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May 7, 2013

“Teacher villages” breaking ground in many communities

The press releases, the Facebook messages and the e-reminders began in earnest last week: Teacher Appreciation Week was coming soon. And so it has arrived on Monday, along with a bevy of recommendations and ideas on how to recognize and honor the work of these everyday unsung heroes.

Forget the apples and the baked goods, one advised. Consider a donation or volunteer in the classroom, another urged. Sign a pledge or a card that simply says thank you, another suggested. All good ideas but a project currently underway in Philadelphia (and Newark, Baltimore and other cities) is a great example of how to truly help teachers and the communities they serve.

I was surprised to learn about an initiative in Philadelphia to convert an old dye factory into housing and office space marketed toward teachers and non-profit education organizations, the former of which will be enticed by deep discounts made possible by federal and state tax credits. But I was really surprised to learn that the Philadelphia project is modeled after mixed-use developments opened in Baltimore a few years back and that a similar center is in the midst of construction in Newark, NJ.

And lest you think these projects are only popping up in urban areas, West Virginia’s McDowell County is currently searching for a property to rehab and turn into a “teachers village” as part of a large-scale effort led by the American Federation of Teachers to revitalize the old coal mining town and bring back opportunities for growth and employment.

Affordable housing, a chance at developing roots in the community and support-systems at home— these public-private partnerships do more than provide lip-service to the challenges teachers face, they actually provide a solution. This is work we all can appreciate.

Filed under: teachers — Tags: , , , , , , , — NDillon @ 2:39 pm




May 3, 2013

Exciting possibilities: Coursera and professional development courses

Coursera, an organization currently facilitating free online access to courses taught by college professors, has announced it will be dipping its toes into the professional development arena.  I have to admit that when I read this headline, I was thrilled.  For teachers to have free, online access to courses offered by experts on education research and teaching methods is a step in the right direction.

First, these courses could allow schools to have resources for teachers to improve their skills that are differentiated for the specific content teachers teach.  Because hiring consultants is expensive, districts often rely on generic workshops that they offer to all teachers.  I’ve sat through my fair share of these: classroom management, assessment, alignment.  However, research shows that teachers aren’t interested in generic professional development, and it doesn’t have an impact on teacher practice or student achievement.  On the other hand, professional development that is tailored to the content one teaches, specifically exploring the elements of the course students struggle with, has been shown to make a real difference in teachers’ practice and students’ learning.  With free online courses, teachers could focus on courses tailored to their content area.

Furthermore, each teacher brings his or her own unique set of strengths and weakness to the profession.  Teaching is a job that demands a lengthy list of skills which are both emotional and cognitive.  Just as some students have more natural talents in certain areas than others, the same is true with teachers.  When I co-taught a class with another teacher, I got to see this full force.  My co-teacher managed the emotional needs of a class flawlessly, while my own strengths were in lesson planning.  Working together, we got to improve our areas of weakness.  Having online courses which are free for teachers allows teachers to think about what areas they need to improve on, taking courses focused on those areas instead of sitting through PD sessions not tailored to their area of need.  Just like we urge teachers to differentiate for students, recognizing that not all students are the same, access to online PD taught by experts allows for differentiation for teachers.

Second, it could save districts lots of professional development money that they can spend more wisely.  There’s a decent amount of evidence to show that districts spend a substantial amount of money on professional development, anywhere from 2 to 7% of their total budget.  Unfortunately, most of that spending is going towards one-shot, generic workshops.  Consultants are expensive, certainly one reason that districts can only afford to have whole-school, generic sessions instead of content-specific sessions.  Nonetheless, by spending copious amounts of money on consultants and staff for workshops, districts often don’t build in professional development support as teachers aim to implement those new skills into the classroom.  The reason that’s problematic is that research studies consistently show that teachers struggle immensely with new skills during implementation of those skills in the classroom, and that without support at this stage, teachers are likely to get frustrated and simply abandon the new skill altogether.  Of course, this makes sense.  Learning how to write is easier than actually writing; learning how to ride a bike is easier than actually riding a bike. Implementation is challenging.  Therefore, schools need to develop support during the implementation stage.   When schools do this, through individual instructional coaches who observe and conference with teachers or through time for collaboration, teachers improve their teaching and students learn more.

However, having teachers meet with coaches or collaborate with colleagues takes time, and teacher time is exceptionally expensive.  School districts either have to buy this time in a teacher’s contract, pay substitutes to cover classes, or hire more staff to reduce teaching loads.  Despite that fact, research on professional development shows that opening up this time and having teachers supported during implementation of new skills is exceptionally important.  In an analysis of over 1,300 studies of professional development programs, researchers found that programs that were less than 14 hours had no impact on student achievement .   But if schools were able to cut down on some of their consultant costs by having teachers participate in free, open Coursera courses, schools might be able to buy more teacher time for deep learning experiences such as coaching or collaboration.

Of course, in all discussions about the role of online courses, it’s important to note that they can never stand alone as one’s only exposure to learning, something that’s been validated repeatedly .  However, there’s good reason to think these courses could be a nice addition to a school’s professional development tool kit.  –Allison Gulamhussein

Filed under: CPE,instruction,online learning,teachers — Tags: , — Allison @ 10:06 am




April 23, 2013

The Common Core: Too Much, Too Fast?

The short answer: no and maybe.

Now to the long answer.

As a new teacher, one of the first concepts you learn is “scaffolding.”  Like the scaffolds beside a building, scaffolding in teaching is about building a supportive structure piece by piece so a student can get somewhere he or she couldn’t get by themselves.  A teacher might model with a “think aloud” of how to read for tone or teach symbolism with an easy text as a scaffold for analyzing symbolism in a more difficult text.  However, with a scaffold, a teacher doesn’t let the student off the hook, settling on an easier task the student can easily accomplish.  The student also isn’t just thrown into the deep end, urged to master a complex skill with no support.  The student is supported until he or she achieves a challenging goal independently. 

It struck me that just like teachers have to scaffold for students, we might think about scaffolding districts’ implementation of the Common Core and the bevy of high stakes tests that accompany the new standards. Just this month, students in New York City public schools took their first round of Common Core aligned exams, and the results were not pretty .  Teachers, parents, students, and principals reported the test elicited a number of responses, from humorous, to ludicrous, to heartbreaking:     

  • A child waking up from a nightmare where he was murmuring about bubbling in an exam
  • Weekend and after school test prep classes
  • Teachers teaching students yoga to help students relax during testing
  • Pep rallies to encourage students before exams
  • Rampant student stress and anxiety
  • Students crying at the end of the exams

In response, many have begun to question adoption of the Common Core, period.  Several parents have even decided to opt their children out of testing all together.  To some degree, one can certainly understand their frustration. 

Common Core implementation (which is soon to be met in many places with rigorous exams aligned with the more rigorous standards which are tied to high-stakes decisions like a teacher’s employment) is coming at an exceptionally fast pace.  Right before the start of the 2010-2011 school year, many states decided to adopt the Common Core.  However, after adoption, states had to coordinate their own roll out of the standards, and districts likewise had to process and design approaches to the new standards.  In the midst of all of this, classroom teachers had to learn a new curriculum and rewrite their own curriculums, learning and mastering new ways to teach in response to the Core. For teachers in New York, (assuming the most generous timeline where time for realigning the curriculum was given to teachers immediately upon state adoption) teachers would have had a maximum of two years before being held to high stakes tests aligned to the Core.  For anyone whose ever written the curriculum for a course within the time constraints of a public school teacher’s job, you know this is not enough.

In fact, that’s exactly the argument that’s been coming out of New York.  New York Times journalist, Kyle Spencer characterized the rapid pace of adoption in New York:

The standards are so new that many New York schools have yet to fully adopt new curriculums—including reading material, lesson plans, and exercises—to match.  And the textbook industry had not completely caught up either. State and city officials have urged teachers over the last year to begin working in some elements of new curriculums, and have offered lesson plans and tutorials on official Web sites.  But they acknowledge that scores will most likely fall from last year’s levels.

There’s a frenetic, sink or swim approach to implementing these reforms, and in that rush, policy makers are risking losing the Core altogether as backlash builds.

However, while the frustration of parents, students, and school faculty is valid, the answer is not to completely get rid of the Common Core.  The Common Core is a step forward in making schools locations of critical thought.  Consider some of the criticism of the Common Core coming from the New York area.  After taking a Common Core aligned test, a sixth grade student noted that, “When they ask, ‘What’s the main idea?’ and you have to put it in your own words, it’s a lot harder.”  Another student felt like she didn’t have enough time to fully complete her written essay on the exam.  Both of these tasks ask students to do things that we as a society want citizens to do, read something, comprehend it, and then respond with one’s own ideas.  After all, isn’t this the heart of a democracy—being able to understand ideas and express your own? Of course, this would certainly be less difficult for students if they weren’t asked to write, and instead only had to fill in multiple choice bubbles based on easier readings.  However, is reverting back to these easier tasks really the answer?   

Though getting rid of the Common Core isn’t the answer, districts and teachers (just like students learning new, complex concepts) do need scaffolds to transform classroom instruction to align with the Common Core.  Modeling a skilled teacher, policy makers could and should give teachers and schools support and time as they learn to raise instruction to the level of rigor the Core demands, delaying implementation or offering the tests first as low-stakes assessments so teachers can learn from them.  After all, a teacher doesn’t merely tell a student, “balance this chemical equation or else.”  The teacher also doesn’t let the student simply not balance the equation, but instead a great teacher gives supports and time for the student as he or she learns to balance the equations independently.

In our debates about the Common Core, let’s parse through what part of the policy we really disagree with.  Is asking our students to think, read, and write more the problem, or is it the rapid, breakneck speed by which the Core has been implemented?  I think for many of us it’s the latter rather than the former.  The good news is that thoughtful policy makers can craft solutions to create scaffolds for Common Core implementation, such as making the first two years of testing low stakes instead of high stakes, giving teachers more time to work collaboratively to rewrite the school’s curriculum, or lowering the percentage of teacher evaluations based on test scores as teachers get to know the standards more.  Hopefully what we won’t do, though, is throw the baby out with the bathwater by getting rid of the Common Core altogether.  -Allison Gulamhussein

Filed under: CPE,instruction,national standards,standards,teachers,Testing — Allison @ 2:14 pm




April 4, 2013

School-wide data should not be used in teacher evaluations without collaboration

A baseball player doesn’t make as much if his team doesn’t do well, right? Should we pay a band’s drummer the big bucks if the band isn’t popular? Absolutely not. Even our representatives in Congress have their job stability linked to one another; if the party doesn’t do well, neither do individual members. For many people, there really is no “I” in team when it comes to pay and job security.

On first blush, tying individual performance to team performance makes perfect sense. After all, in organizations such as a baseball team, band, or political party, each member works together towards a common goal; therefore, whether or not the team achieved that goal should be considered.

Similarly, doesn’t it make sense to tie a teacher’s evaluation to the overall performance of the school? After all, teachers in one building should all be working towards a common goal—the learning of students. Why not encourage teamwork by tying teachers’ job security and pay to the performance of the school as a whole? In fact, that’s just what several states and big cities have done in their new teacher evaluation systems. Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wisconsin, as well as the cities of Chicago and Pittsburgh, have made some portion of a teacher’s evaluation score tied to how well the school as a whole does on standardized tests or other indicators (such as graduation rates or promotion rates). While these states have good intentions in doing so, tying school-wide data to individual teachers’ evaluation is a bit like giving your child a cough drop for a fever. It’s the wrong medicine for the ailment.

Let me present another series of hypotheticals. Should a local eye doctor’s pay and job security be linked to the town’s ear and sinus health? Should one therapist be held accountable for the mental health of patients in his or her city who are not his or her own? Most of us would argue in these scenarios, the answer is no. What accounts for the difference?

The difference is that doctors and therapists are private practitioners. While their work contributes to a greater goal that many might work towards—the physical and mental health of a community—their job isn’t structured in a way that demands teamwork. For the most part, your eye doctor does not collaborate with, practice with, or learn with your ear doctor, foot doctor, or cardiologist. Likewise, while therapists may provide similar services with similar goals, for the most part, they do not collaborate together on a patient, practice with each other, or have mandated time together where they share practices to improve. These fields are by their nature more individualistic. We seem to demand consideration of team performance when the job itself is structured in such a way as to require collaboration. Baseball players practice together. Band members write music and perform together. Congressmen and women write bills together, discuss issues together, and compromise on laws together. Doctors and therapists in private practice do not have a job which requires collaboration, so they aren’t judged based on it.

It may surprise many Americans to find out that teaching mirrors more of the private practitioner structure than the team structure. When I first started teaching, I was certainly shocked by this as well. As a new teacher, I had envisioned meeting frequently with other teachers to share what was happening in our class or to discuss the best teaching strategies for a particular concept. The reality was quite different. Almost all of my day was taken up with teaching my classes, and in the short preparation period I had, I graded papers and planned my lessons alone. Even if I wanted to collaborate, it wouldn’t have been possible. Few teachers had off the same periods as I did, and those who did were busy planning and grading their own papers. I quickly realized that teaching was an exceptionally isolated job.

In his 1975 landmark study of the lives of American teachers, Dan Lortie deemed schools “egg crates,” where teachers worked close proximity to one another, but their work never touched, much like eggs in a crate.  Today, thirty-eight years later, not much has changed. A recent study found that teachers spend a whopping three percent of their day collaborating with colleagues. It’s not that teacher don’t want to collaborate; it’s that the structure of the school itself impedes it.  Work is done individually, and there’s no time carved into the school day for collaboration.

However, calls for evaluating teachers based on school-wide indicators of achievement seem to ignore the widely recognized truth that the teaching profession is structured as a field of private practitioners. States and districts plod on, arguing teachers lack incentives to work together, something remedied by inclusion of school-wide data in individual evaluations. This is a flawed premise supported by no research. What research does show is that teachers want time for collaboration with their colleagues and engage willingly and happily when given this time. The recent MetLife survey of American teachers found that collaboration contributes to teacher satisfaction.  These findings certainly don’t suggest that teachers are resistant to working with one another and are in need of incentives to do so. They do suggest that the school structure itself presents major impediments to a teamwork approach to learning in a school building, something that’s not remedied with a carrot and stick approach to evaluations, but which requires a structural revamp of a teacher’s day and work.

Furthermore, weighting school-wide data so heavily in teacher evaluations works to dilute the primary purpose of the Race to the Top brand of teacher evaluations—identifying the individual contribution of a teacher to student learning. In Tennessee, school-wide achievement data accounts for 35 percent of evaluations of teachers of non-tested subjects. But a report on the first year of the evaluation system suggested decreasing that percentage because teachers expressed that the data didn’t reflect their individual performance.

Before we jump to making teacher evaluations the cure all for everything wrong with public school education, we’d be wise to think deeply about what’s causing the problem we’re aiming to fix. That’s a more complicated question for some aspects of schooling. However, it’s not that complex when we ask ourselves why teachers aren’t collaborating towards greater student learning. Instead of firing teachers based on scores which aren’t their own, and for which they have no time within their school day to work towards improving, let’s think about breaking the egg crate to create a more effective school structure that’s less “I” and more “team.” Maybe then we can think about evaluating teachers based on school-wide scores. Until then, let’s stop giving a cough drop for a fever.   -Allison Gulamhussein

Filed under: CPE,Teacher evaluation,teachers — Tags: , — Allison @ 9:15 am




March 25, 2013

Is professional development a giant waste of time and money?

Recently, Frederick Hess declared in his blog that professional development is an easy but ineffectual answer to the problems in American education.  To some degree, I agree.

In my time teaching, I have sat through some of the most ridiculous professional development sessions.  In one session, we were divided into groups and received a bag of items, which we then had to use in a creative story.  Not sure what the point of this exercise was?  Yup, me either.  I’ve sat through a session on nutrition and calorie counting, a session on the book, Who Moved My Cheese, and even a session on personality profiles, including a forty-five minute analysis of the personality of my principal.  It’s sad, but true that each teacher carries his or her own collection of professional development horror stories, and unfortunately, they make up the majority of a teacher’s professional learning.  While 90% of American teachers report having participated in professional development, the majority of these teachers also report that most of their professional development isn’t useful.

Research hasn’t been much kinder to professional development.  The majority of professional development sessions are generic, one day workshops, an approach that has been shown , time and time again, to have virtually no impact on a teacher’s practice.  Such findings have led Hess to declare that professional development is often an expensive, ineffective choice in school improvement.

However, while Hess is absolutely right that most professional development is ineffectual, it’s not true that all professional development is ineffectual.  Professional development that moves beyond the prevalent one-day workshop model into support of a teacher’s learning as he or she implements new skills and practices into the classroom has been found to change what teachers are doing.  In fact, in a study of teacher’s professional learning, a researcher found that when participants were only given a description of a new skill, 10% could transfer the skill.  When the skill was modeled, 2-3% more could perform the skill. With practice in a professional development environment, 2-3% more could transfer the skill.  However, when teachers were coached as they implemented the new skill into their actual classroom, up to 95% transferred the new skill into their practice.  This is because new skills are not easily transferred into practice.  Think about this in the context of sports.  A coach may teach the concept of blocking, even modeling it to players, and then having them practice blocking in the artificial setting of practice.  However, when the new skill is brought out onto the field and all the other parts of one’s practice have to adjust to the new skill, the transfer is messy.  Several have called this the “implementation dip” of practice where the first integration of a new skill into existing practice is often awkward, requiring several more practices before the skill is mastered.  Because this period is awkward, and comes with a high probability of frustration, support during the implementation stage is critical to ensure one continues and doesn’t give up.

These findings suggest not that professional learning won’t change a teacher’s practice, but that changing a teacher’s practice requires getting into the nitty gritty of teaching—implementation in one’s actual classroom.  In the past decade, several innovations in professional development have moved beyond the prevalent, ineffective workshop model to support teachers during implementation, such as: instructional coaching, literacy coaching, cognitive coaching, and professional learning communities.  While these innovations are new, and unfortunately, not widespread, they have a research base which suggests they change the practice of teachers.

In fact, a study that Hess cites in his own blog as the “most authoritative analysis to date” of professional development doesn’t find that professional development is wholly ineffective; it finds that professional development that is more extensive than the one day workshop (anywhere from thirty to one hundred hours) is correlated not only with teacher change, but with improvements in student achievement.

These studies should tell us that the answer isn’t just to throw away professional development as a tool in school improvement.  Instead, the answer lies in reshaping professional development to reflect what research tells us about how teachers learn and grow, findings that show professional growth takes time and requires support as teachers aim to implement a new skill in their classroom.

Hess’ arguments are found in the new book, Cage-Busting Leadership.  However, while I agree that school leaders should “bust the cage,” I think that school leaders who are bold enough to not just throw away professional development, but to replace it with effective models are the real cage busting leaders.

Filed under: CPE,teachers — Tags: , , , , , — Allison @ 1:27 pm




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