Breakthrough:
redesigning classroom instruction to
transform learning
Summer 2013 Administrative Retreat
June 17-19, 2013
Against all odds you
create breakthrough.
Reflection/Interaction
(A tale of two cultures)
 Today’s Meet
(Curriculum Depot)
 Day 1
 Day 2
 Day 3
 Twitter
#psrcadmin2013
Objectives
• Linking Breakthrough thinking to your goals
• Challenge our Beliefs and Understandings through the lens of
Moral Purpose
• Explore the Triple ‘P’ Core Components
• Explore the BREAKTHROUGH Framework
• THE NEXT STEP: Critical Learning Instructional Paths (CLIPs)
Leading Student Achievement
• Professional learning communities:
raising the bar for student achievement and closing the learning gap
Opening Activity
1) Take 5 minutes as a table to
brainstorm the crucial components,
ideas and values or “puzzle pieces” to a
breakthrough in education!
2) Come to a consensus on 18
puzzle pieces and use the
markers at the table to fill in
the slots. Leave the center slot
open.
3) If you have time, someone at the table
take a picture of the poster and send a
tweet using #psrcadmin2013
“Breakthrough is about linking all the core pieces of the puzzle-without our
framework, educators often have many of the pieces , but they come from
different puzzles. No wonder people cannot make a picture!”
Breakthrough page 20
Breakthrough Leadership
• Understanding of PLC’s and their impact on student achievement
• Increasing use of meaningful data
• Moving from surface collegiality to a more intense culture focused
on student outcomes
• Understanding of the role of the principal as an instructional leader
• Applying S.M.A.R.T goals
Breakthrough thinking
•Transformation of thinking
about classroom instruction
•Requires change of thinking
about the educational research
enterprise
•Requires a ‘tri-level’
approach to transforming
classroom instruction
Making Connections……
BREAKTHROUGH QUESTION
What are the critical components for a
Breakthrough system to take off in your
school?
…let’s explore that together
Chapter 1
A New Mission for School Systems
“Mistakes…. are the portals of discovery.”
James Joyce
#psrcadmin2013
In-between Stories
A System Stalled
 Joseph Campbell in a discussion with Bill Moyers in The Power of
Myth talks about the tipping point or “breakthrough” struggles
societies have when they are in-between stories.
“The old story sustained us for a long time-it shaped our emotional attitudes,
it provided us with life’s purpose, it energized our actions,
it consecrated suffering, it guided education. We awoke in
the morning and knew who we were, we could answer the
questions of our children. Everything was taken care of
because the story was there. Now the old story is not
functioning. And we have not yet learned a new”
 What are the struggles we are facing today to create our
story in which we accomplish the following:
“The breakthrough we are seeking involves the education
community as a whole establishing a system of expert data-driven
instruction that will result in daily continuous improvement for all
students in all classrooms.” breakthrough page 2 ; lines 6-9
Use the border of your puzzle to list struggles that impact or stall a breakthrough.
Are some of the identified struggles the same terms used as the essential pieces of the puzzle?
Share your thoughts with Twitter using #psrcadmin2013
The Power of Failure
 Can we use our mistakes and failures as a guide in writing a
new story?
Although Breakthrough was written BCC (Before Common Core)
the reference to a needed national reform is uncannily close to what
has come to fruition!
Lets look at the following points and check for current relevance
regarding key problem areas in education today:
“Failure to establish classroom routines and practices that represent
Personalized, Ongoing, Data-Driven, Focused Instruction.”
1.
2. “Instructional goals were more often articulated in terms of student outcomes or
achievement levels .”
“There is nothing more difficult to address than the case where people
think that they are doing something when in reality they are not.”
breakthrough page 6 ; lines 10-12
Very few conversations connect changes in the standards with
changes in instruction.
As an instructional leader what has been your most difficult
challenge in sparking this conversation?
Think across all levels….
World, Nation, State
District, Community
School, Home
After a moment of personal reflection, place a dot in one or more of the identified
puzzle pieces that is directly connected/related to that difficult conversation!
What informs or “drives” our Feedback?
 "The most important single factor influencing learning is what
the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach ...
accordingly."
(David Ausubel, 1968)
 Do you agree with this quote...?
 Why does this bold statement hold water?
 If you do not agree, what is the most important factor influencing
learning ?
Share your thoughts with Twitter using #psrcadmin2013
Breakthrough basic beliefs are founded on
the moral purpose of education, not just for
students but for teachers as well.
Nonnegotiable beliefs
 All students can achieve high standards, given sufficient time and
support.
 All teachers can teach to high standards, given the right conditions and
assistance.
 High expectations and early intervention are essential.
 Teachers need to learn all the time, and they need to be able to
articulate both what they do and why they do it.
The Prescription Trap
“we need to go from broad strokes to specific action without falling into the trap of prescription”
 An Easy Solution....
• When we prescribe we are
treating the symptom not the
cause.
• Prescription may seem like a
viable solution; for we are
sharing what “worked for me”
with the notion that if replicated
the same results should be
achieved!
What is one educational program prescription you have given or received and
stopped due to adverse side effects? Share at your table 
Triple ‘P’ Core Components
Chapter 2 - Breakthrough
BREAKTHROUGH
In a nutshell…
•
Most educational reform has resulted in modest gains in student
learning and little or no impact on daily teaching
•
We need to transform instruction through a focus on personalization,
precision and professionalism (TRIPLE ‘P’ CORE COMPONENTS)
•
This means giving teachers the assessment and analysis tools, the
organizational structures and the expert systems that link data on each
student to daily decisions about what to teach, how and when
•
It also means changes to how we conceptualize the research enterprise,
how systems align their work and the kind of leadership exerted at all
levels.
Triple ‘P’ Core Components
Personalization
Precision
Moral
Purpose
Professional Learning
Page 15 - Breakthrough
TRIPLE ‘P’ CORE COMPONENTS
• For innovation to flourish:
• all three components, not any two, will be required;
• the cost must be practical;
• and the benefits must be experienced on a wide scale…
BREAKTHROUGH criteria
• The GLUE that binds the three is
MORAL PURPOSE
• The three P’s must be synergistically interconnected
TRIPLE ‘P’ CORE COMPONENTS
• For innovation to flourish:
• all three components, not any two, will be required;
• the cost must be practical;
• and the benefits must be experienced on a wide scale…
BREAKTHROUGH criteria
• The GLUE that binds the three is
MORAL PURPOSE
• The three P’s must be synergistically interconnected
MORAL PURPOSE :
BELIEFS and UNDERSTANDINGS
• All students can achieve high standards given sufficient
time and support
• All teachers can teach to high standards given the right
conditions and assistance
• High expectations and early intervention are essential
• Teachers need to be able to articulate what they do and
why they do it (theory based rather than trade based)
Hill & Crévola,1997
HOPE
Hope is not the same thing as
optimism. It is not the conviction
that something will turn out well,
but certainly that something makes
sense, regardless of how it turns
out. It is hope, above all, that
gives us strength to live and to
continually try new things, even in
conditions that seem hopeless.
V. Havel, 1990
SHARE
• What were some of the barriers?
• What were some of the suggestions for actions?
PERSONALIZATION
• Personalization is the least developed of the three
components
• Caroline Tomlison (1998) …personalization ‘puts the
learner at the center’
• Engagement with schooling declines as students go up the
grades…inadequate linkages of the other two
P’s…precision and professional learning
PERSONALIZATION
Personalization is about individuals
PERSONALIZATION
Personalization must be for ALL
‘In the absence of pervasive personalization, the opposite will
happen - mass production, one-size-fits-all mentality that fits those
who benefit from the status quo.’
Fullan, Hill & Crévola, 2006 (pp 17)
PRECISION
• To be precise is to get something right
• To prescribe is to lay down rigid rules
• Precision is in the service of personalization: being precise
to the learning needs of the individual
• ‘assessment for learning’ has helped
PRECISION
The fatal weakness remains:
going from assessment to instruction
Fullan, Hill & Crévola, 2006
PRECISION
Taking the analyzed data
and using it to inform
instruction is easy to say
but evidence shows that it
is very rarely done
effectively within the
classroom context.
‘Schools need to get assessment for learning out of the basement,
clean it up, and creatively recombine it with personalization and
continuous professional learning.’
Fullan, Hill & Crévola, 2006
PRECISION
• Educators have assessments, but they are often selected
from bits of this and that, small pieces of the whole.
• Increasingly teachers are being helped to analyze the data.
• The missing step and next piece is to make sense of the
whole thing as one unified picture of where each student lies in
terms of where to go next
Reflection
 Changing the Conversation
BREAKTHROUGH
FRAMEWORK
Fullan, Hill & Crévola,
2006
Areas of Focus
1)Leadership
2)Quality Teachers
3)Instructional Support
In Summary
Table Talk……
Refer to pages 88-89
During the next 15 minutes to reflect on your assigned topic to
discuss.
Post highlights of your conversation on either Today’s Meet or
Twitter (don’t for get to put #psrcadmin2013 at the end of
your tweet)