High Expectations
Addressing the needs of high
poverty, minority kids.
Based on the work of Ruby Payne, the TESA study and
program, Lauren Resnick, Carol Dwek and others
The greatest single factor
affecting student achievement is
the teacher in the classroom.
Robert Marzano
Questions?
Can ALL students achieve at the levels that
we want them to?
Can students get “smarter”?
Summary
Many of our students TODAY fit the
model of what we only used to see in
urban (Inner-city) schools
They can learn . . .
But we must learn first!
The Certainties
• You want to reach more of your students.
• You want all of your students to be
successful.
• You will not let who your students are
today keep you from helping them
become who they can be tomorrow.
The Learning Goals
• I will understand that High Expectations
produce Achievement, regardless of the
intelligence of the student.
• I will learn how to address the needs of my
students by understanding how to interact
with them.
Teacher Expectations Student Achievement
The Self-fulfilling Prophecy
Expectations
Reinforcement
1
3
Fulfillment
2
Robert K. Merton, 1948
New
Behavior
A Self-fulfilling prophecy is
said to occur when one’s
belief concerning the
occurrence of some future
event … makes one behave in
a manner …that increases the
likelihood that the expected
event will occur…. Eden, 1990
It is expectancy in the sense of
that which what the expecter, or
“prophet,” believes is likely to
occur, rather than that which a
person believes ought to occur,
that leads to the behavior that
fulfills the prophecy.
Your students need YOU to
become the prophet of their
success!
The reality of our existence is
based upon our ideas about
ourselves, our circumstances,
and our prospects for the
future. Other people play an
important role in the
development of our internal
and external reality.
Discuss with a partner. . .
• What role does student’s belief about her
ability to achieve affect her ability to
achieve?
Interpersonal expectancy
effects are transactional.
Parent Expectations
Teacher Expectations
Self Expectations
Coach Expectations
Performance
Rosenthal [1973] suggests
four mediating factors in this
inter personal expectancy:
• socioemotional climate
• feedback
• input
• output
Socioemotional climate: is
defined as behaviors that are
nonverbal and mostly
subconscious, that convey
positive or negative feelings.
Are we “telling” our students
that they are successes or
failures without telling them
anything?
Feedback is an indispensable
ingredient to any learning
process.
People give more feedback and
more varied feedback to people
of whom they expect more.
Input, in the form of teaching
more challenging material, is
provided to those expected to
do well.
We should not let our compassion
for students interfere with our
mission to educated them.
Communicating high expectations
is our most important task with our
low performing students.
Output is defined as producing a
learning result as in answering a
question in class.
Teachers give pupils opportunities for
producing output by assigning them
challenging projects or by calling
upon them to do something extra,
beyond the minimal requirements.
Teacher expectations
Student achievement
Reflection
Discuss with a partner. . . .
What effect do teacher
expectations have on student
achievement?
Principles of Teaching and
Learning
• Effort produces achievement
• Learning is about making
connections
• We learn with and through others
• Learning takes time
• Motivation matters
Aptitude v. Effort
• Lauren Resnick and Megan Hall studying the
research of social psychologist and cognitive
scientist found that effort is “just as, or more
important than aptitude.”
• In addition they found that
effort can improve intelligence!
• Intelligence is “learnable”!
So how can you do that?
Please state the following out loud:
So how can you do that?
Building a “Growth Mindset”
• Dr. Carol Dweck, “Mindset”, 2006
• Fixed Mindset v. Growth Mindset
• Fixed Mindset - Belief that you have innate
intelligence that does not change
• Growth Mindset – Belief that with effort
you can “grow” and get “smarter”
Fixed Mindset
• This has been the standard belief of many
educators for over 100 years.
• Partially (and improperly) attributed to Alfred
Binet.
• “A few modern philosophers. . .assert that an
individual’s intelligence is a fixed quantity, a
quantity which can not be increased. We protest
and react against this pessimism…”
Fixed Mindset – “Smart” Attributes
• Children believe they are smart and will
not attempt work that is challenging for
them.
• Children do not handle failure well
because they have been told that they are
smart.
Fixed Mindset – “Dumb” Attributes
• Children believe they are not smart AND do not
believe that they can achieve so effort is low.
• They see no point in challenging themselves
because they are “dumb” and always will be.
• Children do not handle failure well because they
see it as proof of their low ability.
Fixed Mindset – How do I get it?
So who tells them they are “smart” or
“dumb”?
•Parents
•Teachers
•Schools
•Assessment
Growth Mindset
• The growth mindset happens when
students believe that effort and hard work
will get them where they want to go
academically and non-academically.
• It affects, achievement, self-esteem,
relationships, etc.
Growth Mindset
• When students have a growth mindset
they look at failure as a challenge to
improve.
• Students (people) with a growth mindset
believe that their intelligence is tied to their
ability to improve who they are, both
personally and academically.
High poverty, minority kids
• Which category do they fit in and why?
• Fixed Mindset (Smart)
• Fixed Mindset (Dumb)
• Growth Mindset
Discuss with a partner where your students
are.
Where do we want them to be?
How do we Promote the Building of
the Growth Mindset?
Stakeholders in the student’s life need to
promote it and build it?
• Parents
• Teachers
• Schools
• Assessment
How do we Promote the Building of
the Growth Mindset?
• Teachers need to believe and act upon the
understanding that EFFORT produces
ACHIEVMENT.
• Teachers need to believe and act upon the
understanding that EFFORT can improve
INTELLIGENCE.
• Teachers need to believe and act upon the
understanding that HIGH EXPECTATIONS can
GREATLY increase EFFORT in students.
How do we Promote the Building of
the Growth Mindset?
• When students BELIEVE that they can
ACHIEVE then the self fulfilling prophecy
becomes reality.
• Teachers need to modify their behavior so
that all students believe that they can
achieve at higher levels through hard
work.
Processing. . .
• Based on your role in your school district
what actions do you need to take to help
support the building of a growth mindset in
ALL of your students?
• Once we set the –POSSITIVE self fulfilling
prophecy in motion we need to build the
Growth Mindset to to allow the student to
internalize and perpetuate the belief.
Teacher Behaviors that Affect
Student Behaviors
Teacher Expectations
=
Student Achievement
1. Equitable Distribution:
Beating the “T”
• Teachers tend to call more often on students
who sit in the front row and middle seats in the
classroom (the T) and ignore students outside
the T seating pattern.
• Students in the back corners have the least
likelihood of being asked to answer a question.
• Moreover, by the middle grades, many students
learn the strategy of distribution and sit
themselves, given the choice, according to their
desire to participate or not participate.
• High performers go to the T, low performers to
the corners.
1. Equitable Distribution: Beating the “T”
How to “Beat” the “T”
•Teachers need to make a conscious effort to direct
their questions to the corners and the back of the
room.
•When put into effect, the strategy puts students on
notice of the expectation that all students,
regardless of seating, would have an equal chance
to be called on.
1. Equitable Distribution: Beating the “T”
Other implications-
What other ways do students who
do not wish to participate at high
levels behave in a classroom?
2. Feedback and Guidance
•
•
Teachers give less accurate and less
detailed feedback to students they
perceive as low achievers. Good (1970,
Rowe 2004)
Teachers give students perceived as
high achievers more detailed and more
accurate feedback.
2. Feedback and Guidance
Who needs the detailed
feedback more…
Low achievers or high
achievers?
Feedback and Guidance
•
•
•
Anglo students are more likely to get
accurate and detailed feedback than
African-American or Hispanic students.
Rubovits and Maehr (1973), David
(2006)
22 classrooms of mixed race students
confirmed that this is still an issue
Very teacher dependent
Feedback and Guidance
Teachers should make accurate comments
about each student's response. The
feedback should note that an answer was
correct or incorrect and, in the best
circumstances, would explain "why.“
Good feedback/questioning would ask the
student to explain why?
3. Proximity
•
•
A teacher's physical closeness to a
student affects time on task. (Payne,
Brophy)
Many of our “best” teachers use
proximity to address discipline problems,
yet not academic problems.
3. Proximity
Teachers need to think about how to reseat
students, how to rearrange seating for
easier access, and how to move closer to
students who are off task.
4. Individual Help
•
•
•
Sadker and Sadker (1985) noticed how
the assertiveness of high-achieving
students, especially males, resulted from
more individual help from the teacher.
David (2006) confirmed this in his district
Note: Students who act out/call out in
class also get more attention
4. Individual Help
Teachers should identify the two or three
students who received the least amount of
attention, even when they called for help in
a proper manner, and then make a
conscious effort to assist these students in a
non-threatening way.
5. Praise
•
•
Teachers are less likely to praise perceived
low achievers for academic performance and
more likely to praise perceived high achievers.
Rosenshine (1971) and Good (1987)
Moreover, researchers noted that teachers
tended to protect low achievers from criticism
about wrong answers.
5. Praise
Teachers should give energetic,
positive feedback and rewards to
all students, with a special
concentration of attention for the
perceived low performers.
5. Praise
IMPORTANT: The praise should directed
toward the growth of learning and not the
level or measure of learning.
Students need to know that it is their effort
and growth that counts and not whether or
not they make “A’s”.
“Straight A” students are not being
challenged enough”. (Wise)
6. Effective Questioning




Question Sequencing
Scaffolding of questions
Wait Time
All students MUST answer ALL
questions asked of them
6. Effective Questioning Higher-Level Questions
•
•
Teachers asked a predominance of
lower level questions to low performing
students. There was little or no
scaffolding in a class period or
throughout the year. (TESA)
Proper questioning strategies and
scaffolding of questions is essential.
6. Effective QuestioningHigher-Level Questions
Teachers should be familiar with Bloom’s
question levels and stem choices and use
them with scaffolding to challenge students
to think at higher levels. In this way, teachers
would communicate that all students were
expected to perform complex thinking tasks.
7. Courtesy
•
•
Some research has shown that many teachers
were discourteous and disrespectful toward
"low-status students" yet demanded that those
students show respect to them as teachers. (A
number of researchers, including Brophy,
Good, Hillar, Sadker and Sadker, and Rist)
Even some minority teachers showed less
respect and had lower expectations of low
income students.
7. Courtesy
•
•
•
More often than not, high-status students,
those who received the most attention from the
teacher, copied the teacher's behavior toward
the low-status students.
This included interrupting answers of the lowstatus students, greater use of put-downs, and
sarcasm.
The high-status group members were mostly
white males; minority females were the lowest
status group.
7. Courtesy
Teachers should be conscious of how
they respond to high and low-status
groups by the way they give attention to
these students.
Teachers should respond to students with
courteous statements such as "thank
you" and "please," and avoid the use of
sarcastic tones and belittling phrases.
8. Personal Regard
•
•
•
Teachers pay less attention in academic and
social situations to the socioeconomically
disadvantaged students. Brophy (1986)
The more advantaged students received more
smiles, more eye contact, more questions that
asked them to connect academic content to
personal experiences, and more positive
responses to personal examples.
Outside of class (as in the lunchroom or on the
playground), teachers gave less time and
attention to the personal well-being and
interest of disadvantaged students.
8. Personal Regard and Relevance
Teachers should develop content-related
questions that are connected to what they know
might be of interest to a student.
•For instance, a social studies teacher might ask
Juan to compare the means of transportation
used in his native Guatemala to the means used
in Dallas.
•The teacher should not limit these interestconnected questions to select students.
•The teacher's challenge with these questions
and other displays of personal regard is to
promote equitable distribution.
9. Delving
•
•
•
Low achievers were asked fewer and easier
questions than high achievers. Brophy (1986)
If the low achiever showed signs of
bewilderment, the teacher more readily turned
to another student or answered the question.
When high achievers were questioned, the
teacher more readily gave clues, probed for
evidence or reasons, or encouraged a more
extensive response.
9. Delving
Teachers should push all students to
expand on their answers, to ask all
students a second or third follow-up
question that forces them to delve more
deeply into course content, and to provide
clues that would help all students,
especially the lowest performers, to give a
full response.
10. Listening
•
•
Teachers spent more time talking TO lowstatus students and less to the high achievers.
(Flanders)
In contrast, perceived high achievers spent
more time sharing ideas, conversing with the
teacher, and engaging in activities that
required student interaction.
10. Listening
Allow for and structure time for
low achievers to discuss content
and delve deeper.
If we believe,
they will achieve!
Teacher Expectations Student
Achievement (TESA)
For more information please contact:
John L. David
Social Studies Consultant
Carrollton-Farmers Branch ISD
davidj@cfbisd.edu