CI5353 STANDARDS-DRIVEN LEARNING

CI5353 Presentations Transcript

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Transcript: Course Introduction 2

Module 1: The Role of Standards in Education 2
Part 1 Transcript: Defining Standards 2
Part 2 Transcript: Unpacking Standards 3
Part 3 Transcript: Why Standards Matter 6
Part 4 Transcript: Analyzing Student Data 7
Module 2: Standards in the Classroom 8
Part 1 Transcript: Focusing Instructional Time 8
Part 2 Transcript: Setting Priorities 9
Part 3 Transcript: Gathering Student Data 10
Part 4 Transcript: The Role of Standards Based Testing 11
Module 3: Classroom Interventions 12
Part 1 Transcript: Developing Solutions 12
Part 2 Transcript: Force Field Analysis 12
Part 3 Transcript: Setting Priorities 14
Part 4 Transcript: Focusing on Instruction 18
Module 4: Improvement Strategies 21
Part 1 Transcript: Levels of Teaching 21
Part 2 Transcript: Professional Learning Communities 23
Part 3 Transcript: Practice 25
Part 4 Transcript: Standards and Diverse Learners 27
Module 5: The Big Picture 29
Part 1 Transcript: A Pathway to Equity 29
Part 2 Transcript: Creating a Healthy Climate 29

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Transcript: Course Introduction

Everyone wants to be a part of a winning school community: a NOTES
community in which students master academic content, and
teachers are able to focus on essential, prioritized learning; a
community in which teachers and administrators work together
to ensure that all students learn.

We often hear complaints that educational standards are overly

demanding and restrict the way teachers teach. But the fact is,
standards can be and are a teacher's best friend. They allow
educators to maximize available instructional time and give
teachers permission to say "No" to lower-impact activities. They
allow teachers to focus their curriculum and instruction on
essential content - content that their students will need to
master as they prepare for life in the 21st century.

In this course, you will have the opportunity to analyze your

students' achievement levels and compare them to your state
and district educational standards. You will evaluate the
effectiveness of lesson plans and guidebooks to ensure that your
teaching materials align with the standards your students are
required to achieve. And you will examine the barriers that
prevent your learners from mastering key learning objectives.
Along the way, you'll learn how to get to the heart of educational
standards and focus your teaching on the big ideas and essential
understandings that are crucial for your students' learning. So
let's begin our journey into Standards-Driven Learning.

Module 1: The Role of Standards in Education

Part 1 Transcript: Defining Standards
Welcome to Standards Driven Learning. I’m Dr. Judy Zimny. NOTES

The underlying assumption of a standards-driven curriculum is

that all students are capable of achieving high expectations.

Simply put, standards are what students should know and be

able to do at the end of a grade level or class. They provide a
common end in mind…shared learning goals for students.

Attention to standards is not optional; as employees of the state,

teaching to a state’s standards is a must for public school
educators.

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Standards must be both specific and precise. Specific enough to

enable everyone to know exactly what students need to learn
and…precise enough to permit a fair and accurate judgment of
what has been accomplished.

Standards can be achieved in a variety of ways – states don’t

mandate a specific curriculum, textbook, or instructional
approach. They tell you what the goal is...not how to reach the
goal.

There are two types of standards: Content standards describe

the content that is to be covered in the lesson, and performance
standards describe what students must be able to do to
demonstrate mastery over that content. One is what students
know; the other is what students must be able to do. Some
people think of what students must do as a form of assessment.
It is that doing that tells whether or not a standard has been
met…and to what level.

For example, let’s use knowledge of the alphabet as a possible

standard. One teacher requires her students to recite the
alphabet and point to letters as they are named in random order.
Another teacher requires his students to print upper and lower
case alphabet letters upon demand in addition to identifying
which letter is represented by the beginning sound of a word.

Which class would you want your child in? Of course, the second
one…Why?…because that teacher’s students are mastering the
alphabet.

Part 2 Transcript: Unpacking Standards

There’s a lot more to standards than meets the eye. Unpacking
standards allows educators to identify the big ideas, the
enduring understandings, the essential questions, and the skills
and knowledge for a standard.

Before we decide how to teach something or how we’re going to

assess it, we have to know exactly what that something is that
we’re teaching. For example, writing persuasively is a lot easier
for a 4th grader when we articulate the big picture around our
expectations. If we teach a fourth grader that persuasive writing
includes a minimum of 5 paragraphs consisting of an opening
that aligns to one of 4 styles, 3 more paragraphs supporting the

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opening statement, and a closing summary, that gives the

student a foundation to build from.

Then we ask: Why is this topic worth learning about? Enduring

understandings provide a purpose for learning the targeted
content. They answer that question, “Why is the topic worth
studying?”

Let’s look at two possible Enduring Understandings:

1. Students will understand how to prevent behavior problems in

the classroom. Or…

2. Students will understand that at least 80% of effective

classroom management depends upon prevention strategies,
including routines, reinforcing positive student behavior,
providing appropriate instruction, and building personal
relationships with students.

Only the second example explains why the topic of classroom

management is worth studying. Only this one is a true example
of an Enduring Understanding.

We must understand the value in learning something in order to

communicate that message to our students, whether they’re
elementary school or college level. It is as important for students
to know why something is worth studying as it is for teachers.
Identifying the “why” helps focus students on deeper
understanding. It helps build conceptual structures in students’
brains that help them make sense of new, related knowledge.

With new material and particularly with at-risk students, it is

important to be explicit and relevant. Connect the “why” to
previous learning. Connect the “why” to their realities, their
worlds.

Any time a teacher is thoughtful about answering, “Why are we

studying this?” he or she is identifying enduring understandings.
In effective schools, teachers work together in content areas or
grade level teams to identify big ideas and enduring
understandings as part of instructional planning.

Once we’ve identified the big ideas and the enduring

understandings, high-impact teachers develop essential
questions to focus students’ attention. Essential questions
should be open ended and provocative. They help guide our

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inquiry. They serve to focus instruction and give it meaning. They

help us, teachers, uncover important ideas.

And, finally, we get to knowledge and skills. These are the

discrete objectives that we want students to know and be able
to do. These are the facts and processes that students must
master in order to achieve a deeper understanding of content.

Standards provide a backbone for instructional planning. They

provide a means for prioritizing and, in essence, give teachers
permission to say, “No!” to all of the other great, but less
powerful, activities that easily consume their instructional time.

Robert Marzano’s meta-analysis identified a “guaranteed and

viable curriculum” as one of the most powerful schoolwide
variables impacting student learning. He included two
interdependent factors in the concept of guaranteed and viable
curriculum. These were Opportunity to Learn and Time.
Standards address Marzano’s concern about identifying what is
essential for all students to know – the opportunity to learn.

Three different types of curriculum are described in the

literature: Intended curricula refer to content specified by a
state, district, or school to be addressed in a particular course or
at a particular grade level. The intended curricula equal the
standards.

Implemented curricula describe what actually happens when you

shut the doors…the content actually delivered by the teacher.
And the attained curricula refer to the content actually learned
by the students.

How closely does the instruction that takes place in your

classroom or your school align with the state’s intended
curricula? How does it align with actual student achievement?

Expectations in our nations’ schools vary widely, and many view

standards as the foundation upon which excellence and equity
can be built into our public school system. Determining
standards, measuring student progress against those standards,
and holding both students and educators accountable for
meeting those standards make up today’s standards-based
reform in education.

Increasing test scores are not to be considered as an end in

themselves, but as a reflection of, a by-product of, the effective

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integration and reinforcement of standards, curriculum,

instruction, and assessment all working together.

Part 3 Transcript: Why Standards Matter

State education agencies provide information about their
individual standards and assessment systems on their web sites.

Many states provide additional information regarding student

attendance, discipline, graduation rates, and other key
measures. A simple Internet search by state name and learning
standards will get you on your way. Many school districts also
provide similar, but more localized, information.

Teachers and administrators must internalize and fully

understand:

• what their students must be able to know and do.

• how student learning is assessed.

• and how their students are doing on state assessments.

You must know what your students are supposed to be able to

do before you begin teaching it …or before you can begin judging
how well others are teaching it!

Let me see if I can summarize the significance of standards with

the following description of an activity I enjoy doing when I ’m
working with educators.

I ask for a volunteer who is willing to be blindfolded. Fortunately,

some brave soul always steps forward. After blindfolding the
volunteer, I tape a bull ’s eye target on the wall and place a foam
dart in my student ’s hand. I then ask the volunteer to hit the
target. They inevitably ask, “What ’s the target? Where is it? ”

Never revealing the source of where I ’ve hung the bull ’s eye, I
encourage my “student ” in numerous ways.

I tell them, “Just try harder …you can do it! ”

“Hey, I know this can be hard, but I’ll give you $10 every time you
hit the target…”

“Okay, I’ll stay after class and help you improve your throwing
skills…” “Or maybe if we have a contest…” Or “if you just won ’t
cooperate, ‘Do I need to call your parents … ? ” Can you believe
that occasionally I even have students who develop an attitude
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about hitting the target? They become resistant. They actually

begin acting up! To really spice things up, then I throw a school
administrator into the mix …have them visit the classroom to see
how I am interacting with my students …just wait so they can see
all the effort I’m putting forth to make sure my student is on task
and trying to hit that intended target. So what do you think my
volunteers eventually do? They give up; they say, “This is
ridiculous; ” they just start throwing the dart anywhere – good
classroom control – and your guess is as good as mine. …and all
do it to a lack of clarity about what the target is.

We must refrain from walking into classrooms and just randomly

teaching.

Every minute must be purposefully planned to help students

reach the target. Just facing a student in the right direction isn ’t
enough; the target must be explicitly clear. Everyone in the
school is responsible for student learning, and everyone plays a
role, but planning and decisions must be based on an accurate
analysis of student achievement and data over time.

Part 4 Transcript: Analyzing Student Data

This week’s School -Based Analysis assignment asks you to go
online and find the state standards and measurement strategies
that are being applied to your students. Whether this is your first
or 100th time doing this, whether you teach special education,
fourth grade, or English language learners, teaching improves
every time we review what students must learn and how that
learning is being assessed. Classroom teachers must internalize
this information to the point of automaticity in order to make
effective, on -the -spot instructional decisions regarding what
and how to teach their students. Back to our alphabet example
provided earlier. Whether a student must be able to point to or
write letters are two very different skills that need to be taught
in two very different ways.

How much detail can you provide in response to the following

questions?

1. What exactly are your students supposed to master in your

classroom this year?

2. How exactly will mastery be measured?

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The better you can answer these questions, the more likely that
you will guide your students in the right direction.

Most states provide released tests, blueprints, sample items, or

other sources of information that show you how standards are
being assessed. It is the educator’s responsibility to find and
internalize this content….not wait for others to host professional
development or bring that fundamental skill set to you.

Understanding exactly what your students are supposed to learn

and how it is being measured provides the foundation for the
next step…how to analyze and address your student
achievement data by subgroups, grades, and content areas in
your school.

A basic tenet of high-impact education is that every educator

accepts responsibility for the following:

1. Internalizing what students must learn

2. Thoroughly understanding what that learning is supposed to

look like - how that learning is most likely to be measured, and

3. Clearly identifying what content students are or are not

successfully mastering.

With this fundamental, prerequisite information in place,

instructors are now ready to begin thoughtfully deliberating next
steps.

Module 2: Standards in the Classroom

Part 1 Transcript: Focusing Instructional Time
Let’s build on the work you accomplished last week and take it NOTES
right into your school or classroom.

This week, we will look more closely at your students’ actual

achievement as it relates to state standards, and we’ll begin
figuring out how to most effectively support and respond to
student performance.

If you serve a student group that doesn’t have specific state

standards prescribed, I’m confident that standards have been
developed by your district or other professional organization.

You have some ideas about what your students are supposed to
learn and how this learning is being measured. At least, you know

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this information exists, where to find it, and the significance of

using it. Usually about this point, an outspoken student speaks
up and says, “There is just too much to teach! How can I ever fit
all of this content into a single school year?” And that is a great
question – in fact, that question tells me that student is doing his
or her homework. The answer is – you can’t teach all that stuff.

Technology has facilitated an exploding knowledge base.

Content is continually added to the K-12 curriculum. The massive
volume of potential learning can easily leave teachers unable to
teach anything well and forever feeling like they are running out
of time…because they are.

Researchers at the Mid-Continental Regional Educational

Laboratory, or MCREL, calculated it would take over 15,000
hours to cover all of a state’s standards and benchmarks…while
the amount of available instructional time for K-12 students is
approximately 9,000 hours.

Part 2 Transcript: Setting Priorities

In our efforts to teach students everything we feel they should
know, we often end up teaching nothing really well. Actually,
that’s something I struggle with when I teach college students,
too! We all want so much for our students! Everything seems so
important. The limitations of time force us to prioritize if we truly
want to be effective.

So how do we prioritize in our K-12 classrooms? Willard Daggett’s

International Center for Leadership in Education crosswalks the
following data in prioritizing instruction: state standards

state standards that are tested (and thus already deemed

significant by the state), and essential skills needed by high
school graduates that have been identified by educators and the
public.

Rick DuFour proposes a similar, but different perspective when

differentiating among learning standards:

What is tested?

What is necessary to support learning in other content areas?

What is necessary to support learning in future grade levels?

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The most important message here is that educators must

develop a system for prioritizing what standards they actually
address. No matter how effective or committed a teacher is,
there are simply not enough hours in the school week to teach
everything as well as they want to teach it. As we look at and
develop a response to our student achievement data, we must be
realistic about the number of hours in a school day – even an
expanded school day!

Part 3 Transcript: Gathering Student Data

For this week’s assignment, you will review your state’s School
Report Card, or other means for reporting student achievement
data, for your group, your school, or your classroom. After
accessing this information, you will be asked to study your
students’ performance data to analyze the following: How does
your state measure student achievement? Is your state using a
criterion -referenced test? In criterion -referenced tests, student
learning is measured according to specific standards or skills
regardless of how they perform in relation to other students. All
students have an equal opportunity to do well.

In norm -referenced testing, student performance is compared

and judged to other students’ performances.

If you teach a subgroup or content area that isn’t measured by

state standards, having and measuring student performance
against clear learning targets will still accelerate your student
performance.

In highly effective schools, teachers in content areas that are not

assessed by the state often support students in mastering tested
skills by providing targeted practice within their own content
areas.

What content areas is your state assessing? When?

How have your students performed on state tests over the past
3-5 years? As educators, we must look at student information
over time and across content areas. Gone are the days when
educators could comfortably assume responsibility for only their
content area or grade level. School success requires that all
employees view student achievement holistically over time and
as the result of a highly interdependent, integrated, and focused
effort.

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How do subgroups perform within the overall school? What

percentage and what numbers of students make up these
subgroups?

How are students performing in different content areas? What

types of skills are weighted most heavily or are deemed most
important by your state?

Within those content areas, what objectives or standards are

most difficult for students?

Part 4 Transcript: The Role of Standards Based Testing

State testing must be maximized to do a lot more than monitor
and report student learning. As educators, we must make the
time to capitalize on state testing and use it to truly guide future
instruction. Reviewing student performance data can begin to
powerfully impact instruction when teachers investigate beyond
the reported test scores. Students’ answers need to be reviewed
and analyzed according to mastery levels. Teachers need to
collaboratively discuss test items and their students’
performance. While each of you is responsible for submitting
your own, unique assignments during this course, I encourage
you to collaborate as colleagues as you review your own district
and school’s achievement.

You must really understand what learning is required and how it

is being defined. As you review challenging areas, consider the
importance assigned to a standard by the state. Consider also
the importance of that task in determining a student’s success in
future grade levels or other content areas.

This type of extended analysis should always serve as the

foundation for instructional planning. There is no room for error
or ambiguity when making decisions about where to allocate
limited resources during a time when needs are so great.

In the end, as the teacher in front of the classroom or the

instructional leader in front of a grade level, department, or
school, you are making potentially life -changing decisions about
where priorities, energy, and funding will be placed in regard to
both academic content and students.

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Module 3: Classroom Interventions

Part 1 Transcript: Developing Solutions
So you have a clear picture of what your students need to learn NOTES
and how that learning is measured. You know what prioritized
content is not being mastered. Now what?

Interventions must be selected carefully. You do not have the

time nor the money to select the wrong intervention.
Furthermore, people become intervention resistant when they go
through multiple plans without success. You’ll hear teachers
complain about this program and that program and that staff
development, and we’re still where we were five years ago. And,
most importantly, students’ belief systems change when they
continue to experience failure. What were once skill issues
become belief issues for students. They do not believe they are
capable. They give up hope, and they stop trying.

Part 2 Transcript: Force Field Analysis

So what do you do? You’ve got this information; you know what
your problem is; how do you start figuring out what to do next?
What you don’t’ do is just run off and buy a program or jut start
doing things. You’ve got to work through a process to
collaboratively determine what is preventing your students form
mastering that content. What are some steps – some specific
things you can do to quickly move you to those answers because
you’re ready to work on a solution? The first step that I found
worked well consistently with staff and parents when I was a
principal, and they did this without me - they learned to do it and
would do it within their own groups which was even better - the
first tool that we used was what’s called a force field analysis.
It’s a tool you’ve probably seen in some of our other courses. It’s
widely used in the business world. And let’s walk through what
that works like, how that feels, what that looks like.

In a force field analysis, what you’re doing is you’re

brainstorming; you’re using formal brainstorming to determine
what are the things that are preventing student achievement or
mastery. What are the things that are preventing that from
working? And then what are the things that are driving that?
What are the things that are helping that are working? You need
to know what is working, so you keep doing that, and you don’t
pull away funding from something that’s really important.

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But you need to know what’s not working, so you know which
problem to attack. You can’t attack all 300, but you want to get
down and attack the right one, two, or three so that you can really
make gains that you see and that impact student learning.

For example, when I opened a new elementary in 1994, that was

a big elementary school. We had 1,200, 1,300 students, and
student behavior was not what it needed to be. In fact, it was
embarrassing - quite a humbling experience. So we pulled our
group of building leaders together, and we said, “Let’s talk about
what’s preventing students from behaving in this school.” Didn’t
require a lot of data even though we had a lot of data around it -
it was pretty obvious every 30 minutes that we had a problem
with student behavior on that campus. When we got together,
and we talked about what are the drivers, what are the things
that we have in place that are helping us to manage student
behavior, we didn’t have a whole lot of those. Not then, sad to say.
Then we went to the other column, and we did formal
brainstorming around what’s preventing our students from
behaving in a safe, civil way – the way all of us want students to
be behaving. Those were always painful sessions. I start out
talking with the teachers, parents, or whatever group I’m with
about what the focus needs to be on is the process.

Generally most of the time in life, people are really working hard
and doing the best they know how to do. They’re working very
hard, but somewhere that process is breaking down. What you
don’t want to do is get into a blame session because then you
don’t get anywhere.

When you start listing the things that are preventing students
from reading, from knowing this science content, or in our
example behaving, what are some of the things you hear? I do
that through formal brainstorming so that everybody’s idea is
heard. You don’t want one person monopolizing the conversation
and going on and on. A lot of times, some of your best ideas come
from your quietest faculty. The one in the room who doesn’t talk
often, but when they do, wow, you’re glad you heard it.

I would go around that group of teachers, and I would say, “What

do you think is preventing our students from behaving?” You
know, the first one might say, “Well, you know, it’s home training.
They weren’t taught at home to respect adults; it’s just home
training.” We write up there “home training.” Might go to my next
one, and I’ll say, “Well, what do you think is preventing these

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students from behaving?” “Well, they get to school an hour early.

They’re on that playground for an hour. They are wild by the time
they get in the door.” You write, “Hour on the playground before
school.” You’re just getting your ideas. It’s not about judgment.
It’s about brainstorming the things that are preventing student
behavior. Go to your next one, and she might say, “We all have
different rules. We all enforce the rules differently.” “Different
rules - different levels of reinforcement.” It’s kind of painful. I
remember ending up sometimes with 30 things that were
barriers to goals that we wanted. Now a year later, two years
later when you can look at that and say, “Ahhh, we’re so much
better,” it feels good. But those particular sessions can be hard,
I think, especially for people in leadership positions because we
know that we are responsible for those systems. Nonetheless,
you’re completing this force field analysis, and you’re going to
end up with a list of things that are preventing students from
doing well in whatever area you select. Could be attendance,
behavior, specific academic area – all of those kinds of things.
For us and for the purpose of this discussion, I’ll use the example
of student behavior.

Part 3 Transcript: Setting Priorities

All right, so now I end up with this list of 30 things that are all
preventing students from behaving in my school. Well, that’s not
very encouraging, and it doesn’t give you a real sense of “Wow,
we can go handle that! We can attack that!” So you’ve got to look
at that list with some different lenses. One of the things you want
to do when you look at that list is think about what on this list can
we control? Hmm…because if it’s something we really, really,
really can’t control, or it’s going to take a tremendous amount of
effort to control, it’s really a stretch, maybe we just knock those
things off because we really can’t control them. Let’s just admit
that. Are we going to change the entire bus system for the entire
district? Probably not. We’re probably not going to get them to
bring kids to school later. They’re bringing them early so that all
1,300 can be fed before the school bell rings. So, not, don’t even
worry about that getting to school early or at least don’t worry
about it from an angle of “we’re going to change the bus system.”

But look at your list, and talk about what you can control. We’re
not going to control poverty. That comes up time and time again
on lists of barriers. We’re not going to control the fact that

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students come to our schools needing to speak English - needing

to learn to speak English…that’s not something we can control.
Those youngsters will always be there, just like our ancestors
were in school at one point. Knock out the things you can’t
control. Don’t’ spend time on them. Sometimes there are issues
with the superintendent; they’re mandates that come on high.
Don’t worry about it. Get those off your worry list, so you can put
your energy where it’s going make a difference.

Now, let’s start talking about things we can control. So there may
be some things on that list that you’re saying, “Hmmm”…things
like us all having different rules and us responding differently to
different kinds of student behavior. That’s definitely in our
control. And what you start looking for is what kinds of things
could be high -impact with what I call low effort. And by effort,
what I mean is money, time, and energy. Because those are the
only three things you really have as a faculty. You don’t have a
lot of money; you really don’t have enough time, and you really
don’t’ have a lot of energy by the time you’ve done everything you
want to do every school day.

So you want to take the amount of extra effort that’s going to be

required to a minimum while you look at strategies that are going
to have high impact. So how much effort is really required for a
faculty to come together and say, “We’ve got to agree on some
common rules. We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do.”
Because we know that not having common rules and not
reinforcing common consequences is a problem, that’s doable.
That doesn’t cost a ton of money. That doesn’t take a ton of time.
Now is it going to be easy to implement? No, because people are
going to disagree, and all those normal things, but you get my
gist. My gist is look at things in light of “get your bang for your
buck.” How much work is it going to take for the results that I’m
going to get?

Let me give you a different way to look at it. I can remember when
I was a first -year teacher, and I taught early childhood special
education, and I was so excited. And there were Dalmatian
movies out and all; you know this was several decades ago. I can
remember I spent hours cutting out Dalmatians and making my
classroom just be beautiful. I mean it was high effort, and, then
as I wised up as an educator, I realized I had put forth all that
effort and all that time for something that made minimal impact

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in terms of my student learning. So for your effort, you want to

make sure you have the impact that you can get.

Low -hanging fruit is a term that people use to refer to things

that work; identifying systems or processes or procedures that
work that are like easy, and they just bubble up out of the
conversation. Somebody will say something like, “Well, if we
have the attendance clerk mark this this way” – something easy,
and it’s called low - hanging fruit. My gosh, just do it. You don’t
need to deliberate those kind of things forever.

All right, so hmmm, I’ve identified what’s preventing students

from learning. I’ve identified my weak skill area. Now I’ve kind of
made a list of what I think is preventing them from doing well in
that area – whatever it is. And you know maybe I’ve come up with
two or three things that I think are most likely. Another thing that
works well is when you have those lists is to group the common
things on your list. You might see things like students back talk;
students are rude to teachers. You can kind of put those together
in the same boat. Doesn’t mean they’re not problems; it’s just in
terms of looking at the things that are preventing students from
behaving – they could be lumped together. Because what you
want to do is end up with a cleaner list. You’re taking that list
from 30 items, which is like totally overwhelming, to maybe a list
of like 10 items.

You’ve removed the things you can’t control; you’ve looked at the
ones that are not really high impact, and you just know right away
they’re going to be way too much work, way too much money. It’s
not going to happen. You’ve cleaned those out.

You’ve combined some of those that could be working together.

And now what you’re going to do is multi - voting, and what you’re
doing with multi -voting — also called sometimes the nominal
group strategy —is you’re building consensus among yourselves
as a faculty or as a leadership group about what’s the barrier that
you’re going to get rid of. What is it that we’re going to take care
of in this school? We’re focused on doing one thing.

So on your list, you might end up with six possible things that
you’ve said, “Gee, these are six things that could be worth
looking at. These are six things that if we remove these barriers,
student achievement would definitely improve.” So in multi -
voting, you tell each of the faculty who is there, to pick your top
two or three (you choose the number), but you choose a number
and it’s more than one. You choose your top two, and you tell
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them, “Each of you can come up here, and the idea that you think
is most important, the one that’ll have the most impact that’s the
most doable, give that two points. The one that’s next most
important and next most doable, give it one point. They’re all
important, but we’re trying to prioritize, and what will come out
of that exercise, as you can see on the slide, is you’ll come out
with a chart that has all these different little numbers and dots
and things, but it gives you a sense of collectively what the group
is agreeing on. Collectively what the group is saying is most
important. For example, back in my elementary school in which
the students did not behave, and it was not a comfortable
experience, you know one of the barriers we identified was that
we were all incredibly inconsistent. It was a new school. We had
all come from different schools. We all had our own
understandings of the way kids should walk in halls, the way they
should line up after recess, all of those issues. And we said, “You
know, we’ve got to get our act together as a faculty. We need a
better foundation - a better backbone.” But once everybody
agreed on that, and you can say, “You know we know that we
have other problems; we acknowledge them; they’re important;
we’re going to get to them, but, boy, we’re taking care of this
problem today, and we’re taking care of this problem now.” Gives
you a chance to focus - gets people around together. That’s
good. So now, you’ve come to agreement on what you want to do,
what barrier you want to remove that’s preventing you from
being successful, whether it’s with student behavior or whether
it’s with a reading skill or whatever. We actually ended up doing
this same kind of thing with reading. I’m just using behavior
primarily for an example because we can all relate to it, and it’s
something that a lot of people do struggle with. It’s a hard, hard
issue.

All right, so now what do you do? All right I know we’ve got to
make students behave better in this school. We know we want a
more orderly, positive, pleasant climate that we feel good to
come to every day. What do I do? Well, we do those things that
we’ve all been taught to do but sometimes have to exercise some
restraint to do it because we want to fix the problem today. And
that’s we go back, and we look at the research. What does the
research tell us around school change? Around creating safe,
civil, orderly, pleasant school environments? Look at what the
research says. We don’t want to be a research project – we want

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an effective school. We’ll go back and steal from what other

people have already learned.

So, in that example, that’s exactly what we did. We put together

teams of teachers who did Internet research; they went out and
visited schools. And they actually in the end selected a program
that they chose to adopt as a school -wide program.

Did student behavior improve in a week? Nope – we know better

than that. Did it improve in a month? Hmmm, not significantly, but
we started seeing hope. Did it improve in a year? Incredible
improvement – you know I mean that within a year, we went form
like 1,400 referrals to an administrator’s office in a year’s time to
maybe 20 a month. That is a different kind of campus, but you
don’t just go out and start doing something. You’ve got to look at
what the research says. Another thing that teachers and
principals do a lot is they’ll look at what works in other schools
because there are other schools that have mastered these
problems. It’s not about any school being bad or good or worse
or more committed than another; it’s about where a school is in
terms of its evolution. Some schools, for whatever the reasons,
have had time to master some of those challenges that could be
present in a school that you’re in right now. Learn from those
schools. Get on the internet. Study those schools. Pick up the
phone and call them. They’re happy to share their story. But
before you choose an intervention, look at what the research
says, and look at what other schools have done because
whatever intervention you choose, you want it to be the right
intervention.

Part 4 Transcript: Focusing on Instruction

When people ask me how I turned a school of over 1,200 students
into a 90 -90 -90 school, sometimes I almost feel like the answer
sounds too simple, but I think it is the answer. The answer is:
Allowing yourself to really place a priority on instruction.

I’ll talk in a minute about what that looks like, but I want to talk
about that thought for a minute. What happens in a school is
there’s a sense sometimes that a school should do everything.
You should recognize every possible holiday with great things;
you should do every possible project, every possible poster
contest - every possible everything. And then all of the sudden,
you’re saying, “Yikes – what about teaching reading?” And that

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was one of the first things that we had to make a decision about
as a faculty: There was going to be one driving force in this
school, and that was going to be student achievement. That
meant giving up some of the things that were fun that we really
enjoyed doing, but if they weren’t clearly and directly supporting
student achievement, we had to really evaluate whether or not
they were worth our time. So first of all, you’ve got to make
student learning a priority. If it’s really a priority, what you talk
about changes, what you post in your classroom and on your
hallway walls, that all changes - because now learning is your
priority.

So how else does that look? All of a sudden, you have goals at
every grade level and in every content area, very explicit goals
that you derive from your standards about what are students in
first grade are going to be able do – in third grade, in seventh
grade. And that is hard for teachers. I mean, that was one of those
things that people literally shed tears over because I’ve always
done this, and I’ve taught kindergarten for 21 years. And I’ve
always done this in my 2nd grade class, and we’ve always done
this in 5th grade, and those were some really cool things, but if
they weren’t getting students what they needed, we had to again
really evaluate why we’re doing them. Getting people to really be
explicit was hard, too. You have a group of eight or 10
kindergarten teachers, and two are saying they can learn these
high - frequency words when they’re in kindergarten. They’re
ready for that if you give them enough print and enough
language, and you’ve got other kindergarten teachers saying,
“That’s too demanding; you’re asking too much.” The teachers
had to wrestle through that and grapple through that and come
to consensus because they all used common assessments every
Friday every week. They would gather student data related to
that week’s learning targets, and then talk about it and figure out
what students were doing well on and what did they need to do
to provide more support to students…so explicit learning goals
at every grade level.

People talk about professional learning groups; well, that is what

professional learning groups are. They are groups of teachers
who meet together weekly or regularly, and they’re looking at
student performance data. But I think you have to be careful
when you talk about professional learning groups that you don’t
let the umbrella term prevent the reality of what needs to

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happen, which is discussion around student learning and student

data.

And I would say the last thing is is that everything has to do with
student learning. You keep bringing people back to that goal. I
can remember one of my favorite teachers coming to me and
saying, “I would love to do a yearbook.” And she was just
adorable and high - energy, and everything she did was so great,
and I thought if she did a yearbook, it would be so cool. I know
that people would keep it and treasure it forever. But I had to put
on the breaks and say, “Hmm, let’s talk about this. How is this
going to directly impact student learning, and is there maybe a
better way to use your talent, your time, and your energy
because I value you so much as a staff member. But if student
achievement is really the priority, and if five years from now, it’s
not going to really make a difference in their lives as whether or
not they can read well, maybe we need to do different things.”
So how do you improve a school’s achievement level? The
number one thing is daring to focus and then daring to maintain
that focus over years.

People have asked me a lot about my opinion of the whole

standards - driven movement – the whole testing. Does it oppress
student learning? What are my thoughts about that? And without
a doubt, it’s a controversial issue, I’ll certainly acknowledge that.
What do I think about it? What I think about it is that it provides a
backbone. It provides a backbone.

If students master the content that a state is asking that every

child in that state be able to know and do, there’s nothing
preventing a school or a teacher from doing more. By all means
go for it. Go for it. If someone’s really concerned about the kind
of content that we’re asking students to learn, I would really
encourage them to go in and look at one of those state tests and
see if they don’t also think that every student shouldn’t be able
to know and do that. I’ve never had anyone say, “Oh, I don’t want
students knowing that.” Those are things students need to do. If
we’re worried about that content being too low – the
expectations being too low, then I think what we really need to
be worried about is: Why aren’t our students doing better? So, do
I think it’s oppressive? Absolutely not - I think it provides a very
solid backbone. I think it’s really impacted equity in our school
systems, and I’ve been a public educator for 27 years.

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I know it’s hard. I know it’s difficult, but I believe something had
to be done, and I think it is a move in the right direction. Can it be
made better? Will we figure things out? Yep. But it’s still a move
in the right direction.

Module 4: Improvement Strategies

Part 1 Transcript: Levels of Teaching
This week, for your practice and your school, NOTES

you’re going to look at different strategies. You’re going to be

exploring what the research says might be out there that could
potentially help you remove the barrier that you’ve identified in
your previous work. So you’re going to be doing some Internet
searching; you’ll be reading some articles; you might be talking
with teachers or principals from other schools. So I had to take a
step back and say, “What can I share that will add value to the
work they’re already doing to identify effective school strategies
and high-impact instructional strategies?” And I made a decision
that I would share things that you won’t find in those books. I
made the decision to share some of the things that I’ve learned
and seen in my 27 years in the public schools.

So the first thing I’d like to share with you is something that I call
Levels of Teaching, and the significance of this is that I think it’s
important for teachers to recognize that there’s a natural flow,
there’s a natural evolution that people go through when they’re
growing professionally. So what does that matter? That matters
because you’re going to see how it does link to standards. It
matters because it helps all of us to be more nurturing and more
accepting of our new teachers when they come in. And it helps
all of us to see where we can go and to gain a sense of hope. I
can remember as a new teacher looking at the teachers who
were awesome and thinking, “I’ll never be like that. I’m not wired
like that.” But when someone can show you some stages, when
they can scaffold it, it gives you hope.

So what’s that first stage of teaching? Okay, be honest. Think

back to your first year. Hmm, I remember my first year, and it was
pretty embarrassing sometimes. I can remember one night
before winter break my first year when I was the last one in the
school. I felt like Scrooge. I was picking up little pieces of crayon
all over the floor, and the custodian came by and he said, “What
are you doing picking up all those little pieces of crayon?” And I
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said, “Well, I don’t want you to have to pick them up. You
shouldn’t be responsible for all this mess. It’s a little excessive.”
And he said, “Well, seems to me you’d want your students to pick
up those crayons.” Life -changing moment. So how do I define
that stage of teaching? I define that stage of teaching as chaos.
Lots of good people…lots of good intentions…most of us go
through that stage. Now when that stage is really bad, then I
would add the word dangerous. And we’ve all seen those kinds
of classrooms, too. The kids are running in and out the doors; you
walk by and you think, “Dangerous place, not a good place to be.”
And most of us grow through that stage fairly quickly because
it’s just a little too painful, but if we’re honest, we’re there
sometimes. We were there at one point in our careers.

So what’s kind of the next stage that evolves? The next stage is
what I call babysitting. It’s not awful. It’s safe; it’s comfortable.
Students are happy. You don’t get a lot of parent complaints.
Great place for a substitute teacher to be. It’s not somewhere
where you want your long -term professional career educator to
be, but it’s a lot better than a chaotic, dangerous classroom. So
teachers go through that stage. Their students are happy; they’re
comfortable; things are okay.

Then what? Then they start figuring out that, “Oh, my gosh,
there’s this thing called standards. Oh, yeah, there’s, oh, my gosh,
my students are going to get tested on this at the end of the year.
I’ve got to start teaching this stuff. I’ve got to start figuring it out.”
I call that the “some of this, some of that.” They’re trying. If we
were looking at our students, our young students, even though it
applies to any age of student, we might call that the zone of
approximation. They’re trying. They kind of have the idea. Not
real highly effective, but you’ve got a safe classroom, and you’ve
got a teacher with good intentions who’s putting forth good faith
effort. So these are the first three levels of teaching,
unfortunately, that people have to grow through. One of our jobs,
whether we’re in a leadership position or just a colleague or a
mentor to a teacher in our schools, is to help them grow through
these first three stages so that they can get to what I call stage
four.

Now stage four gets a lot of criticism, but personally, I think it

has its place. I call stage four “focused worksheets.” Ugh, that’s
a bad word, worksheets. I know it. But focused worksheets do
teach. I’ll bet some of you grew up on focused worksheets. I know
I grew up on those purple ones that you can smell. Most of you
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are probably too young for that. But by the time teachers get into
the focused worksheet thing, they know what their students are
supposed to be doing, and they’re pulling together instructional
materials that are aligned to those standards. And they’re
focused; they’ve got a plan; they’ve got their time laid out. It’s
really quite a bump in terms of student achievement. Students
are learning in those classrooms…may not be a great climate.
They may not be real exciting, but there’s learning.

So what’s next? The next level I see teachers grow to is they

really begin to scaffold or differentiate their instruction. They
have figured out that the same worksheet doesn’t work for
everybody, and they have figured out that there are ways to do
things with worksheets or to find other kinds of worksheets so
that you can begin to pull students up, but that you do have to
teach students at their instructional level while you’re pulling
them up to the standard you want them to be. Teachers grow
through that. They get really good at it, and a strong four or five
level teacher can really impact student learning. I can work with
a teacher who’s a level four or a level five because I know with
the right modeling and the right nurturing, you’ll get the teacher
to that level six.

What makes that level six teacher different? A level six teacher
can be characterized by very purposeful instruction, “Why are we
learning this?” and very integrated instruction. When we talk
about integrating academic content across content areas, really
embedding those skills that you’re hitting in your level four
worksheets, but now those level four skills are embedded within
a meaningful whole, meaningful context, and we know from
brain research that skills that are taught in the context of a
meaningful whole are learned more easily. It’s more fun. They’re
retained longer, but boy, that’s a lot of work, and that’s a highly
skilled teacher who’s a number six. But to ever even become a
level four, five, or six, you’ve got to have done your homework
and understand your standards.

Part 2 Transcript: Professional Learning Communities

What’s another strategy that I’ve seen work really well in schools
across our country? The global word that you’ll hear is
professional learning community. The phrase kind of reminds me
of phrases like phonics and whole language, and it can mean a
lot of different things to a lot of different people. So let’s go
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beneath the hood and say, “What’s an activity that professional

learning groups do? What’s that activity; what’s that process that
increases student achievement?” And one of the most powerful
activities I’ve seen is when teachers at a common grade level or
in a common content area begin really using common
assessments. All right, they’ve already clarified which goals,
which standards they’re teaching. They’ve already built a
calendar very concretely about what standards are being
addressed when, when they’re being reviewed. That work is done.

So what’s the next piece? The next piece is checking to make

sure students are learning them. A simple form of formative
assessment, not something that’s going to take five, six, eight
hours out of your week every week. You don’t have time for that.
You want your time to focus on teaching, but you need to stop,
and you need to check. Now how do you make that more
powerful? You make it more powerful when you do it with a
colleague, when you do it with three or four colleagues, and
that’s what becomes your professional learning community
because you’re coming together, and you’re looking at student
achievement data.

Let’s get real practical. So I’m a second grade teacher, and one
of the skills that I want to make sure my students learn is that
they can add and that they can regroup when they add. So this
week, I’ve been teaching how to do double digit addition with
regrouping without a zero. Sometimes zeroes are tricky. That’s
our skill for this week in math…or that’s one of our skills, so all of
the second grade teachers selected six double-digit addition
problems that we’re going to assess students on, and then we
come together, and we look at the percentage of students who
have passed each item. So just for example, here we can see item
number one, 88 percent of students pass, two, three, four, five
and six, and if you look at that data, obviously the question that
that data elicits is: What happened in item number three? What
happened in item number six?

That’s where the essence of improving teaching, improving

student achievement begins. When you’ve got a group of
teachers, two, three, four, five, who say, let’s look at item number
two, and they say, “You know what; I don’t think my kids knew
how to read this, and this problem was built in the context of a
word problem. I think that’s why my students, so many of them,

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got it wrong.” Teachers start figuring out what was the barrier to
student learning in that item.

Now your tests have got to be short; they have to be simple; they
have to be precise because you don’t have four hours to meet
every week. We’re talking about a 30-minute discussion around
student data so that then you’re making decisions about next
week when we teach this skill or when we review this skill, this is
what we’re going to do differently. Or maybe next week, we can
do even more because, man, they’ve got this. But teachers are
talking together. It’s that same thing of that, truthfully, three and
four brains are better than one.

When teachers pull together regularly, truthfully and very

authentically, it’s not about who’s right, who’s wrong, who’s a
better teacher; it’s about “Let’s figure out what’s going on with
our students so that all of them can be successful.” That’s what
a professional learning group is all about.

Part 3 Transcript: Practice

Let’s talk just a little about practice. Practice is actually one of
the high - impact strategies identified by Marzano. Practice is
something students don’t usually really like to do. And
sometimes we as teachers really don’t allow enough practice for
our students to master whatever it is we’re teaching. So let me
share with you a little activity that I sometimes use with graduate
students and sometimes use with my elementary or high school
students to help them just get the gist of the power of practice.
It would start with my students when I’m in a face -to -face
environment. I use marshmallows because that’s always fun, and
anything with food is fun. And I’ll give every student four of those
big, soft marshmallows. Of course, they say immediately, “Why,
why do I have all these marshmallows?” I’ll say, “Just hang onto
them; don’t eat them; don’t do anything with them yet.” And
everybody comes in; they all have their four marshmallows. Then
I’ll say — so we’re going to have four pink paper blobs; you don’t
have to worry about anybody eating these, but they will serve the
same purpose — and I’ll say to my students, “Okay, pick up one
marshmallow, and now I want you to hit the target.” All right,
yeah, you already know that from the earlier lesson. They’re
going to say, “What target? Where’s the target? We don’t know
where to throw.” And I’ll be like, “Oh, that’s right; that’s right.”
Then I’ll put a trash can on top of the desk or something else
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equally fancy — there’s my fancy container for today — and I’ll

say, now take that marshmallow, just one; take that one
marshmallow, and I want you to get that marshmallow into that
container.

Of course, they’re really a fairly traditional classroom with lots of

rows and desks and things, and they’re happy to throw
something; even the graduate students are happy to, and they
throw their marshmallows. A lot of them have better aim than I
do, but some of them get it; some of them don’t. And they’re like,
“Oh, we want to do it again.” And I’m like, “Okay, all right, pick up
another marshmallow. All right.” You can see them aiming and
setting themselves up, and I’ll say, “Do it again.” And you know,
more of them get it. And they say, “Oh, I want to do it again.”
“Okay, do it again.” They pick up another marshmallow. And what
you’ll see visually through each of the times is that more and
more of the marshmallows make it into the can. Nobody wants to
eat them either after they’ve been in the trashcan. And then I’ll
say, “What’s this all about? What does this illustrate?” And every
time, they’ll say, “Practice. We’re better because we practiced.”
And that’s 100 percent right. No matter what the skill is, no
matter how simple it is, no matter how complicated it is, the more
you practice it, the better you get at it.

Let me give you just one example of how practice really applies
to what we do in this school every day. Every school, everybody
is worried about building student literacy. It doesn’t matter
whether you’re in the second grade or whether you’re in the tenth
grade. Everyone worries about building student literacy. Well, so
we know that students need to practice. Okay, we understand
that. Well, think about us when we practice. Hmm. You don’t want
practice to be too miserable. You don’t want it to be too much
failure. That’s not what you want to be practicing. You want
practice to be comfortable where there’s a decent level of
success.

So how do you make that happen in a school? Well, one of the

ways you make that happen is by increasing the amount of print
available in the schools. Lots of print. You want on level, easy,
varied, exciting print everywhere in the school. If a student goes
to the nurse, oh, my gosh, they should want to go to the nurse
because there are so many Highlight magazines or running
magazines. Anything you would want to read would be in that
clinic. They go in their classroom; there’s even more. There are
books that are funny…There’s books that are interesting. “Gosh,
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I can’t wait to read this book.” Hmm. When you increase the
practice, the skill’s bound to improve. And while the research
doesn’t really show a causal relationship between increased
print and increased reading scores, it does show correlational
relationships. When print increases in a school, student reading
increases in a school. And I can’t help but believe that has
something to do with practice.

Let’s look at another place where practice fits in and is just so

important. Let’s use this big green rubber band to illustrate this.
All righty, here’s my big green rubber band. Up here at the top,
this is my goal. This is the learning standard. This is where I need
to get the student. It just happens to be that this student is right
here. Hmm. It’s kind of a big distance right there. That distance
could be three grade levels, sometimes even more. So what do
we do as educators? Sometimes out of sympathy, out of concern,
all out of good intentions, we’re very tempted to lower that
standard and still pull up the student. But in doing that, the
student is nowhere near the standard or the level that the other
students are. So we want to use practice and scaffolding to
enable is to hold that standard constant. Don’t let that standard
change. That’s where equity comes in. That standard cannot be
different for different children…and move the student up. It’s
that ability to move a student to the standard that distinguishes
the truly outstanding teacher from the regular. Lots and lots of
teachers can teach lots of kids, but I would challenge that today,
only a few, only a small percentage of teachers really teach all
kids successfully. We need to change that in our profession. We
need to make lots and lots of teachers be able to teach all kids,
not just most kids.

Part 4 Transcript: Standards and Diverse Learners

I’d like to look at this issue of learning goals, standards, whatever
label we give them, in the context of some of the other content
areas or learning groups. When you think about special
education students, students who are English language learners,
all those multiple groups of students with unique needs... I
mentioned earlier in the course how important it was to still have
standards. I know that some states don’t prescribe standards for
certain subgroups of students, but established goals, whether
through a student’s IEP, or goals that teachers in a school have
agreed upon, help drive and help guide and shape and focus

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instruction. When you think about the extra funding that’s

provided for special education students, for our English
language learners, for our youngsters who are in our alternative
education programs, the entire purpose of that funding is to help
move those students toward the goal. Go back to our green
rubber band. Okay, so I’ve got a student who’s struggling,
whatever the reasons are, and gosh, there are so many of them,
they’re struggling. The extra funding is provided to move that
student up, to give the teacher the resources, the smaller class
size, whatever it is to move that student to goal. So for some of
us who are teaching in those kinds of environments, it’s even a
bigger challenge because I know that everything’s not perfect
just because, oh, you’ve got 12 students in your class, and it’s a
smaller class. The needs those 12 students have will be
incredible, but never lose sight of the fact that the reason you’re
in that kind of a unique or special situation is never to be a
babysitter. It’s never to do some of this and some of that. The
reason that you’re in that special kind of situation is to pull
together and focus the resources to move that student as close
to the standard as is humanly possible.

To close this little discussion about practice, I want to talk about

the importance of prompt, specific feedback. You already know
how important it is. We don’t need to read about it in the research.
What we need to know is: How do we make it real in the
classroom? How do you make it real in a classroom of 28
students with 50 different things going on at the same time? And
that’s a challenge for teachers. That’s a good thing for teachers
to talk about when they’re meeting in those professional learning
communities. It’s hard. It’s very hard. And yet we don’t want
students practicing errors, and we don’t want them practicing
the wrong things. So we’ve got to be creative about what kind of
systems we put in place. It can be something as simple as having
a peer check another student’s work.

It can be something as simple as having somewhere students go

and check their own answers when they finish something. And
yeah, there’s always going to be a few who are going to work the
system and maybe not do their work the right way, but what you
want to focus on is moving the bulk of your students, put in place
systems that will support the majority of your students. Once you
get 80 to 90 percent of your students moving, progressing well,
you’ll have time and energy to focus on those remaining 10 to 15
percent. But you’ve got to build in lots of practice, and at the

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same time, you’ve got to put in place the structure to provide

some prompt and some specific feedback related to what they’re
mastering and what they need to do differently.

Module 5: The Big Picture

Part 1 Transcript: A Pathway to Equity
I’ve come down pretty hard on this topic called standards. NOTES

I know I have, but I really believe it’s important that we commit

the standards to memory. We who are teaching really need to
know what our students are supposed to learn. But I also want
you to know that I know standards also fit within the context of
a much bigger picture. I know they’re controversial. I know
they’re not perfect, but what I do believe is they provide is I do
believe they provide a pathway to equity.

I’m old. I can remember when not every student was taught the
same way. I can remember that. I can remember when certain
groups of students were excluded for this reason or that reason,
not from the physical classroom, but from what was happening
in the classroom, from the life, the spirit of the classroom, the
intent of the classroom. And the focus on standards, the focus
on measurement, the visibility they provide, I believe, is moving
us to a better place. They’re problematic. They’re not perfect.
You, you, you, the one in the classroom, the one in the trenches,
you will be a part of the answer. You will be a part of figuring out
how to use these standards more effectively for students’
benefit.

Part 2 Transcript: Creating a Healthy Climate

When I talk about looking at standards within the context of a
bigger whole, there’s a much bigger picture when you’re in a
school or when you’re in your classroom. It’s that bigger picture
that everyone of you feels immediately when you walk in the door
of anyone else’s school or classroom. Uh -huh. That bigger
picture, that thing called climate. You know, we just can’t force
learning. Our brains don’t work that way.

Let’s take a minute and remember school for you. Think back,
now really do this, do this with me. Think back, remember a time
when you were in high school or middle school or elementary

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school. Think back about a time that was great. Man, it was a
good moment in school for you. Can you remember it? Can you
feel it? Okay. Now let’s take a different path. Think back to a time
in school when you were not happy, things were not good,
because we’ve all had those experiences too. Can you remember
that one? Doesn’t feel very good, does it? When you do those
little memory things, do you notice how much you can really feel
the event, how strong the feelings are? But how much of the
detail do you really remember? Do you remember the content
you were being taught that day? Probably not. I sure don’t. But I
remember the feeling. I can remember feeling embarrassed. I
can remember feeling humiliated. I can remember feeling like I
wish I wasn’t in that room. Yeah, not a good feeling. Feelings are
something we’ve got to be very sensitive to. We’ve got to take
care of each other as professionals. We’ve got to take care of our
students. People don’t learn in a climate that’s oppressive, that’s
negative, that’s discouraging. Adults don’t work well in those
kinds of climates.

So when we talk about standards, we’re talking about supporting

and teaching those standards in the context of a school that’s
healthy, that’s caring, that’s authentic. And you the teachers,
you’re the ones who create that school. You are the ones. It’s not
that one principal or those three administrators. Absolutely not.
They have their place, and we like to think we do good work. The
reality is that climate is created in your classroom, and that
climate is going to do a lot in terms of making a difference about
how many of your students master standards and how well they
do on those standards.

I’d like to describe some of the things that I’ve seen master
teachers do so naturally, with such automaticity, because it just
becomes a part of their being. But there are things that are
critical to setting a highly effective and positive learning climate.
One of the things that they do is they focus on process. They
really drive out blame. They drive out fear. People don’t like being
in trouble. People don’t like being afraid or being fussed at. You
know the brain cortex, all that brain research stuff? They
actually kind of shut down physiologically, too. And you have to
believe that most people really do want to do well. I believe that.
So when things go wrong, when students don’t learn what
they’re supposed to learn, or they haven’t done their homework,
or they didn’t bring back those forms, or they used bad language,
all of those thousands of things that students do wrong, if you

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can start looking at those and saying, “Gosh, where did the
process break down? You know, I know that I am master teacher,
but if 50 percent of the kids got this wrong, hmm, obviously the
way I presented it isn’t the way they needed it.” Don’t feel bad
about yourself. Don’t feel bad about your class. Go back and
change the process. If your kids are all over the place while
you’re trying to do reading groups, and they are making you
crazy, take a step back and say, “They’re just being sevenyear-
olds. They’re just being 11- year-olds. I’ve got to fix something in
this process. I need to develop some routines, some procedures.”
It’s so easy really to fix processes, especially when you compare
it to fixing people. People are who they are. They’re the best they
can be. Focus on process, not on blame.

Another thing that I see strong, strong teachers do is they’ll build

on students’ strengths. Doesn’t matter who they are, they have
something that they do well. We all know that. They may be one
of the strongest leaders in the classroom. They might be leading
the wrong thing, but that kid has leadership skills. They can really
draw. They can sit there quietly and patiently while the rest of
the room is in chaos. Every student has their strengths. When you
think about what you’re doing with a group of youngsters, every
classroom has a norm, an established norm of where the
students behave, how they behave socially, how they behave
academically. You’ve got some students that are superstars; they
are so strong. And then you’ve got some students who are
struggling, who need a lot of external support. What you want to
do is take the strong group and keep moving it and keep moving
it because you want to take this average and keep moving it and
keep moving it, because before you know it, the group who are
your struggling group, hmm, all of a sudden they’re performing
like that average group. Hmm, that average group is performing
like your superstars used to. Focus and build from student
strengths because you’ll just be amazed at what they can do.

Accept progress. Things don’t have to be perfect. Teachers have

got to be the hardest working group of professionals that I’ve
ever worked with, and I’ve had the fortune to work in a lot of
different environments. Show me a great teacher and I’m going
to show you a miracle worker and somebody who can do more
with less than anyone on this planet. And we work really hard to
make things be perfect for our students. Again, I think sometimes
we need to take a step back and say we’re making progress,

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things are moving forward, our students are learning, that’s

good. We can relax a little. We can let our students relax a little.

And lastly, how do we choose to respond to problems? Those

darn problems, they’re always there. You know, statistics tell us
that we can count on 10 to 20 percent of the students in our class
every year being pretty serious behavior problems. You know,
you just thought you got rid of that one who was really making
you crazy, and always another one, always. What do we do about
those problems? You know, you’re just teaching away, it’s your
best lesson, they’re actually all listening, they’re engaged. Can
you not just count on it coming over the loudspeaker, “You forgot
to send in your attendance,” and you want to scream. They
happen all the time. Problems happen. In our worlds as teachers,
as leaders, if we can start to look at those problems and say,
“Every problem is a teaching moment,” that’s what we’re here to
do, teach. And maybe what I had intended on teaching was about
systems and ecosystems and that was the lesson I had planned
for this moment, but sure enough, something unexpected
happened and it’s a real pain in the neck. Capitalize on it. Teach
from it. Your students are learning from your every move, from
everything you do. Don’t let a problem wreck your day. Take that
problem, embrace it for what you can learn from it, for what you
can teach your students from it, and keep going because
progress is a really, really good thing.

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