Issue 42: Mar 30, 2009 Connections Newsletter

A Master Teacher Talks About Learning-Focused

Denise Burson
Mar 30, 2009

The support you can gather from good friends and a master teacher is formidable. The encouragement you can give them in return (Yes, even Master Teachers need a little encouragement at times) is substantial. ~ John-Roger

I consider Dale MacArthur a Master Teacher. She teaches in a self-contained special education classroom with students in grades 3, 4 and 5 at Floral Avenue Elementary in Bartow, Florida. I had the privilege of meeting Dale while I was presenting the Learning-Focused Strategies: Transforming Standards into Learning and Learning-Focused Strategies: Connecting Exemplary Practices in Acquisition Lessons trainings. She was very skeptical of implementing Learning-Focused and did not believe it would work with her students. I encouraged her to try the strategies and not to get in a swivet! With a little encouragement Dale began implementing Learning-Focused.

She shares her experiences with us:  "Learning-Focused actually works in a special education classroom. My principal, Sheila Dyer, developed a timeline for Learning-Focused implementation for the school...the ENTIRE school K-5, no exceptions! I began by downloading the district Student Learning Maps and set about to re-design our bulletin boards into Student Learning Maps. The first day after I put them up, I began to have students comment: "Hey, you did all new boards." "We didn't have them last year" "Why did you take the other stuff down?" "What do they say?" and "What does that mean?", etc. So, I decided that, while I was answering their questions, I would try and convince myself that there might be something to this "stuff". I began by telling them that the bulletin boards in the entire school, regardless of the grade level, would all look similar to those in our room. They all liked the idea of "sameness" for the format! I went over what each of the headings was and stressed that they were called Student Learning Maps. I explained that they were designed to help keep us all focused on what we should be learning and to show us ways to learn besides just reading books, listening to me talk, completing workbooks and taking tests. They all seemed to be listening now!

I have used many types of Word Walls, but for some reason the students seemed to really take note of the vocabulary terms listed on the Student Learning Map. My students enjoyed learning the terms and concepts as opposed to simply reading a story and remembering what the story was about so they could get a good grade on the comprehension test! They were now talking about main idea, plot, author's purpose, summarizing, etc. It did not take them long, on their own, to be able to use these skills in all content areas. They knew they were learning and were quite proud. So, maybe I was quick to judge Learning-Focused. Now it is my turn to encourage other teachers. Relax and don't get in a swivet. Give it time. Learning-Focused does work! First, you have to open your mind to change, ignore the 'If it isn't broke, why fix it?' philosophy and be willing to ask for help! I am blessed with very encouraging and knowledgeable administrators and a fantastic staff that truly believes in teamwork.

I realize that it may take my particular students longer to grasp the standards, but they will. Learning-Focused teaches you how to plan and deliver instruction so that your students learn. My students are learning, and they take pride in knowing they are learning. YES, LEARNING FOCUSED STRATEGIES WILL WORK IN A SPECIAL EDUCATION CLASSROOM!"



A Powerful Connection Between Assessment Prompts and Distributed Guided Practice and Summarizing

Cindy Riedl
Mar 30, 2009

"How do we make it 'perfect practice'?"

If students automatically improved with practice - "doing it again and again" - many of us would be without a job!  Think back to those days when, as a student, you had to write the definition of a term ten times. How long was that definition retained? Practice alone does not get the job done, but meaningful 'perfect practice' does. Many skills, such as learning math facts and some math processes, grammar and high frequency sight vocabulary, require extensive practice until students are able to internalize these skills. The skills should become automatic, so they can be successfully applied in solving problems, deriving meaning from print and communicating orally or in writing. When students fail to internalize these skills, they enter a cycle of failure early and often require additional support in the form of remediation, only to fall further behind their peers.

The latest research on retention emphasizes the importance of making practice more meaningful and engaging.  Students, who in the past had difficulty learning math facts, finally conquer this challenge by making meaningful connections with music, riddles and stories, such as experienced in 'Math the Fun Way'. Using mnemonics is nothing new, but how they are used is. Research also supports chunking content. Brain research emphasizes chunking information such as a word, a concept, process or a generalization. It also states that a typical 'working memory' can only hold five to seven meaningful chunks of information at a time.

In the revised and updated edition of Mastery Teaching by Robin Hunter, one of the four cited principles of creating practice that improves student performance is a focus on planning ahead, such as how much material should be practiced at one time. Hunter states that, before moving on it is important to introduce short, connected meaningful chunks and then give several examples or alternative connections, with an emphasis on checking for understanding. Notice, the assumption of making the content meaningful is one of the most important accelerants of learning. Using models with modeling while expressing the 'thinking process' and connecting or building past knowledge to be transferred to future learning has always been a Hunter mantra and an example of exemplary practice.
 
As a young teacher, I was 'Hunterized' over many years, but it was not until I had the opportunity to examine the Learning-Focused experience that I realized how far ahead of her time Madeline's teachings were. My reflections further convince me that Learning-Focused is on the right path when it comes to planning and implementing practice. The Learning-Focused model not only targets Hunter's principles but also the recommendations made by research - chunking content and utilizing methods and practices that make distributed practice memorable and applicable to connecting present learning to past experience to future learning.

Now, for the Learning-Focused approach, which begins with the Lesson Essential Question. This question focuses on content driven by the state's standard and represents a chunk of the instructional content from a unit of study. First, we examine the Lesson Essential Question and create a list of what students need to know and be able to do to answer the question at the end of the lesson - assessment prompts!
 
Example:
 
Grade 3 Social Studies Unit: People and the Physical Environment
(Strand B: People, Places and Environments, Standard 2.2)
 
Lesson Essential Question:  What geographic features affect population density?
 
What do my students need to know and be able to do to answer this question?

  • Recognize and explain the characteristics of different landforms and bodies of water.

  • Recognize the characteristics and representations of a physical feature map

  • How to use a physical feature map and population density map of the same area of land to make assumptions about population density.

This list chunks the content of the lesson, which enables the teacher to create assessment prompts that are distributed after chunks of instruction throughout the lesson for student response in the form of distributed practice or summarizing. This allows the students to demonstrate what they have learned (or not learned). Guided practice and summarization is paramount to internalization supported by immediate feedback using collaborative pairs and teacher intervention.
 
Assessment Prompts for this lesson:

  • What distinguishes one landform from another?

  • How does the legend help you interpret the physical features on the map?

  • What assumptions can you make by comparing a physical feature map and a density map of the same area of land?  

Each of the above prompts requires students to relate to and internalize the content presented before moving on to the next chunk of content. Misconceptions and misunderstandings are addressed during feedback. Instead of asking the students whether they have finished a task, the teacher is asking if they have learned from it.
 
In math, distributed practice is often short and segmented but still reflects assessment prompts and use of collaborative pairs. Fewer problems are given, and more time is spent on error analysis and explaining a process in writing, i.e. how the problem was solved and areas of alert. Many math teachers go beyond requesting summaries where students explain what they have learned about a mathematical process. Students are asked to describe how to avoid errors or pitfalls and provide recommendations for other students, helping them to be successful at a task. Again, the practice is made personal and engages a much higher level of thought creating a stimulating challenge. Assessment prompts provide focus after each step in a process, to assure that all students are engaged in 'perfect practice' along the way. Collaborative pairs are an important during practice but should not be relied on by the teacher to assure that students are responding accurately. The teacher should check for understanding using more prompts that guide students to find the correct answers - not be told them. Individual white boards are useful tools for students who are learning a new math concept or steps in the process. The teacher can check for understanding before more practice is provided.

In conclusion, using the Lesson Essential Question to develop assessment prompts before planning the teaching strategies provides a more productive insight into how the content should be chunked for instruction and where distributive practice and summarizing should occur throughout the lesson. It takes the guessing out of how to provide 'perfect practice'.
 
Refer to Connecting Exemplary Practices in Acquisition Lessons for more information on this topic.



How Do I Move At-Risk Students Forward Quickly and Effectively?

Barbara McSwain
Mar 30, 2009

The school leader today needs a vision of success for students, staff and community. School leaders must recognize that students today are entering school with greater needs that require definitive skills from teachers. Administrators need to be able to accurately assess those needs and to provide the necessary professional development for teachers to meet those needs in a timely manner.  Exemplary leaders have implemented and given their teachers professional development in strategies that "Catch Kids Up". These strategies include Acceleration, Scaffolding, and Differentiated Assignments. This article is addressing the first of these strategies, Acceleration. None of these strategies can be used effectively without addressing vocabulary. 

Louisa Moats states that students are "vocabulary poor." Yet, often our solution to teaching vocabulary is to send them down the hall to a resource teacher to remediate vocabulary, while other students are learning grade level appropriate words. The students return to class and discover that they are further behind than when they left at the beginning of the period. There is a solution to this problem. We know that remediation alone does not work. If it did, every child in America would be on grade level. We must look at what successful schools are doing.

One of the researched based practices that has been recognized in exemplary schools is previewing. Previewing, which is not pre-teaching includes specific strategies that must be used with "at risk students". Students are taught key vocabulary using researched based strategies (i.e. Frayer, word map) prior to the teaching of the lesson. Learning key vocabulary is important to acquiring foundational knowledge, so that students can "hook" to the learning of new knowledge. This is a recognized need in social studies and science classes that are loaded with vocabulary.   However, the need is equally as great in math classes. Often students are given vocabulary at the same time they are trying to learn the mathematical process. The result is that the information is too overwhelming for the students and they stop trying. Acceleration provides a time to motivate students. This is when the teachers encourage the students to be excited about the new information that they will be learning. There is nothing like success to build motivation.
 
Many educators have become confused about Discovery Learning. One discovers concepts and issues foundational knowledge. One does not discover foundational knowledge, like vocabulary. It is imperative that students have the opportunity to be explicitly taught vocabulary and have multiple opportunities for engagement with the words in order to make the words their own in conversation and writing. Acceleration provides opportunities for key vocabulary engagement during previewing and then again during the teaching strategies portion of the lesson.

One of the top researched based instructional strategies is the use of advance organizers. The only difference between an advance organizer and a graphic organizer is when it is given to the student. If a student is given a graphic organizer prior to using it in the lesson, it becomes an advance organizer. "At risk" students often do not understand the structure of a graphic organizer. This inhibits their use of it for learning. Therefore, to Accelerate their learning, the structure of a graphic organizer is previewed by using content that is very familiar to the student. Later this same graphic organizer will be used during the lesson with grade level content to lift out key concepts and ideas. The Student Learning Map is used as an advance organizer. Teachers preview the Unit Essential Question, Key Learning and major Concepts that the students will be using in the unit. Through the use of the Student Learning Map, students are able to "see" connections in the learning.
 
Teachers should assess to see if students have background knowledge of the upcoming content. If background knowledge is present, teachers will link to the students' prior knowledge and then hook to the new information. When background knowledge is not present, teachers Accelerate learning by stopping to create or build it. This may be done by reading a story, showing a picture or watching a short video clip. The brain is a pattern seeking device. Anytime new information is received it immediately begins to search for associations that can be made with previous knowledge. It is imperative that educators have strategies that can be used with students to create background knowledge.

Learning-Focused addresses two models for Acceleration. The first model is the teacher model. Teachers may use acceleration prior to teaching a new unit/lesson through the Launch of the unit or during activating of the lesson. The second model is a school model. The school model utilizes time periods before, during, and after school that may be in place (i.e. study halls, Acceleration Labs, remediation periods, after school programs, Saturday classes and summer school). Both models include the following components for Acceleration:  previewing key vocabulary, previewing Student Learning Maps, and linking to prior knowledge (building/creating prior knowledge, if necessary, prior to linking).

One of my favorite stories is about an 8th grade teacher who responded after implementing Acceleration, "It was a miracle, just a miracle!"  This is a miracle that occurred when purpose and previewing collided.

"How do I move at risk students forward quickly and effectively?" We now know that this can be answered effectively via Acceleration strategies. We are not doing away with remediation but recognize that remediation alone cannot "catch kids up." Acceleration in combination with remediation is a most effective strategy!

See Catching Kids Up for more ideas on this subject.