GVSU Learning NetworkImproving Learning and Teaching

August 2015

Quick Reflection

• What has been your greatest instructional success?

Note: “instructional success” is purposefully vague.

Individual Introductions

• In 1 minute or less, introduce yourself . . .– Name– School– Role– Your greatest instructional

success• With time remaining , discuss

any common themes running through your success stories.

School Team Introductions

• In 45 seconds or less, introduce your school team by:– Telling us something unique about your school– Telling us something about who is on your team

AND– A piece of advice for a team new to our

community OR – A question you have about this community

As a table, identify a single norm that, if adopted and abided, would optimize collective and individual learning.

2-Day Agenda

Day 1• Welcome, introductions,

norms, agenda• Critical data points• Greenhouse Schools in

Boston: Text-based discussion

• Discussing the Instructional Core—video observation exercise

• Improvement Science Tool: Ishikawa Diagram (Fishbone)

Day 2• Skills workshop: Meeting

your students’ learning styles needs

• Improvement Science Tool: Driver Diagram

• Cross-Team Feedback: Interrogating the Driver Diagram

• Team Work Time and Action Planning

Essential Question

How do we improve teaching, learning and outcomes for our students?

© 2009 THE EDUCATION TRUST

Source:

Percentage of instructional and instructional-related expenditures for public elementary and

secondary schools

National Center for Educational Statistics Copyright © 2014 Connecticut Center for School Change, Hartford, CT. All Rights Reserved .

© 2009 THE EDUCATION TRUST

Source:

Potential impact of teachers with varying performance

Measures of Effective Teaching Project, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Student Performance on SAT 9 Reading Open-Ended Test

© 2009 THE EDUCATION TRUST

Source:

Impact of teacher performance over time

Heather Jordan, Robert Mendro, and Dash Weerasinghe, The Effects of Teachers on Longitudinal Student Achievement, (1997)

© 2009 THE EDUCATION TRUST

Source:

Impact of teacher effectiveness on earnings

www.hanushek.stanford.edu

Copyright © 2014 Connecticut Center for School Change, Hartford, CT. All Rights Reserved .

The Profession of Variation

“One of the best-kept secrets in educational research, it seems, is the fact that differences in the quality of instruction from classroom to classroom within schools are greater than differences in instructional quality between schools.”

Robert Rothman, Harvard Education Letter

Core Persistence

“Much of what passes for “change” in U.S. schooling is not really about changing the core (teaching and learning in the classroom) . . .The Changes are often not explicitly connected to fundamental changes in the way knowledge is constructed, nor the division of responsibility between teacher and student, the way students and teacher interact with each other around knowledge, or any of a variety of stable conditions in the core.”

Richard Elmore, Harvard Educational Review

Team Discussion—What Are the Most Critical Teaching, Learning and Achievement Problems (Challenges) Faced By Your School At This Point in Time?

Quick Questions on Instructional Culture

• On a Likert scale of 1-7, 1 being Strongly Disagree and 7 being Strongly Agree . . .

1. The expectations for effective teaching are clearly defined at my school.

2. Teachers at my school share a common vision of what effective teaching looks like.

3. My school is committed to improving my instructional practice. Or, if not a teacher, My school is committed to improving the instructional practice of teachers.

Text-Based DiscussionPart 1: Cross-School Final Word Protocol

Preparation: Identify a single passage from the text that most spoke to you (for any range of reasons) and be prepared to explain.

Text-Based DiscussionPart 1: Cross-School Final Word Protocol

Presenter: Read the passage that spoke to you and explain what it was about this passage that made it so meaningful (3 minutes).Responder 1: Respond to the passage and/or to the explanation the presenter provided (2 minutes).Responder 2: Respond to the passage, explanation the presenter provided, and/or the thoughts of responder 1 (2 minutes).Responder 3: Respond to the passage, explanation the presenter provided, and/or the thoughts of responders 1 & 2 (2 minutes).Presenter: Final opportunity to speak about your passage and or any of the ideas presented in the conversation (1 minute).

Total time for one rotation with 4 group members: 10 minutes

If you are finished . . .

• Lunch is served.

• Be back and ready to go at 1pm, please.

Team Conversation• Discuss your big takeaways from the cross-

team conversations.• What implications, if any, does the

conversation have for your school?

Greenhouse Practices in Boston

• Consistent Learning Environments That Enable a Focus on Student Growth

• Teacher Development Through Observation, Feedback and Peer Modeling

• Early Hiring with a High Bar

• Right Responses to Good (and Bad) Performance

Strong Instructional Culture

1. The expectations for effective teaching are clearly defined at my school.

2. Teachers at my school share a common vision of what effective teaching looks like.

3. My school is committed to improving my instructional practice.

Final Thought from Conclusion

School leaders elsewhere might consider looking for—or creating—opportunities for networking across schools within their own sectors. By making a commitment to the greenhouse schools practices across a handful of schools within a district or charter sector (or, ideally, between district and charter schools), school leaders may be able to push each other to improve results across the sector. One thing is clear: Boston’s success with students isn’t good luck; smart, strategic choices on the part of school leaders are contributing to the development of school environments where teachers can do their best work, and students are benefitting as a result.

Learning and Teaching in the ClassroomA Descriptive Framework

Teacher

ContentStudent

Task

Environment

Video Observation• What do you see?• What are the fundamental patterns of

teaching and learning?

Video Observation

• How well does this episode of teaching and learning match your school’s instructional model?

• Imagine this classroom exists within school. What are the most critical areas of improvement?

• What are the ways in which this teacher would improve his practice if he worked in your school (with its given systems, structures and processes)?

Fishbone: Root Cause Analysis Tool

Fishbone Diagram Directions

• Identify and clarify the problem statement. Place the statement in the problem box.

• Individually brainstorm the possible causes of the problem (on contributing causes of the problem).

• Share, discuss, and organizes the causes. Place the larger categories at the top of the bones and the related sub-cause down the bone.

Analyzing Your Fishbone

• Using some coding scheme of your choosing, identify:– 1. Low-hanging fruit—easy-to-solve, technical challenges

that can be solved with minimal investment– 2. Minor issues—causes not worth thinking any more

about– 3. Contributing causes that are beyond your power or

influence– 4. High-leverage causes—challenging causes that if you

could resolve would have a large payoff for students

Interrogating Your FishbonePart I: Presenter shows and discusses the “draft” fishbone (5 minutes)Part II: Colleagues should think aloud about what they see in the driver diagram (5 minutes)

– What may be missing?– How confident are you that the primary

causes are THE causes?– Are the causes within the scope of influence

of the individual/team/organization?– How compelling is they coding schedule they

have producedONLY COLLEAGUES TALK

Part III: Presenters talk about what they heard and anything they want to think more about (3 minutes). ONLY PRESENTERS TALK

Take your break!!!!

•Be back in the room by 3:00, please.

What else do you need?

• Materials• Resources• Means of networking