger students.
Remember: Assignments should vary
by content, process and product to
address differences in readiness,
interest and learning profile.
11. Multiple materials are provided.
Textbooks should be treated as one
of many resources. Whenever possible, present primary source documents. Examples include: historic
100
and current newspaper articles,
Letters to the Editor discussing an
historic or timely controversy, print
or television advertisements, screenplays, famous artwork, unique software, public records, historical documents, experts in their field, political
comic strips, and non-fiction books.
Furthermore, tailor the use of different sources for different students to
best match their needs, and/or offer
a selection of materials from which
students can choose.
12. Multiple perspectives on ideas and
events are routinely sought. Often
the most valuable use of any educational resource or textbook is to discuss its limitations—i.e., What story
is not being told? Whose perspective
dominates? How do other textbooks
cover this same topic? For example, if
you’re studying the American
Revolution, re-write a chapter from
the textbook as it might be written in
England. Or find an equivalent chapter from a British textbook. Compare
newspaper articles on the same topic
from different regions of the country.
Or compare news updates from one
channel to the news updates of
another examining who owns certain
channels and why the perspective
and content coverage might differ.
Stage debates often, and require your
students to argue both sides of the
issue. Read competing accounts of
the same time period (i.e. a novel
about 19th century America written
by a white person, and a novel about
19th century America written by a
black person; stories which portray
the differences between women’s
lives and men’s lives during common
eras, etc.). Every story has a perspective; help your students determine
whose perspective is represented and
whose isn’t.
101
13. Students help other students and
the teacher solve problems. Find the
students who excel in certain subjects
and enable them to lead the way.
Incorporate peer tutoring into your
course work; pair capable students
one on one with those students needing help. Assign a different element
of a topic to each student and have
each present their findings to their
group. Instead of you having to
search for all your source materials,
make the pursuit of the materials
part of your students’ assignment.
Have peers edit each other’s work
before a document is considered
complete. Assign an “expert-of-theday” to answer questions when students are working in groups.
14. Students work with the teacher to
establish both whole-class and individual learning goals. As Tomlinson
(2001) writes, “Students will be
‘graded against themselves’ rather
than in competition with other students” (p. 93). Devise imaginative
and productive ways for both you
and your students to assess student
growth. Learning contracts help students organize their goals and articulate their commitments. Letter
grades, which assess achievement
compared to the class at large, can be
coupled with numerical grades indicating personal progress and effort.
15. Students are assessed in multiple
ways. Some students can comfortably demonstrate their knowledge in
more traditional testing formats,
while others benefit from the representative and potentially more
expressive nature of a portfolio.
Figure 8 provides a conceptual overview
of differentiated instruction. You’ll notice
that we’ve discussed several of the components already. For example, you will recall
diagnostics, standards/benchmarks, and
CHAPTER 4
summative evaluations. The other components are covered in greater depth in the
remainder of this chapter, while the high
impact teaching strategies which support
differentiated instruction are reviewed in the
next chapter.
A Framework for Viewing Student
Differences
In which critical ways will your students
differ? Tomlinson (2001) organizes student
variance into three main areas and explains
why they matter (p. 45):
1. Student Readiness (“Students learn
Figure 8: A Conceptual Map for Differentiated Instruction
Big Goals
Setting
challenging academic goals for
your students
Curriculum
National/State/
Local Standards
&Benchmarks
Key Aspects of
Differentiated Instruction
Content
What teacher plans
on teaching
Process
How teacher designs
instruction
• Standards-based
Units & Lessons
Diagnostics
Pre-Assessments
Student
• Readiness/
Performance
Levels
Summative
Assessment
• High Impact
Teaching
Strategies
• Interests
• Learning
Profile
• Prior
Knowledge
Product
Application,
Integration, or
Assessment of
Content
Adapted from Oaksford, L. & Jones, L. 2001.
CHAPTER 4
102
better if tasks are a close match for
their skills and understanding”).
2. Student Interest (“Students learn better
if tasks ignite curiosity or passion”).
3. Student Learning Profiles (“Students
learn better if the assignment encourages students to work in a preferred
manner”).
In other words, some of your students
will understand more or less than others
and all will learn best when work is the
right level for them. Some will care more or
less about a topic and all will learn best
when the content matters to them. And
some students will prefer certain methods
of learning and all will perform best when
they can access their natural affinities to
process information.
Since each student arrives on the first
day of school with different readiness levels, different interests, and different learning styles, a big part of your job will be to
identify the needs and preferences of each
student.
Readiness
You can determine readiness with a preunit assessment. In the reverse of the traditional classroom, give a test before you’ve
taught the information to assess what your
students already know about the topic. This
will help you identify which students are
already sufficiently familiar with the information, and enable you to devise a more
advanced or more enriching course of study
for them. For those students who seem completely unfamiliar with the content, you will
need to create alternate coursework that
simplifies—without “dumbing-down”—the
material. Retain the key concepts and ideas,
but find effective ways of facilitating comprehension without overwhelming or overreaching. Remember, the degree of difficulty will be relative.
Interest
A practical way to determine interest is
with a student survey or questionnaire, also
presented prior to a unit. Get a sense of
what your students want to learn and what
they care about. At the beginning of the
year you could offer them a list of general
topics you’re considering teaching and ask
them to choose the 10 that interest them
most. Besides giving you a valuable glimpse
of your students’ curiosities, you will have
offered them an empowering opportunity
to shape their own learning, and conveyed
to them the active role they will play in
your classroom.
Learning Profiles
Learning profiles are perhaps the most
difficult of the three differences to assess.
Identifying your own learning profile can
be hard enough, let alone deciphering
someone else’s. Several factors affect one’s
learning profile:
1. Intelligence and cognitive styles
(e.g., left brain/right brain distinctions).
2. Learning styles/modalities:
a) Visual learners—those who need to
see information to process it
b) Auditory learners—those who need
to hear information to process it
c) Tactile learners—those who need to
touch and feel three-dimensional
objects to process information
d) Kinesthetic learners—those who
need to actively move and/or
participate in a task to process
information
3. Gender differences (e.g., one’s receptivity to competition).
4. Culture-based differences (e.g., is the
group or the individual more highly
valued?).
5. Special needs status.
103
CHAPTER 4
Learning Styles:
A Means to an End
While it is important to always consider learning modalities, it is equally
important to include a modality only
when it helps in achieving your objective. You would not engage, for
example, in a kinesthetic activity simply to be kinesthetic, but you should
always keep the different modalities
in mind so that you
can include them when they do make
sense. Rather than creating a lesson
for each modality, make sure you
plan lessons that rotate through the
modalities.
A common pitfall for teachers is to overrely on the modality in which they themselves learn best, thereby unintentionally
favoring students who happen to share the
same learning style. Try to identify your
own preferences: Do you prefer for a waiter
to read you the daily specials or to see them
written on a board? Can you follow books
on tape or do you need to see the words on
paper? You can survey students as to their
own learning preferences, and to some
degree, their self-assessments will prove
helpful. By and large, however, deliberate
and extended observation of your students
will be necessary. Understanding their individual demands will take time, and your
knowledge of and sensitivity to their needs
will gradually evolve as the year unfolds.
You will, essentially, have to study your
students.
Key Aspects of Differentiating
Instruction
Once you’ve determined the ways in
which your students differ, you can begin to
address these differences by individualizing
your instruction to them. Tomlinson (2001)
CHAPTER 4
emphasizes the three aspects of your teaching that you can differentiate:
1. Content (what students learn).
2. Process (how they make sense
of the information).
3. Product (how they demonstrate what
they’ve learned).
Don’t be intimidated. First all, there will
be overlap. Many students will have the
same readiness, interest and learning profiles and will therefore require similar content, process and product. For this reason,
flexible student grouping is a major component of the approach (more on this later).
Secondly, you’re not going to dive in head
first without adequate preparation. You will
break this approach down into its many
components, experimenting with and refining one piece at a time, perhaps mastering a
bit more each week, each unit, and each
semester, until very gradually your confidence builds and you find yourself putting
it all together on a daily basis. Your mission
is to develop a repertoire of instruction that
seamlessly and simultaneously incorporates
the conflicting needs of all these student
types.
How will you know when to differentiate your instruction? By internalizing a key
question to ask yourself. Tomlinson (2001)
explains:
A teacher whose skills of differentiation are
fluid continually asks, ‘Would students benefit
from flexibility in approaching today’s learning
goals?’ When the answer is yes, the teacher
seeks alternative avenues to learning for her students (p. 66).
Get into the habit of asking this critical
question when planning each lesson and
assessing each assignment.
How to Differentiate Instruction
We’ve defined differentiated instruction
and discussed why it matters. Now let’s
tackle the nuts and bolts of how you will do
104
it yourself.
greater intellectual demand.
One of the most basic pieces of advice
Tomlinson (2001) offers is how to communicate the flexibility of your instructional
methods to your students—how to invite
them to join the process. It can be as simple
as the following: “Let me know if you think
what you’re doing is too hard or too easy
for you, and I’ll take a look at it with you.
We can make changes when we need to” (p.
41). Look no further for a way to begin differentiating instruction. Ask your students
for their feedback on whether or not an
activity is appropriate for them.
While it is easy to envision order in a
traditional classroom where students are
reduced to passive recipients of information, it may be harder to understand how a
differentiated classroom could result in anything but chaos. If you recall the metaphor
of the teacher as Director of the Orchestra,
you can start visualizing how the individual
components (the strings, the horns, the
wind instruments, etc.) can come together
in a harmonious way. How is it that
cacophony is avoided? Examine Figure 9 to
get a sense of the “flow” of instruction in a
student-centered classroom. Remember that
the “flow” characterized in Figure 9 is a
generalized model. It serves only as a
guideline.
As you become more conditioned to the
necessity of differentiating instruction, you
will naturally feel freer to experiment. To
do so effectively, you’ll need a good understanding of how learning progresses. In
general, students who are pushing themselves intellectually concievalby will reach
the performance standards set for them.
Tomlinson (2001) identifies the journey as
encompassing movement from:
1. Foundational to transformational
(“One child may benefit from a more
basic task of classifying animals by
body covering, while another may
need the more transformational task
of predicting how changes in environment would likely affect the body covering of several animals.”)
Table 4.2 shows how this occurs in a few
classrooms. Willis and Mann (2000) highlight several actual examples of putting it
all together in the classroom.
You will notice that these teachers rely
on several recurring strategies. Indeed, differentiated instruction will employ many of
the same trusty methods over and over
again. You will also notice that many of the
same strategies that Tomlinson (1995, 2001,
2003) advocates mirror the high impact
teaching strategies researched and recommended by others that we will discuss in
the next chapter.
2. Concrete to abstract
3. Simple to complex
4. Single facet to multiple facet
Conclusions and Key Points
5. Small leap to great leap
This chapter discussed the philosophy
and practice known as differentiated
instruction. The following key points were
emphasized:
6. Structured to open-ended
7. Dependent to independent
8. Slow to fast
These are the tracks that your students’
breakthroughs, however gradual, might follow. Determine where on the track they currently are, and step-by-step (but with persistence) move them toward the direction of
105
!
One-size-fits-all instruction may be
efficient, but it is ineffective in
addressing the diverse needs of your
students.
!
Effective instruction must be studentcentered, not teacher-centered.
CHAPTER 4
Figure 9: The Flow of Instruction in a Differentiated Classroom
1
Teacher and whole
class begin exploration of a topic or
concept.
6
In small groups
selected by students,
they apply key
principles to solve
teacher-generated
problems related to
their study.
7
The whole class is
introduced to a skill
needed later to make
a presentation.
CHAPTER 4
2
Students engage in
further study using
varied materials
based on readiness
and learning style.
5
The whole class
reviews key ideas
and extends their
study through
sharing.
8
Students self-select
interest areas through
which they will apply
and extend their
understandings.
3
Students and teacher
come together to
share information
and pose questions.
4
Students work on
varied assigned tasks
designed to help
them make sense of
key ideas at varied
levels of complexity
and varied pacing.
9
The whole class
listens to individual
study plans and
establishes baseline
criteria for success.
106
TABLE 4.2: Examples of Flow of Instruction
in a Differentiated Classroom
5th Grade Classroom
One teacher, Ms. Shockley, uses tiered assignments to engage her 5th graders at all levels of ability. When
she begins the unit on perimeter, area, and volume, Ms. Shockley first presents a short, hands-on lesson that
defines the whole-class objective and lays the foundation for individual practice. Together, she and the students
measure various sizes of cereal boxes so that everyone is clear about definitions and processes.
Then, in groups of two, students receive activity packets. The more concrete learners receive packets with
worksheets that direct them to measure their own desks and classroom furniture. In this highly structured activity, students practice calculating the perimeters, areas, and volumes of things they can actually see and touch.
Shockley is on hand to offer help and to extend the activity, for those who are ready, by helping students find a
way to arrange the desks so that they have the smallest possible perimeter.
Other students with greater abstract reasoning skills receive packets that direct them to design their own
bedrooms. In this more complex and independent assignment, students use their creativity to define the dimensions of an imaginary bedroom and to create scale drawings. They also calculate the cost and number of fiveyard rolls of wallpaper borders needed to decorate their rooms. From catalogs, they select furniture and rugs
that will fit into their model rooms. These details provide extensive practice, beginning with such tasks as determining how many square feet of floor space remain uncovered. This open-ended assignment offers higher-ability students an opportunity to extend their learning as far as they want to take it.
8th Grade Classroom
Science teacher, Marie DeLuca, offers tiered assignments to help her 8th graders understand the concept of
density. To start everyone off on the same foot, DeLuca uses an introductory lab activity that allows the whole
class to compare the differing weights of identical volumes of sand and oil. The object is to determine whether a
ship could carry the same amount of sand as it could oil, and how this manifests the property of density.
From this starting point, Ms. DeLuca assigns students an Internet activity that explores the causes of the
sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald—but at different levels of synthesis and analysis, depending on student ability. Homework assignments ask higher-ability students to design cargo boats, grade-level students to float an
egg, and below-level students to determine which is denser: a can of Classic Coke or a can of Diet Coke. They
must perform a water displacement experiment to come up with the correct answer.
All students complete lab reports that Ms. DeLuca evaluates using a rubric. Analytical writing is the most
important element of the rubric, but students can earn an A grade as long as they support their conclusions with
evidence found in their own particular assignments. The tests Ms. DeLuca gives are also differentiated according
to the tiered homework, and lab activities.
10th Grade Classroom
Social studies teacher, Leon Bushe, uses mock trials to differentiate instruction for 10th graders in his national, state, and local government class. Even though this is an honors class, Mr. Bushe finds there is a wide variance in abilities, so he tries to differentiate instruction according to interest, task and readiness. He finds that
mock trials offer opportunities for all three modes of differentiation.
Dividing his class of 30 into three groups of 10, Mr. Bushe gives each group a court case involving a legal
concept such as beyond a reasonable doubt. Students choose whether to be lawyers, witnesses, or defendants—
whichever they feel most comfortable with. Every student has at least two roles, because each trial group also
serves as the jury for another trial group. To prepare for their roles, students must complete individualized reading and writing assignments, but they all learn the basics of trial by jury.
Source: Adapted from Tomlinson (2001).
107
CHAPTER 4
!
All students across the spectrum of
performance levels require and
deserve complex, engaging work.
!
The goal of differentiated instruction is
not to apply different standards to different children, but rather to understand which instructional strategies it
will take to help each child reach the
same standard.
!
Differentiate instruction by content,
process, and product to address differences in readiness levels, interests, and
learning styles.
CHAPTER 4
108
Chapter 5
High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS)
This chapter discusses how will you teach. You have assessed your
students (who you will teach). You have chosen the essential content and
planned your lessons (what you will teach). That is, what are the methods
you will employ to convey information to your students and enable them
to best process that information? Do not underestimate the immense
importance of these decisions. The teaching strategies you use will, by and
large, determine how successful you, and therefore your students, will be.
Luckily, you do not have to reinvent the wheel. The “wheel,” it turns
out, has already been invented, experimented upon, researched, and analyzed. We know what works. We know what doesn’t work. Your job will
be to master the knowledge of what works, and muster the discipline to
use it.
! What Works in
Classroom
Instruction?
(Marzano, Gaddy,
and Dean)
! “Effective
Instructional
Practices”
(Walberg and Paik)
What works? We call the answer “HITS.” High-Impact Teaching
Strategies. As it turns out, not all teaching strategies are created equal.
Some are clearly—and measurably (as we will discuss later)—more effective than others. Expert teachers in high-need schools cannot afford to
waste their time with ineffective teaching strategies. The stakes are too
high, the knowledge gap too wide. You should not think of these strategies
as optional methods with which you might dabble periodically. You have
no choice but to wholeheartedly embrace these strategies—those with a
proven record of affecting student achievement.
Teaching, as educational researchers Marzano, Pickering, and Pollack
(2001) note, is becoming much more of a science than an art. It is no longer
a guessing game of trial and error. Numerous studies have tangibly determined the effectiveness of the most widely used strategies. The trio has
conducted an exhaustive meta-analysis, in which the results from a widerange of these studies were combined to identify the average effect of a
given method. In other words, they researched the research.
Their work has produced a comprehensive study on the effect size (the
increase or decrease in student achievement) and the percentile gain that
each teaching strategy produces. Ineffective methods produced lower, and
in some cases negligible or even negative, gains. This means, quite strikingly, that certain teaching methods actually decreased student achievement, quantifying that which people have suspected for years—that misguided teachers not only stifle their students’ growth, they can actually
harm the students. The eight most effective methods that Marzano et al
(2001) identified produced, on average, gains ranging from 22% to 45%.
CHAPTER 5
109
See Table 5.1, below, for a description of the
gains achieved by employing each of the
eight strategies. We refer to these eight categories as High-Impact Teaching Strategies
(HITS).
This research allows us to identify precisely what it is that effective teachers are
doing that works. The power of this information is invaluable; it offers an individual
teacher the ability to transcend the limitations of his or her school. Using these tried
and true teaching strategies, effective teachers in ineffective schools can now produce
gains of this magnitude. Many of these
methods are not flashy or sexy (e.g., homework or note taking) and may remind you
of some excruciatingly boring activities you
did in school. However, when coupled with
your teacher-artistry, even the most mundane of these can seem jazzy and refreshing.
categories of concrete strategies will produce the noted gains in achievement. As
Marzano et al. (2001) explains, there is still
work to be done in fully understanding the
potential and the limits of these eight strategies. For instance, we don’t yet fully understand if some strategies are more effective
in certain subject areas than others, or how
they might differ in effectiveness by grade
level, student background or student readiness levels.
How to Use the HITS: The Process
of Instructional Decision-Making
Nonetheless, it is abundantly clear that
among the multitude of decisions you will
be expected to make in the classroom, few,
if any, will be as vital as your selection of
teaching strategies. Instructional decisionmaking requires deliberate choices about
the strategies you will use with your students. These will not be randomly selected
or desperately applied; rather, they are
strategies that you will consciously access
and tailor to specific content, readiness,
interest, and learning styles. Over time, you
will form and refine your instructional
repertoire by consistently making solid
instructional decisions.
With all else being equal, your students’
comfort and proficiency with these eight
Compare your instructional mission to
an act as basic as making a cake. When a
TABLE 5.1: HITS by Percentile Gains in Student Achievement*
HIT #1: Identifying Similarities and Differences (+45%)
HIT #2: Summarizing and Note Taking (+34%)
HIT #3: Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition (+29%)
HIT #4: Homework and Practice (+28%)
HIT #5: Nonlinguistic Representations (+27%)
HIT #6: Cooperative Learning (+27%)
HIT #7: Generating and Testing Hypotheses (+23%)
HIT #8: Questions, Cues, and Advance Organizers (+22%)
*See Marzano et al. (2001) for a discussion of the methodology used to obtain the
percentile gains described with each HIT above.
110
CHAPTER 5
young child attempts this endeavor, he will
sloppily toss the ingredients in a bowl.
Measurements will be imprecise, required
steps will be skipped, spills will be frequent, lumps will persist, eggshells will
likely be present. The end result is likely a
non-aesthetically pleasing cake of questionable edibility. When a skilled chef completes the same process, carefully selecting
the finest ingredients, conscientiously balancing the flavors of the dessert with the
entire meal, meticulously measuring, thoroughly mixing and imaginatively decorating, a masterful, delectable work of art
ensues. In other words, the process affects
the outcome. How you bake your cake
determines how good your cake will be.
You should not, of course, feel confined
to these eight categories of strategies. You
can and should experiment with creative
approaches, and your ability to improvise
will evolve over time. However, consider
these your “home base” strategies—the
components that you will most often integrate into the bulk of your instruction. Your
individual style and preferences may well
dictate those methods to which you turn the
majority of the time. While developing consistent, routine ways of delivering content
will prove beneficial for you and your students, be sure to balance the value of routine against the value of variety (although
have no doubt: Quality of method will
always trump quantity).
What is each of these methods and how
will you import them into your classroom?
The rest of this chapter will offer an indepth examination of each individual category of strategies.
HIT #1: Identifying Similarities and
Differences
Above all, the process of identifying similarities and differences enables students to
place information in context. It is a category
CHAPTER 5
about relationships—understanding the
ways in which certain things relate to others.
How does this topic relate (or not relate) to
other topics? How does this information
relate to what they already know? Is this
topic a unique entity? Such comparisons will
inevitably enlighten students’ understanding of both the original and the new topic, as
their newly acquired information helps them
enhance their prior knowledge base.
By asking students to identify similarities and differences, you are asking them to
assess the ways in which a person, place,
thing, event, era, or theory shares characteristics with other comparable people, places,
things, events, eras, or theories. You are also
specifying the ways in which a given topic
is distinct. As we have discussed, isolated
knowledge has severe limitations. You must
teach your students how to make these
types of higher order critical assessments if
they are to judge the relative importance
and salient associations of what they are
learning. How does this piece of information fit into the larger picture? (Consider
that without asking them to examine this
essential question, they might never appreciate the larger picture.)
Marzano et al. (2001) name four strategies for effectively identifying similarities
and differences. They are:
1. Comparing
2. Classifying
3. Creating Analogies
4. Creating Metaphors
All four of these methods can easily be
integrated into formal lesson plans. As you
will see, they can be either enrichment elements used to enhance the mental rigor of a
lecture or activity, or they can be the basis
of an entire project in and of themselves.
Your job will be to provide students with
the guidance and structure they need to
complete these types of exercises. As a general rule, the younger the students are, the
111
more guidance and structure they will need.
Older students will benefit from creating
the structure themselves. In practice,
depending on the age and readiness level of
your students, you will vary between
teacher-directed tasks and student-directed
tasks. (The distinctions will become clearer
as we start looking at examples.)
Comparing
Comparing, according to Webster’s dictionary, is “to represent as similar; to examine the character or qualities of especially in
order to discover resemblances or differences.” Regardless of the subject, practically
all academic content can be compared to
other content. For example:
"
How was the recent war in Iraq similar to
the first war in Iraq?
"
Compare the lives of early American settlers in the colonies to the lives they left
behind.
"
How are mammals different from amphibians?
"
What are the differences between Ernest
Hemingway’s novels and F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s novels? What are the similarities?
"
Compare headlines of an American newspaper with the headlines of a European
newspaper, on a given day.
"
Compare the struggles of today’s immigrants to the struggles of immigrants a
hundred years ago.
"
Compare the angles of one triangle to the
angles of another triangle.
"
Compare the most popular television sitcom in the year 1950 to the most popular
television sitcom in the year 2000.
Compare the characteristics of six different
types of trees.
"
Compare the characteristics of six different
types of paint.
112
"
"
Compare the characteristics of six different
types of body organs.
The possibilities, as you can see, are
indeed endless.
At the elementary level, students will
generally rely on teacher-directed comparisons, meaning you will provide both the
item to be compared, and the characteristics
to assess. For example:
Mr. Lawerence’s 4th grade class has been
studying American geography. His students
are now familiar with the U.S. map and with
the 50 states. He now wants to introduce
them to the different regions. After identifying the major regions of the country, he asks
students to compare several aspects of life in
those regions. Students work in groups of
four, and Mr. Lawrence gives each group a
grid, listing every region, and each category
for every region. Using several types of maps
(including that day’s national weather map,
and a topographical map) and other varied
resources (including photographs of both
rural and urban life from that region) students must answer the following questions
for each region:
"
Based on the geography, what is the
weather like? How does it differ from
region-to-region?
"
Based on the weather, what sports do you
think are most popular there?
"
Based on the local resources, what industries do you think are most successful
there? How are the industries similar or
different from region-to-region?
"
Based on the local resources and the
weather, what kinds of houses do you think
people live in? What kinds of cars might
they choose to drive?
After 25 minutes, the entire class will come
back together to discuss their lists and to
complete, on the board, a master comparison
of the six U.S. regions.
Middle grade levels can handle more
freedom and less structure. For example:
CHAPTER 5
Ms. Washington’s 8th graders have been
studying world geography as it relates to different cultures and civilizations. Her students have been studying the history of
imperialism and colonialism. She would like
for them to start identifying patterns about
the relationships between imperialist empires
and their former colonies. She has created
master maps indicating historical colonization. She has established five groups (one for
North America, South America, Europe,
Africa and Asia). She then allows students
to choose, based on interest-level, which
group they will join (emphasizing that all
groups must have a minimum of four and a
maximum of six students; she has already
established procedures for evening out the
groups when necessary). Each group will
assess the ways in which certain countries
have both maintained and broken ties with
their former colonizers. Students can choose
from amongst several countries on each continent. Their resources (which will vary by
group) will include photographs, newspaper
articles, national geographic magazines,
audio supplements, and short videos clips
from well-known films, web links, and some
of the books they have been reading. They
will be asked to consider the degree to which
the following areas have been determined by
the native country or by its colonizer:
"
Language
"
Religion
"
Dress
"
Architecture
"
Music
"
Food
"
Recreational Activities
Each group will also be asked to generate one
additional area for assessment. They will
record their information onto a master grid.
The class will then reconvene as a group to
discuss and compare the different degrees to
which former colonies have adopted or abandoned the culture of their colonizers. Did certain continents manage to maintain their tra-
CHAPTER 5
ditions more than others? Were certain imperialist empires more successful than others at
forcing their cultures onto their colonies?
During their discussion, Ms. Washington
visually presents their findings on the board
using several graphic organizers.
High school students, in many cases, can
handle choosing both the topics to compare
and the criteria for comparison.
Ms. Rodriguez would like for her 11th
graders to assess global population patterns.
She wants them to compare the populations
of several different nations, and determine
the factors that influence a nation’s growth
rate. She presents the relevant data on U.S.
population and discusses with the class the
biggest factors affecting U.S. growth. Each
student is allowed to select three different
nations, as long as each nation is from a different continent, and as long as at least one
developing nation is selected. Each student
must generate four factors which conceivably
affect that country’s growth rate, and compare it to the U.S. Students are given two
full class periods to work in the library, and
are directed towards certain websites which
should provide helpful statistical data. For
homework on the second night, they must
create a chart reflecting all their findings.
Begin to look at the ways in which
instructional strategies are simultaneously
used; indeed, they are rarely applied in isolation. Our elementary and middle-level
teachers, for example, used HIT #1
(Similarities & Differences), HIT #5 (Nonlinguistic Representations) and HIT #6
(Cooperative Learning). Graphic organizers,
which will be covered later in this chapter,
can be especially effective in visually representing comparisons. This, of course, is
quite logical. Probably the most instinctive
way to compare any number of things is to
simply look at them side-by-side. The more
visually you can display your comparisons,
the more self-evident they will become.
113
Classifying
Classifying can be considered both an
analytical exercise and an organizational
one. As teachers, you will be constantly
classifying information for your students
and presenting information in an organized
way. You must imbue your students with
the same set of skills so that they can begin
to structure their own knowledge. When
classifying, you must always specify the elements that determine grouping arrangements, the criteria for which a category will
be assigned. As with comparisons, some
classifications will be teacher-directed (students are given both the elements to classify
and the relevant categories) and some will
be student-directed (students are either
given the items to classify or the categories
into which they should be classified, but not
both).
Teacher-directed examples include:
"
Classifying by food group the individual
foods from a week’s worth of school cafeteria lunches
"
Visiting an art museum (or looking
through art history books) to classify
paintings by genre (a master list of which
has been provided)
"
Taking a daily newspaper every day for a
week and classifying each article by topic
(to be selected from a master list) to see
which areas were most often covered
Student-directed examples include:
"
Observing a list of compounds and grouping them according to chemical properties
"
Looking at a large number of Picasso’s
works and grouping them into periods
which seem similar
"
Watching a presidential political debate,
and categorizing each issue raised to determine which issues were addressed most
often
Once again, let’s look at the varying
degrees of complexity involved as classification activities apply to different age groups.
114
First, an elementary school example:
Mr. Matar presented his first graders with a
table full of assorted items (in total, two
items for each student in the class), including, amongst other things, an orange, a
stuffed animal, a slate tile, a cactus, a bird in
a cage, a glass bottle, worms in a container,
a potted flower, and a crystal. In the middle
of the room he had placed on chairs three
large signs which read: Big, Medium, and
Small. He told his class that when he rang
his bell, each student would select an item
from the table and put it next to the appropriate size category. After discussing the
results of the first round, all the items were
to be returned to the table, and he replaced
the signs with: Bright Color, Dark Color,
and No Color. Students would then reclassify the items based on the new criteria. The
third round signs would read: Smooth,
Scratchy, and Sharp. The fourth round signs
would read: Lighter than a quart of milk,
about the weight of a quart of milk, heavier
than a quart of milk (with a few quarts of
milk on hand for students to compare). The
final and fifth round signs would read:
Animal, Plant, and Mineral. After each
round, students’ classifications would be
assessed and discussed.
Now a middle school example:
Mrs. Katz wanted to introduce her 6th
graders to narrative genres. To get them
thinking about the concept of literary
themes, she had each student generate a list
of his or her 5 favorite films. On the board,
she listed categories of movies (dramas,
comedies, animation, documentaries, mystery, horror, western, thriller, sci-fi,
romance, and musical). As each student read
from his or her own list, other students
decided in which category the film belonged.
She then used this activity as a launching
pad to begin discussing literary genres.
And finally, a high school example:
Mr. Santoni wanted his 9th graders to get
an idea of the progression of discovery and
the classification of the world’s major inven-
CHAPTER 5
tions. He decided to have them create time
lines of when significant devices were
invented. He created a master list of the different historical eras (beginning with the
Prehistoric period, incorporating the Dark
Ages, the Medieval Period, the Renaissance,
and continuing straight through to present
day). Students were asked to find 30 major
discoveries from at least 15 different time
periods. They were then required to place
their inventions in chronological order, identifying the time period of origination. After
two class periods of individual research (during which they were encouraged to use encyclopedias, patent records, book compilations
of discoveries and the internet), a master
class copy of the entire class’s inventions
was generated, and students were each given
a copy. Their homework was to organize all
the inventions into different categories
(which they would have to create themselves), and then organize each category into
chronological order.
between concepts.
In a teacher-directed analogy, all four
parts will be completed. The teacher can use
the structure simply to express a relationship between the words or to advance
ideas. For example:
"
The director is to the film what the
conductor is to the orchestra.
"
France is to Vietnam as Great Britain is
to India.
"
Circumference is to a circle as the equator
is to the globe.
In a student-directed analogy any one of
the four parts can be left blank (or two or
even three parts) as students work to create
their own correlations. The four parts invite
multiple variations of use. Consider the following examples:
"
_________ is to _________ as
Sacramento is to California. (Parts 1 & 2
are missing).
"
100 is to 50 as _________ is to
_________. (Parts 3 & 4 are missing).
"
The third quarter is to a basketball game is
as 75% is to _________. (Part 4 is missing).
"
_________ is to _________ as Galileo is
to _________. (Parts 1, 2, & 4 are missing).
Analogies
Analogies offer a sophisticated way of
examining the resemblance between things
that are otherwise unlike one another.
Think back to your SAT’s (“this is to this as
that is to that”). What made this section of
the SAT’s so hard, you’ll surely remember,
is that not only did you have to know the
definition of one word; you had to understand all four of them! It is just this amplification of mental strenuousness that makes
analogies so desirable for a high-need classroom. A teacher with minimal expectations
for her students would be satisfied if they
knew the definition of a given term. A
teacher with high expectations for her students will expect them to have internalized
a more nuanced and complete definition of
a given term, and be able to express that
understanding through the use of an analogy. Unlike their use in the SAT’s, analogies
can be used for more than exploring the
relationships between words; indeed, they
can be used to explore relationships
CHAPTER 5
Obviously, the more blanks there are,
the more the student responses can and will
vary. Analogies can be a terrific tool to
encourage divergent, as opposed to convergent, thinking. We now provide an example
from an elementary classroom:
Ms. Tyler’s 1st graders are studying fish.
She opens her unit with an analogy written
on the board. People live in houses. Fish live
in _______. To drive the point home, she
also has a dollhouse with a doll in front of
her, and a toy fish and a cup of water. She
asks a volunteer to put the doll in her house,
and another to put the fish in its house.
Once this point has been made, she follows
115
up with another analogy. People use
_______ to walk on land. Fish use _______
to swim in the water. Again, she can use her
doll and her toy fish as a visual to reinforce
the concept.
Consider the many learning styles that
are being addressed in this example.
Auditory learners hear the analogy. Visual
learners see both the written analogy, and
the dramatized analogy. Kinesthetic learners physically act out the analogy. Tactile
learners touch the analogy.
There are a wide variety of potential
uses for analogies in the classroom. Some
ideas include:
"
At the beginning of a lesson to preassess student understanding
"
As a prompt to introduce a new topic
"
During the heart of a lesson to reinforce and communicate abstract ideas.
"
As a pre-test study guide comprised of
a list of analogies using all the relevant
terms from the unit (all four parts can
be filled in, or there can be missing
parts to function as a review assignment)
"
Informal or formal, verbal or written
assessment (students must complete
missing parts)
"
At the end of a lesson or unit to assess
students’ comprehension
A few warnings: Always ensure that students grasp the connection between the
analogy and the concept. Be wary of analogies that might oversimplify a concept.
Always be sure to identify the limits of an
analogy, if there are any, by indicating
where the analogy may break down (students themselves will thrive on this type of
challenge).
Metaphors
Metaphors make connections based on
116
abstract relationships. They take two things
that on the surface seem utterly unrelated,
and proceed to make meaning out of their
connection. Think back to our cake-baking
example. Teaching and baking presumably
have nothing to do with one another, until
the metaphor is explained (the methods
employed will determine the results
obtained for both). Metaphors, like analogies, can be either teacher or student-directed. Both the pattern and the topics can be
given, or students can be asked to generate
the pattern or the topic. Here is an example
from an elementary school classroom:
Mr. Sheehan wanted to introduce his 3rd
graders to the concept of metaphorical language. First he introduced the topic and discussed the concept. Then he assigned each
student to a partner (deliberately combining
a child stronger in English with a child
weaker in English). He had compiled a list of
metaphorical sayings and gave one phrase to
each student pair. He demonstrated dramatically “acting out” each saying, if it were
taken in its literal sense. Each student pair
was then given 15 minutes to create their
own drama. After each pair demonstrated
their skit to the class, the metaphor would be
discussed to ensure that everyone grasped
the concept.
Now a middle school example:
Mr. Gonzalez’s 7th graders are studying cell
structures and their functions. He writes the
following prompt on the board: “The parts of
the cell function in similar ways to the parts
of a city.” He then creates a chart (see chart
on next page) listing the features of the cell
and their functions. The class together then
brainstorms how the features of a cell mirror
the features of a city.
Mr. Gonzalez could have listed the features of the city first, and asked his students
to identify the corresponding feature of the
cell. He supplied the metaphorical system
(the city); more advanced students should
be challenged to produce the metaphor
themselves.
CHAPTER 5
Here is an example
from high school:
Features of a Cell Function or Role Corresponding
Features of a City
Ms. Harvey, whose stu- Cell wall and membrane
dents had been studying
World War II, wanted
her 10th graders to more Cytoplasm
fully understand the
Nucleus
spectacle of wars. She
wrote the following
Endoplasmic reticulum
prompt on the board:
“War as sport.” She and Mitochondria
her students explored the
metaphor. For war in
Vacuole
general, who were the
players? How were they
“drafted?” Who were the Golgi apparatus
cheerleaders? The coaches? Who were the team owners? Who were
the fans? What constituted victory? They
continued their list to include uniforms,
fields, weapons, battles, seasons, and promotion. Further, to compare the lingo of the two
endeavors, Ms. Harvey presented a list of
sports and war clichés that could easily be
used in either arena. They included:
"
“We may have won the battle but not
the war.“
"
“There’s no ‘I’ in team.”
"
“Dig deep.”
"
“Win the battle in the trenches.”
She encouraged students to identify more
clichés. As the students progressed, they
were amazed by the similarities between
sports and war. Ms. Harvey then asked them
to consider which might have come first.
Was war modeled on sport or were sports
modeled on war? What are the main differences between the two? After thoroughly
digesting the metaphor, students were then
required to portray World War II as a sporting event. They could select whether to write
a news story, produce an audio or video
news reading, write an essay, a poem, or
draw picture or cartoon. Regardless of the
format, the initial questions had to be
answered and certain specified details
included.
CHAPTER 5
Outer structure
Physical boundaries— rivers, lakes,
hills, city boundary roads, gates, fences
Inner part
Air
Control Center
City Hall, Mayor’s Office
Communication
Phone and cable lines, newspaper
Energy
Power plant or utilities company
Waste removal
Garbage and recycling trucks, landfills, and recycling plants
Enzyme production
Citizens
Metaphors, like analogies, offer an
exceptionally effective way to challenge
your high-need students, since the device
will require them to make a (metaphorical)
leap of the mind.
HIT #2: Summarizing and
Note Taking
Believe it or not, this category means just
what it says. It may not seem sexy, trendy
or even particularly progressive, but the
research tells us it works. (Think of it as
your favorite, worn-in classic pair of blue
jeans—they’re not flashy, you can dress
them up or down, you can wear them with
anything, and they’ll never go out of style).
Of all the HITS, this is probably the one
most American schools reliably emphasize.
Unfortunately, they emphasize the drills
without sufficiently instructing students on
how to effectively utilize the techniques.
Both summarizing and note taking entail
the creation of abridged versions of information. Students must repeat the main
points succinctly, while extracting the most
essential ideas and content. Developing
your students’ ability to summarize and
take notes is a highly effective comprehen-
117
sion strategy. These techniques are productive, when used properly, because in order
to rephrase and distill information, students
must actually comprehend the information
in a meaningful way.
The art of summarizing requires that
some information is retained, some information is altered and some information is
expunged. Often, general terms will replace
more detailed terms. Students should be
encouraged to identify the basic structure of
the text (i.e. was there an introduction? a
main body? examples? a conclusion?).
Familiarity with the concepts of structure
will help them prioritize the relative importance of different sections of a lecture or a
text, and help them to structure their summaries.
As always, you must demonstrate the
application and use of these rules.
Summary Frames. Summary frames are
series of questions posed to students to help
them detect the crucial components of a
variety of materials. Marzano et al. (2001)
identify six types. They are:
1. Narrative Frame (for summarizing fiction). Asks questions about characters,
setting, initiating event, characters’
internal responses, characters’ goals,
consequences and resolution. For
example:
For Dr. Seuss’ The Cat in the Hat,
a kindergarten teacher might ask the
following questions:
"
Characters: Who are the main characters and what makes them special?
"
Setting: Where did the story take place?
Did it start out as an ordinary day or a
special day?
"
Initiating Event: What happened to
really start the story?
"
Characters’ Internal Responses: How
did Sally and her brother express their
feelings about what the Cat in the Hat
was doing?
There are two main strategies to assist
student summarizing: Rule-based summarizing and summary frames. A description
of each follows.
"
Characters’ Goals: When things got
really bad, what did Sally and her
brother decide to do? Did they set a
goal? What was it?
Rule-based Summarizing. This method
endorses the use of specific rules for students to abet their summarizing efforts. The
proscribed steps are as follows:
"
Consequences: How did Sally and her
brother achieve that goal?
"
Resolution: What happened in the end?
As the teacher, you must explicitly teach
students these skills. Regardless of grade
level, you must start the year by modeling
the process of creating summaries. Do not
assume they inherently possess this skill.
Furthermore, you must regularly summarize aloud to model your thinking process
for students who will learn by your example. As you cover material, verbalize your
own extractions of the most essential content.
1. Delete insignificant and unessential
material.
2. Delete repetitive material.
3. Use a general term in place of a series
(e.g., “politicians” for “senators, governors, and congresspersons”).
4. Choose a topic sentence for your summary, repeating it from the material,
or creating one if it doesn’t exist.
118
2. Topic-Restriction Illustration Frame
(for summarizing expository material).
Students are required to:
"
Identify the topic.
"
Identify restrictions on the topic.
"
Offer examples that illustrate the
topic.
3. Definition Frame (for summarizing
and explaining a concept and identify-
CHAPTER 5
ing related secondary concepts;
emphasizes context). This consists of
the following components:
"
Term—the subject to be defined
"
Set—the general category in which
it belongs
"
Gross characteristics—the traits that
distinguish it from others in the
same set
"
Minute differences—different types
of the same term
For example,
Students in a 10th grade class are studying
limericks. They might be asked the following
questions:
Term: What is being defined? (a limerick)
Set: To which general category do limericks
belong? (poems)
Gross characteristics: What characteristics
separate limericks from other poems?
Minute differences: What are some different
types of limericks?
4. Argumentation Frame (for summarizing an argument). Argumentation
frames contain:
"
Evidence—What evidence is there
to make the argument?
"
Claim—What is the basic claim or
assertion of the argument?
"
Support—What examples are
offered?
"
Qualifier—What conditions or concessions are made?
5. Problem/Solution Frame (for summarizing solutions to a problem).
"
What is the problem?
"
What are potential solutions?
"
Which potential solution is the most
promising, and why?
6. Conversation Frame (for summarizing a verbal exchange).
CHAPTER 5
"
How did the participants greet each
other?
"
What topic was raised?
"
How did the discussion proceed?
"
How did it conclude?
This could be used for either fictional
characters in a novel or film or for actual
participants in a live or recorded discussion (i.e. a debate or seminar). Here is an
example from middle school:
Ms. Chen wanted her 8th graders to get
more information about the death penalty
from primary sources. She assigned them to
read a somewhat lengthy recent article from
The New York Times, anticipating that
several students might struggle a bit with
the text. Their homework assignment was to
read the article and present a summary.
They were also required to circle five words
in the article with which they were unfamiliar, and to include written definitions of
those words at the bottom of their summaries. The first sentence of everyone’s summaries had to begin with a topic sentence
explaining the general point of the article.
Note Taking. Like summarizing, note taking is an oft-required, potentially rote, routine task demanded of students. When done
incorrectly, it can largely be assumed a
waste of time. When used to good effect,
however, it can be a valuable way for students to begin internalizing material. In fact,
there is a direct relationship between the
amount of notes taken, and the gain in student achievement. So, even though quality
assuredly matters, in this case quantity does
too. An important distinction to remember:
your students should take notes to understand the material, not to memorize it.
Replicating what you have heard is fundamentally different than comprehending
what you have heard.
There are several guidelines to follow to
best advise your students on effective note
taking.
119
1. Avoid having students copy notes
verbatim. This tends towards the type
of aimless, mindless activity that is so
essential to avoid in a high-need classroom. It is time-consuming, and ultimately pointless. As we have said,
copying is different than digesting. If
there is information that you want
your students to have verbatim, it
might be preferable to just give them a
hand out.
2. Encourage your students to question
anything they don’t understand.
Forbid them from writing anything in
their notes that confuses them.
3. Teach them how to outline or organize spoken information by encouraging them to create subject headings.
Regularly model the use of subject
headings. Do not, however, let them
fall into the trap of recording the topics that were covered, without also
including the vital details. If you feel
strongly that something should be
recorded, by all means, tell them to
record it.
4. When recording details, be sure your
students place them under a related
main heading; do not let them ignore
context.
5. Encourage them to leave blank spaces
in their notes so there will be room for
related and/or supplemental material
which might come later.
6. Notes should be considered a work in
progress. They do not have to be complete or perfect at any stage of the game
unless, as an activity, you plan to grade
their notes. Notes should be updated as
new realizations are made. Teachers
should review their students’ notes
both to assess student note-taking ability, and to clarify any content that the
student might have misunderstood.
7. Accustom your students to actually
using their notes. Too often, notes are
120
recorded and then neglected. If students sense that their notes don’t matter, they will cease putting any effort
into the task. Create activities where
students must depend on their notes
as a resource. Or routinely pair students to compare their notes to detect
any missed information.
8. Students should be encouraged to use
their notes as study guides, but only if
you have verified their contents first.
Sometimes, teacher-prepared notes will
be necessary. Certainly in the beginning of
the year it will be important for you to
model quality note taking. Other times, you
may just need to share particularly essential
or complicated information that can’t risk
inexact recording.
There are three basic formats that
Marzano et al. (2001) recommend as the
most effective. They are:
1. Informal Outlines, which use indentations to represent subordinate material
Example:
Government
The Legislative Branch
Congress
The Senate
The House of
Representatives
The Judicial Branch
The Supreme Court
The Executive Branch
The President
The Vice-President
2. Webbing, which use different size circles to indicate importance, and connecting lines to indicate relationships;
it is helpful for visual learners, but it
limits the space available for content.
For example (see diagram on next
page):
CHAPTER 5
Cinder Cones—form at vent,
form a peak, e.g.,: Wizard Island
on Crater Lake in Oregon
Composite Volcanoes—have
steep slopes, violent eruptions,
e.g.,: Mont. St. Helens
Volcanoes
Shield volcanoes—have broad,
gentle slopes and slow moving
lava, e.g.,: Hawaiian Islands
3. Combination Notes, which combine
the informal outline with webbing or
other graphic organizers; these can take
any form that students find helpful.
Above all, remember that note taking
for its own sake is unacceptable. You must
decide the purpose of your students’ notes
and ensure that your students are capable
of creating notes that will be worth using.
HIT #3: Reinforcing Effort and
Providing Recognition
This set of instructional techniques deals
with the question of how to best increase
your students’ internal motivation. This is
especially significant for students in struggling schools. Through the inferior
resources directed their way, these students
may have received an unintentional, but
undeniable message that they and their
schools have been abandoned. Some will
understandably have internalized a sense of
inferiority, insecurity and/or irrelevance
that you will have to work to overcome.
This perception may be more exaggerated
in older children who have had a longer
time to internalize the message. Many stu-
CHAPTER 5
dents will, of course, be naturally driven to
work hard and succeed; in fact, in a select
few their personal circumstances might
ignite a will to achieve that a student from a
more pampered environment might lack.
Others will need extra encouragement and
extra inspiration to compensate for low
internal drive.
Research has shown that people tend to
credit success to one of four causes: ability,
effort, other people, or luck. While ability at
some level is basically innate, other people
may or may not avail themselves to your students, and luck is notoriously fleeting, effort
appears to be the safest route to success.
It is important to understand that students will not instinctively comprehend the
relationship between effort and success. It
will be your job to emphasize this undeniable link. For many of us who have
achieved success, the need for considerable
exertion seems obvious. But for those who
have never experienced success, its causes
can seem distinctly unknowable. As incredible as it may sound, there is documented
gain in student achievement, ranging from
20% to 46%, simply from demonstrating to
students that their effort affects performance (Marzano et al., 2001).
121
Marzano, Pickering and Pollack (2001)
recommend several methods of illustrating
the relationship between effort and success.
First, they advise emphasizing and/or quantifying the effort that contributed to the success of those whom your students admire
(athletes, musicians, actors, writers, or even
certain community members). How many
hours a day did Michael Jordan practice?
How many rejection letters did J.K. Rowling
receive before a publisher was willing to sell
her Harry Potter books? How many years
did Ricky Martin perform before he became
famous? Find creative ways to demonstrate
the value and necessity of effort.
Another effective method is to have students actually track and quantify their own
effort. Have them record both the amount
of time they spend on their homework for a
given week, and the grades they receive on
those assignments. Then instruct them to
chart their results. The next week, require
them to increase the time they devote to
their homework by 25% to 50%—and have
them calculate the time increases and graph
the results. The visual effect of an increasing
line graph can be quite dramatic. It can be
even more dramatic to ask each student the
grade they aspire to earn, and by studying
the graph estimate how much time they
would have to devote to achieve their goal.
You might also play with mini-experiments. Present your students with a test,
without offering them the opportunity to
study. (Assume grades will be unimpressive). Then offer your students a comparable test, but specifically devote class time to
review and preparation. Watch the otherwise nebulous effect of studying suddenly
become tangible to your students.
Another option is to create a rubric on a
4-point scale that allows students to selfassess both their effort and achievement.
An example is shown in Table 5.2. Require
students to apply the rubric to every assignment they complete over the course of a
week. Again, chart and analyze the results.
Ask students to describe the patterns they
122
notice.
Marzano et al. (2001) also discuss the
effectiveness of teacher praise in the classroom (another area that might appear to be
deceivingly obvious, but isn’t). Never
underestimate the amount of encouragement your students will need. Again, this
may only be more exaggerated in students
from traditionally neglected classrooms.
Verbal praise is uniformly considered an
effective way to adjust your students’ attitudes and behaviors.
The use of rewards has generated somewhat more debate. Although it has been a
point of contention amongst researchers in
the past, the recent consensus is that the use
of rewards does not discourage intrinsic
motivation. That said, certain guidelines
apply (Marzano et al., 2001):
1. Rewards tied to the completion of a
specific performance goal or standard
are the most effective.
2. Rewards tied to the simple completion
of a task, without taking performance
into account, are the least effective.
In other words, reward your students
for legitimate accomplishment, not just for
doing what was asked; otherwise you risk
creating an expectation on their part that
mundane execution should be somehow
noteworthy. Furthermore, the role of
“recognition” can be as effective as the use
of rewards. Again, guidelines apply:
1. Abstract recognition is more effective
than concrete rewards.
2. Abstract recognition should be individualized to the student.
The use of concrete rewards like candy,
money (play or real), stickers, coupons, or
awards is described in greater depth in
Chapter 6. Although rewards can actually
lower achievement gain and lower intrinsic
motivation, they can be used effectively to
build intrinsic motivation and gradually
reduced as students’ behavior becomes more
aligned to expectations. Many new and vet-
CHAPTER 5
TABLE 5.2: Example Rubric Scoring System
Scale: 4 = exceptional;
3 = good;
2 = could do better;
1 = unacceptable
Effort
Achievement
4 – I worked as hard on this as I possibly could. I finished the entire task.
When I was confused, I searched for
help from people or sources.
4 – I met all the requirements.
3 – I finished the entire task. I mostly
worked as hard as I could, but there
were some things I didn’t quite
understand.
3 – I did everything the teacher
required.
2 – I started by working hard, but
stopped when I became confused.
2 - I did some of what the teacher
required.
1 - I didn’t work hard at all.
1 – I did not do what the teacher
required.
Adapted from Marzano, Pickering, and Pollack (2001). Classroom Instruction that
Works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, p. 52.
eran teachers find this approach quite effective when done with great care.
One final recommendation is a method
Marzano refers to as the “Pause, Prompt
and Praise” approach. If a student is struggling with a task, the teacher can first ask
the student to stop for a moment (PAUSE)
to discuss the potential cause of the problem. The teacher then offers advice
(PROMPT) on how to proceed. If the student proceeds successfully, the teacher can
then praise the effort. The value in this
approach is two-fold. First, it disrupts a
potentially discouraging cycle of student
confusion (and successfully models the
value of changing direction rather than persisting in the face of confusion). Second,
teacher praise is directly tied to overcoming
a challenging task.
If your personal nature is to be less forth-
CHAPTER 5
coming with praise, you will probably need
to consciously release your inhibitions.
Remember—everyone loves and craves
praise, especially students. If your personal
style is to be more effusive, you may need to
reign yourself in a bit, and be sure that you
offer praise selectively and appropriately.
HIT #4: Homework and Practice
Homework
Presumably, it is safe to assume that you
are all familiar with the concept of homework and with the notion of practice. While
the appreciation for the benefits of practice
is rather universal, homework is yet another
area that has generated stark disagreement
in recent years. Critics argue that it is too
time-consuming, too disruptive to an
123
increasingly fragmented home life, and too
meaningless to be worthwhile. Another criticism contends that homework actually perpetuates educational inequity by rewarding
those students with ample resources at
home (e.g., educated parents to offer assistance, home computers, resource materials,
etc.), while hurting those students who may
lack those advantages. The bottom line is
that there are specific approaches you must
take to ensure that homework is beneficial
and fair.
For starters, teachers must accept that
homework for homework’s sake, much like
note taking, is ineffective and counterproductive. Homework should be considered a
way to extend learning outside of the classroom. If learning, in the form of skill practice or the attainment of new knowledge,
does not occur during the homework
assignment, you should consider the assignment to have been a failure. Furthermore,
you should be prepared to justify any
assignment to your students. Expect the
inevitable inquiry, “Why do we have to do
this?” and explain how the task fits into
your curriculum goals, or any other direct
purpose the assignment serves. If you can’t
justify it, don’t assign it. Research indicates
that students who are regularly assigned
meaningful homework outperform students
who are given meaningless or sporadically
assigned homework.
For both logistical and philosophical reasons, it will be essential that you devise a
functional classroom system for managing
the collection of homework, the grading of
homework, and the consequences for failing
to complete it. (More on this in the upcoming Classroom Management section.)
According to Marzano et al. (2001, pp.
61-66), there are several homework guidelines that will lead to the greatest achievement gains.
1. Quantity—Different aged students
require different amounts of homework. Generally speaking, homework
124
for elementary students is less for
direct academic benefit like increased
achievement and more for the opportunity to refine their study habits and
time management skills. Homework
tends to produce the largest impact on
academic gain for high school students. The effect on middle school students falls between that of elementary
and high school students. Research
shows that a high school student with
a 2.0 GPA, who completes 30 minutes
of homework per night, will increase
their GPA to 2.5 (p. 63). A general rule
of thumb—to be used as a guideline,
not a hard and fast rule—contends
that the amount of homework
assigned should equal 10 times the
grade level (a 1st grader gets 10 minutes, a 7th grader gets 70 minutes).
Note that this addresses the student’s
entire workload; you may need to take
other teachers’ assigned workloads
into account.
2. Quality—Homework, as we’ve discussed, must have a purpose. Students
must clearly understand both the purpose and execution of the task if they
can be reasonably expected to complete it. Valid assignments are those
that either encourage skill training,
practicing a skill to which they’ve
already been exposed, or introduce
material to lay the groundwork for
new content. Never ask students to do
something at home without absolute
confidence that they have the necessary skills. Beware of falling into the
perilous trap of asking students to do
something they can’t do, and then
punishing them for failing to do it.
3. Assistance—Parents should be “facilitators” of the homework process, and
can and should ensure that assignments are completed. They emphatically should not complete their children’s work. It will be your job to
communicate to parents the role you
CHAPTER 5
expect them to play. You should
encourage them to create a consistent
place for their children to complete
homework, and to develop a routine
for the entire process. Be sure to
inform them that children should not
work beyond their bedtime, even if
the assignment is incomplete. One
thing researchers can all agree on is
that children need sleep more than
they need seven more math problems.
4. Feedback—It is critical that homework be acknowledged. Written feedback is always preferable, but not
always possible. Graded assignments
produce larger gains in achievement
than non-graded ones. Regardless of
the methods you use, it is important
to vary the feedback you provide.
Students themselves can even provide
self-analyzed feedback on their assignments, an unimposing way to encourage self-reflection.
In keeping with the goals of differentiated instruction, be prepared to offer flexible
assignments that take individual student
needs or circumstances into account. For
example, never assume that a child will
have access to the Internet, a home encyclopedia or parental assistance. Whenever possible, devise “real world” assignments that
take advantage of the fact that students are
out of the classroom. Kathy Checkley
(1997), in her article “Homework—A New
Look at an Age-Old Practice,” profiled
teachers who offered several unique examples of adaptable, relevant homework
assignments that “respect” students’ lives.
These assignments included:
"
Asking students to bake enough cookies for an entire class, a task that
entailed doubling or tripling a recipe.
Those who lacked the time or kitchen
supplies to do so could simply opt for
converting the recipe from six servings
to 18, and writing it out.
"
Letting students watch a baseball
CHAPTER 5
game (or other sport) and requiring
them to track one player and calculate
that player’s game statistics.
"
Having students talk to people in their
neighborhood to learn about the history of their home, their block, or their
town.
Many homework assignments themselves will consist of activities designed to
enable students to practice certain skills. We
will examine this strategy next.
Practice
The old adage, “practice makes perfect”
is perhaps as apt a rational for this strategy
as any. You will have to provide your students ample opportunity to practice the
skills you expect them to know. Offering
them one example is insufficient. They will
need guided, sustained practice if they are
to “own” a skill. Just as an athlete has to
train his or her body to perform, your students will have to “train” their minds to
perform. Just like in sports, where athletes
have to “warm up” their muscles, you will
want to select “warm up” problems to ease
your students into challenging tasks. And
just like the athlete whose training exercises
culminate in competition, your students’
training exercises will culminate in a summative assessment. It is unjust and inappropriate for you to assess them without having first allowed them enough time to sufficiently master a skill.
Researchers contend that it takes anywhere from 25 to 40 successful (i.e.,
error–free) repetitions of a skill or procedure for it to become truly internalized. You
will know that students have internalized a
skill when they can consistently and swiftly
process and perform it without your assistance. In fact, while Marzano probably
wouldn’t disagree that it takes practice to
perform perfectly, he would likely argue
that your goal for student performance is to
enable them to perform automatically.
125
Allowing ample time for students to practice new skills and internalize routines
increases the likelihood that students will be
able to process automatically in a new or
unfamiliar context. Since you can’t teach
them everything there is to know, their ability to apply old formulas to new situations
is essential.
Homework, as we’ve discussed, is an
excellent strategy for having students practice skills and processes—i.e. how to do
something (called procedural knowledge, as
opposed to declarative knowledge, which is
knowing what something is). But you will
have to teach the skill in class before you
expect students to practice it at school or at
home. In general, teaching procedural
knowledge will entail three phases:
1. Modeling: The teacher will demonstrate by providing a set of steps,
tactics or rules. Make your modeling
as engaging as possible.
2. Guided Practice: The teacher will lead
guided practice to help shape procedural knowledge. It is in this phase
when students typically make errors
and experience some anxiety or frustration.
3. Internalizing: Through practice and
drill, the skill becomes habitual.
To structure your teaching of procedural
knowledge, apply the following step-bystep process:
1. Present students with a model of how
to execute the skill. Examples include:
How to capitalize the first letter of a
sentence
How to calculate percentages
How to conjugate a verb in a foreign
language
How to apply the Pythagorean Theorem
How to use computer software
2. Share, when applicable, an appropriate formula, flow chart or graphic representation to complement verbal
126
instruction (more on flow charts and
graphic representations when we discuss HIT #5 next).
3. Provide students with an opportunity
to practice the skill or process while
you demonstrate the steps. Have students record the necessary steps so
they will have a reference on hand.
4. Check for understanding by monitoring errors, by silently noting the errors
and then correcting the errors aloud
for all students to hear, before
attempting more complex problems.
5. Re-teach any concepts that may need
further clarification or practice. When a
majority of students still do not understand a particular process or concept,
stop, and re-teach. The costs of moving
on, when confusion persists, can be
costly and counterproductive.
Do not rush the phase of guided practice. This is the critical phase that will
“shape” your students’ comprehension of
the concepts involved. Mistakes must be
generously tolerated—indeed they will provide the essential opportunity for review.
Furthermore, speed should not be encouraged during skill “shaping.” The more
deliberate, substantial and in-depth your
shaping can be, the less independent practice your students will require. Once they
have completed and absorbed the guided
practice, students can progress to independent practice, which puts them well on their
way to internalization.
Speed can and should be emphasized
during independent practice. In fact, it is
one measure of the level of competency
achieved. If you dispute the need to prioritize speed of execution, think of a task like
juggling, for example—it only works when
performed with sufficient speed and ease.
In reality, especially in a world of highstakes testing, in which struggling schools
are especially susceptible, many academic
tasks will demand speedy execution.
Juggling slowly may, by definition, still be
CHAPTER 5
juggling, but it is by no means indicative of
proficiency; speaking a foreign language
haltingly is different than fluency. Once you
are confident that your students generally
understand a skill, and errors occur less and
less frequently, the next step will be to
ensure that they can perform the skill quickly and accurately—in other words, that they
achieve skill fluency.
Devise methods for students to time
themselves as they practice skills. Be sure to
enlist the help of parents and their kitchen
timers for timed homework activities. It is
vital that speed not come at the expense of
accuracy. Have students chart the results of
their timed exercises, and note accuracy
results as well. Consider the following
example from an elementary school:
Mr. Lopez’s students are practicing doubledigit multiplication problems. After breaking
down the process into a step-by-step formula, and demonstrating several problems on
the board, he presents several examples to
students. Referring to the steps outlined on
the board, he verbally guides them through
each example while students work on the
problems at their desks. He circulates the
room, noting common errors, returns to the
board, points out the errors, and continues
with more examples. He pairs two students
who seem completely at ease with the skill,
and shows them how to perform triple-digit
multiplication and presents them with more
complex examples to work through. Some
students seem to need more help, so he continues to model problems while others practice at their own pace independently. Still,
three students are struggling. He breaks
away with these students and provides
intense, personalized assistance, while the
rest of the class works independently.
After another day of in-class and at-home
practice, he decides to work towards speed
acquisition. The first day, he gives his students a list of problems and they time how
long it takes for completion. They chart both
their time and accuracy results. For the next
two days he gives them new lists of problems
CHAPTER 5
and tells them to complete as many as they
can in 20 minutes. Time and accuracy are
charted both days, and students start to comprehend the ways in which accuracy is
affected by how quickly they work.
A second tactic to apply to independent
practice is to focus the practice to target specific parts of a skill. Do not consistently
overlook mediocre or average performance.
The way to elevate your students’ performance to the next level is to isolate the part of
the task in which your students could
improve and focus your instruction on this
area. You will find it a highly productive
use of class time to break things down and
review just the components with which
students are having trouble.
Mrs. Collins’ 10th graders had been practicing essay writing, but she felt that their
introductions were consistently weak. She
decided to focus their practice to specifically
refine their introductions. She provided several essays with missing introductions, and
had students individually craft their own
versions. The class then discussed and analyzed the different versions to assess, which
ones worked and which ones didn’t. She also
found examples of effective introductions,
and removed either their first or the last sentences. Students then worked to complete the
missing sentences, a task made easier by the
existing structure in place. By seeing the
variety of examples that their peers created,
students gained a fuller appreciation for the
wide range of options which exist in essay
writing, and started moving beyond the formulaic approach to which they had seemed
confined.
Homework and practice will, in some
ways, be the bread and butter of your
instructional repertoire. No matter what
you are teaching, you will rely on these
strategies to refine your students’ performance and comprehension. The more you can
find creative ways to keep these “drill”
exercises from seeming mundane, the more
your students will embrace the work that
you are presenting.
127
HIT #5: Non-Linguistic
Representation
Think of how often someone, in the
course of trying to explain something to
you, pauses and says, “Why don’t I just
show you what I mean?” Whether the person decides to draw you a picture, refer to a
map, or present a three-dimensional physical example of what they are describing, the
person is essentially, relying on non-linguistic representations to communicate their
thoughts. By including alternative representations of academic concepts or content in
your lessons, you will powerfully address
the diversified needs of the learners in your
class. Furthermore, all students can and will
benefit from seeing material expressed in a
variety of ways. In fact, as students gradually master material, they will elaborate on
that knowledge themselves by generating
their own non-linguistic representations.
Organizing knowledge involves semantic (with words) and symbolic (with pictures or sounds) representation of information. Students will mentally process information in a variety of ways. Avoid limiting
them to one method.
To begin thinking about the differences
between visual and auditory learners, for
example, think of the differences between
radio and television advertising. In what
ways are television advertisements able to
seize viewers’ attention differently than
radio ads? What makes their use of graphics
and visuals so effective? How about radio
promotions? Think about the limitations and
strengths of voice-only spots. You use more
of your imagination (which is good), but
you really have to pay close attention or risk
easily missing valuable information (which
is bad). You can even consider magazine
advertisements. In what ways do magazine
ads compensate for their lack of sound and
motion? By thinking about the different
impact made by the different medium, you
will begin understanding how your students
might react and respond to your lessons.
128
There is probably a reason that television
viewing reigns supreme over radio listening
or magazine reading. Seeing and hearing
content simultaneously, it seems, is a satisfying and readily effective way for people to
absorb data. Keep this in mind. In general,
American teachers tend towards an overreliance of linguistic conveyance of knowledge. While verbal explanations assume an
essential component of teaching, they are
fundamentally incomplete when offered in
isolation. You will have to train yourself to
deliberately include non-linguistic representations of information into your lessons as
well. In other words, personify a television—
offer pictures and sounds—not a radio.
For the most part, teachers rely most
heavily on the visual and auditory modes,
but you should also be thinking about your
tactile and kinesthetic learners as well.
Although it may not be possible in every
lesson, you must work to recognize these
different learning styles as often as possible.
When you are traveling to an unfamiliar
destination, you may find a map helpful.
Others might prefer step-by-step directions.
And still others will arm themselves with
both a map and directions. Remember this
metaphor when you design your lessons;
some students are “map readers” and others are “direction listers.” In fact, some of
the most effective strategies for graphically
organizing information will combine these
two preferences by offering both linguistic
content (words) and non-linguistic content
(symbols) to represent associations.
Graphic Organizers
Graphic organizers offer an effective
way to visually represent different types of
connections between various pieces of information or ideas. They combine words and
phrases with symbols to communicate connections. They are widely applicable to different grade levels and content areas. You
should consider using graphic organizers in
the following ways:
CHAPTER 5
"
To introduce new concepts or start a
unit
"
To enhance student notes
"
For reflecting on, reviewing and
organizing learning from a lesson
Furthermore, there are several ways to
use graphic organizers. Possibilities include:
"
Distributing a completed organizer to
students to model the strategy and
deliver content
"
Creating a blank organizer and requiring students to complete them
"
Having students create their own
organizers as a way to apply their
knowledge
There are six different types of graphic
organizers you will want to incorporate into
your teaching. (See Teaching Tool #5.1 on
the following page).
1. Descriptive Organizers—can be used
to define the characteristics, facts, or
terms related to a specific person,
place, thing or event.
2. Time Sequence Graphic Organizers—
represent specific events or convey the
effects of time in chronological order.
3. Cause and Effect Graphic Organizer—
illustrate causal relationships from a
starting point to a specific outcome.
4. Generalization Organizers—illustrate
the supporting examples of a general
statement.
5. Concept Organizers—illustrate the
general characteristics of a concept,
with those characteristics then divided
into smaller classifications or examples.
6. Comparison/Contrast Organizers
(also called Venn Diagrams)—organize information about two or more
topics according to their similarities
and differences.
Notice how the different types of organizers utilize several of the teaching strate-
CHAPTER 5
gies we have already identified as HITS (i.e.
comparing and classifying). You should be
starting to grasp the ways in which the categories of strategies can be applied simultaneously. For example, you might offer a
homework assignment asking students to
create graphic organizers that classify information (using three HITS). Or you might
require student note taking which will
include graphic organizers comparing a
new unit to a prior unit (using four HITS:
note-taking, non-linguistic representations,
comparing and activating prior information). The possibilities are a wonderfully
endless.
Mind Mapping
Mind Mapping is a versatile tool that
enables students to visibly represent the
connections they see among various concepts. The structure of a Mind Map is flexible, student-selected, and informal; indeed,
the structure is less important than the content. Think of it as a student’s personalized,
improvised non-linguistic representation
that might combine many of the elements of
the graphic organizers we have discussed.
An advantage of mind mapping is that it
encourages the creation of dissimilar graphic images, since students represent their
thinking in unique ways. Rather than forcing an image that seems logical to you onto
your students, Mind Maps invite them to
graphically portray concepts in the ways
that seem instinctively most logical to them.
Figure 10 presents an example of a eighth
grade life science student’s mind map of the
concept of taste.
As always, be sure to model the creation
of a mind map. Throughout the year, your
students will become more proficient with
the process and the need to model will
diminish. Use Mind Maps in the same ways
we recommended the use of Graphic
Organizers. In addition, Mind Maps make a
great icebreaker or “getting to know you”
activity in the beginning of the year. Ask
129
TEACHING TOOL #5.1
Graphic Organizers
Descriptive Organizers
T-Chart
Questions
Good?
Looks Like
Bad?
1
1
2
2
3
3
Name 1
Sounds Like
Name 2
Attribute 1
Attribute 2
Attribute 3
Time/Sequence Organizers
Cycle
Series of Events Chain
Initiating Event
4
Bridging Snapshots
Event 1
1
1
3
2
Continuum Scale
3
Event 2
Low
Final Outcome
2
4
5
High
6
Event 3
Cause and Effect Organizers
Problem/Solution Outlinee
Fishbone Map
Attempted Results
Solutions
1
1
2
2
2
Solution
au
se
C
au
C
Result
Problem
se
1
Detail
Who
What
Where
When
Why
How
C
au
s
C
e
3
au
se
4
Cause
Effect
Causes
Effects
Event
Detail
End Results
Name:________________
Generalization Organizers
Generalization
Hypothesis Matrix
Question
Conditional
Statement
If, Then
Statement
Example
Example
Example
Concept Organizers
Cerebral Chart
Web
Network Tree
ct
Main
Idea
Fa
Detail
M
ai
n
Id
ea
Spider Map
Topic
Concept
Theme
130
Topic
Concept
Theme
1
2
Main
Idea
CHAPTER 5
(Teaching Tool #5.1 continued)
Comparison/Contrast Organizers
Figure 10:
Student Mind Map
CHAPTER 5
131
students to create a Mind Map that reflects
who they are. Students can then share their
mind maps with each other as a way of
building your classroom community.
There are certainly other ways of incorporating non-linguistic representations into
your instruction as well. To address the
needs of tactile and kinesthetic learners:
"
Actively work to include in your lessons three-dimensional objects that
students can hold, move or examine.
For example:
When teaching pie graphs, use an actual
pizza that students can cut into slices
municate). You will discover the powerful
learning that occurs when students engage
one another. Cooperative learning offers
several advantages:
"
Breaks up the monotony of teacherled activities
"
Is student-centered rather than
teacher-centered
"
Requires students to be active, rather
than passive learners
"
Promotes interaction
"
Forces students to rely on each other
and work together
"
Use math manipulatives to demonstrate mathematical concepts.
"
Allows students to learn from one
another
"
Encourage physical motion and/or
action whenever possible. For example:
"
Exposes students to notions of division
of labor
"
Requires students to engage in conflict
resolution
"
Encourages students to celebrate their
peers’ successes
"
Enables students to reflect on their
individual performance and the
group’s performance, and to consider
ways of improving both
When teaching about the solar system,
have students represent planets and
actually move accordingly around a
designated sun
You can also assist your visual learners
by helping them to create images in the
form of drawn pictures, maps, or charts (for
example, have students draw their comprehension of human anatomy), or in the form
of mental imagery. (Think back to our radio
example, and draw on the ways in which
radio programs used to be so effective at
creating mental images.) Use rich, detailed
language, sound effects, varying voices, and
descriptive settings to create a world that
students can visualize.
HIT #6: Cooperative Learning
An essential element of any education is
the opportunity to interact with other people. Through this opportunity comes intellectual challenge (as students hear competing views, defend their own views and generally enjoy exposure to multiple perspectives), and social growth (as they learn to
defer, dissent, cooperate, share, and com-
132
The major controversy surrounding
cooperative learning has to do with the
method of grouping—should students be
grouped by ability or randomly? There used
to be a general acceptance that advanced
students could benefit more by exposure to
other advanced students, and that struggling students as well should be isolated
with peers who work at their own level.
The latest research has been quite revealing.
First of all, all students, regardless of performance level, experience achievement
benefit from group work as opposed to no
group work. But certain caveats exist.
"
Struggling students actually perform
worse when they are grouped homogeneously with students performing at
the same level (exposure to higher
level performers seems to collectively
CHAPTER 5
raise the bar).
"
"
High performing students improve
only slightly when placed with other
high performers (not enough to justify
the price paid by struggling students).
Middle performing students seem to
benefit the most from homogenous
placement.
If and when you plan to group your students by performance level, keep these distinctions in mind. In general, however, you
will want to vary your approaches to
grouping. When it is appropriate, plan to
group by performance-level. The majority
of the time you should group by interest,
compatibility, or randomly (make a conscious effort to mix sexes, cultural backgrounds, and social cliques). When you do
group by performance level, keep the
groups flexible and recognize that student
levels progress and evolve over time.
Students shouldn’t ever feel “locked” into a
certain ability group. Furthermore, you
must recognize and respect that students
will excel in different subjects. A student
who struggles in math might be an exceptional writer. If you do group by performance level, be sure these are subject-specific
determinations.
There are other important guidelines as
well. Group size matters—the smaller the
better. In general, groups of no more than
three or four students seem to function
most desirably. Lastly, be sure not to overuse cooperative learning methods. Any
strategy, used excessively, will lose its effectiveness. In general, cooperative learning
strategies should be used at least once a
week, but no more than a few times per
day. While group work is clearly beneficial
for a variety of reasons, students need significant amounts of time for independent
work—both as a respite from the relative
stress of cooperative learning, and as a way
to develop the requisite self-discipline that
our individual-minded culture demands.
Some students will crave solitude more
CHAPTER 5
than others, but all students must be able to
focus and self-motivate when working
alone, a skill that takes sustained practice.
There are several ways for you to incorporate cooperative learning into your classroom. Let’s take an in-depth look at each
option.
Cooperative Learning Groups
Marzano et al. (2001, p. 89) advocate the
use of three types of groups: informal, formal and base groups. These approaches
offer the following distinctions:
1. Informal Groups—tend to be more
randomly selected (i.e. “work with the
person behind you,” or “find someone
wearing the same-colored shirt as
you” or “anyone born in July”); these
groups may last for a duration of a few
minutes or for an entire class period.
Advantages: offers students exposure
to different peers and a refreshing
spontaneity of structure
2. Formal Groups—are more deliberately selected for long-term compatibility
and effectiveness; they are designed to
last anywhere from several class periods to several weeks .
Advantages: teacher can play a
thoughtful and intentional role in
shaping the student experience
3. Base Groups—function as semesterlong or even year-long arrangements
(can be used for academic or non-academic functions); having pre-arranged
groups to call upon will save time and
energy.
Advantages: Students will benefit
from the consistency and comfort of
the familiar group dynamics that
emerge.
Do not underestimate the capacity for
chaos during group work. It is essential that
all cooperative learning activities be highly
structured and impeccably organized. You
133
will need to have thought through the
entire activity from how you will divide the
groups, to how you will communicate your
expectations, to how you will evaluate the
end result of the group’s work. You must
facilitate group dynamics by establishing
mutual goals—i.e. the team must have a
sense that they are in this together. You
must also, however, demand individual
accountability within the group. Students
must feel some control over their own destiny. Ensure that there are some elements of
individual work that can be assessed to
keep students from feeling like their own
contribution is irrelevant. You might also
consider inter-group collaboration by having groups compare and/or assess each
other’s work. At the end, encourage students to reflect on how well their group
functioned by listing three things they did
well, and at least one thing needing
improvement. All groups can then present
their assessments to the class.
1. Enrichment centers—designed to
enhance current learning
2. Skill development centers—designed
to introduce or support new skills
3. Exploratory/interest centers—
designed to incorporate student interests or provide opportunities for student discovery
What are some examples?
"
Reading Center—A common example
of a primary grade classroom center is
the reading center, where the classroom library may be housed. You
might monitor students’ activity in the
reading center by supplying book
review forms, so students may record
what book(s) they read and their
assessment of the book. For beginning
readers and writers, the book review
can consist of selecting a happy or sad
face. More advanced readers can read
books to struggling readers or students
can take turns reading stories to each
other. For books with enough dialogue, students can each select a character to read. You might also use a
reading center to support Literature
Circles, where students can actively
discuss and verbally critique books.
"
Writing Center—A writing center can
include plastic letters and Playdough
for forming letters in addition to more
traditional pencils, crayons, and paper.
Providing a weekly or daily writing
prompt lends focus to the station. A
felt board with cut outs and scraps of
colored felt presents an excellent storytelling opportunity, where students
can collaboratively develop sequencing skills, character, and plot definition, and imagination.
"
Listening Center—For a listening center, find a tape recorder that accepts
multiple headphones and have students follow along with a book-ontape. If your school does not have
Learning Centers
Primarily used in elementary schools,
learning centers are specified areas in the
classroom that focus on a specific skill or
content area. Learning centers (or stations)
offer teachers a flexible format for allowing
students to explore an area of interest,
review a topic with which they are struggling, or enrich their knowledge of an area
they find fascinating. Centers support the
individual needs of each student because
students work at their own pace on specified activities. Use centers when you are
working with a small group of students,
after students have completed an assignment, or during time designed for individualized instruction. (Learning centers offer an
invaluable tool to assist your efforts at differentiating instruction.) Learning centers
can require students to work both independently, or collaboratively with others.
There are several different types of
learning centers:
134
CHAPTER 5
commercial tapes, arrange with a
teacher from an upper grade to have
students read age-appropriate books
into a tape; both sets of students will
benefit from the exercise.
"
"
"
Math/Science Center—A science center can include a number of objects
about which students must record
observations; likewise, a math center
can use hands-on activities to introduce a concept that you will teach later
in the week, or it can reinforce a skill
that you have already taught with specific games or tasks that students must
accomplish.
Interest Center—Use of interest centers, by definition, should be optional.
An interest center allows students the
opportunity for extensive exploration
of a topic that particularly interests
them (the topic may or may not be
part of the regular curriculum).
Interest centers can offer students who
have excelled in a certain topic and
completed their required work the
ability to further examine that topic.
(Some particularly independent-minded students might actually be assigned
to create an interest center themselves.) Struggling students also
deserve the opportunity to pursue an
area of special interest to them. These
centers should be differentiated by
level of complexity to ensure that all
learners can use them independently,
yet still be challenged.
People, Place, Culture or Event
Centers—These centers can be
designed to focus on an area of interest
that you want to emphasize. These can
and should change frequently. Perhaps
you will create a Martin Luther King
center to help celebrate his birthday.
You could include audio or video
copies of his speeches, biographical
books, a compilation of his quotes or
quotes about him. Perhaps you are
studying WWII and wish to create a
CHAPTER 5
learning center about the Holocaust or
the attack on Pearl Harbor. Or maybe
you have been studying indigenous
populations and wish to set up a station devoted to a certain Native
American tribe, or a South American
culture.
All learning centers, regardless of content should include:
1. A title reflecting the type of center
(enrichment, skill or interest)
2. Instructions for student use, including
what students are expected to do
3. All necessary materials
4. Varied levels of work so that students
can work at their current level
5. Connections between the academic
fields of study and the real world
applications
6. A method of assessment that can be
individualized depending on student
ability levels
When designing these centers, make
sure that students can accomplish the work
independently or with the help of peers, so
that they can stay focused and learn without your direct guidance. Students must be
able to successfully navigate a center without your presence. Furthermore, you must
somehow ensure that learning actually
occurs. You will need to teach them how to
use the activities effectively so that their
time at a center is well spent. You must also
explicitly teach behavioral expectations for
centers so student conduct doesn’t spiral
into discipline disorder. Before allowing
them to engage a new center, therefore, you
will need to model using the activities, the
behavioral expectations, how and where to
turn in their work (when applicable), and
the system for moving between centers.
Many teachers create aural or visual cues to
inform students to move to a new center.
Overall, your goal is to create a consistent
routine regarding the use of centers.
135
It is important that after all students
have rotated through the centers, the
teacher reviews with the students what
they have learned to acknowledge the
work students have completed. This can be
accomplished by periodically mentioning
the center activity as a reminder when the
topic comes up in a new lesson or taking
time out to explicitly review each center.
Furthermore, either the contents of centers,
or the centers themselves, should change
somewhat regularly.
Small Group Instruction
You will rely on small group instruction
in order to focus on specific skills your students need to practice or specific content
with which they are struggling. While you
work with a designated group of students,
other students might be assigned to work
independently, in other student-led groups,
or to rotate through different learning centers. Not all students will have the same
needs and you should consider flexible
small group instruction to be a key component of meeting those diversified needs.
For example, “Jigsaw” is a cooperative
learning strategy that utilizes the approach
of “divide and conquer.” Once students
have been divided into groups, a teacher
applies the Jigsaw method by allowing each
student to select the part of the assignment
that most interests them. They completely
master their designated part and then share
their findings with the group so that the
group as a whole has covered every facet of
the topic. Each student thus “specializes” in
one area. The students from each group
who completed the same element of the
assignment can also come together to compare notes and work together. The advantages of this method are that students can
choose what interests them, and they will
master the information more completely
from the necessity of having to present and
“teach” their findings to the larger group.
An example of small group instruction
136
for elementary classrooms follows:
Mr. Sussman’s 5th grade students are working on math word problems. Some students,
he noticed, seem to have no idea how to
approach solving them. He decides they
could benefit from working in groups, and
watching the methods that the successful
students employ. He divides the class into
eight groups of three, and purposely assigns
at least one highly capable math student per
group. Each of the three students are designated a position. The strong mathematician
is the designated Math Advisor, the student
Mr. Sussman most expects to struggle is the
group Recorder (responsible for detailing
and recording the group’s approach and
solution to each problem), and the third
member is the group Solicitor, responsible
for requesting hints on how to proceed (from
either Mr. Sussman or other groups) when
his or her group is stumped.
Each group gets a list of the same 5 problems
(which he found on an internet word problem website):
1. How many addition signs should be put
between digits of the number 987654321
and where should we put them to get a
total of 99?
2. Divide the face of the clock into three parts
with two lines so that the sums of the
numbers in the three parts are equal.
3. According to experts the first 4 moves in a
chess game can be played in 197299 totally different ways. If it takes 30 seconds to
make one move, how long would it take
one player to try every possible set of 4
moves?
4. A man has to be at work by 9:00 a.m. and
it takes him 15 minutes to get dressed, 20
minutes to eat and 35 minutes to walk to
work. What time should he get up?
5. In the first year of production a play sells
1572 tickets, in its second year it sells
1753 tickets, in its third year it sells 152
less than in its second year. How many
tickets are sold in 3 years?
CHAPTER 5
After 35 minutes, when the entire class
comes together to discuss their solutions,
Mr. Sussman requires the group Recorders
to describe the process used by their groups.
Below is an example of small group
instruction appropriate for middle school:
Ms. Nguyen’s 8th graders always need more
help with their writing. Lately, she realized
that they didn’t seem to understand the
necessity of extensive revision. It seemed to
her that they wrote something once and considered it to be a final draft. So she created a
writing center to focus on the editing
process. In an arrangement with a friend of
hers who taught 6th graders, she would copy
the younger student’s essays (blocking the
names) and have her students edit the 6th
graders’ essays. She told them to consider
the younger students’ creations to be a first
draft, and to work, in various and specified
ways, to refine the essays. Certain students,
who were assigned to use the center, were
then required to turn in their edits. On other
days, Ms. Nguyen asked her most talented
writers to “staff” the writing center and
work with her struggling writers to edit
their own original first drafts.
Finally, an example of small group
instruction appropriate for high school:
Mr. Watts thinks his 10th graders are ready
for some independent study, but he knows
they need a substantial structure in place to
keep them sufficiently on-task. He decides to
apply the Jigsaw method to an activity
exploring the history of the Civil War. He
divides his 28 students into seven groups of
four (intentionally distributing those who he
knows will be effective leaders, those who he
thinks will be exceptionally passionate about
the topic and those who he assumes will need
the most support). Each person in the group
is allowed to select one topic: Slavery,
Industrialization, the Battles and the Key
Players. For two weeks, students will alternate working independently, working with
their groups of four, and working with the
other six students who share their topic.
CHAPTER 5
Throughout the two weeks he meets with
both the four-person groups and the sevenperson groups to track progress, and also
meets individually with students who
request assistance or with those he suspects
need more guidance. Mr. Watts presents
several films to the class at large (both documentaries and dramas), and his students are
required to take substantial notes on content
that relates to their topic. He has set up four
learning centers (one for each topic), with
numerous resources for the students to
access (such as first person slave accounts;
biographies of key generals, politicians, and
suffragists; and war maps). After two weeks
of research has been conducted, each group is
required to make a formal presentation of its
findings. Specific requirements are detailed,
but the style and type of presentation may
vary. The groups are given a week of class
time to create and polish their presentations.
An inherent challenge of administering
cooperative learning activities will be devising ways to keep your students from excessive socializing. Some of them will instinctively chat with peers; others will taunt,
tease or harass their peers. Either way, you
must work to minimize both pleasant and
unpleasant interactions. While students
work, you must circulate and supervise. As
tempting as it may be, do not delude yourself into thinking this is your break time.
You will need to offer feedback, clarification, positive reinforcement and mediation
as necessary. As you will learn, the less
teacher-centered your classroom becomes
and the more you encourage your students
to play the role of active learner, the harder—not easier—your job becomes.
HIT #7: Generating and Testing
Hypotheses
This category largely pertains to the
application of knowledge—a critical higher
order thinking skill, and the requirement of
which distinguishes the mediocre education
137
from the exceptional one. If students in
high-need schools are to attain the caliber of
acquired intelligence which students in
high-resourced schools routinely accomplish, they must be expected not only to
absorb knowledge, but to apply it as well.
A key method of applying knowledge is
to generate and test hypotheses. Students
must learn to take the information they
have and to question it. Given what they
know, what else might be possible? What
other outcomes might they assume? What
other results can they rule out?
There are two types of techniques that
will inform your use of this category.
Inductive thinking involves the creation of
new conclusions based on prior knowledge,
in which students themselves must discover
the relevant principles. Deductive thinking
involves the creation of conclusions reached
by logical reasoning, meaning students are
provided with the relevant principles before
being asked to hypothesize on them.
Although both are proven approaches, in
general, deductive techniques—asking students to determine whether logical consequences are consistent with observed data—
seem to produce higher gains in student
achievement.
Marzano et al. (2001) identify six types
of tasks that will require students to generate and test hypotheses.
1. System Analysis—Ask your students
to predict the results when one element of a system is altered; when
possible actually test your students’
theories to determine their accuracy.
For example:
Young students have been studying color
combinations. After a series of examples,
ask them to predict which color will
emerge from the combination of two new
colors.
2. Problem Solving—Ask your students
to devise alternate solutions to a problem and to assess the relative value of
each solution. For example:
138
Requiring students to create an effectively
cushioned container to prevent an egg
that is dropped off the roof of a building
from cracking.
3. Historical Investigation—Ask your
students to create explanations or theories about inconclusive historical
events; and allowing them to assess
the potential of each scenario. For
example:
Familiarizing students with the competing theories of who killed JFK and requiring them to assess the relative plausibility
of each theory.
4. Invention—Require students to create
something new through the use of
generating and testing multiple
hypotheses. For example:
Challenging students to improve a real
situation. Perhaps the school recycling
program has been lackluster and ineffective. Assign your students to invent a
more effective system for the collection
and sorting of school recyclables. Require
them to test multiple inventions to determine which system proves the most effective.
5. Experimental Inquiry—Hypothesize
effects and experimenting to test those
hypotheses. For example:
Students might be challenged with the
task of improving student attendance.
Have them theorize about which factors
might lower attendance, and theorize
about the types of changes that might
increase student attendance. Track schoolwide attendance on days when certain
changes have been implemented.
6. Decision Making—Use a structured
framework to ask students to make
determinations about hypothetical or
actual situations or to test predictions.
For example:
Requiring students to determine the best
method of resolving the Florida recount
during the presidential election of 2000.
CHAPTER 5
They must identify the criteria with
which each solution would be judged and
devise a system by which to compare the
relative effectiveness of each proposed
solution.
Here is an example of generating and
testing hypotheses at the elementary level:
Ms. Dooley’s 4th graders had been studying
the basic principles of supply and demand.
To facilitate their thinking, she created an
experiment, after clearing it with the school
principal. During a week in April, when the
temperatures are usually unpredictable, her
students planned to sell lemonade (for a
quarter a cup) during recess. First, they had
to advertise, so people would know to bring
money. They hypothesized that there would
be a direct relationship between the temperature and the number of cups they sold. They
predicted that the hotter the temperature, the
more cups they would sell. After a week,
they tabulated and graphed the results to test
the accuracy of their hypothesis.
An example appropriate for middle
school follows:
Mr. Ku wanted his 8th graders to apply the
process of invention. Since his school was in
California, and the state had recently had an
earthquake, his students were very interested
in how to mitigate the effects of earthquakes.
After completing a unit on the causes, the
magnitudes, the effects of earthquakes, and
the known ways of preventing damage, he
asked his students to invent earthquake-proof
versions of items that might normally be
expected to sustain damage during an earthquake. They had to use their existing knowledge to invent a way of ensuring the items’
survival in even the strongest earthquakes.
Mr. Ku teamed with a high-school physics
class to simulate the force of different magnitude earthquakes to test the effectiveness of
their inventions.
And a high school example:
Ms. Sullivan wanted her 11th grade students to be engaged in the current events
surrounding the War on Terrorism. After
CHAPTER 5
covering the basic history, players, and
interpretations of recent events, she asked
them to select from the following three projects:
1. Decision Making—What is your hypothesis as to the most effective way to avoid
another terrorist attack?
2. Problem Solving—If you were President
Bush, how would you destroy the terrorists’ abilities to inflict more damage on the
U.S., without adding to their hostility
towards us?
3. Investigation—Why did Al Qaeda attack
the U.S.? What did they fundamentally
hope to achieve? What reaction might they
have reasonably expected? What reaction
were they hoping for? Did they accomplish what they wanted to accomplish?
Gather solid evidence to support your
hypothesis.
Much of the education system in
America is devoted to teaching students
about pre-existing knowledge. The more
you can help students to realize that there is
much more about the world that we don’t
know than we do know, the more they will
evolve to be the types of critical thinkers
who both ask and answer the open-ended
questions.
HIT #8: Activating Prior Knowledge
Your students will almost always know
more than they think they do—and they
will often know more than you think they
do. Helping them to integrate new knowledge into their pre-existing knowledge base
will be a vital way for you to amplify the
pace and intensity of their learning. You
cannot, you must not, restart your teaching
each time you begin a lesson, a unit, or a
semester. Lessons cannot be delivered as
self-contained, unrelated segments of learning. In fact, many of the students in struggling schools, whose lives are generally
more transient than the student population
139
at large, may well have already fallen victim
to the undesirable trap of “starting over”
every time they switch teachers or schools.
To counteract the long-term effects of lost
continuity, and to maximize their intellectual potential, you must not seek to merely
add layers of knowledge on top of previous
layers.
dents bring to class is a powerful teaching
strategy. Remember that your students’
schemas are influenced by their contexts—
that is, culture, geography, and past experiences. Keep in mind that some of the
schemas students hold are incomplete or
inaccurate, and may require clarification
before introducing new information.
Rather, you must holistically enrich your
students by drawing upon their prior learning. You must build a solid framework of
connections that help students to understand the ways in which new information is
grounded in prior information. You must
access their stores of knowledge and relate
all new concepts and ideas to familiar concepts and ideas. Information does not exist
in a vacuum. Presenting it as such will limit
the intellectual capacities of your students.
There are several specific strategies you
can employ to activate prior knowledge.
You will, of course, want to vary your use
of all of them.
Effective teachers can skillfully use their
students’ background knowledge to help
them to digest new information. In fact,
hooking what a student already knows to
what you want him or her to learn increases
comprehension by 90% (PLS, 1993). When
teachers fail to acknowledge students’
schemas, or background knowledge, or
assume that students have schemas they do
not have, they are often met with frustration, blank looks, misconceptions, and/or
indifference about the newly introduced
topic, which is why we strongly advise preunit assessments.
How might students attempt to construct meaning from new information? The
process involves figuring out how something that is new to us relates to something
we already know. For example, a small boy
traveling through the countryside points to
a cow and says “Daddy, look at that big
dog!” The child has a schema of a fourlegged animal, which he labels with the
word ‘DOG.’ His father, capitalizing on a
teachable moment, replies, “That animal is a
cow. It makes a moo sound. Is the cow bigger or smaller than a dog?”
Figuring out the schemas that your stu-
140
Questions and Cues
Although we are all familiar with questioning, the ability to ask truly effective
questions is a complex skill that goes to the
heart of any teacher’s mission (recall the
essence of the Socratic Method). Think of a
skilled lawyer drilling a witness in a courtroom. The lawyer must ask the right questions to get the specific answers that will
most effectively present her case. The
lawyer’s questions are deliberate, pointed,
and leading. The lawyer has predetermined
the answers she seeks; you will need to do
the same in your classroom. Effective questioning depends on what questions we ask,
how we ask them, and which students we
select to respond. Unlike the lawyer, however, who hates courtroom surprises, a
secure classroom teacher can be delighted
and amazed by her students’ capacities to
answer questions unexpectedly. Unlike the
lawyer who is looking for one “right”
answer, an open-minded classroom teacher
welcomes any answer that can be reasonably justified.
As we have discussed, higher order
thinking questions (which ask students to
apply information) demand more of students than lower-level questions (which ask
them to recall or identify information).
Rather than asking a student to name the
38th president of the U.S., ask him or her to
evaluate how effective that president may
or may not have been in achieving his goals.
CHAPTER 5
Think about the vast difference in the
demand placed on the student. The student
being asked to name a president needs only
to have memorized one piece of information. The student being asked for an evaluation needs to know what the president’s
agenda was, what occurred during the
administration, and must analyze how successfully the president performed (which
also requires familiarity with other presidencies to use a basis for assessment). The
higher order question evokes a deeper level
of thinking that the lower order question
notably lacks.
Select your questions wisely to maximize their potential. Your questions should
ask students to use what they know about a
topic and to deepen their understanding by
taking it further. Of course, asking effective
questions requires that you have a complex
and nuanced understanding of the topic
being examined, teachers who lack a sophisticated understanding of their subject are
therefore at a distinct disadvantage.
Think back to our theatrical courtroom
lawyer. Not only does she ask deliberate
questions, but she pauses—before and after
her questions, and before and after a witness response—to introduce an element of
drama and suspense. Inherent in her pause
is the suggestion that 1) something worthwhile will follow and 2) the witness should
think carefully before answering (both messages of value for your students). You will
want to learn to inject the power of the
pause as well, but for reasons that go
beyond the universally enticing dramatic
effect. Giving students time to contemplate
both the question and their response actually improves the quality of their answers.
Furthermore, it encourages more studentto-student interaction as classmates seize
the opportunity to formulate and share their
own thoughts as well as build on others’
answers.
Don’t let a student off the hook if his or
her answer seems incomplete or unjustified.
Follow-up your questions and require stu-
CHAPTER 5
dents to defend or explain their responses.
(To continue our courtroom metaphor, you
will need to act as the prosecuting lawyer,
the defense lawyer, the judge and the jury.)
You may want to let students pair up and
give them the chance to confer with a partner before answering a question. Remember
our goals towards differentiating instruction, and use questioning as a way to tailor
your instruction. You can alter the complexity, the time allowed, or the thinking level
of the questions to meet your student’s individual needs. Vary your questions based on
a student’s readiness and learning profile,
remembering that all students will need
challenging inquisition.
To ensure adequate “wait-time” (the
time between asking a question and soliciting an answer) many teachers actually
count to five silently before asking for a
response or selecting a student to respond.
This ensures that all students process the
question, not just the student to whom the
question is directed. Another strategy for
accomplishing this is to place the student’s
name at the end of the question, rather than
the beginning, ensuring that the rest of the
students do not tune out as soon as they
realize they are not expected to answer. For
example, notice the difference between the
following approaches:
“What is the difference between nouns, and
verbs...(wait time)...Samuel?”
“Samuel, what is the difference between
nouns and verbs?”...(wait time)
In the first example, all students will listen to the question, not just Samuel. By
waiting before calling on a student, the
teacher gives the whole class ample time to
think about their answers before expecting a
response. In the second example, the question is presented solely for Samuel. Why
should anyone else bother listening?
Additionally, the long pause at the end can
add undue anxiety for Samuel, especially
when the material is new or complex.
Furthermore, you need to find ways to
141
include all students in your questioning.
Some students will respond more than others. You must analyze why this occurs.
Some of them will be more confident or will
more instinctively crave attention and
approval. But there may also be unconscious bias on your part. A teacher generally makes uneven amounts of eye contact
with students in different parts of the
rooms. Those students who are on the outskirts of a teacher’s zone of vision tend to
receive fewer verbal and non-verbal cues,
making them less likely to volunteer for
questions and less likely to be noticed when
they do raise their hands.
You should also consider whether there
are demographic trends among the students
you are calling upon. It may be beneficial to
have an observer track your questioning
habits. After analyzing the data, you can
determine if you are questioning students
differently based upon gender, race, behavior, classroom location, or any other factor
(e.g., perhaps during math and science you
call on boys more often, and during language arts you favor girls--a not uncommon
tendency). To ensure that the same students
are not always responding, you may want
to implement a system of random selection,
rather than relying on volunteers. There are
many options of methods from which to
choose, including index cards (writing
names on cards, stacking them, and questioning the students in order of the cards),
the clipboard method (using a classroom
seating chart for visual reference and
recording each time a student is called on),
or the popsicle stick method (writing student names on sticks and randomly drawing them from a jar to select a student).
There will, of course, be times when you
will deliberately want to direct specific
questions to certain students, but in general,
be vigilant that your questioning is fairly
and evenly distributed.
There are numerous approaches to classifying questions. Our four categories are:
managerial, rhetorical, closed and open.
142
1. Managerial—questions that tend to
classroom operations or administrative concerns. For example:
“Who needs more time?”
“What is the first step of the lab?”
“What should you do when you complete
your assignment?“
2. Rhetorical—questions which emphasize a point, or reinforce an idea or
statement. For example:
“The letter ‘A’ is a vowel, correct?”
“Yesterday we talked about the difference
between a virus and bacteria; does everyone remember the difference?”
3. Closed—lower order questions
(knowledge and comprehension),
which check the retention of previously learned information or focus thinking on a particular point. For example:
“Who was the first female senator in the
U.S. Senate?”
“What is one primary color?”
“What is one way that heat moves between
objects?”
4. Open—higher order questions (application and synthesis), which promote
discussion or student interaction,
stimulate thinking, allow freedom to
hypothesize, speculate and share
ideas. For example:
“What would life be like if there were not
different races?”
“How would basketball be different if
played on the moon?”
“Why do quadratic equations result in
curves?“
Not all questions can or should be higher order. Lesson plans with lower order
objectives may call for lower order questioning. Higher order lesson plans may also
call for lower order questions (your students can’t evaluate the 38th president’s
performance unless he knows who the 38th
CHAPTER 5
president was). Teaching Tool #5.2, on the
following page, provides a basic guide to
crafting questions at the various levels of
Bloom’s Taxonomy. The way to support
your lesson objectives while challenging
your students to think at higher cognitive
levels is to thoughtfully craft your questions—both oral and written.
When you reflect on your teaching,
review this guide, and determine if a sufficient number of your questions demand
higher cognitive skills.
Marzano et al. (2001) identify different
types of analytic questions, which by definition utilize higher order skills. The three
types for you to consider incorporating into
your instruction are:
1. Analyzing Errors. For example:
What are the errors in reasoning?
How might this be misleading?
How could it be improved?
2. Constructing Support. For example:
What argument might you use to support
a claim?
What are the limitations of the argument?
3. Analyzing Perspectives. For example:
Who might support this?
Who might be offended by it?
Why do some support it?
Why are some offended?
What might be an alternative viewpoint?
Advance Organizers
Advance organizers introduce students
to the information they are about to study.
Rather than “diving right in,” these organizers invite them to ease into new topics, and
allow students to think about what they
already know of a given topic. By offering a
framework in which your students can initially experience new information, you provide for them a way to conceptualize what
CHAPTER 5
to do with that information.
Imagine that you received a gift in the
mail. You had no idea who it was from, and
there was no name on the box. When you
opened the box, you found a fork in it. You
would be understandably confused. Now
imagine that your Aunt Patti had called you
ahead of time, and informed you that she
had decided to give you your grandmother’s silver. She had packaged up all the
forks, knives, and spoons, sealed the box,
and given them to your mother who hadn’t
yet given the box to you (or even mentioned
it). Then your Aunt Patti realized she had
left out one fork. Not wanting to misplace
the fork she decided to just send it directly
to you.
Consider how essential the back story
was to comprehending why a fork had just
arrived in your mailbox. You will always
want to prepare your students with the
fullest back story possible. Marzano et al.
(2001) identify four different types of
advance organizers that you can use to
“package” new information for your students so that they know how to receive it.
1. Expository Advance Organizers—
offer a basic description of upcoming
material. For example:
Ms. Johnson invited a NASA scientist
named Dr. Frye to visit her 11th grade
physics students and guest lecture on the
physics principles he applies to his work.
The day before the scientist’s visit, Ms.
Johnson hands out a lengthy written
biography of Dr. Frye, and includes comprehensive descriptions of the principles
she expects Dr. Frye to discuss (most of
them are principles her students have
already studied). Ms. Johnson’s students
take half of their class time to prepare for
the visit by reviewing the information.
2. Narrative Advance Organizers—
introduce students to new information
in a story format. For example:
Mr. Rice wanted his 12th graders to start
understanding the ways in which the
1960s were a distinct and significant
143
TEACHING TOOL #5.2
Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Create Effective
Questions
Cognitive Level
Useful Verbs
Sample Question Stems
Knowledge
tell
list
describe
relate
locate
write
find
state
name
What is...? How is...?
Where is...? When did...happen?
How did…happen? When did...?
Can you recall...?
How would you show...?
Can you select...?
Who were the main...?
Can you list three...?
Which one...? Who was...?
explain
interpret
outline
discuss
distinguish
predict
restate
translate
compare
describe
classify
How would you classify the
type of...?
How would you compare...?
contrast...?
Will you state or interpret in your
own words...?
How would you rephrase the
meaning...?
What facts or ideas show...?
What is the main idea of...?
Which statements support...?
Can you explain what is
happening...? Why did…?
What can you say about...?
Which is the best answer...?
How would you summarize...?
solve
show
use
illustrate
calculate
construct
complete
examine
classify
How would you use...?
What examples can you find to...?
How would you solve...using
what you have learned ?
How would you organize...
to show...?
How would you show your
understanding of...?
How would you apply what
you learned to develop...?
What other way would you
plan to...?
What would result if...?
What facts would you select
to show...?
Recognizing and recalling
information (e.g., when shown
an exclamation point, a student
will identify it by name).
Comprehension
Understanding the meaning of
information (e.g., the student
can describe the use of an
exclamation point).
Application
Using information (e.g., the
student can use an exclamation
point in a sentence).
144
CHAPTER 5
(Teaching Tool #5.2 continued)
Cognitive Level
Useful Verbs
Analysis
analyze
distinguish
examine
compare
contrast
investigate
categorize
identify
explain
separate
advertise
Dissecting information into its
component parts to see their
relationships (e.g., the student
can identify an exclamation
point’s misuse in a paragraph).
Synthesis
Putting components together
to form new ideas (e.g., the
student can use exclamation
points, questions marks, and
periods appropriately in a
piece of writing).
Evaluation
Judging the worth of an idea
(e.g., the student can evaluate
the effective use of exclamation
points in creating the mood in
a descriptive passage).
CHAPTER 5
create
invent
compose
predict
plan
construct
design
imagine
improve
propose
devise
formulate
elaborate
estimate
judge
select
choose
decide
justify
debate
verify
argue
recommend
discuss
determine
prioritize
access
Sample Question Stems
What are the parts or features of...?
How is…related to...?
Why do you think...?
What is the theme...?
Can you list the parts...?
What inference can you make...?
What conclusions can you
draw...?
How would you classify...?
How would you categorize...?
What evidence can you find...?
What is the relationship between...?
What is the function of...?
What changes would you make
to solve...?
How would you improve...?
What would happen if...?
Can you elaborate on the reason...?
Can you propose an alternative...?
Can you invent...?
How could you change (modify)
the plot (plan)...?
What could be done to minimize
(maximize)...?
What could be combined to
improve (change)...?
Suppose you could…what
would you do...?
How would you test...
Can you formulate a theory for...?
Can you predict the outcome if...?
How would you estimate the
results for...?
Can you construct a model that
would change...?
Do you agree with the actions...?
How would you prove...?
disprove...?
Can you assess the value or
importance of...?
Would it be better if...?
Why did they (the character)
choose...?
What would you recommend...?
How would you rate the...?
What would you cite to defend
the actions...?
How would you evaluate...?
145
decade. He wanted to introduce them to
the ways in which the forces of the ‘60s
invited the younger generation to challenge authority in unprecedented ways.
He started his unit with a personal presentation of his own experience in the ‘60s.
First he showed them his high school
yearbook that contained his senior photo
(with a clean-cut, sporty hairstyle) from
1961. Then he showed them a picture of
his cousin with fellow troop members in
Vietnam, and briefly discussed his
cousin’s experience of having been drafted
(and his own good fortune of having been
able to avoid the draft because he was in
college). Then he discussed the Kent State
shootings, and the three notable assassinations of the decade. He then presented a
photo of himself with long hippie-style
hair from the late ‘60s and discussed his
memory of what having long hair had
meant to him. He asked his students for
their thoughts on current but comparable
modes of rebellion for their generation. He
described the impact of music on the
decade, mentioning the Beatles and the
Rolling Stones, and told them about the
Woodstock music festival. To help his students comprehend the rebellious and antiauthoritarian sentiment of the crowd at
Woodstock, he played a recording of Jimi
Hendrix’s rendition of the “Star Spangled
Banner,” and asked them to think about
what Hendrix was trying to say through
his music. After the lengthy discussion
was complete, Mr. Rice felt confident that
his students now had an appropriate
framework to begin a more in-depth study
of the events which shaped American history in the ‘60s and leading into the ‘70s.
3. Skimming as a form of advance
organizer—encourage students to
skim reading material as a way to
briefly familiarize themselves with
upcoming content. For example:
Ms. O’Connor’s 5th grade students were
starting a health unit on maintaining a
healthy lifestyle. Time magazine had just
146
done a cover story on the obesity epidemic
in America, and it had some eye-catching
charts and graphs that she thought would
enlighten her students. She photocopied
the article and, knowing that reading it in
its entirety would be too daunting for her
5th graders, told them to look at all the
graphs and charts, and to only skim the
article itself. She asked them each to
record five pieces of information from the
article that seemed significant or interesting. She planned to discuss the article
and cover the information more completely in the class the following day.
4. Graphic Advance Organizers—use
graphic organizers to visually present
an overview of new or upcoming
information. For example:
Just before beginning a unit on statistics,
Mr. Estes wanted his 9th grade math students to start appreciating how often statistics are used in the real world. On the
board, he drew a big circle with the word
STATISTICS in it. He then began discussing the several different areas of the
student’s lives in which statistics were
involved. He did this by posing questions
in which he thought students would be
interested and then showed how a statistic could be used to answer the question.
This discussion got his students very
interested. Figure 11, on the next page,
shows the advance organizer Mr. Estes
used with his class.
K-W-L Charts
The K-W-L Chart is a graphic organizer
that asks students to consider what they
Know about a topic prior to beginning a
unit, asks them what the Want to know
about a topic they are about to study, and
asks them what they have Learned about a
topic once they have finished studying it. It
accomplishes four specific goals:
1. Activates student prior knowledge at
the beginning of a new unit or lesson.
CHAPTER 5
Figure 11: Mr. Estes Introduction to Statistics Unit Advance Organizer
Extra Curricular Activities
• Should school dances be cut from the budget?
• Should the administration eliminate basketball
or band?
Statistics used to answer question:
1. Participation rates could be used to justify
expenses
After-S
School Employment
• Should 9th graders be allowed to have after-sschool
jobs?
• What is the average pay of teenage workers?
Is it a good wage?
Statistics used to answer question:
1. Show relationship between grades and number
of hours worked.
2. Determine the average of wage of the students in
our school and compare it to the national
student average.
Statistics
College Preparation
• Which high school courses are related to
getting into college?
Statistics used to answer question:
________________________________
________________________________
________________________________
________________________________
________________________________
________________________________
2. Provides an opportunity for students
to purposefully write.
3. Catalogs specific learning goals, providing direction for future work.
4. Provides a structured opportunity for
reflection on learning at the end of a
lesson.
It is a simple tool that is applicable to
numerous situations and grade levels. Table
5.3, on the next page, shows what a K-W-L
chart looks like.
There are several benefits of using a KW-L chart. In most classrooms, only a select
few students actually participate in class-
CHAPTER 5
Socializing
• What is the most frequent socializing activity
among 9th graders at our school? Why?
Statistics used to answer question:
_________________________________
_________________________________
_________________________________
_________________________________
_________________________________
_________________________________
room discussions. Others disengage or find
a way to hide from the teacher. The K-W-L
method helps ensure that all students participate. Furthermore, many teachers move
from one topic to the next without ever
reflecting upon what has actually been
learned. Reflection is a key component of a
K-W-L chart. By reflecting on what has been
learned, students can identify actual
progress and can see that their interests
have been acknowledged.
There are numerous ways to use a K-WL chart. Here is one step-by-step method:
1. Provide each student with his or her
own blank K-W-L chart.
147
TABLE 5.3: Blank K-W-L Chart
What I Know
What I Want to Know
2. Introduce students to the subject matter. For example: “We will spend the
next few weeks understanding and
experiencing poetry. Before we begin,
I would like to determine what you
already know about poetry. So, using
your K-W-L, fill in the first column
titled ‘What I know.’”
3. Allow time for all students to make
entries. Circulate about the classroom
to monitor each student’s progress,
stopping to support students who
appear to be struggling.
4. After students have completed the
first column, begin to select students
to share their entries while recording
their responses on a classroom chart.
5. Introduce the ‘What I Want to Know’
column. For example: “You already
seem to know quite a bit about poetry.
It is really important to me to determine what you want to learn about
poetry. What questions have you had
in the past or do you have right now?
These can be specific questions or
vague, general questions. Use your KW-L chart again and fill in the ‘What I
Want to Know’ column with your
interests.”
6. Allow time for all students to make
entries. Circulate about the classroom
148
What I Learned
to monitor each student’s progress,
again stopping to help struggling students.
7. After they have completed the first
two columns, select students to share
their entries while recording their
responses on the classroom chart.
8. At the end of each lesson, discuss
what has been learned, and fill in the
chart. Continue to reflect and fill in
the chart until the poetry work has
been completed.
Table 5.4 offers an example of a completed chart.
There are three distinct concerns of
which you should be aware when using
K-W-L charts:
1. K-W-L charts are most successful
when all students’ interests are actually included. Therefore, you will need
to be sure to incorporate your students’ interests into your lessons, or
be sure to explain to specific students
why you will be unable to include
their requests.
2. Some students may have answers that
do not connect to the subject matter,
thus requiring redirection.
3. You will need to hold yourself
accountable for reserving time at the
CHAPTER 5
end of each lesson to fulfill the reflection component. If you do not consistently bother to reflect upon what has
been learned and to fill out that section of the chart, the K-W-L chart
becomes less effective.
In other words, do not ask for this information if you do not really care about the
answers. Implicit in this strategy are several
obvious, but essential assumptions: 1) that
you care what your students know already;
2)that you care about what your students
want to know; and 3)that you care about
what your students have learned. Using KW-L charts effectively conveys to your students that you care about these three things.
After all, if their teacher doesn’t care, why
should a student?
There are two basic characteristics of any
brainstorming activity:
1. Students can spontaneously suggest
any idea that comes to mind related to
the topic at hand, a freedom which
can break classroom monotony in a
refreshing way.
2. Judgment is suspended during the
brainstorming process; all ideas are
accepted and considered without worrying about accuracy.
What does brainstorming look like?
Brainstorming can be implemented in many
ways. Experiment! A possible sequence is
shown in Table 5.5.
There are several effective uses for
Brainstorming. They include:
"
Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a simple way to get a
large number of students actively involved
in a process that is non-threatening and
stimulating. It is particularly useful at the
start of a new unit or topic of study, when
students are having difficulty generating
ideas, or when creative problem solving can
be applied. It is also an excellent way to tap
into student interest and prior knowledge.
Tapping into prior knowledge. For
example:
Before Mr. Kearney began his social studies unit on mythology, he asked his students to brainstorm answers to the following prompt, “What is a myth?”
"
Reflecting on a lesson or unit. For
example:
After completing their unit on The
Catcher in the Rye, Ms. Beard asked her
students to brainstorm their interpreta-
TABLE 5.4: Sample K-W-L Chart
What I Know
What I Want to Know
What I Learned
Some poems rhyme.
Who started writing
poetry?
There are different types
of rhyming patterns used
in poetry.
Poetry is like rapping.
Poems are short in
length.
What makes poetry
different from other
types of writing?
Not all poetry rhymes.
Who is the best poet
ever?
CHAPTER 5
149
TABLE 5.5: Sample Brainstorming Sequence
Focusing the Topic
Explaining the
Activity
“Over the next few weeks we will be learning about
Native Americans. Today we will discuss the different tribes within the U.S. “
“How do you think the lives of Native Americans,
ttttttwho used to live here differ from our lives?”
Setting the
Expectations
“I want to hear from as many people as possible. If
you feel that you have a lot to contribute to this
brainstorm, be patient and let others make their first
contributions before you make your second. As you
think of answers I will record them on the board.”
Beginning
Brainstorming
“Okay, let’s start. What tribes do we know once lived
in what we now refer to as the U.S.? Remember,
we’re not focusing right now on whether we’re right
or wrong—this is about tapping into as many ideas
as possible...Yes, Amanda?”
tion of the relationship between the title
and the story.
"
Developing student interest. For
example:
Before beginning the unit focused on
space, Mr. Stauffer asked his students to
brainstorm everything that they wanted
to know about space. He recorded their
interests and posted them in class.
"
Problem solving. For example:
Students in Ms. Silver’s class have been
struggling to complete their homework.
Ms. Silver decides to ask the class to
brainstorm reasons why the class has
been struggling to complete work. When
the list is complete, she begins to ask students how these issues can be addressed.
If you find that the same students are
consistently dominating brainstorming sessions, you might want to give the whole
150
class a minute to record their ideas on a
piece of scratch paper, rather than sharing
them orally (check to ensure that those students who you anticipate needing more
time have been able to generate ideas). Then
survey the responses of different students.
Sometimes requiring students to write
something down commits them to involvement more effectively than a verbal request.
Keep in mind that many of the HITS that
we have already discussed can also serve as
effective tools for brainstorming. Analogies,
graphic organizers, and generating and testing hypotheses all offer stimulating and
engaging ways to invite your students to
begin thinking about a topic.
Conclusions and Key Points
This chapter identified the teaching
CHAPTER 5
strategies that have proven to be the most
effective in advancing student achievement.
They are:
HIT #1: Identifying Similarities and
Differences
HIT #2: Summarizing and Note-Taking
HIT #3: Reinforcing Effort and
Providing Recognition
HIT #4: Homework and Practice
HIT #5: Nonlinguistic Representations
HIT #6: Cooperative Learning
HIT #7: Generating and Testing
Hypotheses
HIT #8: Questions, Cues, and Advance
Organizers
You should now have a good sense of
the ways in which these eight HITS are integrally related. Rare is the lesson that will
employ just one HIT at a time. You will find
that there will be those HITS that come
most naturally to you. You will choose them
frequently, execute them effortlessly, and
skillfully vary their applications. There will
be other HITS, however, that you may find
yourself avoiding. For whatever reason, you
may find certain strategies to be intimidating, unconvincing, or unrealistic. Just as you
will have to forcefully encourage your students to overcome their intellectual fears,
you will very likely have to overcome your
own as well. Ask your peers for the ways in
which they have successfully used the HITS
you tend to avoid. Branch out. When the
first month of school has passed, look over
the list of eight, and figure out which HITS
you have yet to employ. Choose them, and
use them.
There will be many days when you feel
that nothing you are doing is working. On
these days, remind yourself—we know what
works, we know how students learn most effectively.
CHAPTER 5
151
Part One Supplements
152
"
Supplement 1.1
Strategies for Maintaining
Assessment Records
Supplement 1.1
The final (and often most anxiety-producing) stage of assessment is
officially reporting student progress to students, families, and the school
administration. During your unit and lesson-planning process, you must
ensure that your students will have completed enough formal assessments
during a designated grading period to provide you with sufficient data to
determine quarterly or semester grades. Remember that official grades
should rarely be a surprise or mystery. Students should have received
enough constant feedback throughout the semester that they (and their
parents) are well versed in where student performance stands relative to
your expectations.
Although we have emphasized that the work and the process of completing the work is more significant than the resulting grades, do not
delude yourselves into thinking that grades do not matter. They matter
considerably and will be consequential in your students’ lives. Your students’ grades will serve several functions. In addition to communicating
achievement levels to both students and parents, they are often used for
the following purposes:
!
Promotion and retention
!
Placement in special classes (advanced or remedial)
!
Participation privileges in extra-curricular activities
!
College admission
!
Scholarships and prizes
Since these are not inconsequential applications, you will need to put
considerable time and effort into devising a system of grading that will
ensure a fair and accurate representation of student achievement. Your job
is to accurately assign the grades your students have earned, rather than
randomly selecting numbers or letters that you feel fairly enough approximate their performance levels. Student learning, and not teacher evaluation, should be the driving force behind your grades.
Devising a Grading System
To begin creating a system for yourself, consider the multiple purposes
a report card serves —is its goal to merely indicate achievement, to
communicate effort, or to motivate or inspire struggling students or some
complex combination of all three? Grades, above all, should be informative—never punitive. Your grades are fundamentally a reflection of stu152
S U P P L E M E N T 1.1
dent performance, not a motivation tool to improve future performance or
a retaliatory device used to scold under-achieving students. That said, student effort matters, and student growth matters. If a student comes to
school every day and exerts maximum effort with a positive attitude, why
shouldn’t that count for something? If poor grades on a report card discourage a student to the point that he or she stops trying, your educational
efforts will have become unproductive and destructive. While grades are
final and conclusive, they must not communicate futility. Grades should
communicate to students that there are reasonable consequences for their
academic actions. Grades must seem a logical conclusion to the semester’s
work—not a random afterthought or eternally unalterable reality. Our best
advice is to devise a system that clearly values effort, and communicates to
students that their hard work will pay off.
By and large, grades must demonstrate proficiency. You may feel that
your students are overburdened by their outside responsibilities or other
extenuating circumstances, but a report card is not necessarily the place to
communicate those concerns or sympathies. While report cards are effective tools for reporting overall progress, they may not illustrate a child’s
specific progress, strengths or challenges, so you may need to supplement
the card with additional information in writing or through a conference
with the student and/or parent.
To begin your approach, we recommend the following steps:
1. Identify school or district-wide grading policies. Schools and districts
will have requirements that you will need to meet (e.g., the grading
scale used, report card format, dates when grades are due, etc.).
Reporting Progress
Other factors will influence this system. Should teachers consider
extenuating circumstances or must each student be graded based on exactly the same criteria? For example, should a teacher take into account that a
student’s father is unemployed and the student must balance school work
with a part-time job to help support his family? Should a teacher take into
account that another student is expected to care for her siblings for five
hours after school each day until her grandmother gets home from work?
These are the types of difficult decisions that you will need to make.
2. Design a system to take into account both mastery (where they are)
and progress towards goals (how far they have come). Some report
cards (especially elementary schools’) will have separate categories
for effort and achievement.
3. Assign grades to reflect actual achievement, not relative achievement. Grades, to the extent that they can, should reflect how well a
student has met the performance standards set for them. Avoid the
use of curves. Students must compete against themselves, not
against one another.
4. Ensure that differences in student achievement are reflected. Number
grades can be more specific than letter grades. If one student earns a
71, and another earns an 79, why should they both get a ‘C’? Then
again, there may be times when you wish to de-emphasize these
SUPPLEMENT 1.1
153
types of distinctions (especially amongst younger students) and
more general letter grades will be preferable.
Supplement 1.1
5. Grading devices must be consistent. A ‘B’ that you reward on an
essay should equal the level of performance of a ‘B’ on a report card.
The 91 that one student receives must equal the level of performance
of another student who also receives a 91. Although teachers are
almost universally being encouraged to experiment with alternative
types of assessments, they are still, by and large, required to submit
traditional grades. How can you translate your alternative assessment measures into traditional grades? You will need to incorporate
rubric scores into percentage or letter grades. To reliably convert
rubric point scales, you will need to decide the achievement level
represented by a given rubric score. For example, if three out of five
represents “acceptable” but not exceptional achievement, what
numeric or letter grade would be its equivalent?
6. Determine the types of evidence you will draw on to evaluate student achievement and the relative weight of each piece of evidence.
It is essential that you draw upon multiple sources and types of
assessments. As we have discussed, different assessment types will
reveal different levels and facets of student learning. It is not enough
to merely assign alternative assessments; you must also value them
by incorporating them into your final grades. Some students will
excel in traditional exams, while others need more alternative activities to show what they know. If your grades are to be fair reflections
of students’ knowledge, they must represent a varied and comprehensive body of work.
Final grades might be a composite of the following classroom activities:
!
Performance-based and/or product assessments graded on a
rubric-scale
!
Points from cooperative group work
!
Summative tests and quizzes
!
Journal entries
!
Homework assignments
!
Class notes
!
Effort
By tracking progress and achievement in all realms of your class, you
send the vital message to your students that all the work you ask of them
is valuable and relevant. Most likely you will need to determine your own
formula for weighing the relative value of different types of evaluations.
(Some districts might mandate established percentages.) A sample breakdown might be as follows:
Tests = 30%
Quizzes (or weekly reports) = 20%
Homework = 15%
154
S U P P L E M E N T 1.1
Class work (e.g., journal entries, classroom participation, class notes) = 20%
Major performance project (or portfolio) = 15%
Many factors will affect the percentages you ultimately use, including
your personal preferences and priorities, the quality of your assessments
(how significant were they?), the relative difficulty of the task, the relative
importance of the task, and your subject matter. For example, foreign language teachers might emphasize classroom participation more than others
because they need to prioritize oral production and comprehension.
Likewise, foreign language quizzes might count significantly if they are the
main tools a teacher has to measure a student’s grasp of vocabulary.
Keep in mind that not only will you have to weigh the relative weight
of each assignment, but you will also need to weigh the relative importance of different questions within the same assessment. For example, on
an end-of-unit test, a fill-in-the-blank question is much less demanding
than an essay, so they can’t both count for 20 points. On a single test,
therefore, you might decide on the following point values:
Five True/False questions worth three points each [total of 15 points]
Five multiple choice questions worth three points each [total of 15 points]
Five short-answer questions worth six points each [total of 30 points]
Reporting Progress
The trick, of course, is that regardless of the percentages each teacher
uses to generate end-of-term grades, all the grades throughout a school (or
district) must indicate comparable levels of achievement. A student who
gets a ‘B’ (or an 88) in a chemistry class from one teacher must have parity
of performance with a student getting a ‘B’ from another chemistry
teacher. Students within the same school might be aware that an ‘A’ from
Ms. Moreno is much harder to achieve than an ‘A’ from Mr. Thomas, but
how could a parent or college admissions board be expected to know that?
Although it may be difficult to align grades with other teachers of similar
subject matter, try to engage your colleagues about their perspective on
assigning grades.
Two complex essay questions worth 20 points each [total of 40 points]
Once you have devised your grading system, you will need to clearly
communicate that system to both your students and their families early in
the school year. It is ideal to communicate the grading policy in welcome
letters to students and parents at the beginning of the school year. Or, in
the case of semesterly courses, at the beginning of the course. Parents, for
example, deserve to know if homework counts towards a final grade. This
shared knowledge of expectations will foster a culture in which students
(and their families) are not dependent on you for updates on what their
final grades might be, but can independently track where they stand.
Calculating Grades
As you work to actually calculate your students’ grades, there are a few
guidelines to keep in mind:
SUPPLEMENT 1.1
155
Supplement 1.1
!
Make sure that there are clear distinctions between your formative
and summative assessments. You won’t grade every assignment
your students complete (although feedback should be provided for
as many as possible). You will have many decisions to make: will
activities like journal entries, minute papers, weekly reports and
self-evaluations be graded? When your intentions are formative, then
you should not assign a specific grade to an assignment. You will,
however, want to track completion of the assignment, and make
some recorded notation in your grade book about the quality of the
work. A common strategy for grading homework, for example, is to
apply a check, check-plus, or check-minus to each assignment.
Students need to make mistakes freely during the formative phase,
without the stress of worrying about what grade they will earn. Only
apply a specific grade if you intend to use the task as an official summative assessment.
!
Take care to maintain the purity of an academic grade. As we have
mentioned, there may be extenuating circumstances that you feel
affect a student’s performance level. Do not taint the academic grade
by incorporating concerns about attendance or behavior, both of
which will have other school-wide administrative consequences. (In
any case, student behavior and/or attendance will often be naturally
reflected in student grades.) Academic grades must reflect academic
achievement—no more, no less. When possible, avoid letting one
missed assignment substantially lower an average since this will
skew a students’ final grade to the point that it no longer accurately
represents achievement. Hound the student until the assignment is
completed, enlist the help of parents, or create alternate assignments
for the student.
!
Give the student the benefit of the doubt. If a student is borderline
for failing your course, consider it your responsibility to seek supplemental information that can guide your decision. Remember that no
assessment is infallible, and that many grades are inherently subjective. You will need to gather additional evidence that will indicate
whether or not the course objectives have been met.
!
Modify your system for special needs students. For these students,
the decision of how to balance effort with achievement becomes particularly complicated. A student’s special needs may require him or
her to work a great deal harder to attain only modest gains in performance. If this effort is not recognized, the student may become
frustrated and lose sight of the importance of working hard. One
strategy is to use a scale of “not working, working, making progress,
mastery,” which places the focus on effort, but also indicates whether
the performance objective has been achieved.
Recording Grades and Reporting Progress
Your grade book will become part of the public record. Be prepared to
share your grade book and other assessment records with colleagues,
156
S U P P L E M E N T 1.1
administrators and parents. You will need to be meticulous, organized and
thorough in your documentation. You will need to document completion
of all homework assignments, class work, classroom participation levels,
test scores, etc. You will probably want to record the quality of journal
entries and class notes. This is a huge amount of information to track for
each student. Make sure that your book has adequate space and sufficient
structure.
As we have discussed, some grade book entries will record grades,
while others will reflect completion with general indicators of quality. In
addition to tracking specific assignments, you may also choose to track
mastery of certain skills. You may want to isolate certain essential standards, and simply check off those standards or skills for which your students have demonstrated proficiency, and indicate those that need more
work.
!
Regularly send tests home with students for their parents to sign.
!
Write and share academic, attitude, and behavioral updates.
!
Call parents with concerns. (Assume parents will share the contents
of the discussion with their child, and don’t say anything to the
parent that you haven’t already told your student.)
!
Call parents to celebrate successes.
!
Call parents just to let them know how hard their child has been
working.
!
Make progress visible for your students by creating publicly
exhibited classroom charts or graphs tracking student effort or
improvement.
Reporting Progress
Finally, be aware that grades alone provide insufficient feedback.
Parents (and most definitely students) need more specific, more frequent
updates about student progress. Here are a few methods you will want to
employ:
Conclusions and Key Points
This supplement addressed different strategies for officially reporting
student progress to students, families, and the school administration. The
following key points were emphasized:
!
Grades matter considerably and will be consequential in your
students’ lives.
!
Your grading system must ensure a fair and accurate representation
of actual (not relative) student achievement, and grades should be
informative—never punitive. Grades should also reflect students’
progress toward meeting performance standards.
!
Design a system to take into account both mastery and progress.
!
Once you have devised your grading system, you will need to clearly
communicate that system to both your students and their families
SUPPLEMENT 1.1
157
early in the school year.
!
Documentation will need to be meticulous, organized and thorough.
Supplement 1.1
Think back to how you felt when you received your school grades.
Many students will be emotionally attached to the grades they receive.
This emotional connection is good; it means they care. As much as possible, work to minimize their fixation on the official grade by emphasizing
its origins as a score they have earned, rather than a grade you have
assigned. Of course, in order to convincingly assure them, be certain that
it’s true.
158
S U P P L E M E N T 1.1
"
Supplement 1.2
Learning Theory
Supplement 1.2
You may have been recently consumed with anxiety about how you
will teach. While this is a consequential consideration, it is, by itself,
incomplete. We advise you to broaden your focus. Expand that concern to
additionally consider, how will your students learn?
Educators have an obligation to know how every one of their students
learn so that they can more effectively and efficiently teach each student.
How easy it would be if all students learned in exactly the same way.
Fortunately—for think of how much the world would suffer from such a
lack of diversity of thought, experience and perspective—this is not the
case. We are a complex species, full of idiosyncratic, personal preferences
and strengths that set us apart from one another. As overwhelming as it
may sound, you will need to customize how you teach to specifically
address how each student learns. Trust us, this is not as unrealistic an
endeavor as it may seem at the moment.
The last two decades have seen a marked increase in society’s basic
understanding (and schools’ legal responsibility) regarding learning differences; we now know that generic instructional methods and management
strategies are received differently by individual minds. Just because teachers teach one way does not mean students learn one way; in fact, when
teachers teach only one way, many students don’t learn at all. What you
determine about your students’ strengths, weaknesses, thought processes,
cognitive development, learning styles, interests, behaviors, and learning
differences will guide you in ensuring that your instruction and management are purposefully and intentionally designed to help each student fulfill his or her academic potential.
What Is Learning Theory?
Learning theory is, above all, about understanding how students learn.
Knowing both the consistent and the conflicting ways students will receive
and process the information you present is essential. Consider the following questions that might easily arise:
160
!
I used to teach fifth grade, but now I will be teaching second grade.
Will the same rules and consequences that I used with fifth graders
work with second graders? How should I adjust my methods to
match a second grader’s understanding and maturity level?
!
I worry that when applying my state’s standards, I end up teaching
to a relatively superficial level of understanding. I want to take my
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
students beyond rote memorization. How can I teach complex concepts, elevating my students into higher order thinking?
!
I know from when I was a student that not all students learn the
same way. But now that I am a teacher, how can I adjust my lesson
planning to reach all of my students?
!
How should I alter my instruction to accommodate my students with
learning disabilities without negatively impacting the whole class?
!
One of my students is homeless and seems to come to school hungry and
sleepy every day. These problems are clearly interfering with his ability
to learn. How might I help him? Is it my responsibility to help him?
With the acknowledgement that we will barely scratch the surface of all
that it is known about learning theory, we have selected four sets of concepts to discuss in further detail:
1. Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain
2. Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles
3. Memory Theory
4. Cognitive development
A brief preview of these ideas is shown in Table 1.2.1 on the following
page.
Learning Theory
A solid appreciation of learning theory will help you to answer these
questions. It will give you insight into (and a model for thinking about)
what is happening in your students’ minds and how you can adjust your
instruction to match your students’ mental processes. The study of learning theory consists of a huge body of knowledge—about how our brains
receive, organize, process, and remember information—that will be severely curtailed and summarized here. This is complex stuff—and our goal is
to give you a functional, working overview of the known and accepted
theories that will prove most useful for new teachers.
Bloom’s Taxonomy of the Cognitive Domain
As you may recall from an undergraduate psychology course, Benjamin
Bloom and his colleagues developed a classification hierarchy in the 1950s
for types of knowledge, cognitive processes and skills. Bloom’s Taxonomy
has had a profound effect on educators, since it provides a mental model
for thinking about the relative difficulty of different objectives that students are expected to master.
Bloom’s hierarchy is based on six levels of cognition that increase in
difficulty and complexity, from basic knowledge of a specific fact (which
is the first or lowest level) to evaluative judgment of some concept or
knowledge (which is the sixth or highest level).
Table 1.2.2, on page 181, lists and explains the six levels of cognitive
understanding and provides examples for each level.
Each of the three sets of examples above illustrate how a teacher can
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
161
TABLE 1.2.1: Overview of Selected Learning Theory Topics
Concept
What It Is?
Relevant Questions
Bloom’s Taxonomy
A scaffold for thinking
about the increasingly
demanding levels of
learning that you may
expect from your
students
!
How demanding are
my objectives?
!
Do I teach students
to memorize the
Pythagorean Theorem
the same way I teach
them to prove it?
Frameworks for thinking
about how we all think
and learn differently
!
Should I make a visual
aid for this lesson?
!
Does it matter if my
students are seated
the entire period most
days?
What we know about
how our brains collect
and store information
!
How can I maximize
my students’ memory
of material?
!
Why did my students
forget everything we
studied yesterday?
!
Will all students the
same age have the
same abilities?
!
Why do none of my
students seem ready
for these concepts?
Supplement 1.2
Multiple Intelligences
& Learning Modalities
Memory Theory
Cognitive Development
The idea that a child
builds structures for
understanding while
responding to his/her
environment; these
structures increase in
sophistication as the
child matures.
address the same content with varying degrees of mental rigor, each objective requiring more rigorous thought by students as the objectives climb
the ladder of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
Bloom’s Taxonomy has withstood the test of time—it has proven to be
remarkably resilient, versatile and uncontested. (An interesting debate
among learning theorists has persisted, however, as to whether the order
of “synthesis” and “evaluation” should be switched on the grounds that
evaluation may be less difficult to accomplish than synthesis.) Without
question, Bloom’s Taxonomy gives teachers a useful vocabulary for discussing their learning objectives and instructional intentions. More specifically, Bloom’s Taxonomy serves teachers by:
!
162
Helping them push students toward higher-order thinking
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
!
Providing them insight into how to logically sequence objectives in a
way that will chronologically build on prior knowledge and skills
!
Revealing the best ways to teach a given objective
Let’s examine each of these benefits more thoroughly.
Pushing Students Toward Higher-Order Thinking
Bloom’s Taxonomy gives us an invaluable gauge for determining the
TABLE 1.2.2: Definition & Examples of Each Level of Cognitive
Understanding
Level & Associated
Performances
Definition
(1) Knowledge—
write, list, label,
name, state, define
Restating information the
way it was taught
(2) Comprehension—
explain, summarize,
paraphrase, describe,
illustrate
Interpreting and translating
concepts and ideas from
someone else’s definition
into your own
Discuss the uses of the
Pythagorean Theorem
(3) Application—
use, compute, solve
demonstrate, apply,
construct
Applying definitions, formulas, principles to real world
problems
Use the Pythagorean
Theorem to figure out a distance from one spot in the
parking lot to another
(4) Analysis—
analyze, categorize,
compare, contrast,
separate
Breaking complex information into component parts
and seeing how those parts
are interrelated
Analyze the Pythagorean
Theorem’s applicability to
non-right-triangles and
explain why it does not apply
(5) Synthesis—
create, design,
hypothesize, invent,
develop
Building a more complex
result from a set of components
Design a lesson plan that
incorporates each of Bloom’s
levels of cognitive understanding to prove the
Pythagorean Theorem
(6) Evaluation—
judge, recommend,
critique, justify
Judging something against
a standard of quality
Evaluate and critique
Pythagoras’ original proof
of the theorem
State the Pythagorean
Theorem
Knowing information in a
merely rote-learned way
Generalizing and using
abstract information in
concrete situations
Learning Theory
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
Example
The SWBAT...
163
rigor of the learning objectives that we have for our students. Its application takes the amorphous goal of higher-order thinking and makes its
attainment tangible, logical and concrete.
Supplement 1.2
Why is higher-order thinking so important?
!
Students have a more lasting memory of what they have learned if
they engage with the subject matter at the higher levels (analysis,
synthesis, and evaluation). Unfortunately, studies indicate that most
teachers’ assessments continue to test at the lower levels of the taxonomy (mainly knowledge and comprehension).
!
The cognitive skills required to operate at a high level of knowledge
are the most transferable and applicable to other areas. For example,
a student who can identify the author of a poem (at the lowest
knowledge level) does not have the transferable benefits that he or
she would develop during the process of judging or critiquing that
poem (at the evaluation level).
!
Lower-level objectives have little use in the real world. A student
may be able to define the important elements of a good speech,
but that’s not the same as being able to give one. (Lower level
objectives, however, cannot be ignored. Solid instruction will require
students to think and perform on the full spectrum of levels of
the taxonomy.)
Logically Sequencing Objectives
A student who does not know the definition of a right triangle (knowledge level) cannot complete a proof of the Pythagorean Theorem (synthesis level). Thus, in a very tangible way, Bloom’s Taxonomy will help you
shape and direct the order of your instruction. Given that each level of
Bloom’s hierarchy builds on the next, we are provided with a step-by-step
model for designing lessons. Within a self-contained lesson and gradually
over time, purposeful teachers will push their students up Bloom’s ladder.
It is essential that every teacher work this goal into his or her instruction.
A teacher cannot spend an entire year focusing on lower-level activities,
and justify it by assuming that their students’ next teacher will elevate
them to the next level. All levels must be incorporated into each teacher’s
instruction if students are to make significant achievement gains (although
by necessity, early elementary teachers may focus more on lower level
skills).
Insight into How to Teach a Given Objective
Bloom’s hierarchy helps teachers to recognize that different levels of
cognition lend themselves to different forms of teaching. Bloom’s
Taxonomy is an invaluable tool for a teacher because it provides a set of
options so that he or she can select an appropriately rigorous objective and
assist the teacher in thinking about how to best design a lesson. Perhaps,
for example, a teacher is given the following objective by her district curriculum: “The student will be able to construct a five-sentence paragraph
164
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
with a topic sentence and a summation sentence.” The verb “construct”
immediately tells the teacher that her students’ ability to define a paragraph, or a topic sentence, is not enough. In fact, even her students’ ability
to describe in detail how to write a five-sentence paragraph is not enough.
The teacher’s students are expected to actually apply what they know to
create a paragraph themselves, (a synthesis-level demonstration of knowledge).
Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles
A second realm of learning theory that is particularly helpful to new
teachers involves frameworks for thinking about the different ways that
individuals best receive new knowledge.
The two closely related concepts of “multiple intelligences” and “learning modalities” give you a vocabulary for considering students’ optimal
learning styles. If a teacher appreciates the factors that affect a students’
mental receptivity, the teacher can be sure to maximize the impact of a lesson by delivering new knowledge in specifically targeted ways.
Those original seven “intelligences” are linguistic, logical-mathematical, spatial, musical, bodily-kinesthetic, intrapersonal, and interpersonal.
The basic idea—that there is not just one type of intelligence—has significantly influenced education. This notion that each student has a unique
combination of strengths and weaknesses, and that teachers can capitalize
on those diverse strengths to enhance learning, underlies the strong push
for teachers to differentiate instruction to meet the varied academic needs
of their students. (We discuss differentiated instruction in great detail in
Chapter 4).
Learning Theory
In the early 1980s, Harvard researcher Howard Gardner made a landmark impression by asserting that the concept of “intelligence” is actually
a conglomeration of a number of different intellectual aptitudes. Gardner
proposed that there are actually seven intelligences, and that each of us
possesses some combination of relative strength in each of the categories.
This idea countered traditional measures of intelligence (IQ tests, etc.) that
focused primarily on the linguistic and logical modes of thought and processing.
Table 1.2.3 provides a more detailed look at Gardner’s seven “intelligences” and includes a list of instructional methods that are most compatible with each type of intelligence:
Your students will possess all of these different learning intelligences in
uniquely varying degrees. This, of course, complicates (and clarifies) your
task as a teacher. While you clearly cannot teach in just one way, you can
determine the most effective means to reach different children.
Learning styles (or “modalities”) are closely related to multiple intelligence theory. An appreciation of learning styles will help you to identify
the ways individual students learn best. Knowingly or not, teachers “package” their instructional information. The form in which information is packaged and presented substantially impacts learning. Since students learn and
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
165
TABLE 1.2.3: Gardner’s Seven Intelligences
Intelligences
Linguistic Intelligence
(includes phonology,
syntax, semantics,
language pragmatics)
Description of Person
With this Strength
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
Supplement 1.2
Logical-Mathematical
Intelligence
!
!
!
!
!
Spatial
Intelligence
!
!
!
!
!
Has sensitivity to the meaning and order of words and
the varied uses of language
Most Effective Instruction
!
Lectures
!
Word games
!
Storytelling
!
Debates
Enjoys reading and writing
!
Speech
Has good memory
!
Spells words easily and
accurately
!
Has highly developed
auditory skills
Uses language fluently
(Probably the most universal
of the intelligences)
Has ability to handle long
chains of reasoning and to
recognize patterns and order
in the world
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
Bodily-Kinesthetic
Intelligence
!
!
166
Sequencing patterns and
relationships
!
Likes to problem solve and
reason logically
!
Solving problems
!
Calculating mathematically
Follows sequential, logical
directions
!
Predicting
!
Questioning
Uses experiments to test
things out
!
Categorizing
!
Pictures
!
Slides
!
Reads maps, charts, and
diagrams
Diagrams
!
Posters
Thinks with images and
pictures
!
Graphics
!
Movies
Has ability to perceive the
visual world accurately
Enjoys artactivities
Does jigsaw puzzles
Has sensitivity to pitch,
melody, and tone
Is sensitive to sounds in his
or her environment
Enjoys music
Listens to music when
studying and/or reading
!
Outlining
Mind maps
Colors to represent words
or letters
!
Chants
!
Clapping
!
!
Poetry
Music that matches the
curriculum
!
Moving rhythmically
!
Manipulatives
!
Games
Taps or hums rhythms
Has fine-tuned ability to use
the body and to handle objects
Processes information
through body sensations
!
Requires hands-on learning
!
Moves and acts things out
!
Making charts, graphs,
and lists
Explores patterns and
relationships
!
Musical Intelligence
Reading aloud
Reading, writing, spelling &
listening exercises
Uses body in unique and
skilled ways and is often
well coordinated
!
Simulations
!
Laboratory experiments
!
Movement
!
Hands-on activities
!
Action-packed stories
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
(Table 1.2.3 continued)
Intrapersonal Intelligence
!
!
!
!
Interpersonal Intelligence
!
Has direct access to one’s
own “feeling life”
!
Journals
!
Independent work
Has strong self-awareness
Prefer inner world, to be
alone
May be introverted
Has ability to notice and
make distinctions between
others
!
May be extroverted
!
Focuses on relationships
!
!
Cooperative or collaborative
group learning
Role-plays, dramatizations
retain information differently, your packaging will affect different students
in different ways (inherently assisting some, while hindering others).
Consider the following ways teachers might address the needs of various learners:
Visual Learners—learn best from what they see. These students will
learn most easily from visual tools such as diagrams, photographs,
charts, graphs, and/or maps, and other visually organized tools.
!
Auditory Learners—learn best from hearing spoken words, participating in discussions and explaining things to others. Effective
instructional methods will include lectures, reading aloud, rhythm
and song, tapes, etc. (Although it seems contradictory, some auditory
learners may be easily distracted by noise, meaning quiet time needs
to be prioritized as well.)
!
Tactile Learners—prefer to experience the world through touch.
Many teachers often overlook this learning modality. Examples of
such approaches include the use of experiments, textured manipulatives, tangible, three-dimensional objects, and props.
!
Kinesthetic Learners—learn through experience and movement,
and make the greatest academic gains when they are physically
involved and active in a lesson. To best teach these learners, a
teacher should consider activities such as plays, games, field trips,
and maximize opportunities for movement in the classroom. To
assist these learners, avoid extended seated deskwork without offering breaks.
Learning Theory
!
To better understand the nature of these modalities, think of an activity
like cooking. A skilled chef must employ all of these methods to sufficiently complete the task—she will visually inspect her ingredients, for example, to ensure quality. She will listen to the sounds of her ingredients for
clues as to how her cooking is progressing—a sizzle indicates the pan is
hot enough, a bubbling indicates a heavy boil. She will feel the consistency
of her dough, for example, to assess in a hands-on way if she “got it right.”
And she will mix, blend, pound, shape, and endlessly manipulate her
ingredients to radically alter their ultimate form. Cooking is often considered an ultimate art of creation. Effective learning—the art of creating new
knowledge—must be just as visceral an experience. To engage your stuSUPPLEMENT 1.2
167
dents, you will need to activate their senses so they hear your lessons, see
your lessons, touch your lessons, and physically experience your lessons
(and if you’re very good, they just might smell your lessons as well).
Supplement 1.2
Keep in mind that just because students have strong learning preferences (known or unknown), they rarely learn best in one exclusive modality. Most students can (and must) learn in several different styles. The key
is to avoid relying too heavily on any one style (perhaps the one with
which you are most comfortable), and to go out of your way to simultaneously deliver content in multiple modalities. For example, if you are verbally explaining a process, graphically represent it at the same time (and if
possible, pass out three-dimensional models that students can hold and
touch). All students will benefit from exposure to modalities that may not
be their primary style of learning. Such exposure will help them to internalize a more multi-faceted and nuanced understanding of the material. In
fact, consistently denying them exposure to any of the modalities will limit
their perspectives and capacities, and often result in shallow, superficial
learning.
What about your own preferred learning style? Most of us have a natural tendency to plan lessons that match our own learning modality to the
exclusion of others. If you are a strong visual learner, you will likely
include many visual learning aids in your classroom. While that is great
for your visual learners, it fails to account for all of your students. Thus,
you need to be aware of your own predominant learning style and intelligences so that you can compensate for any over-reliance that occurs.
If you are like most new teachers, the realization that you have to tailor
your teaching to reach such a variety of intelligences and learning styles
can be overwhelming. Although we cannot downplay the hard work that
differentiation of instruction requires (and addressing learning styles is a
major part of differentiated instruction), we can assure that you don’t have
to cater to every learning style at every step of every lesson. Rather, you
should be sure that the most critical points of your lessons—what some
teachers call the “take-home” messages—are presented from several angles
in several formats. Additionally, when you are delivering particularly challenging content, make certain that all students will be presented with the
material in their preferred mode (i.e. try not to ask them to process both
difficult work and an uncomfortable mode of delivery). Furthermore, consciously work to ensure that throughout a unit you include activities that
will effectively engage all types of learners.
Memory Theory
Since teachers have so much riding on their students’ abilities to retain
information, there are specific tips worth covering to help teachers with
these efforts. Your goal is to appreciate the ways that students receive
information so you can maximize their ability to transfer it from shortterm, superficial memory to a deeper, conceptual understanding in longterm memory.
Neurological science describes two types of memory: working memory
168
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
TEACHING TOOL #1.2.1
How to Identify Your Best Learning
Style (for Children)
People learn differently. Some prefer using pictures. Others like working in
groups. How do you learn best? Here are the three major factors making up
your learning style:
1. The three senses – auditory, visual and kinesthetics
2. The two reasoning types – deductive and inductive
3. The two environments – intrapersonal and interpersonal
Check these factors as they apply to different subjects to discover your learning
preferences.
The Two Reasoning Types:
Deductive reasoning
! – I like to look at the big picture first, then get the details.
! – When learning a new game, I like to know all the rules before playing.
! – In an argument, I state my premises first, then draw conclusions.
Inductive reasoning
! – I like to see some examples when first learning a new subject, before
developing an overview.
! – I prefer to learn the rules of a new game “as we go along”
Learning Theory
The Three Senses:
Auditory – listening
! – I prefer to follow verbal instructions rather than written ones.
! – I find it comfortable to add spoken numbers mentally.
Visual – seeing, reading and visualizing
! – I score high on tests that depend on reading comprehension.
! – I can read formulas and understand them.
! – I prefer maps to verbal directions when I am trying to find a place.
Kinesthetics – moving, touching, writing and doing.
! – When I write things down, it clarifies my thoughts.
! – I have to manipulate formulas in order to understand them.
! – I like to draw pictures.
! – I am good at using my hands. I enjoy lab classes.
The Two Learning Environments:
Intrapersonal – working alone.
! – When solving word problems, I have to figure it out for myself.
! – Doing school work with a group often wastes a lot of time.
Interpersonal – working with others.
! – Before making a decision, I usually discuss it with my family or friends.
! – I like to do my homework with others.
What are you best at?
Ideally we are good with each learning style. However what we do best can
depend on our mood, the subject matter, our friends, and the teacher. Our goal is
to monitor our learning effectiveness and to adjust our learning styles for
maximum advantage.
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
169
and long-term memory. “Working memory,” also referred to as “shortterm” memory, is the component of memory where new information stays
while it is mentally processed. We can think of this memory as a temporary holding bin for incoming information that stays in working memory
only as long as it is being actively used. “Long-term memory,” on the
other hand, is the final storage component of the memory system that
holds information for some longer period of time—perhaps a day, a week,
a month, a year, or one’s entire lifetime.
Supplement 1.2
Teachers know that given all of the stimuli available to a student’s
mind in class, it is imperative that they work to focus students’ attention
on the “input” that the teacher is trying to “transmit” to the students’
minds—and help the student to block out any and all distractions. Strong
teachers develop an extensive repertoire of techniques for assuring the
deep, long-term internalization of the concepts they are teaching. Although
not all of the following strategies will always apply to all kinds of knowledge, as a general matter, teachers can move information from working
memory to long-term memory through:
!
Varied, Repeated Practice. Repeated rehearsal of information, preferably in a number of different contexts and in a variety of ways, helps
to transfer it to long-term memory. (Foreign language teachers understand this best—they know their students must see, hear, and use a
foreign word multiple times before they internalize it). Your longterm plans should also allow for periodic rehearsal of past objectives.
!
Access Prior Knowledge. Meaningful context is essential. As you plan
instruction, carefully consider what your students already know about
an upcoming topic and contextualize it for them. This will both stimulate their thinking, and help them understand how individual pieces
of a puzzle combine to create a larger theme or concept. (We discuss
this more fully in High-Impact Teaching Strategies in Chapter 5.).
!
Organization & Chunking. We learn and remember a body of new
information more easily when we organize or “chunk” it in some
way. (Think of the way a book is organized into chapters to help
readers begin to break down thematically related information.) You
should encourage your students—through graphic organizers, tables,
lists, etc.—to package information in a logical way. Both the process
and the product of that organizing will help students remember the
new information. By placing disparate bits of information into larger
“chunks” that are organized in meaningful ways, we can remember
them far more easily. For example, take three seconds to try to
remember the 21 letters in each sequence below:
1. HJAUIERYERWHABRBAGFCD
2. GOAT JUMP TENT ASK RED SUM
3. WARRIORS FOUGHT BRAVELY
Clearly, we can remember the 21 letters much more easily when they
are grouped meaningfully. By grouping ideas and creating categories,
students have much less to remember, or at least have an automatic
filing system for the data you want them to process.
170
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
!
Elaboration. By pushing students to go beyond the information actually presented to them by analyzing or critiquing it, students are
more likely to remember it long-term. You can help your students
elaborate on the presented information by asking questions such as
“Why do you think this happens?” “Can you think of some examples
of this concept?” or “What can we conclude from this information?”
Robert Sternberg, a Yale psychologist, recommends having students
process (or “elaborate on”) information in three ways: analytically,
creatively, and practically. His “triarchic theory,” therefore, is a
method for ensuring that students engage with knowledge several
times from several meaningful angles. Consider Sternberg’s table of
examples (Table 1.2.4) detailing three different possible applications
of the concepts in the first column:
!
TABLE 1.2.4: Examples of Triarchic Theory
Concept
Analytical
Processing
Creative
Processing
Practical
Processing
Tom Sawyer
Compare the
personality of Huck
to that of Tom
Write a very short
story with Tom as
a character
Describe how
you could use
Tom’s power of
persuasion
The formula
for distance =
rate x time
Solve a word
problem using
d=r(t)
Create your own
word problem
using d=r(t)
Show how to use
d=r(t) to estimate
driving time from
one city to another
List of factors
that led up to
the U.S. Civil
War
Compare/contrast
the arguments
of supporters and
opponents of
slavery
Write a page in
the journal of a
Confederate or
Union soldier
Discuss the applicability of the lessons
of the Civil War to
countries today,
like Yugoslavia
The main types
of bacteria
Analyze the means
that the immune
system uses to fight
bacterial infection
Name some ways
to cope with the
increasing immunity
bacteria are showing
to antibiotic drugs
Suggest three steps
that one might take
to reduce the
chance of bacterial
infection
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
Learning Theory
Mnemonic Devices. Among the variations of mnemonics are those
that utilize the first letters of easily memorable words as clues for
remembering more difficult words. For example, we might recall a
mnemonic device that our teachers used to teach us the levels of biological taxonomy. Perhaps you remember King Phillip Called On
Five Good Soldiers--intended to help students recall that the classifications of organisms (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus,
and species). Or the use of ROY-G-BIV to help us the color spectrum.
171
Another form of mnemonic device utilizes rhythm, rhyme or song. If
you add rhythm and rhyme to a mnemonic device, it becomes virtually
unforgettable. (“Thirty days hath September, April, June, and
November...“ or “I before E, except after C.”) In fact, most of us learned
the alphabet itself in connection to a song and rhyme. Be creative and
have fun with these. Your students will surprise you with their appreciation (and with their own creativity as they experiment with creating their
own devices).
While they work for mere memorization of lists or rules, the value of
mnemonics tends to stall in the lowest “knowledge level” of Bloom’s
Taxonomy. Thus, while mnemonic devices might be a great place to begin
a student’s encounter with knowledge, they rarely by themselves lead to a
deeper understanding of concepts.
Supplement 1.2
You will want to explicitly teach these various memory strategies. You
should discuss with your students how they are remembering information.
Discuss with them what we know about practice, organization, and elaboration so that they can begin to self-reflect on their own process. Encourage
them to experiment with various strategies to see which ones are most
effective for them.
Cognitive Development Theory
The previous three concepts (Bloom’s, Multiple Intelligences &
Learning Styles, and Memory Theory) gave you a sense of how students
understand, learn, and remember. Cognitive development theory will give
you a sense of how students’ understanding, learning, and memory develop and change as students grow older. Cognitive development theory is a
set of models by which we segment and categorize the characteristics of
students at different stages in their development. Some familiarity with
cognitive development is important to you as a teacher making instructional and management decisions.
Again, we will provide only the briefest overview of children’s cognitive, physical and social development. The core notion of cognitive development is that children develop skills and abilities in more or less predictable sequences. While not all children develop at the same rate, they do
all pass through common phases of cognitive, physical and social development.
Some important background (adapted from Jeanne Ormrod’s (2002)
Educational Psychology: Developing Learners):
172
!
At different ages, children think in different ways. Generally speaking, children become increasingly capable of handling more complex
and abstract ideas. For example, younger children may have difficulty interpreting figurative language. And, over the course of adolescence, students can generally handle more and more sophisticated
problem solving.
!
Children actively construct their knowledge. Children are not passive
receivers of perceptions and ideas, but instead are active participants
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
in the creation of their knowledge. That is, as information is received,
children are immediately processing it—putting it into categories,
making connections, asking questions, etc. This idea counsels teachers
to give students as many opportunities as possible to experience new
events and explore unfamiliar objects and situations.
A child’s cognitive development builds on prior knowledge. Very little,
if any, knowledge is actually written on a “blank slate.” New knowledge must be built on prior knowledge. This concept reminds us to do
all we can to build that prior knowledge. We must expose our students
to a vast array of experiences and ideas, as those experiences and ideas
will serve as foundations for more experiences and ideas.
!
Challenging student thought promotes cognitive development.
Pushing the rigor of students’ cognitive experiences affects students’
general cognitive development. This idea encourages us as teachers to
know our students’ cognitive comfort zone and to teach just beyond
that comfort zone. (Be vigilant that your efforts to “challenge” aren’t
overwhelming or frustrating your students.)
!
Healthy social interactions also promote cognitive development. Students
must have many opportunities to share their ideas, perspectives, and
beliefs with peers and adults. All children—from elementary through
secondary school—need social interactions to grow and develop.
We will now offer some insights about the cognitive development of
students in different grade levels. We must begin with the obvious disclaimer that these lists of characteristics are merely generalizations. It is
impossible to say with any certainty that all ten-year olds have any particular characteristic, other than being ten years old. It is difficult if not
impossible to define an eight-year old as “average” or “normal.” And yet,
knowing what is “typical” is helpful to a teacher who is designing a classroom for academic achievement. A whole range of factors including developmental differences, environmental differences, and children’s personalities can have a significant effect on whether a student meets the generic list
of characteristics for his or her age. A teacher should, therefore, expect
exceptions to the generalizations listed below.
Learning Theory
!
Primary Grades (K-3)
These children are experiencing rapid conceptual and language development as they learn to read and write. In terms of their cognitive development,
they tend to be literalists, still developing the ability to think abstractly. As a
result, concrete ideas and objects are most appreciated and understood.
In terms of physical development, there is wide variation, even within
the same grade. They are rapidly refining gross motor skills and more
slowly refining their fine motor skills. (In younger grades, girls are often
ahead of boys in fine motor skills and language.) Children between the
ages of five and nine may have high amounts of energy (relative to most of
the rest of us), which may translate into a short attention span.
Socially, these children are developing independence. They are also
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
173
developing gender identity. Play, in its many forms, is highly significant
for these younger children. Generally speaking, much of children’s social
energy is focused on pleasing adults.
Of course, there are important changes going on in the minds of children from kindergarten to third grade. At some point, students develop
the ability to see situations from others’ perspectives, a task that is often
difficult for kindergarten and first graders. Logical thinking becomes more
and more attainable during these primary school years.
So what are the implications of these patterns for teachers in those
grades? Some of the implications for teachers of primary grades are
shown in Table 1.2.5.
Supplement 1.2
TABLE 1.2.5: Implications of Development for
Teachers of Primary Grades
174
Cognitive Development
The teacher should:
Physical Development
The teacher should:
Socio-emotional
Development
The teacher should:
Use concrete examples
! Make directions explicit
and precise
! Provide ample
practice with language
! Use lots of modeling
! Attach language
symbols to concrete
experience
! Plan lessons that are
sensitive to activity
levels and attention
spans
! Always have concrete
references for abstract
concepts, including
rules (abstract rules
may have little meaning when Tommy
discovers that Sharon
has his toy)
! Implant lots of language in all activities
! Provide opportunity
for student
interactions
! Encourage student
initiatives
! Make use of songs,
puppets, and art work
!
Limit activities in
which students
compete on the basis
of size and physical
strength
! Provide playareas
and equipment for
running, climbing,
and jumping
! Involve students in
activities like coloring
and cutting
! Provide “cool down”
time after playground
activities
! Be aware of helping
students grip pencil
correctly; focus on
handwriting instruction
!
!
Encourage and
reinforce independence and initiative
! Avoid sex role
stereotyping
! Provide opportunities
for cooperative
activities
! Arrange lessons to
ensure high degree of
student success
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
TABLE 1.2.6: Implications of Development for
Teachers of Upper Elementary Grades
Cognitive Development
The teacher should:
Physical Development
The teacher should:
Socio-emotional
Development
The teacher should:
Provide a wide
variety of concrete
experiences for initial
learning (graphing,
using objects to learn
adjectives, etc.)
! Involve students in
activities that allow
conversations about
abstract concepts and
operations
! Continue to use
concrete manipulatives
where appropriate
!
Promote appropriate
eating habits and
encourage and model
fitness
! Encourage and model
physical activity and
team athletics
! Be aware of the social
implications of appearance, offering reassurance to students feeling uncom-fortable
!
!
Create learning
experiences that lead
to success through
work and effort
The transition to upper elementary school (which some might say
occurs at third grade) is marked by the enhanced ability to perform logical
operations with concrete materials (such as math manipulatives). In the
later elementary grades, children begin using abstract concepts more often
and adeptly but still do so rarely (through rudimentary algebra, for example). Meanwhile, children’s communication skills, both verbal and written,
are rapidly improving. Teachers report that during the third, fourth, and
fifth grade differences in cognitive styles (including learning disabilities)
become more pronounced and recognizable.
Learning Theory
Upper Elementary (Grades 3-6)
Upper elementary students experience slow and steady physical growth
and become increasingly concerned with physical looks, coinciding with
their social inclinations to start looking to peers as the key locus of influence instead of adults. Sometime toward the end of intermediate grades,
some students (more often girls at this age) experience “growth spurts”
with the onset of puberty. Physical fitness is a key issue at this age.
Issues of status (both socially and academically) increasingly dominate
the social lives of upper elementary students. These students are developing a sense of academic self-worth that will usually stick with the child
through later schooling.
Table 1.2.6 contains implications for teachers of upper elementary classes.
Junior High School/Middle School (Grades 7-9)
Students’ cognitive skills are experiencing qualitative changes as they
become fully able to think abstractly, systematically, hypothetically, and
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
175
TABLE 1.2.7: Implications of Development for
Teachers of Junior High Students
Cognitive Development
The teacher should:
Physical Development
The teacher should:
Socio-emotional
Development
The teacher should:
Provide extensive
opportunities for
abstract thinking,
including consideration of moral
dilemmas
! Recognize that not all
junior high students
have fully developed
abstract reasoning
skills
! Recognize students
may be inclined to
challenge authority
with their newfound
skepticism of the
world
! Be aware of and
capitalize on students’
fascination with the
“gray areas” of life
(for example, that
American history is
littered with morally
questionable episodes)
!
Minimize activities
that draw attention to
different levels of
maturity
! Promote appropriate
eating habits and
model and encourage
fitness
!
Supplement 1.2
!
Listen and help
students clarify their
thinking as they go
through the potential
turmoil of identity
formation
! Create classroom
systems to provide the
security of structure
while providing the
freedom for personal
expression
! Create classroom
activities that do not
necessarily require
students to “stick out”
! Be particularly careful
not to humiliate
students or draw
unwanted attention
to them
deductively. They are experiencing significant growth spurts and showing
dramatic differences in physical maturation during puberty.
Seventh, eighth, and ninth graders are also experiencing deepening
social relationships as they form, and experiment with, personal identity
and preferences in dress and appearance. Adolescents continue to look to
peers as the key influence in their lives, and mutuality and loyalty of
friendships increase. Students group themselves in same-sex friend
groups, and some more intimate one-on-one relationships begin to form.
Above all, students are concerned with “fitting in.” Some implications are
shown in Table 1.2.7 for teachers of junior high school students.
High School Students (Grades 10-12)
During the last few years of high school, students are generally demonstrating full, adult, abstract reasoning. Most students have reached full
physical maturity as well. Students continue to focus on the importance of
peer relationships, with male and female cliques interacting with each
176
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
other, and students show an increasing interest in individual, intimate
relationships. Adolescent peer groups during these years tend to be highly
correlated with socio-economic status and plans for the future. Sadly, adolescence can be an emotional and psychological roller coaster for some,
and psychiatric disorders, while rare, become more prominent (i.e. eating
disorders, schizophrenia, and depression). Table 1.2.8 contains some implications for teachers of high school students.
Cognitive development’s insights give us one more set of factors to
consider as we plan instruction and develop classroom management systems. Underlying all of these issues surrounding the question of how children learn is the fundamental and simple fact that children have important
physiological and psychological needs that are prerequisites to successful
learning. How can a first-grader who is hungry really focus on phonemic
mastery? How can a student who did not sleep the night before get the
most out of her independent reading time?
The Wellness and Learning Connection
We will address both issues that teachers might face with students of
TABLE 1.2.8: Implications of Development for
Teachers of High School Students
Cognitive Development
The teacher should:
Physical Development
The teacher should:
Socio-emotional
Development
The teacher should:
Without giving up
more concrete instructional tools such as
charts, illustrations,
graphs, and
diagrams
! Move students toward
higher-order thinking
whenever possible by
encouraging them to
explain how they
solve problems
!
Send messages about
healthy body images
! Learn to recognize and
how to seek help for
common adolescent
health concerns
!
!
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
Learning Theory
Intense learning (the kind that translates into closing the achievement
gap for our students) first requires the fulfillment of a whole range of basic
needs—such as nutrition, fitness, sleep, health, and security. In the underresourced communities where you will be teaching, these basic prerequisites to learning can represent a formidable hurdle. You will most certainly
encounter students for whom some basic physiological or psychological
need is interfering with their learning. One of the many profoundly difficult aspects of being a teacher in a high-need classroom is deciding when
and how to address the meeting of those basic needs.
Be acutely aware
of social pressures
and anxieties among
students
! Attempt to ease anxiety about the future by
offering assistance
about career choices
and options for higher
education
177
any age—malnutrition, sleep deprivation, and illness, as well as several
health-related issues that are of particular concern for adolescents. We
have included information on the prevention techniques, potential warning signs and steps or resources for handling each situation. In providing
this material, we hope to make you more comfortable if you encounter any
of these situations, and better prepared to deal with them when you do.
Nutrition
Supplement 1.2
Researchers have repeatedly found a direct connection between nutrition and academic performance. Skipping breakfast has a negative effect
on cognitive performance, even among healthy, well-nourished children.
In a recent New York study, many students experienced malnutrition that
was too slight for clinical signs yet still affected their intelligence and academic performance. Still another showed that iron deficiency anemia leads
to shortened attention span, irritability, fatigue, and difficulty with concentration.
Even moderate under-nutrition can have lasting effects and compromise cognitive development and school performance. It is well established
that children who suffer from poor nutrition during the brain’s formative
years score much lower on tests of vocabulary, reading comprehension,
arithmetic, and general knowledge.
As new teachers in under-resourced schools quickly discover, the incidence of malnutrition and hunger in this country is astonishingly high. A
category called “Food insecure households”—where members take in
enough calories, but have diets of reduced quality that fail to meet daily
nutritional requirements—occurs most often in the central city households
where many of you will be teaching.
There are numerous signs that could lead a teacher to suspect that malnutrition may be a concern. You should look for:
!
Undesirable weight loss
!
Fatigue
!
Headaches
!
Irritability
!
Inability to concentrate
!
Frequent colds
Hungry children are less likely to interact with other people (including
their peers) or explore or learn from their surroundings. The most obvious
sign of hunger may be students’ absence given that hungry children are
more likely to be ill and absent from school than their better fed peers.
Most schools do have breakfast programs. You may find that you need
to take extra steps to ensure that your students are accessing the programs,
whether that means talking to parents or bringing that food into your
classroom each morning. Research shows that eating breakfast increases
composite math and reading scores, improves student behavior, reduces
178
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
morning trips to the nurse, and increases student attendance and test
scores; thus, your efforts will be well justified. Whether or not you choose
to take this a step further by providing supplemental food for your students is a conscious decision you will likely have to make. Such an endeavor may be a major logistical, emotional and financial investment that you
may or may not be willing or able to make.
Should you choose to provide food for your students, be aware that
other teachers may try to talk you out of it for various reasons—ranging
from their own feelings of inadequacy about not doing the same or out of
a sincere concern for your ability to equitably and consistently help. They
may also have simply come to a personal conclusion that it is inappropriate to provide this type of assistance; as we have said, you will have to
make your own decision about the role you feel comfortable playing in
feeding your students.
While the opportunities may be fewer, nutrition should
also be emphasized with secondary students. You may want
to integrate nutrition lessons into courses like biology or
health. The US Department of Agriculture’s website
(http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/Fpyr/ pyramid. html)
includes a number of lesson plans that may be useful for
secondary students. Students can do research projects on nutrition
(or malnutrition) and what it takes to eat well. For additional resources see
Teaching Tool 1.2.2.
Learning Theory
Without doubt, any food you provide should be healthy. Consider banning junk food from your classroom, and at the least, avoid the use of junk
food as an incentive in classroom lessons. Seize the opportunity to introduce your students to healthier snacks like fresh fruit and vegetables (a big
bag of pre-cut carrots can go a long way), raisins, nuts, seeds, etc.
Whenever possible, you should share the importance of good nutrition,
making connections for your students between a healthy body and a
healthy mind.
Physical Fitness
Physical fitness is also a real concern for teachers who want to help
their students succeed academically. Recent studies show that providing
increased physical activity improves test scores even if class time is
reduced as a consequence. One doesn’t have to be a doctor to recognize
when a student is physically inactive. Troublingly, fewer schools are offering recess and gym class to encourage fitness. According to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention, only 29 percent of students attended daily
physical education classes in 1999, compared with 42 percent in 1991.
Nearly half of young people between the ages of 12 and 21 do not engage
in any physical activity on a regular basis.
The signs of a lack of physical fitness include:
!
!
Obesity (which has reached epidemic proportions amongst certain
demographic groups of young Americans)
Shortness of breath with minimal exertion
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
179
TEACHING TOOL #1.2.2
Supplement 1.2
Nutrition, Health, and Fitness
Related Internet Resources
180
Resource
Source
Description
Inside the
Teenage Brain
PBS
It’s the mystery of mysteries—especially to
parents—the unpredictable and sometimes
incomprehensible moods and behaviors of
the American teenager.
Visit: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/ frontline/shows/teenbrain
Using the Food
Guide Pyramid:
A Resource for
Nutrition
Educators
U.S. Dept. of
Agriculture
This publication provides information to
assist nutrition educators in helping their
audiences use the Food Guide Pyramid to
plan and prepare foods for a healthy diet.
Visit: http://www.usda.gov/cnpp/ 960201.pdf
Curriculum
Technology
Newsletter
ASCD,
Spring 2002
Contains various articles on how Physical
and Health Education practices need to
change in an era of advanced technology
and offers viable solutions for the future.
Email: pkarwasi@ascd.org
Educational
Leadership:
Column, Feast
or Famine
ASCD,
March 2002
Seriously disordered eating is often difficult
to identify, but teachers can be vigilant for
certain signs.
Email: pkarwasi@ascd.org
Good Food and
Play Make a
Balanced Day
Mat-Su Borough
School District
Oct. 2002
Good Food and Play Make a Balanced Day
is an interactive, multi-media CD that is
designed to provide nutrition education to
students in grades 2-6. Using narrative,
photos, video, games and quizzes, the CD
teaches the basics of good nutrition based
on the USDA Food Guide Pyramid including sections on healthy lunches, breakfasts,
snacks, as well as physical activity.
Available as a CD-ROM; $2.00 per copy
Call Linda Stoll at 907-376-5381
Email: lstoll@msb.mat-su.k12.ak.us
NASBE Safe and
Healthy Schools
Website
National Assoc.
of State Boards
of Education
(NASBE)
The home page of the NASBE Safe and
Healthy Schools project orients the user to
the full range of project activities and many
free resources, including sample school
health policies on various topics. School
health publications can be ordered from
NASBE.
Visit: http://www.nasbe.org/Healthy
Schools/index.mgi
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
(Teaching Tool #1.2.2 continued)
National Dairy
Council, published once a
year in January
This catalog carries materials for schools,
health and education professionals, and
School Foodservice professionals including
posters, kits, brochures and nutrition education programs. Catalogs are mailed out
annually or can be viewed online. Contact
your local dairy council to receive a catalog.
To locate the local Dairy Council nearest
you call 800-426-8271.
Visit: http://www.nutritionexplorations.org
Nutrition
Explorations
Website
Dairy Council,
updated on a
monthly basis
This website provides nutrition resources
for educators, school foodservice professionals, parents and kids. You’ll find lesson
plans, activities, research, and fun interactive games that make teaching and learning
about nutrition fun and easy.
Visit: http://www.nutritionexplorations.org
Pyramid Café
and Pyramid
Explorations
National Dairy
Council, published in 1998
Pyramid Café is a hands-on program for
teaching primary grade students good eating habits, sound nutrition and the Food
Guide Pyramid. Pyramid Explorations uses
a six-act play to teach intermediate grade
students about the Food Guide Pyramid
and the importance of healthy eating. Order
kits through your local dairy council. To
locate the local Dairy Council nearest you,
Call: 800-426-8271
School Health
Resource Center
Univ. of Colorado
Health Sciences
Center
A large number of school health program
resources are available at this website.
Visit: http://www.uchsc.edu/school
health
SyberShop…
digital solutions
for eating healthy
and being active
NC Cooperative
Extension
Service &
Physical Activity
and Nutrition
Unit, NC Division
of Public Health
SyberShop is a CD for youth ages 13-19
focusing on physical activity and healthy
eating. The CD can be used individually, in
the classroom as a supplemental teaching
tool, or with any group of teenagers gathered together interested in learning about
physical activity and healthy eating.
Available as a CD-ROM; $30 per copy.
Email: Carolyn_Dunn@ncsu.edu
Team Nutrition
Website
U.S. Dept. of
Agriculture,
Food & Nutrition
Service
This website has materials that can be
ordered (often for free) or downloaded for
schools, teachers, parents, students,
school foodservice professionals and community groups. Materials included: nutrition
education posters, pamphlets, booklets,
curriculum kits, and tool kit. Many of the
materials are free and some are available
at cost from the National Food Service
Management Institute. In addition, many
materials can be downloaded for immediate
use. Visit:http://www.fns.usda.gov/tn
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
Learning Theory
Nutrition
Education
Materials
Catalog
181
Supplement 1.2
(Teaching Tool #1.2.2 continued)
182
Using the Food
Guide Pyramid:
A Resource for
Nutrition
Educators
U.S. Dept. of
Agriculture
This publication provides information to
assist nutrition educators in helping their
audiences use the Food Guide Pyramid to
plan and prepare foods for a healthy diet.
Visit: http://www.usda.gov/cnpp/
960201.pdf
PE Central
PE Central
The premier website for health and physical
education teachers, parents, and students.
Its goal is to provide the latest information
about developmentally appropriate physical
education programs for children.
Visit:http://www.pecentral.org
Public Attitudes
Toward Physical
Education:
Are Schools
Providing What
the Public
Wants?
National
Association for
Sport and
Physical
Education
Report on a survey of adults and teens to
better understand their beliefs about physical
education, physical activity and nutrition.
Visit:http://www.aahperd.org/naspe/
pdf_files/whatsnew-survey.pdf
Shape of the
Nation report
National
Association for
Sport and
Physical
Education, 2001
Through this report, NASPE brings attention to the importance of quality, daily physical education programs for all school age
children by providing information about the
current status of physical education in each
state. Call: 800-321-0789
Visit:http://www.aahperd.org/naspe/
pdf_files/shape_nation.pdf
Federal
Resources for
Educational
Excellence
U.S. Dept of
Education
A one-stop website for hundreds of federally
supported teaching and learning resources
from more than thirty Federal agencies.
Visit:http://www.ed.gov/free
BAM! Website
Centers for
Disease Control
and Prevention
BAM! (Body and Mind) was created to
answer kids’ questions on health issues
and recommend ways to make their bodies
and minds healthier, stronger and safer.
BAM! also serves as an aid to teachers,
providing them with educational and fun
interactive activities to support their health
and science curricula.
Visit:http://www.bam.gov
Community
Mobilization
Guide
National Heart,
Lung, and Blood
Institute and
National
Recreation and
Park Association
This community mobilization guide assists
program planners at the community level
with implementing a Hearts N’ Parks program. The guide is designed to help local
community, park, and recreation agencies
promote heart-healthy lifestyle changes
such as increased physical activity and
heart-healthy eating among children and
adults.
Visit: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/prof/
heart/obesity/hrt_n_pk/hnp_resg.htm
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
(Teaching Tool #1.2.2 continued)
Centers for
Disease Control
and Prevention
Website full of information, events,
resources, and links to encourage activity
among our youth.
Visit: http://www.cdc.gov/kidsmedia/
Guide to Healthy
Eating for Kids:
How Your
Children Can
Eat Smart
American
Dietetic
Association,
Sept. 2002
A resource developed for parents to teach
healthy eating to children ages 5-12.
Available as a Book; $14.95 for members
and non-members.
Call 800-877-1600, ext. 5000
If Your Child Is
Overweight: A
Guide For
Parents
American
Dietetic
Association
(ADA)
A resource for parents with overweight children ages 6-12. Available as a Booklet; $10
for non-members; $7.50 for members.
Call 800-877-1600, ext. 5000
Kidnetic.com
Website
International
Food Information
Council
Foundation
Kidnetic.com is an innovative, interactive
educational website that delivers healthy
eating and physical activity information in
a compelling and motivating manner to children ages 9-11 and their families.
Kidnetic.com is intended to encourage kids
and their families to begin the process of
behavior change toward healthy lifestyles.
Visit: http://kidnetic.com/
Kids Eat Great
Website
Christine Wood,
M.D.
A helpful website with resource links,
questions and answers, news and many
other useful tools and information.
Visit: http://www.kidseatgreat.com
KidsHealth
Website
The Nemours
Foundation
KidsHealth is the most visited Website
for medically reviewed health information
that’s written for parents, kids and teens.
It offers a complete reference library of
articles and features, as well as robust
graphics and animations.
Visit: http://www.KidsHealth.org
!
Frequent fatigue
!
Lethargy
Learning Theory
CDC’s Kids
Media:
Encouraging
Physical Activity
Among Youth
and Families
Lack of physical fitness is also associated with lower levels of selfesteem and higher levels of anxiety and stress.
One severe potential manifestation of a lack of physical fitness is obesity. While malnutrition often results from a lack of food, it can also arise
from overeating the wrong types of food. Malnourishment and lack of
physical exercise may therefore manifest itself in obesity. The American
Obesity Association recently found that about 15.5 percent of adolescents
(ages 12 to 19) and 15.3 percent of children (ages 6 to 11) are obese. The
increase in obesity among American youth over the past two decades is at
least two-fold.
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
183
Supplement 1.2
The complications of obesity and a lack of physical fitness are even
more serious than poor body image, exhaustion, social stigmatization and
discrimination in academics and employment. They can include serious
health issues like high blood pressure, heart disease, type II diabetes, high
cholesterol, and orthopedic problems. Most people, especially young students who are constantly bombarded with junk food advertising (and
minority groups are often specifically targeted by marketers), do not realize the gravity of obesity and inactivity in terms of these stark health ramifications.
Do not discount the role you can play in your students’ lives by modeling a healthy lifestyle. If they know you run three miles several times a
week, or practice yoga, or swim laps, they may be inspired to do the same.
You may be the only person they’ve ever met who is a vegetarian, for
example, and the choices you make can and will broaden their horizons.
Many of you may be inspired to start new sports programs at your school,
and your students, who may just like being around you, may be more
motivated to participate because of your presence. By teaching nutrition,
explaining the dangers of obesity (taking care to be sensitive to the feelings
of any overweight students in your class), and highlighting the benefits of
exercise, you can have a significant impact on your students’ awareness
levels.
Sleep
Children need at least nine hours of sleep per night. For a whole host of
reasons, some of your students may not get the sleep they need to stay
alert in your classroom. Younger children may sleep in a room with siblings that keep them up, may not have much parental supervision or an
enforced bedtime, or may simply not have a comfortable place to sleep.
Older students might be in any of those situations, or might have evening
and nighttime jobs that interfere with sleep. Schoolwork itself might be
keeping students awake at night, especially when it is put on top of a full
load of extra-curricular activities. In other cases, single parents or both parents may be working nights, giving older children some nighttime parenting duties.
Moreover, as we all know, a lack of sleep—especially for young children—can lead to irritability, decreased focus, easy frustration, and difficulty controlling impulses and emotions. School performance usually suffers and behavior is likely to worsen.
Teenagers are even more likely to carry sleep deficits despite the fact
that the need for sleep increases during adolescence. Studies have shown
that more total sleep, earlier bedtimes, and later weekday rise times are
associated with less daytime fatigue, an increased ability to concentrate,
less tendency to doze off in class, a less depressed mood, and better
grades.
Since you have likely experienced most of the symptoms of sleep deprivation yourself they will be relatively obvious (most obvious of all will be
the student who is just really sleepy all the time). Other indicators include
184
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
increased irritability, weariness, poor attention span, decreased initiative,
and decreased motivation especially for those activities that require sustained concentration. Memory lapses may also occur. Some students lose
their judgment and decision-making abilities. Others may get frequent
headaches.
What can you do? Encourage students to sleep more, especially before
tests to enhance performance. If you notice signs of sleep deprivation in
your students, ask them about their sleep habits and help them understand
why sleep matters for their health, mood, and academic success. You may
want to send a general flyer about sleep and nutrition home to parents, or
call parents whose children seem particularly at risk. Encourage parents to
enforce bedtimes, even if homework remains unfinished, and advise them
to keep televisions out of children’s rooms (beneficial for a whole host of
reasons beyond the sleep-related ones).
Health
Children often express feelings of frustration, family strife, or emotional distress as physical illness. This can vary but for the most part is
expressed as stomachaches and headaches. If you have any doubt, however, that a condition may be serious, always err on the side of caution and
seek a professional’s diagnosis through the school nurse. Keep in mind
that you see your students as much as their parents and infinitely more
than their physicians, and you therefore may be one of the most likely
adults to observe rapid or gradual changes in physical appearance, mood,
and attitude that might be signs of health problems.
Learning Theory
Students’ health can be a daunting and overwhelming issue for teachers. Especially with younger children, runny noses, upset stomachs, the
flu, lice, ringworm, pinkeye, and chicken pox are relatively common occurrences. Elementary teachers in particular should model and teach good
hygiene. Children should be taught and reminded to wash their hands, use
tissue paper for runny noses, etc. Some teachers, for example, have toothbrushes labeled and ready for students after lunch. Older students may
have more self-awareness about identifying and preventing minor ailments, but teachers may play a vital role in spotting indicators of serious
problems. Of course, you should certainly consult with a health professional if you have any suspicion that serious health problems are arising.
While determining why a student is sick may not be your official role, by
being aware of the environments in which your students live you will get a
better understanding of the risk factors they face. For example, urban children, by virtue of their housing conditions, are at higher risk of both lead
poisoning (resulting from lead-based paint in older houses) and asthma.
Teachers may also be the first adults to recognize signs of mental health
issues in a student. Depression and anxiety are the two most common
mental health issues faced by American children. Up to 5% of grade school
students, and as many as 8% of adolescents suffer from depression.
Recognizing depression in children and adolescents is difficult because it
can present with different signs and symptoms as adult depression.
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
185
TEACHING TOOL #1.2.3
Common Student Health Issues:
Causes, Signs, Impact
Common Cold
Common Causes
Common Signs
Viral illnesses causing inflammation of
the nasal passages
and possibly fever
! Hand washing helps
avoid colds
! Avoid contact with
kids with colds
!
!
!
!
!
Sniffling
Sneezing
May cough
Excess mucus
Impact
!
!
Distracting
Difficult to concentrate
Supplement 1.2
Tips for Handling the Problem
No “cure”
Supportive care: rest, fluids, Tylenol, and Ibuprofen for fevers
Do not use aspirin due to the potential for Reye’s Syndrome
Take to nurse if student has a fever, is coughing up blood, if cold lasts more than
2-3 days, or if student is having trouble breathing
! Colds can easily exacerbate known asthma and may cause the first episode of
“Reactive Airway Disease”
!
!
!
!
Chicken Pox
Common Causes
Common Signs
Impact
Not as common as it
used to be due to
new Varicella vaccine
! Consider getting this
vaccine if you have
not had the chicken
pox. This is a twoshot series and your
health insurance will
likely cover this
! Four percent of kids
who are vaccinated
may develop a mild
form of the disease
!
Red, raised bumps that
begin on the trunk and
spread to extremities
! Frequently accompanied
by fever, nausea, and
general feeling of malaise
!
!
Highly contagious until pox
stop forming and develop
scabs
! Due to 14-day incubation
period, this illness can hit
a school in waves
Tips for Handling the Problem
!
!
Treatment continues to be symptomatic
Some use of antivirals in complicated cases
Pink Eye
Common Causes
!
Multiple causes are
bacterial (50%), viral
(50%), chemical irritant
Common Signs
Impact
Can have associated fever
and discharge
! Spreads from one eye to
the other
!
!
!
Difficulty reading
Painful
Tips for Handling the Problem
!
!
!
186
Very contagious
Spreads from eyes to hands to other eyes
Most kids need to go home until they have begun treatment
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
(Teaching Tool #1.2.3 continued)
Headache
Common Causes
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
Ear infection
Poor vision
Sinus infections
Allergic Rhinitis
Injury
Meningitis
Encephalitis
Dehydration
Depression
Family stress
Life stress
Anxiety
Common Signs
Impact
Difficulty focusing
Pain in head or pounding
sensation
! If nausea or vomiting develops, student should go to
the nurse’s office
! Inability to move neck
or touch chin to chest
(secondary to pain)—these
students should go to the
nurse’s office
!
!
!
!
Difficulty focusing on work
Potentially painful to read
Tips for Handling the Problem
Rest
Fluids
Caffeine can dehydrate but it also helps to alleviate some headaches
Ibuprofen or Tylenol
Change of seat in room
Make room warmer/colder
Regular vision screening
Decrease computer time and allow breaks every 30 minutes
Stomach Ache
(generic description for not feeling well for young children)
Common Causes
Over- or under-eating
Poor diet
Anxiety
Stomach “bug” such
as Rotavirus
! Constipation
! Gallbladder issues
! Appendix
! Injury
! Pregnancy
!
!
!
!
Common Signs
Impact
Frequently going to the
bathroom
! Bellied over
!
!
Distraction
Tips for Handling the Problem
!
!
Learning Theory
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
Hand washing to prevent fecal-oral spread
If accompanied by a fever, vomiting or vaginal bleeding, the student should be sent
to the nurse’s office
Ring Worm
Common Causes
!
!
A fungus (not a worm)
Prevent with hand
washing and washing
of clothes, towels,
and bedding of infected person
Common Signs
Impact
Round lesion on the body
or scalp
! Raised red area—lighter in
center (depending on skin
pigment
! Distinct edge
! Spreads quickly with
scratching
! Begins on arms, legs, then
spreads to rest of body
!
!
Easily spread through
classroom
Tips for Handling the Problem
Very contagious so it must be dealt with immediately (keep an eye out for symptoms
in other students)
! Antifungal topical ointments
! Griseofulvin is the leading oral medication (typically used after failing topical treatment)
!
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
187
(Teaching Tool #1.2.3 continued)
Scabies
Common Causes
!
Contagious infection
of the skin caused by
a parasite
Common Signs
Impact
Burrows in finger webs and
sides of fingers
! Scaling
! Redness
! Blisters
! Marks from scratching
! Constant itching (can
become very severe, but
itching is worse at night)
! Swollen areas in armpits,
groin
!
!
!
!
Spreads easily
Distracting
Social Exclusion
Tips for Handling the Problem
Elimite or other occlusive, antiparasitic lotion applied over entire body and left on
overnight (a prescription medicine)
! All household members and potentially frequent guests need to be treated at the
same time
! Wash all clothes, bed clothes, and towels in hot water
! Treat a second time if mite returns
!
Supplement 1.2
Lice (common in elementary grades)
Common Causes
Common Signs
Impact
Quickly begin tips for
handling situation on
this chart as soon as
one case breaks out
in your class to prevent numerous cases
! Not associated with
general cleanliness
!
Itching of scalp or other hair
covered regions
! Hair loss
! Lice seen on skin
! Eggs found on hair shafts
(appear as white bumps or
growths)
!
!
!
!
Itchy head
Lack of focus
Can spread quickly through
a classroom
Tips for Handling the Problem
!
!
!
!
!
!
Spreads quickly through classes so it must be treated immediately
Spread by close contact (e.g., coat room)
Qwell shampoo
Wash all clothes, etc.
Hair cut to eliminate eggs
Tell parents that there has been an incidence of lice and that coats should be washed
Anorexia (highest prevalence in adolescent women)
Common Causes
Common Signs
Impact
Self-imposed restriction of eating due to
fear of becoming
obese
! Poor self image
! Belief one is fat
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
Over exercising
Peach Fuzz hair (lanugo)
Loss of periods (amenorrhea)
Electrolyte imbalances
Kidney damage
Heart failure
Increased risk of fractures
Poor healing
Food faddism and ritualized
eating
! Withdrawing from peers
!
!
!
Cannot focus due to hunger
May be weak especially
in physical activities
! Can be fatal
Tips for Handling the Problem
!
!
!
!
188
Challenge media stereotypes of beauty = happiness
Extremely hard to treat (need multidisciplinary approach)
Cannot begin re-feeding without caution (concern of metabolic shock)
Frequently requires hospitalization
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
(Teaching Tool #1.2.3 continued)
Bulimia (primarily seen in girls and young women)
Common Causes
Common Signs
Impact
Lack of control over
eating
! Media
!
Excess eating within a two
hour period
! Inappropriate use of vomiting/medicines
! Vomiting 2x a week for at
least 3 months
! Tooth decay
!
!
Little known about long
term consequences of
untreated bulimia nervosa
Tips for Handling the Problem
!
!
Intensive treatment resulted in 60% success rate
Nutritional counseling and psychosocial interventions
Obesity (25-30% of all kids are obese—rates higher in minority populations)
Common Causes
Common Signs
Impact
Two types of obesity
are idiopathic (tall
stature) and endogenous (short stature
and often mentally
impaired with abnormal PE and skeleton
development)
! Less nutritious foods
are cheaper and
more easily accessible to many families
!
High blood pressure sometimes a complication
! Heart disease
! Type II Diabetes (usually
comes later in life)
! High cholesterol
! Orthopedic problems
!
!
Little known about long
term consequences of
untreated bulimia nervosa
!
!
!
!
!
Don’t use food as an incentive
Encourage physical activity through classroom activity
Choose skim milk over whole milk
Avoid by not encouraging kids to “clean their plates”
Avoid pre-prepared foodshed
Asthma
(Note: Almost 5 million school-age children in the U.S. have asthma, a 74% increase from 1980. Asthma accounts
for 14 million lost school days per year (NY Times). More common in urban than in rural areas.)
Common Causes
Common Signs
Inflammation of
the “medium sized
airways”
! Airways react to “triggers” such as perfume, smoke, dust,
and cockroach feces
! Anxiety can make
asthma worse
!
!
!
!
!
!
!
Coughing
Wheezing
Feeling of tightness
Accessory muscle use
Color changes
Loss of consciousness
Impact
Learning Theory
Tips for Handling the Problem
Tired
Out of breath
Difficulty participating in
some physical activities
! Respiratory distress
! Hospitalization with
potential for intubation
!
!
!
Tips for Handling the Problem
Remove the trigger if possible. This is difficult with dust in old hoses, parents who
smoke, and cockroaches
! If students need to use their Albuterol inhalers (Ventolin) more than once a day, they
need to see their doctor to have their medicines adjusted
! The CDC says that each child with asthma should have a written action plan, including details about carrying inhalers, drugs the child needs, and how to treat the child
during an asthma attack
! If a child develops audible wheezing, give two puffs of inhaler and then have the
child go to the nurse’s office
! A spacer is necessary to effectively deliver 80% of the medicine to the lungs—
!
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
189
(Teaching Tool #1.2.3 continued)
without a spacer less than 50% of the medicine reaches the lungs (when used
correctly inhalers with a spacer are as effective as nebulizers)
! Retracting of neck muscles with breathing is a MEDICAL EMERGENCY—CALL 911
! In an emergency; take student to nurse’s office/health center; give albuterol MDI
ASAP; cool patient down and relax him/her; call 911 if wheezing persists after two
courses of albuterol or if color change is present
Supplement 1.2
Instead of being withdrawn and sad, depressed adolescents are often irritable, anxious, and/or angry. They also have an increased rate of other
serious problems such as anxiety, substance abuse and disruptive behavior. Other common signs of depression include drastic changes in peer
groups, increases in incomplete assignments, and changes in eating habits.
One area where your intervention is mandated is child abuse. As a
teacher, you are required by law to report all suspected child abuse and
neglect cases (as are police officers, physicians and registered nurses). You
must report not only your suspicions, but also any statements from a parent, guardian, custodian or other person legally responsible for the child
that, if correct, would indicate that he or she had been abused. If you suspect child abuse and you don't report it, you may be subject to disciplinary
action by your school district; civil liability for all damages inflicted upon
or suffered by the child and caused by your failure to report; and criminal
charges punishable by jail time and or a fine. For more information,
explore some of the following websites:
!
http://www.childhelpusa.org/
!
http://child-abuse.com/
!
http://www.childabuse.org/
!
http://www.ndacan.cornell.edu/
Unfortunately, drugs, teen violence, smoking, unplanned pregnancies,
and eating disorders are just a few of the real risks that young adults face.
If you are teaching these students, you will no doubt share a concern about
these risks. As their teacher (and undeniable role model) you are in a
unique position to influence their decisions and should take full advantage
of that opportunity. You might, for example, present to them statistics
about the following:
!
Future earning power of teen parents versus those who delay parenthood into the twenties
!
Life expectancies of smokers versus non-smokers
!
Risk of gun-related injury to children in a house where a gun is
present
You might consider guest lecturers who have suffered from eating disorders, lung or gum cancer, or gun injury. Assign journal or other writing
assignments to explore with your students the long-term risks of drug use.
You might use historical lessons about inspiring individuals to push stu190
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
dents to think beyond the confines of their own immediate lives. Or consider a unit on persuasive language to deconstruct the subtle and not-sosubtle messages that advertising sends us, and how those messages might
affect body images. Two excellent resources for information about adolescent health follow: The National Institute of Health’s Teen web site:
!
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/teenhealth.html
!
TeensHealth: teenshealth.org
Finally, we must acknowledge the difficult questions these
issues raise about the role of a teacher in considering health-related issues.
In some cases, you may decide to help in the prevention of nutrition, and
poverty and health-related problems that impact your students learning. In
other cases, you may want or need to react to an actual occurrence. Still,
you may decide that you are uncomfortable playing this type of role in
your students’ lives.
If you choose not to personally intervene with a child, be sure that you
refer the case to someone else who will. You cannot assume that there will
be other people in this child’s life who will automatically notice what you
notice.
Conclusions and Key Points
This chapter provided an overview of Learning Theory, which helps us
understand how students learn, and detailed the known theories that will
prove most useful for new teachers. The following key points were emphasized:
!
You will need to customize how you teach to specifically address
how each student learns.
!
Bloom’s Taxonomy provides a mental model for thinking about the
relative difficulty of different objectives that students are expected to
master.
!
Multiple Intelligences and Learning Styles offer frameworks for
thinking about the different ways that individuals best receive new
knowledge.
!
Memory Theory addresses the ways that students receive information, enabling teachers to develop techniques for assuring long-term
internalization of concepts.
!
Cognitive development theory gives you a sense of how students’
SUPPLEMENT 1.2
Learning Theory
Although a teacher is not necessarily responsible for his or her students’ health, a teacher is responsible for student learning. Sometimes, you
will find factors in your students’ lives that impact their ability to learn,
and you—as a teacher concerned with your students’ achievement—must
help find solutions to those problems that are in the way of your students’
success. If a solution seems out of your control, find someone who might
have the control and means to address the issue.
191
understanding, learning, and memory develop and change as
students grow older.
!
Nutrition, poverty and health-related problems can impact your
students’ learning.
Supplement 1.2
If your students are to achieve the dramatic academic gains for which
we ask you to strive, you will find it necessary to support the intellectual,
emotional and physical needs of your students. Children and adolescents
are vibrant, ever-evolving individuals; they will experience changes of
your doing, and changes that are outside of your control. You will find it
counter-productive to ignore these changes, since they will define the realities of your students’ lives. Only by acknowledging and teaching the
whole student, can the life-altering progress to which you aspire be
possible.
192
S U P P L E M E N T 1.2
!
Supplement 1.3
What New General Educators Need to
Know about Special Education
Supplement 1.3
The National Center for Education Studies reports that 6,195,113
children, birth to age 21, are being served under the Individual with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Chapter 1 of the Education
Consolidation and Improvement Act. This number is on the rise, up from
4,760,999 in 1991. Currently, special education students account for
approximately 10% of the school age population.
Special education refers to both a legal designation affording certain
rights and protections to individuals with documented disabilities, and a
broad range of specialized education services that help students with disabilities receive a meaningful and quality education. On one hand, the
special education system is a straightforward extension of the notion of
differentiation explored in Chapter 4. Special education programs are
designed to meet the individual needs of all students by requiring individualized instructional plans for them. On the other hand, it is a wildly complex and dynamic bureaucratic system of forms, laws, and meetings. New
general education teachers and new special education teachers alike are
often surprised to learn the weight of the administrative responsibilities
that the special education system may put upon them.
With very few exceptions, all teachers interact with the special education system. Even if you have not been assigned to teach special education, you should expect to teach students enrolled in special education programs. You will need to know who those students are and what instructional modifications they require. In fact, it will be your legal responsibility to meet those students’ needs appropriately.
In this supplement, we will explore the history and laws related to special education, support systems and instructional modifications developed
for students with formally identified special needs. Also included is a
brief examination of the problem of racial inequity in special education.
A Brief History of Special Education in the United States
While the special education system is ultimately designed to benefit
individual students with special needs, most new teachers would probably
say that their initial exposure to the system had less to do with the
advances of a particular student than it did with a bewildering collection
of acronyms, laws, and forms. The special education system is actually a
federally designed set of requirements imposed on state education systems. These federal requirements create a paper-intensive accountability
system intended to ensure that every student in the system receives the
193
1.3
SUPPLEMENT
particular instruction that he or she needs. That instruction is codified for
each student in a document with which you will, in all likelihood, become
quite familiar—the Individualized Education Program (IEP). Before exploring the details of the IEP, it may be helpful to understand some of the historical context from which the IEP and other requirements have evolved.
Federal Legislation: “Section 504”and IDEA
Unlike many other areas of education policy, where the federal government has taken a more passive role, the federal government has actively
shaped the notion of special education for students with disabilities. In
response to intensive parent advocacy both in Congress and in courts
across the country, the legislature passed laws that impose on states certain standards of treatment and support for students with disabilities.
Thus, the evolution of special education in this country is framed by several pivotal acts of Congress—most notably Section 504 of the Rehabilitation
Sometimes new teachers are overwhelmed or intimidated by the legally
intense structure and vocabulary of the special education system.
Veteran teachers will tell you that while the system can be frustratingly
bureaucratic, you do not have to be a lawyer to navigate it. And, more
importantly, knowing the names of various laws that require a “free and
appropriate education” is not nearly as important as accepting that you
have a student with special needs who requires certain modifications/
accommodations, and that the Individualized Education Program (IEP)
specifies the modifications/accommodations to be applied.
Act of 1973 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of
1990. A cursory glance at these two laws will provide a valuable overview
of the special education system in this country.
Special Education
Students, Laws, and Acronyms
Section 504
The first significant nationalization of special education occurred with
Congress’ passage in 1975 of Public Law 94-142, the Education for All
Handicapped Children Act. This law was passed pursuant to an earlier,
more general civil rights law protecting the rights of persons with disabilities known as “Section 504” of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and was the
most sweeping statement the United States had ever made about rights of
children with disabilities. This law assured a “free and appropriate public
education” (often referred to as “FAPE”) to all
children with disabilities between the ages of three to 21. This legislation
contained four provisions that continue to provide important parameters
for programs that serve students with disabilities:
1. Schools and districts must follow due process when referring a student
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
194
for special education services to ensure that the student’s parents have
an important role. Essentially, this requirement means that the timing,
confidentiality, and special services requirements under the law are
taken very seriously, and often lead to legal or quasi-legal hearings.
2. The rights of the student and his or her family must be protected
throughout the evaluation procedures: principles, teachers and
schools must involve students’ families in the decision process.
3. Students are to be educated in the “least restrictive environment
(LRE).” That is, a student has a right to be taught in whatever setting
can provide for his or her needs that is the closest to a typical general
education setting.
4. Each student must have an Individual Education Program (IEP).
(The IEP is discussed in more depth later in this supplement.)
Supplement 1.3
IDEA
After some additional fine-tuning of the Education for All
Handicapped Children Act, Congress, in 1990, re-worked, re-authorized
and re-named that law, thereby passing the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA). These changes were made in the course of passing
the sweeping civil rights legislation, the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Congress shifted the law’s emphasis from providing services for categories
of handicapping conditions to providing services for individuals. IDEA
remains the governing law regarding students with special needs.
The passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
of 1997 forever changed the landscape of special education. This law
requires that every child between the ages of three and 21 with a disability
be provided a FAPE in the least restrictive environment. IDEA provides
well-defined rights to children with disabilities and their families. They
are outlined as follows:
1. Zero reject. No child, no matter how severely disabled, shall be
refused an appropriate education by the schools.
2. Nondiscriminatory evaluation. Evaluation procedures must be conducted with fairness in the child’s native language.
3. Due process. Families and school districts can exercise their 14th
Amendment rights to due process under the law; that is, they may
resort to mediation and appeal procedures when there is disagreement over issues such as the child’s placement.
4. Least restrictive environment. Each child must be educated with
non-disabled peers to the maximum extent appropriate.
5. Individualized Education Program (IEP). The plan for each student’s
education is at the heart of special education law.
Additionally, the 1997 version of IDEA required students with special
needs to participate in the standard statewide assessments, with appropriate accommodations.
195
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
The intent of that newer version of the law is to ensure that educators
of students with special needs are held accountable for their students’
learning through existing testing programs. Many states and school districts are just beginning to develop and implement assessment models that
accommodate all students.
Finally, the revised 1997 IDEA further emphasized the participation of
students with special needs in the general education curriculum. The
inclusion movement, which places students with special needs in general
education classrooms with support, has gained significant momentum in
recent years. It is a key approach to addressing the requirements of the
1997 version of IDEA. Another key provision of this most recent legislation is that parents are now full members of the teams that make eligibility
and placement decisions. The 1997 revisions also addressed behavioral
disabilities in a new way; behavior plans, documents that are developed in
addition to an IEP, became mandatory for students with behavioral disabilities and manifestation determination meetings became required for
students with disabilities who were in danger of expulsion from school.
While the history of special education is driven by federal legislation, it
is important to remember that its purpose is to ensure individualized
instruction to meet a student’s needs. In the simplest terms, a student who
qualifies for special education receives an individualized education program (an IEP) that is developed by a team of adults including the student’s
parent or guardian. (The student may be involved as well, when appropriate.) This team is ultimately accountable for the student’s mastery of the
goals set in the IEP, and the students’ teachers are responsible for modifying and/or accommodating instruction for the student pursuant to that
IEP. Before considering how IEPs are created, it is important to understand
the context or setting in which IEPs are established. In the IDEA legislation
this is known as the least restrictive environment (LRE).
Special Education
In addition to federal legislation, states typically add another layer
of regulations and requirements to further define the scope and content
of special education services with which districts within that state must
comply.
Least Restrictive Environment
The least restrictive environment (LRE) is a critical aspect of special
education law and practice. By law, students must receive their special
education services in the LRE. The least restrictive environment is a logistical, pedagogical, and legal term, which embodies the notion that where a
student receives his/her special education services is critically important.
Some students receiving special education services may be fully capable of
participating in the general education classroom with varying levels of
support, while others need smaller, tightly structured, and highly specialized learning environments.
Considerable debate exists on what constitutes the LRE and the extent
to which schools should include their special education students in the
regular classroom. Putting the debate aside, one helpful way to think
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
196
Figure 12: Special Education Placement Continuum
Most Restrictive Environment
Home
Residential program with on site or off site school
Non-public school
Special Day Class on isolated site
Special Day Class in other district
(or home district or home school)
Continuum of Services
Hospital
Supplement 1.3
Regular class with resource specialist
Regular class with modifications/accommodations
Least Restrictive Environment
about the LRE is as a continuum of placements ranging from “most restrictive” (i.e., institutionalization) to “least restrictive” (i.e., consultative services). Between the two extremes are different placement options, each with a
specific consequence for instructional design.
Figure 12, above, describes a continuum of special education placements and briefly describes the placement options. Before students enter
your classroom, it will be important for you to understand the LRE and
IEP requirements for each student who receives special education services
in your classroom. As you prepare to enter the classroom, you need to be
aware of the many varieties of special education settings that schools use
to ensure that each student is being taught in the LRE.
Mainstreaming
Mainstreaming is represented by the lower end on the graphic. In the
1970s, schools began to “mainstream” students with disabilities by placing
them in the same schools and classrooms as peers without disabilities (as
opposed to disabled students being isolated from other students, which
was the former practice). Mainstreaming became more common with the
realization that some students with disabilities learn better in regular
rather than special education classes. (Mainstreaming can be controversial,
however, in the cases of students who have severe emotional or behavioral
197
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
disabilities that may prove disruptive to the entire class.) Typically, mainstreaming involves students with disabilities participating in some regular
academic or non-academic activities with their typically developing peers
(e.g., reading, math, lunch, recess, music) but not in the entire day’s
instruction and activities. The students may attend these classes on their
own or with an instructional assistant.
Opponents of inclusion assert that teachers either end up devoting a
disproportionate amount of energy to assisting students with special needs
to the detriment of other children, or end up ignoring their special populations due to lack of insight as to how to make the curriculum accessible to
a wide range of needs. But supporters argue that, when executed effectively, inclusion benefits all parties involved—children with special needs,
students in general education, the teacher, and ultimately society, since
students with exceptionalities are provided with a stimulating environment in which to learn along with peers of their own age. Proponents
believe that these students’ classmates and their teachers develop sensitivity and respect towards people of all abilities and limitations. The general
and special education teachers have the opportunity to collaborate to provide individualized instruction for all students.
Special Education
Inclusion
A relatively new model, “inclusion” continues to be the trend in special
education placements today and is considered by many educators to be the
ultimate manifestation of our commitment to educate each child, to the
maximum extent appropriate, in the school and classroom that he or she
would otherwise attend. The philosophy underlying the inclusion movement is that schools should bring services to the students rather than bring
the student to the services. Typically, in an inclusion model, the special
education teacher goes into the general education class to support students
in the general education setting. (By contrast, in the mainstreaming model,
the general education teacher may be solely responsible for the students’
accommodations.) Less common is a consultative model whereby the special education teacher advises the general education teacher on how to
support the student instead of the special education teacher working
directly with the student. Under that typical collaborative model, however, the special education teacher may co-teach with the general education
teacher, work with a small group of both special education and general
education students, or focus on the students who are receiving special education services. Ideally, the special education and general education
teacher collaborate closely to ensure that students receiving special education services are engaged in the same curriculum and activities as their
classmates.
Resource/Pull Out Programs
Resource programs are those in which students who qualify for special
services are “pulled out” of their regular classrooms for a designated period of time that is less than 50% of the student’s academic school day.
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
198
These programs can look very different at the elementary and secondary
level, given the difference in schedule structures. A “Resource Teacher,”
then, would have a class of students with special needs from across the
campus in which they are given more individualized instruction around
the same objectives that are being taught in the regular education classrooms.
Supplement 1.3
Self-Contained
There are various permutations to the self-contained classroom: selfcontained mild/moderate, self-contained severe and profound, or selfcontained behavior modification, to name a few. Typically, self-contained
classrooms are composed of a small group of students whose needs could
not be met appropriately in the regular education setting. Students in
self-contained classrooms may have significant learning disabilities, their
emotional needs may inhibit their ability to function within regular classes,
their mental functioning may require close care and support, or they may
have multiple disabilities that require coordinated intervention from a
variety of sources. The relatively low teacher-to-student ratio usually
found in self-contained classrooms (and additional support service
providers) allows each student to get the support he or she requires.
While these four special education models—mainstreaming, inclusion,
resource/pull out, and self-contained—do not represent the entire range of
options used by schools today, they do represent the more common settings you’re likely to encounter in your school.
The Individualized Education Program (IEP)
An IEP is the essential document that outlines a student’s learning
goals and the accommodations and modifications that the student’s teachers will use to reach those goals. As a new teacher, you will undoubtedly
encounter your first IEP soon after stepping foot on campus. You will be
well-served to invest some time before that initial encounter learning to
navigate this key component of special education instruction.
What is an IEP?
The IEP is usually a several-paged document that lists any special services a child is to receive, goals the child is expected to achieve in one year,
and objectives or benchmarks to note progress. According to law, the IEP
must include the following:
199
"
A statement of the student’s present levels of performance, including
the student’s strengths and needs
"
A brief description of the student’s disability and special needs and
how that disability affects the child’s involvement and progress in the
general curriculum
"
A statement of measurable annual goals and short-term instructional
objectives for the student
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
"
A statement of the specific educational services needed by the student, including related services, and the extent of his or her regular
(or mainstream) classroom participation
"
The projected start date and anticipated duration of educational services for the student
"
Criteria, evaluation procedures, and schedules for determining the
student’s progress (which must be reported at least as often as the
progress of student’s non-disabled peers)
Once the IEP has been developed for a student, one individual is
responsible for maintaining and implementing it. In some elementary settings, the special educator who teaches the student for all or part of the
day is generally responsible for ensuring that the student receives the program outlined in the IEP. In a secondary setting, schools often have special education administrators (who may also be special education teachers)
who maintain and manage the IEP process.
IEPs are developed and maintained by a multi-disciplinary “IEP Team”
that meets at least once per year. That team includes:
"
Representatives of the local school district (other than the student’s
teacher) who are qualified to provide or supervise special education
and who are qualified to allocate the services of the school and/or district
"
Professionals in relevant support services (e.g., speech or occupational therapy)
"
The student’s teacher (including both the student’s general education
teacher and any present or future special education teachers)
"
The student’s parents or legal guardian
"
Any individuals invited by the student’s parents (e.g., a lawyer or
other advocate)
"
The student, when appropriate
Special Education
It is important to note, however, that while an “official” special educator is responsible for ensuring that students receive services, the general
educator – who must be familiar with the IEP and its goals– is also responsible for teaching IEP goals and objectives and for modifying and accommodating according to the IEP. (This division of responsibilities may be
outlined in the IEP.) If the student requires particular support services
(such as speech therapy, for example) but can be completely mainstreamed
into a general education class, sometimes the support service provider
manages the IEP.
For students whose exceptionality has been identified for the first time,
a member of the evaluation team or an individual knowledgeable about
the evaluation procedures and who is qualified to interpret testing results
must attend this meeting. A school district administrator may be responsible for coordinating and managing the initial meetings to develop the IEP,
or that responsibility may fall to the special education teacher him or herself. In most cases, the student’s special education teacher assumes
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
200
responsibility for actually writing the IEP. The student’s parents and specialized professionals remain involved throughout the process of creating
the IEP and may propose particular goals for the students or specific
strategies for reaching these goals.
Monitoring the IEP
Supplement 1.3
The IEP team meets at least once a year to discuss progress and write
any new goals or services into the IEP. Parents can agree or disagree (in
writing) with the proposed changes. The IEP team conducts a re-evaluation of student progress once every three years to determine if the child
continues to be eligible for special education services, and what services he
or she needs. A student will continue to receive special education services
until the team agrees to dismiss the student from service.
Once the IEP is complete, a special educator who serves as a “case
manager” of sorts is generally responsible for ensuring that the student
receives the program outlined in the IEP. Case management includes
ensuring that timelines for testing and evaluation are met, that the IEP is
written, and that the student is receiving modification and accommodations as specified in the IEP; it also requires attending regular meetings
with parents and administrators to review the student’s progress.
Frequently, the IEP team names the general educator to be the principal
person responsible for knowing the contents of the IEP and delivering certain services, such as planning and executing daily lesson plans around
IEP goals and objectives (although the case manager may consult with you
on how to meet these objectives and goals). General educators are responsible for IEP contents when the IEP team has determined that the student’s
“least restrictive environment” is the general education classroom.
Getting in and out of the Special Education System
Entry
Although the process of bringing students into the system varies somewhat by district, the federal mandates described above created some consistency across the nation. Generally speaking, parents, school personnel,
students or others may make a request for evaluation to a school counselor
or special education coordinator. (If a parent requests an evaluation to
determine whether his or her child has a disability and needs special education, the school district must complete a full and individual evaluation to
determine the students’ special needs, if any.) The school district completes an evaluation. Note: New laws also require that teachers provide
evidence of what they have done to help a student to be successful prior to
referral. A team of qualified professionals and parents will review the
results of the evaluation, including an examination of student work samples provided by the teacher, and determine if the child is eligible for special education services.
According to IDEA, there are 13 categories of disabilities that will qualify a student for special education services, if the disability affects the
child’s performance in school. These are autism, deafness, deaf-blindness,
201
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
To Refer or Not to Refer?
The decision of whether to refer a student for formal evaluation is not easy.
A teacher may be torn between feeling that a student needs special help to
learn and concern that the school’s special education system may not be the
best answer to the problem. Or, a teacher may have confidence that the
school’s special education program could dramatically improve a student’s
achievement, but the student’s parents vehemently object to formally labeling their child “special ed.” Unfortunately, special education placement
may carry a severe stigma amongst students, and the student himself or herself might resist the referral. These are difficult, valid concerns that we could
not begin to answer here in the abstract. Each teacher must do his or her
best to consider all of these various factors in determining what is in the student’s best academic interests.
hearing impairment, mental retardation, multiple disabilities, orthopedic
impairment, other health impairment, serious emotional disturbance, specific learning disability, speech or language impairment, traumatic brain
injury, and visual impairment, including blindness. Students with
Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder
(ADD and AD/HD) may qualify for special education services under the
“other health impairment” category.
Exit
Special Education
Remember, the pre-referral process is crucial because of the pervasive
misidentification of students for services, based most often on assessment
errors, pressure to identify a student due to behavior problems, or a learning
profile that runs counter to a majority of the student body. (Note, in some
schools and districts, the number of special needs students far exceeds the
number of people with disabilities in the general population—in some cases
by 100%!)
There are several ways that students might exit a school’s special education program. First, based on a whole host of factors, if the IEP team
determines that the student no longer needs the special education services,
and the students’ parent or guardian agrees, then the student can exit the
system. Second, students might “test out” of a program. That is, the student might perform at a high enough level that the discrepancy between
his IQ (as a measure of potential) and his performance is no longer great
enough to qualify for special education. This “discrepancy definition” is a
common component of definitions of learning disabilities. For many students, such an exit from the special education system is in fact the ultimate
goal. Finally, some students exit the special education system because
their parent or guardian refuses services for the student.
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
202
Understanding Disability
Categories of Disabilities under IDEA
Although the infinite variety of learning differences and disabilities
defies definitive categorization, for the sake of administering special education services, IDEA roughly categorizes disabilities into 13 categories.
Children falling into one or more of these categories may be found to qualify for special education services if their disabilities affect their educational
performance.
Supplement 1.3
As we mentioned earlier, these categories are broad, and states (and
even different regions within a state) sometimes use different terminology
for these categories. You should become familiar with the categories your
school district recognizes, but we will introduce you here to the terminology used here is very common among the states and will serve as a starting
point for your learning. Table 1.3.1 presents the most common categories.
Today, approximately 13% of the school age population fits at least one
of these categories and therefore qualifies for services under IDEA. (That
percentage is up from 8.3% of the student population in 1976-77.) A host
of factors—including changing definitions of various disabilities and a dramatic growth in the number of children identified under the “specific
learning disability” category—has contributed to the rapid growth in the
numbers of students receiving special education services.
The categories above notwithstanding, who does and does not qualify
for special education services is a profoundly complex, and in some ways
political, question. From the start, the vagueness of the disability definitions causes considerable variance as to qualifications from state to state
and school to school.
Although IDEA and implementing regulations specify categories of disabilities, criteria for defining these categories are not clear-cut. There are
particular problems in distinguishing students with mild cognitive disabilities, such as mild mental retardation and learning disabilities, from some
students who are low-effort. Indeed, identification and classification practices vary so greatly that a student who is identified in one of these categories in one school district might not be identified as such in another; the
overall reported prevalence of disability varies across states from approximately 7 to 15 percent of the school-age population. (Committee on Goals
2000 and the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities, “Educating One and
All: Students with Disabilities and Standards-Based Reform,” National
Academy Press: 1997, p. 10 of 15.)
What Disabilities will General Education Teachers likely Encounter?
Having sketched out the categories of disabilities under IDEA, we will
now turn to a more in-depth look at several forms of disability that all
teachers, both in general and special education, are likely to work with:
learning disabilities (LD), attention deficit disorder (ADD) and attention
deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADD and AD/HD), and emotional disturbances (ED).
203
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
TABLE 1.3.1: Categories of Disability
Significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior.
Severe
Disability (SD)
A primary disability that: 1) Severely impairs cognitive abilities, adaptive skills, and life functioning;
2) May have associated severe behavior problems;
3) Has the high probability of additional physical
or sensory disabilities; and 4) Requires significantly
more educational resources than are provided for
the children with mild and moderate disabilities in
special education programs.
Multiple Disabilities
(MD)
Two or more impairments at the same time (e.g.,
mental retardation-blind or mental retardation-orthopedic impairments), the combination of which causes
such severe educational problems that they cannot
be accommodated in special education programs
solely for one of the impairments. This category
does not include deaf-blindness.
Orthopedic Impairment
(OI)
Severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects
a child’s educational performance. The term
includes impairments caused by congenital anomaly
(e.g., clubfoot or absence of some member), impairments caused by some disease (e.g., poliomyelitis or
bone tuberculosis), and impairments from other
causes (e.g., cerebral palsy, amputations, and fractures or burns which cause contractures).
Visual
Impairment (VI)
A visual impairment that, even with correction,
adversely affects an individual’s educational
performance. The term includes both partial sight
and blindness.
Hearing Impairment
(HI)
Impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child's educational performance but that is not included under the definition
of deafness.
Specific
Learning Disability
(SLD or LD)
A disorder in one or more of the basic psychological
processes involved in understanding or in using language whether spoken or written, which may manifest itself as an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak,
read, write, spell, or perform mathematical calculations. The term includes such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction,
dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. The term does
not include learning problems that are primarily the
result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities; of mental retardation; of emotional disturbance; or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
Special Education
Mental
Retardation (MR)
204
Supplement 1.3
(Table 1.3.1 continued)
Emotional Disturbance
(ED)
Either: 1) A condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and
to a marked degree, which adversely affects an individual’s educational performance: a) An inability to
learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory,
or health factors; b) An inability to build or maintain
satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and
teachers; c) Inappropriate types of behaviors or feelings under normal circumstances; d) A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression; or e) A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems, or 2) A schizophrenic individual. This term does not apply to children who are socially maladjusted unless it is determined that they have a serious emotional disturbance.
Speech or Language
Impairment (SLI)
A communication disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, and language or voice impairments
that adversely affect a child’s educational performance.
Other Health
Impairment (OHI)
Having limited strength, vitality, including a heightened alertness to environmental stimuli, that results
in limited alertness with respect to the educational
environment, that 1) is due to chronic or acute health
problems such as a heart condition, tuberculosis,
rheumatic fever, nephritis, asthma, sickle cell anemia, hemophilia, epilepsy, lead poisoning, leukemia,
attention deficit disorder or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and diabetes, and 2) adversely affects
a child’s educational performance. ADD and ADHD
fall into this category.
Deaf-Blindness (DB)
Hearing and visual impairments occurring at the
same, the combination of which causes such severe
communication and other developmental and educational needs that they cannot be accommodated in
special education programs solely for children with
deafness or children with blindness.
A developmental disability significantly affecting
verbal and non-verbal communication, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child’s
educational performance. Other characteristics often
associated with autism are engagement in repetitive
activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to
environmental change or change in daily routines,
and unusual response to sensory experiences. The
term does not include children whose educational
performance is adversely affected primarily because
the children have an emotional disturbance.
Autism (AUT)
205
A developmental disability significantly affecting
verbal and non-verbal communication, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child’s
educational performance. Other characteristics often
associated with autism are engagement in repetitive
activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to
environmental change or change in daily routines,
and unusual response to sensory experiences. The
term does not include children whose educational
performance is adversely affected primarily because
the children have an emotional disturbance.
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
(Table 1.3.1 continued)
Traumatic
Brain Injury (TBI)
An acquired injury to the brain caused by an external
physical force resulting in total or partial functional
disability or psychosocial impairment, which adversely affects an individual’s educational performance.
The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas including cognition, language, memory, attention, reasoning,
abstract thinking, judgment, problem-solving, sensory,
perceptual and motor abilities, psychosocial behavior,
physical functions, information processing, and
speech. The term does not apply to brain injuries that
are congenital or degenerative, or brain injuries
induced by birth trauma.
Developmental Delay
(DD)
A disability affecting a child ages two through eight:
Who is experiencing developmental delays, as measured by appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures, in one or more of the following areas: physical development, cognitive development, communication development, social or emotional development, or adaptive development.
According to the Coordinated Campaign for Learning Disabilities (a
group of the six leading national learning disability organizations), the
term “learning disability” describes “a neurobiological disorder in which a
person’s brain works or is structured differently. These differences interfere with a person’s ability to think and remember. Learning disabilities
can affect a person’s ability to speak, listen, read, write, spell, reason,
recall, organize information, and do mathematics.”
"
General Characteristics of Students with SLD. Two key concepts
are at the core of the learning disability category—ability achievement
discrepancy and definition of exclusion. First, ability-achievement discrepancy refers to individuals who have “average” intellectual ability,
but their academic performance falls below that potential. Different
states define and identify this discrepancy differently, but in all
cases this discrepancy between potential and performance is central
to meeting the criteria of learning disability.
Special Education
Specific Learning Disabilities (LD or SLD)
Second, most professionals utilize a definition of exclusion when defining an LD population. That is, the child with LD is one who is not
functioning in school despite the fact that the child is (a) not mentally
retarded, (b) not emotionally disturbed, (c) not impaired in his
modalities (e.g., blind, deaf), and (d) has had an opportunity to learn
not hindered by lack of instruction in his or her native language,
excessive absences, poor teaching, frequent family moves, etc. The
definition thereby “excludes” other potential causes.
In part due to the expansiveness of most definitions of learning disabilities, over the past two decades there has been dramatic growth
in the number of children identified as having a specific learning
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
206
disability under IDEA. Horn and Tynan agree: “Indeed, in contrast
to an extraordinary 233 percent growth since 1976-77 in the number
of children diagnosed with SLDs, the number of children served in
all other disability categories combined increased only 13 percent
during the same time period” (2001, p. 28). The LD category has
been criticized for its lack of definition and clarity, which makes
almost any low performing student a candidate for qualification.
(Some experts claim that over 80% of all school children in the
United States could qualify as SLD under one definition or another
(Horn and Tynan, 2001).
Supplement 1.3
"
Instructional Suggestions for Students with Learning Disabilities.
The wide range of characteristics of various “learning disabilities”
also makes generalizations about appropriate instructional strategies
extremely difficult. Of course, your role as an effective teacher is to
make the right judgment about which of these accommodations is
most appropriate given a particular student’s needs. Among the
instructional strategies that might be appropriate in a particular situation are making an extra effort to infuse concrete methods and
examples, as well as tactile-kinesthetic approaches, into your lesson
plans. Similarly, many teachers find that requiring some students
with disabilities to work with graphic organizers, strict outline formats, and regimented note-taking strategies helps them to manage
incoming information more effectively. In some situations, it may
be appropriate to allow more time for particular types of assignments, or to break assignments into “smaller” pieces (without, of
course, lowering your overall expectations for your students performance).
Some forms of learning disabilities are circumvented effectively
Spotting Learning Disabilities
Ultimately, the diagnosis of a learning disability will fall to a doctor or other
professional. Classroom teachers, however, are often in the best position to
see signs that special services may be needed. If you do suspect that a student may have a learning disability you should gather information and
openly discuss concerns with the student’s family. You, and others who are
in regular contact with the child, should gather information about the student's academic performance and learning needs. This should include areas
of strength and weakness (both in school and in other settings) and any
accommodations that have proven useful to promote success in learning.
If a student's difficulties do not improve, the student’s parents or guardians
should arrange a comprehensive educational evaluation. These evaluations
can only take place with the written consent of a parent or guardian.
Evaluations are meant to help identify areas of relative strength and difficulty, and to help determine whether the student is eligible for specialized
assistance in school. When parents and school personnel agree that an
evaluation is warranted, the public school system must provide an evaluation to determine if a student is entitled to special education services.
207
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
Really Active or Really AD/HD?
All children have difficulty paying attention, following directions or being
quiet from time to time. If a child exhibits this type of activity, it does not
necessarily mean that child has AD/HD. To be considered for a diagnosis
of AD/HD, a child must display these behaviors before age seven and the
behaviors must last for at least six months. The behaviors must also be negatively affecting at least two areas of a child's life (such as school, home, daycare settings, or friendships) for a child to be diagnosed with AD/HD. For
more technical information about the diagnosis and evaluation of children
with AD/HD, please see the following report by the American Academy of
Pediatrics: http://www.aap.org policy/ ac0002.html
"
Classroom Management Suggestions for SLD students. Similarly,
behavioral strategies for students with learning disabilities will ring
familiar as strategies that are important for all students. To help
students with learning disabilities achieve academically, you should
provide clear, generous amounts of praise and consistently in
enforce clearly stated expectations, establish a calm, structured classroom, communicate regularly with students’ families, and be sure a
student knows the reasons for any disciplinary actions you take.
Special Education
through technology, so you may consider computer-use as a possible
instructional strategy. And, as general principles of differentiation
would tell us, you may have the most success with students with
learning disabilities if you offer several options for academic practice
and evaluation. Differentiating instruction, sensitively tolerating mistakes, frequently discussing student progress, giving clear, concise
instructions, minimizing distractions in and around the classroom—
are all appropriate instructional strategies for all of your students,
regardless of special needs.
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) & Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity
Disorder (AD/HD).
In the last decade, you have probably heard a lot about attention deficit
disorder (ADD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (AD/HD),
and yet you will not see them expressly listed in IDEA’s list of special education categories. In 1991 however, the U.S. Department of Education
issued a “policy clarification” indicating that children diagnosed with
ADD and AD/HD may be eligible for special education services under the
“other health impaired” (OHI) category of IDEA. (This decision alone
greatly increased the number of students in the special education system.)
"
General Characteristics of Students with ADD and AD/HD. ADD
is a persistent pattern of inattention. When that tendency is partnered with a consistent pattern of hyperactivity-impulsivity, the
condition is labeled AD/HD. To meet the official definition (according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
208
Fourth Edition), some hyperactive-impulsive or inattentive symptoms that cause impairment must have been present before age
seven. Some impairment from these symptoms must manifest in at
least two settings (e.g., at home and at school or work). And, there
must be clear evidence of interference with developmentally appropriate social, academic, or occupational functioning.
Supplement 1.3
"
209
Instructional and Behavioral Suggestions for Students with ADD
and AD/HD. Not surprisingly, most of the successful adjustments
made to assist ADD and AD/HD students are designed to compensate for or adapt to students’ short attention spans. (And, as with
the instructional strategies for students with learning disabilities,
most of the adjustments simply amount to good teaching.) Students
with ADD and AD/HD need concise and clear directions. You
should use “alerting” messages such as “Everyone Listen,” or say
ing a student’s name before asking a question. In some cases, it may
be helpful to create a prearranged signal to regain the child’s attention when the student loses focus. Many teachers find that using a
timer to measure and encourage longer and longer periods of
focused attention reaps instructional benefits. You may also find it
helpful to use eye contact and proximity to help a student with
ADD or AD/HD get started on an assignment.
A teacher should minimize visual and auditory distractions by sitting the student close to the front of the room and the teacher (but
not near the door or other distractions). Students with ADD and
AD/HD also respond positively to predictable schedules and routines. In addition, you might consider breaking assignments into
more obviously manageable pieces, whether by limiting the amount
of material on a handout, or by breaking up homework assignments
into several mini-assignments.
"
Classroom Management Suggestions for Students ADD and
AD/HD. Behavioral management can, in some cases, pose challenges with ADD and AD/HD students. Again, however, few of
the most common suggestions for dealing with these students differ
substantially from the more general classroom management recommendations. Students with ADD and AD/HD perform best in a
classroom environment with diverse instructional approaches that
encourages attention and participation (e.g., hands on activities,
cooperative learning, and direct instruction methods). Rules must
be clearly defined and consistently enforced and, especially with
younger children, you should give concrete examples of expected
behavior. You should be prepared to recycle behavioral interventions as students with AD/HD in particular tend to “burn out”
quickly on individual behavioral strategies. Moreover, many teachers find that routinely asking a student to self-evaluate whether he
or she is paying attention can be an effective behavioral and instructional strategy.
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
Students with Emotional Disturbances (ED)
Students identified with emotional disturbances pose a particular challenge for teachers, since the adjustments that teachers must make often
involve behavioral management rather than instructional methods.
Students with ED have serious challenges in controlling themselves and
require a great deal of patience, structure, and reinforcement. Just as in
the LD population, students with ED tend to have average to above average cognitive ability, but their performance lags due to interference from
internal social and emotional conflict. (Note that some states identify
“behavioral disabilities” (BD) instead of ED. Others use both labels.)
General Characteristics of Students with ED. No specific characteristics describe all students with emotional disturbances. We can,
however, provide examples of the kinds of behaviors that might be
displayed by this population of students. Students may exhibit
attention-getting behaviors, low self-esteem, and poor impulse control. They may show defiance of authority figures and have poor
social interaction skills with peers or adults. In most cases, such
behaviors negatively impact their’ learning or others and must be
addressed in the classroom.
"
Instructional Suggestions for Students with ED. The most effective
strategies for students with emotional disturbances are focused on
helping students recognize and manage their own reactions to frustration. In terms of instruction, it may be helpful to set precise,
short-term expectations for student work and to ensure that instructional material is challenging but within reach. Students may also
benefit from mini-breaks between lessons and frequent repetition of
clear instructions.
"
Classroom Management Suggestions for Students with ED. Some
students with emotional disturbances need particular help managing their own behavior. To that end, you should use positive reinforcement and behavior contracts when appropriate. To the extent
possible, you should resolve conflicts privately with the students as
opposed to publicly in front of other students, and always address
the specific behavior that is inappropriate and avoid any indication
you dislike the student personally. Be sure to label the exact behavior desired; do not be subtle. Also, think creatively about ways to
allow students to “escape” their own behavior, providing students a
“way out.” This is often best accomplished by giving students a
choice and clearly describing the consequences of each choice.
"
Other Categories of Disabilities. We have discussed here only three
of the many categories of disability that you will likely encounter in
your classroom—learning disabilities, ADD and AD/HD, and emotional disturbances. These areas were highlighted because new
teachers often find differentiating instruction for students in these
groups particularly challenging. Do not overlook, however, the
many other disability categories and the instructional strategies that
can be employed to individualize instruction for them. As you have
seen in this section, these differentiated strategies may be helpful for
all of your students, not just students with disabilities.
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
Special Education
"
210
Discipline Issues and Special Education Status
Sometimes, student misbehavior is a manifestation of a student’s exceptionality. You will want to determine how to help special needs students
reach your high expectations for behavior. In some cases, you will want to
modify instruction. Many students with behavior disorders, for instance,
are much more likely to exhibit inappropriate behaviors when they are in
unstructured environments. In such situations, you will need to create
class wide or individualized systems that will meet that student’s need for
structure.
Supplement 1.3
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) mandates that
for any student who needs extra behavioral support, the IEP team (those
who help create and monitor a student’s Individualized Education Plan)
must conduct a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) as well. A FBA
involves a school-based team implementing a behavior intervention plan
that includes positive behavioral interventions and supports for a student
with behavior disabilities.
The underlying assumption of FBA is that every behavior is serving a
function, whether it’s to get attention, escape tasks, obtain objects, alleviate
boredom, or any number of purposes. A comprehensive assessment of a
student’s behavior and the social, emotional, cognitive, and environmental
factors associated with the behavior should reveal the behavior’s function.
While the FBA process can be done in a variety of ways, the following
example presents a simplified version of the four steps usually involved in
the process:
1. Clearly define the problem behavior(s): Jason gets out of his desk
and walks around the room. While walking around the room, he
often taps on other students’ desks.
2. Identify events, times, settings, and situations that predict when the
behaviors will and will not occur: Jason does this in social studies,
language arts, and science. He does not do this in math, art, or
health.
3. Gather data on possible causes of misbehavior (What is the student
“getting” by misbehaving? What is the function of the misbehavior?):
After several observations and interviews with Jason, his teachers,
and his parents, it seems that the function of the misbehavior is task
avoidance. He seems to exhibit the behavior most frequently when
asked to do something that involves writing.
4. Develop and test a hypothesis: The hypothesis is that Jason has difficulty with writing and misbehaves as a way to avoid it. To test the
hypothesis, his teachers planned activities that did not involve writing and observed and charted Jason’s behavior for a couple days. He
did not get out of his seat and walk around the room. To be sure
their hypothesis was correct, they then incorporated writing back
into their plans and observed that the misbehavior started again.
One outcome of an FBA is an understanding of why a student misbehaves, but the more important outcome should be a behavior intervention
plan developed specifically for the student (one that is based on the results
211
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
Suspensions, Expulsions, and IDEA
Under IDEA rules students may only be suspended (this can include
in-school suspensions as well) for a total of 10 days at which point a school
or district becomes in danger of failing to offer the student FAPE. Many
schools conduct an FBA after the first or second time a student is suspended and modify it following any additional suspensions. When a student
reaches his/her 10th day of suspension or expulsion the IEP team must
hold a “manifest determination meeting.” During this meeting, the team
must decide if the reason the student is being suspended is a direct result
(or manifestation) of his/her disability.
Special Education
of the FBA). In Jason’s case, a plan was developed that included individualizing his writing assignments, teaching him how to ask for help when he
needed it, allowing him to use a computer for longer writing assignments,
giving him the opportunity to take breaks during writing assignments, and
a contract that included rewards for staying in his seat and consequences
for getting out of his seat. Function-based behavioral support allows
teachers to individualize, or differentiate, based on a particular student’s
needs. The behavior intervention plan should include positive strategies
and, in many cases, skill-building interventions. Sometimes students do
not have the appropriate skills to exhibit appropriate behavior in some
contexts, so these skills must be taught. The plan may also involve
changes in the student’s routine; when a student’s behavior problem is
predictable, changes in the student’s routine can make it less likely that the
problem will occur. For example, Moninda blurts out a lot during class,
especially in her afternoon classes. Since she takes medication for ADHD,
her teachers meet with her parents to find out if there have been changes
in her medical treatment. Her parents may explain that she no longer takes
her medication because it was making her tired. As a solution, her parents
may want to take her back to her physician, or they may not. The solution
may be as simple as a schedule change where Moninda takes her academic
subjects in the morning and PE, art, and life skills in the afternoon. Once
the plan is in place, it is very important for the team to monitor, evaluate,
and adjust as necessary.
For example, Sarah was suspended for 10 days for bringing a
weapon—a knife—to school and reportedly telling other students she
intended to use it on some girls who had been bullying her. Sarah’s documented disability involves emotional disturbance and a speech impediment (a pronounced stutter). She had already been suspended a total of
five days previously for other less serious offenses. The IEP team had to
determine whether or not her emotional disturbance or stutter caused her
to bring the knife. The team determined that her actions were related to
her disability and she was allowed to return to school. The team must
make this determination within a reasonable amount of time or could risk
having to pay for services that Sarah missed while she was suspended.
You can probably begin to understand the potential for confusion on
the part of teachers and students who have witnessed other students committing as bad or worse offenses, but were not allowed back in school.
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
212
This safeguard was included to ensure that schools could not use suspension or expulsion as means of denying students their FAPE. Several challenges to this aspect of IDEA have resulted in review, but so far no amendments to this provision.
Sarah’s story continues; under pressure from parents and students, the
local superintendent overturned the IEP team’s ruling and Sarah was
required to remain at home where she was given special education services from a teacher who provided the services described in Sarah’s IEP. The
district had to pay for these costly services. Districts often use non-public
placements and contractual teachers to ensure that students are getting
FAPE. However, the cost for these services is staggering.
Supplement 1.3
Therefore, when you make the decision to refer a student with an IEP for
suspension or disciplinary actions (or any student for that matter) do so judiciously. Keep in mind that many students react to just being labeled with a
disability, even if the disability has nothing to do with causing such a reaction. Administrators, in an effort to support you, are frequently caught in the
difficult position of trying to be consistent and fair, while also minimizing the
risk of non-compliance with federal and local special education mandates.
The Differentiated Instruction and Special Education Connection:
Accommodation and Modification
In the most literal sense, the changes you have to make to adjust to a
student’s special needs are simply examples of the principles of “differentiation” discussed in previous chapters. Your job as a teacher of a student
with special needs is to design your instruction to meet those needs. Not
surprisingly, the task of developing modifications and accommodations for
a student begins with the IEP. In theory, the IEP will contain helpful
instructions for adjusting your instruction or curriculum to best accelerate
the student’s learning. In some cases, you will find it necessary to develop modifications beyond those listed in the IEP. In that situation, you
should first and foremost consult your school’s special education consultants.
Definition of Accommodations and Modifications
Before we explore a small number of the infinite number of accommodations and modifications that a teacher might consider to more effectively
teach a student who qualifies for special services, we should clarify our
terms. Like so many education terms, it is difficult to draw precise definitions of “modifications” and “accommodations,” given the varying ways
these terms are used in different districts. However, these two terms do
have different meanings.
Generally speaking, “accommodations” do not alter the substance of
the curriculum but instead include adjustments to structures and delivery
methods (such as seating arrangements, using graphic organizers, etc.) that
assist the student’s efforts to engage the curriculum. Simply put, accommodations provide an alternative way of accessing the same curriculum.
“Modifications” is a term usually reserved for changes made to the
213
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
TABLE 1.3.2: General Types of Accommodations & Modifications
Objectives, lesson plans, instructional methods, and assignments can be differentiated by each of the following elements:
Size. A common method of differentiating instruction is to adapt the number
of items that the learner is expected to learn or complete, or to adapt the
amount of information that a student is provided at one time. (Of course, in
some instances, an appropriate adjustment might be to provide more opportunities to practice a skill.)
"
Time. Another common approach is to extend the time that a student has to
complete a task or to learn material. You may find it helpful to individualize
the timeline for which a project is expected to be completed, for example.
"
Input. A teacher can adapt the way instruction is delivered to students, by
using a variety of visual aides, concrete examples, or hands-on activities.
"
Output. Similarly, you can adjust the types of output that students produce.
Assigning projects, tasks, or presentations might be an appropriate adjustment
for a student whose disability makes written expression very difficult.
"
Level of Support. Consider increasing the amount of personal assistance the
learner receives during a given task. That assistance could come from the
teacher, an aide or a peer.
"
Difficulty. Sometimes, an IEP will indicate that the core difficulty of a skill or
problem type should be adjusted for a particular student. Note that this is not
“watering down,” your expectations, but is instead a combination of adjustments to the “size” and “time” provided to learn the more complex task. For
example, you may have one student continue to practice multiplying two-digit
numbers for some period of time while you are moving the bulk of the class on
to three-digit numbers.
"
Participation. Students’ disabilities can sometimes be inextricably intertwined
with self-esteem issues. In some cases, too public a form of participation can
inhibit a student’s learning. You may want to consider adapting the extent to
which, or the ways in which, a certain learner is expected to participate in a particular lesson.
"
Alternate goal. This form of instructional adjustment is most likely a “modification” rather than an accommodation. In some cases, pursuant to the IEP, it
may be appropriate to modify the very objectives or goals that you have set for
the class.
"
Substitute curriculum. There may be some situations where an entirely different curriculum is appropriate in order to meet a learner’s individual goals laid
out in the IEP, perhaps the most drastic (and rare) of adaptations. This is a
decision that is made by the committee responsible for the IEP.
Special Education
"
curriculum itself (such as when a student is assigned a different book or
exercise, for example). Modifications should be used only sparingly, and
only if accommodations do not meet the needs of the students.
Thus, note that whether an adjustment to instruction would be an
“accommodation” or a “modification” could actually depend on the language of the objective being taught. For example, if the objective was “The
SWBAT describe Newton’s three laws,” then an instructional adjustment
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
214
that allows a student to listen to a tape of that information is an accommodation; it is an alternative means to get the same content. However, if the
objective was instead, “The SWBAT discern Newton’s three laws from a
reading of Newton’s notes,” then introducing the tape adjustment would
be a “modification”—a change to the objective itself. Table 1.3.2 describes
the general types of accommodations and modifications.
Specific Examples of Accommodations and Modifications
Supplement 1.3
Quite often, IEPs include long lists of potential accommodations and
modifications. For example, the IEP itself might require the IEP team to
check whether each of some number of alterations or adaptations is being
implemented for the student (e.g., reduced assignments, taped assignments, extra time, opportunity to leave class for resource assistance, short
instructions, written instructions, visual aids, oral exams, etc.).
Below, we have collected a short list of sample accommodations and
modifications that could be utilized with students, depending on the type
of special needs they have. While such accommodations and modifications are often presented in lists such as this, it is critically important to
remember that one does not select a method of accommodation or modification in a vacuum—you should only use one or more of these modifications and accommodations as a well-considered and purposeful response
to a student’s special needs.
1. The physical arrangement of the room
a. Place an easily distracted student near the “front” of the room (or
wherever you are most frequently) so that you can provide nonverbal cues before giving instructions.
b. Stand near the student when giving instructions to the entire class
and quietly repeat them to the student afterwards.
c. Have the daily routine in writing where it is easy to see.
d. Allow time and space for movement between activities.
2. Your instruction
a. Allow a child with delayed reading skills to listen to an audiotape
of the book (one that you get from the library or make yourself).
b. Record your lectures on tape and allow students to review the
tape at home.
c. Provide a written outline or graphic organizer of material covered
in a lecture.
d. Combine visual and oral instruction (e.g., use an overhead while
lecturing).
e. Individualize assignments for students by changing the length,
due date, topic, etc. and break assignments into smaller, more
manageable steps.
f. Teach specific study skills such as organization and note taking
along with content-area instruction.
215
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
3. Assessments
a. Allow students to give an oral rather than written report.
b. Choose only the most essential objectives on which to assess them
(e.g., assess students on the 10 most important spelling words,
rather than all 20, or ask them to answer the most important essay
question rather than all three). Essentially, strive for quality rather
than quantity.
c. Provide practice questions for study before a quiz or test, and
examples of completed performance tasks.
d. Give open book tests or allow one page of notes to be used during
testing.
e. Vary the format of the test (e.g., include diagrams to label rather
than long lists of matching or large paragraphs of fill-in-the blanks).
f. Format tests so that they are clear, readable, and uncluttered.
Leave more spaces between lines of text and draw lines on which
students can write their answers.
h. Provide extra time to complete the test, or give parts of the test in
more than one sitting.
i. Allow students to retake the test.
4. Homework assignments
a. Modify the length (e.g., require students to complete only the first
15 math problems rather than all 20) .
b. Allow students to begin homework in school under your supervision, or provide a written explanation of the homework assignment, with an example that they can take home with them, perhaps to work on with parents or guardians.
Special Education
g. Read the questions aloud and/or allow the student to respond to
the questions orally.
c. Select another student to be a “study buddy” who can clarify the
homework assignment by phone.
Remember, once again, that while these approaches are designed to be
effective with students with identified special needs, all students may benefit from individualized or modified instructions, regardless of whether
they have an Individualized Education Program (IEP).
Overarching Strategies for Addressing Learning Differences
By their very nature, disabilities defy broad, one-size-fits-all instructional approaches. As you have seen from the instructional and behavioral
management suggestions above, there is no universal strategy in special
education, even for students who qualify for services under the same definition.
There are, however, general principles of approach that offer teachers
an overarching framework for interacting with a student with a disability.
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
216
Dr. Mel Levine, a well-known developmental-behavioral pediatrician and
Professor of Pediatrics at the University of North Carolina Medical School,
has developed one such set of principles that many new teachers find helpful in learning to address students’ special needs. Although Dr. Levine’s
(1992) approach, which is outlined in his book All Kinds of Minds, was
developed for learning disabilities, the general principles espoused by this
“Management by Profile” approach can be applied to other areas of disability as well.
At the centerpiece of this method are five guidelines for interacting
with students with disabilities. They are:
1. Demystification
2. Accommodations
3. Interventions at the Breakdown Points
4. Strengthening of Strengths
Supplement 1.3
5. Protection from Humiliation
Demystification
Demystification refers to a teacher’s responsibility to give a student
with a disability language an opportunity to discuss his or her disability
openly and honestly. Teachers can begin this conversation by assuring the
student that all students learn in different ways and all students have
strengths and weaknesses. The teacher can then talk and encourage the
student to talk openly about his or her strengths and weaknesses, and can
discuss a plan for taking advantage of those strengths and shoring up the
weaknesses.
Most experts stress that this demystification stage needs to be more
than a mere label. Students need to understand the extent that physiological, psychological, or emotional factors are at play in their disabilities. Dr.
Levine (1992) explains:
To tell a child he has LD or something like that—to give him a mere label—
in no way empowers him to do something about it. But to talk to a kid about
his active working memory and short-term memory deficiencies as well as his
strengths, really allows him to feel that his problems have some borders around
them, that he has some assets, which he can invest in helping himself. It
makes him feel more optimistic, more in control, and it can have the same
effect on his parents.
Of course, the demystification process must be made in an age appropriate way. Younger children may not understand the details of their own
disability. They can, however, understand that all students have some
strengths and some weaknesses, and that their weaknesses mean that they
have a difficult time remembering words, or drawing numbers, or hearing
sounds.
By giving students a vocabulary for their own strengths and weaknesses, you are not undermining their accountability for academic achievement. In fact, a teacher must work to preserve that sense of accountability:
217
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
“You have a weakness in X, so you have to work harder and differently to
succeed in X.”
Accommodations
The second general principle requires a focus on accommodations or
“bypass strategies” that are used to circumvent the child’s weaknesses so
the child can continue to learn. We have already described various accommodations that teachers might make to individualize instruction, including
adjustments to the time, volume, and format of assignments.
Interventions at the Breakdown Points
Part of any approach to teaching children with special needs must
include recognition of the “breakdown points”—the moments when the
child’s disability is in fact interfering with learning. Experts, including Dr.
Levine (1992), recommend that teachers learn to recognize those moments
through careful observation and task analysis of students’ work. At those
moments, the teacher “intervenes” by providing additional support or
knowledge, providing additional structure, or showing students new
strategies to use in those difficult moments.
Such an intervention might be something as simple as a hand signal
you have worked out with one of your students with emotional disturbances that tells the student to stand up, take a deep breath, and walk to
the back of the class. When you see the tell-tale signs of trouble, you give
the hand signal to refocus the student’s attention on control and to alleviate the pressure on the student. Or, such an intervention might take the
form of teaching a student with dyslexia a regimented protocol to follow
when she encounters a word she can’t read. Perhaps step three or four of
that protocol is to ask you for assistance.
Special Education
According to Dr. Levine (1992), the best results occur when the students are well aware of the accommodations, and understand the relationship between the specific accommodation and the students’ special needs.
A child who is given extra time for a multiplication assignment should be
able to explain, for example, that one of her weaknesses is processing numbers quickly and that the extra time allows her the chance to double-check
her work. Or, a student who squeezes a small rubber ball during class to
expel nervous energy should be able to explain the relationship between
the ball and his hyperactivity.
Strengthening of Strengths and Affinities
Another key principle in Dr. Levine’s (1992) approach is that a teacher
should discover, recognize, and exploit students’ strengths. Perhaps a
child with a learning disability is also a fantastic artist. The teacher should
provide explicit recognition and reinforcement of that skill. Moreover, the
teacher should develop roles in the classroom for the child to showcase his
or her assets.
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
218
Theory Versus Reality in the
Special Education System
For the most part, we have painted a picture here of the special education
system as it is designed to work. And, some of you will no doubt work in
schools with efficient and effective special education programs. Many teachers, however, have found that the reality of their school’s special education
programs do not always match the expectations created by the legal mandates.
Supplement 1.3
While the special education system is designed to admit students with identified needs in an efficient manner, the reality is that it can take months (or
more) for students to be integrated into the system. The referral process can
be delayed by an inefficient and bureaucratic system, a long waiting list of
students waiting to be evaluated, or a legal oversight. The IEP itself can, in
some cases, be problematic as well. While IEPs are supposed to provide
specific guidance for modifying instruction, sometimes the guidance is frustratingly general and distinctly unhelpful, or based on low expectations. In
fact, it may fall to you to correct and improve students’ IEPs so that they can
receive the modifications that they need in their classes.
Protection from Humiliation
The final principle of this model, and yet another (one that certainly
applies to all teachers for all students), is the idea that a teacher must create an atmosphere for students with special needs that is free of teasing or
humiliation. All students must feel safe from ridicule in order to take the
risks necessary to master new ideas. Teachers should begin creating this
atmosphere proactively, before a problem arises, by setting norms of interaction in the class that respect input and learning-driven risk-taking. And,
the teacher should expressly appreciate each time a student takes a public
risk for the sake of learning.
Taken together, these general principles—demystification, accommodations, interventions at the breakdown points, strengthening of strengths,
and protection from humiliation—combine to form a proven approach for
empowering students with special needs to take command of their own
learning and achievement in the classroom.
Systemic Concerns About Special Education
Few teachers interact with or work in the special education system
without recognizing that in addition to the logistical challenges the system
faces, there are massive, sometimes disturbing, political forces at work
shaping the special education system and affecting students’ lives.
Although this chapter is intended to be an introduction to instructional
methods for serving special education students, we would be remiss not to
flag several of the difficult and problematic issues that you will likely
encounter.
219
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
Racial Inequity in Special Education:
Executive Summary for Federal Policy Makers
The Civil Rights Project, Harvard University
June 2002
Since its passage in 1975, the IDEA has brought tremendous benefits: today,
approximately six million children with disabilities enjoy their right to a free appropriate public education. The benefits of special education, however, have not been
equitably distributed. Minority children with disabilities all too often experience inadequate services, low-quality curriculum and instruction, and unnecessary isolation
from their non-disabled peers. Moreover, inappropriate practices in both general
and special education classrooms have resulted in over-representation, misclassification, and hardship for minority students, particularly black children.
Once identified, most minority students are significantly more likely to be removed
from the general education program and be educated in a more restrictive environment. For instance, African-American and Latino students are about twice as
likely as white students to be educated in a restrictive, substantially separate educational setting. Given that students with special needs benefit most when they
are educated in the least restrictive environment to the maximum extent appropriate, the data on educational settings raise serious questions about the quality of
special education provided to Latino, black, and other minority students compared
to whites.
Special Education
In 1998, approximately 1.5 million minority children were identified as having
mental retardation, emotional disturbance, or a specific learning disability. More
than 876,000 of these were black or Native American. Minority students, specifically black and Native American students, are significantly more likely than white
students to be identified as having a disability. For example, in most states,
African-American children are identified at one and a half to four times the rate of
white children in the disability categories of mental retardation and emotional disturbance. In the national data, Latino and Asian-American children are underidentified in cognitive disability categories compared to whites, raising questions
about whether the special education needs of these children are being met.
However, school and district data showing instances of Latino overrepresentation
suggest that there are both over and under representation concerns for these
minority groups.
The concern about racial inequity in special education is really part of a much
larger concern about inequity in education generally. We know that most children
are deemed eligible for special education only after their general education teachers refer them for evaluation. Because general and special education are linked,
our research and recommendations address special education as it is encompassed by the larger general education system.
Additional Findings
"
In wealthier districts, contrary to researcher's expectations, black children, especially males, were more likely to be labeled mentally retarded
Native- American children also showed this unexpected trend, but to a lesser
degree than black children. Usually, poverty correlates with poor prenatal care,
low birth weights and other factors associated with increased risks for disabilities, while wealth usually correlates with decreased risks.
"
Minority children with disabilities are underserved
Black children with emotional disturbance often do not receive high quality early
intervention and received far fewer hours of counseling and related services
than white students with emotional disturbance. The lack of early intervention
for minority children may exacerbate their learning and behavior problems and
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
220
(Racial Inequity continued)
contribute to racial disproportionality in our juvenile justice system.
"
Disturbing racial disparities are also evident in outcomes and in
disciplinary rates
Among high school youth with disabilities, about 75 percent of AfricanAmerican students, as compared to 47 percent of white students, are not
employed two years out of school. Three to five years out of school the arrest
rate for African-Americans with disabilities is 40 percent, as compared to 27
percent for Whites. New data also depicts substantially higher rates of school
disciplinary action and placement in correctional facilities for minority students
with disabilities.
"
The process of identification and placement is rife with subjectivity
Supplement 1.3
Qualitative research indicates that subjective decisions creep into all elements
ttttof the evaluation process, including whom to test, which test to use, when to
ttttuse alternative tests, and how to interpret the results.
"
Black identification for mental retardation is most pronounced in the South
Southern states constituted nearly three quarters of the states with unusually
high incidence levels, where between 2.75 and 5.41 percent of the blacks
enrolled were labeled as mentally retarded. The prevalence of mental retardation for whites nationally was approximately 0.75 percent in 2001, and in no
state did the incidence of mental retardation among Whites rise above 2.32 percent.
"
The theory that poverty can explain overrepresentation in mental
retardation or emotional disturbance is contradicted by national
trends revealed by the data
For example, poverty theory fails to explain: (a) why gross racial disparities are
vvonly found in mental retardation (MR) and emotional disturbance (ED), and not
vvin the category of specific learning disability or any medically diagnosed disabil
vvities; or (b) why Latinos have a far lower identification rate for MR and ED than
vvboth blacks and Whites, despite the fact that blacks and Latinos share a far
vvgreater risk than whites for poverty, exposure to environmental toxins, and low
vvacademic achievement.
"
The research suggests that the observed racial, ethnic, and gender disparities are the result of many complex and interacting factors including
Unconscious racial bias on the part of school authorities; large resource
inequalities (such as the lack of high quality teachers) that run along lines of
race and class; unjustifiable reliance on IQ and other evaluation tools; educators' inappropriate responses to the pressures of high-stakes testing; and power
differentials between minority parents and school officials.
Recommendations
Following the example of federal education reforms that focus on reducing racial
disparities in achievement, the IDEA policy debate on racial disparities in special
education should focus on ways to reduce these inequities and not on whether
discrimination is the primary cause. Moreover, the federal education reform concepts that racially disparate outcomes can be remedied through public reporting
of disaggregated data, school district accountability, and required assistance and
interventions, should likewise be applied to remedying the gross racial disparities
in special education identification and placement.
"
221
Require data collection and public reporting from every school and district
The law should require every state and school district to collect and publicly
report disaggregated data by race, gender, and English language learner status
with disability category and educational setting. With such data readily available
our understanding of these issues and where help is most needed would be
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
(Racial Inequity continued)
improved many times over.
Remedy the inequity in access to high quality teachers
The federal government should insist that states receiving Title I and IDEA
grants make substantial progress toward ensuring minority students in both general and special education have equitable access to high quality teachers.
"
Improve early intervention
Investments in high-quality special education and early intervention are sorely
needed and could reduce the likelihood that minority students with disabilities
will develop serious discipline problems or eventually wind up in correctional
facilities.
"
Ensure accountability where disparities are significant
States and districts should be held accountable where unjustifiable disproportionality persists. They should be required to provide technical assistance and other
interventions to effect reforms. An accountability system should be triggered by
"significant" racial disproportionality and require closer examination of the district
in question, with rewards, incentives and continued supports to foster successful
efforts.
"
Ratchet-up federal oversight and enforcement
There is a great need for stepped-up enforcement and oversight by both federal
and state agencies geared toward encouraging the active participation of educators at all levels and evaluated in terms of the outcomes for minority children.
More frequent exercise of partial withholding by U.S. Department of Education’s
Office of Special Education Program enforcement agents to leverage compliance in specific areas would allow OSEP to ratchet up its enforcement efforts
without resorting to the wholesale withdrawal of federal funds from a state or
district.
"
Boost the power of parents to seek remedies
Federal legislation should include a private right of action and an opportunity for
judicial review for individuals and classes of complainants specific to racial disproportionality, but structured so that these rights and remedies would not detract
from or delay the exercise of rights or opportunities for private action that exist
under current state or federal law.
"
Guarantee that states receive adequate funding
Federal policymakers should improve IDEA implementation and civil rights
enforcement without imposing blanket limitations on federal special education
funding, which would have a negative impact on children with disabilities nationwide. To implement many of our recommendations would require a large infusion of resources, including funds for the training of general and special education teachers and administrators so that schools can provide more effective
instruction in the least restrictive, most inclusive environment appropriate.
Special Education
"
Conclusion
There are no quick fixes. The problems explored here have many roots, and creating better outcomes requires difficult changes at many levels. More research is
needed on the practices that produce inequality and the reforms that can successfully correct them. We need to reach the point at which every child is treated as if
he or she were our own child, with the same tirelessly defended life possibilities. In
schools where we can predict the racial makeup of a special education class before
we open the door, we must have leadership, if possible, and enforcement, if necessary, to ensure that each child receives the quality academic support and special
services he or she truly needs without diminishing any of the opportunities that are
any child's right in American society.
Excerpted from Harvard University, Civil Rights Project
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
222
Supplement 1.3
First, while you should be actively aware that many students are not
identified for the services they need, as previously mentioned, there is a
disturbing over-representation of students of color in the special education
system. Although African-American students represent 16% of the total
student population in this country, they represent 32% of students in programs for mild mental retardation and 24% of students in programs for
serious emotional disturbance. A number of states have recently been
investigating the disparate numbers of minorities in their special education
systems (Ladner and Hammons, 2001). While there may be many factors
contributing to these numbers, it seems irrefutable that race places a role in
the placement of children in special education.
A second disturbing pattern in the special education system that you
may encounter relates to the influence of and incentives created by the
large amounts of money that fund these services. (The average student
costs $6,200 per year to educate; the special education student costs an
additional $6,800 on top of that. Source: U.S. Department of Education.)
Unfortunately, such monetary incentives are compounded in the underresourced schools where you will be teaching. Consider, for example, the
following observation regarding potential monetary incentives to place
children in special education:
The incentive to over-identify low-achieving children as disabled may be especially powerful in schools serving low-income populations. In cases where a
child is under-achieving at school because of economic disadvantage, compensatory educational programs are supposed to be funded through Title I of the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), not through the IDEA...
However, because IDEA funds do not substitute for funding under Title I,
students in low-income school districts who are also identified as disabled are
effectively “double counted”—once for purposes of drawing down funds under
Title I and a second time for purposes of reimbursement for special education
services under the IDEA (Horn & Tyan, 2001).
Finally, while less of a problem than it once was, the standards-based
and accountability reform movement itself has created perverse incentives
and pressures on schools that, in some cases, may lead to decisions to
over-refer students for special education. The same scholars made the following point:
Until recently, students identified as receiving services under special education were not generally required to participate in statewide assessments.
Given that merit raises, promotions, and bonuses for both principals and
teachers often ride on the results of statewide exams, the temptation exists for
local school districts to raise their scores artificially by excluding the participation of low-achieving special education students in statewide assessments.
Although the 1997 amendments to the IDEA were intended to prohibit this
practice, three states that recently enjoyed large gains on national reading tests
(Kentucky, Louisiana, and South Carolina) also evidence large increases in the
percentage of special education students excluded from taking the tests (Horn
& Tyan, 2001).
Not all teachers encounter these insidious pressures, but many do. We
raise these issues not to imply that you should set out to solve these prob223
S U P P L E M E N T 1.3
lems on a grand scale, but rather to alert you to some of the complex political concerns that you will probably find yourself navigating on a daily
basis.
The Promise of Special Education
Perhaps most important, new teachers should recognize the intentions
of the special education system and should work hard to make a less-thanperfect system work to the advantage of students who need special services. While the gaps between how the system is supposed to work and the
reality of its implementation can be extremely frustrating to teachers and
administrators alike, many students depend on the special differentiation
provided by the system. And, if you are like most teachers, you will
depend on the system for help in serving your special needs students.
Conclusions and Key Points
"
The special education system provides individualized instruction to
meet a student’s individual needs.
"
An IEP is the all-important document that outlines a student’s learning goals and the accommodations and modifications that the student’s teachers will use to reach those goals.
"
By law, students must receive their special education services in the
LRE.
"
There are four types of placement options: mainstreaming, inclusion,
resource/pull-out programs, or self-contained.
"
There is evidence that race plays a role in the distribution of special
education services.
Special Education
This supplement explored the history and laws related to special education and introduced instructional methods for serving special education
students. The following key points were emphasized:
As we mentioned at the beginning of this supplement, your students—
all of your students—deserve an excellent education. For those students
with special needs (whether those needs are officially recognized or not),
that will mean adjusting your planning and instruction to ensure that they
meet their ambitious learning goals.
Without a doubt, teaching special education students presents special
challenges. However, you can bring your students academic success that
they may not have known before. For special education teachers—as for
all new teachers—it is especially important that you access and take
advantage of all of the resources at your disposal, from books to people.
You should be able to find the resources you need to serve your students,
even if you have to look beyond the walls of your school.
SUPPLEMENT 1.3
224
Supplement 1.4
!
Supplement 1.4
Helping English Language
Learners Achieve
Once I recall supervising a student teacher who happened to have a newly
arrived Chinese speaker in her elementary classroom. When I first observed the
student teacher, I noticed that a Chinese child was sitting off by herself coloring. When I asked the student teacher about her, she said that the child had to
do that because she did not speak English. The student teacher did not seem to
believe that the child was her responsibility and that she could teach her
English or any other subjects she was teaching the other children. Instead, the
student teacher took the position that she couldn’t be expected to teach the
school’s curriculum to someone who did not know English. In spite of my
efforts to explain that all children are the responsibility of the teacher and my
assistance with ESL strategies, the teacher candidate absolute refused to take
ownership for the Chinese child, believing that until the child learned English
she could not and didn’t have to teach her (Jones, 2002, 41).
Unfortunately, many teachers, new and veteran, make the same mistake of thinking that it is someone else’s job to be accountable for the success of students whose native language is not English. The fault does not
simply lie with the teacher; some teachers were trained that it is the job of
a specialist to teach students with special needs and many school districts
reinforce this belief. Traditionally, specialists were responsible for using
techniques related to second language acquisition seemingly unknown to
the general educator. However, as you will learn, the same techniques
advocated in the High Impact Teaching Strategies (HITS) chapter mirror
practices believed to be effective with English Language Learners (ELLs).
Since the enrollment of ELLs has increased 10 times faster than nativeEnglish speakers, we believe that it is important that all teachers, not just
bilingual or English as a Second Language (ESL) specialists, understand
how to plan and deliver effective instruction for ELLs (Short, 2000).
Make no mistake, teaching students from linguistically and culturally
diverse backgrounds presents unique challenges for both beginning and
veteran teachers. However, these challenges are readily met by teachers
who can apply the principles of differentiated instruction, have knowledge
of second language acquisition, embrace facts over myths, and realize that
part of teaching in a “general education” classroom means being accountable for the success of students whose native language is not English. This
supplement on ELLs will help you:
1. Understand the ethical and legal issues related to teaching ELLs.
2. Understand key theories and practices in second language acquisition.
3. Dispel misconceptions about teaching ELLs.
4. Review common instructional programs geared to ELLs.
225
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
5. Use best practices for ELLs and other students struggling with language.
6. Plan for newcomers to succeed.
Second language acquisition instruction has its own set of terms and
acronyms used in connection with ELLs. You’ll find a glossary of these
terms at the end of this supplement.
Before specifying how to help ELLs, it may be helpful to address the
background and history of the issue.
A Brief History of Bilingual Education in the United States
In 1968, Congress passed legislation that established bilingual education
under Title VII of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The law
represents the first national acknowledgment of the special educational
needs of non/limited-English speaking children. Under Title VII’s “poverty
criterion” for eligibility, however, bilingual education was seen as a strategy for “repudiating the effects of poverty and cultural disadvantage.”
In the 1970’s, a lawsuit by Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, and
Chinese parents led to rulings by federal courts that students had a right to
a bilingual education, and in 1974, a suit by the Puerto Rican Legal and
Educational Fund resulted in a Federal court order that the New York City
School’s Chancellor of Education develop adequate bilingual programs
that included intensive English instruction and some content instruction in
Spanish.
In the pivotal 1974 Lau vs. Nichols case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled
that Lau and 1,789 other Chinese students in San Francisco were being
denied access to equal educational opportunities because they could not
sufficiently understand the language of instruction. Lau set the expectation
that school systems must adopt some kind of comprehensive strategy that
addressed the needs of non-English speaking students, though the Court
refused to mandate any particular model.
English Language Learners (ELLs)
During the 1950s and 1960s, the need for ESL instruction expanded in
response to an influx of immigrants, refugees, and international students
to the United States. Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages
(TESOL), a professional organization, was established in 1966 in response
to the increased demand for ESL materials and methodologies. Largely
because of the rise in the number of Cuban immigrants during the 1960s,
the first large-scale government-sanctioned bilingual program began in
1963 in Dade County, Florida, which soon became an unofficial model for
the nation. Educators from all over the country came to examine the curriculum in an effort to investigate the use of bilingual schooling to improve
non- or limited-English speaking students’ opportunities for success. Table
1.4.1 presents several important court rulings which have influenced the
instruction of ELLs in this country.
Recent challenges to bilingual education through ballot initiatives in
California and Arizona may have sweeping implications for the future of
bilingual education. California’s Proposition 227 was passed during the
primary election of 1998 and effectively restructured education for language minority students by mandating a one-year “structured English
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
226
TABLE 1.4.1: Important Laws and Court Rulings
Impacting English Language Learners
Court Rulings
1974 Lau v. Nichols
In Lau vs. Nichols 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the San Francisco school system violated the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 by denying non-English speaking students of Chinese ancestry a meaningful
opportunity to participate in the public educational program. The decision stated that providing students the same desks, books, teachers, and curriculum did not ensure that they received an equal educational opportunity, particularly if the students did not speak English. If English is the mainstream
language of instruction, then measures had to be taken to ensure that English was taught to students
who do not speak English or were limited-English proficient in order to provide equal access to educational opportunities.
Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563, 94 S.Ct. 786 (1974)
1981 Castaneda v. Pickard
In Castaneda vs. Pickard, 1981, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals set forth a three-part test to determine whether a school district took appropriate action to overcome language barriers that confronted
language-minority students. Under this standard, a program for limited-English proficient students is
found to be acceptable if:
Supplement 1.4
"
"
"
A program is based on educational theory that is recognized by experts in the field;
The programs or practices used are reasonably calculated to effectively implement the adopted
theory; and
The program successfully produces results that indicate that the language barriers are being
overcome.
Castaneda v. Pickard 648F. 2d 989 (5th Cir. 1981)
1982 Plyer vs. Doe
In 1982, the Supreme Court ruled in Plyer v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982), that public schools were prohibited from denying immigrant students access to a public education. The Court stated that undocumented children have the same right to a free public education as U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Undocumented immigrant students are obligated, as are all other students, to attend school
until they reach the age mandated by state law.
Public schools and school personnel are prohibited under Plyer from adopting policies or taking
actions that would deny students access to education based on their immigration status.
Based on the Supreme Court's ruling, public school districts should consider the following practices in
working with ELL students:
"
"
School officials may not require children to prove they are in this country legally by asking for
documents such as green cards, citizenship papers, etc. They may only require proof that the
child lives within the school district attendance zone, as they might for any other child.
Schools should be careful of unintentional attempts to document students’ legal status, which
lead to the possible “curbing” of their Plyer rights.
Relevant Federal Laws
Title IV of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000b et seq., which authorizes the Attorney
General to institute civil actions alleging discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion or
national origin by public elementary and secondary schools and public institutions of higher learning.
The Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1974 (EEOA), 20 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq., which prohibits
specific discriminatory conduct, including segregating students on the basis of race, color or national
origin, and discrimination against faculty and staff. The EEOA
also requires school districts to take action to overcome students’ language barriers that impede equal
participation in educational programs.
Source: http://www.helpforschools.com/ELLKBase/legal/LauvsNichols.shtml
227
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
immersion” (SEI) program, though parents can choose to opt out of the
program. Proponents of 227 have maintained that Limited English
Proficient (LEP) students have acquired English at a higher rate since the
inception of the proposition in the 1998-99 school year. Many academics,
however, have found no empirical evidence supporting the assertion that
LEP students have benefited from the legislation.
Second Language Acquisition
What is Second Language Acquisition?
Cummins also helps us to understand what must be added to instruction to make it comprehensible to students. He identifies two dimensions
of language, its cognitive demand and its context embeddedness. Using a
quadrant matrix Cummins demonstrates how the addition of context supports the students’ understanding of more cognitively demanding language such as the language of content instruction in the classroom. By
examining Cummins’s Quadrant (presented in Figure 13) you can see that
even social language is made more understandable by the addition of context. For example, directions given orally with gestures are more easily
understood than the same words spoken over the telephone without the
aid of gestures. This becomes even more important in the classroom,
where teachers use academic terms that may be unfamiliar to the ELL or
use them in a different way from the customary social meaning.
English Language Learners (ELLs)
Although the definitions vary, practitioners and researchers generally
agree that second language acquisition describes the process by which a
native speaker learns to become proficient in another language. Proficiency
has a range of meanings as well. Jim Cummins (1981) provides a useful
and widely regarded dual notion of proficiency. The two components that
comprise Cummin’s conception of proficiency are basic interpersonal
communication skills (BICS) and cognitive academic language proficiency (CALP). BICS refers to social language like that students use on the
“playground” or when hanging out with their friends. In contrast, CALP is
academic language. While students may acquire BICS and be able to communicate in English while on the playground or in asking and answering
simple questions, this is not the same thing as having the level of language
proficiency necessary to benefit fully from academic English instruction
(CALP) without additional support.
Influential Theories in Second Language Acquisition
How non-native speakers learn a second language has been a subject of
study for decades. What you need to know as a beginning teacher is that
many of these theories of second language acquisition have been used in
whole or in parts to develop various instructional approaches, such as ESL,
immersion, and bilingual education programs. The programs you’re likely
to find in your school district are discussed later in this supplement. But,
for now, let’s focus on two influential theories that inform many of these
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
228
Figure 13: Cummin’s Quadrant System
Social Conversation
Social phone call
Cognitively Undemanding Language Note on refrig(with gestures)
Storytelling with
erator
props
Basic Interpersonal
Communication Skills
Math lesson
Cognitive Academic
(with manipulatives) Language Proficiency
Geography lesson
with maps
Cognitively Demanding Language
Social studies
lecture
Multiple choice
test
Supplement 1.4
Adapted from “Primary Language Instruction and the Education of
Language Minority Students” by J. Cummins, 1996, Schooling and
Language Minority Students: A Theoretical Framework, 2nd Edition (p.10).
models:
The Monitor Model. Stephen Krashen’s theory is widely held as the most
influential second language acquisition theory (Gitsaki, 1998). This model
puts forth three key assumptions about second language acquisition. These
hypotheses include:
"
Acquisition vs. Learning Hypothesis. This is the belief that acquisition is a subconscious process and learning is a conscious process
resulting in knowing about language. Learning, however, “does not
‘turn into’ acquisition and it takes place in formal environments,
while acquisition can take place without learning in formal environments” (Gitsaki, 1998, p. 3).
"
Input Hypothesis. The only way we can acquire language is by
receiving comprehensible input. However, comprehensible input is a
necessary, but insufficient condition for acquisition. In short, we have
to receive input that is just beyond our competence but not beyond
our understanding.
"
The Affective Filter Hypothesis. This hypothesis stresses that in order
for the student to learn effectively the student’s motivation and selfesteem must be supported while diminishing his/her anxiety.
Common Underlying Proficiency vs. Separate Underlying Proficiency. These
related theories from Jim Cummins (1996), are sometimes referred to as the
“one balloon” and “two balloon” theories. Common underlying proficiency
(CUP) theory suggests that proficiency developed in a student’s native language (L1) will transfer to the target language (L2). CUP is a rationale for
instructing students in their primary language, a hallmark of many bilingual
education programs. Separate underlying proficiency (SUP), on the other
229
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
Misconceptions About English Language Learners
by Robert Linquanti (1999)
From Section 7: Misconceptions That Cloud the Discussion
" The more time children are exposed to English, the more English they will
learn. FALSE. Intuitively, this seems true. But there is no simple, linear relationship between amount of exposure to a second language and
amount learned. What matters is not just quantity of time, but also the
degree of engagement in learning: Students learn a second language
through comprehensible input that they can connect to prior knowledge. Also, students learn best when “instruction is chunked into meaningful units, spread over larger periods, and when format is varied”
(Gandara, 1997). Moreover, Hakuta (1998) notes the “time-on-task” theory of learning in general is no longer considered viable by scientists of
learning: “The question of learning is not how much [time-on-task], but
when and in what sequence.”
" It’s always best to use the child’s native language when introducing
reading instruction. FALSE. According to Cummins, circumstances and
resources should dictate whether to teach reading first in the child’s
native language, English, or both simultaneously1. Moreover, the NRC
Committee on Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children recommends that the student’s level of oral English, along with available
resources, be used to determine the language of initial reading instruction (see “Teaching Reading to English Language Learners”).
" Limited English proficient students learn English faster in English-only programs. FALSE. English learners are not randomly or equally assigned to
different programs: Those entering bilingual education programs tend to
have had less schooling, are from poorer families, and attend higherpoverty schools than those in all-English programs. Uncontrolled comparisons show all-English program students on average learn English faster
than students in bilingual education programs, but these differences disappear when background factors are controlled for. When factors such
as initial proficiency in English and the native language, prior schooling,
and socioeconomic status are controlled for, students acquire English at
similar rates regardless of program.
English Language Learners (ELLs)
" All forms of bilingual education are more effective than all forms of
English-only instruction. FALSE. It is essential to look beyond labels and
assess overall design, quality of staff and materials, and effective implementation. Cummins considers especially weak those early-exit transitional programs that provide primary-language instruction with some
oral English until grades 2 or 3, then drop students into all-English classes
taught by mainstream teachers unprepared to support bilingual students’ academic growth. He states that he would not hesitate to
choose a monolingual program where the entire school was striving to
partner with parents and community, build on students’ personal and
cultural experiences, and promote critical literacy, over a bilingual program where there was no commitment to these goals.
" Canadian-French immersion proves that structured English immersion
works. FALSE. The former is a successful, fully bilingual model which supports biliteracy and aims to develop language-majority students’ abilities
in the minority language. Also, researchers note that these students are
still far behind the native French-speaking comparison group after two
years of monolingual L2 instruction, but catch up fully after five years—
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
230
(Misconceptions about ELL continued)
three years after instruction in their native (English) language is introduced (Lambert and Tucker, 1972, Cummins, 1998). As such, they argue
this model actually provides better support for bilingual education
approaches.
Supplement 1.4
" English language arts instruction should be delayed for several grades
until students’ literacy in their primary language is established. FALSE. All
well-designed bilingual programs have English language development,
including literacy, built into the overall plan across grades. Some bilingual models develop primary language literacy first and delay English
language arts instruction until oral English fluency is developed sufficiently either to phase in English reading instruction (e.g., “90/10” dual immersion; maintenance) or to transition students to English reading (e.g., lateexit transitional). Other models introduce English language arts instruction much sooner (e.g., those without bilingualism as a goal, such as
early-exit transitional or bilingual immersion) (Brisk, 1998, Cummins, 1998).
" Young children learn second languages easily, and the younger the
child, the more skilled he or she will be in acquiring a second language.
FALSE. The impression that children learn languages faster than adults
arises because a young child does not have to learn as much as an
adult to achieve competence in communicating. However, research
does not support these beliefs, particularly in learning more abstract,
academic language skills. Other than in pronunciation, younger children
are often at a disadvantage compared with older children and adults in
learning second languages quickly and effectively because they don’t
have access to prior knowledge, memory techniques and other learning
strategies and cognitive skills. (McLaughlin, 1992; August and Hakuta,
1997).
" Bilingual education in and of itself will elevate student achievement.
FALSE. Native language use is an important but insufficient ingredient in
promoting language-minority students’ academic success. Many elements of effective schooling must converge to foster success for language-minority students. (See August and Hakuta’s effective schools’
and classrooms’ attributes, in “English Language Acquisition and
Academic Success: What Do We Know?” above; also see Brisk’s lists of
quality school, curricular, and instructional characteristics, in briefing
binder appendix.)
1 Cummins and others note that because Spanish has a higher phoneme/ grapheme correspondence
(how you say it is how you write it) than English, it may be easier to introduce reading in Spanish first, if circumstances allow.
From Fostering Academic Success for English Language Learners:
What Do We Know? by Robert Linquanti, copyright ©1999 WestEd.
See http://www.wested.org/policy/pubs/fostering/misconceptions.htm.
See source for bibliographic references.
Reprinted permission of WestEd, San Francisco.
hand, is the belief that proficiency in the native language develops independently from the target language. Supporters of this theory argue that
deficiencies in learning English (L2) can be corrected by more instruction in
English rather than in the native language. SUP has been used as a chief
argument for initiatives, like California’s Proposition 227, which seeks to
limit bilingual education and other English First-type movements. Strong
research supports use of CUP over SUP (Concidine, 2003).
231
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
Stages of Second Language Acquisition
Understanding the stages through which ELLs progress can help
ensure that your instructional design meets their needs. The five-stage
model described below is a useful tool for understanding how ELLs reach
fluency. The time it takes for a learner to progress from one stage to another is dependent upon a variety of factors (e.g., previous exposure to
English, home/family characteristics, previous school experience, personality factors, and mastery of L1). Therefore, view the duration periods
given below as guides rather than rules. Descriptions of the stages are provided below:
2. Early Production. In this stage students demonstrate comprehension
by answering with short phrases, “Yes” or “No” answers, and
respond to simple who, what, when, where, questions. This stage
may last six months and a student’s receptive vocabulary in this
stage is 1000 words. Teachers can assist students in this stage by frequently engaging them with appropriate-level questions, adding to
the phrases that students use with additional words (e.g., adverbs,
adjectives, etc.), praise, and confidence-building activities.
3. Speech Emergence. This stage usually lasts another year and students’ receptive vocabulary builds to 3000 active words. In this stage
students begin to use short sentences and dialogue, such as “I live on
Magnolia Street” or “Can I get water?” Listening comprehension
increases and students can produce longer simple sentences that are
likely to have grammatical errors. Teachers can help students in this
stage by planning instruction that emphasizes sentence/dialogue
structure, open-ended questions, and cooperative learning to help
students’ interpersonal as well as academic skills.
English Language Learners (ELLs)
1. Pre-Production (or “silent period”). If you’ve ever traveled to a
country where you did not know the language you’ve probably
experienced the “silent period” or pre-production stage. In this stage
ELLs are often very quiet and focus on listening and comprehension.
Typically, the younger the student is the longer they stay in this
stage. The average duration is ten hours to six months. Since students have only a 500-word receptive vocabulary, students in this
stage will often point to pictures or items, gesture to show agreement
or disagreement, pantomime actions to communicate. Judi Haynes
(2003) recommends providing activities that tap into their knowledge
without forcing speaking. Teachers can use instructional activities in
which students provide evidence of understanding through physical
activities. Teachers may design activities in which students observe,
recognize, locate, identify, classify, practice, collect, distinguish,
repeat, match, show, select, construct, assemble, arrange, put things
in order, etc (Sadek, 2003).
4. The Intermediate Language Proficiency Stage. In this stage ELLs are
beginning to use more complex and sophisticated communication.
Students can state opinions, ask for clarification, speak at length, and
use humor. This stage may take another year after the “emergence
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
232
stage” and the receptive vocabulary increases to 6000 active words.
Many students at this stage are able to perform well in content-oriented classes or subject matter. Teachers can design instruction in this
stage that focuses on giving students the opportunity to practice
English in academic and social settings. Activities should focus on sentence structure, storytelling, writing tasks, debating, and presentations.
5. The Advanced Language Proficiency Stage: This stage of advanced
proficiency can take between five and seven years to develop from
the previous stage. Students can speak English and understand what
is said in the classroom. They can express ideas in both oral and written communication comparable to that of same-age native speakers.
Supplement 1.4
Common Instructional Models for ELLs
233
Educators, researchers, and policy makers have contributed to defining
various instructional programs or models to help ELLs become proficient in
English. Although it may not be evident at first, the choice to use one model
over another is as much a political decision as it is an educational one. The
debate over the “ideal” ways in which to structure educational programs
for ELLs varies widely. Therefore, a program’s subsequent effectiveness
depends not only on what may work well for ELLs but also on what works
with state and local regulars concerning the education of ELLs. Since form
eventually leads to function it is important for new teachers to understand
how various ELL models differ and to identify those used within your
school or district. Genesee (1994) sums up the situation well: “No single
approach or program model works best in every situation. Many different
approaches can be successful when implemented well. Local conditions,
choices, and innovation are the critical ingredients of success” (p. 4).
Reed and Railback (2003) have developed a useful typology for categorizing the instructional models schools and/or districts use for ELLs based
largely on how much English or native language instruction students
receive. These categories include:
"
Instructional methods using the native language. Instruction is
designed primarily in the ELL’s native language and usually delivered by a teacher who is fluent in the ELL’s native language. Many
bilingual educational models fit into this category. For example,
Chinese students would be taught mathematics in Chinese by a
teacher who is fluent in Cantonese. As the Chinese student’s English
proficiency increases, she may have fewer classes in L1 and eventually take all of her classes in English or remain in a program that has
some instruction in Chinese to maintain her proficiency in that language as well.
"
Instructional methods using ESL. Unlike the methods in the category above, an ESL teacher may have to serve students of several different languages in a classroom and the teacher may not be proficient in
his students’ native languages. The objectives of ESL programs can
focus on one or more of the following: grammar, communication, and
content instruction. The format for delivery of ESL instruction varies
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
TABLE 1.4.2: Typology of English Language
Learners Instructional Models
Description
Model Name
Methods Using the Native Language
The primary goal of this model is to mainstream students
to all-English classrooms. Native language is used to help
students keep up with academic content, but the focus is
on phasing students into English-only instruction as quickly as possible. After students have been mainstreamed, no
emphasis is put on the retention and development of their
native language skills.
Developmental Bilingual
Programs (also known as
Late-Exit Bilingual):
Developmental programs differ from transitional programs
“primarily in the amount and duration that English is used
for instruction” (Ramirez, Yuen, &Ramey, 1991, paragraph
3, as cited in Rennie, 1993) and in the length of time students are in the program. Developmental programs typically last throughout elementary school and students may
continue to receive up to 40 percent of their instruction in
their native language even after they have been reclassified
as English-proficient.
Newcomer Programs:
These programs are designed to meet the needs of incoming ELL students with low-level English literacy skills and
often limited formal schooling in their native countries.
Students enrolled in newcomer programs are usually recent
arrivals to the United States. The goal of these programs is
to help students acquire beginning English skills and core
academic skills, and to acculturate to the U.S. school system. Some programs may have the additional role of promoting students’ native language skills. These programs
can vary widely in their organization and implementation.
Two-Way Immersion
Programs (Also known
as Dual-Language or
Bilingual Immersion):
The goal of these programs is to develop proficiency in the
student’s first or native language (L1) and in a second language (L2). Usually about half the students are native
English speakers and half are English language learners from
the same language group and similar cultural backgrounds.
Instruction can be 90/10: that is, starting at 90 percent in
non-English and 10 percent in English, gradually increasing
to 50/50. Or, instruction can be 50/50 from the beginning.
These programs require significant school, family, and community commitment, significant peer interaction, and bilingual teachers who are trained to teach in both languages.
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
English Language Learners (ELLs)
Transitional Bilingual
Programs (also known as
Early-Exit Bilingual):
234
(Table 1.4.2 continued)
Supplement 1.4
Methods Using English as a Second Language (ESL):
235
ESL Pull-out
This is generally used in elementary school settings.
Students spend part of the school day in a mainstream
classroom, but are pulled out for a portion of each day to
receive instruction in English as a second language.
Although schools with a large number of ESL students may
have a full-time ESL teacher, some districts employ an ESL
teacher who travels to several schools to work with small
groups of students scattered throughout the district.
ESL Class Period
This is generally used in middle school settings. Students
receive ESL instruction during a regular class period and
usually receive course credit. They may be grouped for
instruction according to their level of English proficiency.
The ESL Resource Center
This is a variation of the pull-out design, bringing students
together from several classrooms or schools. The resource
center concentrates ESL materials and staff in one location
and is usually staffed by at least one full-time ESL teacher.
Sheltered Instruction
Observation Protocol
(SIOP):
A program model for teaching grade-level content in a
way that is understandable for ELL students while at the
same time promoting their English language development.
SIOP was developed by researchers at the Center for
Research on Education, Diversity & Excellence in response
to the variability, both in design and delivery, of sheltered
instruction methods. It uses a variety of sheltering strategies in a unified, structured way. Research using a control
group design has compared ELL students in classes whose
teachers had been trained in implementing the SIOP to a
control group class (taught by teachers not trained in the
SIOP model). ELL students in the SIOP outperformed control group students. (See Echevarria & Graves, 2003, for more
information on the research.)
Cognitive Academic
Language Learning
Approach (CALLA)
A program model based on cognitive learning theory,
CALLA integrates content-area instruction with language
development activities and explicit instruction in learning
strategies (Chamot & O’Malley, 1994). CALLA encourages
giving students the skills and opportunities to take an
active role in their own learning. Developed by Anna Uhl
Chamot of George Washington University and J. Michael
O’Malley, CALLA is being implemented in approximately
30 school districts in the United States and in several other
countries. Chamot and O’Malley (1996) report that some
studies in certain districts show ELL students in “high
implementation CALLA classrooms performed significantly better” (p. 271) than ELL students in low-implementation classrooms on the use of procedures such as problem
solving. They do, however, acknowledge that more
research and formal program evaluations are needed.
(For more information see www.gwu.edu/~calla/)
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
and is described in more depth in Table 1.4.2.
Content-Based Instruction/Sheltered Instruction. Programs based on
this model “provide neither instruction in the native language nor
direct instruction in ESL. However, instruction is adapted to meet the
needs of students who are not proficient in English.”(Rennie, 1993). In
California it is known as Specially Designed Academic Instruction in
English (SDAIE).
"
Instructional methods using the native language as support. This
category describes the mostly ad hoc adjustments teachers, paraprofessionals (assistants), and sometimes other students make to provide
support to ELLs as needed in the general education classroom. These
methods cut across the three categories listed above, but are used frequently enough in practice that they deserve separate attention.
These categories are described in greater depth in Table 1.4.2. When
identifying the model(s) used in your school or district beware that the
models described here are rarely used in their purest form and include
modifications made by either the school or district.
Guidelines for Designing Instruction for ELLs
Judy Jameson (1998), a researcher at the Center for Applied Linguistics,
suggests three general guidelines—increase comprehensibility, increase
interaction, and increase thinking/study skills—for teachers to keep in
mind as they plan instruction for ELLs (Also, see Table 1.4.3 for a list of
national ESL standards for pre-K-12 students.) These guidelines are
described briefly below:
1. Increase Comprehensibility. Drawn from the work of Krashen, this
guideline focuses on helping students use clues (verbal, non-verbal,
visual, or a combination of these) to make meaning of the new language. Krashen calls the linking of clues to the language to be
learned “comprehensible input.” Beginning and intermediate learners can benefit from a teacher’s use of non-verbal clues (pictures, gestures, intonation, facial expressions, manipulatives). For more
advanced learners the clues can be more verbal in the form of vocabulary already learned and more complex visuals like graphic organizers or diagrams. For example, a teacher of beginning ELLs uses
songs with movement to demonstrate directions like: “up,” “down,”
“left,” and “right.” A high school health teacher with beginning ELLs
uses pictures from a popular sporting magazine to provide students
clues about fitness activities. A middle school math teacher of students with high levels of proficiency uses flow-charts with simple
vocabulary to assist with a lesson on multiplying fractions. In all
cases, the teacher relies on clues that students could readily access to
build their comprehension or understanding rather than focus specifically on verbal fluency.
English Language Learners (ELLs)
"
2. Increase Interaction. This guideline emphasizes building language
and communication skills through negotiating meaning.
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
236
TABLE 1.4.3: ESL Standards for Pre-K-12 Students
Goal 1: To use English to communicate in social settings.
"
Standard 1: Students will use English to participate in social interactions.
"
Standard 2: Students will interact in, through, and with spoken and written
English for personal expression and enjoyment.
"
Standard 3: Students will use learning strategies to extend their communicative competence.
Goal 2: To use English to achieve academically in all content areas.
"
Standard 1: Students will use English to interact in the classroom.
"
Standard 2: Students will use English to obtain, process, construct, and
provide subject matter information in spoken and written form.
"
Standard 3: Students will use appropriate learning strategies to construct
and apply academic knowledge.
Supplement 1.4
Goal 3: To use English in socially and culturally appropriate ways.
"
Standard 1: Students will use appropriate language variety, register, and
genre according to audience, purpose, and setting.
"
Standard 2: Students will use nonverbal communication appropriate to
audience, purpose, and setting.
"
Standard 3: Students will use appropriate learning strategies to extend their
sociolinguistic and socio-cultural competence.
Source: Deborah Short (2000). The ESL Standards: Bridging the Academic Gap for
English Language Learners. ERIC Digests: EDO-FL-00-13.
“Negotiating meaning takes place when a speaker tries to communicate his thoughts and a listener tries to understand them. Both persons restate, question, explain, and clarify in order to come to a common understanding” (Jameson, 1998). If you’ve ever tried ordering
food from a restaurant in which you were either unfamiliar with the
language (for example, you were traveling abroad) or unfamiliar
with the cuisine (perhaps in a restaurant in your hometown), you’ve
undoubtedly experienced having to negotiate meaning. Teachers can
help students increase interaction and negotiate meaning through
cooperative learning activities, study pals, and one-on-one time with
teachers.
3. Increase Thinking/Study Skills. Many teachers new to teaching and
new to teaching ELLs unintentionally “dumb down” lessons for
ELLs fearing that students will not be able to keep up with academically rigorous work. When teachers attend to comprehensibility and
provide structured (and unstructured) activities to increase interaction, lessons need not lose their rigor. Rather, teachers should strive
to nurture their students’ higher-level thinking skills as well as study
skills that enable students to learn material on their own. Jameson
(1998) writes, “Teachers can assist ELLs by focusing instruction on
237
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
higher order thinking tasks (discovery, synthesis, evaluation), asking
ELLs higher-order thinking questions (e.g., What would happen
if...?), modeling “thinking language” by thinking aloud, assessing
learning in a manner/language consistent with instruction, explicitly
teaching and reinforcing study skills and test-taking skills, and holding high expectations for learning for ELLs.”
Although these guidelines were developed with ELLs in mind, you can
easily see how all students can benefit from them. You’ve probably noticed
that several of these guidelines relate to the High Impact Teaching
Strategies you read about in Chapter 5. Remember, these are not strategies
but general instructional principles you can use regardless of the lesson
content or students’ level of English proficiency.
The strategies described below stem from the research focused on identifying effective ways to increase achievement of ELLs (much like our
HITS). The nine strategies described below are adapted from the work of
Reed and Railsback (2003):
1. Total Physical Response (TPR). TPR emphasizes the use of physical
activity to increase meaningful learning opportunities and language
retention. A TPR lesson involves a detailed series of consecutive
actions accompanied by a series of commands or instructions given
by the teacher. Students respond by listening and performing the
appropriate actions (Asher, 2000a).
2. Cooperative Learning. Since language and communication is naturally a social activity, cooperative learning can be an “effective vehicle for learning content and learning in a second language”
(Calderon, 2001). Cooperative learning involves student participation
in small-group learning activities that promote positive interactions.
Through a shared learning activity, students benefit from observing
learning strategies used by their peers. ELL students can benefit from
face-to-face verbal interactions, which promote communication that
is natural and meaningful (Johnson, Johnson & Holubec, 1994;
Kagan, 1994).
3. Language Experience Approach (also known as Dictated Stories).
This approach uses students’ words to create a text that becomes
material for a reading lesson (Carrasquillo & Rodriguez, 2002).
Students describe orally a personal experience to a teacher or peer.
The teacher or another student writes down the story, using the student’s words verbatim. The teacher/student then reads the story
back as it was written, while the student follows along. Then the student reads the story aloud or silently. Other follow-up activities can
be done with this approach. In this way, students learn how their
language is encoded as they watch it written down, building sight
word knowledge and fluency as they use their own familiar language.
English Language Learners (ELLs)
Effective Strategies for General Educators to Help ELLs Achieve
4. Dialogue Journals (also known as Interactive Journals). This
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
238
Supplement 1.4
approach is a way for teachers to engage students in writing.
Students write in a journal, and the teacher writes back regularly,
responding to questions, asking questions, making comments, or
introducing new topics. Here the teacher does not evaluate what is
written, but instead models correct language and provides a nonthreatening opportunity for ELL students to communicate in writing
with someone proficient in English, and to receive some feedback
(Peyton, 2000; Reid, 1997).
5. Academic Language Scaffolding. The term “scaffolding” is used to
describe the step-by-step process of building students’ ability to complete tasks on their own (Gibbons, 2002). Academic language scaffolding draws on Cummins’s research into Cognitive Academic
Language Proficiency that we described above (Chamot & O’Malley,
1994; Cummins, 1981). Scaffolding actually consists of several linked
strategies, including modeling academic language; contextualizing
academic language using visuals, gestures, and demonstrations; and
using hands-on learning activities that involve academic language.
These strategies are a central part of sheltered instruction methods,
but can be used in any classroom context. (See Gibbons [2002] for specific scaffolding strategies.)
6. Accessing Prior Knowledge. All students, regardless of their proficiency in English, come to school with a valuable background of
experience and knowledge on which teachers can capitalize. When
teaching a new concept, one example is to ask students what they
already know about a subject. Creating a visual, such as a concept
map with the topic in the center and students’ knowledge surrounding it, is a good way to engage students in the topic and find out
what they already know. Another simple technique is to ask them
what they want to learn about a topic.
7. Culture Studies. The importance of including a student’s home culture in the classroom is a well-documented, fundamental concept in
the instruction of ELLs (Doherty, Hilberg, Pinal, & Tharp, 2003).
Culture study, in this context, is a project in which students do
research and share information about their own cultural history. This
often involves interviewing parents and/or grandparents as well as
others who share the student’s cultural background. Culture studies
can be appropriate at any grade level and can incorporate many
skills, including reading, writing, speaking, giving presentations, and
creating visuals.
8. Other Strategies for Including Culture. There are many strategies
that teachers can use to encourage an awareness of student diversity.
Story telling is one important strategy that can be used across grade
levels. Asking students to tell a story that is either popular in their
home country or draws on their own experiences, and allowing them
to tell it both in their native language and in English, can help build
their confidence and send a powerful message of cross-cultural
appreciation. A similar strategy, and one that is not limited to elementary school, is Show & Tell. Inviting students to bring an object
239
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
that represents their home culture and to tell the class about its uses,
its origins, how it is made, and so on, sends a similar message of
inclusiveness and awareness. A third strategy for incorporating culture into the classroom is known as Misunderstandings. Teachers can
ask students to share an incident they have experienced that
involved a cultural misunderstanding. Questions can be asked about
the nature of the misunderstanding—whether it involved words,
body language, social customs, stereotypes, or any number of other
factors. Students can examine the misunderstandings and gain
insight into the complexities and importance of cross-cultural awareness. The humor that is often involved can also help engage students
in further culture-based inquiry (Derrick-Mescua, et al., 1998).
The strategies listed above can begin to help you develop your instructional repertoire, particularly, as it relates ELLs. The strategies are by no
means exhaustive, and require more study on your part to actually implement with your students. Choose a few of the strategies, practice them,
and as you gain confidence with their use add a few more.
We also present, in Table 1.4.4 on the following page, a list of hints
published elsewhere.
Conclusions and Key Points
This supplement discusses the challenges related to teaching students
with limited English proficiency. The following key points were emphasized:
"
Since the enrollment of ELLs is increasing dramatically, it is essential
that all teachers, not just bilingual or ESL specialists, understand how
to plan and deliver effective instruction for ELLs.
"
There continues to be much educational and political debate about
the most desirable method of teaching ELLs.
"
Understanding the stages through which ELLs progress can help
ensure that your instructional design meets their needs. The fivestage model includes Pre-Production, Early Production, Speech
Emergence, The Intermediate Language Proficiency Stage, and The
Advanced Language Proficiency Stage.
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
English Language Learners (ELLs)
9. Realia Strategies. “Realia” is a term for any real, concrete object used
in the classroom to create connections with vocabulary words, stimulate conversation, and build background knowledge. Realia gives
students the opportunity to use all of their senses to learn about a
given subject, and is appropriate for any grade or skill level. When
the real object is not available or is impractical, teachers can use models or semi-concrete objects, such as photographs, illustrations, and
artwork. The use of realia can also be an ideal way to incorporate
cultural content into a lesson. For example, eating utensils and
kitchen appliances (chopsticks, a tortilla press, a tea set, and a wok)
can build vocabulary and increase comprehension while also providing insight into different cultures.
240
TABLE 1.4.4: Seven Things the Mainstream Teacher
Can Do Today to Improve Instruction
for English Language Learners
These tips were adapted from the Help! They Don’t Speak English Starter Kit for Primary
Teachers (1998) (developed by the Region IV and Region XIV Comprehensive Centers,
the Center for Applied Linguistics, and ESCORT, a national resource center dedicated
to improving the educational opportunities for migrant children) and from Integrating
Language and Content Instruction: Strategies and Techniques (1991) by Deborah Short
of the Center for Applied Linguistics.
1. Enunciate clearly, but do not raise your voice. Add gestures, point
directly to objects, or draw pictures when appropriate.
2. Write clearly, legibly, and in print—many ELL students have difficulty
reading cursive.
Supplement 1.4
3. Develop and maintain routines. Use clear and consistent signals for
classroom instructions.
4. Repeat information and review frequently. If a student does not understand, try
rephrasing or paraphrasing in shorter sentences and simpler syntax. Check often
for understanding, but do not ask “Do you understand?” Instead, have students
demonstrate their learning in order to show comprehension.
5. Try to avoid idioms and slang words.
6. Present new information in the context of known information.
7. Announce the lesson’s objectives and activities, and list instructions step-by-step.
"
Researchers recommend three general guidelines for teachers to keep
in mind as they plan instruction for ELLs: increase comprehensibility,
increase interaction, and increase thinking/study skills.
"
Just as we recommended using the eight research-based HITS to
increase academic achievement, there are nine specific research-based
instructional strategies for increasing the achievement of ELLs.
In the opening vignette to this supplement, teacher educator Toni Jones
shares her frustration of a new teacher’s unwillingness to search for ways
to meet the needs of a recent Chinese immigrant in her general education
classroom. The new teacher’s unfortunate response is to wait for a specialist to help the student while the child sits off to the side coloring. Working
with students who don’t speak English can be a difficult challenge for new
teachers. However, by understanding the rudiments of second language
acquisition theory and stages, and applying simple, but key instructional
strategies targeted at ELLs, you
don’t need to wait for a special! “Second Language Acquisition
ist to assist. You can begin to
Theories: Overview and
teach for student achievement
Evaluation” (Christina Gitsaki)
right away.
! “Help! They Don’t Speak English
Starter Kit”
241
S U P P L E M E N T 1.4
!
Glossary
Supplement 1.5 For Teachers of ELLs
English Language Learners (ELLs)
A
Academic language: language used in the learning of academic subject
matter in formal schooling context; aspects of language strongly associated
with literacy and academic achievement, including specific academic terms
or technical language, and speech registers related to each field of study.
Accommodation: Adapting language (spoken or written) to make it more
understandable to second language learners. In assessment, accommodations may be made to the presentation, response method, setting, or
timing/scheduling of the assessment.
Affective Filter: (Socio-Affective Filter) The psychological barrier that
allows input to be filtered through to a language processing mechanism.
A high filter is full of anxiety and stress while a low filter has little anxiety
increasing comprehension and attention.
B
Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS): Part of a theory of
language proficiency developed by Jim Cummins (1984), which distinguishes BICS from CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency).
BICS is often referred to as “playground English” or “survival English.”
It is the basic language ability required for face-to-face communication
where linguistic interactions are embedded in a situational context.
Bicultural: Identifying with the cultures of two different language groups.
To be bicultural is not necessarily the same as being bilingual, and viceversa
Bilingual education: An educational program in which two languages are
used during instruction in order to (1) continue primary language (Ll)
development, (2) provide instruction in content in both Ll and L2, and
(3) English acquisition.
Bilteracy: The ability to effectively communicate or understand thoughts
and ideas through two languages' grammatical systems and vocabulary,
using their written symbols.
C
Cognitive Academic Language (CALP): Developed by Jim Cummins
(1984), Cognitive/Academic Language Proficiency (CALP) is the language
242
GLOSSARY
ability required for academic achievement in a context-reduced environment. Examples of context-reduced environments include classroom
lectures and textbook reading assignments. CALP is distinguished from
Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS).
Code Switching: The alternate use of two languages. Speaking a secondary language, while also using words from one’s native language.
Comprehensible input: a construct developed to describe understandable
and meaningful language directed at second language learners under
optimal conditions; it is characterized as the language the learner already
knows plus a range of new language that is made comprehensible by the
use of certain planned strategies (e.g., use of concrete referents).
Culture: The total shared way of a given people. This comprises modes of
thinking, acting, law, language, art and customs and also material products such as houses, clothes and tools. Deep Culture: The non-tangible
aspects of culture such as feelings, emotions, attitudes, and rules for interaction. They are not seen at the surface level and they are not taught.
Surface Culture: The visible aspects of culture such as food, art, dress, holidays,
language, etc.
D
Dual Language Programs: Educational program which enables students to
develop fluency and literacy in two languages, high academic achievement
in both languages, understanding and appreciation of their own and other
cultures, and positive self-esteem. This program is designed to serve both
the language minority and language majority student. The goal of the
program is for both groups to become biliterate.
E
English Language Learners (ELLs)
Content based ESL: a model of language education that integrates language and content instruction in the second language classroom; a second
language learning approach where second language teachers use instructional materials, learning tasks, and classroom techniques from academic
content areas as the vehicle for developing second language, content,
cognitive and study skills.
English Language development (ELD): English language development
(ELD) means instruction designed specifically for LEP/ELL students to
further develop their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in
English.
English Language Learner (ELL): English Language Learners (ELLs) are
students whose first language is not English and who are unable to speak,
read, write, and understand English at a level comparable to their gradelevel English proficient peers as determined by objective measures of proficiency normed for language minority students.
English First: a national, non-profit grassroots lobbying organization
GLOSSARY
243
founded in 1986, whose goals are to (1) Make English America's official
language, (2) Give every child the chance to learn English, and (3)
Eliminate costly and ineffective multilingual policies.
English Language Learners (ELLs)
Entry Criteria: A set of criteria for designation of students as limited
English proficient (LEP) and placement in bilingual education, ESL, or
other language support services. Criteria usually include a home language
survey and performance on an English language proficiency test.
English as a Second Language (ESL): English as a Second Language (ESL)
is an educational approach in which limited English proficient students are
instructed in the use of the English language. Instruction is based on a special curriculum that typically involves little or no use of the native language, focuses on language (as opposed to content) and is usually taught
during specific school periods. For the rest of the school day, students may
be placed in mainstream classrooms, an immersion program, or a bilingual
classroom.
ESOL English to speakers of other Languages: English to speakers of
other languages; refers to learners who are identified as still in the process
of acquiring English as an additional language; students who may not
speak English at all or, at least, do not speak, understand, and write
English with the same facility as their classmates because they did not
grow up speaking English (rather they primarily spoke another language
at home).
Exit Criteria: Information gathered through several means to decide
whether the student is ready to continue in an ESL/ELD program, or go
into an enrichment program, or an all-English curriculum.
F
Fluency: Often compared to accuracy, as one of the things that is desirable
in a learner. Different approaches have different attitudes to fluency and
accuracy, although ideally a learner will have a high level of both!
Fluent English Proficient (FEP): Students whose primary or home language is other than English (PHLOTE) and are able to speak, read, write,
and understand the English language at levels comparable to their gradelevel English proficient peers as determined by objective measures of proficiency normed for language minority students.
H
Heritage Language: The language a person regards as his/her native,
home, and/or ancestral language.
Home Language (L1): First Language (also native language).
I
Immigrant Children and Youth: Individuals who are aged three through
244
GLOSSARY
21; were not born in any U.S. state; and have not been attending one or
more schools in any one or more U.S. states for more than three full
academic years.
Inclusion: When an ESL specialist goes into the mainstream classroom in
order to work with the ESL student.
L
L1: First Language (also native language).
L2: Second Language (also called target language).
Language Majority: A person or language community that is associated
with the dominant language of the country.
Language Proficiency: Measure of how well an individual can speak, read,
write and comprehend a language, comparable to the standard expected
for native speakers of the language. Language proficiency is composed of
oral (listening and speaking) and written (reading and writing) components, as well as academic and non-academic language and comprehension
of the language.
Lau v. Nichols: The United States Supreme Court decision which found
the San Francisco Board of Education failed to provide equal access to education of Chinese speaking students who were enrolled in mainstream,
English only classes; the case determined that providing ESL students with
the same materials as native speakers did not satisfy the requirement of
equal access to education.
Limited English Proficient (LEP): Term used by the federal government,
and most states and local school districts to identify those students who
have insufficient English to succeed in English-only classrooms. The preferred term is ELL.
Language Minority: A person or language community that is different
from the dominant language of the country.
M
Mainstreaming: There is no separation of students based on need or
ability. All students are placed in classrooms designed for native English
speakers that function at the perceived “normal” level.
English Language Learners (ELLs)
Language Acquisition: The process of acquiring a first or second language.
N
Native Language (L1): The language a person acquires first in life or identifies with as a member of an ethnic group.
GLOSSARY
245
Native Language Instruction: The use of a child’s home language (generally by a classroom teacher) to provide lessons in academic subjects.
Non-English Proficient (NEP): PHLOTE students, who do not have skills
to speak, read, write, and understand the English language.
O-P
English Language Learners (ELLs)
Office for Civil Rights (OCR): The Office for Civil Rights (OCR), U.S.
Department of Education, has responsibility for enforcing Title VI of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Potentially English Proficient (PEP): Potentially English Proficient, an
alternative to LEP.
Primary or Home Language other than English (PHLOTE): Term used by
the Office for Civil Rights to identify a student with a primary (i.e. firstlearned) or home language other than English.
Proposition 227: or “English for the Children” initiative: A contentious
1997 California state statute which mandates the following actions: (1)
requires all public school instruction be conducted in English; (2)the
requirement may be waived if parents or guardian show that child already
knows English, or has special needs, or would learn English faster through
alternate instructional technique; (3) provides initial short-term placement,
not normally exceeding one year, in intensive sheltered English immersion
programs for children not fluent in English; (4) appropriates $50 million
per year for ten years funding English instruction for individuals pledging
to provide personal English tutoring to children in their community; and
(5) permits enforcement suits by parents and guardians.
Pull-Out (Programs): In the case of ESL pull-out instruction, when students are withdrawn from their regular classrooms for one or more periods a week for special classes of ESL instruction in small groups.
R-S
Relia: Concrete objects from the everyday world used during instruction
to make input comprehensible. For example: magazines, books, toys.
Receptive Vocabulary: The comprehension vocabulary actually used by a
learner in silent reading and listening.
Sheltered English: Also referred to as transition or bridge classes, students
cover the same content areas as mainstream, English only classes but they
do so in a manner that adapts the language components of the classes to
meet the needs of the language minority students' English proficiency levels. Adaptations include simplified speech, contextualization, task-function
orientation, and interactional activities.
Silent approach: A time during which ESL students observe, gather and
absorb information without speaking while developing listening comprehension skills and sorting out structures in the language such as the sound
246
GLOSSARY
system (phonetics) and vocabulary. Students also take in aspects of deep
culture that are not taught such as the “common sense” aspects of everyday functioning. This period varies in length depending on the student.
T
Target Language: Instruction related to L2
Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL): Teachers
of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) is a professional
association of teachers, administrators, researchers and others concerned
with promoting scholarship, the dissemination of information, and
strengthening of instruction and research in the teaching of English to
speakers of other languages.
Transitional Bilingual Education: Program of Bilingual Education for
English Language Learners that has as its goal the transfer of students
from Home Language instruction to an all-English curriculum.
Two-way Bilingual Programs: See Dual Language Programs.
GLOSSARY
English Language Learners (ELLs)
TESL Teaching English as a Second Language: (Teaching) English as a
Second Language—where the learners are likely to be living in an English
speaking environment and need English to survive.
247
Part Two:
Classroom Culture and Management
The second section of this Guidebook covers Classroom Management
and Culture. Establishing an effective classroom management system and
a purposeful classroom culture will be one of the most challenging and
time-consuming aspects of your first few months in the classroom. Accept
that fact and prepare yourself. Appreciate how much you do not know so
that you can start figuring it out.
Your goal is a well-managed classroom that supports student achievement. A well-managed classroom and student achievement should go
hand in hand; you wouldn’t want one without the other.
The first part of this Guidebook examined the instructional elements
affecting student achievement. This part addresses the issues that will
determine whether or not yours will be a well-managed classroom. The
essential elements of a well-managed classroom include:
!
A culture in which every student feels welcome and invested
!
Relevant and reasonable classroom rules and consequences
!
Efficient classroom procedures
!
A teacher who is comfortable with his or her authority and the use of
discipline and has articulated clear expectations for classroom behavior
PART TWO: CLASSROOM CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT
248
!
A teacher with a consistent classroom
management style
!
Informed and involved families
Just as we encouraged you to set high
expectations for academic achievement, you
must also set high expectations for student
behavior. In all cases, you will serve as the
ultimate role model for what constitutes
appropriate classroom behavior. You will
need to relentlessly embody and model the
expectations you have of your students on a
daily basis. When you act in ways that you
don’t want them to act, they get the message that that behavior is acceptable.
Consider the following story about
Mahatma Gandhi:
A mother walked several days on a pilgrimage to see Gandhi. When she arrived, she
told him of her concerns about her son, saying, “He eats only sugar—no other food. I
have tried everything to get him to eat
healthfully, yet he refuses. Please help me.”
Gandhi told her to go home and return in
one week with her son. The woman had
hoped to receive his guidance on the first
trip, since it had taken three days to reach
Gandhi, but nevertheless, she journeyed back
to her home. After waiting one week, again
she walked three days with her son to see
Gandhi, as she had been instructed. When
she arrived, he remembered her. He looked at
the boy and said, “Stop eating sugar.” The
mother, shocked by the brevity of his command, said, “I walked nine days and that is
all you have to say? Could you not have told
him this last week?” Gandhi responded, “I
could not tell the boy to stop doing something that I was still doing. It took me one
week to stop eating sugar”(Bailey, 2002).
Know that you will very quickly lose
credibility in your students’ minds if you
behave hypocritically.
In working to establish an orderly and
positive classroom atmosphere, you will
need to accept that your job is as much to
socialize your students to the norms of
249
acceptable societal behavior, as it is to relay
specific academic content. In fact, it is safe
to assume that you won’t be able to relay
specific content until they are socialized to
the norms of acceptable societal behavior.
Be ever vigilant, however, never to confuse
“socialization” with the suppression of
individual spirit. The information contained in Part 2 will guide you.
Remember that when teachers clearly
state how they expect students to behave,
students usually rise to the occasion.
Experienced teachers know and accept that
they must spend considerable time during
the beginning of each year explicitly teaching the rules that will guide the classroom.
Seek out the experienced teachers you most
respect and wish to emulate. Talk with
them. Expose yourselves to their methods.
Observe them. Ask them to observe you.
They will be your most precious resource.
Description of Each Chapter
Chapter 6 (“Creating a Positive, ‘No
Excuses’ Classroom Culture”) explores how
classroom dynamics and attitudes affect
student learning. We address the validity
and universality of certain student needs,
and offer a guide on how to establish a
community based on a classroom culture of
achievement.
Chapter 7 (“Establishing Effective Rules
and Consequences”) will help you to select,
teach, and enforce the rules and consequences that will be the cornerstone of your
classroom management plan. Rules inform
students of how you expect them to behave.
Consequences outline what will happen if
students choose to break those rules.
Chapter 8 (“Establishing Efficient
Classroom Procedures”) examines the need
for routines in specific situations to create a
structured classroom environment that
helps both students and the teacher function effectively. We brainstorm the many
PART TWO: CLASSROOM CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT
different situations that demand fixed procedures, and examine the different ways to
establish and explicitly teach these procedures.
Chapter 9 (“Managing Student Misbehavior”) helps guide you through the
inevitable occurrence of student misbehavior. We discuss when and how to address
different types of misbehavior, and consider
some of the potential causes of these disruptions. We address the issue of your authority and explore how best to use it without
abusing it.
Chapter 10 (“Classroom Management
Models”) provides you with an overview of
various classroom management/discipline
systems, and helps you to identify your
management preference. Are you an interventionist type who likes to retain power,
or are you a non-interventionist who prefers
to relinquish power? (Or, are you somewhere in the middle, an interactionalist,
who shares power strategically?) Once you
determine your management style, we present specific models aligned to each style.
Chapter 11 (“Involving Families”) considers the all-important issue of how to
recruit the assistance and involvement of
your students’ parents and guardians. We
discuss effective methods of communicating
with families and how to encourage their
participation to make your classroom as
inclusive as possible. We offer guidance on
sensitive and respectful interaction, as well
as a discussion of the potential challenges
that can arise from cultural differences.
PART TWO: CLASSROOM CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT
250
Chapter 6
Creating a Positive, “No Excuses”
Classroom Culture
Just as a plant needs the right environment in which to grow—fertile
soil, sufficient space, measured light, and plentiful water—students will
also have demands (conscious and unconscious) of the space in which they
are expected to learn.
You will likely be given an empty room with four walls, severe lighting, industrial flooring, and few if any charming architectural details; it
will be your job to turn this space into a nurturing and effective environment in which your students can thrive. Some of this will be addressed by
tending to the aesthetics of the room (we will get to that a bit later)—but it
will be the dynamics of the room that you establish that will be most consequential for your students’ emotional and intellectual development.
In Chapter 1 we discussed academic goal setting, and the valuable role
that collective goals can play in motivating, unifying and focusing students. In this chapter we will discuss the necessity of establishing a positive classroom culture so that those goals can actually be achieved. Your
classroom and the culture you create within it should be viewed not just as
www.noexcuses.org a place where learning happens, but also as a critical element of the learning process. Only within a space that promotes, supports and enriches the
learning process will students have the chance to succeed at the highest
levels.
Above all, teachers must create a classroom culture where every member is invested in a shared purpose of academic achievement. In other
words, it is not enough to simply state or write down your classroom
goals—you must also ensure that your students are invested in these goals
to the point that the goals become an integral part of the culture of your
classroom.
What does such a classroom culture look like, and how does one go
about establishing it? A few examples will be helpful to visualize how it’s
done. First, an elementary school example:
Ms. Patel set a goal for all of her 3rd graders to be reading above grade level at
the end of the year. Since every one of her students started the school year
reading below grade level, she knew that reading proficiency would become the
paramount concern for her class. She recognized that she needed to infuse her
classroom with a love and appreciation for books, and to create a culture that
valued and prioritized reading.
CHAPTER 6
251
She started by creating a cozy and inviting
classroom reading corner. She bought an
inexpensive remnant from a carpet store,
and threw several old pillows (with fun pillowcases) on the floor. She strategically
placed a few reading lamps to create separate
reading zones. She went to several garage
sales in order to start building a collection of
children’s books, and was able to fill up two
full bookshelves to start a mini classroom
library. At one of the garage sales she was
also able to find two children’s rocking
chairs, which she also placed in the reading
corner. She scoured magazines to find interesting photographs of people reading books.
She purposely included people of all ages and
races, and used the photos to make a collage,
both to decorate the blank cement wall, and
to visually remind her students that reading
was a skill they would use their whole lives.
Once she was satisfied that the space was
comfortable and welcoming, she created a
bulletin board that would feature a “book of
the week.” Each student’s name was listed
with a piece of Velcro after it. Students
would use the Velcro to stick laminated indicators to record their views of the book
(thumbs up, thumbs down, or neutral
thumb). Each student would be expected to
read the book, and enter a reaction, by week’s
end.
She placed a banner on the wall near the
reading corner that stated, “I Feel a Need to
Read.” The slogan would become a mantra of
sorts for her class, and she planned to write
songs utilizing the slogan, and even wrote a
children’s book for her students about a little
girl who couldn’t control her need to read.
She used the book to introduce the mantra
during the first week of school.
She established another bulletin board of
book recommendations. Students would be
required to solicit recommendations from
siblings, friends (outside their class), librarians, websites, or other teachers or adults in
their community. Every two weeks, a different student would be responsible for offering
a recommendation. That student’s recom-
252
mendation would be recorded, and the class
would then read that book.
Finally, she set up a classroom challenge.
She found a large glass jar and put cut up
pieces of paper next to it. Each time a student read a book, they would be required to
write the name of the book, and its author on
a piece of paper, and enter it into the jar.
Each week, Ms. Patel would count the number of books read by the class by counting the
pieces of paper in the jar. The totals would be
graphed on yet another classroom bulletin
board. Students would also track their
monthly progress on the bulletin board by
putting a sticker under their name each time
they finished a book.
Each month that the jar contained more than
250 slips of paper, indicating that on average
each student had read 10 books a month,
there would be two rewards. First, Ms. Patel
would buy a new book for the classroom
library (voted on by the class), and second,
the class would have a party on the last
Friday of the month to celebrate.
And now a middle school example:
Mr. Fiallo’s 8th grade math students all performed below grade level. Given their recent
scores on math achievement tests, he was
well aware that they were all at risk of failing to graduate to high school course work
unless they showed dramatic improvement.
He knew dramatic intervention was
required. He decided to create a goal of 90%
of his students passing the end-of-year state
math exam.
For starters, he initiated a “Math Matters”
program. Once a month, he recruited professional who used math regularly on the job
(including a highly paid high-tech worker,
an engineer, a high-end car salesman, a
financial advisor, a struggling hip hop artist,
an accountant, a city councilwoman, a film
editor and an architect). The professionals
would discuss with students the specific
ways in which they relied on math and
would emphasize the perks of their job.
CHAPTER 6
Mr. Fiallo also set up a bulletin board that
clearly listed the most essential skills his students would need to master (one board for
each of his classes). When he felt that an
entire class had sufficiently mastered a skill,
he would, with great fanfare, identify the
student who he felt showed the most
progress and/or fortitude in conquering the
skill, and allow that student to draw a thick
red line through the topic.
He committed himself to heading 90-minute
math tutoring sessions to be held every
Tuesday and Thursday after school, and
every other Saturday morning. It was a huge
commitment, but he knew his students
would need the extra assistance, and knew
he had to communicate to them how dedicated he was to achieving the goal. Any student
who attended at least eight sessions a month
was invited to a pizza party the last Friday
of the month. On occasion he knew he might
have to insist that a struggling student
attend tutoring, and when necessary,
planned to intervene with the student’s family to communicate how vital he felt it was
for the student to receive extra assistance.
Finally, Mr. Fiallo obtained multiple versions of the state’s prior math tests. Once a
month, he would gather all the questions
from prior tests that referred to material his
students had covered that month. Students
would work in pairs to answer half the questions, and would work independently to
answer the rest. The class would then come
together to analyze their work and their
results. For that night’s homework, students
would receive more sample test problems of a
similar nature, and would be required to
time themselves as they completed the work.
Each class’s average completion times were
then graphed and displayed.
And a high school example:
Two months into the school year, Ms.
Demers was struggling to maintain acceptable attendance levels in her 11th grade
French class. Half of her students spoke
Spanish fluently, but she found that she just
CHAPTER 6
couldn’t get them to care about French. The
other half of her class was comprised mostly
of African-American students, many of
whom seemed to feel that French had little to
do with their culture. She realized that she
needed to emphasize the ways in which
learning French could be beneficial and
relevant to their lives.
First, she gathered statistics about the numbers of Americans who spoke more than one
language, and more than two languages. She
compared these statistics with those of other
countries, which had much higher levels of
bi- and tri-linguality. She worked to communicate to the Spanish speakers how rare they
would be, as Americans, if they could speak
three languages, and emphasized the distinct
advantages they would enjoy. She discussed
many of the exciting and lucrative jobs that
are available to people who speak multiple
languages, and downloaded several job offerings from the Internet that required either
French or Spanish fluency.
Secondly, she worked to emphasize the similarities between the French and Spanish languages (which required considerable extra
work on her behalf, given that she didn’t
know Spanish). She met with a few Spanishspeaking teachers to create a list of Spanish
words that were almost identical to the
French words, and she displayed the list on
her wall. Whenever possible, she pointed out
when a French word and Spanish word
shared similar roots and she encouraged her
Spanish speakers to inform the class when
they recognized similarities. She helped her
Spanish-speaking students to realize how
advantageous their Spanish background
would be in learning French.
She displayed a huge map of the world and
indicated those countries where English,
Spanish or French were predominantly spoken. She made sure students realized how
much of the world would be accessible to
them if they were able to master the three
languages. For her African-American students, she explicitly pointed out all of the
253
francophone African and Caribbean nations,
and even planned a lengthy unit on the history of French colonialism and how the language was spread throughout the world.
Working with a local French community, she
obtained several French pop culture magazines, which covered many American celebrities, and used the magazines in classroom
exercises. Knowing how much her students
liked movies and songs, she incorporated
both French films and French pop songs into
the curriculum to assist their translation
and oral comprehension activities.
Since many of her students had younger
brothers and sisters in the middle school, she
designed a program where her high school
students would prepare lessons teaching
French to students at the middle school level
and even elementary school. Her high school
students, she knew, loved being treated as
“experts,” and seemed to work harder when
they would be able to show off their skills.
Finally, she applied for a grant to take some
students on a field trip to a French-speaking
nation. She let students vote between
Quebec, Paris, Martinique, or Cameroon.
Her students chose Paris, and she detailed a
year’s worth of fund-raisers they would have
to complete to subsidize the grant funding.
Only students with acceptable attendance
levels would be eligible for the trip.
These teachers have relied upon several
different methods to create productive and
focused learning environments. We will
spend the rest of this chapter breaking
down the different strategies they
employed.
must build a classroom culture of achievement—a culture in which students are
inspired to work hard to attain success, a
culture in which students are motivated to
learn, a culture in which students collaborate with their peers to bring the whole
class to higher levels of achievement.
Unlike long-standing societal, ethnic or
religious cultures that have pre-existing traditions, you will need to purposefully create
your classroom’s educational ethos from
scratch. You will need to establish the
beliefs, practices, routines, and rituals that
will communicate to your students the values and goals of your classroom. Getting
students personally invested in these goals
involves creating a motivating purpose and
a climate of achievement. This overarching,
unifying vision then propels the class members to work together toward achieving the
goals you have identified.
Understand that there is no recipe you
can follow to create the ideal classroom
community. Every teacher must be true to
him or herself and design a classroom environment that accurately reflects his or her
individual instincts and priorities. But there
do seem to be patterns amongst those teachers who effectively ignite their students’
enthusiasm for learning and whose students
ultimately achieve rigorous academic goals.
Successful teachers develop a sense of team
and unity that compels their students to
meet high expectations for achievement and
provides students with a psychologically
safe environment in which to learn.
Productive classroom cultures all accomplish the following:
1. Address Students’ Needs
What is Classroom Culture?
Classroom culture refers to the customs
you will create for the newly formed community that is comprised of you and your
students. In order to effect the dramatic academic gains necessary to level the playing
field for the students in our classrooms, we
254
2. Adopt a “No Excuses” Attitude
3. Foster Positive Group Dynamics
4. Strategically Support Goals through
Marketing Efforts
Let’s examine each of these essential
elements more fully.
CHAPTER 6
Address Students’ Needs
Teacher-centered classrooms, which
stubbornly ignore the needs of students,
will always prove to be fatally ineffectual.
An effective classroom environment must
acknowledge and address the valid needs of
students. William Glasser, an expert in reality therapy and control theory, devised a list
identifying the crucial needs of all individuals. His list includes: fun, freedom, power,
belonging and survival. Glasser argues that
these needs motivate all behavior. If you fail
to incorporate these needs into your classroom culture, you will end up creating (consciously or unconsciously) a hostile classroom that communicates indifference to
your students. Thus, you will need to
ensure that your culture incorporates all
five of these human necessities.
We will discuss these needs in the order
of importance to students themselves.
Glasser asked students to rank these five
needs. The students surveyed placed fun
first and survival last. You might rank the
list in different orders of priority, but if a
student-centered classroom is your goal,
then their preferences matter.
Let’s take a closer look at Glasser’s list:
1. Fun (Enjoyment) – Students need to
do enjoyable things and have access to
pleasurable, rather than tedious, curriculum and activities.
2. Freedom (Choices) – Students need to
be able to make choices, to be selfdirecting and assume responsibility.
3. Power (Empowerment) – Students
need to have some control over their
lives in school, to participate in making decisions, and to feel a sense of
importance.
5. Survival (Shelter, Sustenance, &
Nurturing) – Students need to feel
that their basic physical and emotional
needs are being met.
In order to understand the importance
of each of these items, we describe them
more fully below.
Caveats to Glasser
Many new teachers find themselves in
situations in which the five needs
Glasser identifies seem more like lofty
ideals, rather than usable ideas. We
offer Glasser as a heuristic for conceptualizing various aspects of classroom
culture, when in place help support
students and advance student
achievement.
When new teachers approach creating
a positive classroom based on
Glasser’s Framework, they find that
these needs must be realized in an
environment in which seriousness
about learning, structure, consistency, and authoritative leadership have
been explicitly conveyed to students.
From this view point, a new teacher
should look at each of Glasser’s needs
on a continuum high or low integration. For example, how much will you
integrate freedom? Will you give controlled choices (low integration) or
unlimited choices (high integration).
Keep in mind that you don’t need to
fully integrate all of Glasser’s needs to
create a positive classroom environment. Many teachers have found low
integration very beneficial.
4. Belonging (Affiliation) – Students
need to feel that they are a genuine
part of their class and school; they
need to feel secure and comfortable in
the classroom.
CHAPTER 6
255
Fun
Fun means much more than just playing
classroom games or having class parties. To
be successfully engaged, students will need
to fundamentally enjoy your class. This
means you will need to work to avoid
monotony and predictability. Though you
want to maintain a consistent class structure, you will want to periodically infuse
classroom activities with surprising and creative elements. For some of you, this will
come naturally, since some people more
instinctively relate to what children find
entertaining. If you are not one of these people, you will have to deliberately work to
appeal to the playful nature of your students (and yourself).
Humor can be a very powerful tool in
the classroom. Everyone likes to laugh, and
everyone tends to like those who make
them laugh. By laughing regularly, (especially at yourself) you remind your students
that learning can and should be enjoyable.
When used effectively, humor can provide
necessary breaks for mentally taxed students, and instill a light-hearted sense of
fun. When used extremely effectively,
humor can be applied with incisive wit that
instructs as well as entertains. Be wary however, of over-using humor as a crutch to get
your students to like you. Your students
will like you if they respect you. If you turn
yourself into a clown to earn their affection,
then you will find that you might have
trouble commanding the necessary authority to prevent your classroom from becoming a circus (more on this in Chapters 10 &
11).
Also be wary of an over-reliance on sarcasm. Sarcasm can hurt students’ feelings,
damage self-esteem, or humiliate students
in front of others. What you often intend as
innocent banter or a harmless joke can easily be misinterpreted by young and self-conscious students. Remaining aware of your
language and tone—including all of the
subtle nuances of what you say and how
you say it—will be vital to creating and
256
maintaining a mutually respectful relationship with your students.
Freedom
Freedom does not mean that students
have the right to slack off or hang loose. It
refers to the opportunity to make choices
and influence one’s fate. Children do not
enjoy the freedoms of adults. They need to
be given freedom in direct proportion to
how ready they are to manage it. They will
constantly crave more freedom than they
can handle; yet you will need to be ever
vigilant to grant them as much as is reasonably possible.
Try to avoid endless scenarios where
students have no choice but to do what the
teacher asks of them. Resentment will
quickly arise if you fail to acknowledge
their need for independence and self-assertion. Whenever possible, incorporate elements of instruction which encourage student input. Let your students regularly
choose amongst multiple assignments to
ensure that their interests can be pursued.
Periodically let them choose their own work
partners and take class votes to empower
them with a sense of participatory democracy. Having to make all the decisions for
your students can be overwhelming—share
some of that responsibility with the students themselves, both to alleviate you of
the burden, and to invest them in their own
education.
Power
The necessity of power may not seem
instinctively obvious, but we all need to feel
that we can influence our own lives and
surroundings. Failing to give students sufficient control over their lives may result in
constant power struggles between students
and teachers. Ideally, students would be
able to clearly express their need for greater
control. Realistically, students will be
unable to immediately articulate or identify
CHAPTER 6
the roots of their frustration, and so it will
fall to you to recognize that they are being
psychologically and emotionally stifled. It
will also be up to you to teach your students, over time, how to more effectively
convey those frustrations in an appropriate
manner.
Belonging
Everyone craves a sense of belonging
(although the more non-conformist amongst
us may be loathe to admit it). We all instinctively crave a peer group to approve of our
decisions, and to share our dreams, accomplishments and losses. Sometimes it is easier to stay isolated and protect oneself with
the pretext of independence. But sooner or
later even the most determined loner seeks
a group with which to commiserate. A
sense of belonging can come from membership to as basic an entity as a group project
or an ad hoc meeting.
Just as you will work to encourage your
students to associate themselves with each
other and with the class at large, make sure
that you do not ignore your own needs for
interaction and belonging. Classroom teaching can be isolating work. Force yourself to
cooperate and collaborate with your colleagues and aim to join at least one schoolwide organization.
Survival
Survival is quite simply the most basic
human need. In its most primitive sense,
survival refers to food and shelter. The
absence of adequate food and shelter will
take precedence over all other needs. If you
identify a student whose basic survival
needs are not being met, it is your professional and human duty to reach out and
work to alleviate the problem.
From an emotional viewpoint, survival
requires genuine nurturing. Both human
and animal newborns fail to thrive in the
CHAPTER 6
absence of effective nurturing—even when
their physical needs are being met. While it
is not fundamentally your responsibility to
nurture your students, you will find that
they have complex emotional and psychological needs, the very basic of which is to
be loved. You are not required to love (or
even like) your students. But you are
required to help them fulfill their potential.
You will have to use your best judgment to
determine how best to compensate for their
valid human need for approval and affection.
Incorporating these five elements into
your classroom will go a long way towards
ensuring that your students feel valued and
respected. If you find that your students are
consistently acting out, you may need to
reassess the presence of each element, and
determine if the inclusion of one area has
been neglected.
Adopt a “No Excuses” Attitude
The second element that expert teachers
skillfully incorporate into their classroom is
a “No Excuses” attitude. The “No Excuses”
philosophy is not about adopting a rigid,
harsh, or militaristic attitude. Any unreasonable abuse of your authority will backfire against you. Rather, a “No Excuses”
attitude means a refusal to lower your
expectations for your students’ future
progress based on their backgrounds or
past academic failures. Teachers who accept
the mission of closing the achievement gap
adopt a “No Excuses” attitude to combat
the effects of learned helplessness and selflimiting behavior that present huge barriers
to achievement.
When you adopt a “No Excuses” attitude
you affirm that even students in high-need
schools can succeed. Many educators use the
expression, “All children can learn” to
describe a similar sentiment. We believe that
too, but take it a step further. We believe
that not only can all students learn, but they
can also translate their learning into signifi-
257
cant academic achievement. The problem
with the expression, “All students
can/do/will learn” is that it has become
clichéd. When you really press teachers,
they start qualifying the phrase, by admitting that they think “these” kids could learn
more if they came from families with higher
socio-economic status, attended nicer
schools, lived in safer neighborhoods, etc.
The list of pre-requisites is disturbingly long
one.
Although these factors do influence student achievement, they in no way limit a
student’s potential. “No excuses” is about
debunking the myth that a student’s background or previous academic record necessarily has to limit a student’s future academic success. On the contrary, many students in high-needs schools debunk that
myth daily. Teachers must embrace the
truth that their students can succeed despite
the “tough” conditions in which may they
live—otherwise, how can students themselves ever believe it?
Children in low-income communities
may be even more prone to this attitude
because academic success may already seem
beyond their reach. Students may not buy
into the value of academic achievement
either because they lack an understanding
of the very real rewards that an education
brings, or because, having never known
anyone who has attended college, they may
consider it an unrealistic and unattainable
goal. Based on the experience of their families, hard work may seem understandably
futile. A study found that the income of a
full-time minimum wage job could not lift a
family of three above the poverty line (Reed
and Sautter, 1990). The New York Times
reported that children from low socioeconomic backgrounds may “become convinced that it is difficult if not impossible
for them to advance in the mainstream by
doing well in school”(1988).
Learned Helplessness
Because success seems outside their
locus of control, because hard work seems
to get their relatives nowhere, because their
fate seems to be sealed by virtue of their
background, many students may (understandably) abandon personal ambition. This
obviously presents a huge motivational hurdle – one of the most formidable hurdles
teachers in low-income communities will
face. Without a belief that they can influence their own futures, there is little reason
why these students should accept the merits
or benefits of hard work.
Martin Seligman (1972) and his colleagues coined the term “learned helplessness” to explain the phenomenon that
occurs when students who experience consistent failure or disappointment come to
expect failure and no longer exert effort,
which leads to continued failure. This
vicious cycle then reinforces the theory of
fixed intelligence; these students attribute
any success to luck and every failure to
their supposed intellectual deficiencies. The
most common victims of this phenomenon
are “labeled” students, such as those identified as having a learning disability.
Later in this chapter, you will read that
successful teachers face these challenges
head on by helping students to set and
reach ambitious but attainable goals regardless of setbacks, by emphasizing malleable
intelligence, and by enabling a pattern for
success that counters prevailing notions of
helplessness. Being honest about the challenges that students may face while providing them with examples of people who
have “beaten the odds”—in their community or beyond—can help to convince students that effort can make a difference in
their future. Successfully confronting this
On another level, “No Excuses” is about
helping students overcome the effects of
learned helplessness, self-limiting behavior,
and low expectations. In many respects
these barriers are more daunting than the
socio-cultural barriers associated with
achievement.
258
CHAPTER 6
lack of hope and self-determination will
essentially—and monumentally—change
your students’ entire outlook on their lives.
Self-Limiting Behavior
Psychologists also refer to self-limiting
behavior as “self-handicapping” behavior.
A “No Excuses” attitude is about helping
students who engage in self-limiting behavior to focus more on goals rather than relying on elaborate excuses to hide their failures. Such students create excuses for their
failures before they even attempt success—
thus, if they fail, it was to be expected, and
if they succeed, it was by luck rather than
effort.
It is important to point out that not all
students engage in such defensive behavior
and others may choose to do so only during
specifically challenging activities or subject
matter. Insecure students with prohibitively
low self-esteem will be most prone to these
tendencies. They will often engage in selfdestructive behavior like missing class or
skipping assignments in order to avoid
turning in sub-par work or acknowledging
that they need help. When students act
“bored,” disrupt the class, or simply refuse
to do their work, check to make sure that
they aren’t just saving face rather than
admit they are struggling.
There are patterns to the ways selflimiting learners will conduct themselves
(Ramsey, 1990). In general, they are likely to:
1. Create behaviors to self-protect.
2. Behave in ways that make performance
assessment difficult if not impossible.
3. Use self-limiting behaviors on a regular basis to reduce perceived threats.
4. Set themselves up for failure
rather than objectively evaluate
their strengths and weaknesses.
It is essential that these students understand that their performance is within their
control, and that only with comprehensive
CHAPTER 6
preparation and hard work can they (and
everyone else) reasonably expect to succeed.
In extreme cases, students may turn to drug
use or alcohol consumption to relieve the
anxiety they feel about a potentially inferior
performance. Whenever possible, reduce
the pressure these students may feel, and
eliminate the opportunity for them to give
in to their avoidance tendencies.
Low Expectations for Teachers
Although most people accept and grasp
the necessity of maintaining high expectations of student achievement, a less recognized problem is the lowered expectations
that students may hold for their teachers.
After years of enduring mediocre educators,
many students will stop expecting teachers
to offer challenging work. They will assume
mediocrity (recognizing all too well those
teachers who consider the bare minimum of
effort to be sufficient), and be surprised (if
not shocked) by competent, committed
teachers who go the extra mile to help them.
Students are well aware (often more than
school administrators or a teacher’s colleagues) of those teachers who dumb down
their work, lack control of their classrooms,
and generally blame students for their own
failures. Given that they are often powerless
to change or address their teacher’s inadequacies, they lose faith in the system that is
failing them.
Students, however, when asked, are
very clear about what they want from their
teachers. Although many would expect that
students would prefer teachers with low
expectations, who require little work, effort,
or mental exertion, the opposite is true.
Students want to be challenged. They take
offense and feel insulted by those who have
low expectations of them. They recognize
that they should work much harder than
they typically do—and they freely admit
they are capable of doing so. Linda
Lumsden (1997) identifies other consistent
desires expressed by students:
259
!
Order—Students crave teachers who
would enforce rules.
!
Structure—Students want teachers to
play an active role in shaping their
classrooms.
!
Moral Authority—Students want
teachers to minimize cheating and
emphasize ethics.
Students know they need to be challenged in order to achieve, and they clearly
recognize when that challenge is absent
from their classrooms.
Above all, a “No Excuses” attitude offers
a compassionate, yet unyielding commitment to maintaining high expectations for
all of your students—especially those who
have already given up on school or on
themselves. A classroom culture based on
the “No Excuses” attitudes we have
described, offers a safe, nurturing place
where students can make mistakes, are held
accountable to rigorous academic goals, are
lauded for progress toward goals, and are
not punished or ridiculed because of previous performance. Remember, the achievement gap can only close when students,
parents, colleagues, and schools are no
longer allowed to make excuses for low
performance.
Foster Positive Group Dynamics
Although entire volumes have been
written on group dynamics and the benefits
of forming effective teams, there is one key
theory of group dynamics that seems to resonate most with new teachers. This theory,
adapted from Tuckman’s (1965) work,
describes four stages of group development,
and is presented in Figure 14. For new
groups to become highly functioning teams,
they must experience all four distinct stages.
Tuckman refers to these stages as Form,
Storm, Norm, and Perform. The distinctions
are as follows:
1. Form—In this phase the group forms
and members become oriented
towards one another. (Also known
affectionately as the honeymoon period).
2. Storm—The “honeymoon” period
ends. Students feel at ease enough to
start rebelling. The teacher spends con-
Figure 14: Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development
PEAK PERFORMANCE
PERFORM
NORM
FORM
STORM
Tuckman, B. W., & Jensen, M. A. C. (1977).
260
CHAPTER 6
siderable time in dealing with difficult
student behaviors. Students test the
teacher’s limits and commitments. This
stage ends only when a majority of the
class accepts the teacher’s authority
and feels invested in the class.
3. Norm—Students feel accepted by the
teacher and seem invested in the classroom culture. Students regulate their
own behavior.
4. Perform—The class reaches a point
where it can effectively perform and
achieve desired goals after a period of
“peak performance.” Peak performance refers a point in which the group
maximizes its efficiency toward a goal.
Performance will not always stay a
peak levels. Rather, high performing
groups usually vacillate between peak
performance and performance.
For any group to successfully coalesce
there will be a growth process that the
group must endure to facilitate the purposeful transition from the beginning “Form”
phase to the ultimate “Perform” phase.
There is no set time period in which groups
progress through these stages. On the contrary it is up to the group’s leader—you—
to ensure that your class reaches the
“Perform” stage so that learning gains can
occur. Each of these stages is described in
more depth below.
Form
During this initial merging—when the
teacher is getting to know his or her students, and the students are getting to know
the teacher—everyone seems pleasant and
agreeable. Everyone is insecure in the role
they are expected to play, and are therefore
uncharacteristically timid and restrained.
Students refrain from calling too much
attention to themselves and tend to avoid
conflict or confrontation. Many new teachers feel a false sense of security (“My kids
are great! They are angels…”) and take this
CHAPTER 6
relatively calm environment as a cue to
relax and forego asserting authority and
enforcing behavioral expectations. Students,
in kind, may perceive the relaxed mood as a
lack of authority and control. Inevitably, the
“Storm” phase begins when students begin
to test the limits and boundaries imposed
by the teacher.
Storm
Conflict naturally occurs during this
stage. If a teacher has been too relaxed or
failed to teach the rules and procedures
explicitly, frequent discipline problems arise
and valuable class time is potentially wasted
on reclaiming authority and control.
Although teachers must deal with addressing classroom discipline in every phase, its
necessity will be most pronounced in the
“Storm” phase. A new teacher’s inexperience and lack of foresight about the
inevitable stages which must occur makes
this the most stressful and frightening
phase. Students will begin to have preferences about the roles they want to play, and
will begin to have the confidence to assert
themselves. Students will test both each
other and the teacher as they jockey for positions of power and relevance. To effectively
assist the progression to the next, calmer
phase, teachers must be aware of emerging
conflicts, and be willing to address them
head on in all their various manifestations.
Norm
This is the “settling” phase where students will begin to settle down, and settle
into comfortable roles. The group will begin
to emerge as an entity larger than its individual members. Students will begin to
draw strength from their identity as group
members. Individual relationships will fortify the group as a whole, while individual
conflicts will be seen as a threat to the entire
group (not just to the conflicting parties).
Predictable and reliable patterns and rou-
261
tines will emerge, which students will find
comforting. Students will interact more
comfortably, and as they secure their
respective roles in the class, they will feel
less threatened by one another than they
did previously. As their confidence grows,
they will begin to allow themselves to learn
from each other. Teachers should be wary
of allowing students to become too fixed in
their roles and routines and will want to
“shake things up” periodically. Teachers
will also want to make a point to celebrate
the accomplishments of the group.
group, in general, new teachers find that
(based on a traditional school year calendar)
they seem to progress to the norm stage
shortly after January.
Perform
Strategically Support Goals Through
Marketing Efforts
This is the blissful phase where it all
comes together. (Although only groups that
successfully gel will reach this stage.)
Group cohesion is strong, and students take
pride in their membership status. After
months of trying to figure out how to relate
to each other, students achieve a true state
of interdependence and productivity. There
is true adaptability and flexibility—members can effectively work alone, or in any
combination of partners. The group as a
whole is focused on achieving long-term
goals, and understands and accepts the
hard work that is required.
While this framework of group dynamics offers a conceptual model only, many
new teachers agree that it accurately captures their experiences. While we will discuss the implications of these stages in
much greater detail in our classroom management chapters (Chapters 9 and 10), you
will want to begin to use this mental model
as the basis for planning your classroom
management approach.
Understanding the journey your students will be taking as they learn to relate to
you, their peers, and the emerging culture
of the classroom will be critical if you are to
effectively command control of that classroom. Though we emphasize once again
that the time frame for the four stages of
group development will vary from group to
262
When your class reaches its lowest point
(in October or November), try to remember
that as out of control as it may feel, there is
a predictable nature to the process your
class is experiencing. It can be comforting to
realize that as long as you actively steer
them through these four phases, you can
reasonably expect them to follow the general course of Tuckerman’s framework.
The final commonality shared by effective classroom cultures is a deliberate effort
to actively transmit that culture. As many
teachers have learned the hard way, it is not
enough to simply acknowledge your students’ needs, adopt a “No Excuses” attitude, and embrace the challenges of group
formation. You must also conscientiously
indoctrinate your students to an ideology of
success—in other words, get them on board.
As we have discussed, there is a self-fulfilling prophecy of high expectations, and the
effects of poverty have a significant impact
on student motivation. In some cases, students have internalized the low expectations
that society has had for them. They have
become convinced that intelligence and academic success are traits that one either possesses or doesn’t – and that they don’t. Some
of the students you will teach will have
adopted this theory of “fixed intelligence”
and therefore won’t instinctively believe that
intelligence and academic success are accessible to them through hard work.
To counter these beliefs, you must celebrate and value effort, growth, collaboration, and other behaviors that support your
academic goals. You must build a culture of
achievement in your classroom. To do this
you must first package what you value in
language that your students will under-
CHAPTER 6
TABLE 6.1: Examples of Classroom Values from KIPP Schools
The Knowledge is Power Program is a group of schools widely regarded for their
powerful school cultures.
Value #1: Academic Achievement is Highly Valuable.
1. In order to help students realize the value in academic achievement, you might
communicate that Academic Achievement = Opportunity.
2. At KIPP Academies, students believe that academic achievement now will
result in improved educational opportunities later, as they Climb the Mountain
to College in 200X.
Value #2: Hard Work Leads to Academic Achievement.
1. The most successful students are those who recognize that academic success
does not come easily. True achievement requires hard work. Consequently,
you might want to promote the message Effort Breeds Success.
2. Another subset of the “hard work” message is the notion that Mistakes are
Learning Opportunities. Errors must be seen not as personal weakness, but as
an inevitable part of learning.
3. Your students must understand that they have the ability to succeed. You
might consider conveying some form of the idea You Have the Ability to Excel,
which KIPP Academies do with the message ALL of us WILL Learn.
Value #3: Academic Achievement Requires Team Effort.
1. Develop a sense of inter-dependence among students and communicate the
idea that We Succeed Together.
2. At KIPP Academies, every student has internalized the notion that Team Beats
Individual. As a result, students are inclined to monitor, push, protect, and
collaborate with their peers.
3. Another effective message is Together Everyone Achieves More (which has the
very convenient acronym, TEAM).
stand and be able to internalize – essentially
manifesting those values in clear, comprehensible “messages.” We have found that
teachers who develop conscious messages
about classroom values and “market” them
strategically to students are more effective
than teachers who leave it to chance and
assume their students will figure it out.
Selecting Your Messages
To begin, identify the fundamental ideas
you believe will help your students succeed
in your class (and ultimately in school and
in life). Using the big goals described in
Chapter 1 is a good starting point. The ideas
in Table 6.1 from the KIPP Academies, a
group of highly successful schools, might
serve as a useful starting point.
These messages will help to communi-
CHAPTER 6
263
cate your high expectations, instill the theory of malleable intelligence, and convince
students that hard work will, in fact, lead to
success and greater opportunity.
Unfortunately, just sharing these messages
will likely prove insufficient. To truly get
your students on board, you will need to
market your message.
Marketing Your Message
Professional marketers devise ingenious
ways to get their audience to internalize
desired messages and act accordingly. They
create clever slogans and visual images,
plan events and rituals, develop promotional contests, create symbols or mascots to
give personality to their messages, and so
on. Think of yourself as the chief marketer
of your classroom; you’ll want to think of
every creative way possible to reinforce the
values you espouse.
The following strategies, while no means
comprehensive, offer a starting point. You
will, of course, need to make decisions
appropriate for your subject content, gradelevel and community.
1. Establish a Class Name, Theme, or
Motto. Class names, such as “The A+
Class” (which reinforces the value of
achievement) or “The Helping Hands
Classroom” (which emphasizes collaboration and teamwork) allow you to
shape your class identity as a whole.
As a way to communicate that your
students have the potential to go to
college while also encouraging hard
work, you might name your room
“The College Prep Class.” You might
invest students (especially very young
students) in a class name by allowing
them to brainstorm and vote on a
name, even if their choice doesn’t convey a specific identity, such as “The
Super Sonics.” You can later guide
students to define the characteristics
that are true of a “Super Sonic,” such
as perseverance, a positive attitude,
264
and respect for others. Class mottos,
such as “There are no shortcuts” or
“No Excuses” can be written (or
stamped) on every assignment, test or
quiz. Many teachers will refer to their
students as “scholars” to emphasize
an academic focus.
2. Recite Class Chants. Most common at
the elementary level, class chants are
another effective way to market your
messages. For example, to reinforce
the message that mistakes are learning
opportunities, early elementary students might be encouraged to chant,
“__________ made a mistake, but
that’s ok, because as long as he learns
from it, we say hurray!”
3. Create Visual Displays. To communicate the importance of respect and collaboration with others, you might create an Acts of Kindness Wall or a
T.E.A.M. (Together Everyone
Achieves More) display where you
post supportive things you’ve seen
your students doing or assignments
where students have collaborated to
produce a high quality product. To
communicate that success is achieved
through hard work, an elementary
teacher might create a big red train
engine on one of his walls where he
hangs up pieces of work that represent tremendous effort and accomplishment under the title “The Engine
That Could.” You might hang banners
that present your messages in catchy
slogans such as “There Are No
Shortcuts,” “Team Beats Individual,”
or “Work Hard. Be Nice.” (All three
of these are slogans utilized in the
KIPP Academies.) You may recall that
Jaime Escalante (of Stand and Deliver
fame) paced a large sign in his classroom that read “DETERMINATION +
HARD WORK + DISCIPLINE = THE
WAY TO SUCCESS.”
There is, of course, a real danger to class
names, slogans, or visual displays that have
CHAPTER 6
no reality behind them. If students in the
“Helping Hands Classroom” never work
with a partner or in collaborative groups,
or are never affirmed for supporting their
classmates’ achievement, that class name
will probably ring false to students. If you
hang a banner that reads “Try, Try, Try
Again: Effort Breeds Success” and then
deny a failing student the opportunity to
retake a test, your message becomes meaningless and hypocritical. Translating your
values into messages and packaging them
in a way that students can understand is
one thing; securing the reality behind those
messages is another key element. As any
good marketer will tell you, you can’t sell
messages effectively unless there is a reality
behind them; you must “walk the walk.”
Reinforcing Your Messages
If you want students to believe that hard
work leads to success, you need to model
hard work yourself. That might mean making yourself available before school and for
after school study sessions, or by using
every second of class time productively.
Students need to see you working hard and
feel your sense of urgency in your interactions with them. For students to believe that
mistakes present an opportunity for growth,
you need to demonstrate this belief. Use a
mistake to explore the student’s thinking
and eliminate the source of confusion. If
you make a mistake when grading a test,
writing on the board, or responding to a
question, openly admit it and model how
you plan to avoid that same mistake in the
future. In other words, practice what you
preach.
Your class policies also need to mirror
your values. If you want students to see
mistakes as opportunities for improvement,
you should allow, if not require, students to
retake an assessment on which they did not
demonstrate adequate mastery of the objectives. (This assessment should address the
same objectives but in a slightly different
way.) And, you might create a “Mistakes
CHAPTER 6
Wall” in your classroom where students can
post their imperfect work with notes about
what they learned from those mistakes. To
reinforce the idea that student inter-dependence will lead to greater achievement for
everyone, you will want to have students
work in collaborative groups where everyone is responsible for one piece of a complete project.
To show students that hard work does
lead to success, you should ensure that your
grading system includes the higher grade on
a re-done assessment or incorporates homework completion as part of an effort grade.
Some elementary teachers have their students develop “I Can” cans (simply a decorated coffee can). When students master a
skill, they write that skill (“I can multiply
fractions” or “I can write a friendly letter”)
on a strip of paper and put it in the can.
Later, if students are struggling to master a
new skill, the teacher can say, “Remember
when you couldn’t add, subtract, or multiply fractions? Now look in your “I Can”
can! Soon you’ll be adding strips about how
you have mastered decimals.”
Rituals & Celebrations
You will want to take time to celebrate
both individual, and class-wide successes.
You can celebrate privately with an individual student, and, when appropriate, publicly with the class as a whole. Consider
these sample rituals and celebrations below:
A first grade classroom might create a ritual
around the first time each student can read a
whole book aloud to the rest of the class.
“Author’s chair” is a strategy that can work
well in younger grades; during designated
times students sit in a special chair in front
of the whole class and share a piece of writing about which they are particularly proud.
Make a habit of writing a personal note to
individual students when they have mastered a new skill with which they had
been struggling.
265
Extrinsic Rewards Bringing Intrinsic Motivation
Because most students do not have the maturity or self-discipline to work entirely from
intrinsic motivation, teachers often integrate various extrinsic reward systems into their
classroom. Realize that relying solely on extrinsic motivators sends students the message
that tangible rewards are the ultimate goal, not the academic achievement. If you discover
that you are relying solely on extrinsic rewards—that students are only on task if you
tempt them with a cookie or more points in the class challenge—you should reflect on
whether your values are effectively permeating your classroom. Essentially, teachers
should view extrinsic motivators as a bridge to intrinsic motivation.
With the above caveat in mind, here are some basic (but not necessarily obvious) rules
for establishing and maintaining systems of extrinsic rewards:
! Ensure that students are working towards a reward that is motivating to them. You
can ask students what they would find rewarding. “If we had a party, what kind of
food would you want to have at the party?” “If you could spend 30 minutes on
Friday afternoon doing exactly what you wanted to do, what would you choose?”
! Next, create a system with a positive, rather than negative, root. For example, a system where students achieve X reward after earning Y points for being on task is infinitely more successful than a system where students achieve X reward for wasting
less than Y minutes over the course of a month. The former allows you to “catch students being good,” while the latter system sets up a divide between you and the students because you are keeping track of what they are not doing well.
! Establish a system that allows every student, group or class to receive recognition for
reaching a certain threshold. Do not pit students or classes against each other when
competing for the reward because some students might give up easily or become
excessively competitive.
! Execute reward systems meticulously. If you have determined that every Monday
morning you will read the list of “Top Dogs” (students who completed all of their
homework from the previous week) with great fanfare from the colorful list posted
on the door, you must make that colorful list and read it, every Monday morning,
with just as much fanfare each time. If you determine that you will send home a
positive note or call parents every time a student receives a 100% on a test, you need
to do it every time.
A good teacher thinks of specific things that will motivate specific children, the same
way an effective coach knows he sometimes needs to deliver slightly different pep talks to
each player in order to best motivate them for a big game. You discover that Keisha eats
up the Animorphs series and that Maria could spend days drawing cartoon characters. You
learn that Kenneth is the star of the basketball team and has a deep respect for his coach.
What can you do with this information? You use it. You read Animorphs: The Pretender and
discuss it with Keisha after reviewing spelling words with her after school. You help
Maria improve her writing by asking her to write about the pictures she draws. You meet
with Kenneth’s coach and recruit him to assist with your academic and behavioral goals
for Kenneth. In a nutshell, you determine the interests, values, fears, dreams, and influential relationships of your students and you differentiate your motivational techniques for
each student in your class. This isn’t an easy task. Getting to know what makes a student
tick takes time.
Above all, you must never miss an opportunity to celebrate the success you told your
students you valued; failing to celebrate a level of success you told students was celebration-worthy or neglecting to laud a specific behavior that you told students was laudable
will quickly drain your students’ will to achieve.
266
CHAPTER 6
Post excellent student work on designated
bulletin boards and provide students with an
opportunity to view and comment on the
work.
Establish Class Challenges. Reward class
points for exemplary student behavior, participation by typically shy students, dramatic improvement on tests, and/or 100% homework completion. These systems harness the
power of adolescent peer pressure. “Well, if
it’s for points, I’ll share…” “I don’t want to
let my team down, so I’ll stay up and complete the homework…”
Use a Peace Pole. To reinforce respectful student interaction, add a block to the “Peace
Pole” for each consecutive day without tattling, fights, disrespectful comments, etc.
Once the pole is 25 blocks high, you can celebrate with a predetermined reward.
Earn a Class Pet. Have students brainstorm
possible class pets and then vote, in the beginning of the year, on whether they want fish, a
hamster, a turtle, etc. Once students have
reached a predetermined goal (e.g., perfect
homework completion from everyone for fifteen
days) you and a few students can take a trip to
the pet store. (You might find that the local
pet store is willing to give you a discount.)
Guest Speakers as a Reward. Students will
love a refreshing voice and face.
Popcorn Parties. These are affordable and
surprisingly motivating.
Similar to the class challenge, the teacher
places a few kernels of popcorn in a jar as
recognition of, for example, excellent behavior and respectful, encouraging comments.
Once the jar is full, the class has a popcorn
party. (Kids can also be rewarded by getting to put the kernels in themselves.)
Paper Chain. Add a link to a paper chain
that hangs from the ceiling to acknowledge
exceptional individual or class achievement
(behavioral or academic). Once the chain
reaches the floor, the class has a popcorn
party.
Student of the Week. Although you want to
CHAPTER 6
emphasize teamwork and group success, it is
also important to offer individual recognition. You might have a Student of the Week
designation for a student who completes all
of her homework and exhibits model behavior
or for a student who exhibits commendable
effort or improvement.
Instill a Passion for Learning
Although your marketing efforts will go
a long way towards investing your students
in the culture you establish, the ultimate
culture of achievement is one in which students are motivated to learn for learning’s
sake. We want students to view academic
achievement as valuable and with inherent
purpose; we also want them to enjoy learning and to seek knowledge because they
find it satisfying. There are several things
you can do to encourage a lifelong passion
for learning.
As we discussed in great detail in
Chapter 2 on Assessment, authentic tasks
go a long way towards giving students a
taste of the excitement of producing something real. Whenever possible present their
work to live, substantial audiences.
Students are more likely to invest time and
effort in a project they know they will present. The more you can develop ways for
your students to “go public” the more apt
they are to see connections between what
they do inside school walls and beyond.
Have them write letters to city council
members, design and mail brochures that
highlight a community problem or try to
serve the needs of the community by creating a soup kitchen (to apply math skills),
interview senior citizens about a historical
event, or teach civics to recent immigrants
preparing for citizenship exams. The basic
reality is that the more interesting and vital
the work is by design, the more interested
and engaged your students will be.
Encourage student curiosity whenever
possible. If a student shows a natural interest in a topic, seize it. If a student consis-
267
tently fails to show any curiosity about anything, probe deeper to determine what
interests the student. Everyone is interested
in something. Work hard to find academic
connections to topics that naturally appeal
to children or adolescents (especially those
related to pop culture—always a hit).
Finally, share your passions with your
students. Model the ways in which intellectually curious people satisfy their quest for
knowledge. If you are a voracious reader of
The New York Times, spend three minutes at
the start of class sharing the “Quote of the
Day” or discussing something interesting
you read that morning. If you are an aficionado of classical music, play it whenever
possible. If you are an architecture buff, feature a building of the week (or month).
Students need to learn how endlessly fascinating the world is—do not assume that
they will discover this on their own.
Above all, emphasize current events. If
students only learn about historical events,
they will fail to relate academic investigation
TEACHING TOOL #6.1
How to Manage Classroom Space
Room Arrangement (Student-Centered and Teacher-Centered)
The way you arrange your classroom reflects your expectations for student participation and behavior. Room arrangements generally fall on the continuum between student-centered and teachercentered. In a student-centered arrangement, the students may be seated in pairs or clusters and
often face each other for easier interaction during cooperative learning or other group activities.
Students may also be seated in a large circle. In contrast, teacher-centered classrooms tend to minimize the amount of interaction among students. Desks face the teacher and are often separated or
in rows.
No matter which arrangement you choose, keep in mind that it should support and enhance learning activities. For example, the teacher can circulate easily among students and students can see the
chalkboard, access easily learning materials, and communicate with each other when necessary.
Variety of Learning and Work Surfaces
Because people work best in a variety of different settings, you may want to create different
opportunities for students to sit up straight, stand, lean, lounge, etc. Some teachers use bean bags
or carpets to provide alternative spaces for students. These different work surfaces should be
appropriate for the age and developmental levels of your students. Students of any age will
appreciate cushions and comfortable seating areas to read and do work individually or with peers.
While varied learning spaces can benefit all students, the opportunity to break long periods of time
sitting at a desk or the option of sitting at a study carrel can be particularly advantageous for some
special needs students.
Seating Plan
Seating plans can be a useful management tool and also aid substitute teachers and other teachers
who rotate into your room. If you do choose to assign seats, you should consider changing the
seating assignment on a regular basis to give students and opportunity to work with different
groups of peers. Here are some common methods for assigning seats:
268
CHAPTER 6
(Teaching Tool #6.1 continued)
Method
Description
Benefits
Drawbacks
Teacher
Assigned
Create a seating chart
that thoughtfully
places individual students. Create and
place nametags on
the desks, according
to your seating chart.
If you have several
different classes of
students, tape onto
the desk an index
card that lists each
class period and the
assigned student’s
name next to the
class period. Ask
students to find their
seat as they enter
class.
! Highly organized
! Does not consider
Before the first day of
school, tape a number on every desk
(make sure all four
sides are completely
covered by tape). The
numbers correspond
to the number of
seats in your class.
Create a seating chart
that labels the desks
in the same fashion.
! Highly organized
Random
Assignment
Randomly hand students a number written on a 3x5 card, as
they enter class on
the first day of
school. Instruct students to sit in the seat
that matches their
card.
CHAPTER 6
beginning to the
school year.
! Allows teacher to
be strategic about
placement.
students entering
class without being
on the master list
(to address this
situation, ask new
students to create
their own name
card and sit at an
open desk).
! Students may
interpret teacher’s
seating decisions
as unfair.
! You don’t yet
know your students and can’t factor individual
needs into seat
placement.
beginning to the
school year.
! Accommodates all
students easily
(whether on a master roster or not).
! Encourages student
mixing, but avoids
student frustration
at “engineering”
on the part of the
teacher.
! It may be necessary
to monitor student
trading of numbers.
! Does not allow you
to avoid what you
think might be
potentially problematic combinations of students.
269
(Teaching Tool #6.1 continued)
Method
Description
Benefits
Drawbacks
Alphabetical
Assignment
Create a seating chart
that places students
in alphabetical order,
and place nametags
on student desks. If
you have several different classes of students, tape onto the
desk an index card
that lists each class
period and the
assigned student’s
name next to the
class period.
! Highly organized
! Students may
Students are free to
choose their seats as
they enter class.
! Enables student
Student
Choice
strategy for the
beginning of the
school year.
! Alphabetical place-
ment makes it easier for some teachers to learn students’ names.
choice, which may
encourage a level
of comfort in the
classroom.
! You can tell stu-
dents these seats
are theirs to lose.
be more social
because it is likely
that they have been
seated alphabetically in the past.
! Does not allow
for students who
register late and do
not appear on the
master list.
! Students may be
more social because
it is likely that they
will sit with their
friends.
! It may be difficult
to track students
until you know
them well.
! Most effectively
used at the high
school level,
and/or by experienced teachers.
Your seating plan should also take into account individual student’s special needs. Students with
vision problems, for instance, should be seated close to the board; students with limited English
skills could be seated next to bilingual students; and a student who has particular trouble concentrating could be seated in a desk away from peers but near the teacher. As you get to know your
students you will begin to make these accommodations.
Personal Space
Many students need personal space where they can keep their personal belongings safe in order to
feel a sense of ownership of the classroom. In addition to personal desk space, students may benefit
from having their own mailbox, folders, or space to display their student work. You may create
these items or have the students create them personally.
Displays
Visual displays are an important aspect of a classroom environment that support student learning.
In addition to posting classroom rules and procedures and other important notices, displays are a
great opportunity to focus your students on their academic goals, reinforce the material that you are
teaching, and create a print rich environment conducive to developing your students’ literacy skills.
270
CHAPTER 6
(Teaching Tool #6.1 continued)
If the displays are directly related to your curriculum, they can enhance your lessons and foster
greater independence in your students. For example, a middle school math teacher could post diagrams of geometric shapes and the formulas for their areas, volumes, and surface areas. The teacher
could then utilize the diagrams while teaching a lesson on the subject, and students could independently refer to them when solving problems in class. (Keep in mind that you may want to cover such
displays during tests and quizzes if you do not want students to reference them.) As a side note,
displays may have the added advantage of focusing a student on relevant material even when his
and her attention is diverted from the task at hand!
Students can also be transported figuratively to another place through the strategic use of displays.
For example, an elementary class that is studying the rain forest could turn their room into a rain
forest, complete with paper replications of the plants, animals, terrain, and climate that the students
are learning about. A French teacher could turn his or her classroom into Paris, so that the students’
language lesson is reinforced visually by graphic, cultural information.
In addition to posting material that reinforces your curriculum, displaying student work sends an
important message. Such displays help build a sense of identity and belonging and create a lively
classroom environment where learning is relevant and valued. In addition, student work displays
celebrate hard work. Student input and assistance in decorating the room will help to give students
a sense of ownership of the learning environment.
Another option is to create a current events board. Each day you could display the front page of the
newspaper to stimulate discussion of the day’s headlines. You might also include original or photocopied covers of the newsweekly magazines (like Time, Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report)
and enlarged photocopied pictures of the most interesting people in the news.
Finally, the creation of a print-rich environment through displays enhances literacy instruction
across grade levels and content areas. Consider creating a word wall, with vocabulary words from
the different subjects you are currently studying, words that students have found in their independent reading, a word of the day supplied by students, etc. Displaying student work is a good way to
both demonstrate your respect for their writing and exemplify the fact that writing is meant to be
read. A weekly poem on chart paper or a thought for the week can provide “unofficial” new vocabulary and sight words for students.
Checklist for Classroom Organization
Can all students see the board?
yes !
no !
Do you separate active areas from quiet spaces?
yes !
no !
Does your room have clear and safe traffic paths?
yes !
no !
Do you have areas devoted to enrichment (e.g., centers)?
yes !
no !
Have you considered where you will put your desk?
yes !
no !
Have you arranged the class to enable quick & easy monitoring?
yes !
no !
Are the pencil sharpener and trash can accessible?
yes !
no !
Are student materials stored visibly and accessible?
yes !
no !
Have you determined a seating chart?
yes !
no !
Do students have a place they can call their own?
yes !
no !
Do you have stimulating enrichment displays?
yes !
no !
Do you have a display area for student work?
yes !
no !
Are multi-cultural issues acknowledged?
yes !
no !
Do displays celebrate both genders?
yes !
no !
CHAPTER 6
271
to their own lives. If schools only emphasize
past incidences and dead people, they send
students the message that all the interesting
events have already occurred. Young people
will be inherently interested in the present,
and we happen to live in fascinating times.
Help them to understand that current events
are history in the making.
The Physical Classroom
Students (and teachers) are asked to
spend way too much time in classrooms.
Although we are trying to teach our students about the world in which we live, our
classrooms effectively shield them from
exposure to that world. Unfortunately,
many classrooms resemble jail cells—they
are made of four concrete walls, and little
else. It is your duty to make your classroom
an aesthetically pleasing space—both for
your students’ benefit, and your own.
As you begin to think about how you
would like to decorate your classroom,
consider the following questions. What is
your favorite place to be? What are the
qualities of this place that resonate for
you? How you might you introduce some
of those qualities into your classroom? If,
for example, your favorite place is a waterfall in the woods, think about filling your
room with plants, a miniature fountain if
possible, some nice rocks, a fish tank or
posters of the woods. If your favorite place
is a specific restaurant, ask yourself what it
is about the ambiance that makes you want
to be there. Is it the lighting, the materials
and textures, the colors, the music?
Introduce these elements into your classroom so that it feels welcoming, inviting,
comfortable, and cozy. Teaching Tool #6.1
presents several suggestions for managing
classroom space.
When setting up your classroom, you
will want to consider the following elements of the physical space:
272
!
Room arrangement
!
Seating plan
!
Personal space
!
Variety of learning and work surfaces
!
Learning centers
!
Displays
!
Furniture
!
Design elements (like lighting, plants,
textures, photographs, art work, and
colors)
Make sure that you consistently vary the
look of your classroom, and include natural
elements inside (plants, rocks, sunlight, etc).
Replace pictures, artwork and displays regularly so that the physical environment in
which you teach remains stimulating. Plan
periodic field trips to relieve the monotony
of spending every day in the same place.
Finally, get outside of your classroom
whenever possible. It is neither healthy, nor
desirable for students to spend all day
inside. Whenever an academic objective is
related to nature, try as hard as possible to
immerse your students in nature. If you are
a foreign language teacher and you are
teaching the words for sky, trees, sun, birds,
etc., where better to teach that vocabulary
than in the place where those things exist?
Or if it is simply a beautiful day, and you
think your students can handle sitting outside, as a special treat for all of you, consider holding class on an available patch of
grass. You can only do this, of course, when
it won’t interfere with your lesson plans.
(Know that you must seek permission first
and that not all students or all classes will
be able to handle this privilege.)
Conclusions and Key Points
This chapter discussed the necessity of
creating a classroom culture where every
member is invested in a shared purpose of
academic achievement. Productive class-
CHAPTER 6
room cultures all accomplish the following:
!
Address students’ needs.
!
Adopt a “No Excuses” attitude.
!
Foster positive group dynamics.
!
Strategically support goals through marketing efforts.
!
Encourage a lifelong passion for learning.
Your classroom culture will go a long way
towards defining your values and goals. The
culture you create will communicate a great
deal about who you are as a person and who
you are as a teacher, and will work to individualize you within the larger school system.
Students will recognize the ways in which you
and your classroom are special and unique. As
powerful and as satisfying as it will be for you
to be able to construct your own classroom
environment, limitations will remain. You need
to realize that your classroom culture will still
only be one part of the school culture at large.
As much as you will be able to impact and
influence your students within your class, they
will still be exposed to competing messages
and conflicting views outside of your class.
Many teachers consider their classrooms to
be “islands of hope.” The school community
at large may not support your methods or
your approach, and you may very well have
to defend some of your strategies. Other
teachers may feel threatened by your lofty
goals, your alternative viewpoints, or your
stubborn insistence on doing things differently. As a new teacher, you will have much
more opportunity to effect change within your
classroom than to implement school-wide
changes.
You cannot alter the fact that the larger
school culture will influence your students;
sometimes that impact will be significant, and
sometimes it will be negligible. Focus on what
is within your control; indeed, if nothing else,
it is your classroom culture that is very much
within your control.
CHAPTER 6
273
Chapter 7
Rules and Consequences
If your students are going to excel, they will require a calm, orderly
classroom. To obtain a calm, orderly classroom, you are going to need an
effective system of rules and consequences. Rules inform students of how
you expect them to behave. Consequences outline what will happen if students choose to break those rules. In this chapter, we will explore how to
establish your classroom rules and consequences. Then, we will examine
an equally vital step—how to best teach those rules and consequences to
your students.
The time and energy that you invest in selecting your rules and consequences, explicitly teaching them, and outlining their benefits will more
than pay off in the long run. Why? Because these elements will be the
cornerstone of your classroom management plan and will help promote
appropriate student behavior by working to prevent student misbehavior.
Think of it as a necessary, hefty dose of preventative medicine.
As you begin to envision the rules that will dictate your students’ classroom behavior, remember that good behavior is a means to an end, not an
end in and of itself. It is essential that your expectations for student behavior focus beyond the behaviors themselves and support your broader
vision for student achievement. Do not lose sight of your goal—your goal
is not to have the best behaved or the most controlled classroom in the
school; it is to create an effective classroom management system to support
the strongest possible learning environment for your students.
A critical question you must be able to answer, therefore, is “What are
the behavior expectations for my classroom?” Students cannot be expected
to meet your standards if they do not know what those standards are. It is
also important that students agree with the reasoning behind your expectations. Students will operate most effectively within a system that they
understand and in which they feel invested. The more your students
personally believe in the rationale behind the system and the clearer they
are on exactly what the guidelines are, the more likely they are to embrace
that system. Avoid imposing rules that will be perceived as capricious
or unreasonable. You will want to clearly outline your rules and consequences and then give your students an initial opportunity to offer
feedback to demonstrate your interest in their point of view.
CHAPTER 7
274
Determining Rules
Rules are general standards of conduct
and should apply to student behavior in all
classroom situations, regardless of the activity. Rules are distinct from procedures, to be
discussed in the next chapter, which outline
specific behaviors during a particular type
of activity.
When crafting classroom rules, keep in
mind three general guidelines:
1. Rules should be in the form of positive statements. Avoid “Do not…” or
“There will be no…”
2. Rules need to be stated clearly and
specifically. Students will have trouble
understanding the command, “Behave
appropriately.”
3. Less is more. Too many rules render
each rule meaningless. Limit your list
of rules to the bare essentials. Most
teachers have three to five rules.
Table 7.1, on the following page,
explores these guidelines
further.
The inherent challenge is to keep your
list of rules short while making sure they
are sufficiently inclusive. In order to establish a short, but complete list of rules, teachers often have to make each rule broad
enough to cover more than one specific
behavioral expectation, yet not so broad
that they become vague or meaningless. All
rules – especially those that are broad –
should be discussed extensively with students. You cannot assume that your intent
will be obvious.
When considering what rules to establish, you must first determine the kind of
environment you would like to maintain.
As the leader of your classroom, what kind
of classroom atmosphere will you demand?
While many basic expectations will remain
the same for all teachers, your nature and
your personal preferences do matter.
Consider your own style and needs.
275
Different teachers have varying tolerance
levels. Some people are inherently more
patient than others. Certain types of teachers thrive in an energized atmosphere,
while others demand a calmer, more sedate
environment. The more authentic you are,
the more credibility you will earn. Try to
anticipate what your legitimate needs will
be, and stay true to yourself.
You should also consider the age and
maturity of your students in order to be
realistic and fair in your expectations. For
example, it is particularly important for
young students that rules are short and easy
to remember. Also, do not expect early elementary students to find it easy to see the
world from someone else’s perspective,
since they are likely to be egocentric at this
point in their cognitive development. For
example, keep your hands to yourself is easier
to understand and follow than respect others.
Keep in mind that your rules define the
broad expectations for behavior, not every
action that takes place in the classroom.
(Rules about raising your hand to speak,
bringing your pen and pencil, being on
time, etc., should fall under a general expectation about your students’ responsibilities
in class. Rules about gum chewing, dispensing of trash, bathroom privileges, etc., will
fall under your classroom procedures which
we will discuss in the next chapter.) In addition, remember that while it is crucial to
have clearly defined behavioral expectations
for your students, effective classroom management is intended to support strong planning and instruction—as we have said, it is
not an end in and of itself.
Methods for establishing rules vary.
Some teachers create their rules before
school begins without student input, while
others develop rules collaboratively with
students. Since new teachers often struggle
to establish authority in the classroom, it
may be wiser to develop the rules yourself
and then work to invest students in the
rationale and process for following these
rules. The risk of a more participatory
CHAPTER 7
TABLE 7.1: Relationship Between Various Rules and Guidelines
Characteristics
Rationale
Examples to Follow
Examples to Avoid
1. Rules should be in
the form of a positive
statement;
Positive rules bring
attention to the conduct desired.
Negatively stated rules
simply tell students
what to avoid and
challenge students to
find inappropriate
behaviors that fall outside the scope of the
rule.
Respect your classmates
in your words and
actions.
No disrespectful
comments.
Students should be
able to understand the
behavioral expectation.
Come to class prepared
with all required
materials.
Every student will
demonstrate habits of a
responsible learner.
Follow the teacher’s
directions.
Always use appropriate
conduct.
Rules such as Class
time is for class activities
or Follow the teacher’s
directions address
many behaviors in
one rule.
No gum, food, or
drink in class. Bring
your homework, book,
notebook, and pen to
class everyday. Be on
time. No profanity. No
leaving the room without
permission.
Avoid rules framed
as negative statements.
2. Rules need to be
stated clearly. (Avoid
rules that are vague
unless you intend to
discuss the rule
extensively with students.)
3. Less is more; limit
your list.
Each rule appears
more important when
there are fewer of
them. Fewer rules are
also easier for students
to remember and for
teachers to enforce.
approach is that some students may perceive that you do not have firm guidelines
for student behavior and may try to push
the boundaries. Conversely, there are obvious strengths to a more collaborative
approach. It can better invest the students
in the culture of the classroom and create a
sense of community; the students set expectations which they believe are important to
the success of the class and to which they
will hold each other accountable.
A good method that combines the best
of both approaches is to draw up your list
ahead of time. Have your students brainstorm their version of an essential list. Then,
CHAPTER 7
Listen when someone
else is talking.
Class time is for class
activities.
No talking out of turn.
No toys or games
in class.
as a group, openly compare your list to
theirs. This will give you the chance to see
what is important to them as well as giving
you the opportunity to justify the priorities
on your list.
Determining Consequences
Consequences are a vital part of the
structure that renders rules effective. A
student needs to know, up front, what will
happen if she breaks a rule. She can then
choose to follow the rule or break the
rule and incur the negative consequence.
276
Helping students understand this cause and
effect relationship, and to realize that they
have the power to choose the resulting
“effect,” is one of the many ways teachers
can empower their students. This will also
help them to develop self-discipline, which,
because it allows students to control their
own behavior, is one of the most important
life skills we can teach.
Early education teachers can begin to
discuss the concept of “cause and effect”
with their students on the first day of
school. They might ask, “What happens
when you drop a bowling ball on your foot?
Talk in pairs for ten seconds.” Students will
comment that dropping a bowling ball on
their feet will hurt and perhaps break toes.
In the ensuing discussion, these teachers
can lead their young students to understand
that not paying attention, not thinking
actively, and not putting energy into their
work has negative effects as well – you can’t
learn, people won’t respect you, and you
won’t achieve the things you want to
achieve. On the other hand, students can be
made to realize that if they do meet behavioral expectations and work hard by exercising self-discipline, those benefits (i.e.
“effects”) can be realized.
The first step towards helping your students make wise behavioral choices is to
ensure that they clearly understand what
actions and statements are appropriate and
inappropriate in your classroom. The second step is to ensure that everyone knows
what will happen if a student does or says
something unacceptable. If a student chooses to follow the rules, then that student
avoids negative consequences and receives
the implicit benefits of good behavior. If a
student chooses to break a rule, then that
student chooses the known consequence.
(Make sure that you have detailed the benefits of good behavior as explicitly as you
detail the consequences for bad behavior).
Effective Consequences
In establishing consequences, you will
want to take into account what characteristics make some consequences more effective
than others. Here are some general guidelines:
!
The degree of consequences should
increase gradually. Give students adequate warning before imposing a more
severe penalty.
!
Effective consequences flow logically
and naturally from the student’s
behavior. Whenever possible, relate
the consequence to the action.
!
Effective consequences keep the
student’s dignity intact.
Table 7.2, on the next page, highlights
these characteristics of effective consequences.
What consequences do teachers actually
find effective? Obviously, there are a wide
variety of consequences that skilled teachers
employ. Remember to exercise only those
consequences that are congruent with your
personal style, since you need to be able to
implement them with confidence and comfort. We will discuss management styles in
Chapter 10.
Let’s look at one teacher’s system of
rules and consequences for chronic interruptions.
Ms. Graff, a middle school teacher, has five
||classroom rules:
!
Treat each other politely and kindly.
!
Treat school and personal property
respectfully.
!
Follow teacher requests.
!
Be prepared for class.
!
Put effort into your work and request help
if you need it.
When students break her classroom rules, Ms.
Graff’s system of consequences is as follows:
!
277
First Interruption – Non-verbal response
CHAPTER 7
TABLE 7.2: Characteristics of Effective Consequences
Characteristics
Rationale
Examples to Follow
Examples to Avoid
Consequences should
be gradual, progressing from less severe to
more severe as misbehavior is repeated.
This sends the message that students
have the potential to
behave and simply
need to understand
and choose to follow
the expectation. When
they repeat the misbehavior, they have chosen the more severe
consequence.
Warning
Warning
Short detention after
class or school
Sent to office
Natural consequences
follow from the event
or situation, as students are allowed to
experience the outcome of their poor
choices or behavior,
highlighting the
rationale of the rule.
If a student runs to be
the first in line, he
receives a warning
and is asked to walk
instead at the end of the
line. (Natural)
Consequences should
be natural and/or
logical. Whenever
possible, relate the
consequence to the
action.
Logical consequences
are structured learning
opportunities arranged
to teach appropriate
behavior.
Consequences should
maintain the dignity
of the student.
Consequences should
be consistent from
student to student.
Delivery of consequences should
address the particular
behavior in question,
not the student or his
or her behavioral
history.
(e.g., a look or a signal)
!
Second Interruption – Naming the behavior and next intervention
!
Third Interruption – Fill out a reflection
form accompanied by phone call home.
!
Fourth Interruption – Removal from class
CHAPTER 7
Written plan for
improvement
Guardian contact
Phone call home
Parent conference
In school detention
Severe clause: Sent to
principal or detention
When a student misbehaves during rehearsal
for a play, she receives
a warning and is told
that if the poor behavior
continues, she will have
to sit out of the rehearsal
until the next day.
(Logical)
If three students
interrupt the teacher
during a class period,
they all receive a warning.
When a student is disrespectful to a group member during group work,
he is allowed to remain
in the group but is held
in from recess (neither
logical nor natural).
(A logical, natural consequence would be to
remove him or her from
the group and require the
student to complete the
work individually.)
Three students have been
interrupting the class
since the period begins.
After ignoring the students and giving nonverbal clues to be quite,
the teacher yells at one
student and makes him
stand in the corner with
his hands covering his
mouth.
Table 7.3, on the next page, describes a
few additional appropriate consequences
that teachers might choose to impose in different
contexts.
278
TABLE 7.3: Descriptions of Potential Consequences
279
Consequences
Descriptions
Call or write home
You might have a student fill out a form that encourages him to
reflect on his behavior. A family member should be required to
read over and sign the reflection form before the student returns
it to you the next day. If you have access to a phone and a free
period you might have the student call home with you during a
break in the day. Or, you could call a family member in the
evening or send a note home with the student. (When communicating with the family member about the misbehavior, always
begin with a sincere positive comment about the student, explain
the specific misbehavior that occurred that day, and state your
confidence that the student will make positive choices in the
future.) In addition, know that home contact is always more
effective when there is a history of positive contacts as well as
negative ones.
Send student to
another room
Many teachers have arrangements with a nearby colleague where
they can bring a student to the other teacher’s classroom to work
independently on an assignment. This strategy serves to provide
the student with a chance to calm down and regroup. Be sure to
avoid communicating an attitude of “good riddance” and do not
use this strategy regularly. Leaving your room with no further
consequence might be exactly what your student wants.
Revoke privileges
At the elementary level, chronic misbehavior results in a loss of
recess time, classroom jobs, computer privileges, or other predetermined “desirable” activities. At the secondary level, where
you have most students for only one period each day, revoking
privileges is a less common consequence. However, some high
school teachers report success with revoking the privilege of
hallway time between classes. Asking a student to remain in
your classroom for three of the five minutes between periods
(obviously, you can’t make him or her late to the next class),
while their friends are able to chat and laugh in the hallway, can
be a strong deterrent to misbehavior.
Move student to
another seat
When a student is distracting—or seems distracted by—a nearby
student, you should move him or her to another seat. An immediate seat move in the middle of class is often quite effective.
Some teachers suggest going a step further and creating a new,
well-considered seating chart to implement the very next day if
you discover there are several pairs or groups of students that
need to be separated.
Time-out chair
Most appropriate in younger grades, the time-out chair is a physical space where students can go to cool off and think about their
behavior. You might also have a student write a note of apology
or a reflection on how to make better choices in the future.
CHAPTER 7
(Table 7.3 continued)
Conference with
the coach
Secondary teachers should make an effort to develop strong relationships with the athletic staff of their school. Coaches often
have great influence on students, especially if children are jeopardizing their athletic eligibility by potentially failing your class.
(Having a conference with the coach is a consequence that
applies to individual students and probably wouldn’t be part of
your overall consequence system.)
Detention
Though you should check with your administration on the exact
policies involved, you may have the authority to assign lunch or
after-school detention to disobedient students. During detention,
a student might have to clean all the desks in your classroom
after defacing his, or complete a form that explains what he did
wrong, why he made a poor choice, and what he plans to do
when faced with a similar choice in the future.
Creative Consequences
Relate the punishment to the bad deed. If a student constantly
scribbles on the walls, require that student to help the janitor
repaint the walls. If a student is bullying younger students,
require that student to assist a teacher of a younger grade
(either by tutoring or classroom prep or clean-up). WARNING:
Although you may think a student may not enjoy helping the
janitor, many students enjoy such activities. For consequences to
be effective, choose things to deter misbehavior rather than
reward it.
“On the Porch”
When students misbehave at the KIPP academies, they are relegated to “the porch,” which comes from the expression, “If you
can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.” When a student
is on the porch, she is not allowed to sit or eat with the rest of
her class and she must write a letter of apology explaining what
she did and why she is sorry.
Systems for Tracking Consequences
It is important for the teacher and the
students to know, throughout the day or
class period, the status of each student’s
behavior on the hierarchy of consequences.
Students will be more likely to adjust their
behavior when they can track, and therefore
control, their progress. Below are some
example approaches for tracking student
behavior.
CHAPTER 7
!
Traffic Lights. A popular system at
the early elementary level. Green, yellow, and red lights represent different
levels of behavior. Student names can
be put on a clothespin (or whatever
device you prefer) and the teacher
moves the pins up and down depending on student behavior (green = excellent behavior, yellow = warning, and
red = a pre-determined consequence,
280
such as a time out or missed recess.
Some teachers add another color, such
as blue, which indicates that a phone
call will be made to parents.) After
students have received the consequence, the teacher should move the
student’s clothespin back to yellow,
and then to green as behavior gradually improves. Students should be granted a fresh start each new day by beginning again on green.
!
!
281
Card Charts. Many teachers, especially
those who teach elementary students
and have the same group of students
all day, set up a class “card chart.” In
this system, each student has a library
card pocket with his or her name on it
and five cards of different colors. All
students start with the same color to
indicate acceptable behavior. As
behavior problems arise, different colored cards (indicating different levels
of severity) are placed in front. The
first change should always signify an
official warning, and then the cards
proceed to more severe levels with
predetermined associated consequences. Initial potential consequences might include: sitting by oneself in the cafeteria, writing a behavior
essay, or having a teacher make a call
to guardians regarding the observed
behavior. If the student chooses to
break a rule yet again, even more
severe consequences might include a
15-minute after-school detention (you
will have to notify guardians to make
appropriate arrangements). In extreme
situations, if a student reaches the
highest level, the student might have
to leave the classroom immediately
and go to the principal’s office. Every
Monday morning, all students should
start fresh with the initial color.
Check Sheets. At the secondary level
(because traffic lights are too childish
and a card chart for each section of
students might take up too much
space) some teachers post a piece of
chart paper for the entire class. When a
student first breaks a rule, the teacher
gives a verbal warning and puts the
student’s initials on his or her class’s
sheet. For any rules broken by the student after the warning, the teacher
puts a check by the initials. The checks
would be associated with specific consequences (e.g., one check = stay after
class, two checks = fill out a behavior
reflection form after school, three
checks = parents contacted). These
sheets are taken down every Friday
and put into a binder for future reference. New blank sheets go up every
Monday morning. A variation on this
system is to have an area of your
chalkboard where you note students’
initials and checks. However, you may
not want to take up space on your
board for that, and chalk can be “accidentally” erased.
!
Clipboards. While the check sheet
system allows students (and their
peers) to see the consequence level for
any misbehaving student on the wall,
some secondary teachers set up a more
private system in which students
sign a class clipboard and write a
quick explanation of what they did
wrong each time they break a rule.
For example,
After a verbal warning for the first
offense, Rosa is required to stay after
class for a quick conference with the
teacher. There, she signs her name and
explains her poor behavioral choice on
the appropriate clipboard. The next time
she breaks a rule, she must stay after
school for a longer conference and again
sign the clipboard. At the third offense,
Rosa’s parents are called; at the fourth,
her parents are invited to come to school
and sit in the classroom with her.
A student might also sign the clipboard when late to class or if he doesn’t bring in his homework. If he later
CHAPTER 7
brings in the assignment the teacher
can highlight the student’s name on
the clipboard signifying she received
it. Teachers who use this system find
that having students sign their name
formalizes their poor choice, forces
ownership of the behavior, and serves
as a record for parent conferences.
Documenting Consequences
One cardinal rule regarding student consequences: document, document, document.
Many teachers keep folders for each child,
with contact information, diagnostic results,
examples of student work, a record of contact with parents and any documentation of
student misbehavior, with dates. You will
need these citations for parent conferences,
for proof during a disciplinary hearing, for
classroom participation or conduct grades,
and for your own reflection on your interaction with students. It may be wise to have
your students sign a form every time they
stay after class or reach a certain level of the
consequences ladder, adding a sense of official weight to their poor choices. You can
always refer back to your records – and
point back to the appropriate entry – if a
student says this is her first offense.
Teachers can also keep records to document the status of students’ traffic lights or
behavior cards at the end of the day. (Some
teachers report success using software programs, like Excel, to document this type of
data.) Teachers can then refer back to their
detailed student files when determining
conduct grades and for parent/student conferences.
Whole Class Punishments
Be wary of imposing whole class punishments. Unless every single member of
the class is equally guilty of the problematic
behavior—meaning both equal severity of
behavior and equal regularity of its occurrence—then you will be inherently punish-
CHAPTER 7
ing all for the behaviors of some. This will
be understandably maddening, frustrating
and disempowering to the innocent. How
would you feel if a policeman decided to
give you a speeding ticket because many of
the other people traveling on the same road
as you were speeding and he’d had
enough?
Although it is very tempting to punish
the entire class for the actions of a few,
avoid it at all costs. Teachers who use this
strategy end up creating more problems
than they solve. Students are very aware of
who is misbehaving, and they expect you to
know this as well. Additionally, administrators cannot justify this strategy to parents or
your colleagues.
If the life lesson you are trying to teach
is that there are consequences for your students’ behaviors, then randomly imposing
unearned consequences will only serve to
undermine your point. Unless every single
student has exhibited a negative behavior—
say, for example, the unlikely event that
every member of the class fails to complete
a homework assignment, or the entire class
conspires to sneak out of the library to skip
a research session—then keep your consequences solely for those who deserve them.
Aligning Your Expectations with
Those of Your School
As you develop and set your behavioral
expectations, you should take into account
the broader school context in which you
work. The culture of your school, for better
or for worse, has a significant impact on the
way discipline and routine practices will
play out within your classroom and the
school at large. If your school has a strong,
positive culture of behavior, you should
align your classroom expectations and rules
with those used by your colleagues to every
extent possible so that your classroom environment is consistent with the school environment in which your students are used to
282
operating. In some cases, especially at the
middle school level, you may be on a team
of teachers who work with the same group
of students. This is a wonderful opportunity
to collaboratively create a rules and consequences system that every student will be
expected to follow in every classroom.
Some schools use school-wide point systems for misbehavior (students get five
points for chewing gum, ten points for
horseplay in the hallways, 25 points for
defying a teacher, etc.). When a student
reaches a certain level of points, there are
set consequences administered by the principal or behavior management officer. If this
system exists in your school, you will need
to determine how to integrate your own
classroom discipline system with the
school’s system.
In some cases, you may feel personally
uncomfortable with certain behavioral policies of your school or believe a more effective approach exists. When a policy does
not conflict with your personal values, but
you feel it will be ineffective in your classroom, carefully consider the possible ramifications of circumventing or objecting to the
policy. In some cases, the negative ramifications may outweigh the benefits. In other
cases, it may be appropriate to ask your
principal or other supervisor whether you
can depart from the policies to accommodate the particular needs of your class or an
individual student in your class.
Often, a combination of the two systems
is possible, by balancing one’s own series of
consequences and giving students school
points at the last stage of the consequence
hierarchy (or when there is a particularly
egregious offense). Remember that students
must see you as the ultimate authority figure, and the behavior management officers
will appreciate and respect when you handle your own discipline problems. In the
case of severe behavior that stops the entire
class from functioning (e.g., fighting
between students), students forfeit the right
to move through your hierarchy of conse-
283
quences. Such behavior calls for immediate
removal from the classroom. However, let
us emphasize again that you should save
administrative intervention for extremely
serious offenses such as fighting. Involving
the administration takes the situation out of
your control and gradually chips away at
your students’ view of you as the ultimate
authority.
More difficult are situations in which
you believe that a school policy conflicts
with your own personal values or sense of
what is an appropriate punishment for children. Many southern or rural communities
use corporal punishment, for example.
When faced with this challenge, you should
follow your personal comfort level after
weighing the options, keeping in mind that
any departure from the standard procedure
could be perceived as disrespectful to the
school or community, and could potentially
endanger your good standing as a teacher,
as well as your credibility with your students. Also, keep in mind that it may be difficult to teach your students to uphold a
behavioral system that is unfamiliar to
them. Then again, your principled example
has the potential for educational value if
your alternative approach forces your students to consider the diversity of viewpoints. For better or for worse, you may get
them thinking about something they have
never before questioned.
Ultimately, you must determine how to
effectively balance the culture in which you
are operating with your own personal philosophy. Often a compromise is possible, in
which you begin with the expected
approach and gradually modify the system
to fit your personal style as your confidence
and skill increases.
Teaching Rules and Consequences
Determining appropriate rules and consequences is only the first step in helping
your students meet your high behavioral
CHAPTER 7
expectations. Now, you must teach those
expectations–as you would any academic
objective–and reinforce them over time.
both at the beginning of the year and
periodically throughout the year. If
students accept the rationale for rules,
they are most likely to become invested in them. Then, be sure they understand the direct correlation between
each of your rules with their ambitious
learning goals. For example, you might
explain to students that your rule
about “listening when someone else is
talking” is designed to let all students
learn as much as possible from one
another so that together the class can
reach its goals.
As we have said, students’ participation
in setting the expectations can increase their
investment in them. Many teachers also
choose to share their expectations of themselves – such as returning papers on time,
working their hardest for the class’s benefit
and coming to class prepared – to show that
they hold themselves to high standards as
well.
Once you have generated a short list of
clear, positive rules and gradual, logical,
meaningful consequences that fit the criteria
we have detailed, you will need to explicitly
teach them. Students must understand
exactly which behaviors are prohibited and
which behaviors are allowed. This will take
a considerable amount of time and energy
on your part, especially during the first few
weeks of school. Be forewarned—any shortcuts you take will come back to haunt you
later. The more fully your students internalize your expectations, the more likely they
are to be able to meet those expectations.
Some teachers assume that rules and
consequences are discussed once, put on
poster board, and left alone. On the contrary, you must teach these expectations as
you would any other academic objective. This
does not mean simply reading them from a
handout, but rather providing rationales,
soliciting input, having students identify
examples and non-examples, and using
other instructional methods to convey and
practice this new information. You should
teach expectations for behavior immediately
at the beginning of the year and review
them throughout the year. See Teaching
Tool 7.1 for a timeline for teaching rules and
procedures.
A few tips to keep in mind when teaching expectations:
!
Discuss and Solicit from Students the
Need for the Rules. First, discuss the
rationale for rules with your students,
CHAPTER 7
!
Identify Specific Expectations
Relevant to Each Rule. Provide examples of what following each rule looks
like (and doesn’t look like) in action.
This is especially true if your rules
encompass several behaviors, such as
Respect your classmates or Class time is
for class activities. Many teachers take
time with their students at the beginning of the year to brainstorm what
such rules mean in practice. While you
should prepare several manifestations
of the rule Respect your classmates prior
to this group discussion, you will
probably be surprised at how insightful students can be, they generally do
know what it means to respect their
classmates, they just need you to
enforce it. Once students have thoroughly explored the specific expectations of each rule, you might type up a
“class contract” that lists each rule and
the explicit behaviors that fall under
them. Then, give students their own
copies and require that they be
returned and signed. Keep these for
future reference or have students keep
them in a binder that remains in class.
!
Explain and Demonstrate the
Consequences of Breaking the Rules.
Students need to actually see what will
happen if they break a rule. Many
teachers role-play “disruptive” students. They ask for volunteers to read
284
TEACHING TOOL #7.1
Sample Timeline for Teaching Rules & Procedures
First Day
! Introduce your general rules, which should be posted in a visible area. Keep them broad
and inclusive and avoid extensive lists.
! Discuss the rationale for each rule with your students, perhaps brainstorming what it truly
means for each student to “allow others to learn” or to use “class time for class activities.”
! Describe the consequences when rules are tested or violated. You could even write a few
mini-scripts for yourself, enlisting student volunteers, to model the various scenarios when
a student breaks a rule (for example, talking out of turn).
! Be prepared to use consequences the first time misbehavior occurs!
! Announce that you will communicate your system of rules and consequences to parents
and guardians.
! Describe, model, and practice your classroom procedures (getting ready for lunch, entering
class, leaving class, etc.). Modeling and practicing procedures is essential, especially for
your students.
First Two Weeks
! Review general rules daily as well as specific rules that have been violated. Ask questions
to be sure that students know what you expect.
! Set aside time each day to teach classroom routines and procedures. Select a different pro-
cedure each day or devote more time to procedures that present problems. Keep the lessons simple and concrete, especially with elementary students. Don’t assume your words
are enough to carry the message. Show them what you mean by modeling the correct
behavior. Walk them through hypothetical situations to make sure they understand what
you expect. Have a small group of students model the procedure for the rest of the class,
and then debrief what the small group did or did not do properly. Continue practicing the
routine or procedure with all students until they get it right.
! Expect testing of the rules and be prepared to follow through with the consequences you
outlined. Some students will have to test your rules and receive the consequences many
times before they will be convinced of your commitment to the system. Your consistency
will be essential.
! Send parents a letter describing general classroom rules and consequences, student respon-
sibilities, your homework policy and suggestions for how they can support you at home.
Ask parents/caregivers to review the information with the child.
First Month
! Require students to repeat procedures that are not executed properly.
! Expect students to test your rules and be prepared to follow through. The heaviest testing
typically begins during the second or third full week of school and lasts 4-12 weeks. Be
prepared to respond to misbehavior with the consequences you outlined. Again—be consistent.
285
CHAPTER 7
(Teaching Tool #7.1 continued)
! Use the Back to School Night (hosted by most schools in the first month or two of school)
to go over rules and expectations of your classroom, among other things, with your students’ parents. Call parents/caregivers who did not attend.
! Call or write home or schedule parent conferences for students who test excessively during
the first four weeks. You will need parent support and cooperation.
Throughout the Year
! Review classroom rules and procedures periodically – especially after a school vacation.
Remind students of the importance of procedures and re-practice those that are particularly important.
! Continue to follow through with effective, consistent action. Learning to follow rules is an
ongoing process.
Adapted from Robert MacKenzie (1998). Setting the Limits in the Classroom.
short scripts in which students break a
rule and the teacher administers the
consequence. Not only do students
enjoy this modeling, they also get
to see exactly what will happen if
a student chooses to break a rule.
Remember—teaching these rules will
be your lesson objective—apply as
much creativity, focus, and energy as
you would for the teaching of any
other academic objective.
!
Invest Your Students in Meeting
Your Behavioral Goals. Tell your students the benefits of following the
rules. Just as you do with academic
goals, you will need to motivate your
students to meet your behavioral goals
for the class. You can graph the numbers of “morning meetings” where
everyone remembers to raise their
hand before sharing, with the goal of
working together to have 10 straight
days with no student interruptions. Or
you might decide to keep track of the
number of days that your students all
come to class fully prepared, with their
books, notebooks, homework, and
pencils.
CHAPTER 7
!
Check for Understanding. As you will
become accustomed to doing in every
lesson, you should follow up with
your students to be sure that they have
internalized the rules. Many teachers
test students on the rules of the classroom with a cause-effect quiz. Some
have students draw cartoons of appropriate and inappropriate student
behavior. Do not assume that because
you read and discussed the list of rules
that students have internalized them.
In order to further your understanding
of this topic, here are a few examples of
what teaching your rules and consequences
might look like in the classroom. First, an
elementary school example:
Mr. Silverman knew that his 3rd graders
needed more elaboration on what behaviors
were unacceptable in his classroom. He
planned a two-part activity to review the
rules and consequences that he had already
explained and discussed with his class. For
the first part, he created 10 funny scenarios
where he pretended to be 10 different misbehaving students. He used props, such as popular clothing items worn by his students, and
called on a few student volunteers to assist
his skits. Some of his skits included: an enthu286
siastic student shouting answers without
raising his hand during which he used a student volunteer to pretend teaching, a student
who keeps tripping a classmate, a student
who doesn’t have a pencil, a student who is
reading a comic book during class, and a student who calls other students mean names.
The second part of his lesson consisted of a
call and response session, where he would
call out misbehaviors one at a time, and the
class would have to identify the appropriate
consequence.
Here is a middle school example:
Ms. Ku needed to be sure that her 7th grade
students had internalized her system of rules
and consequences. After a day spent explaining her system to each class, she decided to
follow-up the next day with an activity
designed to explore their understanding a bit
further. She divided each of her classes into
groups of four, and assigned to each group a
different scenario featuring student misbehavior. Students were given 20 minutes to
create a skit, song, or rap that portrayed both
an offending behavior, and the resulting consequence. The contents were briefly discussed following each group performance.
And a high school example:
Ms. Herlihy knew that 11th grade English
students were quite familiar with the concept
of rules and consequences, having been
exposed to them every year since kindergarten. After briefly explaining her system,
she gave them an assignment to push their
thinking about the topic a bit further. They
were given three options:
1. Interview another student about a time
that student misbehaved. Include the
student’s explanations about the circumstances, why they think they misbehaved, what consequences were
imposed, and what consequences might
have been more effective. Write a newspaper article reporting on the student’s
experience.
2. Interview a student about the most dis-
287
ruptive behavior they ever remember
seeing a classmate exhibit. Include a
detailed explanation about the event
(omitting the name of the misbehaving
student, and using a pseudonym
instead), why they think the student
behaved the way he or she did, how the
teacher reacted, whether or not the
teacher’s reaction was effective, and,
how the teacher might have responded
more effectively. Write a newspaper
article about the event, identifying
your interviewed student as the
main witness.
3. Write a fictional story about a student
misbehaving in class. Include a detailed
description of the events leading up to
the misbehavior (including some explanation for the student’s state of mind
on the day in question), the event itself,
the teacher’s response to the student
misbehavior, the student’s reactions to
the teacher’s response, and the reactions of the other class members.
There are many ways to help students
explore their understanding of rules and
consequences. With younger children,
teaching behavior expectations might
include brainstorming a list of ways in
which they can demonstrate respect and
disrespect and having students role-play
examples of each. With older students, you
might conduct a class discussion about
behavioral expectations in general, asking
students to reflect on their own responsibilities and the responsibilities of the teacher
with respect to maintaining a positive learning environment.
Consistently Enforce Expectations
Very often, when a group of students
fail to meet behavior expectations it is
because the teacher has failed to be consistent in enforcing them. A common example
revolves around rules for raising your hand
to speak. If a teacher sometimes responds to
students who call out, despite an explicit
CHAPTER 7
rule about hand-raising, students will begin
to ignore the rule, and may be genuinely
surprised or frustrated when the teacher
later disciplines them for calling out.
Vigilant consistency will pay off in the end.
Be aware of and note, when possible,
your own inconsistencies. The following
scene illustrates how effortless this can be:
speaking. A failure to do so raises the tolerance level for noise and sends a message
that talking will be tolerated. There is a fine
line between patience and tolerance, and
letting your students take advantage of you;
self-assess frequently to determine where
you are in relation to that line.
(Sharon is typically an apathetic, unengaged
student.)
Provide Constant Feedback to Reinforce
Good Behavior
Ms. Gazdick, her teacher: “Who can tell me
which Amendment gave women the right to
vote?”
Learning is predicated upon feedback.
Your students need to know how their performances are progressing. Tell students
when they are both exemplifying and failing to meet classroom expectations, being
specific as to how they are or are not meeting expectations. Offer both informal feedback (casual comments) and formal feedback (periodic written evaluations). Force
yourself to recognize the positive aspects of
each day and use those moments as positive
reinforcement and learning for the entire
class. Examples include:
Several students raise their hands, but
Sharon, excitedly jumps up and shouts:
“Oooh! I know! The 19th Ms. Gazdick!”
Ms. Gazdick: “Excellent Sharon. Next
time raise your hand, please.”
In this particular situation, it was more
important to the teacher that an apathetic
student be engaged than to be needlessly
dogmatic. Ms. Gazdick might also, however, have given the rest of the students an
opportunity to acknowledge that they knew
the answer as well. This helps to avoid the
build up of resentment towards her own
failure to follow her own simple rule of
demanding that students wait to be called
upon before answering. For example, Ms.
Gazdick might have added, “How many of
you knew the answer and would have gotten it right? Raise your hands.” This serves
two functions:
1. Soothes students’ egos and gives
acknowledgment to their knowledge
and their rule following.
2. Diffuses resentment about Ms.
Gazdick allowing Sharon to break
the rule.
Practice self-discipline in enforcing the
rules. For example, don’t get into the habit
of talking over your students. Make it clear
that you will not tolerate talking by waiting
until you have their full attention before
CHAPTER 7
!
“Thank you for raising your hand,
Roderick.”
!
“Thank you all for paying attention so
beautifully.”
!
“Well done! Everyone did their homework
last night. At the end of the day, I’ll read
an extra chapter from our class book.”
!
“Terrific job. Everybody remembered pencils today. Give yourselves a round of
applause. Kudos especially to Jeremy,
who has had trouble with this in the past.
Stand up and take a bow Jeremy!”
You’ll need to consider when and how
frequently to offer positive reinforcement,
regardless of whether that reinforcement
comes in the form of tangible or intangible
rewards. On the one hand, positive reinforcement can be a way of ensuring that
students don’t misbehave in order to gain
attention. School can be a dreary place
when teachers only stress negative behaviors. On the other hand, you don’t want to
288
get into a habit of constantly praising or
rewarding students for mediocre performances. This can inadvertently send the signal that you have low expectations for their
behavior and can also make students
dependent on your positive reaction to meet
even the most basic of expectations. (This
holds true for both academic as well as
behavioral expectations.)
Alfie Kohn (1993) asserts:
“Rather than bolstering a child’s selfesteem, praise may increase kids’ dependence on us. The more we say, ‘I like the
way you….’ or ‘Good ______ing,’ the
more kids come to rely on our evaluations, our decisions about what’s good
and bad, rather than learning to form
their own judgments.”
Keeping in mind that you don’t want to
praise students for simple tasks or make
them dependent on your positive reinforcement, remember that students should reap
the benefits of meeting your high behavioral standards. After all, students choose to
follow the rules not only to avoid negative
consequences but also to receive positive
outcomes. As we have discussed in previous chapters, those positive outcomes
should rarely be shiny pencils, candy bars,
or pizza parties. With such tangible prizes,
students engage in learning activities in
order to receive rewards that are artificially
linked to behavior.
You must help students realize that the
greatest benefits of following the rules
include recognition, self-respect, peerrespect, a classroom where they and their
classmates can make academic gains, and
increased life options. Your ultimate goals
should be to foster intrinsic motivation, so
that students are motivated to behave and
to learn because of the positive results that
stem naturally from good choices. For
example, a student truly invested in his
own academic success will likely abide by
the rule Come to class prepared, because he is
intrinsically motivated to succeed and he
knows he cannot succeed without the mate289
rials that are necessary to learn.
However, there are strong arguments for
extrinsic motivators in some contexts.
Learning is too critical to wait for a student
to develop the maturity or self-discipline
necessary to work entirely from intrinsic
motivation. Moreover, students motivated
extrinsically often begin to recognize the
intrinsic value of their work and behavior.
Many teachers feel that extrinsic motivators
—especially in the form of intangible
“perks”—remain preferable to using only
negative consequences to keep students in
line. Many effective teachers use extrinsic
rewards and gradually phase them out as
students’ behavior conforms to expectations.
Conclusions and Key Points
This chapter discussed the necessity of
establishing a solid system of rules and consequences in your classroom. The following
key points were emphasized:
!
Rules inform students of how you
expect them to behave.
!
Consequences outline what will happen if students choose to break those
rules.
!
Students will operate most effectively
within a system that they understand,
accept, and in which they feel invested.
!
Rules should be in the form of positive
statements, should be stated clearly
and specifically, and should be limited
to a select few.
!
Effective consequences should increase
gradually, flow logically from the
misbehavior, and keep the student’s
dignity intact.
!
Teach behavioral expectations as you
would any academic objective and
reinforce them over time.
In the end, you will want your system of
rules and consequences to be so universally
CHAPTER 7
unassailable as to be self-evident. You
will need to feel comfortable defending
those rules and consequences to your
peers, your administrators, your students, your students’ families, and last,
but not least, yourself. If you are uncomfortable with any part of your system, try
to figure out what changes might eliminate that discomfort. Do not underestimate how unpleasant and unproductive
it will be for you to try to enforce a system that you do not implicitly support.
CHAPTER 7
290
Chapter 8
Procedures
Twenty-eight fourth graders run toward you from the playground and fall into
a double line along your class’s special crack in the concrete. You greet the
group warmly and turn to walk back to your classroom. You progress up two
flights of stairs and by four other classrooms and not a sound is heard behind
you save the squeak of shoes on the floor. You pause beside the doorway and
say good morning to each student by name as they enter the classroom.
Speaking only in hushed tones, they quickly hang their coats and backpacks
on their labeled pegs, put their homework in the homework tray, pick up their
three-ring binders from the shelf, sit down at their desks, and begin to respond
to the questions you have written in the “Do Now” section of your board. You
start your timer for six minutes. Since all notebooks except Latieta’s have been
retrieved from the shelf, you mark her absent and clip the attendance form to
the door for your “attendance monitor” to bring to the office on his way to
lunch. You circulate around the room, checking in with students, making sure
Calvin understands the directions and Brittany stays focused. The timer goes
off. Hands shoot up in the air; students are eager to share their answers. The
day has begun.
One could compare the beginning of this day to the working of a welloiled machine. This teacher has established and enforced an impressive
morning routine that allows him to make contact with each of his students,
to get students working immediately on an academic task, and to efficiently deal with administrative responsibilities. The students clearly know
what is expected of them at various points in the 15 minute window
described above—everything from what to do when their teacher appears
on the playground, to how to walk through the hallway, to how to enter
the classroom, to how to share their responses to the warm-up activity.
The day starts efficiently and predictably.
This chapter builds off of the components of classroom management
that we began discussing in Chapter 7 with our examination of rules and
consequences. Classroom procedures and routines combine with rules and
consequences to create a structured classroom environment that helps students and the teacher to function effectively. Although the task of teaching
all these procedures may seem initially overwhelming, rest assured that in
the end, your procedures will prove to be liberating, not burdensome. It is
the establishing of smoothly running routines that will you free you up
from your “policing” duties to allow you to fully enact your instructional
obligations.
CHAPTER 8
291
The Need for Procedures
and Routines
Procedures and routines create a classroom environment where everyone understands the behavioral expectations.
Procedures are the systems you put into
place to manage the physical and logistical
aspects of teaching. For example, many
teachers have procedures for what to do
when a student misses a homework assignment, how to line up for lunch, how to
enter the classroom, or when to sharpen
pencils. Routines, are similar to procedures,
and reflect how to handle repetitive, daily
academic and non-academic tasks. Typical
routines include, how to pass back papers,
how to complete the “Do Now” or
“Sponge” (opening) activities, how to
choose a learning center. The distinction
between procedures and routines is very
fine, and many teachers use the terms interchangeably like we do in this text.
Different teachers will have different
expectations in similar circumstances; you
will need to make your expectations abundantly clear. Students crave that structure,
guidance and predictability. Consider this
excerpt from an essay entitled “My Favorite
Teacher” written by a student:
Every day, Ms. Bothner says hello to each
one of us at the door when we walk in. Every
day, the Focus is written on the board and we
work on it while Ms. Bothner walks around
and stamps our assignment book if we completed our homework. If students talk during
the Focus time, she gives them a warning or
a check, just like she told us she would at the
beginning of the year. Everyone knows what
to do in Ms. Bothner’s class, and if we do it
wrong, she helps us do it right.
Along with classroom rules, procedures
help ensure excellent behavior by detailing
expectations. But rules and procedures are
different. While rules are generally applicable to any circumstance at any given
moment in the classroom, procedures apply
292
to specific situations. Imagine asking a class
of 33 seventh graders to “pass in their
papers.” Sounds simple enough. Yet
inevitably some smart alecks would hit the
people in front of them on the head or
shoulder with their papers. Some would
probably take the opportunity to jump up
and walk over to your desk, while others
would want to hand you the paper directly
because that is what their teacher did last
year. Chaos ensues. However, by developing and practicing a specific procedure for
passing in papers (left across the rows and
up the first aisle, for example), you will create an orderly response to that request,
avoid conflicts between students, and shorten the overall time it takes for this managerial task.
Indeed, procedures serve to help your
classroom run smoothly, thereby maximizing instructional time. The amount of time
students are actually engaged in learning
activities in many classrooms is shockingly
low. Even in the best of scenarios, your time
with your students is frustratingly limited.
Given your ambitious goals, and your students’ acute needs, you can’t afford to
spend any more time on logistical matters
than is absolutely necessary.
Developing Procedures
Teachers have to view the world in the
same way as a business consultant, surveying the space, structures, and systems for
opportunities to maximize learning and
minimize wasted time. You need students to
stop their center work and give you their
full attention in the time it takes to count
down from five to one; you must be able to
transition from math to language arts without wasting seven minutes every day; you
have to create the expectation that students
will silently complete their “Do Now” while
you take attendance and address other
beginning-of-class administrative details. As
you set your ambitious academic goals for
CHAPTER 8
your students and realize how much they
have to learn, you—and your students—
will become very protective of your precious instructional time.
Developing classroom routines and procedures may seem deceivingly simple, but
do not underestimate the value and necessity of efficient routines. You will be able to
focus more time and energy on instruction
if you have systems for situations like the
following (by no means an exhaustive list):
!
Collection, evaluation and returning of
homework, class work, manipulatives,
art materials, and test papers
Students lining up in the classroom,
||||cafeteria, or playground
!
!
Students congregating (and disassembling) for group work
!
Students getting up out of their seats
(for pencil sharpening? For tissues?
For dictionaries? For trash disposal?)
!
Keeping track of in-class portfolios
Completing administrative tasks, such
||||as taking attendance, and filing doc.........tor’s notes.
!
!
Students walking through the halls
!
Bathroom privileges
!
Making up missed work
In developing your procedures, it can be
helpful to conceptualize them in practice,
down to the last detail, to ensure that you
have considered all reasonably predictable
scenarios. Here are three examples:
1. What if a middle school student says he or
she is sick and wants to go to the nurse?
Does he or she need a pass? Should the student go alone? Is it your responsibility to
touch his or her forehead to determine the
validity of the claim? If the child does go to
the nurse, how will you ensure that the
child receives and completes any missed
class work?
2. Visualize exactly how your elementary
CHAPTER 8
students should look as they walk from the
schoolyard upstairs to your classroom in
the morning. What will you do if students
fall behind? How should you respond to
inappropriate behavior (e.g., ignore the
student)? What reinforcements can you
give for appropriate behavior (e.g., selecting a compliant student to be first in
line)?
3. Your high school class is turning in homework. Will they pass it up to the front?
Will one student be in charge of collecting
all the papers? Where will the papers go?
If students had problems and questions,
will you address those problems now or
later? Will you determine if everyone
completed the assignment now or later?
When will you address the students who
didn’t complete the assignment? What are
the consequences for not completing the
assignment?
The demands on your judgment will be
endless. Flexibility is a must. While attempting to anticipate all possible situations that
might arise, recognize, accept and (ideally)
embrace the unpredictable nature of working with children. Yet, the more you can
visualize ahead of time, the better prepared
you will be.
In determining procedures, you will
have to weigh a number of variables that
can sometimes conflict. For example, you
will need to decide what you will do if a
student comes to class unprepared, say,
without a writing implement. You could
lend him a pencil, but that would require
your having a sizable stash on hand. How
will you ensure the pencil is returned at the
end of class? Furthermore, you would need
to consider whether having extra pencils on
hand would discourage personal responsibility on the part of students. The alternative? Without a pencil the student may not
be able to do his work and is more likely to
disrupt other students. So, the benefits to
lending a pencil may outweigh the costs. As
you can see, even seemingly simple proce-
293
dures can raise a myriad of practical and
philosophical questions.
One possible solution to the pencil
predicament is to require the student to bor-
row a pencil from a classmate. This relieves
you from the burden of having to provide
your students’ supplies and conveys to the
students that they need to work some
TEACHING TOOL #8.1
Considerations for Classroom Procedures
Attendance
! What if students repeatedly come in late?
! What if they are repeatedly absent?
! What if they come in late during a test?
! What if they are absent on test day?
Bathroom / water fountain
! When are students allowed to go? How often are they allowed to go?
! How should students get my attention for this?
! Will I require students to take a pass?
! Do students need to sign out?
Books and supplies
! Which books will be kept in student desks and which will be kept on classroom shelves?
! Will all textbooks need to be covered?
! How will I keep track of textbooks?
! What if students lose or damage textbooks?
! What if they forget to bring a textbook or other necessary materials to school?
! What supplies will be needed?
! What if students don’t purchase all needed supplies by the stipulated deadline?
Coats and bagged lunches
! Will I have assigned hooks?
! Should I have boys use one closet and girls another?
! Where will students keep their lunches: in their desks or in the closet?
! Where can they keep their book bags?
! Are students allowed to go to the closet?
! When will I make exceptions, if at all, for going to the closet?
Homework
! How is homework to be handed in?
! Under what circumstances are students allowed to make up work?
! Will students be penalized for late homework?
! When will I correct homework and return it to students?
! Will we ever go over homework together in class?
Indoor and outdoor lineup
! Where will the class line up in the morning and at lunch during sunny weather?
! Will this differ in rainy weather?
294
CHAPTER 8
(Teaching Tool #8.1 continued)
Lunchroom and playground
! Does my school have specific lunchroom procedures?
! If not, what are mine?
! What are students allowed to do on the playground?
Movement in the classroom/trash can and pencil sharpener
! Can students get up out of their seats to use the sharpener or to throw away trash without
being called on?
! Should I have a student monitor for these tasks?
! May they bring an extra pencil to another student at the other side of the room without being
called on?
! Where should I keep the wastebaskets and the pencil sharpeners?
Behavior during interruptions (intercom, visitors)
! How are students to behave during intercom announcements?
! Visitors? Are they to greet the visitor?
! How quiet must they be during these interruptions?
Dismissal
! How will students gather their belongings at the end of the day?
! What will be the cue for ending the day?
! Who will be responsible for putting materials away?
! How will I organize materials for the next class?
! Do students need to put their chairs up at the end of the day?
! Who will be responsible for making sure the floor is clean and the chalkboard washed?
Distributing materials
! Who will distribute handouts and papers? How?
! Will each student have individual supplies (e.g., crayons, glue, scissors) or will tables share
materials?
Finishing work early
! What will students do when they finish work early?
! Will there be interest-driven activities?
! Will students have the option to read?
Getting the teacher’s attention
! Should I have different hand signals for different purposes (e.g., to get water from the
fountain)?
! Are students allowed to approach me at my desk, or must they wait to be called on?
! Are students allowed to call out my name to get my attention?
! Will the policy differ depending on the class activities (e.g., seat work vs. direct instruction)?
Movement in the hallways and on the stairs
! Will I have line monitors?
! How quiet must students be to proceed? How will students stand in line?
! Will lines be formed by size order, by gender, or random?
! Will I have two lines or one?
! Will the same person always get to be first in line?
CHAPTER 8
295
(Teaching Tool #8.1 continued)
Proper paper heading
! Is there a school-wide standard heading for written assignments?
! If not, how should students head their papers?
Small group activities
! How will students move in and out of groups?
! What is the expected behavior of students while grouped?
Speaking in class
! Do students always have to wait to be called on before speaking in class?
! When are students allowed to talk to each other quietly?
! When are students not allowed to talk at all?
Tests/quizzes
! What is proper student behavior during tests/quizzes?
! What if my students don’t behave properly during tests/quizzes?
Writing instrument
! Which writing instruments can students use? Is there a school-wide policy on this? Does the
policy differ according to subject area (e.g., math vs. writing)?
! What if they repeatedly forget to bring a writing instrument to school? Will I provide pens or
pencils?
Hallway passes
! Will hallway passes be required for students to leave the classroom?
! Do students need to sign out?
! If so, will I use a sign-out book, or should they sign out on the chalkboard?
things out for themselves. An additional
benefit is that if the borrower fails to return
the pencil to his classmate, the repercussions of aggravating a peer will likely be
more troubling than if the pencil had been
the teacher’s. Students care a great deal how
other students feel about them. Another
alternative is to lend students golf or bowling pencils. These short pencils are cheap
(one box, for example, is $5 and will last
years) and effective as students dislike
using them, and will be motivated to
remember their own next time. Use this to
your advantage.
Teaching Tool #8.1 contains questions to
consider as you work to develop procedures and systems for your classroom. Keep
in mind that not every one of the following
situations will have its own explicit proce-
296
dure, nor will all of these situations apply to
you. The more you have thought through
these types of details, however, the
smoother your classroom will run.
Common Procedures and Routines
Every school and classroom has unique
procedural needs, and there are multiple
procedures that can work in each environment. When determining your procedures,
you should keep two things in mind. First,
you should develop procedures that allow
students to know what they should be
doing and how they should do it for every
situation in your classroom that demands a
specific process. Second, you should develop procedures for classroom activities that
CHAPTER 8
can otherwise be particularly inefficient –
such as taking attendance, distributing
materials, or transitioning from one activity
to another.
The following list outlines several common times during the school day when having a procedure is advisable.
Taking Attendance
There are several guidelines to keep in
mind regarding taking attendance:
!
Calling roll verbally is perhaps the
least efficient way to check attendance,
as it wastes instructional time and distracts students.
!
Instead, handle attendance while students are involved in an instructional
task (e.g., writing in a journal, silently
reading, etc.). Many teachers open
each day or class period with a quick
assignment, often called a “Do Now,”
“Focus,” or “Warm-up,” that students
can do independently while the
teacher records attendance.
!
Some teachers use a seating chart and
put it inside a plastic page protector.
They quickly scan for empty seats and
mark the chart with an overhead transparency pen. Later, they transfer the
information to their attendance book
and wipe off the chart for the next day.
!
If your students keep an in-class threering binder, have them put their
names on the spine. As they enter the
class and take their binder from the
shelf. You will quickly see who is
absent, as binders of absent students
will remain on the shelf.
class and signal what needs to happen
next.
!
The tools you should use to get your
students’ attention vary depending on the
grade level you teach. In elementary school
classes, possible cues include clapping in a
special rhythm and having students mimic
the rhythm, holding two fingers in the air
(the “V” or peace sign is a popular choice),
counting down from 5 to 1, saying “1-2-3
All Eyes on Me” to which students respond
“1-2 All Eyes on You,” shaking a tambourine, or turning music on or off. If you
are teaching in a middle school, try giving
simple directions such as “notebooks
should now be closed” or “cluster into your
groups of five.” Or, try ringing a bell or
using a kitchen timer. High school students
can be trusted to self-regulate more. They
can be given time limits and you can assign
“Student Time-Keepers” (bells and kitchen
timers can still be effective for high school
students). You might ask students to brainstorm ideas for the best method to get the
whole class’s attention. Possibilities include
clapping five times, blowing a kazoo, or
boldly presenting the “teacher look.”
Distribution of Materials
The manner in which you distribute
handouts and other course materials can
affect their receptivity. You should:
!
Have materials prepared before students even enter the room. For example, if multiple materials are needed
for a group activity, create a bin for
each group before school. When the
group activity begins, you or the
“Materials Master” for each group
retrieves the bin with all the necessary
materials.
!
Keep needed materials such as tissues,
the pencil sharpener, scrap paper,
Getting the Attention of the Class
These tips should be helpful in getting
the attention of the students in your class:
!
Establish certain cues so you can
quickly gain the attention of the entire
CHAPTER 8
If the class is engaged in an individual
or group activity, an auditory signal is
usually most effective.
297
paper towels, etc. in standard places,
so students know where to find them.
Giving Instructions
No learning will occur if the students do
not understand the instructions. Follow
these guidelines:
!
!
!
!
!
298
If your students can read, put written
instructions on the board. That way,
while students are getting started on
the assignment, you can walk around
and individually address those who
are off-task.
Use pre-prepared audio-visual aids,
such as overheads, rather than writing
things on the board while students
wait. In addition to saving time, overheads do not require you to turn away
from the class, allowing you to visually supervise during instruction.
Do not depend solely on oral instruction to the entire group. Have instructions already written on the board or
on the assignment so students can
progress at their own pace.
Remember the importance of checking
for understanding. Asking a student to
explain the procedure again to the class
before you start will help you identify
any potential misunderstandings.
Periodically assign a “Student
Instructor” to give the instructions for
an activity. You will have to prep the
student ahead of time, but there are
several benefits that make it worthwhile. Students will appreciate the
refreshing change and will enjoy hearing a new voice, they will give their
full attention to the peer (if for no
other reason than to see how he or she
does), and the Student Instructor will
get to practice valuable communication skills. Be sure to follow-up the
student’s instructions with any information that might have been omitted
or confusingly presented.
Getting Started
In order to encourage students to be
ready quickly, consider creating a simple
challenge, such as:
“Let’s see if we can put away our bags and
be seated with our math books open faster
than we did yesterday. Let’s try to break
our 30 second mark!”
Depending on the resources available,
you might need to plan rotational activities.
Some students can be working at their
desks while other groups use lab equipment. Students should never wait around
while others use special materials.
Transitions Between Activities
Transitions between activities open up
windows for mayhem. Discourage off-track
behavior by making sure your students
always know what is coming next.
!
Build in a literal “7th-inning stretch” if
it has been a long morning or long
afternoon. Providing a moment of
energy release will help avoid the restlessness that will inevitably lead to
disruptions.
!
Minimize potential distractions (i.e.
don’t pass out materials or even reveal
them until the exact moment they will
be utilized).
!
Let your students be actively involved
during transitions (i.e. let them pass
out materials, erase the board, move
desks, etc.).
!
Accommodate students completing
work at differing times. For example,
avoid scheduling a large group discussion after a written assignment.
!
Many teachers have an “If You Finish
Early…” poster in their classroom that
has a number of activities students can
do independently if they complete the
assignment before others are ready to
progress. The poster might include:
CHAPTER 8
“Read your independent reading book.”
!
To prepare for the day when you have
a practice fire drill and don’t have
enough time to begin the first stage of
the lab activity, or the day when the
principal calls half of your students to
the gym for class pictures, keep a
drawer of short activities (sometimes
called “sponge activities”) that fill
small instructional opportunities and
serve as quick ways to reinforce or
review material. See Teaching Tool
#8.3 for sample sponge activities.
!
You may have decided that you won’t
allow students to leave your class to
go to the bathroom except in an
extreme emergency (this is only realistic at the secondary level, where students should use the time between
classes to go to the bathroom or get a
drink). But, to save the ensuing distraction and time it takes to ascertain
whether that one-foot hop really constitutes an emergency, several new
teachers report success with giving
each student one emergency bathroom
pass for each semester. Students are
responsible for keeping the pass. In the
case of an emergency, students raise
their pass, the teacher nods, signs it
while continuing to teach, and the student leaves the room. When the student returns to class she gives the pass
to the teacher.
!
Design a signal for students to give
you when they need to get up for a tissue. (It’s often helpful to have tissues
in a set place in the classroom; consider asking parents to donate one box at
the beginning of the year). If a student
raises her hand and taps the end of her
nose, you can nod your permission
without stopping what you’re saying
to the rest of the class.
“Study your vocabulary words.”
“Write Ms. Goldin a letter that explains
one thing you really like about the class
and one thing you would like to
improve.”
“Draw a picture/comic strip that represents something you’ve learned in the
past week.”
“Begin working on your homework if you
understand the assignment.”
You’ll also want to develop transition
activities for regular transition times such as
entering the classroom. For example, in an
elementary class, you might have your students walk into the classroom quietly every
day after lunch and automatically begin
silent reading. Or, in a secondary class, you
might begin with a “warm-up” or “Do
Now” that you have written on the board
and that will serve as a review activity or
an introduction to the day’s activity. See
Teaching Tool #8.2, on the next page, for
more advice on transitions.
Unplanned Interruptions
Unanticipated interruptions can disrupt
any type of classroom activity but due to
their nature they cannot always be avoided.
Here are some procedures that can be used
prior to the interruption that can alleviate
its effects:
!
Teach students a procedure for handling interruptions (e.g., you are suddenly called down to the office and an
aide will be covering your classroom),
such as teaching students to work on a
particular independent reading assignment whenever the activity at hand is
interrupted.
!
Practice how students will react to
a PA announcement or a visitor at
your door who needs to speak to you
for 20 seconds.
CHAPTER 8
Absent Students
All but the rarest student will miss class
299
TEACHING TOOL #8.2
Effective Transition Techniques
Efficient and productive transitions between activities can be a significant challenge for new teachers. Developing this skill will provide you with significantly more instructional time and will limit
behavior disruptions. When transitioning from one part of a lesson or from one part of the school
day to another, it is important to clearly communicate your expectations for what will happen next.
A simple strategy is to use the following the sequence:
1. When—Give the students a cue (e.g., a clap, a certain word, a specific time) for when to transition.
2. What—Clearly articulate what students will do.
3. Who—Clearly articulate who will be engaged in the activity.
In following third grade class, the teacher and students have just completed discussing their morning journal entries. The teacher is preparing them for the transition to reading groups.
Transition Stages
Closing First Activity
Teacher’s Statements
Everyone please put your journals away.
(Teacher waits until all journals are put away)
Now, please take out the book you are currently reading in your
group.
(Teacher waits until all students have taken out their books)
Thank you, now…
When
When I am done giving instructions and say “read”, you will….
What
Take your book with you to meet your reading group.
Who
Chad’s group will meet in the back corner.
Julio’s group will meet at the front table.
Reggie’s group will meet by the puppet stage.
Any questions?
Okay, Read!
This teacher uses an auditory cue to dispatch students to the next learning experience. Other possible signals for transitions include:
300
Cue Type
Description
Visual Cue
Raise hand or display some other hand signal.
CHAPTER 8
(Teaching Tool #8.2 continued)
Auditory Cues
Turn music off.
Play or sing a particular song.
Kitchen timer.
“One, two, three; eyes on me,” “If you can hear me, clap once” or similar phrases.
Clapping pattern that students must repeat.
Other helpful behaviors:
1. Do not relinquish students’ attention until you have given clear instructions for and solicited
questions about the following activity.
2. Provide students with simple, step-by-step directions.
3. Post a daily schedule and take the time to discuss any changes in the schedule prior to
beginning class. Have all of your materials for future lessons prepared and on hand.
See Sponge Activities in Teaching Tool #8.3 for other examples of effective transition activities.
on occasion, and the following guidelines
should be followed:
!
Absent students need to know what
they missed while they were gone.
Individually reviewing and detailing
everything they missed is not the best
use of your time, especially if you have
150 secondary students.
!
Elementary teachers might create a
mailbox or folder for each student
where they place handouts for absent
students. High school teachers can
place more of the burden on the
students themselves.
!
The following example provides
another option:
One teacher uses a method called “The
Notebook.” He hole punches all of his handouts and has his students keep an individual
notebook for his class where they archive all
worksheets, homework, notes and warm-ups.
He keeps his own copy of The Notebook on
his desk, which saves time when students are
absent. Since he keeps a copy of all handouts,
test review hints, visual aides and detailed
CHAPTER 8
homework directions in The Notebook, students who are absent can go to this central
place to find out what they missed, rather
than all of them coming to ask him. He numbers all homework assignments, so if a student misses an assignment, he can say, "you
are missing assignment number six,”
instead of saying, “you are missing the
assignment where we had to graph the
results of our most recent lab.”
New Students
Student populations in high-need districts tend to be more transient than others.
Expect new students to arrive throughout
the school year. When new students show
up unannounced, you’ll want to help them
acclimate to your classroom as quickly as
possible. But, chances are you won’t have
even 15 minutes to spend the moment they
arrive since you will need to keep the rest of
the class running. Consider these options:
!
Some teachers create ten “New
Student Kits” before the school year
begins. Then, when a new student
301
TEACHING TOOL #8.3
Sample Sponge Activities
Sponge activities fill small instructional openings and serve as quick ways to review material or
engage students in creative thinking. Sponge activities can productively use time that might otherwise be wasted—the few minutes before class begins, before going to recess or lunch, during transitions—provided that the activity is related to the objectives you are working on. In addition,
sponge activities are effective management tools that can ensure smooth transitions and reduce the
opportunity for student misbehavior.
Below are some general activities you can draw on, with examples from varied grade levels. For all
these examples, you will need to tailor the content of your sponge activity to your curriculum—
either current or past material that could use reinforcing.
Mental Math
What number comes before/after 46, 52, 13, etc.?
Count to 100 by 2’s, 5’s, 10’s, etc..
Flash card relays with math facts (“Around the World”)
Name the factors of 120
Name all prime numbers between 50 and 100
What is the volume of this soda can if it has a height of X inches, a circumference of Y inches,
and a diameter of Z inches?
Thinking Games and Minute Mysteries
What comes next in this series…3, 9, 81?
ABC game—First person makes a sentence that begins with an “A,” second person builds on the
story and begins the next sentence with a “B,” and so on…
“I Spy”—who can find something in the room that starts with the letter M, P, S, etc.?
Who am I? (guessing famous people)
What is the popular phrase represented in these boxes (books of these are available at most teacher
supply stores):
You Just Me
1.TIMING
2. TIM ING
My Own Heart
a Person
(Just between you and me)
(split second timing)
(a person after my own heart)
Some minute mysteries are:
! A father and his son are involved in a car accident. The father is killed and the son is in critical
condition. When the boy arrives at the hospital, the doctor in the emergency room exclaims,
“I can’t operate on this boy, he is my son!” How can this be? (the doctor is his mother)
! Ted and Alice are on the floor dead. Nearby is a puddle of water and broken glass. George is
asleep on the couch. What happened? (Ted and Alice are fish. George the cat knocked the
fish bowl over)
302
CHAPTER 8
joins the class, the teacher welcomes
her warmly and asks her to review
and fill out the materials in the kit.
This gives the new student something
to do until the teacher can carve out
time to meet with the student individually. The New Student Kit might contain a letter of welcome, a letter for
parents, a student interest survey, a
student information sheet, the rules
and procedures of the classroom, and
any other essential reading or forms
that other students received at the
beginning
of the year.
!
Many teachers also assign a “buddy”
who is responsible for familiarizing
the student with the procedures of
the classroom and introducing classmates.
Miscellaneous Administrative Requirements
In addition to purely instructional activities, teachers have a number of other
responsibilities. The following suggestions
can assist in managing these duties:
!
Have a folder or in-box for paperwork
that must be completed to ensure you
are meeting your professional responsibilities.
!
Enlist your students and put them in
charge of things like counting school
lunch orders, helping to make bulletin
boards, washing the boards and overheads, or passing out student journals
at the beginning of class. Make sure
students understand that these are their
responsibilities as class members (they
are not doing you favors by “helping”).
!
Make extra copies of every handout
(perhaps 5% extra) to greatly simplify
your life later since you’ll have extras
on hand for a student whose paper
somehow gets destroyed, for new students, or for students who want to
redo the assignment because they have
CHAPTER 8
made mistakes.
!
Keep everything in its own place
everyday, such as a specific spot on
your desk for your roll book and
another one for your overhead pens
and homework stamp. The more
organized your classroom, the more
efficient your instruction will be.
Minimizing Classroom
Inefficiencies
You’ll want to challenge yourself to constantly identify ways in which time could
be saved. For example, you might question
whether it should really take twenty minutes to walk your class to the bathroom, or
ten minutes to pass out last week’s graded
tests. Over the course of a year, the five
minutes a day that students use returning
supplies to the cabinet, or the five minutes
eight times per day that students use to
transition from one subject to another, add
up to considerable amounts of time.
Shaving off a few minutes here and there
can literally provide you an additional week
of instructional time over the course of the
year. Your emphasis on time efficiency will
also reinforce with your students the
urgency of learning. Teaching Tool #8.4
presents several ideas of identifying classroom inefficiencies.
School Policies
You must also work within the larger
context of your school and your district. As
a district employee, you will be required to
execute certain systems, policies, and procedures. You should incorporate them into
your classroom management system (e.g.,
reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, taking
attendance, rules about food in classrooms,
etc.). Be aware that some conflicts may
arise if your school has adopted policies
with which you disagree. Here are two
examples:
303
TEACHING TOOL #8.4
Identifying Classroom Inefficiencies
Room Arrangement
! Does congestion frequently occur in certain areas of the room, such as at the pencil sharpener,
materials center, etc.?
! Can you and your students move around the room easily or are traffic lanes blocked by desks
or other furniture or equipment?
! Can you see all students from any place in the room at which you instruct or work?
! During your presentations can students see the main chalkboard or overhead display or other
instructional area without turning around or moving their desks and chairs?
! Are students who frequently need your assistance seated where you can easily reach them?
! Do some students frequently bother those who sit near them?
Rules and Procedures
! Have you stopped enforcing one of your rules?
! Are your major class procedures being followed without constant prompting or reminders?
! Are some student behaviors occurring that are clearly undesirable but which are not covered
under your current rules or procedures?
! Do you find yourself giving the same directions repeatedly for a common procedure?
! Are you spending as much time going over directions and procedures now as at the
beginning of the year?
Consequences and Rewards
! Do you reward good behavior, including effort, in a variety of ways?
! Are your rewards attractive to students, or have they tired of them?
! Do you find yourself implementing consequences more and rewarding students less and less?
! Are you warning and threatening students frequently, but failing to follow through with
more serious consequences when students continue to misbehave?
! Have your consequences lost their deterrence value through overuse?
! Does administering your consequences and reward system take too much time and effort?
Managing Misbehavior
! Do you tend to notice misbehavior only after it involves several students?
! When you work with students individually or in groups, does noise, disruption, or wide-
spread work avoidance occur?
! Do you suspect that some students are misbehaving simply to gain your attention?
! Are there times when so much widespread misbehavior occurs that you don’t know what to do?
! Do you sometimes discover that students have hardly begun class assignments that they
should have almost completed?
304
CHAPTER 8
(Teaching Tool #8.4 continued)
Managing Instructional Activities
! Are students frequently confused about work requirements and do they fail to follow direc-
tions, even after you have explained them or listed them in writing?
! Do you often discover that students have not fully understood your presentations and that
they therefore cannot complete assignments correctly?
! Are transitions from one activity to another taking a long time?
! Are some students not ready for instructions when a new activity begins?
! Is there widespread misbehavior during transitions?
Managing Student Work
! Do many of your students fail to complete assignments or not turn them in at all?
! Are students completing work on time, or do you find yourself giving extensions?
! Do students sometimes claim they did not know when an assignment was due or what its
requirements were?
! After grades are given, do students frequently complain that they do not understand why
they received particular grades?
Edmund T. Emmer et al. (2000). Classroom Management for Secondary Teachers: Second Edition
1. Many schools prohibit the wearing of
baseball caps in classrooms. Do you have a
personal opinion about caps? Will they
offend you? If the school doesn’t prohibit
them, will you? If they don’t offend you,
but the school prohibits them, will you
consistently remind students to take
them off even though it doesn’t bother
you?
2. Some schools prohibit boys from
wearing earrings. This may conflict with
your personal beliefs about freedom of
expression. Will you openly disagree with
the policy? If your students ask you how
you feel about it (and, they will have a
way of sensing these things), will you
respond honestly, even if it means criticizing the administration or countering the
views of other teachers? You may choose
to simply acknowledge both points of view
on the matter by saying, “I know guys
who wear earrings in all walks of life.
Baseball players, musicians, and even Ed
Bradley, the awarding winning journalist
for 60 Minutes. As a teacher I also know
CHAPTER 8
the school district has a policy against
this. I think this decision may change in
the future, but for now this is the rule to
stick by.
Be aware of how other teachers may
react to the rules of your classroom. If your
rules vary from those of the other teachers,
students will let those inconsistencies be
known (i.e. “Well Mr. Levy lets us wear
baseball caps in his class!”). Prepare to be
confronted by other teachers if many of
your rules are in conflict with the general
norms. You will constantly have to weigh
the benefits of staying true to your personal
philosophies with maintaining the respect
of your colleagues.
Teaching and Reinforcing Procedures
You will need to teach students your
behavioral expectations and procedures in
the same deliberate way we discussed
teaching your classroom rules. Procedures
must be taught, modeled, and reviewed;
305
you should plan to spend significant time
during the first weeks of school addressing
this goal. By ensuring that students are clear
on how to move around the classroom,
where to get materials, and when to talk
and how loud, you are securing for yourself
(and your students) a calm, fluid, and
organized classroom existence.
present, model and practice that procedure.
Make your expectations known. Always
take the time to give clear, comprehensive
instructions before a new activity begins.
Check for comprehension before you begin
(you can orally quiz random students or ask
a student to summarize the instructions you
just gave).
Hold role-playing practice sessions for
each of your procedures (remembering that
these can be fun, effective, “getting-to-know
each other” activities). You might simulate
the end-of-class bell over and over, practicing the desired behavior of staying in one’s
seat and walking calmly to the door when
dismissed. You might practice lining up for
lunch or going to a special assembly over
and over again until students fall into a
double line and hold their hands clasped in
front of them without prompting. As
always, be flexible; seize teachable moments
throughout the year to reinforce rules and
procedures when the opportunity presents
itself.
Here are some tips for teaching and reinforcing your procedures:
In contrast to rules, every procedure
need not be taught on the first day of
school. Procedures are best taught when
the need to use them arises for the first
time. However, most teachers find that they
teach a significant bulk of their procedures
in the first two weeks of school, as many are
required for a smoothly functioning classroom. Great teachers consistently tell inexperienced teachers that although this may
initially seem unnecessary, investing considerable up-front teaching time to practice
procedures and routines pays huge dividends in saved time later.
Some of the procedures and systems you
establish will be ongoing, such as how to
line up and what the routine is at the beginning of the day or at the start of each class
period. Other routines will be specific to a
particular unit (for example, if you have
established a new learning center or are
using a new type of lab equipment). Each
time it is necessary to establish a new procedure you should take the time to explicitly
306
!
Explain the Need for Procedures to
Students. Just as you need to explain
the rationale for rules, you need to
invest your students in the rationale
for procedures.
!
When Introducing a New Procedure
to the Class, Demonstrate the Correct
Process. Start by demonstrating the
process yourself, step by step. Narrate
what you are doing. Then ask two or
three volunteers who think they
understand the procedure to model
the process for the rest of the class.
Ask the audience to comment on what
students did well and what part of the
procedure they should repeat. Ask
other volunteers to demonstrate the
process, this time giving them specific
scripts to follow, some perfect, some
slightly off, and some terribly wrong.
Again, have the audience point out
what was done correctly and what was
done incorrectly.
!
Allow Each Student to Practice and
Demonstrate Understanding of the
Process. Younger children need to
practice lining up. If your students can
line up quickly and smoothly, it will
save you hours of instruction time
over the course of the year (“Please
touch your right shoulder and make
sure it lines up with the person in
front of you…How will we hold our
hands as we walk through the hallways? That’s right, clasped in front of
us. Excellent. Let’s walk down to Ms.
Powell’s room and then come back”).
CHAPTER 8
With older children, you may be well
served by practicing how students will
pass up their tests (to the side and up
the last row), or what students should
do if they were absent the day before
(ask their note taking buddy if any
notes were taken, look in the class tray
for any handouts with their name, and
check the homework binder).
!
Provide Feedback. What happens if,
after teaching a procedure, your students don’t execute the procedure
properly? If you expect your students
to line up silently with their hands
clasped in front of them, and Ashley
and Miguel are wiggling around and
swinging their arms, you should ask
the class to look at the line, determine
what is wrong, and ask Ashley and
Miguel to return to their seats and join
the line properly. If you have taught
your students to pass in their papers in
a certain way and they do so incorrectly, do you give them all a five-minute
detention after school? No. You simply
remind them of the correct process for
handing in papers and ask them to do
it again. The “consequence” for not
following a procedure properly is to
repeat the procedure. However, sometimes your students will violate a rule
while a procedure is happening. For
example, your procedure for entering
class may be to walk in silently,
remove one’s notebook from the shelf,
sit down immediately, and begin the
Do Now. If two students jostle and
loudly insult one another while getting
their notebooks from the shelf, they
are not carrying out the procedure
properly, but more importantly, they
are also violating the rule Respect your
classmates. The proper response is to
give students the consequence you
would administer for breaking that
rule at any other time and to ask them
to correctly re-enter. Remember that
rules are always in effect, and breaking
CHAPTER 8
them at any time earns the student the
designated consequence.
!
Re-teach Procedures Regularly. This
is especially true after long holidays or
if the procedure hasn’t been used in a
while. Remind students of the need for
procedures, personally demonstrate
the procedure, ask for a small group of
volunteers to model the process, critique their performance, and then ask
the entire class to complete the procedure properly. As your students master your procedures throughout the
year, you might experiment with loosening up some of your more rigid dictates occasionally, when and only if
you think they are capable of handling
increased privileges. For example:
“You have done such a great job staying
quiet while I collect homework that starting tomorrow you’ve earned the right to
experiment with some quiet conversations
during homework collection.”
Implicit in this experiment, of course, is
that if they fail, the original rule is immediately reinstated.
Teachers who effectively establish procedures in their classroom create an environment that almost runs itself, with appropriate student behavior and learning continuing even if they are out sick or attending a
professional development workshop.
Teaching Tool #8.5, on the next page, shows
a sample letter that teachers leave for substitutes, describing the flow of the day in
great detail.
Classroom Space and Design
Although we have addressed the issue
of the physical classroom in previous chapters, it is worth noting that there is a definite relationship between the physical
attributes of your classroom and your students’ behavior. Think of the ways in which
different environments affect your own
behavior (i.e. how is does your voice level
307
TEACHING TOOL #8.5
Substitute Letter
Dear Substitute,
Good morning!!! Thank you for covering for me on such short notice. I expect a lot from my
students and you should feel comfortable doing the same. Please hold them to your highest
expectation and let me know of anyone who is not rising to meet it.
As you may or may not know, we have a slightly different bell schedule this year. Please use the
following table to help you through the day.
Block
Class
Time
Helpers
HR
Homeroom
7:30-7:40
Everyone (Adrienne, Jared)
1
Chemistry
7:45-9:15
Everyone
(JaQuita, LaShonda, Trent)
2
Physical
Science
9:20-10:50
Jordy
3
Biology
11:00-12:20
Lilah, Michael
LUNCH
12:20-12:55
Prep Block
1:00-2:30
4
The day will be very straightforward:
! The homeroom students will just come in, sit down and wait for the announcements. Please
call roll at this time on the table provided. Send a student with this sheet to the AP’s office.
This is all you need to do with the homeroom. You may want to give them some advice
about the “real world” as they are all seniors.
! All classes will enter the room and when the bell rings they should sit down and begin work-
ing silently on THE AGENDA…remind them only once that they should be absolutely silent
during that time. If they are not, please note this on the table provided.
! Before the bell rings, they should go to the back bookshelf to get their group signs. There should
be ZERO talking after the bell rings. They will have 2 minutes to copy the agenda off of the
board. This is a daily activity and everyone knows the drill. Then give them another 7 minutes or
so to complete the catalyst.
! The following is already written on the front right-hand side of the board.
308
CHAPTER 8
(Teaching Tool #8.5 continued)
BLOCK 1: CHEMISTRY
BLOCK 2: PHYSICAL SCIENCE
BLOCK 3: BIOLOGY
! Discuss Catalyst
! Discuss Catalyst
! Discuss Catalyst
! WORK QUIETLY!!!!!
! WORK QUIETLY!!!!!
! WORK QUIETLY!!!!!
! Study Salmon Sheet silently
! Read pp. 5-9 (do #1-3 on pg.
! Read pp. 26-31 (do #1-4
for 15min, then with a partner for 15min
! Take hour to finish ceiling
tiles (use extra time to study
more or start on HW)
! Read pp. 28-37, do practice
problems #4-10 (in reading)—DUE TOMORROW
! If you finish early…see last
item for physical science
9); Read pp. 20-25 (do #1-3 +
SB on pg. 25); Read pp. 33-36
(do #1-3 + SB); Read; Read
52-53 (do #1,2 and Explore
the Issue)—ALL DUE AT
THE END OF THE HOUR
! If you finish early… You can
do up to 3 summaries of
Scientific American articles.
Each article must be at least 3
pages in length. Each summary should be 150 words
long and will be worth 5
BONUS points. On the top
of each summary, please
include the date of journal,
page number and title of article. Summaries must be
turned in by the end of the
hour.
on pg. 31); Read pp. 32-38
(do # 1-6 on pg. 38)
! On page 43, in the Critical
and Creative Thinking
Section, do
2 of the 9 (your choice)
! EVERYTHING IS DUE AT
THE END OF THE HOUR
! If you finish early, do the last
thing on the physical science
agenda.
Once students have copied the agenda, they will then begin work on THE CATALYST. The following word of
the day should be written on a transparency and placed on the overhead. You may use it for all blocks.
CATALYST
WOTD—EXTANT, adjective: Still living (opposite of extinct)
“The dodo bird is extinct, however, the flamingo is extant.”
1. Use the WOTD in a sentence.
2. Please write a 20-word paragraph about your weekend.
At this point, could you please take attendance? Record any absences in the tables provided.
Once role is taken and they have had a chance to write, ask for a student volunteer to “run class.”
They know what this means and should be eager to do so. It involves passing the rat to about 4 or 5
students. When the student gets the rat, they must read their sentence. The rest of the day should
run itself with students working on the material on the board. Please see below.
CHAPTER 8
309
(Teaching Tool #8.5 continued)
GENERAL NOTES
! You are the first sub of the year. Please hold them to a very high expectation and please let
me know if anyone is causing even the smallest problem.
! Students should have their books with them. If they don’t, give them 1 minute (time them) to
go to their locker and please write down their names and I will deal with them later.
! No students are allowed in my desk or in the back cabinets or in the back storage room.
! Could you please close the door to my storage room in the front of the room? Thanks!
! Please write down the name of any student who is off task or causes you any trouble.
! No student should be on the computer.
! No student should be working in a group that they aren’t normally sitting with.
GENERAL NOTES BLOCK BY BLOCK
1st—This group should cause you no problems. They may need to be reminded to stay on task a
bit. Also, remind them that they must know all of the salmon sheet by Tuesday.
2nd—You may also need to remind them to stay on task. Please be extra watchful of this class
and make sure that they are on task. *** Do not tolerate noise or off task behavior from this
group.***
3rd—This may be the most challenging class. Please be extra watchful and make sure that they
are on task. *** Do not tolerate noise or off task behavior from this group.***
If any student gives you trouble or falls out of line, please give them 1 warning. If they misbehave
again, please write down their name and inform them that they should plan on conferencing with me
when I return.
I hope all goes well and let me know about any students who have misbehaved or have done exceptionally well.
Thank you very much and have a wonderful day,
Mr. Maddin
and body language vary when you are in a
McDonald’s versus an elegant restaurant?).
Create a room that will invite your students
to raise their standards.
The physical learning environment and
how it is organized can greatly affect student achievement. If a student can’t see, or
is cramped, it will be difficult to concentrate
and learn. You will want to pay attention to
the room arrangement, your seating plan,
and to creating personal space for students
who may need it. Room arrangement can
310
facilitate orderly movement and minimize
distractions, so you’ll want to pay attention
to the following:
!
Student groupings
!
Desk orientation with regard to other
desks, the teacher, and the chalkboard
!
Bulletin board displays
!
Learning center design and placement
Furthermore, the prominent colors and
décor of the room all impact a student’s
success in the classroom.
CHAPTER 8
Before considering specific procedures
and routines that you might use to create an
efficient and well-structured classroom, it is
important to make sure your physical space
– the classroom itself—is organized to maximize safety, comfort, and efficiency. Bear in
mind the following tips for organizing your
physical space:
!
!
!
Keep high-traffic areas free from congestion. This includes group work
areas, space around the pencil sharpener and trash can, doorways, certain
shelves, students’ desks and your desk.
Be sure that you can easily see all students and they can see you. Sit down
at every desk before the first day of
school.
Make sure that frequently used
materials and supplies are readily
accessible. This will minimize set-up
and clean-up time for activities.
Self-Assess How Things are Working, and
Make Changes when Necessary
Be flexible and self-forgiving. You will
not get everything right the first time, or
even the first year. Months into the school
year, do you feel like you still have to put
too much energy into classroom management? Are you feeling angry, frustrated and
ineffective? Are you running out of time for
your planned activities because it takes the
class too long to get started? These are all
signs that certain rules or procedures are
not working effectively, even with consistent implementation. Remember that you
can change a procedure at any point if you
determine that another approach will work
better. While it is counter-productive to
change your system every time something
goes wrong, it is equally counter-productive
to stick to one approach stubbornly, simply
because that is what you decided to do your
very first day or week as a classroom
teacher.
CHAPTER 8
Conclusions and Key Points
This chapter discussed the necessity of
establishing effective classroom procedures.
The following key points were emphasized:
!
Procedures detail expectations and
routines for specific situations, helping
your classroom run smoothly and
maximizing instructional time.
!
Do not underestimate the value and
necessity of efficient routines.
!
Each time it is necessary to establish a
new procedure you should take the
time to explicitly present, model and
practice that procedure.
!
Challenge yourself to consistently
identify ways in which you might
minimize classroom inefficiencies.
Constantly define and redefine the
boundaries of acceptable behavior. Students
need to know what the limits are. It is your
job to both decide what they are and to
effectively convey them. With a good balance of consistency, perseverance, and
reflection, you will develop over time a system that works for you and your students.
311
Chapter 9
Carrying Out Disciplinary Actions
Do not doubt that there will be moments when your students will misbehave. Although disruptions are normal, it is imperative that you learn
how to effectively address disruptive student behavior. As we have discussed in the previous chapters, effective teachers have a clear system for
responding to student interruptions. Their responses gradually increase in
severity, while always respecting the dignity of students. They instinctively know when to let things pass and when to draw the line, when to make
an exception, and when to make an example. These instincts will develop
over time. At first, you may find yourself doubting which behaviors are
annoying, but benign, and which are truly disruptive and unacceptable.
Effective teachers also pick the appropriate time to address misbehavior
and consistently re-teach and revisit classroom expectations.
This chapter will discuss the components of your classroom management that are of a more corrective nature—those methods by which you
will assert your authority and apply consequences when a student does
not meet your high expectations for behavior. Sometimes a student will
flagrantly choose to break a rule and knowingly receive the consequence,
due to a huge variety of factors ranging from a teacher’s slow lesson to the
eruption of a pre-existing student conflict to a stressful event in the student’s personal life. Other times, the student won’t dramatically act out
but may still disrupt learning in a more passive aggressive way—perhaps
by rhythmically tapping her pencil and humming during silent work, or
by passing notes. You must respond to these disruptions in order to maintain the classroom culture that you have worked so relentlessly to build.
Ultimately, you want your students to see misbehavior (both their own,
and that of their peers) as a disruption to learning.
The Difference Between Authority & Discipline
As defined by Webster’s 9th Collegiate Dictionary, authority is:
The power to influence or command thought, opinion, or behavior.
Discipline is defined as:
Training that corrects, molds, or perfects the mental faculties or moral
character; orderly or prescribed conduct or pattern of behavior; self-control;
a rule or system of rules governing conduct or activity.
Authority is about YOU and refers to the control you are implicitly
CHAPTER 9
312
granted. Discipline is about YOUR STUDENTS and refers to the appropriate behavior that is expected of them. Students will
try to argue over who is in charge of the
classroom. This matter is non-negotiable.
You must always be the one in control of
the classroom. Hopefully your classroom
presence will be infused with enthusiasm.
Remember, however, there is a fine line
between enthusiasm and chaos. You must
address potentially out of control energy
before it becomes out of control. (Important
distinction: A particularly lively classroom
activity might become momentarily out of
control—that’s okay as long as you remain
control.)
There are two common extremes that
characterize the struggle first-year teachers
encounter. They are:
1. Those who reflexively fear abusing
Warning:
Control Freak Alert
An all-purpose warning: Control for
control sake is destructive and counter-productive. Bathroom privileges,
for example, are one area rife with
potential for abuse. Allowing a student to go to the bathroom or denying
them that right is a strange power to
have. You are essentially wielding
authority over another person’s bodily
functions. Think clearly about how
you will achieve a balance between
firm boundaries and the obvious need
for flexibility. Abusing your authority
will undermine any effort you might
make towards earning the trust and
respect of your students. Always keep
yourself in check by ensuring that
your rules have a distinct and valid
purpose and are related to the ultimate goal of student achievement.
Anticipate, however, that periodic
assertions of your authority will be
necessary.
313
their authority to the point where they
become reluctant to assert the discipline that will make their lives manageable in the classroom.
2. Those who over-assert their authority—out of an excessive fear of losing
control of the classroom—to the point
where valid student involvement is
suppressed.
In political terms, do you want your
classroom to be a democracy or a dictatorship? Neither in its purest form will work
effectively. The goal, of course, is to find a
happy medium. Mastering this balance will
take time and continual self-analysis.
Why Do Students Misbehave?
Students have their own sometimes simple, sometimes complex reasons why they
choose to behave appropriately or misbehave
in class. Like a doctor who can choose to treat
the symptoms or the disease itself, teachers
face similar options. The short-term benefit of
ignoring the underlying causes of disruptive
behavior may be self-evident, but the longterm consequences cannot be ignored.
Your students have emotional needs that
will surface time and time again. Those
needs cannot be underestimated and will,
like it or not, eventually have to be
addressed. Always remember that your
students, as inconvenient as it may be, have
a point of view. Some businesses display
signs which read, “Our customers are not
impediments to our jobs—they are the reason for our jobs.” This concept must apply
at all times to all students. Their personal
and intellectual growth is the sole focus and
purpose of your job.
That said, you have rights and needs
too. The challenge you face in establishing
the rules of your classroom will be striking
the right balance between respecting your
students’ rights and needs and respecting
those of the entire class.
CHAPTER 9
Your search for the root causes of misbehavior should always start by examining
your own planning and instruction. While
this is by no means always the case, incidents of disruptive or off-task behavior are
often tied to weaknesses in our own lessons.
You should not be surprised, for example, if
students become disengaged initially—and
off task eventually—if you ask them to sit at
their desks and simply watch one another
complete math problems on the board day
after day. Students who finish an independent activity and don’t have anything else to
work on will find “other things” to occupy
their attention. When you plan, you should
ask yourself not just, “What will I be doing
every minute of the class?” but more importantly, “What will my students be doing
every minute of the day?”
In fact, you will realize that on a daily
basis, an important classroom management
tool will be an engaging lesson plan that
holds your students’ attention. Think about
your own reaction to the all-purpose business meeting. If it’s stimulating and relevant, you’re more likely to be actively present and on-task. When it’s boring, dragging
or lacking purpose, you doodle, daydream,
pass notes, etc; so will your students.
Content-driven management should be both
a goal as well as a pleasant by-product.
As you refine your lesson plans, you
improve your ability to design engaging lessons that decrease the risk of the off-task
behavior that eventually becomes disruptive. For example, perhaps you want your
students to practice multiplying fractions.
Your first thought is to have two or three
students at a time come to the chalkboard to
practice. Your second thought is, “Well,
that’s not a bad idea, but what are the other
thirty students going to be doing at that
time?” Having three students at the board
at a time is not only inefficient and uncreative, it also leaves you with a class of thirty
disengaged students, more likely than not
to become restless and disruptive.
CHAPTER 9
To head off this problem, you change
your plan. You go to a home-and-garden
store and purchase a large sheet of dry
erase board, which can be cut to create mini
wipe boards for each child. You distribute
dry-erase markers and paper towels. Each
student completes the problem in big numbers. Everyone then holds up his or her
boards when the timer dings. With that
adjustment, you have greatly increased
your lesson’s effectiveness and efficiency
and greatly decreased the likelihood of disruptive behavior.
While quality lesson plans alone do not
guarantee disruption-free lessons, a poorly
planned lesson does virtually guarantee offtask or disruptive behavior. After examining whether student misbehavior could
stem from your own instructional deficiencies, you will need to examine other potential contributors to off-task and problematic
behavior.
The following are some of the common
“causes” of misbehavior in classrooms
(adapted from Curwin & Mendler, 1988):
!
Unclear Limits. You may be shocked
to hear that Shaun, your third period
angel, shouts out answers constantly
in another teacher’s room (a teacher,
who, incidentally, does not think it is
important for students to raise their
hands to speak during class). When
you see your fourth period class sitting
quietly with another teacher during
the school assembly, you may realize
that they are indeed capable of selfcontrol, and that you will need to raise
your expectations for their behavior
for this class. Students cannot violate
rules that haven’t been communicated,
and they will “code-switch” from
classroom to classroom depending on
the limits that each teacher has—or has
not—established. You must inform
students of your standards of acceptable behavior upfront, remembering
that establishing rules and procedures
314
is a vital form of preventive discipline.
!
A Sense of Powerlessness. Rules that
are perceived as arbitrary and unfair
are likely to result in students acting
out their sense of frustration and powerlessness. Be sure that all rules and
procedures are reasonable, and that
the rationale behind each rule is
explained to the students both up front
and as consequences are implemented.
Needlessly rigid procedures (like
requiring 5th graders to move through
the classroom like first year naval
academy students turning at sharp
right angles, or a rule such as “complete all assignments in blue ink or
receive a zero”) will only serve to
alienate students and instigate rebellious misbehavior. An anecdote in the
book Starting Small: Teaching Tolerance
in Preschool and the Early Grades (1997),
asserts that:
…blind obedience is not the goal. ‘Last
week, a child came up to me and said,
‘If this is a free world, why do we have
rules?’ I thought it was a very good question. I asked him to tell me a rule that he
didn’t understand, and he said,
‘Running. I don’t know why we can’t
run.’ I said, ‘You can run – outside,’ and
he said,
‘But not in school.’ So we acted out what
would happen in certain situations if you
ran instead of walked. And then it made
sense.
!
315
Attacks on Dignity. Chronic behavior
problems sometimes stem from the
loss of dignity that occurs when students believe they cannot and will not
be successful in school generally, or in
your classroom in particular. As a way
to protect his or her dignity after experiencing repeated failure, a student
may give up academically. Instead, he
or she will attempt to gain a sense of
mastery from disrupting your class
and receiving negative attention. Such
students often pretend they don’t want
to succeed. This underscores the
importance of two ideas:
1. Never compromise the dignity of a
student, even a misbehaving one.
Address student behaviors
(“Rosalyn, you need to face forward in your chair and focus on
your reading”) not the students
themselves (“Rosalyn, don’t be
such a pest. Can’t you see you’re
annoying Joe and everyone else
around you? Please sit appropriately in your seat when you turn
around in your seat.”)
2. Create a classroom in which all students can succeed, in which all students can define themselves as people with positive contributions to
make. If you sense that a student
has lost hope, create some.
Sometimes students dupe themselves into believing that unless
they do everything right, nothing
can be done right. An effective way
of creating some hope involves
helping students realize a series of
small wins. Breakdown complex
tasks into smaller chunks, communicate exactly what you want the
student to do with the chunk, and
then praise or acknowledge a job
well done. If the student still cannot
get the smallest chunk correctly
unpack the task further. Consider
Jermaine’s struggle to write a paragraph. His teacher has him work
on one sentence each day. When his
sentence meets the criteria specified
in the rubric, Jermaine’s teacher
rewards and helps him focus on
how the sentence is a smaller part
of a paragraph. The teacher repeats
this process until Jermaine completes a solid paragraph.
Remember, the goal is to help
Jermaine experience a series of wins
to inspire confidence for the next
task, rather than focus on the time
CHAPTER 9
it takes to complete the assignment.
Hopefully, as Jermaine’s confidence
increases the time it takes to complete tasks will decrease.
!
!
Student Boredom. Boredom can
arise for a number of reasons. First,
the student could be under-challenged academically. Do not discount the notion that your biggest
“troublemakers” may actually
know (or at least think they know)
the material before you teach it.
They may sleep or they may lash
out. Second, students might not be
engaged with the lesson because
they are not invested in the academic goals, because the lesson is
dull, is beyond their academic abilities, or because its pacing is too
slow. Chapter 4, on Differentiated
Instruction gave you specific strategies for challenging all levels of
learners. Strive to engage all students at all points in the lesson.
Doing so can be as easy as sprinkling students’ names throughout a
lesson, and as complicated as individualizing each student’s assignment by interest and readiness
level.
Inability to Express Feelings.
Imagine that Donnell starts to verbally attack the student sitting next
to him. When you move in to
mediate, Donnell hurls profane
words in your direction. You erupt
in anger and send Donnell to the
office. No one ever finds out that
Donnell discovered lewd graffiti
about his sister in the bathroom
before coming to class. Scenarios
like this highlight why a teacher
should help students learn appropriate ways to express anger and
frustration. We must model and
teach students healthy methods of
communicating emotions.
CHAPTER 9
Elementary teachers might discuss
and practice appropriate expression of feelings through puppet
shows, drawings, stories, or community meetings. Secondary
teachers can plan journal writing,
group discussions, literature-based
reflections or simply seize “teachable moments” to emphasize
appropriate self-control.
!
Peer Pressure. Sadly, academic
success and popularity do not
always go hand in hand. Older students especially may gain social
capital by defying the teacher or
playing the role of “class clown.”
They either reject their abilities in
order to “fit in,” or feel incapable
of completing academic work and
find easy acceptance in entertaining others rather than attempting
to tackle their challenges. In either
case, it is crucial to create a culture
of achievement in which success in
school is considered “cool.”
It will be important to reflect regularly
on your students’ behavior and the root
causes of that behavior. This reflection not
only prevents you from taking the misbehavior personally and letting your ego get
the best of you (we’ll expand on this later),
but it also sheds light on adjustments you
might make to prevent misbehavior in the
future. Sometimes, misbehavior occurs
when a student has an emotional disability
and requires more support in learning to
control her behavior and develop self-discipline. The next section will discuss how to
respond to students who need additional
behavior support.
External Factors that Produce Student
Misbehavior
In many cases you will be able to affect
the causes of misbehavior by adjusting your
lessons, consistently and respectfully
316
upholding reasonable limits, and helping
students express their feelings appropriately. However, there will be some rare situations or phenomena that are simply beyond
your immediate control, or perhaps even
your immediate understanding.
You may be teaching students for whom
violence has been a tragic and intensely
affecting part of their lives. Childhood trauma includes experiences that go beyond
normal life stresses. These experiences can
be physical, sexual, or emotional abuse;
neglect; parental alcohol or drug abuse;
death in the family; witnessing violence; frequent changes in primary caregivers; and
physical injury. (Some teachers in high-need
schools deal with students who have been
diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder as a result of the violence they
have witnessed or experienced.)
As a classroom teacher, it is important to
be aware of the behavior problems that
could be manifestations of trauma:
!
Hurting others without seeming to
care can be a sign of overwhelming
pain and suffering. Children who have
suffered serious pain can shut down
their feelings and lose touch with their
sense of empathy.
!
Aggressiveness beyond what is typical
in the students you teach is highly correlated with being victimized by abuse
or witnessing the abuse of another.
Deliberately annoying others can be a
sign of a student’s sense of helplessness, also common when a student is
accustomed to being abused or neglected.
!
Hyper vigilance, or a tendency to
always be on the lookout for potential
dangers, can be a sign of exposure to
an unexpected traumatic event.
!
Jumpiness or hyperactivity can be a
sign of trauma, as well as a possible
indicator of Attention Deficit Disorder
(ADD).
317
!
!
Unusual “spaciness” can indicate both
a physical disorder and a detached
state resulting from an overwhelming
traumatic experience.
It is important not to assume that an
unusually spacey student has experienced a
traumatic incident—he might be distracted
by the upcoming school dance. An aggressive child might simply require help channeling her energy and strength, and a child
who exhibits annoying behavior might be in
need of more positive reinforcement for
good behavior. We do not offer these examples to minimize your vigilance, but only to
remind you to analyze students’ behaviors
critically. And, although many students
bring symptoms of their stressful worlds to
the classroom, this does not mean that these
students cannot achieve academically or
behave appropriately in your classroom.
There are many things you can do to
have a profound, positive impact on a traumatized child without assuming the role of
a therapist. Victimized children, perhaps
more than other students, benefit from
structure, routines, positive empowerment
and positive attention – all practices you
should be implementing as an effective
teacher regardless of who fills your class.
You have the responsibility to provide all of
your students with a structured, secure
environment.
That said, some students would benefit
from attention and intervention beyond the
scope of what you can provide as a classroom teacher, and childhood trauma is one
cause of student misbehavior that requires
extra attention. If you have attempted to
handle a particular student’s misbehavior
with consistency, persistence, reflection and
revised strategies, and the behavior persists,
perhaps something else in the student’s life
must be addressed. Set up a meeting with
the student and the school counselor. If
journal entries, bruises, welts or cuts, or
statements made by the child lead you to
suspect that he or she has been traumatized
CHAPTER 9
and/or victimized, it is your legal obligation to seek outside intervention, perhaps
with the help of the school counselor, nurse,
or principal. Available resources will
depend upon your school and community.
Be persistent in seeking the information you
believe you need. As a classroom teacher
who sees your students regularly, you may
be the school representative best positioned
to observe the signs of distress, and you can
do students a great service by helping them
access the support and services they need.
Ideally, understanding the potential
“causes” of misbehavior can fortify you to
resist indulgent and overly emotional
responses to student misconduct. As we
will discuss in the next few sections, you
will need to work hard to maintain a calm,
firm, respectful demeanor whether responding to minor or more severe student interruptions.
When Do I Respond to
Student Misbehavior?
The first thing to decide when an interruption occurs is, “Do I respond?”
Unfortunately, there is no set formula for
when to respond. Every teacher has different standards for what constitutes an orderly classroom environment. For example, one
teacher may allow food in his classroom
while another prohibits classroom eating.
One teacher won’t care if a shirt is tucked
in, while another may consider an untucked
shirt to be a personal offense. Although
expectations for student behavior can vary,
consider these general guidelines for determining whether a response is advised:
!
If a student is disrupting the learning
environment for herself/himself or
others
!
If a student is physically or verbally
threatened
!
If a student has violated a basic behavioral expectation
CHAPTER 9
It is also important to note that different
students will evoke different reactions in
you. The same behavior might elicit a different response if it is a student’s first violation
(in which case you might be tempted to let
it pass) versus a student’s third violation (in
which case you might have to resist the
temptation to respond with a vengeance).
Once you have made a decision to
respond, you need to decide whether that
response should be immediate or delayed.
Sometimes a delayed response is more
effective than an immediate one. The
advantages are:
!
If you inform the student you will be
speaking with him after class, he or
she is likely to behave, out of trepidation, until the meeting takes place.
!
You don’t lose the momentum of your
lesson.
!
You have a one-on-one confrontation
or interaction with the student, thereby lessening the potentially cruel
effects of public admonishment.
Other times, an immediate reaction is
preferable. The benefits include:
!
Immediate reinforcement of the rules
to the student (i.e. “nipping it in the
bud”).
!
Immediate reinforcement of the rules
to the entire class (but be wary of public humiliation—more on this later).
Once you have considered if and when
to respond to a particular student behavior,
you need to determine how you will
respond. This is where it gets tricky. You
have to balance the sanctity of the learning
environment with the individual needs of
students. These decisions are not always
easy and you will make mistakes. How you
respond will be dependent upon the type of
interruption. Interruptions can be categorized into three types—minor, chronic, and
major.
318
TABLE 9.1: Methods of Addressing Minor Interruptions
Method
Explanation of Method
The Method in Action
Physical Proximity
Be mobile. Movement communicates
that you are focused on all parts of
the room, and it can get a single student’s attention without interrupting
the entire class. When a student creates a minor interruption, immediately move closer to his or her seat.
You move closer to Victor’s
seat so he knows that you
heard his drumming. While
moving closer to Victor, you
continue reading the poem
and maintain the flow of the
lesson. You remain by his
desk for a short period
before moving on.
Sudden Silence
When a student is disruptive while
you are speaking, stop and wait for
the disruption to cease.
Mid-stanza, you sharply
pause your reading. After a
few seconds Victor stops
drumming and you continue the poem.
Physical Cues
Simple physical cues can often communicate better than words without
disturbing the lesson flow.
Without a significant pause
in your reading, you look up,
make eye contact with Victor
and make a “calm down”
gesture with your hand.
Post-It Notes
Some teachers carry a clipboard with
pre-written Post-It notes that say
“please focus” or “please throw out
your gum.” If a student needs a
behavior reminder, choose the appropriate note and place it on the student’s desk.
As you continue reading the
poem, you walk by Victor
and place the note that says,
“please focus” on his desk.
Individual Signals
Some students need an individual
reminder when they are interrupting.
Taking them aside and agreeing upon
a method can be very effective.
While reading, you hold up
one finger and make eye
contact with Victor. Because
you both agreed upon this
signal in advance when
Victor was disruptive in the
past, Victor knows that he is
creating a distraction and
that one finger means he
needs to stop what he is
doing.
Touch the Desk
(DO NOT TOUCH
THE STUDENT)
A quick touch on a student’s desk is
often effective at curbing minor disruptions.
You approach Victor’s seat
while continuing to read the
poem. As you pass him you
tap his desk.
319
CHAPTER 9
(Table 9.1 continued)
The “Teacher Look”
This is a more direct approach to
address minor interruptions. When a
student interrupts instruction, you
lock eyes and communicate displeasure with your facial expression. “The
Look” doesn’t have to be angry, just
serious (even a raised eyebrow can
suffice). Be sure to acknowledge the
student’s compliance.
You look up from the poem
and give Victor a direct look
that clearly communicates
your intentions. You maintain eye contact for a few
seconds, smile and nod
your head in thanks when
Victor gestures his understanding. You then return to
reading the poem.
Quickly State
Student’s Name
Stating a student’s name is effective if
you feel that you need to immediately
catch that student’s attention, but
don’t overuse this technique—students quickly become immune to
hearing their name called. This
method is slightly more confrontational because you have publicly
asserted your power over him and
publicly singled him out.
When Victor starts drumming on the desk, you
immediately say “Victor”
and make eye contact with
him.
Ignoring
There are specific situations when you may believe that a student is acting
out to get attention. You may choose to ignore this behavior if it is not creating a classroom disruption. This should be done carefully, because students may assume that you are not aware or do not care about the behavior.
You would later raise the issue with the student in private.
Responding to Minor
Interruptions
A student rhythmically taps a pencil
during silent work. Another child simultaneously takes lecture notes while finishing
homework for another class. A third
mouths something to a friend across the
room while you give directions. When students do not meet your behavioral expectations, and yet are not exactly breaking the
rules, those students still need to know that
their behavior compromises learning for
themselves or others. To prevent that interruption from escalating into behavior that
does break a rule, you must address it
immediately. When doing so, consider the
following recommendations:
!
Make your response shorter in
duration than the interruption.
CHAPTER 9
!
Minimize your verbal response.
!
Do not interrupt the lesson flow.
!
Invest very little emotion (i.e. it’s a
reminder, not a confrontation).
For example:
It is sixth period. Your lesson identifies the
components of poems. Victor has just arrived
from a heated basketball game in gym class.
He loves basketball, and he is hyped up from
the minute he walks in the door. When you
start the lesson with a poetry reading, Victor
rhythmically drums his hands on the desk
and looks around the room in a distracted
manner.
Table 9.1 offers specific suggestions for
addressing this type of minor interruption.
These methods are effective only when
applied to minor interruptions. Nervously
kicking one’s desk chair, humming during
320
TABLE 9.2: Comparing Responses to a Minor Interruption
Minimizing Conflict
Terence enters Ms. Sheehan’s fourth grade classroom visibly upset. As Ms. Sheehan
begins class, she notices that Terence is purposefully breaking his pencil. As the class
begins to answer the morning journal question, Ms. Sheehan slowly moves toward
Terence, places her hand on his desk for two seconds, and then continues to circulate.
As the class begins to share journal entries, Ms. Sheehan notices that Terence has
his head down. Wanting to avoid a confrontation that would disrupt student sharing,
Ms. Sheehan taps Terence’s desk or speaks his name.
Maximizing Conflict
Terence enters Ms. Sheehan’s fourth grade classroom visibly upset. As Ms. Sheehan
begins class, she notices that Terence is purposefully breaking his pencil. Ms. Sheehan
looks at Terence and says, “Terence, get up and throw away all of those pencil pieces.
I can’t stand it when you children throw trash on my floor! Litterbugs! Now, let us
get back to the lesson. Terence, do you have something to write with or do you need
a crayon?”
silent work, or mindlessly snapping gum
are not malicious infractions and do not
constitute insubordination. Try not to let
yourself get drawn into conflicts with students over relatively minor issues. A student may be looking for a fight; do not
make yourself available as a willing sparring partner. Remember, you are the adult
in the room. Whenever possible, work to
avoid—not instigate—conflict. Use the nonconfrontational techniques above to gently
remind students of your expectations. Be
mindful of the limitations of these techniques.
If you use these same methods in
response to a more serious interruption
(e.g., derogatory comments, aggressive
actions, etc.), your students may lose
respect for you – perhaps feeling that you
aren’t willing to be tough enough. Also
keep in mind that using the same method
repeatedly can minimize its effectiveness. If
minor interruptions persist and dominate
your lessons, take that as a signal that you
need to re-develop or re-teach classroom
rules and procedures (and, of course, assess
the quality of your lessons).
321
Let’s look at one more example, above,
in Table 9.2. This time, we’ll contrast two
different ways of dealing with the same situation.
Think about Ms. Sheehan’s competing
approaches.
For the first approach:
!
What are the short -term benefits?
!
What are the long-term benefits?
!
What are the potential risks?
!
Can you envision a scenario where
this approach might turn out badly?
For the second approach:
!
What are the short-term risks?
!
What are the long-term risks?
!
What are the potential risks?
!
Can you envision a scenario where
this approach might turn out well?
CHAPTER 9
Responding to Chronic
Interruptions
If students continue to disrupt class, you
must employ different methods. Effective
teachers develop a system for addressing
chronic disruptions. These systems should be:
1. Clear. Students should understand
and be able to articulate your process
for responding to inappropriate student behavior.
2. Consistent. Your responses should be
consistent and predictable.
Unpredictable reactions make it very
difficult for students to know what the
consequences for their behaviors
might be.
3. Gradual. Your responses to student
behavior should gradually increase in
severity. You should not implement
draconian responses for small infractions the first time they occur. Again:
Think about being predictable and
logical in how you respond to student
behavior.
4. Respectful. Your responses should be
considerate of student needs and emotions. Your tone should always reflect
a respectful tone that neither compromises the dignity of the student nor
intends to humiliate the student.
5. Educational. At some point, your system should cause students to reflect
upon and learn from their infractions.
If a student is having a particularly
tough time with a specific behavior,
you should help teach that student an
effective strategy. Your student’s
needs must be at the center of any
response to a conflict situation.
6. Reflective. You should always analyze all potentially relevant factors to
determine the root cause of classroom
disruptions or confrontations, including your own personal role. Is the student having a particularly bad day?
CHAPTER 9
Are you? Is something going on in the
student’s personal life? Is something
going on in yours? What is your personal history with this student? Have
you spoken with other teachers to
determine what their recent experiences with the student have been? Is
your lesson plan up to par? Do you
notice patterns about when this student exhibits this behavior and what
tends to set it off? How do other students react to the behavior? Are they
entertained by it? Or are they aggravated by it? There is virtually no end
to the possible factors that might be
coming into play. Consider as many of
them as possible.
Whether you are addressing minor or
chronic interruptions by students, be sure to
focus on the behavior rather than the person. (Don’t tell a student he’s a “bad boy;”
tell him, rather, “That was a bad thing you
did.”) Differentiate between the person and
the action. When you focus on the behavior,
the student is much more likely to abide by
your requests. If a student feels you are
attacking her value as a person, she is likely
to become defensive—and, over time, may
internalize your insults, negatively affecting
her self-esteem and sense of identity.
Implementing Consequences
Effectively
A positive, achievement-oriented classroom culture does not magically materialize
by virtue of the teacher simply presenting
the rules on the first day of school; rather, it
develops over the long haul by consistently
enforcing consequences for those rules.
Here, we will discuss how to effectively
impose consequences when misbehavior
occurs; hesitation to do so is one of the
fastest ways to undermine your own
authority in the classroom.
There are three keys to successfully
implementing consequences:
322
1. Provide students with control over the
outcome.
2. Implement consequences consistently.
3. Implement consequences respectfully.
These three principles, applied effectively over the long-term, are prerequisites for a
functional and productive classroom culture. Let’s consider each in more detail.
Provide Students with Control
Over the Outcome
It is important to communicate to your
students that they are in charge of the outcome of their behavior. They can choose to
follow the rules (thereby receiving at least
intangible benefits) or to break the rules and
incur the consequences. Many teachers use
the following strategies to reinforce this
notion to students:
!
Classroom signs that read,
“If you CHOOSE to break a rule…”
“Look here to see how we have CHOSEN
to behave”
!
Language that repeatedly conveys the
choice at hand, such as:
“I was so impressed by your choice to
peacefully resolve that conflict with
Tatiana. That was extremely mature of
you.”
“Andre, since you chose to get up and walk
around the room without asking for permission, please go and flip your card to
yellow.”
“Michael, I already gave you a warning for
turning around and talking to Juan during the warm-up. Since you chose to continue that behavior, you will now be
required to remain in the room during
hallway time. I’m putting your initials on
the board as a reminder.”
Another way to ensure students feel a
sense of control and hope is to give them a
“clean slate” after the consequence ends.
323
Some teachers, especially at the elementary
level, start their series of consequences over
each day or halfway through the day (for
example, putting each student back to
“green” on the traffic light after they have
served the consequence for moving to red).
Secondary teachers, who usually see their
students for an hour each day, allow students to return to the bottom rung of the
consequences ladder for a fresh start every
Monday.
Implement Consequences Consistently
Very often, when a group of students
does not meet behavior expectations, it is
because the teacher has failed to consistently enforce them. Vigilant consistency will
pay off in the long run; when consequences
appear random, students begin to feel powerless. Students must see consequences
applied each and every time a rule is broken. Avoid ignoring infractions by some
students but then punishing others when
they break the same rule. It is crucial that
you catch and deliver consequences for the
first offense, immediately, to prevent more
serious offenses from taking place.
Once a student has developed a pattern
of misbehavior, you may find yourself
watching that student particularly carefully,
looking for him or her to act up. You may
well be tempted to send the student out of
your classroom the first chance you get (just
to rid yourself of the hassle the student has
become), rather than following your ladder
of consequences. Control these impulses.
What message are you sending a child when
you consistently throw her out of your
room? Once you start eyeing certain students
with suspicion even before they’ve done
anything wrong that day, you’ve imploded
the notion of universally high expectations.
Kids can smell mistrust a mile away and
may even play the role you’ve cast for them.
For children who are weighing whether to
follow the rules, they may decide that it’s not
worth trying to behave if their teacher simply expects misbehavior anyway.
CHAPTER 9
TABLE 9.3: Disruptive Student Behaviors & Instructor Responses
Student Behavior
Your Response
During silent independent work, Nicole turns
around and says something to Kia. Kia simply
shakes her head and continues working. You
catch Nicole’s eye and write her initials on the
board, signifying a warning. Ten minutes later,
Nicole turns around in her seat again, talking
audibly to Kia.
“Nicole, because you chose to turn around
and talk to Kia after my warning, you have
chosen to stay after class for three minutes
once everyone else leaves to explain what
is preventing you from
focusing.”
Later, Kia turns to her left and says something to
Miwa.
You write Kia’s initials on the board.
You notice Luis stealthily eating chips during
your explanation of how to solve a second order
equation.
Once students are working independently
on solving the equations you have written
on the board, you walk over to Luis and say
quietly, “Luis, please leave the chips for
after school.”
You walk the class down the hallway to the
library. You turn around and watch as Alisha
lags behind the line, stopping to wave at friends
in Mr. Ferrar’s class and do a little dance in front
of Ms. Baker’s class.
During a whole group discussion, James
answers a question. After James gives his
response, Curtis mutters, “What a fag.” The
other students near Curtis laugh.
During small group reading time, Dexter throws
his book on the floor and exclaims, “This book is
so DUMB! Why do I have to read it?”
CHAPTER 9
“Alisha, please get back in line and plan to
speak with me when we arrive at the
library.” Once there, you speak to her individually. “Because you chose to play in the
hallway on the way to the library instead of
walking quietly in the line, you have chosen
to write a letter of apology to the teachers
whose classes you have disrupted with your
antics. I expect you to deliver a letter to Mr.
Ferrar and Ms. Baker by 3:30 today. While in
the library, I know you will make better
behavioral choices.”
“I am shocked that you would use such a
hurtful word and that others would laugh.
Hurtful words, and laughing about their
use, damage our goal of making this classroom a space where everyone feels welcome.
The word Curtis used, “fag,” is a hurtful
word that refers to gay people. Curtis, I
want to speak with you privately during
independent work time.”
You move Dexter’s clothespin to the yellow
light and say, “Dexter, it sounds like you
need a cooling off period. We don’t treat
school materials that way. Please pick up
your book and put it on the table, and then
move to the timeout chair and fill out a
behavior reflection form. I’ll be over in a
moment to discuss your frustration with
you.”
324
Implement Consequences Respectfully
It is hard to over-emphasize the importance of addressing misbehavior in a way
that allows students to maintain their dignity. First, you must be aware of your tone.
Everything should be said in a firm and
calm, rather than hostile and confrontational, manner. Another tip is to keep your language as descriptive as possible and minimize the degree to which you make judgmental statements. Descriptive language
verbally portrays a situation, behavior,
achievement, or feeling. For example, you
turn to Brandon, who has just interrupted
Jose while he is speaking, and say “I cannot
concentrate on what Jose is saying while
you are talking. We will discuss this further
in our after-class conference.” Judgmental
language, which is often full of negative
emotion, verbally labels behavior, achievement, or a person. Notice the difference:
You turn to Brandon, who has just interrupted Jose while he was speaking, and say,
“Don’t be so rude! We’ll be discussing your
rudeness after class.”
Descriptive language focuses everyone
on the task and situation, and avoids labeling particular students as “smart,” “slow,”
“well-behaved,” or “problem students.” In
other words, as we have repeatedly mentioned, you address the behavior, not the
student. In situations in which a student
misbehaves, descriptive language allows
you to assert your authority while maintaining a positive relationship with the misbehaving student.
Table 9.3 on the following page, explores
how these guidelines might play out in the
classroom.
These scenarios demonstrate consistent
and respectful administration of consequences. If you find that Nicole constantly
turns around to talk to Kia, you will want to
work with her to get at the root of the problem – and to involve her in that process.
When she stays after class, you might have
a conversation like the following:
325
Teacher: Nicole, I’ve noticed that in the past
few weeks you’ve had a particularly hard
time staying quiet when you are supposed to
be doing independent work. Today you
repeatedly turned to talk to Kia. Last week I
remember you talking to Stanley. I’d like to
understand why this is happening.
Student: Well, I guess I just like to talk.
My grandmother always tells me I talk too
much. And today I had something I needed
to tell Kia.
Teacher: I see. Was it something that you
could have told her during hallway time?
Student: Yeah, I guess.
Teacher: Ok, so how can we help you stay
focused during the class period?
Student: I don’t know. (teacher waits) I
guess…well, with Kia right behind me it’s
really tempting to talk to her. Maybe if I sat
farther away from her, and couldn’t even see
her, it would be easier for me.
Teacher: So looking at the seats in the classroom, there are empty ones here and here.
This one would put you far away from Kia.
You can move to this seat tomorrow.
In the situation with Dexter, you should
seek to understand Dexter’s frustration with
the book. Again, rather than just responding
punitively, you want to have a solution-oriented approach to student misbehavior.
“Empathetic listening” requires teachers to
avoid taking student complaints personally
(as we are often tempted to do) and instead
focus on “hearing the intent and emotions
behind what another says and reflecting
them back by paraphrasing” (Woolfolk,
2001). That exchange might go as follows:
Teacher: You said the book was really dumb
and seemed pretty frustrated that you had to
read it. (teacher paraphrases the student’s
statement)
Student: Yeah. I hate it.
Teacher: You sound like you’re not enjoying
the book at all, Dexter. (again, paraphrasing)
CHAPTER 9
Student: I’m not. I can’t keep track of what
is happening in it. And I have to stop every
two sentences to look up all these stupid
words. I hate it!
excellent behavior, you may need to reflect
on whether your consequences are purely
punitive and not sufficiently solution oriented.
Teacher: It’s difficult to understand, and
that bothers you. (paraphrasing once again)
Student: Yeah, and I’d rather read a book
about aliens anyway. That’s what I want to
do my book report on.
Teacher: Well, there are a few other books in
our class library that are about aliens. Let’s
see if we can find one that won’t have as
many frustrating vocabulary words. Thank
you for telling me what you were feeling, but
next time you don’t have to throw a book to
let me know how you feel.
Remember, the ultimate purpose of your
rules and consequences is to help your students meet your behavioral expectations,
which in turn enables all of you to meet
your academic achievement goals. If you
find that you are implementing consequences more than you are reinforcing
Responding to Major Interruptions
Situations that jeopardize student safety,
such as students physically fighting, a student having a medical emergency, a student
being overtly physically threatened, or an
actual fire (may very well) arise in your
classroom or school. As much as anyone
can, you should prepare for these major incidents. In order to respond calmly and effectively to serious situations, we
suggest the following steps:
1. Find out your school policy for various
emergencies. Most likely, your school
has a handbook that describes at least
a basic procedure for a teacher’s
response in the case of a fire, intruder,
fight, or other emergency. Pay particu-
TEACHING TOOL #9.1
Questions to Consider When Consequences
Don’t Seem to Work
Ask yourself the following questions when you find your consequences failing to alter students’
behavior.
1. Was your consequence immediate? That is, did you apply it soon after the student misbehaved?
2. Was the consequence applied in a consistent manner? That is, did you do what you said you
would? Did you do the same thing the last time a student behaved this way and the time
before?
3. Did the application of the consequence allow the student to maintain a sense of control? For
example, once the consequence was applied, was it completed and followed by a clean slate
of forgiveness, or did the student continue to suffer even after the misbehavior ceased?
4. Was the consequence logically related to the misbehavior? Did it allow the student to learn
appropriate behavior?
5. Did the consequence allow the student to maintain his or her dignity?
6. Do you model appropriate behavior to the class? Have students observed you acting
inconsistently with your behavioral expectations?
CHAPTER 9
326
lar attention to the steps for notifying
the school administration in the case of
an emergency in your classroom
(many classrooms have an “emergency
button” that connects you to the main
office via the PA).
2. You should also seek the advice of veteran teachers regarding the best course
of action in the case of a major incident. They might be able to share stories or events that have occurred and
ways in which they responded.
3. If possible, you should review students’ medical records to see if any
have specific health issues, such as
serious allergies to chocolate, bee
stings or a history of seizures. If medical records are not available to teachers, consider asking parents to contact
you regarding any medical conditions
at the beginning of the year, or add
such a question to a Parent/Guardian
Survey.
4. Finally, think through how you might
handle situations such as a medical
emergency, fire, student fight, or
intruder ahead of time. Consider what
you would do and to whom you
would turn if a student suddenly collapsed in your presence, or what steps
you would take if a small fire started
in your classroom. We do not mention
these situations to frighten anyone,
though if you do not have children of
your own, you probably have never
thought of some of these scenarios
before. Having a plan should help to
put you at ease, and, more importantly, allow you to act in a more decisive
manner if a serious situation did occur
in your classroom.
Because fights between students, while
relatively rare, are probably the most common of the major incidents that would arise
in your school or classroom, it’s important to
discuss possible responses. First, because
most schools have policies for this type of situation, you should work with your adminis327
tration to clearly determine your course of
action. You should also think through the
specifics of your response. Remember that in
this scenario, your response does not need to
be gradual, even if your general consequences utilize a gradual approach; you’ll
recall that many teachers include a “serious
offense” clause in their consequences that
allows the teacher to take any step necessary
to defuse a situation.
There is no precise protocol for handling
a fight between students. In most cases you
have other options besides physically intervening with the students. When students are
fighting, you should first use your voice to
intervene. Use a strong, calm, clear voice
and direct the fighters to stop fighting.
Repeat this message, like a broken record.
While you are doing so, send another child
to get help from other adults. Remember
that anger, excessive panic, or unnecessary
volume on your part will only exacerbate
the situation. However, it is also possible
that you will weigh the risks of injury to the
students and to yourself and decide to break
up the fight. If you are significantly larger
and stronger than the involved students,
and it is not in direct violation of school
policies to do so, you should try to separate
them rather than allow either one to get
seriously injured. If you are smaller or
weaker than the students, it may be better
to wait for help. Knowing the policies of
your school, knowing your students, and
thinking through the response with which
you are comfortable will allow you to act
decisively in the heat of the moment. Also
know that beyond school policy (and city
or state law) there can be possible legal
ramifications for intervening. You should
inform yourself about legal liability in these
situations.
It is also possible that as a teacher you
will find yourself having to respond to a
potential threat of violence. As a teacher,
you might hear a rumor that a student has a
knife or gun in school or that a student is
high or under the influence of alcohol. If you
CHAPTER 9
hear such a rumor, take it seriously. Keep
the student within sight while immediately
sending for help. Ideally, your school will
have a plan set up for such an incident
specifically addressing who will confront the
student. If not, speak with experienced staff
and/or an administrator ahead of time to
learn what you should do in such a circumstance.
Threats to physical safety do happen on
school campuses. By discussing the possibility of school violence and teachers’ personal
safety, we do not mean to feed the stereotypes propagated by the media. Your school
will most certainly be, first and foremost, a
community of students, teachers, and families, working together against a number of
social ills that affect all communities, not just
theirs. Still, vigilance about physical safety is
a component of many of your students’
lives, and it should be a component of
yours. All teachers in all schools should be
concerned and vigilant about personal safety, for the sake of their students and themselves. While crime on school campuses
remains very rare, and while no amount of
preparation can guarantee any individual’s
safety, complacency about the possibility
that you will need to respond to a dangerous situation can increase your risks of
being in one.
We do not raise these issues to alarm
anyone. Rather, we want to acknowledge
that assaults and weapons are sometimes a
part of some of our students’ lives and communities. And, as a member of that community, there is the possibility—however
remote—that you will encounter these issues
yourself, even if only indirectly. For many
teachers, these issues rarely, if ever, arise. At
the same time, the reality is that all teachers
must be vigilant about fighting, weapons,
and threats in school. The “School Violence”
Supplement at the end of Part 2 discusses
strategies for dealing with such events.
CHAPTER 9
Behavioral Interruptions
in the Context of the Larger
School Culture
As we have mentioned in the previous
two chapters, you will need to take into
account the broader school context as you
develop and set your behavioral expectations and classroom procedures. The culture
of your school has a significant impact on
the way discipline and routine practices will
play out within your classroom and the
school at large. To be effective within your
school environment, you need to understand the culture in which you are operating
and to become familiar with the standard
approaches used by the school. To the extent
possible, you should align your responses to
student misbehavior with those used by
your colleagues so that your classroom is
consistent with the environment in which
your students are used to operating. This
will not always be easy. For example:
You and a fellow teacher are sharing recess
duty when two students start loudly arguing
over who had the ball first. Your colleague
has a more aggressive, “in-your-face” disciplining style than you do, and she proceeds
to angrily yell at the students, in a bullying
and threatening tone. She makes no effort to
mediate. You feel that her approach is unnecessarily combative and ineffective. One of the
students is yours, and looks to you pleadingly to intervene. How might you respond?
Remember that you must weigh dual
responsibilities; the students’ needs remain
paramount, and yet it would be inappropriate to openly conflict with your colleague in
front of students. Should you intervene at
all? What is the best possible conclusion you
can envision? What is the worst possible
conclusion you can envision? A successful
compromise might be a solution in which
you manage to avoid offending anyone
without sacrificing your own ideals, or what
you perceive to be your students’ emotional
well being.
328
How to Avoid Power Struggles—
Let Go of Your Ego
Once a teacher is involved in a power
struggle with a student, they will both be
stuck in a no-win situation. When disciplining takes a wrong turn, as it often does,
learn to identify the moment that went
wrong.
When students misbehave, it is essential
to remind yourself of your objectives. You
might feel personally insulted by the behavior. You might feel frustrated by a student’s
repeated aggravations. You might even, if
you let yourself admit it, feel embarrassed or
humiliated in front of the rest of the class,
afraid of your students watching you get
pushed around. Regardless of how you feel,
or how bruised your ego might be, you
must focus on the objective of any confrontation with a student—to continue your
lesson and to discontinue the disruptive
behavior in both the short- and long-term.
You must deliberately maintain self-control
and focus on teaching in every conflict situation. Your ego can play no helpful role in
disciplining your students.
Resist taking student behavior personally. If a student says something hurtful (“Ms.
Rodriguez, that is a nasty dress!”), keep
your response focused on your students’
learning needs and try to keep your sense of
humor (“That’s a pretty rude comment,
Michelle, but how much do I owe you for
the fashion advice?”) You must remember at
all times that you are the only professional
adult in the room.
Phrasing matters. Accusations beginning
with “you” leave a student feeling attacked,
and readily invite argument. Finger pointing
is considered a belligerent motion. Pay
attention to the signals your words and your
body language send, and be sure they are
consistent with your intentions.
Your job is to defuse potentially volatile
situations, not to ignite them. In the following excerpt, from David Kobrin’s In There
329
with the Kids (1991), a young teacher struggles with this exact challenge:
“Philip. What are you doing?” Ms. Coles asks.
“I’m not doing anything,” Philip replies in
all innocence. He looks pointedly at the conspicuous piece of paper on the floor by
Arthur’s feet.
Ms. Coles sighs, “What is that, Arthur?”
The young man in question leans forward to
retrieve his work.
“It’s nothing,” Arthur mumbles, putting the
paper somewhere in his notebook.
“They’ve been passing notes,” the ever-helpful Philip explains. “Copious notes.”
“Big mouth,” Lee says, followed almost
immediately by Arthur’s condescending,
half-smothered-—but unfortunately not
entirely smothered—“Asshole!”
Ms. Coles, who hears it all too clearly, cannot pretend she doesn’t.
“We weren’t passing notes,” Arthur adds,
mockery of Philip rich in his voice. “That
was an old note from another class that
slipped out of my notebook. Philip was
trying to grab it.”
Philip laughs.
“That’s enough, Philip!” Ms. Coles says. She
knows from past experience he won’t cause
an uproar.
“What!” he exclaims indignantly.
“That’s enough,” Ms. Coles repeats, trying
hard to sound definite but not angry. She
walks towards Arthur’s desk. He, unlike
Philip, will argue and deny and try to negotiate no matter how obvious to everyone in
the room that he has no legitimate ground
to stand on. Confronting him would cause
even more disruption, Ms. Coles reasons.
The few seconds she’s been thinking are
already beginning to feel like a silence pregnant with tension. How to take care of
Arthur and Lee and get the class back on
track as soon as possible?
CHAPTER 9
Ms. Coles leans over Arthur’s desk, speaking in a quieter voice but still loudly enough
for Arthur’s neighbors to hear. “I want yesterday’s note,” she says, purposely emphasizing her sarcasm, “kept where it is in your
notebook.”
“It is!” Arthur proclaims.
“Open your notebook right now to a fresh
page,” she continues, ignoring Arthur’s
comment, “and take careful notes on the
rest of this class. And I want to see both you
after class,” Ms. Coles adds. Her eyes make
it clear who “both” are.
Ms. Coles immediately resumes walking and
lecturing, hoping that for the moment the
problem is sufficiently dealt with. When the
bell rings to end class she will have to decide
what to ask of them. An explanation, for
sure, and an apology if that’s called for.
Perhaps detention? She first needs to find
out what’s going on. Ms. Coles restrains
herself from looking at the boys, to avoid
another reaction. And she forswears the
temptation to tell Arthur “Sit up straight!”
He’s a terrible slouch.
There is a lot going on in this scene. How
do you think Ms. Coles handled the situation? Did she aggravate it or pacify it? How
do her personal views of her students affect
the decisions she makes? Do you think she
is conscious of the ways her personal views
of her students come into play? What specific methods of disciplining does Ms. Coles
employ? Does her ego interfere with her
approach? Does the situation ever escalate
into a power struggle? Does she come across
as firmly in control of the situation? Does
she allow her inner doubts to become apparent? Does she seem to have a clear system of
consequences in place?
In a second version of the same episode,
Ms. Coles makes different choices. The
incident, as you will see, plays out quite
differently:
Ms. Coles sighs, “What is that Arthur?” she
asks.
CHAPTER 9
“It’s nothing,” Arthur mumbles, putting the
paper somewhere in his notebook.
“They’ve been passing notes,” the ever-helpful Philip explains.
“We weren’t passing notes,” Arthur says,
mockery of Philip in his rich voice. “That
was an old note from another class that
slipped out of my notebook. Philip was trying to grab it.”
Philip laughs.
“I want yesterday’s note,” Ms. Coles says in
a loud voice, emphasizing “yesterday’s” so
her sarcasm won’t be missed by the class.
“Give it to me now.”
Arthur shakes his head. “Why do you want
yesterday’s notes, Ms. Coles?” he asks,
sounding genuinely puzzled. “Here are
today’s notes.” He holds his notebook at an
angle so Ms. Coles can’t read what he’s
written. “I don’t know where yesterday’s
notes are.” He also says “yesterday’s” in a
loud voice, imitating Ms. Coles’ sarcasm.
This gets a chuckle from some of the boys in
the class.
Ms. Coles feels as though the rest of the
class is waiting for her response. “Give me
that note right now!” she says. She will not
be shown up.
Arthur smiles, closes his notebook, and
stands up.
“And just where do you think you’re
going?”
Arthur look surprised. “You told me to get
my notes,” he explains. He starts for the
door.
“Come right back here. And sit down.”
Ever the model of obedience, Arthur politely
retraces his steps and takes his seat. Then he
murmurs something under his breath.
“What was that?” Ms. Coles demands. She is
aware that she’s losing face before her other
students.
“I said, ‘I was just doing what you told me.’
330
You’re always angry at me, even when I do
what you want!”
“You were not doing what I want. I told you
I want that note. And I still want it. Give it
to me right now, or you’re off to the
Assistant Principal’s Office.”
In this scenario, Ms. Coles has obviously
let the situation get out of control. What
began as a simple note-passing incident has
escalated into a power struggle. What is the
exact moment that the exchange with Arthur
becomes a power struggle? When does her
ego start affecting her judgment?
When students “talk back” in a disrespectful way, remember that they are not
attacking you personally—they are rebelling
against the authority you represent. In an
oft-cited example, a black, male high school
student, after an angry classroom exchange,
called his young, white, female teacher a
“white honky bitch.” She replied: “That’s
Miss White Honky Bitch to you.” While
there were a multitude of other potential
responses at her disposal, and many educators might disagree with her response, she
did manage to accomplish the following:
!
She reasserted her authority, without
attacking the student.
!
She managed to avoid an escalating
racial conflict.
!
She reiterated the need for him to show
her respect.
In short, for better or for worse, she beat
the student as his own name-calling game. If
you were the name-calling student, how
might her response have affected you? If
you were another student in the class, how
might her response have affected the way
you viewed your teacher?
Remember there are few “right” responses and “wrong” responses. There are, rather,
a myriad of possible reactions that you
might consider (or instinctively experience)
in a given situation. Students will be emotional—the more you can remove your own
emotions from the encounter, the better.
331
The Role of the School’s
Administrators in Handling
Discipline Issues
Just like our young Ms. Coles, many new
teachers are tempted to rely on the threat of
a visit to a Principal’s office. Many adopt the
attitude that “discipline is not my issue.
That is what the principal does.”
Traditionally, the school’s principal was the
lead disciplinarian and authority over student behavior. However, in the age of standards and accountability, the principal’s role
has become that of the principal teacher in a
school. Several policy reforms are underway
to redefine the role and duties of the principal with a particular emphasis on being an
“instructional leader,” as opposed to chief
disciplinarian.
In many of the schools in which we
work, the principal or assistant principals
are consumed with a variety of tasks that
teachers rarely see or often do not appreciate. Additionally, principals are under
incredible pressure to meet rigorous state
and local performance standards, sometimes
without robust financial or technical support.
Although most principals are charged
with creating a safe and orderly learning
environment, dealing with minor and chronic student discipline issues are actually low
priorities. Clearly, some discipline issues
require the immediate attention of school
administrators; however, teachers, within
the confines of their classrooms, must handle the majority of student discipline issues
themselves.
When you send a student to the office for
a minor or chronic infraction, you communicate to all students (and to your principal)
that you are not capable of managing your
classroom. Once students perceive, rightly
or wrongly, that you are an incapable classroom manager, they typically respond by
ignoring any future attempt you make to
manage it. Students interpret sending a
CHAPTER 9
classmate to the office as a sign of weakness
and ineffectiveness. Teachers, on the other
hand, interpret sending a student to the
office as a sign that the student has behaved
especially inappropriately.
The fact of the matter is that each time
you send students to the office for minor or
chronic infractions, the strategy becomes less
effective. You may then have to work twice
as hard to maintain control, because students do not expect you to handle disruptions. Also keep in mind that once you send
a student to the office, you must accept the
judgment and actions of the school’s administrator. The administrator may speak with
the student, send him immediately back to
class, or suspend the student. However,
administrators use this last option sparingly
because suspending students from school
rarely solves discipline issues and worsens
the student’s academic achievement.
Additionally, suspension requires a lot of
paperwork, and numerous suspensions
worsen the school’s record.
Also keep in mind that once a student
arrives in the office she may be there with
several other students sent by other teachers.
Naturally, students with more pressing
issues will receive greater attention. For
example, although you may have sent the
student for name-calling, the administrator
may be dealing with a student showing
signs of abuse. Since an administrator’s time
is very limited, the student you sent might
only get a brief consultation before being
sent back to the classroom—something the
teacher could have easily done herself.
Typically, new teachers want to be able
to send the student out of the class for someone else to deal with and to dictate an
appropriate punishment. In actuality, this
response rarely happens and instead often
leads to frustration and a belief that the
administrator is being “unsupportive.”
You must also consider your feelings
about your school administrator. Do you
admire and respect him or her? In some
cases you will, in some cases you won’t. If
CHAPTER 9
you are lucky, you will have an administrator with whom you share general educational philosophies, and from whom much
could be learned. It is also possible that you
will consider your administrator’s methods
and views to be in direct conflict with your
own. In this case, without discounting his or
her formidable experience, you might work
to take from this person the valuable lessons
to be offered, while simultaneously striving
to exist as an alternative to some of his or
her more contentious views.
When you need assistance from an
administrator for a student whose behavior,
while annoying, does not rise to the level of
an administrative referral, you have several
options. Consider one of the following:
!
Discuss the situation with other colleagues. Avoid gossiping about student
misbehavior with other teachers.
Instead, enlist the help of a trusted colleague and collect a variety of suggestions for how to handle the disruptive
student.
!
Create a behavior plan with the student. Work with the student individually to create a behavior plan, and stick
to it. Often student misbehavior stems
from the student’s perception that she
or he is not fairly receiving your attention. You might try a system of
rewards and incentives. Find out what
motivates students and incorporate
that into the plan.
!
Enlist the help of the student’s parent/guardian. A student’s family can
be a very useful source of support.
Keep in mind that parents may be
experiencing the same struggles with
their child as you. Consult with parents
rather than demanding their support.
Prepare for the possibility that parents/guardians may become defensive
on their child’s behalf. Also consider
that they may take a more severe
approach with their child than you
might have preferred or anticipated.
332
!
!
!
Discuss the student’s behavior with the
administrator informally. An administrator’s day is filled with bad news
about student behavior. Take the time
to let administrators know when things
are going well in your classroom, and
use that discussion as an entry point
for discussing the disruptive student. It
is important for administrators to view
you as a proactive problem solver,
rather than a teacher who “skirts” on
her responsibility to discipline issues.
Discuss the student’s behavior with the
administrator formally. Schedule a
meeting to discuss the disruptive student. Often, teachers approach administrators in the heat of the moment.
Instead, cool down and schedule a time
to talk with the administrator. Make
sure to bring documentation of the student’s behavior record and the specific
actions you have taken to correct the
situation. Once you’ve proven that you
have exhausted all of your options, the
administrator will be in a better position, and better frame of mind, to help
you.
Concretely communicate with all students that you value good behavior. It
is easy to focus on the misbehavior of a
few students, while ignoring the stellar
behavior of the others. Show all your
students that you care about their
behavior in class. Taking the time to
hold a five-minute class meeting to
thank students is a simple and effective
way to genuinely acknowledge good
behavior and progress toward academic goals. Or end class five minutes early
after a particularly productive session
to reward students for their attention
and performance.
Managing student behavior is one of
the most difficult aspects of a beginning
teacher’s job. Avoid the mistake of giving up
your “teacher power” by making others deal
with issues for which you are best suited
and expected to handle. Remember the
333
adage, “Don’t run to the well too many
times, or the water will run dry.” If the principal is the well, enlist the principal’s help
strategically and sparingly.
Connecting with Students
In the end, the success of your disciplining efforts may well come down to the quality of your relationships with your students.
To successfully connect with them, think
about the following:
!
Create a safe environment for them.
!
Have students identify and acknowledge their behavior (and ultimately, to
own up to it).
!
Help them to realize the difference
between their actions and their desires
(“What do you want? Is your behavior
getting you what you want?”).
!
Have students evaluate the behavior
with their own value system, as
opposed to inflicting your values on
them (“Is this against the rules? Is this
something you want to work on?”);
then have them evaluate the consequences of the behavior and make sure
they realize that the acceptance of
those consequences is a choice.
!
If they’re willing to change the behavior, make a plan to change it and get a
commitment from them (i.e. a contract,
or you can even ask them to give you
“their word”—high school students
especially appreciate the power of
one’s word).
!
Make contact with your student by
sharing something to establish a connection (they need to know you care
about them and not just about keeping
them in line).
!
Avoid arbitrary punishments or
consequences.
CHAPTER 9
Conclusions and Key Points
This chapter discussed how to assert your
authority and apply consequences when faced
with student misbehavior. The following key
points were emphasized:
!
Effective teachers have a clear system for
responding to student interruptions.
!
Expert teachers remember that every conflict offers an opportunity to teach.
!
Common causes of classroom misbehavior
include: unclear limits, a sense of student
powerlessness, attacks on dignity, student
boredom, inability to express feelings, and
peer pressure.
!
First, consider if and when to respond to
student misbehavior; then depending
upon the type of interruption—minor,
chronic, or major—decide how to respond.
!
When implementing consequences provide students with control over the outcome and implement consequences consistently and respectfully.
!
Resist taking student behavior personally.
!
When disciplining, seek the assistance of
school administrators sparingly and selectively.
Finally, never give up on your students. The
more they push, the more they are asking for
your help. Make sure they know you are in this
for the long haul.
CHAPTER 9
334
Chapter 10
Classroom Management Styles: Choosing
an Approach to Classroom Management
The previous chapters have focused primarily on general practices you
need to put in place in order to manage your classroom effectively.
Committing to high expectations, setting rules, defining consequences and
establishing procedures are essential to effective classroom management.
However, the types of rules, consequences, and procedures you develop
will not be randomly selected. Rather, they will likely reflect an overall
approach to management. Teachers tend to have a particular management
style and, consciously or not, lean toward management strategies aligned
with that style. This chapter will help you to recognize your management
style and to familiarize yourself with the classroom management
approaches aligned with it. As you begin exploring the various approaches
we describe, try to keep an open mind, and weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each. Also, try to consider models you think will “fit” in
your school. Finally, Tauber (1999) cautions new teachers against developing an eclectic approach (i.e. taking bits and pieces of each model and
patching them together). Instead, he advises:
Select, learn, and use a model that works most of the time, with most students,
in most situations. It should be the exception, rather than the rule, when practices other than those recommended in a teacher’s chosen model should be
used. Don’t be tempted too easily to give up on using the model that reflects
your fundamental beliefs (i.e. your philosophy) and that you have learned and
believed in, even when the going gets tough—and it occasionally will (Tauber,
1999, p. 36).
Remember, it takes time to select, learn, and perfect a model. You may
reach a point where a safe and orderly classroom feels like an impossible
goal. Do not despair; it’s a common feeling. Experience is invaluable; so is
an unwavering belief in your ability to create a safe and orderly classroom.
Teacher Power
The teacher is indisputably the most important person in the classroom.
(Think of how incapacitating a teacher’s absence is. Rare is the substitute
who can actually take a teacher’s place). How teachers share, keep, and
give power characterizes every discipline/classroom management
approach. We define “teacher power” as your authority to influence the
behavior of your students. Wolfgang and Glickman’s (1986) teacher behavior continuum reflects this notion of power. They argue that teachers can
C H A P T E R 10
335
be interventionist (keep power), non-interventionist (give power) or interactionalist
(share power). Let’s look at each point of
the continuum in greater depth in Figure 15
below.
Interventionists hold a strong belief that
the teacher is ultimately responsible for students’ behavior because the teacher’s
actions necessitates it. Axelrod (1977) points
out, “By accepting a position as a teacher, a
person has not only the right, but an ‘obligation’ to modify student behavior” (p.158).
Because the interventionist teacher keeps
power, he generally uses carrot-and-stick
approaches to influence student behavior.
He is concerned with offering students
rewards and punishments to influence student behavior. The interventionist believes
that unmotivated students can be motivated
by the teacher’s actions. Interventionist
teachers tend towards an omni-present existence in the classroom. Although this type
of teacher can appear intimidating and
uncaring on the surface, most students of
interventionists find the clear structure they
provide helpful. The specific interventionist
models featured later in this chapter
include: Canter’s (1992) Assertive Discipline
and Jones’s (1987) Positive Discipline models.
Unlike the interventionists, the interactionalists use their teacher power to help
students make wise choices about their
behaviors. Tauber (1999) writes,
Interactionalists believe that all human
beings choose their behaviors—to cheat or
not cheat, to hit or not hit a fellow student,
to study or not study. With this recognition
comes an expectation of greater responsibility for one’s actions. Interactionalists, where
possible, provide students with choices.
When students are called upon to make
choices, much (not all) of the responsibility
for their behavior is transferred to their
shoulders (p. 21).
When conflict arises in the classroom,
these teachers view themselves as part of
the problem and the solution. Problem solving and conflict mediation is the responsibility of both the teacher and student. While
the teacher has inherent power, the power
is used to engage students in understanding
their choices and how to make wiser choices
in the future. After this dialogue begins,
the teacher shares power with the student(s)
to resolve conflicts. The interactionalist is
unconcerned with being right or saving
face, but rather wants to strengthen the
teacher/student relationship and believes
that the need to use coercive discipline tactics is greatly reduced when relationships
are strong. The specific interactionalist models featured later in this chapter include:
Glasser’s (1965, 1986, 1998) Reality Therapy
and Choice Theory and Dreikur’s (Dreikur &
Cassell, 1972) Social Discipline model.
The non-interventionist teacher believes
that students are naturally motivated to
learn and behave appropriately. If you’ve
Figure 15: Teacher Behavior Continuum
Teacher Behavior Continuum
Teacher retains power
336
Students gain power
Keep
Share
Interventionist
Interactionalist
Give
Non-Interventionist
C H A P T E R 10
been around young children, you’ve
undoubtedly witnessed their intense curiosity about things around them. The teacher’s
responsibility is to nurture rather than control student interests and behaviors. As a
facilitator of learning, teachers provide
experiences for children to explore their
own interests. Some educators have argued
that schools have the effect of stifling students’ natural curiosity and intrinsic motivation to learn. While the non-interventionist emphasizes student empowerment, he or
she is hardly a hands-off teacher. Since the
potential clearly exists for a chaotic classroom with impossibly demanding planning
requirements, and possible student abuse of
freedom, in many ways, non-interventionist
teachers must work several times harder
than the interventionist or interactionalist to
manage the classroom. The specific noninterventionist model featured later in this
chapter includes: Gordon’s (1974) Teacher
Effectiveness Training or T.E.T.
The remainder of this chapter is focused
on examining specific classroom management/discipline models aligned to each
part of the teacher behavior continuum. The
featured models are “tried and true.” They
appear frequently in key texts on classroom
management and student discipline.
Further, they seem to work well in the context of the schools in which you will be
working. Don’t be worried if some of the
approaches were developed decades ago;
their value remains evident today.
For each model we provide a summary
and its pros and cons. Remember, the models reviewed will require further study on
your part. Our intention here is to give you
an introduction to each model.
Interventionist Models
Interventionist models usually appeal to
teachers who have a need to retain power in
class and provide hands-on management of
C H A P T E R 10
nearly all classroom functions. Although
these approaches can seem autocratic and
overly strict, teachers skilled at implementing these models are rarely considered autocratic or strict. Rather students appreciate
the clear structure, consistency, and fairness
that these teachers value. Two prominent
interventionist models are Canter’s Assertive
Discipline and Jones’s Positive Discipline.
Canter’s Assertive Discipline Model
Lee and Marlene Canter (1992), developers of the Assertive Discipline Model, argue
that teachers can be assertive, hostile, or
nonassertive classroom managers. Assertive
teachers insist on student compliance of
requests through calmly delivered statements and actions, and consequences when
students fail to comply. Hostile teachers
intimidate students into compliance with
sarcasm and threats. These teachers often
“fly off the handle,” yell, and needlessly
escalate conflicts rather than solve them.
Non-assertive or permissive teachers are
those who relinquish their responsibility to
manage the classroom. They näively hope
that students will comply, and rarely follow
through with any action (positive or negative) with misbehaving students. The
Canter’s believe that assertive teachers are
the most effective classroom managers.
Hallmarks of this model include (Wolfgang,
1999):
Rules and Discipline Plan
Establishing rules and consequences is
an affirmative and assertive approach to
discipline. Students will misbehave and the
best defense is a good offense. In essence,
our chapter on rules and consequences is
based on Canters discipline plan. The discipline plan should include four parts:
1. Rules. A few, clearly stated rules that
do not have the effect of humiliating
or harming students. Rules should be
phrased affirmatively, telling students
337
what you want them to do, rather
than what you want them to avoid.
For example, “Don’t be late to class” is
better phrased as “Arrive to class on
time.”
2. Record Keeping System. Two popular record-keeping strategies are
“names on the board” and “marbles in
jar.” With the first strategy, the
teacher records students’ names on
the chalkboard or clipboard, and
places checkmarks next to students’
names to signify additional infractions
of the rules. The second strategy
involves the teacher dropping marbles
into a jar for good student behavior.
When the jar fills students are provided a reward (such as 5 minutes of free
time in a high school class, and stickers for an elementary class).
3. Escalating Consequences. Assertive
teachers are those who follow through
on both positive (more about that
below) and negative behavior. When
students misbehave these teachers
dole out an appropriate consequence.
If a student continues to misbehave
the severity of the consequence
increases. For example, a first consequence could be to write the misbehaving student’s name on the board.
The fourth consecutive infraction
could result in a phone call home to
the student’s parents. For extremely
severe behaviors teachers can invoke
an “escape” clause that allows them to
immediately impose a severe consequence. The Canters recommend a
five-level consequence scale.
4. Rewards that Matter. This behavior
modification system only works if students value the rewards attached to
good behavior. Students should see a
clear connection between the reward
and the behavior(s) needed to earn it.
Many have criticized giving rewards
to students for behavior. (See Alfie
Kohn’s Punished by Rewards for a
discussion of this controversy).
338
Positive Recognition
If a teacher is going to rely on rules and
consequences for misbehavior, the model
also emphasizes positive recognition to promote productive behavior. The Canter
model suggests that teachers must be as
deliberate with their positive recognition
plan as they are with their discipline plans.
Generally, the positive recognition plan
includes three parts (Wolfgang, 1999):
1. Praise. Above all, praise should be
genuine and personal and is probably
best delivered “quietly,” especially for
middle and high school students. The
praise should tell students exactly
what it is they did well. Instead of
“Good work,” a more effective statement of praise would be: “Jermaine,
understanding the periodic table is
hard even for college students. I’m
impressed that you’ve mastered it in
high school. Keep it up!”
2. Positive Notes Home and/or Phone
Calls to Parents/Guardians. When
making contact with parents keep
your notes and conversations with
them honest, genuine, and specific. As
with praise, you want to specify exactly what it is that the student did to
earn the call or note. Although this is
more time consuming for middle
school and high school students, making contact with the student’s families
is beneficial. Some secondary teachers
commit to contacting a certain number
of parents per week.
3. Tangible Rewards. Rewards should
be tangible. The Canters advocate
using behavior awards (student of the
week, lunch with the teacher), personal notes to students, and special privileges (free time, choosing any seat,
extra bathroom passes, homework
passes, etc.). The rewards should be
easy to implement and frequently
used.
C H A P T E R 10
Assertive Messaging
Many discipline problems can be solved
with simple (verbal and non-verbal) messages to students. What you say to students
and how you say it is very important.
Assertive messages should be delivered in a
confident, businesslike manner. Your tone
should convey that you will expect nothing
less than compliance.
To maximize the effect of your verbal messages, consider the following (Tauber 1999):
1. Tone of voice. Exude confidence,
avoid sarcasm, and watch out for
weak or squeaky tones that imply lack
of commitment.
2. Eye contact. When delivering messages you should make eye contact
with students and look into the student’s eyes. It is unnecessary that
students look in your eye, so don’t
require it. Doing so often invites
conflict rather than encouraging
compliance.
3. Gestures. Gestures are an effective
way to add emphasis to your verbal
messages, or can be used without verbal commands. The “teacher look” is a
classic example of gesturing. This look
is actually composed of how the
teacher holds his body, facial expressions, and a slight leaning-in toward
the student to subtly emphasize control. Carefully consider whether a
gesture will help increase or decrease
the likelihood of conflict.
4. Use Names. Names personalize your
message. Aside from being respectful,
using students’ names directs the message to the right person(s) and creates
a more powerful message. People
respond to hearing their names, even
in a bustling environment. Have you
ever been to a mall or sporting event
and heard someone call out your
name or a name that sounded like
yours? It instantly commands your
attention.
C H A P T E R 10
Assertive discipline falls into the interventionist category because of the emphasis
on teacher power regarding rules, rewards,
and consequences. The model has, however,
been criticized for being too “pre-packaged”
(Curwin and Mendler, 1988). For many, the
“jar of marbles” symbolizes the seemingly
overly simplistic way the Canter Model
approaches discipline. Many teachers often
gravitate to this model early in their teaching careers because it provides a clear
method of managing student behavior in
the classroom. Studies of the program suggested that the model reduced off-task
behaviors for elementary school students
(McCormack, 1986; Ferre, 1991).
Jones’s Positive Discipline Model
Jones developed his Positive Discipline
Model after observing a classroom of emotionally and physically handicapped students. He noted that this classroom seemed
to work better than any other classroom in
the school. Students were engaged in learning and exhibited productive behaviors, as
opposed to the majority of other classrooms
he observed. His model consists of four layers: (1) Classroom Structure, (2) Limit
Setting, (3) Responsibility Training, and (4)
Back-up System. Let’s look at each layer
more fully.
Classroom Structure
Jones emphasizes building both the
affective and physical components of the
classroom. Teachers in this model learn to
“work the crowd” as opposed to the
“crowd working them.” Students feel the
sanctity of the classroom environment much
like the reverence one might have walking
into a church or an art museum. The physical room arrangement allows easy access for
the teacher to move about the room, with
student desks pulled forward to the front of
the classroom. Jones believes that proximity
(physical and emotional) is an effective
339
strategy for productive behavior. Jones also
believes that specific governing routines
need to be established and consciously
taught. These routines can range from how
students put their names on assignments to
how to line up. The important thing is that
the routines and procedures are modeled
and practiced until students get it 100% correct. The insistence on getting it right helps
students to learn what to do and reinforces
expectations.
Limit Setting
Limit setting is about becoming the
“silent giant” in your classroom and communicating to students that you mean business. “Meaning business” involves three
factors:
1. Teacher’s Priority. Teachers make discipline the number one priority in the
classroom, even over instruction.
Jones does not believe that you can
instruct an unruly class.
Consequently, teachers following this
approach invest a significant amount
of time early in the year and throughout to reinforce expectations about
behavior.
2. Teacher’s Emotional Response.
Teachers tend to respond to discipline
issues emotionally first and then physically. When a conflict occurs, a
teacher’s natural response is the fight
or flight response. Adrenaline pumps,
the body tenses, and the propensity to
“go ballistic” is understandably
heightened. Instead, Jones trains
teachers to be relaxed and steady
when conflicts arise and to handle
themselves in a calm and deliberate
way. By remaining even-tempered,
teachers communicate that their
response is “not personal,” but is “just
business.”
3. Teacher’s Physical Response.
Effective teachers hold themselves in
340
ways that are consistent with “meaning business.” You don’t need to stand
like a soldier at attention, but you
should be aware of how you orient
your physical presence to students
when handling discipline issues.
Remember your response may only be
directed at one student, but more than
likely you’ll have 30 others watching
and critiquing that response. Jones
trains teacher to use the “turn.” (See
http://www.tpr-world.com for more
details.)
Responsibility Training
This aspect of Positive Discipline is
chiefly about helping students (both individually and as a class) learn to be responsible for their actions. Since this model is
interventionistic and thus carrot-and-stick
in nature, Jones reasons students can only
learn to be responsible when they have
something to be responsible about.
Therefore, Jones encourages the use of trading preferred activity time (PAT) for productive student behavior. For example, a
Spanish teacher might begin the week by
offering her class 15 minutes of PAT on
Friday. She also gives them opportunities to
earn additional PAT minutes. During PAT
time students participate in competitions
(like vocabulary Jeopardy), enrichment
activities (like Spanish cuisine tastings), or
fun and games (which may or may not
relate to academic material). When students
misbehave they don’t lose their PAT time,
but they don’t earn more of it either. Thus,
students monitor each other’s behavior and
use peer-pressure to ensure the build-up of
PAT time. Research PAT more thoroughly
before implementing it in your classroom.
Backup System
When positive incentives do not work,
Jones suggests that you have a backup system in place. He cautions users that the
C H A P T E R 10
backup system is to be used for egregious
offenses as opposed to those that are simply
annoying. Part of keeping power means you
don’t cede it to another teacher or the principal. Teachers actually have much more
power than the principal in shaping student
behavior. When students are referred to the
office for suspension, you have either intentionally or unintentionally communicated to
the student and the rest of the class that you
have given your power away. Once you’ve
given it up, don’t expect a student to return
from suspension and give it right back to
you. Chances are you’ll get stuck in the
cycle of always having to use an administrator to handle your problems.
Furthermore, it seems that the same 5% of
students are always being suspended, begging the question as to whether or not this
sanction is appropriate or effective. You’ll
earn substantial credibility with your
administrators and other teachers by only
handing over those problems that truly
require an administrator’s help.
Like the Assertive Discipline model,
many teachers like this model because of
the predictability of the approach and the
tight control teachers have in influencing
student behavior. The layers seem to resonate with many teachers who sense that
their students need a structured classroom
environment. Unlike the Canter Model,
Positive Discipline stresses the need to create a classroom culture (or climate) in which
students do not feel compelled to misbehave. One aspect of the model which teachers find hard to accept is the focus on discipline over instruction. Given the emphasis
on teaching for student achievement discussed throughout this book, it may be hard
to figure out how much time to devote to
handling discipline issues versus focusing
on instruction.
Interactionalist Models
The core of the interactionalist models
reviewed here involves helping students
C H A P T E R 10
“Discipline problems do not occur
in classrooms in which students’
needs are satisfied.”
—Gough
make wise choices about their behavior.
Teachers share their power with students in
order to solve conflicts and problems which
arise in the classroom. This model appeals
to teachers who appreciate a more humanistic view of behavior. The interactionalist
models reviewed here are from Dreikurs’s
Social Discipline Model (1972), Glasser’s
Reality Therapy (1969) and Choice Theory
(1998) Models.
Social Discipline Model
Dreikurs sees children, like all humans,
as social beings. They have a strong need
for affiliation, recognition, or status
(Wolfgang, 1999). When students’ needs
are not being met misbehavior occurs.
Students mistakenly believe that “acting
out” will help them satisfy these needs.
Dreikurs argues that corrective action can
only be effective when a teacher understands the goal of a student’s misbehavior.
To that end, Dreikurs suggests four causes
or goals of misbehavior in order from least
to most serious:
1. Attention Seeking. These behaviors
are probably the most annoying to
teachers. Most teachers can spot attention seekers right away. They range
from the class clown to the excessively
pleasant student. Attention seeking
behaviors are those in which a student
repeatedly does something to make
himself the center of attention. The
student may stop, after the teacher
intervenes, but quickly starts again.
See Table 10.1, on page 366, for suggestions on handling attention-seeking
behaviors.
2. Power Seeking. New teachers often
341
fall victim to the power struggle.
Power struggles are a lose-lose proposition for the teacher and student.
Students will overtly and covertly try
to challenge your authority. If you are
a teacher who likes to keep power all
the time, you can expect these challenges to be frequent. Think of power
struggles like a tug-o-war game with
you pulling on one end and students
pulling on the other. The best thing to
do is avoid the game entirely. The
goal of power seekers is to escalate
conflict in order to challenge authority
in the classroom. Again, refer to Table
10.1 on page 366 for strategies for handling power-seeking behaviors.
3. Revenge Seeking. Revenge seeking
behaviors are probably the most
frightening. The range of these behaviors extends from assault to theft. Take
revenge seeking behaviors seriously
but don’t over-react. The goal of the
revenge seeker is to harm others physically (fighting), verbally (swearing),
or psychologically (bullying, harassment). Table 10.1 has suggestions for
handling this type of behavior. These
behaviors have been the focus of
recent school violence research, which
is presented in Supplement 2.1.
4. Inadequacy. When students believe
they are inadequate—socially, academically, emotionally, other otherwise—they may misbehave. These
students “wish not to be seen, are passive and lethargic, reject social contact,
refuse to comply or try most educational demands” (Wolfgang, 1999).
Learned helplessness, which we
explored in Chapter 6, is an example
of inadequacy. You can find suggestions for dealing with inadequacy.
Once you figure out the goal(s) of a student’s misbehavior, Dreikurs believes you
can then address the behavior with consequences. For Dreikurs, consequences can be
one of three types:
342
1. Natural Consequences. Natural consequences are those that happen as a
direct result of one’s behavior. If you
place your hand on a flame, the consequence is that you’ll get burned. If a
student misses the bus, then she won’t
make it to school on time. Simply, the
consequence is an inevitable response
to the behavior.
2. Logical Consequences. These consequences are those imposed by another
person, with respect to what a natural
consequence might be. If a student
misses the bus and arrives to school
late, she is required to serve “late”
detention. Late detention is a logical
consequence. Chapter 9 describes how
to develop logical consequences.
3. Contrived Consequences. Dreikurs
views contrived consequences as punishments. Punishments run counter to
his belief that individuals need to feel
a sense of belonging. Autocratic and
coercive punishments sever relationships. Punishments can range from
paddling students to sending them
home with a negative note.
Unlike the Canter Model, which prescribes “contrived consequences” (punishments) and does not differentiate between
types of misbehavior, Dreikurs’s model suggests that the teacher and students can
agree on logical consequences to help the
student learn from his mistakes. Coming to
agreement about consequences is a difficult
process. However, the process also entails
the relationship building on which this
model is based. Many teachers are attracted
to this model, because of its democratic
overtones and its focus on the teacher-student and student-student relationships and
the underlying causes of misbehavior.
Despite these advantages, many teachers
find the demand to consult with misbehaving students onerous.
Reality Therapy
The title of this model, “reality therapy”
C H A P T E R 10
is drawn from Glasser’s (1965) work as a
psychiatrist. In his practice Glasser rejected
traditional notions of psychoanalysis, which
worked to help individuals resolve past
problems in order to resolve current ones.
Instead Glasser argued that the past cannot
be changed, therefore individuals should
focus on what they can do now (i.e. reality)
to resolve problems. His ideas emphasize
the control individuals have over their lives
and the choices they make about their lives.
In the classroom management model reality
therapy follows eight implementation steps.
These steps are described below. However,
before a teacher can implement this model
she must ensure that students perceive
school as a just place, with the following
characteristics (Tauber, 1999):
!
People are courteous, especially the
adults.
!
One frequently hears laughter that
springs from genuine joy brought
about by involvement with caring people engaged in relevant work.
!
Communication is not just preached,
but practiced. People talk with, not at
one another.
!
Reasonable rules, recognized to be
beneficial to both the individual and
the group, exist.
!
Administrators actively support and
participate in an approach to discipline
that teaches self-responsibility.
Once teachers have determined that students think classroom is a just place, they
can begin to implement eight steps. Tauber
(1999) describes the eight steps as follows:
1. Secure Student Involvement. Be personal. Students perceive school as
good place to be.
2. Identify the Problem Behavior. Try to
understand what a student is doing
rather than why a student is doing
something. Why questions signal to
students that you have already made
a (negative) judgment about their
C H A P T E R 10
behavior. For example, Shondra
comes to you and says, “Talia took my
pencil!” Rather than asking Talia why
(or whether) she took the pencil, ask:
“Talia and Shondra, what seems to be
the problem focusing on your quiz?”
By probing the matter neutrally, you
decrease the likelihood that the situation will escalate.
3. Call for Value Judgments. Although
it’s probably easier to judge for the
student why their misbehavior is
wrong, Glasser argues that it is more
productive for students to understand
how their actions affect other people.
The role of the teacher is then to help
the student understand the cause-andeffect relationship of their behavior.
Recall the example above. Rather than
telling Talia to keep her hands off
Shondra’s pencil (cause), you might
respond: “Talia, Shondra can’t finish
her quiz without her pencil.”
4. Plan for New Behavior. This step is
straightforward. Invest students in figuring how to make sure the misbehavior will not happen again. Simply say,
“What’s your plan for making sure this
doesn’t happen again?” In the example
above, you might say, “Talia, what’s
your plan for making sure this doesn’t
happen again?” Your job as the teacher
is to wait for Talia to come up with a
plan rather than suggest one for her. If
Talia fails to come up with a plan you
might ask her to sit out of an activity or
meet with you at lunch until she can
think of a genuine response.
5. Get a Commitment. You not only
want to make sure Talia has a plan,
but you want to make sure she ‘works
her plan.’ Whether the commitment is
verbal or written, make sure that both
you and Shondra get a commitment.
You might say to Talia: “Okay. I agree
with your plan. Now work your
plan.” You have to be willing to let
Talia ‘work her plan.’ This is the
343
TABLE 10.1: Responses to Various Problem Behaviors
Attention
Seeking Behaviors
Power & Revenge
Seeking Behaviors
Inadequacy
Minimize the Attention
Make a Graceful Exit
! Acknowledge student’s
power
Provide Tutoring
!
Give the “teacher look”
!
Stand close by
!
Ignore behavior
!
Use the student’s name
Legitimize the Behavior
!
!
!
Use behavior as a “teachable
moment”
Have the whole class join in
the behavior
Extend the behavior to its
most extreme
Do the Unexpected
!
Turn out the lights
!
Change your voice
!
Lower your voice
to a whisper
Distract the Student
!
Extra help from teachers
!
Remove audience
!
Peer tutoring
!
Change the subject
!
Learning centers
!
Shelve the matter
Use Time Out
!
Time in the classroom
(silent seat, or silent
table)
!
Set duration of time out
!
Time out in a “buddy”
teacher’s classroom
Restitution
!
Require students to pay
or fix damages
Exercise Logical
Consequences
Teach Positive
Self-Talk
!
Post positive classroom
signs
!
Encourage positive selftalk before activities
Make Mistakes Acceptable
!
Talk about mistakes
!
Equate mistakes with
effort
!
Minimize the negative
effects of making mistakes
Build Confidence
!
Focus on improvement
Ask a favor
!
Show faith in students
Change the activity
!
Build on strengths
!
Go for small and
big wins
!
Ask a direct question
!
!
Notice Appropriate Behavior
Focus on Past Success
!
Thank student
!
Analyze past success
!
Write well-behaved
students names on
the board
!
Repeat past success
Move the student
!
Change the student’s seat
Adapted from Charles Wolfgang (1999) and Linda Albert (1989) in Charles Wolfgang’s Solving discipline
problems: Methods and models for today’s teachers.
344
C H A P T E R 10
essence of sharing power.
6. Accept No Excuses. Reality therapy
deals with future actions. If you are
the type of person who holds grudges
in your personal and professional life,
this model is probably not for you.
The goal is to let students take responsibility for future actions. You cannot
know for sure that Talia will not take
Shondra’s pencil again, but you must
expect it. Quite simply, don’t accept,
encourage, or listen to excuses.
7. Don’t Punish. Punishment is counterproductive to reality therapy.
Punishment can potentially damage
the trust and supportive classroom climate that you have built. In addition,
students are not in a mental (or physiological) state in which they can
process the right thing to do when
being punished. While there needs to
be consequences for misbehavior,
Glasser argues that those consequences do not have to be punitive.
Rather, corrective measures should be
geared toward supporting students in
“working their plans.”
8. Never Give Up—Be Persistent.
Never can last a very long time.
Glasser suggests you “hang in there
longer than the student thinks you
will.” If you have to tell Talia 50 times
to stop taking other people’s belongings and she stops for good on the
51st time, then you have accomplished
your goal. Shaping student behavior
will not happen overnight. If you
think of misbehavior (or responsibility) as a habit, you begin to understand
that habits can’t be broken or developed instantaneously.
Choice Theory in the Classroom
Glasser used to refer to Choice Theory as
Control Theory. However, he later changed
the name to reflect the humanistic quality of
choice making, versus (self) control, which
C H A P T E R 10
sounded more behaviorist. In Chapter Six
you may recall reading some of Glasser’s
work on fun, freedom, power, belonging,
and survival. In this brief section we discuss
the two major premises of Choice Theory:
1. All of our behavior is our best attempt
to satisfy one or more of five basic
human needs (fun, freedom, power,
belonging, and survival). Descriptions
of each of these needs are in Chapter
6.
2. All we can do is behave. In contrast to
Stimulus/Response theory that claims
that all of our behavior is externally
motivated, Choice Theory explains that
all behavior is internally motivated.
Let’s look at each of these premises more
fully below.
Premise One: Behavior is a choice made to
satisfy one or more basic needs
Students need a compelling reason to
behave. Glasser defines these reasons as
Fun, Power, Freedom, Belonging, and
Survival. Others (Flaherty, 1993) have
referred to these needs as “compelling
whys.” That is, students need a compelling
reason to learn or do anything. When looking for the source of productive and counter-productive behavior, you should seek to
understand first what need(s) are being met
by the exhibited behavior. For example,
Jeremy, a ninth-grader, comes to class each
day despite a challenging home life. He
helps care for his mother who is going
though chemotherapy and his siblings who
range in age from three to eight. He rarely
misbehaves, is well liked by other students,
and has an average academic record. Why
does Jeremy choose to come to school?
What are his compelling whys? How does
knowing how school meets his needs help
you as a teacher?
345
Premise Two: We are the choices we make.
Clearly, Glasser believes in self- efficacy. He believes that individuals are most in
control of their thoughts and actions. In
terms of classroom management, the
teacher’s job is to help students understand
the choices that they make, and to establish
a classroom climate that is free from ridicule
(either from the teacher or fellow students).
By giving students the opportunity to make
choices, even those that are controlled (see
Hobson’s choice), you help them become
better decision makers. Teachers give a lot
of lip service to “choice.” Consider that a
student can turn 18 and start to make choices without having had any practice before
then. Choice Theory is a way to help students become more responsible individuals.
For teachers who have a democratic philosophy of teaching and learning, Glasser’s
two models seem to fit well. The reality
therapy steps appeal to many teachers
because of their logical order and value in
helping students learn to become responsible for their behavior. Some teachers
instantly recognize that their schools are not
just places for students and pass on these
models altogether. Some teachers have
found it possible to create a classroom environment that mirrors the qualities of a just
place with good results.
Non-Interventionist Models
Non-Interventionist Models focus on
giving power to students. Teachers who use
this approach believe in order for students
to learn responsibility they must feel fully
empowered to make important decisions
about their lives. The role of adults is to
support students’ decision making.
Remember this does not mean giving students free reign to do anything they want to
do. Rather, non-intervention approaches
require thoughtful, creative, and deliberate
involvement of adults. In many ways, the
non-interventionist model is the most diffi-
346
cult to skillfully implement. Therefore, the
techniques described below are not advisable for the new teacher, and generally
require a very skilled educator to implement properly.
We feature one non-interventionist
model: Gordon’s (1974) Teacher Effectiveness
Training (T.E.T).
Gordon’s Teacher Effectiveness Training
This classroom management model
emphasizes excellent communication
between the teacher and student. Through
this model, teachers manage their classroom
by perfecting key verbal and problem solving approaches. Students are viewed as
rational human beings, who do not need to
be coerced into behaving appropriately.
Like Glasser and Drekurs’ models, punishments are not part of this model. Like all of
the models presented above, T.E.T cannot
be implemented simply by following the
guidelines below. Rather, you must seek out
additional information, talk to teachers who
use it, and then carefully plan how you
might implement it in your classroom.
T.E.T. Problem Solving Measures
One of the first skills teachers learn in
T.E.T training is to understand who owns
problems as they arise in the classroom. Do
you (the teacher) own the problem? Does
the student own the problem? Or, do both
the teacher and the student own the problem? For example, imagine watching an
interaction between Marcus, a seventh grader, and his math teacher, Ms. Kirk, on
videotape. On the tape, you view Marcus
completing a math activity while tapping
his pencil on the desk. Ms. Kirk has reminded him several times to stop tapping his
pencil. Finally, Ms. Kirk stops the lesson
and says emphatically, “Marcus! Please stop
tapping your pencil.” At this point she goes
over to Marcus and takes his pencil away.
Marcus responds with a stunned look on
C H A P T E R 10
his face. Your T.E.T. trainer asks you, “What
is the problem? Who owns it?” How would
you respond to this question? A teacher
trained in T.E.T would say the teacher owns
this problem. From the videotape it looks
like no one else is bothered by the tapping
except the teacher. Furthermore, it looks
like the teacher’s response of taking Marcus’
pencil was extreme.
T.E.T. teachers are trained to really dig
deep and understand ownership of problems. In the example above, the tape later
explains that the noise was personally
annoying to the teacher and that the other
students seemed unaffected by it. By understanding who truly owns a problem teachers and students are in a better position to
resolve them. By taking a moment (even if
just a few seconds) to determine ownership,
the teacher has time to cool down and
approach the problem rationally. Gordon
proposes the following problem solving
steps:
lem-solving plan must be coupled with
excellent verbal skills. When misbehavior or
conflict occurs in class, what teachers say
and how they say it can usually diffuse and
resolve a situation without having to resort
to elaborate discipline plans (such as consequences and punishments). T.E.T provides
teachers with key verbal skills not only to
facilitate lessons, but also to manage student behavior. A few of these skills include:
!
Critical Listening. During critical listening, the teacher remains silent,
makes eye contact, and hears what the
student is saying. She is not trying to
interpret what the student means or
make judgments about what is being
said. She simply lets the student speak.
Critical listening allows the student to
be heard. Even when students refuse
to speak, the teacher uses non-verbal
cues to prompt the student to respond,
but does not force speech. In this situation she remains silent and affords the
student an opportunity to speak. For
example, Mr. Barnes stands with an
open posture (palms open, slightly off
center, making friendly, but concerned
eye contact) to Kim, a tenth grade student, who is refusing to complete her
history quiz. He is silent and waits 30
seconds, before Kim responds, “I don’t
want to take this fuckin’ quiz!”
!
Active Listening. Although most people have heard of active listening, few
use it correctly, misguided by the
notion that active listening is just parroting back what is heard. Instead,
active listening is about clarifying and
acknowledging what is heard or restating what the student has said in the
teacher’s own words. In the example
above, Mr. Barnes says, in a matter of
fact tone, “You don’t want to take the
quiz.” Notice he does not ask a question, but makes a statement.
!
I-Messages. “This is a matter-of-fact
directive statement containing the
word ‘I’ that expresses to the student a
1. Define the Problem. Remember, if
you’re doing all the talking to define
the problem then you still own it.
Participate with students to understand the problem.
2. Generate Possible Solutions. Rather
than deciding on a quick solution,
brainstorm several possible solutions
with students.
3. Evaluate Solutions. Which solution
will best solve the problem?
4. Decide on the Solution. Choose a
solution.
5. Implement the Solution. Agree
who will do what to implement
the solution.
6. Evaluate Solutions. During the implementation reflect, on how well the
solution is working.
Verbal/Communication Skills
Arriving at and implementing a prob-
C H A P T E R 10
347
TABLE 10.2: Summary of Classroom Management & Discipline Models
Model
Description
Key Strategies
Effective classroom managers are
assertive and use clear rules, procedures, and rewards to manage student
behavior and classroom activities.
Rules & Discipline Plan
Layered approach to management
founded on building rapport with
students in a tightly controlled
classroom environment.
Classroom Structure
Interventionist
Assertive Discipline
(Canter)
Positive Discipline
(Jones)
Positive Recognition
Assertive Messaging
Limit Setting
Responsibility Training
Back-Up System
Interactionalist
Students seen as social beings
with a strong need for belonging.
Misbehavior stems from not feeling
a sense of belonging.
Four goals of misbehavior:
attention, power, revenge,
withdrawal
Reality Therapy
(Glasser)
Focus on how to help students deal
with immediate problems and build
responsibility.
School is a “just place.”
Choice/Control
Theory (Glasser)
Students have basic needs that need
to be met in the classroom.
Misbehavior stems when needs are
not being met.
Five basic human needs
(fun, freedom, power,
belonging, & survival)
Social Discipline
Model (Dreikus)
Natural/Logical
Consequences
Eight steps for handling
misbehavior
Two premises
Hobson’s Choice
Non-Interventionist
Teacher
Effectiveness
Training—T.E.T
(Gordon)
Focus on ownership of
classroom problems and
communication skills
description of the student’s behavior
and how it is having a negative effect
on the teacher or fellow students”
(Wolfgang, 1999, p.23). Continuing the
348
Problem solving
measures
Verbal skills
example above, Mr. Barnes says, “I’d
like you to use another word to
describe the quiz. I try hard not use
profanity in class; you should too
C H A P T E R 10
(humor). I’d like to record a grade for
this quiz. I can’t if you don’t take it.”
Kim responds by rolling her eyes but
seems less frustrated.
!
Influencing Statements/Questions.
This set of verbal skills helps students
to change behavior. These statements
can express approval or disapproval,
suggest a new course of behavior, or
seek a greater understanding of the
problem. In the example above, Mr.
Barnes uses a combination of influencing statements. He says, “Kim, can I
talk to you by my desk for a minute.
I think you may be too frustrated to
take the quiz now, how about a break
(new course of action). Here’s a bathroom pass. Get some water. Would
you like to take the quiz after school?”
Kim responds, “Mr. Barnes, my manager put me on the schedule wrong. So
I have had to work two days in a row,
and I can’t lose my job. I want to do
well on this quiz, but honestly I didn’t
study. You cuss outside of class?” Mr.
Barnes smiles and hands over the pass.
You may question whether this teacher
has done the best thing. Does Kim get an
advantage of having one more day to study
for the quiz? Is she telling the truth? Should
students know that you use profanity outside of class? Remember, Mr. Barnes does
not own the problem in the example above;
Kim owns it. He, does however, choose to
share in the solution. Gordon stresses that
teaching is about relationships, not when
students should take quizzes. Mr. Barnes
knows that Kim’s job is important to her. It
signals responsibility on her part. If the
problem becomes chronic then Mr. Barnes
might suggest a different solution. The goal
for Mr. Barnes was not to punish Kim but
understand how she could complete her
quiz. If his goal had been conformity (i.e. all
students finishing the exam at one time),
then he might have insisted on her taking a
failing grade. But neither Kim nor Mr.
Barnes would benefit from a bad grade.
C H A P T E R 10
T.E.T has many supporters and has been
used for decades. Many teachers find its
focus on communication over elaborate
rules, consequences, and incentives very
satisfying. The training is delivered over
five days, so the short explanation described
above only scratches the surface. If you are
interested in more information on the
Teacher Effectiveness Training Model you
can find several resources on the internet.
Conclusions and Key Points
This chapter reviewed several classroom
management/discipline models that have
proven to be effective for teachers in all
types of schools. The following key points
were emphasized:
!
Teachers tend to have or develop a
unique management style.
!
A teacher’s management style can be
described as interventionist, interactionalist, or non-interventionist.
!
There are examples of models that
align closely to these three management styles (see Table 10.2).
!
As you choose a model make sure it
benefits students, fits within the overall culture of your school, aligns with
the school’s discipline approach and
reflects your core beliefs about teaching and learning.
!
Additional study is essential before
implementing it in your classroom.
Finally, recall Tauber’s advice from the
introduction of this chapter—beware of
eclectic approaches. Generally, teachers
tend to be eclectic both about their instruction and classroom management with
mixed degrees of success. Arguments can
be made for blending one or several
approaches above. However, don’t treat the
various management strategies as a bag of
tricks. Rather think of them as part of a
repertoire and use them purposefully in the
way the developer had intended. Results
seem more promising if you do.
349
Chapter 11
Family Involvement
We have described how isolating classroom teaching can feel. There
will be many times when you feel overwhelmed, alone and at a loss for
how to proceed. At such times, it will be helpful for you to remember that
your students’ families—can (and should) be part of the solution.
In addition to soliciting family assistance for practical purposes, you
have an obligatory duty to reach out to them as well. Involving families in
their children’s education is part of your responsibility as a teacher.
Parents and/or guardians (given the diverse natures of families, be careful
not to make assumptions about family relations) deserve to know the status of their child’s academic development whether that child is struggling,
succeeding, or performing somewhere in between. Parents/guardians
need honest and informative assessments of their child’s intellectual
strengths and weaknesses if they are to competently support, supplement
and supervise their children’s educational experience.
Parents/guardians don’t just have a right or a need to know about their
children’s progress, they have a vital role to play towards enhancing it.
Study after study has shown that effective parental involvement consistently improves student performance (Marzano, 2003). But
parents/guardians can’t play that role unless teachers (and administrators)
encourage, enable, and ultimately permit their influence. Effective parental
involvement, as defined by Marzano, demands attentive inclusion and
consists of three factors:
1. Communication
2. Participation
3. Governance
Teachers and their students’ families need to collaborate to improve
student achievement and school performance. Let’s look more deeply at
the ways in which teachers can actively and respectfully invite their students’ families to join the educative process.
Communication
First and foremost, interacting with your students’ families will require
deliberate and on-going communication efforts on your behalf. Most families will crave feedback about their children’s progress; do not disappoint,
C H A P T E R 11
350
and do not hold back. You are not doing a
student any favors by withholding potentially upsetting assessment data. You will
want to share as much information as often
as you can. Work to convey a sense of openness and availability. Make sure that families know you are at their disposal any time
they wish to check in with you.
To that end, you will have several methods of communication to choose from:
sure to invite parents/guardians to discuss
any questions or concerns they have with
your expectations.
Your letter should include:
!
Basic subjects and major goals for the
year
!
Materials needed for class
!
Your expectations for student work
and behavior
!
Suggestions for ways parents can be
involved in homework
!
Phone calls
!
Email (when available)
!
Letters
!
Contact information for reaching you
!
Home visits
!
!
Conferences
!
Homework Folders
A sincere invitation to share concerns,
visit class, and participate as fully as
possible
You will find that you will probably rely
on different methods for different students
(either due to logistical concerns, or due to
the nature of the information you need to
share). Families themselves may express
distinct preferences about how they wish to
be contacted. Whenever possible, respect
these preferences. Try alternative methods
to follow-up with hard-to-reach families.
Send a Welcome Letter
Send a welcome letter to families before
the school year starts or the first day of
school to help them to get their children
ready for a new classroom. (This letter may
also be sent to the parents of students transferring into your class throughout the year.)
You will want to introduce yourself and
share your goals for the year. Since you will
be