While working in another district years ago, I had been a member of a committee tasked with the development of our district's annual achievement plan. At one point, in a reporting meeting with a representative from the Ministry of Education, I found myself describing the very unique challenges we faced in a particular school with its large number of struggling, often non-attending students. I have a clear and distinct memory of the Ministry rep looking right at me, eyes flashing in perfect harmony with the sequins on her silk scarf, her pointed question cutting through my "poor us" rhetoric. "Well", she asked, "What are you DOING about it?"
This question became the source of my understanding of the true purpose of these types of sessions. Any time we get together to share an achievement plan at the school or the district level, it should not be about complaining or justifying or even showcasing. These meetings should be about digging down into the real work that needs to done by our educators to improve learning in our schools for our students.
Recently, I had the pleasure of attending a School Planning Council meeting led by a particularly thoughtful principal. We did tour the school, visiting classrooms where the students were engaged in typical learning with no sign of special activities invented for our benefit. Upon reconvening, our conversation quickly turned to the SPC's greatest concerns, which focused specifically on their students' literacy gaps. These gaps had been exposed then triangulated through several forms of school and provincial data pieces and teacher observation, and then humanized with specific stories about struggling students - who remained unnamed, of course. The decision to focus on these literacy gaps was formed in close consultation with parents, and led to the development of a Theory of Action, which was followed by the creation of a multi-faceted and school-wide instructional plan to address the issues, which would then be supported by Learning Rounds. Again, student progress would be tracked through further collection of the same data pieces, and analysis of that data would lead to adjustments to the plan and perhaps even a refining of the Theory of Action.
The conversation was earnest, humble, but very, very purposeful. It was refreshing to be included in this authentic process, and to get some real insight into the genuine work the school needs to do. It also focused on the two questions I feel are germane to every meeting of this type:
1. What are we most concerned about?
2. What are we DOING about it?
These types of reporting meetings have been around for a long time. It is easy to get distracted by the scope of the challenges we face in our schools and struggle to prioritize. In some cases, the showcasing element can take over at the expense of considering the genuine work, and while I can understand the temptation to provide a certain amount of sizzle, I just happen to be much more interested in the steak. Making those two questions the focus of the session will not only honour the participants, but will likely help your organization take a significant step forward in its most important work. I also think it is what your learners deserve.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Monday, May 18, 2015
Educators Don't Much Care for the Fraser Institute
Well, it's that time of the year again. The Fraser Institute published its annual School Report for BC elementary schools this spring, then followed it with its version for BC secondary schools. For those of you in jurisdictions other than BC, the Fraser Institute is an "independent" think tank that collects data and uses it to publish reports, mostly on the apparent inefficiency of our public institutions. We describe them as right-wing, because it seems they are against paying taxes and believe that privatization leads to better service, and just you never mind any of those messy issues around equity. The school reports themselves are designed to be easy to digest, melting down our provincial achievement metrics for the year into a single digit number, then sorting them into rank order for easy public consumption. The reports create a bit of a fuss and seem to sell newspapers, though compared to what you might typically deal with in the United States in regard to high-stakes testing where principals and teachers actually lose their jobs and schools actually get closed, what happens here really isn't that interesting. I like to refer to it as low-stakes shaming.
The elementary report numbers are based entirely on the results of our Foundation Skills Assessment tests, which are reading, writing, and numeracy tests taken by students at the grade four and seven level. These take about eight hours to administer in those years, and the results have no impact on the students' report card grades or whether or not students transition into the next grade. Not everyone likes our provincial standardized test program, but I tend to defend it, mostly because the tests take up less than .03% of a student's instructional time from kindergarten through grade twelve, including practice. For a very minor investment in time, our standardized tests do provide valuable information for individual students, educators, and for our system somewhat, though primarily as something to triangulate against other school level assessments. However, these tests were never designed to be used to determine the apparent success of a school because the cohort sizes are typically much too small to be statistically relevant in this type of test battery. It is also trailing data and rather out of date by the time the Fraser report is published, and therefore not of much use to the educators. It may be encouraging to see that our grade four and grade seven students did well on their FSA tests fifteen months ago, for example, but it hardly informs our ongoing practice because schools and parents have had access to that test information for some twelve months by the time the report comes out. As well, if you are a parent looking for an elementary school, a rating that came out this month is similarly out of date, and may be even less helpful as a result. To be blunt, using the FSA tests to generate a school rating is just plain dumb, and that is about the nicest thing I can say about it.
The secondary report numbers are based on Graduation Program data, which are likely more important to secondary educators. The calculations used for the 75% of secondary report number are based on the results of the exams a BC student must take to graduate: English 10, Science 10, a Math 10, a Social Studies 11, and a Language Arts 12, each intended to take about two hours to complete. These exams, now in their final year of use in our province, count for 20% of a student's final grade at the ten and eleven level, and 40% at the twelve level. The remaining 25% of the calculations used to generate a secondary school's number are based on transitions rates for grade ten and eleven students, and the percentage of grade twelve students who graduate in that current year. We all want our students to pass the exams, transition from grade to grade, and complete grade twelve in that year. This is our key work at that level. Though not as dumb as the elementary rating system, I do have several issues with the data balance selected to generate the numerical rating. I wouldn't give the exams 75% percent of the weight. That is too high. I wouldn't calculate transition in the way that they do which actually penalizes a school statistically for having all their eights move forward -imagine that! I am also not sure about the male/female balancing as an indicator, as it tends to punish smaller cohorts. A small school could have perfect gender balance over five years, but year to year could show statistical volatility and be hurt in the calculation every time.
Even the data point that compares school achievement against community education levels, closely correlated to household wealth and never actually included in the actual calculations of course, is completely absent from this year's publication. BC schools do an amazing job of narrowing the achievement gap between our richest and poorest students, among the best in the world at only 5-7%. In a report that ranks schools, a 5% head start is big advantage when its not factored into the calculation process. Imagine a track meet where the wealthiest schools receive a 5-7% head start in every race, but that minor detail never makes it in the newspaper, and you are getting the idea. Sugata Mitra has described a strong negative correlation between standardized test scores and proximity to a region's primary population center. I often wonder what impact this type of factor would have on a school rating system if it were to be included.
Finally, there is the factor that averages schools against each other. Your school's achievement can improve, but if slightly less than the average improvement across the province, your overall number will actually go down, giving the false impression you are in decline and inviting the local newspapers to pounce on an easy negative headline opportunity. Principals love that. Think about it: our schools have been improving steadily over the last decade and a significant number of them still have to face the stigma of public failure and the harm that comes with that because of this averaging factor. Ouch. Peter Cowley of the FI has been known to say, "If you don't like the way we do our report, feel free to make your own." One day I just might just take him up on that.
Data limitations aside, the Fraser Institute Report on Schools rubs educators the wrong way because it is misleading. BC parents generally don't know how the numbers are generated, and many assume they are based on something far more complex, astute, and current than these particular standardized tests taken by a small number of students over a small period of time. In addition, the design of the ranking could potentially encourage some educators to make decisions that are not in students' best interests, such excluding them from exams they might actually pass, or "perching" grade eleven students who are missing some credits, or assigning them to a separate alternate school, as these practices can improve a school's numerical rating, at least in the short term.
Most importantly, the very act of ranking schools is an unhealthy, unethical process. It pits us in public education against each other if we choose to buy into it, it certainly encourages privatization, and most importantly, it undermines some of the schools and teachers who are doing the very best, and frankly, most important work with our most vulnerable learners. For these reasons, educators don't much care for the Fraser Institute, and rightly so.
I will augment this rant with a disclosure of sorts. Often people who criticize these rankings are working in schools on the lower end of the ranking, and this can appear to smack of sour grapes. I'm always impressed when a school at the very top end of the rankings describes the system as unimportant or unethical, and I am pleased this is happening with increasing frequency, especially as the system is becoming more and more interested in competency development. Though I've never worked in one of those high ranking schools, my own history with the rankings is actually somewhat positive. My little secondary school was recognized, not once, but twice, as the fastest improving in the province. Our Grad Program needed an overhaul, and we did the work we needed to do to get it in shape, and I'm proud of that. The media did descend upon us when the report came out, and our rising achievement became a bit of a positive for our learning community. It also became a bit of advertisement for our work with assessment for learning, as well as for being fully committed to student success, both of which I believe in completely. Ironically though, the attention we received from this upturn in trailing data was based for the most part on work we had been doing fully two years prior, and was no surprise to me or anyone else who had stayed awake during my frequent data sessions. It was also odd and somewhat uncomfortable that this thing that had been kicking sand in our face for so long was helping us to somehow become more credible. Odd, uncomfortable, and might I say, even a bit dirty. As in, "Thanks so much for swooping in after the fact and finally permitting people to believe we were doing something right."
Still, I stand by the information in the previous paragraphs, and when I got the opportunity to say those things to a reporter, there wasn't sour grapes driving the conversation. The schools in our district are primarily focusing on competency development and doing just fine on their core skills too, thank you very much.
The elementary report numbers are based entirely on the results of our Foundation Skills Assessment tests, which are reading, writing, and numeracy tests taken by students at the grade four and seven level. These take about eight hours to administer in those years, and the results have no impact on the students' report card grades or whether or not students transition into the next grade. Not everyone likes our provincial standardized test program, but I tend to defend it, mostly because the tests take up less than .03% of a student's instructional time from kindergarten through grade twelve, including practice. For a very minor investment in time, our standardized tests do provide valuable information for individual students, educators, and for our system somewhat, though primarily as something to triangulate against other school level assessments. However, these tests were never designed to be used to determine the apparent success of a school because the cohort sizes are typically much too small to be statistically relevant in this type of test battery. It is also trailing data and rather out of date by the time the Fraser report is published, and therefore not of much use to the educators. It may be encouraging to see that our grade four and grade seven students did well on their FSA tests fifteen months ago, for example, but it hardly informs our ongoing practice because schools and parents have had access to that test information for some twelve months by the time the report comes out. As well, if you are a parent looking for an elementary school, a rating that came out this month is similarly out of date, and may be even less helpful as a result. To be blunt, using the FSA tests to generate a school rating is just plain dumb, and that is about the nicest thing I can say about it.
The secondary report numbers are based on Graduation Program data, which are likely more important to secondary educators. The calculations used for the 75% of secondary report number are based on the results of the exams a BC student must take to graduate: English 10, Science 10, a Math 10, a Social Studies 11, and a Language Arts 12, each intended to take about two hours to complete. These exams, now in their final year of use in our province, count for 20% of a student's final grade at the ten and eleven level, and 40% at the twelve level. The remaining 25% of the calculations used to generate a secondary school's number are based on transitions rates for grade ten and eleven students, and the percentage of grade twelve students who graduate in that current year. We all want our students to pass the exams, transition from grade to grade, and complete grade twelve in that year. This is our key work at that level. Though not as dumb as the elementary rating system, I do have several issues with the data balance selected to generate the numerical rating. I wouldn't give the exams 75% percent of the weight. That is too high. I wouldn't calculate transition in the way that they do which actually penalizes a school statistically for having all their eights move forward -imagine that! I am also not sure about the male/female balancing as an indicator, as it tends to punish smaller cohorts. A small school could have perfect gender balance over five years, but year to year could show statistical volatility and be hurt in the calculation every time.
Even the data point that compares school achievement against community education levels, closely correlated to household wealth and never actually included in the actual calculations of course, is completely absent from this year's publication. BC schools do an amazing job of narrowing the achievement gap between our richest and poorest students, among the best in the world at only 5-7%. In a report that ranks schools, a 5% head start is big advantage when its not factored into the calculation process. Imagine a track meet where the wealthiest schools receive a 5-7% head start in every race, but that minor detail never makes it in the newspaper, and you are getting the idea. Sugata Mitra has described a strong negative correlation between standardized test scores and proximity to a region's primary population center. I often wonder what impact this type of factor would have on a school rating system if it were to be included.
Finally, there is the factor that averages schools against each other. Your school's achievement can improve, but if slightly less than the average improvement across the province, your overall number will actually go down, giving the false impression you are in decline and inviting the local newspapers to pounce on an easy negative headline opportunity. Principals love that. Think about it: our schools have been improving steadily over the last decade and a significant number of them still have to face the stigma of public failure and the harm that comes with that because of this averaging factor. Ouch. Peter Cowley of the FI has been known to say, "If you don't like the way we do our report, feel free to make your own." One day I just might just take him up on that.
Data limitations aside, the Fraser Institute Report on Schools rubs educators the wrong way because it is misleading. BC parents generally don't know how the numbers are generated, and many assume they are based on something far more complex, astute, and current than these particular standardized tests taken by a small number of students over a small period of time. In addition, the design of the ranking could potentially encourage some educators to make decisions that are not in students' best interests, such excluding them from exams they might actually pass, or "perching" grade eleven students who are missing some credits, or assigning them to a separate alternate school, as these practices can improve a school's numerical rating, at least in the short term.
Most importantly, the very act of ranking schools is an unhealthy, unethical process. It pits us in public education against each other if we choose to buy into it, it certainly encourages privatization, and most importantly, it undermines some of the schools and teachers who are doing the very best, and frankly, most important work with our most vulnerable learners. For these reasons, educators don't much care for the Fraser Institute, and rightly so.
I will augment this rant with a disclosure of sorts. Often people who criticize these rankings are working in schools on the lower end of the ranking, and this can appear to smack of sour grapes. I'm always impressed when a school at the very top end of the rankings describes the system as unimportant or unethical, and I am pleased this is happening with increasing frequency, especially as the system is becoming more and more interested in competency development. Though I've never worked in one of those high ranking schools, my own history with the rankings is actually somewhat positive. My little secondary school was recognized, not once, but twice, as the fastest improving in the province. Our Grad Program needed an overhaul, and we did the work we needed to do to get it in shape, and I'm proud of that. The media did descend upon us when the report came out, and our rising achievement became a bit of a positive for our learning community. It also became a bit of advertisement for our work with assessment for learning, as well as for being fully committed to student success, both of which I believe in completely. Ironically though, the attention we received from this upturn in trailing data was based for the most part on work we had been doing fully two years prior, and was no surprise to me or anyone else who had stayed awake during my frequent data sessions. It was also odd and somewhat uncomfortable that this thing that had been kicking sand in our face for so long was helping us to somehow become more credible. Odd, uncomfortable, and might I say, even a bit dirty. As in, "Thanks so much for swooping in after the fact and finally permitting people to believe we were doing something right."
Still, I stand by the information in the previous paragraphs, and when I got the opportunity to say those things to a reporter, there wasn't sour grapes driving the conversation. The schools in our district are primarily focusing on competency development and doing just fine on their core skills too, thank you very much.
At the end of it all, we are compelled to do what we do. I seem to be able to forgive the cat for taking out the Christmas tree ornaments every year, so too should I be able to forgive accountants for their counting. However, we are all concerned about the impact this has on our public education system because of the apparent agenda behind it and the way the media often presents the information. I wonder how many extra papers were sold by this easy negative headline pounce! How very, very sad.
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Race Car
I like the term "race car". It invokes a sense of excitement and wonder and youthful enthusiasm. Race car happens to be a palindrome, meaning it is spelled the same backwards and forwards, which is kind of fun. It is also a part of a little analogy with which I've been tinkering. Next time you are in planning session, imagine for a moment you are the owner of a race car, and consider how much of your budget you would allot for things that don't make the car go faster. Granted, there are some areas of infrastructure that always require resources, but I bet you would carefully scrutinize every dollar that is spent in those other areas. Conversely, if you could add some speed in the stretch by spending a little here, and save one tire change a race by spending a little there, you are probably going to go ahead and build those items into your budget. Would you get stuck doing exactly what you did five or ten years ago because you went somewhat fast, or would you be willing to try something new to go a little faster yet? Professional race crews make these kinds of decisions every day, and the most successful teams rely on excellent judgement and years of experience, and they pay close, close attention to research. They are not afraid to innovate, and as a result, their race cars go very, very fast.
Now, take your school or district budget and go through the same series of questions, substituting "go faster" for "more learning" and you'll get what I'm driving at. (Ouch.) Seriously though, are you scrutinizing every single dollar spent in areas that don't lead to more learning? Are you building in items that do? Are you stuck doing the same thing you did five or ten years ago because the learning was fairly good or are you willing to try something new for a little more learning? Are you using your experience and judgement to its fullest capacity and are you paying close attention to research? Are you willing to innovate?
Over the next few weeks our District is conducting a series of School Services Alignment Planning meetings. It is an opportunity to review student projections, budgets, staffing, special education, and more. It gives the principals access to full district support so they can build the best business processes they can, and it gives senior staff a chance to learn more about the needs of our schools. It also provides a rich opportunity to consider the ways each school budget directly supports the School Improvement Plan, and makes sure that there a powerful and explicit alignment between school spending and student learning. It is a big investment in time for sure, but metaphorically speaking, it is already paying off in faster lap times.
Now, take your school or district budget and go through the same series of questions, substituting "go faster" for "more learning" and you'll get what I'm driving at. (Ouch.) Seriously though, are you scrutinizing every single dollar spent in areas that don't lead to more learning? Are you building in items that do? Are you stuck doing the same thing you did five or ten years ago because the learning was fairly good or are you willing to try something new for a little more learning? Are you using your experience and judgement to its fullest capacity and are you paying close attention to research? Are you willing to innovate?
Over the next few weeks our District is conducting a series of School Services Alignment Planning meetings. It is an opportunity to review student projections, budgets, staffing, special education, and more. It gives the principals access to full district support so they can build the best business processes they can, and it gives senior staff a chance to learn more about the needs of our schools. It also provides a rich opportunity to consider the ways each school budget directly supports the School Improvement Plan, and makes sure that there a powerful and explicit alignment between school spending and student learning. It is a big investment in time for sure, but metaphorically speaking, it is already paying off in faster lap times.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Be More Formative with Your Aspen Gradebook
The thought of using an electronic grade book doesn't appeal to some teachers. When they hear that term it often conjures up images of percentages, artificial constraints, and being forced to "average" marks across a term or year, a practice many no longer believe accurately reflects student learning. Our district is in the process of introducing Aspen to our teachers (branded as MyEducation BC in British Columbia) and I have been pleased with the flexibility and potential of the new system so far. The Aspen Gradebook comes designed with many built-in features that support assessment for learning and make it a great tool for teachers at any level to collect and organize evidence of learning, not only for reporting purposes, but also as a way to better support assessment conversations with students and parents in an ongoing manner. This is why I am recommending its use to teachers who may not have previously considered an electronic grade book.
Students learn best when they understand what is expected of them and why. If your student portals are active, using the Add Assignment screen, you can provide assignment criteria, rubrics, and other supporting information for your students by using the Add file or Add weblink tabs at the bottom of the page. Criteria is most effective when students have a chance to co-develop it with you, so giving them a chance to do this or at least respond to what you have created prior to their starting is preferable. Adding learning intentions can really help students understand the purpose of an assignment, and the Add file and Add weblink tools make this very easy as well.
One of the simplest ways for teachers to be more formative using this grade book is to create practice assignments. This can be done through the Assignments tab by clicking on Options and then Add Practice Assignment instead of Add Assignment. A second simple way is to use the Drop mode. The Details tab will reveal this option at the bottom of the page, and allow you to toggle either Drop lowest overall score or Drop lowest score by category, and this can be done by each quarter or semester and there is no limit to the number of scores that can be dropped. Both of these options support the idea of learning as practice, and will give your students a chance to progress over time before becoming accountable through your reporting practices.
My favourite feature in the Aspen Gradebook is the pop-up page that appears when you click on the little paper icon inside any mark box on the Scores page. The top box is identified as Assignment feedback and this allows you to give timely and specific feedback to your students regarding their learning, either in preparation for the very next assignment or to revise and resubmit an ongoing assignment. This box interacts well with all manner of programs so you can copy and paste text in and out of the space with files you have on your computer or on the Internet, and even refer to criteria you may have previously provided with the Add file feature in the Add Assignment screen. Providing more feedback to students is one of the most effective ways to improve results in your classroom and school, and has been a special interest of mine for some time, as you can see from this previous blog entry January is Feedback Month. Even if your portals are not operating, you can sit your student down next to you and discuss the feedback together while viewing your computer screen, and even copy and paste it into an email afterward and send it to them for future reference. The box at the bottom of the page is called Teacher's notes and even if your portals are active and you have set your assignment Visibility type to Public, this information is not available to your students or parents, and can be a place for you to make notes on that student's learning for reporting purposes, along with the ways you are considering supporting them in the meantime.
This last suggestion is a little more complicated and would involve a change of practice for many teachers. If you click on the Tools top tab and the Special Codes side tab, you can click on Options to Add codes of up to five letters which the program will accept in its score boxes in place of a letter grade or number. You can use this feature to create a series of quick anecdotal references that can guide your assessment conversations and create understanding in a way that may be more effective for you and your students than a number or letter, as well as keep these assignments exempt from calculations so you can consider their learning holistically, rather than using the program to calculate a grade on your behalf.
When I was a principal I taught Communications, which in BC is a language arts program available for graduating students intending to head straight for the workforce. Even though we report out in percentages in grades 10-12 in BC, I used codes in my class for assignments that represented Not Meeting Expectations, Fully Meeting Expectations, or Exceeding Expectations. If a student submitted an assignment to me that was NME, I would provide them with feedback and have them revise and resubmit the assignment until it met or exceeded expectations. If a student was up to date with their assignments and all of them were at least FME, their mark at reporting time, which we would sit down and discuss well prior to then, would be no less than a C+, or 68%. This system worked very well for those students, as the higher level of feedback and opportunity to revise assignments greatly improved their learning, had a positive effect on their confidence, and got them away from long-standing practices of what I called the "5 and out" where they were repeatedly submitting mediocre work for the purpose of completion only. I also believe that when it came time for the final exam, which for grade 12 students is worth 40% of their total mark, a much higher level of learning transferred into that test environment, and their results were better because of this method. Essentially, it is much better for students to do fewer assignments at a higher level of proficiency than it is for them to do more assignments at a lower level. This concept may be especially true for struggling and reluctant learners, but is true for confident and high achieving students as well. Our previous grade book did not allow this practice and forced me to use a combination of paper and Excel to collect and organize my assessment information, so I am pleased we now have access to a program that can be used in this more flexible manner.
We are just getting started with the Aspen (MyEducationBC) student information system, and we have a lot of hard work and learning in front of us in regard to our every day business practices, the transition towards competency development, reporting as an ongoing conversation rather than a scheduled event, and how the system may support this us with these concepts. Our student and parent portals are expected to be active for next school year, and we are optimistic about increasing the level of interaction between teachers, parents, and students in a way that better supports learning. We are also excited about providing further opportunities for students to collect their own evidence of learning over time, reflect on it, and share and collaborate with other students in a safe and FIPPA friendly environment, all under one authentication (password) process. Despite the challenges of these big changes, the strengths of the new system are already apparent, and should be worth the effort in short order. I anticipate coming back to this page and revising it as we expand our access to Aspen and work through new opportunities that the program provides. The opportunity for teachers to use an electronic grade book in a more formative manner is just the beginning.
[At a session with Judy Smith and Kathleen Barter in a standards-based reporting session, they advocated using a single category or "bin" as we used to call it, rather than the use of multiple categories. The teacher could see the evidence on one page and get a clearer overview of student learning trends over time, then assign a summative grade at reporting time based on the student's best or most recent evidence of learning. They also suggested the use of two categories, one for formative assessments and one for summative assessments, with generic slots available in the latter. The formative assessments could then be toggled to private and the summative could be toggled to be public, which would then include the only the summative work in the Gradebook calculation and have those assignments show in the student and parent portals. Students or teachers could then select which assignments would be tallied in the summative category, and all the evidence collected in the formative category would remain as practice.]
Students learn best when they understand what is expected of them and why. If your student portals are active, using the Add Assignment screen, you can provide assignment criteria, rubrics, and other supporting information for your students by using the Add file or Add weblink tabs at the bottom of the page. Criteria is most effective when students have a chance to co-develop it with you, so giving them a chance to do this or at least respond to what you have created prior to their starting is preferable. Adding learning intentions can really help students understand the purpose of an assignment, and the Add file and Add weblink tools make this very easy as well.
One of the simplest ways for teachers to be more formative using this grade book is to create practice assignments. This can be done through the Assignments tab by clicking on Options and then Add Practice Assignment instead of Add Assignment. A second simple way is to use the Drop mode. The Details tab will reveal this option at the bottom of the page, and allow you to toggle either Drop lowest overall score or Drop lowest score by category, and this can be done by each quarter or semester and there is no limit to the number of scores that can be dropped. Both of these options support the idea of learning as practice, and will give your students a chance to progress over time before becoming accountable through your reporting practices.
My favourite feature in the Aspen Gradebook is the pop-up page that appears when you click on the little paper icon inside any mark box on the Scores page. The top box is identified as Assignment feedback and this allows you to give timely and specific feedback to your students regarding their learning, either in preparation for the very next assignment or to revise and resubmit an ongoing assignment. This box interacts well with all manner of programs so you can copy and paste text in and out of the space with files you have on your computer or on the Internet, and even refer to criteria you may have previously provided with the Add file feature in the Add Assignment screen. Providing more feedback to students is one of the most effective ways to improve results in your classroom and school, and has been a special interest of mine for some time, as you can see from this previous blog entry January is Feedback Month. Even if your portals are not operating, you can sit your student down next to you and discuss the feedback together while viewing your computer screen, and even copy and paste it into an email afterward and send it to them for future reference. The box at the bottom of the page is called Teacher's notes and even if your portals are active and you have set your assignment Visibility type to Public, this information is not available to your students or parents, and can be a place for you to make notes on that student's learning for reporting purposes, along with the ways you are considering supporting them in the meantime.
This last suggestion is a little more complicated and would involve a change of practice for many teachers. If you click on the Tools top tab and the Special Codes side tab, you can click on Options to Add codes of up to five letters which the program will accept in its score boxes in place of a letter grade or number. You can use this feature to create a series of quick anecdotal references that can guide your assessment conversations and create understanding in a way that may be more effective for you and your students than a number or letter, as well as keep these assignments exempt from calculations so you can consider their learning holistically, rather than using the program to calculate a grade on your behalf.
When I was a principal I taught Communications, which in BC is a language arts program available for graduating students intending to head straight for the workforce. Even though we report out in percentages in grades 10-12 in BC, I used codes in my class for assignments that represented Not Meeting Expectations, Fully Meeting Expectations, or Exceeding Expectations. If a student submitted an assignment to me that was NME, I would provide them with feedback and have them revise and resubmit the assignment until it met or exceeded expectations. If a student was up to date with their assignments and all of them were at least FME, their mark at reporting time, which we would sit down and discuss well prior to then, would be no less than a C+, or 68%. This system worked very well for those students, as the higher level of feedback and opportunity to revise assignments greatly improved their learning, had a positive effect on their confidence, and got them away from long-standing practices of what I called the "5 and out" where they were repeatedly submitting mediocre work for the purpose of completion only. I also believe that when it came time for the final exam, which for grade 12 students is worth 40% of their total mark, a much higher level of learning transferred into that test environment, and their results were better because of this method. Essentially, it is much better for students to do fewer assignments at a higher level of proficiency than it is for them to do more assignments at a lower level. This concept may be especially true for struggling and reluctant learners, but is true for confident and high achieving students as well. Our previous grade book did not allow this practice and forced me to use a combination of paper and Excel to collect and organize my assessment information, so I am pleased we now have access to a program that can be used in this more flexible manner.
We are just getting started with the Aspen (MyEducationBC) student information system, and we have a lot of hard work and learning in front of us in regard to our every day business practices, the transition towards competency development, reporting as an ongoing conversation rather than a scheduled event, and how the system may support this us with these concepts. Our student and parent portals are expected to be active for next school year, and we are optimistic about increasing the level of interaction between teachers, parents, and students in a way that better supports learning. We are also excited about providing further opportunities for students to collect their own evidence of learning over time, reflect on it, and share and collaborate with other students in a safe and FIPPA friendly environment, all under one authentication (password) process. Despite the challenges of these big changes, the strengths of the new system are already apparent, and should be worth the effort in short order. I anticipate coming back to this page and revising it as we expand our access to Aspen and work through new opportunities that the program provides. The opportunity for teachers to use an electronic grade book in a more formative manner is just the beginning.
[At a session with Judy Smith and Kathleen Barter in a standards-based reporting session, they advocated using a single category or "bin" as we used to call it, rather than the use of multiple categories. The teacher could see the evidence on one page and get a clearer overview of student learning trends over time, then assign a summative grade at reporting time based on the student's best or most recent evidence of learning. They also suggested the use of two categories, one for formative assessments and one for summative assessments, with generic slots available in the latter. The formative assessments could then be toggled to private and the summative could be toggled to be public, which would then include the only the summative work in the Gradebook calculation and have those assignments show in the student and parent portals. Students or teachers could then select which assignments would be tallied in the summative category, and all the evidence collected in the formative category would remain as practice.]
Saturday, December 27, 2014
Round and Round We Go
"Learning the Work by Doing the Work"
I had the fortunate experience to be a part of a team from our district that recently returned from a week of Instructional Rounds training at Harvard. The days included rich learning in a group setting, trips to local schools for actual Instructional Rounds and debrief sessions to discuss possible solutions to their problems of practice, followed by daily planning time as a team. For those of you that are unfamiliar with these terms: Instructional Rounds is a process developed by the Harvard School of Education in which a group of educators visits a school to support a team of teachers through a problem of practice. Problems of practice are challenges the teachers identify as barriers in their school that prevent them from effectively helping their students move forward and meet their desired levels of success. Our daily planning time focused on building on the Rounds work already started in our own district, and eventually using it to support larger teacher teams and perhaps even entire schools with their problems of practice related to their school improvement plans. These plans should reflect the work described in our Pathways to Learning Education Plan, which is designed to guide our district in its transition away from teaching and learning granular outcomes in every subject and grade level, towards providing broader competency-based learning opportunities for our students.
Ours was the second team to be trained from our district. The group that participated last year had begun integrating the practice with seven single class visits using an adapted strategy and an invitational approach. This meant collecting classroom data that stayed down the level of inference as per usual practice, but in a clear departure from the Harvard strategy, the classroom teachers were invited in to join the debrief session which allowed them to reach their own conclusions about their instructional practice based on review of the raw data and the conversations that followed. This local modification increased the safety level for participating teachers as well as helped to build facilitator confidence. This was a great way to introduce the practice in a comfortable manner, but we are very interested in broadening its impact as we move forward.
As with any larger endeavour, there are several moving parts which require consideration. In addition to planning the transition from single-class visits to full scale Instructional Rounds, there will be a need to promote the opportunity, describe what it is and what it can do, as well as explain who got to go to do the training, who gets to go next, and why we are spending money on this instead of something else. The local teacher's union has raised concerns about the cost of each trip, which equates to about four more blocks of teaching time or one more education assistant spread across the district, so it is up to us to explain how this process will grow its members' confidence through the Pathways transition in a way that educator time alone never could.
It is important for us to make the best possible use of the practice, which will require locating the sweet spot between ineffective platitudes that don't actually help, and the kind of pointed observations that can be potentially off-putting and discourage further teacher participation. Our team is very aware of the challenge it faces in this regard (especially in our post labour-dispute context), but every member is equally committed to seeing the process meet its full potential in regard to building teacher efficacy and transforming student learning.
Some articles describing Instructional Rounds:
Improving Teaching and Learning through Instructional Rounds
School Based Instructional Rounds
I had the fortunate experience to be a part of a team from our district that recently returned from a week of Instructional Rounds training at Harvard. The days included rich learning in a group setting, trips to local schools for actual Instructional Rounds and debrief sessions to discuss possible solutions to their problems of practice, followed by daily planning time as a team. For those of you that are unfamiliar with these terms: Instructional Rounds is a process developed by the Harvard School of Education in which a group of educators visits a school to support a team of teachers through a problem of practice. Problems of practice are challenges the teachers identify as barriers in their school that prevent them from effectively helping their students move forward and meet their desired levels of success. Our daily planning time focused on building on the Rounds work already started in our own district, and eventually using it to support larger teacher teams and perhaps even entire schools with their problems of practice related to their school improvement plans. These plans should reflect the work described in our Pathways to Learning Education Plan, which is designed to guide our district in its transition away from teaching and learning granular outcomes in every subject and grade level, towards providing broader competency-based learning opportunities for our students.
Ours was the second team to be trained from our district. The group that participated last year had begun integrating the practice with seven single class visits using an adapted strategy and an invitational approach. This meant collecting classroom data that stayed down the level of inference as per usual practice, but in a clear departure from the Harvard strategy, the classroom teachers were invited in to join the debrief session which allowed them to reach their own conclusions about their instructional practice based on review of the raw data and the conversations that followed. This local modification increased the safety level for participating teachers as well as helped to build facilitator confidence. This was a great way to introduce the practice in a comfortable manner, but we are very interested in broadening its impact as we move forward.
As with any larger endeavour, there are several moving parts which require consideration. In addition to planning the transition from single-class visits to full scale Instructional Rounds, there will be a need to promote the opportunity, describe what it is and what it can do, as well as explain who got to go to do the training, who gets to go next, and why we are spending money on this instead of something else. The local teacher's union has raised concerns about the cost of each trip, which equates to about four more blocks of teaching time or one more education assistant spread across the district, so it is up to us to explain how this process will grow its members' confidence through the Pathways transition in a way that educator time alone never could.
It is important for us to make the best possible use of the practice, which will require locating the sweet spot between ineffective platitudes that don't actually help, and the kind of pointed observations that can be potentially off-putting and discourage further teacher participation. Our team is very aware of the challenge it faces in this regard (especially in our post labour-dispute context), but every member is equally committed to seeing the process meet its full potential in regard to building teacher efficacy and transforming student learning.
Some articles describing Instructional Rounds:
Improving Teaching and Learning through Instructional Rounds
School Based Instructional Rounds
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Big, Big Learning
Last November we hosted our District Implementation Day at one of our local schools. This was the second year in a row we've taken over the gym at Don Ross and brought all of the teachers in the district together, as well as education assistants and a cross-section of support staff, for some big group learning and table work. The planning required for a session like this is rather daunting. We needed to reserve the gym for the day and allow time for set up, then order enough chairs and tables for everybody, as well as extra projectors and screens, proper audio equipment, and catering for lunch. There were also seating plans for the morning, resources to photocopy, placemats to guide participants through their activities, and enough pens and sticky notes for everyone. Then there are the actual learning activities to consider.
After some warm-up activities and a review of our Pathways to Learning Education Plan and the process that created it, our superintendent, Lisa McCullough, led the 500 people in the room through a series of group processes focusing on task design. Participants were asked to review and discuss the difference between "traditional" lessons which were teacher-centered and relied primarily on lecture components (described as "Task A") then compare them with lessons that were more student-centered and infused with opportunities to develop critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and contribution (described as "Task B").
The table groups completed three sets of these task comparisons, each including a chance to tune each task a little further, making them safer, more purposeful, or more powerful. Teachers were then provided an opportunity to reorganize into learning teams from their schools or curricular areas and design and tune tasks for their own classrooms, with the support of their colleagues and an Understanding By Design style template to act as a bit of a scaffold when needed. The session closed with a return to our giant competencies banner for another colour coded self-assessment activity to help us with further planning. (The following link connects to a Slideshare of the session PowerPoint and the videos intended to inspire our work during the day: Implementation Day 2014)
Exciting, right? Sure it was. I am also certain the collective understanding of these complex ideas took a quantum leap forward during the day. However, this was a somewhat risky endeavour overall. This session was held mere weeks after teachers returned to work from the longest labour dispute in the province's history, and there were still some hard feelings. On top of that, it is challenging stuff. Much of it rubs against the work we have been doing in our classroom for years and years, and it pushes the thinking of even the most astute instructor. Knowing this, we could have watered down the content and focused heavily on the affective domain. However, we felt the importance of the changes required by the Pathways and the new BC curriculum, along with the scarcity of opportunity to do this work throughout the year more than outweighed these concerns, and we decided to make the day as challenging and meaningful as possible.
After the session, we shared an e-survey link and I can divide the teacher feedback we collected into three clear categories of responses, which I will carefully paraphrase below:
1. I was ready for this session, I needed it, and it helped me move forward. Meeting or Exceeding Expectations.
2. I wasn't quite ready for this session, it was frustrating at times, but I think I moved forward. Approaching Expectations.
3. I was not ready for this session, I did not like it at all, and I did not move forward. Not Meeting Expectations.
The school psychologist whose office is across from mine offered some interesting observations about the strong connection between a person's perception of success and their perception of happiness. This leads me to some questions that mine at the crux of what leadership is really about and will hopefully lead to some big, big learning on my end:
As an epilogue of sorts, I will share this one anecdote. Sometime after this learning event took place, one of our district coordinators (we call them the Instructional Leadership Team, or ILT) was having a casual conversation about instructional practice with a teacher, who had been fairly vocal regarding her lack of enjoyment of the day. When their chat touched on this teacher's particular "problem of practice" the ILT member was able to refer back to a specific part of an activity from the Implementation Day and help the teacher make a clear connection to her own work and conceptually navigate through the challenge. This might not constitute a huge breakthrough, but it does reinforce the concept that these large-scale activities have the potential to create common language and build a foundation that we can draw on to move our practice forward in a more meaningful way, and therefore should be considered worthwhile.
After some warm-up activities and a review of our Pathways to Learning Education Plan and the process that created it, our superintendent, Lisa McCullough, led the 500 people in the room through a series of group processes focusing on task design. Participants were asked to review and discuss the difference between "traditional" lessons which were teacher-centered and relied primarily on lecture components (described as "Task A") then compare them with lessons that were more student-centered and infused with opportunities to develop critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and contribution (described as "Task B").
The table groups completed three sets of these task comparisons, each including a chance to tune each task a little further, making them safer, more purposeful, or more powerful. Teachers were then provided an opportunity to reorganize into learning teams from their schools or curricular areas and design and tune tasks for their own classrooms, with the support of their colleagues and an Understanding By Design style template to act as a bit of a scaffold when needed. The session closed with a return to our giant competencies banner for another colour coded self-assessment activity to help us with further planning. (The following link connects to a Slideshare of the session PowerPoint and the videos intended to inspire our work during the day: Implementation Day 2014)
Exciting, right? Sure it was. I am also certain the collective understanding of these complex ideas took a quantum leap forward during the day. However, this was a somewhat risky endeavour overall. This session was held mere weeks after teachers returned to work from the longest labour dispute in the province's history, and there were still some hard feelings. On top of that, it is challenging stuff. Much of it rubs against the work we have been doing in our classroom for years and years, and it pushes the thinking of even the most astute instructor. Knowing this, we could have watered down the content and focused heavily on the affective domain. However, we felt the importance of the changes required by the Pathways and the new BC curriculum, along with the scarcity of opportunity to do this work throughout the year more than outweighed these concerns, and we decided to make the day as challenging and meaningful as possible.
After the session, we shared an e-survey link and I can divide the teacher feedback we collected into three clear categories of responses, which I will carefully paraphrase below:
1. I was ready for this session, I needed it, and it helped me move forward. Meeting or Exceeding Expectations.
2. I wasn't quite ready for this session, it was frustrating at times, but I think I moved forward. Approaching Expectations.
3. I was not ready for this session, I did not like it at all, and I did not move forward. Not Meeting Expectations.
The school psychologist whose office is across from mine offered some interesting observations about the strong connection between a person's perception of success and their perception of happiness. This leads me to some questions that mine at the crux of what leadership is really about and will hopefully lead to some big, big learning on my end:
- What is the true impact to the system when we design and host a large scale learning event such as this one?
- How does the perception of success drive students' learning and how does it relate to factors such as resilience or connectivity to their school?
- What are the connections between the way students feel about learning and the way adult professionals feel about learning?
- What is the impact of modeling in regard to resilience and the growth mindset?
As an epilogue of sorts, I will share this one anecdote. Sometime after this learning event took place, one of our district coordinators (we call them the Instructional Leadership Team, or ILT) was having a casual conversation about instructional practice with a teacher, who had been fairly vocal regarding her lack of enjoyment of the day. When their chat touched on this teacher's particular "problem of practice" the ILT member was able to refer back to a specific part of an activity from the Implementation Day and help the teacher make a clear connection to her own work and conceptually navigate through the challenge. This might not constitute a huge breakthrough, but it does reinforce the concept that these large-scale activities have the potential to create common language and build a foundation that we can draw on to move our practice forward in a more meaningful way, and therefore should be considered worthwhile.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
We Need to Talk
In public education, it is a good idea to know what
the community is thinking and saying before moving forward with a major
initiative. We do have the usual built-in networks, with information coming to
us via Board members and principals from their various sources, and
some information comes in directly to senior staff via email and casual
conversation with parents and teachers. However, these sound bites are not
enough to accurately drive the School District's decision making processes, and
we often do require a broader collection of information to make sure we
are on the right track. This is when we ask the public to participate.
We initiated the most significant example of this type of process two years ago when designing our School District's Strategic Plan. It started with a series of questions sent out via school email and URLs published in the local papers, which were funnelled through a website that fed into a survey program provided by Thoughtexchange. The questions focused on what our students need for their learning, how we will know if they actually are successful, and the structures we need to support them through these processes. This led into a five full-day sessions with nearly forty participants, consisting of parents, members of the aboriginal community, Board members, support staff, senior staff, and eighteen teachers engaged in the process. Each day consisted of activities designed to explore the 1100+ responses we received through different perspectives, understand them, categorize them, and involve the participants in developing a cohesive plan to move our District forward. Senior staff polished the work, and with the help of graphic designer, we produced a brochure, bookmarks, and posters to share understanding, then we went out to describe the work further in a series of presentations in staff meetings, and evening sessions with parents. Since then we have sent team of senior staff annually to PAC meetings at every school in the District intended both to inform and consult regarding its implementation, and added several more presentations when schools or parents have had more specific questions. We believe our Pathways to Education Strategic Plan fits well with the province's new BC Education Plan and accurately reflects the information we gathered through public participation, but it still requires constant communication with our community to hear their concerns and describe what we are trying to achieve, if we wish to keep it all moving forward.
Our second largest consultation process in the last two years was designed to address our District calendar. Calendar can be a challenging discussion in the Sea to Sky corridor, and we wanted to do our best to make sure our efforts were earnest and thorough and be seen to be as such by our community. We formed a committee, brought in a local consultant who had a clear picture of these conversations from the public's perspective, and we worked together to build a series of draft calendars. We then shared these drafts with representatives of the local teacher's union, support staff union, and the District Parent Advisory. After receiving feedback, we modified the calendar options, and then constructed a calendar webpage. This page described the calendars and the process, the timeline, and the criteria the Board would use to make this decision before leading the particpants to a page that connected them to the Survey Monkey e-survey. This was critical, I believe, as community members needed to know their input was very important, but only one of the factors that the Board was going to consider when they made their decision. Once again, we shared the process and options at every PAC meeting, then made sure to share the results of the survey prior to the open Board meeting where the decision was actually made.
We have repeated many of these basic consultation elements with our local reconfiguration decision, our new early French immersion and sport academy programs of choice, recent principal hiring processes, and another calendar check-in after our delayed start-up due to the labour disruption. There have been times where we have received complaints about the number of surveys being sent home, but we think it is far better to err on the side of too many surveys than too few.
One of the indicators of successful community consultation is the Board meetings themselves. In the past, it is my understanding that meetings on contentious issues would sometimes be packed with community members who felt that attending was the only way to be heard. In the last two years the Board meetings have been lightly attended in most cases, a shame in some regard, as the discussions have been appropriately thoughtful and informed. We think that getting out to schools and PAC meetings to interface with the public, describing the process, getting feedback through surveys, and sharing those results has gone a long way to build understanding and reduce anxiety in our learning community, and kept the contentious conversations out of that environment. This isn't say that it always works perfectly. We still receive emails or comments from time to time that make what I call "that clunking sound" reminding us that we need to continue to refine our processes and keep working to build trust, and we will strive to do just that.
I've attached a tool made by iap2 which clarifies some aspects of interfacing with the public and may help you with your own public participation processes. This chart has guided our work somewhat in the past, and I expect it to be a more explicit part of our practice moving forward. It is critical for the participants to understand what their participation really means when "we need to talk", and to not overstate or understate their role in making a District decision. In truth, as much as the interests of our community do influence our direction, it is not very often that we operate on very right side of this chart, and correctly so. As we have been known to tell our public, "This is a survey, and not a vote. It is our job to provide the Board with the information they need to make a decision, and that includes the results of this survey. It is their job to consider all the information when they vote."
One clear exception to this occurred this recent November. The BC School Trustee elections are a chance for members of the public to be empowered as they choose who will represent their community at the Board table. Hopefully our community will enthusiastically engage in this unique opportunity to influence decision making every time it presents itself, and yours will too. Good luck with your own public participation processes, however big or small they may be.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)