please follow the requirement and finish
due in 24h
5 pages
Reading Reactions
40 points
(10 points per reaction)
In this assignment, participants will read The Skillful Teacher text and provide written responses to five (5) reflection questions. Participants will be assigned specific chapters to read and will be required to respond to one (1) essential question and will select four (4) additional questions to respond to from a menu of eight (8) total questions to choose from. This way students may respond to topics that are of particular interest to them and relevant for their area of focus. Responses will be shared through a discussion at the beginning of the next class session. Written responses should be between 250-300 words for each question response. The course text and experiences should be referenced in each Reading Reaction. The paper will include a reference using APA style. The body of the paper will also follow APA style for font, spacing and margins.
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Name:
Date:
Focus Area:
Reading Reactions
Question #1: Summarize two Essential Beliefs that challenge your thoughts about education and explain why, based on the reading.
According to the text, multiple beliefs challenge my thoughts on education. One of these beliefs is that children learning is primarily determined by the effectiveness of the different strategies used by teachers. In this belief, the ability of students to learn and grasp new concepts is not dependent on the fixed intelligence trait from birth but on how well teachers can deliver learning information and material.
The other belief on education that challenges my views is that teaching requires deep collaboration and non-defensive self-examination of practice related to student results (Saphier et al., 1997). In this belief, the main point addressed is that teachers need each other in various teaching practices such as common formative assessments to increase their productivity.
According to the author, the child’s learning ability can be affected either positively or negatively by the teachers teaching strategies. I can’t entirely agree with this since some teachers tend to keep the maximum effort on weak students. Still, some children’s academic performance remains limited regardless of the teachers’ efforts due to inherited intelligence.
On the other hand, the belief that teachers should collaborate to maximize their efficiency is inexplicable. From my point of view, teaching efficiency depends on the teacher’s traits, experience and personal skills. It is hard for one to rely on another person’s strategies, yet they have different personalities.
With knowledge of the beliefs on education, teachers can use this information to develop different strategies to improve their skills and experience while in their teaching career. These beliefs can also aid on how to enhance students learning abilities.
Question Two
Analyze the Seven Knowledge Bases for High-Expertise Teaching and Explain why it is not enough for an educator to be just an expert in their content
Teaching is a process that involves giving knowledge in several ways. It can be done in or out of the classroom through different methods. Knowledge is an essential tool in learning. There are seven kinds of knowledge sources that can be used by members of the teaching profession (Saphier, 2017). One of the sources is knowledge of the general pedagogy. General pedagogy is used to identify the difference between knowing how to teach and teaching a particular subject. Skilful teachers can guide a variety of topics after familiarization with the content. Teachers who are unable to teach different subjects quickly succumb to failure. The knowledge of a particular content pedagogy is the second source of professional knowledge. It entails being familiar with the content of a specific subject. According to Lee Shulman (1986), a teacher must be familiar with various forms of media, methods of data presentation, experiments, models, projects and equipment of the curriculum they are teaching. Relevant and culturally appropriate ideas and examples must also be used in the teaching process.
A teacher must show professional expertise by knowing content analysis. Content is usually divided into chapters, topics, and sub-topics in different curricula. Professional expertise helps explain various aspects and identify the many levels involved in learning. Teachers with the right amount of skills often demonstrate awareness of the different levels of learning to avoid confusing learners. Professionalism in teaching entails knowing the academic discipline. The academic field is the state requirement regarding course content and teacher qualification. A skilful teacher must be aware of this.
There exist distinct differences in learners in a given classroom. A good teacher must be aware of their unique characteristics to help them become better learners. The differences should not be used to mock students but to help them work on their strengths. Knowledge of the behavior of the other professionals creates a unique opportunity for interaction within the working environment. It enables professionals to better their problem solving and decision-making skills. A skilful teacher should engage well with family members and the community. Family and community are essential elements of the learning environment and should be included in the learning process. According to this discussion, it is not enough for a teacher to know the content. They must also possess the ability to relate to other subjects and ideas for effective learning.
Question Three
Examine the Ten Jobs of Teaching and describe three elements of successful teaching and learning that are new to you as part of an educator repertoire
Effective teaching involves skills that each professional must have over time. These skills are not honed in one day but accumulate over the years through some experiences. Elements of teaching and learning are the learner, teacher and a conducive learning environment. Teaching and learning can only occur when these three elements go well together. In a conducive learning environment, learners will be comfortable and attentive, and the teacher will pass knowledge effectively. A teacher has several roles to perform in a classroom (Saphier,2017). These roles are formal and informal and help learners improve their capacity and potential in the long run. A teacher is a resource provider. This means that teachers must have instructional materials and books to share with other professionals and students. These materials help learners understand and relate to the content at hand. The resources involved in learning can include charts, videos and diagrams.
Mentorship is another role of teachers. It can be done through various programs and activities. Teachers work towards making the best possible products through mentorship strategies. Mentorship is not an easy fit as it takes a high level of expertise and familiarity with the students. Teaching also comes with leadership. Students look up to teachers as their navigation compass in the world (Peterson & Prereira, 2020). The mannerism, character and dressing style can determine a student’s character. Coaching is one of the most acute jobs of teaching and learning. It is done by giving assignments that enable learners to understand different aspects by relating to other subjects. Students analyze additional data to acquire learning instruction.
According to Larner (2004), teachers act as catalysts of society’s change. It is the work of teachers to ensure a difference in the behavior and mannerisms of their students by initiating and emulating it. Teaching and learning is a continuous process, and as a result, the instructor has to learn from other peers and students. This tool is crucial in helping learners achieve their goals. A skilful teacher must facilitate the learning process by providing the necessary tools for that to happen. Understanding content is essential for teaching to take place. If a teacher fails to understand the content, they will mislead the students. Teaching involves classroom support through observation, demonstration and giving lesson feedback. Blasé (2006) argued that this improved the efficacy of both teaching and learning. Teachers can believe in their abilities. All these tools, when used together, create a positive learning environment.
Question 6
Explain the importance of a common language and concept system in education and describe how they impact the education profession
Having a common language and concept system in education has proved to be of great importance as it possesses a variety of benefits in the education process. To begin with, having a common language has positively influenced the conversations in teachers’ rooms as it helps to break boredom and loneliness among teachers as they can engage in various discussions together. On the other hand, having a standard concept system enables discussion of problems from a professional challenge perspective rather than an admission of personal inadequacy.
A common language and concept system is essential as it easily enables one to understand other people’s practices and actions more positively. In addition to this, relationships among teachers can be enhanced as there would be a better understanding of each other’s actions (Saphier, 1997). A common language and concept system enables a better understanding of each other, which is crucial in creating teamwork that is essential in achieving common group goals.
Having a common language and a concept system is essential as it helps to enhance proper work relations that are essential in achieving common group goals. As highlighted by the author, developing a standard concept system aids in the improvement of staff development programs and teaching evaluation to be more advantageous.
The text on this topic is of great importance. It highlights the various benefits of having a common language and concept system that is important to analyze the concepts in the current education system. With a proper understanding of the benefits of a common language and a concept system and how they impact the education profession, this information can develop more concepts or change the current ones to improve the system.
Question 8
Describe the starting point for cultural proficiency and its importance in the learning community.
Cultural proficiency can be defined as the skills, attitude, knowledge, and beliefs that allow people to work well respond efficiently and effectively to people of a different cultural setting. Teachers need to be culturally proficient as this is a vital skill that can be applied in culturally relevant lessons or topics in class. Due to the cultural diversity in American schools today, teachers need to understand their students’ culture to make them part of the learning process.
In case a teacher is not culturally proficient, the students might feel that their cultures are isolated and ignored, the students learning process is compromised to a great extent (Saphier, 1997). Students who feel like their culture is significantly compromised in classrooms by teachers tend to feel like they have less demand and expectations, making the student less active in class.
I agree with the author’s presentation on the relationship between the teacher’s cultural proficiency and the students’ energy level and participation in class. A teacher’s lack of understanding of the students’ culture will make the students feel misunderstood and unrecognized in the classroom. In connection with this, a culturally proficient teacher will make the students feel included and recognized in the school since they will feel that their culture is recognized and valued by the teacher.
This text plays a massive role in expanding knowledge on the importance of understanding students’ culture and the possible outcomes of a teacher lacking cultural proficiency. With this information on the importance of understanding students’ culture, the educational curriculum can be adjusted to be more culturally sensitive. It will be important in ensuring students are more engaged in the classroom.
References
Peterson, K., & Pereira, V. (2020). Attitudes on skilful two and teacher created ancillary material. Revista de Lenguas Modernas, (33), 25-51. https://doi.org/10.15517/rlm.v0i33.3922.
Saphier R. Jon, Haley-Speca, Mary Ann, Robert Gower (2018). The Skillful Teacher: The comprehensive resource for improving teaching and learning. 7th Ed
Name:
Date:
Focus Area:
Reading Reaction #
2
Assigned Reading: The Skillful Teacher, Chapters 15 & 16, pages 389-440
Directions:
1. Answer question #1. This question is required. Be prepared to share your response during SET-Up with the Learning Community.
2. Select 4 additional questions of interest from the menu below. For each question you select:
· Reflect and react to one or two points from the reading involving the question you chose.
· Describe how the text helps you to better understand the topic. What connection did you make to your professional setting?
3. Use the Reading Reaction template to write your responses in a Microsoft Word document. Each response should be between 250- 300 words.
Menu:
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1. Describe the repertoires for developing and maintaining positive teacher-student relationships. |
2. Why do students more readily accept rules or (learning community standards) when they have a positive relationship with their teacher? |
3. Examine the Eight Key Teacher Traits for Personal Relationship Building. Describe a teacher from your past who exhibited many of these traits, and how that influenced your learning. |
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4. Why is it important to re-establish contact after a disciplinary incident? |
5. Review table 15.1, How Student Define Respect. Did any of these examples surprise you? Explain why. |
6. Describe any connections that you see between the Community and Mutual Support (column 1 of figure 16.2) and the concept of a Learning Community. |
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7. Social skills must be explicitly taught. Describe the 5 steps required for teachers to support the transfer of these social skills in student’s daily lives. |
8. Analyze the Five Beliefs That Underlie Risk Taking. Describe how positive beliefs impact risk-taking and learning and the importance of mindset regarding mistakes/errors. |
9. Reflect upon the quote on page 434, “The construction of knowledge, which takes place through negotiation, depends on the redistribution of power from teachers to students”. Explain why this is a difficult concept for many teachers. |
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Advanced Instructional Strategies 881.622.03 2/7/22
JON SAPHIER | MARY ANN HALEY-SPECA | ROBERT GOWER
THE SKILLFUL
TEACHER
The Comprehensive
Resource for Improving
Teaching and Learning
7TH EDITION
The Comprehensive Resource for
Improving Teaching and Learning
THE SKILLFUL
TEACHER
Research for Better Teaching, Inc. • One Acton Place, Acton, MA 01720 • 978.263.9449 • www.RBTeach.com
7TH EDITION
Jon Saphier
Mary Ann Haley-Speca
Robert Gower
Copyright © 2018 by Research for Better Teaching, Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval systems, without
either the prior written permission from the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropri-
ate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923,
(978) 646-2600, fax (855) 239-3415, or on the web at www.copyright.com.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Saphier, Jon, author. | Haley-Speca, Mary Ann, author. | Gower, Robert, author.
Title: The skillful teacher : the comprehensive resource for improving
teaching and learning / Jon Saphier, Mary Ann Haley-Speca, Robert Gower.
Description: Seventh Edition. | Acton, MA : Research for Better Teaching, Inc., [2018]
| Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017046882 | ISBN 9781886822610 (Paperback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Teaching. | Learning.
Classification: LCC LB1025.3 .S27 2018 | DDC 371.102–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017046882
Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Published and distributed by:
Research for Better Teaching, Inc.
One Acton Place
Acton, MA 01720
978-263-9449 voice
978-263-9959 fax
info@RBTeach.com
www.RBTeach.com
Epub Edition ISBN: 9781886822634; Kindle Edition ISBN: 9781886822641
http://www.copyright.com
http://www.RBTeach.com
Preface v
Acknowledgments vii
Contents
Contents iii
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R iii
Contents
Preface v
Acknowledgments vii
About the Authors ix
1. Skillful Teaching: The Missing Element in School 1
2. The Skillful Teacher Framework 9
PART ONE:
INTRODUCTION TO ESSENTIAL BELIEFS 19
3. Schooling 21
4. Cultural Proficiency and Anti-Racism 29
PART TWO:
INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT 41
5. Attention 43
6. Momentum 59
7. Space 71
8. Time 81
9. Routines 105
10. Discipline 121
PART THREE:
INTRODUCTION TO INSTRUCTION 193
11. Clarity 195
12. Principles of Learning 267
13. Models of Teaching 291
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E Riv
PART FOUR:
INTRODUCTION TO MOTIVATION 313
14. Expectations 315
15. Personal Relationship Building 389
16. Classroom Climate 407
PART FIVE:
INTRODUCTION TO CURRICULUM 441
17. Curriculum Design 443
18. Lesson Objectives 461
19. Planning 487
20. Differentiated Instruction 521
21. Assessment 549
22. Overarching Objectives 621
Reference List 633
Subject Index 653
Preface
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R v
PREFACE
Preface
We wrote this book to assist teachers in their efforts to build greater competence in teaching skills. Our values are obvious. We believe that many things—good cur-riculum, parental involvement, a clean and safe building—are important for good
schools. But of all the things that are important to having good schools, nothing is as important
as the teacher and what he or she knows, believes, and can do. A teacher’s skill makes a dif-
ference in student performance, not only in achievement scores on tests (as important as that
might be) but also in students’ sense of fulfillment in school and their feelings of well-being.
Our exploration of teaching is guided by three key concepts: (1) comprehensiveness, (2) reper-
toire, and (3) matching. Comprehensiveness refers to our efforts to understand teaching as a
whole. Repertoire challenges teachers to develop a variety of strategies and behaviors for deal-
ing with teaching situations. Matching directs teachers to think about what behavior to pick
from their expanding repertoires in light of the situation, group, or characteristics of individual
students. Throughout, we revisit these three ideas again and again. As we define and describe
each area of teaching, we take the reader through the range of options we have uncovered for
handling it. And then, we address matching for that area.
We propose that the skills of teaching include anything a person does that influences the
probability of intended learning. That definition broadens the field for application of skill be-
yond classroom management and good delivery of instruction. Teaching skill includes mo-
tivating students and teaching them how to translate that motivation into effective effort. It
includes analyzing content for possible misconceptions. It includes error analysis and the plan-
ning of reteaching for those who didn’t get it the first time around.
In the first chapter, we argue that skillful teaching is the missing element in school reform
efforts, and we outline the seven complex knowledge areas we believe are required for skill-
ful teaching. The Skillful Teacher addresses one of those complex knowledge areas: generic
pedagogy. The second chapter describes The Skillful Teacher Framework, an intuitive structure
for organizing this knowledge and capturing future new knowledge. It is a framework that
provides educators with a common language and concept system for enabling this complex
and critical work in classrooms across the country. The remaining chapters step through each
component of The Skillful Teacher Framework. You can read this book sequentially, chapter
by chapter, or go straight to a chapter on a particular component of skillful teaching you want
to focus on.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E Rvi
PREFACE
We hope, through this book, to build a common language and concept system for talking about
teaching—not a dictionary of jargon, but a set of important and meaningful concepts about teaching
that all educators can begin to use in common. Having language and shared vocabulary to describe
what one does creates more conscious awareness of the most subtle aspects of practice, expands
one’s lenses for noticing causal relationships, and illuminates opportunities to constructively and
creatively adjust and modify practice to achieve our goals. Furthermore, if we can better understand
each other—speaking and writing in clear, meaningful terms—then we can expect observation write-
ups and evaluations of teaching to be more useful, supervision conferences to be more specific and
productive, and staff development programs to be more focused.
We might also expect some of the barriers of isolation and loneliness between teachers to come down.
We might expect conversation in teachers’ rooms and other meeting places to be more open, more
mutually helpful, and more about instruction. With a common professional knowledge base, discuss-
ing problems with each other might seem less an admission of personal inadequacy and more a mat-
ter of a professional challenge to tackle with knowledge and skills.
In undergraduate teacher education courses, student teaching, and graduate seminars, this same fo-
cus on skills and the development of common technical understandings should find a place. Technical
understanding of teaching casts no aspersions on the importance of humanism, child development,
or detailed knowledge of age- and grade-specific content, methods, and materials. Student teachers
in the primary grades, for example, would do well to know about unifix cubes and how to use them
to teach place value. Similarly, student teachers in high school social studies would do well to know
about TCI’s “History Alive” units (www.teachtci.com) and the excellent units of the DBQ Project
(www.dbqproject.com). But teacher training (and in-service training) already deals with these things.
In our development as a profession, it is time to deal with teaching itself.
This 7th edition of The Skillful Teacher has been updated and revised to reflect our knowledge of
successful new practices and recent research. Enhanced content for each chapter, such as videos, ad-
ditional reference materials, and practice exercises, is available for registered readers on The Skillful
Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7. These resources are indicated throughout the book by
icons in the margins. A lightbulb highlights a “truth” about skillful teaching and a check mark sug-
gests a skillful practice. Please visit the website regularly, as we will be updating the content with new
material of interest to our readers.
We hope you will find this new edition of The Skillful Teacher both instructive and inspiring.
PDF
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
Acknowledgments
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R vii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Acknowledgments
A book that attempts to synthesize as much information as this one is obviously indebted to a host of practitioners, researchers, and thought leaders. The reference list at the end of the book reflects the range of authors who have influenced our thinking.
First and foremost, we extend our gratitude to the team of Research for Better Teaching, Inc.
(RBT) colleagues and consultants, some of whom have dedicated more than half of their ca-
reers to studying, teaching, contributing to, and disseminating this body of work and continue
with us today (Deb Reed, Alexander Platt, Marcia Booth, Ken Chapman, Ann Stern, Caroline
Tripp, Jim Warnock), others who have joined RBT more recently as valued consultants (Jan
Burres, Laura Cooper, Renee DeWald, Reena Freedman, Elizabeth Imende, Nancy Love, Sue
McGregor, Harriet Scarborough, Ruth Sernak, Kathy Spencer, Aminata Umoja, DeNelle West),
and still others who have either retired from RBT or continued to work in the field in other ca-
pacities (Greg Ciardi, Maxine Minkoff, Ned Paulsen, Laura Porter, Fran Prolman, Paula Ruth-
erford, Mary Sterling, Louise Thompson, and Bruce Wellman).
Over the course of more than 40 years, we and these RBT consultants have had the privilege
of working with hundreds of thousands of practitioners who have opened their classrooms to
us, shared their practice and their insights, bravely explored and experimented with concepts
within The Skillful Teacher Framework, and openly shared their successes and their struggles.
We are indebted to each of them for the ways in which they contributed to the growth of this
professional knowledge base. And in this edition, in particular, we appreciate the contributions
by classroom teachers Danielle Berwick, Meghan Conley, Danielle Conway, and Michael Scal-
ise, who were kind enough to share with us some of their classroom routines.
In addition, Dr. Tiffany Pogue of Albany State University provided subtle and valuable sugges-
tions for the new chapter on cultural proficiency. We’re very grateful to her.
We thank the many educators in Brookline, Cambridge, Carlisle, Concord, and Newton, Mas-
sachusetts, whose participation in our early observational studies contributed to the original
conceptual framework for this book. Specifically, Ginny Chalmers, Susan-Jo Russell, Suzanne
Stuart, and Risa Whitehead opened their classrooms to us and held many important discus-
sions with us about teaching. Peggy McNeill MacMullen was an invaluable part of the early
brain trust that developed The Skillful Teacher Framework.
viii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R
Ann Ballantine brought to the project a rare combination of editing, book production skills, and
project management. Her commitment to our mission was responsible for great work above and
beyond the call of duty.
Leah Conn’s editing and additions to the exercises and videos associated with each chapter will be
prized by those who use these online resources on The Skillful Teacher website.
Suzanne Peterman of Top Dog Design brought new graphics and refined formatting skills to the
book design.
Ivy Schutt managed permissions and editing work with diligence and excellence.
Carole Fiorentino was a skilled detective in tracking down hard-to-find references to be sure we
were accurate and up to date.
Finally, we especially want to thank our spouses and families for their continuing support and un-
derstanding of the often demanding schedules of our work to advance the professionalization of
teaching.
About the Authors
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R ix
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
About the Authors
Jon Saphier founded Research for Better Teaching, Inc. (RBT) in 1979, after 10 years as a
teacher, instructional coach, and administrator. RBT is an educational consulting organiza-
tion dedicated to improving classroom teaching and school leadership throughout the United
States and internationally. He has led large-scale district improvement projects and has forged
working alliances among superintendents, teacher union leaders, and school boards in school
districts such as Montgomery County, Maryland; Eugene, Oregon; and Brockton, Revere, and
Attleboro in Massachusetts. He is an annual guest instructor for The Harvard Graduate School
of Education’s Achievement Gap Institute and is a well-known keynote speaker on high-
expertise teaching, school leadership, and related education topics. Dr. Saphier is an author of
eight books on education, including The Skillful Teacher, now its 7th edition. Other publica-
tions include High Expectations Teaching, How to Bring Vision to School Improvement, and John
Adams’ Promise. Dr. Saphier holds an Ed.D. from Boston University, M.Ed. from University
of Massachusetts, M.S. from London School of Economics, and a B.A. from Amherst College.
Mary Ann Haley-Speca is a founding consultant and former director of training with Re-
search for Better Teaching, Inc. (RBT). During her tenure with RBT, Ms. Haley-Speca worked
with teachers and administrators in urban, suburban, and rural public school districts and
private institutions throughout the world, focusing on the study of instruction, school, and
organizational culture; coaching, supervision, and evaluation practices; and professional de-
velopment planning. She is the co-author of two other popular RBT publications: Activators
and Summarizers. She has served as a classroom teacher, staff developer, and program super-
visor in the Hudson and Concord, Massachusetts, public schools. She is currently working as
a full-time consultant with RBT on long-term projects in several urban and suburban school
districts throughout the United States.
Robert Gower is retired as Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts–Lowell
(UML) where he helped develop the doctoral program in Leadership in Schooling and was on
the Advisory Board of the Graduate School of Education. He still teaches The Skillful Teacher
online course at UML. Bob’s distinguished career includes being an elementary teacher, a prin-
cipal, a researcher, a pioneer in the study of teaching, and a standout instructor and mentor for
generations of graduate students. In 2007, he received the Faculty Excellence & Service Award
and was recognized as a 2007 Honors Fellow by the University of Massachusetts.
1. Skillful Teaching: The Missing Element in School
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 1
SKILLFUL TEACHING | THE MISSING ELEMENT IN SCHOOL REFORM
Skillful Teaching:
The Missing Element
in School Reform
Since the last edition of The Skillful Teacher, published in 2008, we have witnessed many new initiatives aimed at improving what schools offer children: The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Federal Law, the U.S.
Department of Education’s Race to the Top competitive program, the Gates
Foundation–funded Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project, the
Common Core curriculum standards, and the passing of the Every Student
Succeeds Act (ESSA) by Congress.
However, during this period and, in fact, since the 1990s progress narrowing
the achievement gap has actually plateaued nationwide and deteriorated mark-
edly in urban schools (Reardon, 2013). Why is this the case? Let’s look at each
of these school-improvement initiatives:
p NCLB created a nationwide focus on testing with both positive and nega-
tive effects. The positive effect was to focus attention on student gain scores,
especially for underserved students. The negative effect was to drive teach-
ing toward test-centered skill work and away from responsiveness to stu-
dents’ interests and creativity, critical thinking, and deep understanding.
p Race to the Top generated intensive development of materials for teacher
evaluation and employment regulations that made teacher ratings give
weight to student gain scores for a large proportion of the rating. The
benefits were rubrics that attempted to capture the range of categories in
which teacher performance mattered. The minuses, which in our view
far outnumber the pluses, were overreliance on unreliable measures of
student gains, superficial and ineffective training of evaluators, reduction
of rubrics to checklists, and neglect of the improvement of teaching in favor
of the evaluation of teachers.
p The MET project attempted to correlate five observation protocols with
measured student gain scores. The highest correlation went not to an
observation protocol, but to a highly developed student questionnaire, the
Tripod Survey. Student evaluations of teachers were far more accurate than
observation instruments. The benefit was to validate student evaluations
and highlight the factors they identify (Ferguson et al., 2015).
We hope to build a
common language
and concept system
for talking about
teaching—not a
dictionary of jargon,
but a set of
important and
meaningful
concepts that all
educators can
begin to use in
common.
Skillful
Teaching
The Missing
Element in
School Reform
CHAPTER
1
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R2
SKILLFUL TEACHING | THE MISSING ELEMENT IN SCHOOL REFORM
p The Common Core curriculum standards brought a spotlight onto
critical thinking, deep understanding, and students’ capacity to articulate
their thinking and support their positions with evidence. This focus has, un-
fortunately, been sidetracked by erroneous assumptions that the standards
are a national curriculum. Common Core standards are not a curriculum;
they are competency targets to shoot for. They originated from the gover-
nors of 50 states, not the U.S. Department of Education. The Council of
Chief State School Officers decided to contract with experts to write them;
there was no federal participation at all. These erroneous assumptions were
compounded by fear that the tests derived from the standards would be
harder than the current ones states use, because they require more thinking
and writing. Thus state scores would go down.
p The enactment of ESSA has given us a breather from the testing mania still
abroad in the land, but it has done nothing about the central issue—creat-
ing the required conditions to support a highly skilled teaching profession
based on sophisticated expertise and deep collaboration.
Although these programs have had some positive effects, they have not led to
enough progress in raising the quality of our schools overall because none of
them systematically or consistently addressed the most important variable in
student achievement: skillful teaching. The valuable work of the last two decades
on other aspects of school improvement has not been in vain or off target. It was
necessary but insufficient. We needed standards. We needed accountability and
a focus on results for students. We needed data systems to track student learn-
ing at a fine grain. But these hallmark reforms of the 1990s and 2000s have still
not budged student achievement significantly because we left off the third leg of
the stool in school reform—standards and accountability for the expertise of our
teacher corps in the complex knowledge and skill of good teaching.
THE WORK WE STILL NEED TO DO
Several days each week, we are in classrooms in one of our major cities—New
York, Memphis, Washington D.C., San Diego, and others—providing coaching
and support to teachers and principals. What we see sometimes exhilarates us
and, at other times, breaks our hearts. The best classrooms are uplifting places that
deliver skillful teaching and convey belief and hope to all their students about the
promise of education and the capacity of each child to achieve at high levels. All our
children could learn in such places, but they do not.
There are many outstanding professional teachers at work in our schools,
including those serving our most economically disadvantaged children. They
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had to acquire their expertise over many years and usually alone through
their own initiative and perseverance. But there are simply not enough of
them. The stark fact is that there are larger numbers of underprepared teach-
ers. And blaming them for skills they don’t have is unfair. There is a massive
gap between the knowledge and skills they bring to the classroom and the
knowledge and skills they should and could have with proper training and
support. The fundamentals of high-expertise teaching have not been provided
to or expected of large portions of our teacher corps.
There are seven kinds of professional knowledge (Figure 1.1) that are central to
high-expertise teaching (Saphier, 2017). In addition to Generic Pedagogy (the fo-
cus of The Skillful Teacher) and Content-Specific Pedagogy, five other important
knowledge bases bear on the success of teaching and learning. Five of them—
Content Analysis, Academic Discipline, Individual Differences in Learners, Be-
havior of Individuals in Effective Organizations, Effective Communications with
Family and Community—are seldom found in teacher preparation programs or
other systems that influence teacher capacity.
1. Knowledge of Generic Pedagogy: The Skillful Teacher tackles the
vast and complex field of generic pedagogical knowledge. Without solid
Figure 1.1 Seven Knowledge Bases for High-Expertise Teaching
The Skillful Teacher
provides a detailed
roadmap for anyone
seeking to master
generic pedagogy.
S T U D E N T
L E A R N I N G /
S T U D E N T
AC H I E V E M E N T
Generic
Pedagogy
The Skillful Teacher
Content-Specific
Pedagogical
Knowledge Content
Analysis
Academic
Discipline
Individual
Differences in
Learners
Behavior of
Individuals
in Effective
Organizations
Effective
Communications
with Family and
Community
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SKILLFUL TEACHING | THE MISSING ELEMENT IN SCHOOL REFORM
skills in this area, many people entering teaching, who are experts at their
content and are mature individuals transferring from successful careers
in other walks of life, quickly fail. We hope The Skillful Teacher can help
prevent those unnecessary failures. But it is important to keep in mind
how this knowledge base fits with others that are part of a fully functioning
professional teacher’s repertoire.
2. Knowledge of Content-Specific Pedagogy: There is a large set of tools
for teaching that are specific to each content area. Lee Shulman (1986)
described these as pedagogical content knowledge. Content-specific
pedagogical knowledge includes knowing what analogies, examples, and
visual representations best capture key ideas of the academic discipline;
what experiments, equipment, models, and projects best develop student
understanding; what prior misconceptions commonly interfere with learn-
ing; what real-world, culturally relevant connections need to be made for
students learning new academic content; and what texts, stories, and other
materials are available that are powerful resources for teaching and learning.
3. Knowledge of Content Analysis: Another level of content-based exper-
tise is knowing how to break the content into concepts and sub-concepts,
skills, and sub-skills. This is quite different from knowing the content itself.
It means that the teacher understands how the concepts and skills are con-
nected to one another and how to bring these relationships to the attention
of students. Every teacher must understand the network of concepts “that
relate to the specific concept to be taught and how that network is con-
nected to the content in the year-long curriculum as well as to the curricula
of the previous and following years” (West & Staub, 2003, p. 19). Liping Ma
(1999) gives clear examples of how this kind of knowledge empowers good
lesson and unit planning.
Curriculum materials cannot be relied on to hold these connections,
much less make them explicit for students. Curriculum materials are re-
sources for teachers to draw on to create the best lessons for their students.
Skillful teachers are wary of curricula that prescribe a script that allows
only one way of teaching. Such materials are marginally appropriate for
para-professionals and provisional teachers who have no pedagogical knowl-
edge of their own. But they ensure that a large proportion of students will not
learn because their learning style is not matched to that one way of teaching.
4. Knowledge of the Academic Discipline: Teachers must, of course, have
knowledge of their academic discipline and of the standards in the discipline
that their state has adopted. Most states have raised standards for teachers’
content knowledge and require a college major for secondary teachers in the
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 5
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field they will be teaching. This is a necessary, but insufficient, condition for
developing successful teachers.
5. Knowledge of Individual Differences in Learners: Teachers must be
aware of their students’ cultural, developmental, and learning charac-
teristics and how to include those differences in instructional decisions.
This is a vast field. Cognitive developmental differences, for example,
can cause unrealistic expectations in mathematics of primary students
who are still in the Piagetian concrete operations stage or who haven’t yet
achieved conservation of number. Quite differently, but equally important,
knowledge of a student’s culture can have a profound effect on a teacher’s
ability to interpret student behavior or to make culturally relevant connec-
tions between academic content and student experience.
6. Knowledge of the Behavior of Individuals in Effective Organizations:
This kind of knowledge relates to effective teams, effective meetings, good
communication, and problem-solving skills with other adults and the
awareness of one’s role as a teacher in building a strong “Adult Professional
Culture” among colleagues.
7. Knowledge of How to Communicate Effectively with Families and
Community: This knowledge enables teachers to find multiple access
channels to communicate to families what they most want to know—that
the teacher knows their child and wants the best for him or her. Beyond
that is knowledge of how to connect families and their children around
homework and how to enlist hard-to-reach families in supporting the edu-
cation of their children.
What steps can we each take in our own schools and districts to bring high-
expertise teaching skills into the mainstream practice of all teachers? If you are
a new or experienced teacher, an administrator, a coach, or a central office ad-
ministrator and are concerned about the future of our children, this book is for
you, because it explains the what and how of generic pedagogy, a fundamental
component of high-expertise teaching. We seek to explain it in all its range and
complexity. The Skillful Teacher provides a detailed roadmap for anyone seek-
ing to master generic pedagogy.
THE PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL REQUIRED
What do teachers need to know and be able to do to bring all our students to
high levels of achievement? The ten jobs of teaching, listed in Table 1.1 and
explained in separate chapters of this book, represent just a sample of the com-
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Table 1.1 Ten Jobs of Teaching
1. Make sure all students have to explain their thinking frequently in class by talking, writing, or
interacting, in some way, in response to the ideas or skills in each lesson.
2. Make sure you have a way of knowing (i.e., some evidence) at the end of the lesson what each of
the students has learned or can do relative to the objective.
3. Make sure the students have exemplars of good work to model and that they receive detailed in-
formation/feedback, frequently, about how they are doing relative to the learning targets.
4. Make sure the examples, illustrations, and materials used to make new ideas accessible to students
are drawn from the best craft knowledge of the field and deepened by strategies from cognitive
science like “modeling thinking aloud” and “mental imagery.”
5. Work actively to make it safe for students to make mistakes and learn from them.
6. Work actively to communicate to students your belief that they are able, that ability can be in-
creased, and that effective effort, the most significant determinant of achievement, can be
learned.
7. Make sure students feel known and valued, and have some ownership and choices in how the
business of classroom life proceeds.
8. Make sure the rules and consequences are clearly understood by students and facilitate learn-
ing. Respond promptly with the “body language of meaning business” when students are off task
(Jones, 2013). Ensure that backup management structures for routines, procedures, and arrange-
ments of space and time are clearly understood by the students and facilitate learning.
9. Make sure the learning objective for the lesson/unit is appropriate, clearly thought out, and that
the students can say what it is with understanding. Draw on a diagnostic analysis of the gaps in
students’ prior knowledge to make sure the objective of the day is the most important one for
these students.
10. Make sure each night that student products or other forms of student work are analyzed to focus
detailed lesson planning and reteaching for the next day. Align learning experiences logically with
objectives, and plan how to stitch those learning experiences together with questions, cues, and
directions that guide student cognition and stimulate higher-level thinking for all, not just some,
students.
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These are known,
validated elements
of successful
teaching and
learning in the
classroom.
plex and sophisticated skill sets required for successful teaching. These are not
options. They are not choices according to style. They are bottom-line essen-
tials needed by every teacher. These are known, validated elements of success-
ful teaching and learning in the classroom. They are also not easy to do. They
require deep, sophisticated knowledge to carry out well; far more than we ac-
knowledge in either our requirements to enter teaching or our support systems
for teachers once they are employed. Each job can be accomplished by drawing
on known repertoires of skills.
Wonderful schools in the most challenging circumstances can be found all over
the country in any year, though there are far too few of them. Their examples,
however, never seem to generalize to the schools around them. Typically, they
don’t last more than a decade before declining. Why is this? School institu-
tions with excellent practice do not have staying power because the knowledge
and expertise behind those practices does not carry forward to those who suc-
ceed the reformers. It is not built into the personnel systems that produce and
support the teachers and leaders who succeed the inspired and dedicated
people who make the initial transformations happen. To learn more about how
to restructure the personnel system see John Adams’ Promise (Saphier, 2005)
and “Growing Lilies in the Desert,” both available on The Skillful Teacher web-
site at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
If we are serious about the promises of democracy and freedom, then we owe
every child a chance at a good life through education. It is time to unite around
this missing leg of education reform and find a way to build professional knowl-
edge into every stage of the teacher and leader development process. This book
is designed to make clear and accessible, with detailed examples, the full range
and complexity of this knowledge base for
p teachers who want to improve their own practice,
p coaches who want to help teachers solve students’ learning problems,
p administrators who want to be sure they are looking for the most
important aspects of good teaching to inform their feedback,
p central office leaders who want to design systems for continuous
improvement, and
p policy makers who want resources aimed at the key lever—skillful teaching.
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Seven Kinds of Professional Knowledge Central to High-Expertise Teaching:
1. Generic Pedagogy (The Skillful Teacher)
2. Content-Specific Pedagogy
3. Content Analysis
4. Academic Discipline
5. Individual Differences in Learners
6. Behavior of Individuals in Effective Organizations
7. Effective Communications with Family and Community
Ten Jobs of Teaching (Table 1.1):
p Represent a sample of the complex and sophisticated skill sets required for successful teaching.
p They are known, validated elements of successful teaching and learning in the classroom.
p They are not easy to do.
p They require deep, sophisticated knowledge to carry out well.
2. The Skillful Teacher Framework
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 9
THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK
The Skillful Teacher
Framework
Skillful Teachers
are made, not born.The Skillful Teacher Framework is different from other frameworks. First, it is based on a theory of knowledge grounded in sound epistemology (Polanyi, 1966). Second, it is practical and specific. It uses numerous
classroom examples and plain language, without jargon, to spell out the de-
tails of what a skill looks like and sounds like. Third, it is written to assist in
classroom problem-solving and asserts that successful teaching is inherently
problem-solving and decision-making from repertoires. Fourth, it supports
building strong “Adult Professional Culture” based on constant learning and
non-defensive examination of practice in relation to student learning. Finally,
it is inclusive. Teaching skill is defined to include anything a person does that
influences the probability of intended learning.
WHAT IS SKILLFUL TEACHING?
Skillful teachers are made, not born. They have learned the skills they use, and
others can look at what they are doing in the classroom and say what is skillful
about it. Some skillful teachers do not have the vocabulary or the concepts for
describing what they already do. They just “know” what to do and do it effort-
lessly and naturally—intuitively, some might say. This effortlessness is an un-
conscious, automatic kind of knowing—tacit knowledge, Polanyi calls it. The
limitation of this kind of knowing is that it is acquired only by a few (not given
at birth, we want to repeat) and unpredictably learned over time, in many dif-
ferent ways. These teachers cannot pass this “knowing” on to others because
they can’t describe in detail what they do.
Being skillful in teaching is the core theme of this book. As we explain this
theme, we want to be clear that we are not “walling out” from our conception
of good teaching certain other important things. We value teachers who are
sensitive, know how to laugh, and know how to love. Being skillful is not in
competition with being a thinking, feeling person. But we are focusing in this
book on the skillful part of being a good teacher. There is more to good teach-
ing than skill, but there is no good teaching without it.
The Skillful
Teacher
Framework
CHAPTER
2
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R10
THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK
How do we define a skillful teacher?
1. Skillful teachers are aware of the complexity of their job and work to be
conscious and deliberate about what they do. They don’t do what they do
just because that is the way it has always been done or because that’s the
cultural expectation of how it shall be done. They do what they do because
they have thought about it and made choices from a repertoire of options
that seem best.
2. Skillful teachers want to control and regulate their teaching to have a posi-
tive effect on their students. They monitor what they do, get feedback, and
try different things. Skillful teachers are determined that their students will
succeed. When that isn’t happening, they examine their practices.
3. Skillful teachers are clear about what is to be learned, what achievement
means, and what they are going to do to help their students attain it. If one
thing doesn’t work, they make another plan that is also technically clear and
well thought out.
4. Skillful teachers are learners—always a student of teaching, as Joyce, Clark,
and Peck (1981) said long ago. Skillful teachers constantly reach out to their
colleagues with an assertive curiosity that says, “I don’t know it all. No one
does or ever will, but I am always growing, adding to my knowledge and
skills and effectiveness.” To skillful teachers, that openness and reaching out
is an important element of professionalism.
THE ELEMENTS OF THE FRAMEWORK
The tasks of skillful teaching can be grouped according to their function—
Management, Instructional Strategies, Motivation, and Curriculum—and
their associated areas of performance, as illustrated in Figure 2.1. Altogether,
these areas of performance delineate teaching. Teaching is all of them.
p One of the Essential Beliefs is that all students can learn rigorous aca-
demic materials at high standards. We believe that the presence of this
belief is what drives a teacher to increase their repertoire of teaching
skills. Other important beliefs in this foundation include the role of in-
terdependence among educators in getting the job done for students, ac-
knowledgment of the importance of collegial behavior for strong school
culture, the belief that professional knowledge is based on repertoires
and matching, and the belief in the need for constant learning. It includes
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 11
THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK
teacher beliefs about the important positive effects that cultural proficiency
and anti-racism have on learning in the classroom.
p The Management areas of performance: Attention, Momentum, Space,
Time, Routines, and Discipline are the foundation of teaching. If these
jobs aren’t being handled, no learning can take place. They contain the
prerequisite skills for good teaching.
T E N A C I T Y C O N T I N U U M
F O U N D AT I O N O F E S S E N T I A L B E L I E F S
Attention Momentum Discipline
Clarity
Space RoutinesTime
Principles of Learning Models
of Teaching
Expectations
Personal
Relationship Building
Classroom
Climate
Assessment Differentiated
Instruction
Planning Objectives
Curriculum Design
Overarching
Objectives
Management
Instructional
Strategies
Motivation
Curriculum
KEY CONCEPTS
• Areas of Performance
• Repertoire
• Matching
Figure 2.1 The Skillful Teacher Framework
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R12
THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK
In successful
teaching,
comprehensiveness,
repertoire, and
matching are
what count.
p The Instructional Strategies areas of performance: Clarity, Models of Teach-
ing, and Principles of Learning deliver the goods. These skills come to life
during interactive learning time in the classroom.
p The Motivation areas of performance: Classroom Climate, Personal Rela-
tionship Building, and Expectations help students generate the investment
and put forth the effort that lead to successful learning.
p The Curriculum areas of performance: Curriculum Design, Objectives,
Planning, Differentiated Instruction, Assessment, and Overarching Objec-
tives contain skills that provide the blueprints for instruction. They stand
behind and above Instructional Strategies, Motivation, and Management.
Management skills support and make possible instruction. Curriculum skills
design instruction. Motivational skills empower instruction. Instructional skills
deliver the goods. And all the areas of performance depend on the Foundation
of Essential Beliefs.
AREAS OF PERFORMANCE, REPERTOIRES, AND MATCHING
A list of important tasks that all teachers need to accomplish regardless of the
age, grade level, subject area, or courses they teach is shown in Table 2.1. We
have cast the task as a challenging question to answer. Each of these questions is
associated with a particular area of performance. We indicate the area of perfor-
mance next to each question. Every one of these questions (and related areas of
performance) is important unto itself, and there is a chapter in this book dedi-
cated to each one. Collectively the questions and areas of performance address
virtually all of the decisions, actions, and situations a teacher needs to handle
with students in classrooms.
We answer these questions by drawing on the rich knowledge base about teach-
ing. This knowledge base is not a set of prescriptions or a list of behaviors known
to produce effective learning (though there are a few of these). Rather, it offers
options, or repertoires, for dealing with each area. It also asserts that effective
teaching lies in choosing appropriately from among the options to match given
students, situations, or curricula.
Conceptualizing our knowledge base as repertoires for accomplishing tasks
rather than as “effective behaviors” legitimizes professional conversations and
healthy debates about choices. In contrast, the “effectiveness” paradigm implies
there are singularly effective ways of performing tasks, thus discouraging dis-
Video:
Repertoire and
Matching
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 13
THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK
agreement and debate—at least if we don’t want to damage friendships with
peers. (If there is only one effective way of doing things and we disagree, we
can’t both be right.) Thus the repertoire and matching model of professional
knowledge is a foundation for strong “Adult Professional Culture” where we
need each other to think through difficult matching choices.
Essential Questions Areas of Performance
1. How do I get students to pay attention and stay on task? Attention
2. How do I keep the flow of events moving smoothly and minimize downtime,
delays, and distractions?
Momentum
3. How do I get the most out of my space and furniture? Space
4. How do I time events and regulate schedules so that students get the most
productive learning time?
Time
5. What procedural routines are important and how do I get maximum mileage
out of them?
Routines
6. How do I eliminate disruptions while building responsibility and ownership? Discipline
7. How do I make concepts and skills clear and accessible to students? Clarity
8. How do I design more efficient and effective learning experiences? Principles of Learning
9. How do I create learning experiences that develop the mind as well as
the content?
Models of Teaching
10. How do I communicate to students that what we’re doing is important,
that they can do it well, and that I won’t give up on them?
Expectations
11. How do I build good personal relationships with students and make them feel
truly known and valued?
Personal Relationship
Building
12. How do I build a climate of inclusion, risk-taking, and personal efficacy? Classroom Climate
13. What do I need to know about my curriculum? Curriculum Design
14. How should I frame objectives so they precisely guide my planning and are
on-target for my students’ learning?
Lesson Objectives
15. How do I plan lessons that will reach all my students? Planning
16. What choices do I have for differentiating learning experiences? Differentiated Instruction
17. How can I use assessment to inform instruction and improve student
performance?
Assessment
18. How do my personal passions show up in a “test-driven” world? Overarching Objectives
Table 2.1 The Important Questions of Teaching and Areas of Performance
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R14
THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK
In successful teaching, comprehensiveness, repertoire, and matching are what
count: comprehensive awareness of all of the areas of performance involved in
running a successful classroom; repertoire so that one has options to work with
and draw on when addressing a given aspect of classroom life; and matching:
making decisions about which tool will be most effective to use in a given situa-
tion. Ultimately, matching is the name of the game.
This is the foundation for successful differentiation. We are conceptualizing our
knowledge base as a large set of repertoires to accomplish a range of purposes.
Purposes that are different but interactive and that are simultaneously present in
the complex human environment that all classrooms are. This position honors
the design and problem-solving nature of what teaching is. A similar point is
made by Mary Kennedy (2016) in her analysis of the nature of teaching.
To illustrate this, consider a simple management concern: dealing with intru-
sions. A teacher is instructing a small group when a student outside of the group
(Jimmy) is stuck on an item on a worksheet and approaches the teacher for help.
The challenge for the teacher is maintaining the momentum of the instructional
group while simultaneously addressing Jimmy’s needs. There are several options
for how the teacher can handle this: (1) wave Jimmy off, (2) wave Jimmy in
but signal him to be silent until there is an appropriate pause to give help, (3)
redirect Jimmy to another student for help, or (4) proactively teach students
what to do when the teacher is engaged in an instructional group. No one of
these options is inherently better teaching. Each could be an effective and most
appropriate response in a particular situation. For instance, if Jimmy doesn’t
have the confidence or social skills to approach another student for help, then
waving him in may be better than redirecting. But if Jimmy is overly dependent
on the teacher, waving him off may be the best choice, especially if the teacher
believes Jimmy can do it himself if he tries again. The teacher’s success in han-
dling Jimmy will depend on whether she knows the options available for dealing
with the situation and can choose the best response by matching the options to
the specific situation.
There are many ways of dealing with each of the major areas of teaching identi-
fied in our list of questions, and skillful teaching involves continually broad-
ening one’s repertoire in each area and picking from it appropriately to match
given students, groups, situations, or curricula. The knowledge base about
teaching identifies choices available in each of these performance areas, avail-
able for anyone to learn, refine, and do skillfully. This book presents options
for each performance area, illustrates them with examples, and offers what is
known about how to choose which is best for the moment.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 15
THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK
Figure 2.3 Patterns
T E N A C I T Y C O N T I N U U M
F O U N D AT I O N O F E S S E N T I A L B E L I E F S
Attention Momentum Discipline
Clarity
Space RoutinesTime
Principles of Learning
Models
of Teaching
Expectations
Personal
Relationship Building
Classroom
Climate
Assessment Differentiated
Instruction
Planning Objectives
Curriculum Design
Overarching
Objectives
Management
Instructional
Strategies
Motivation
Curriculum
ABSTRACTIONS
Figure 2.2 Moves
T E N A C I T Y C O N T I N U U M
F O U N D AT I O N O F E S S E N T I A L B E L I E F S
Attention Momentum Discipline
Clarity
Space RoutinesTime
Principles of Learning Models
of Teaching
Expectations
Personal
Relationship Building
Classroom
Climate
Assessment Differentiated
Instruction
Planning Objectives
Curriculum Design
Overarching
Objectives
Management
Instructional
Strategies
Motivation
Curriculum
PATTERNS
T E N A C I T Y C O N T I N U U M
F O U N D AT I O N O F E S S E N T I A L B E L I E F S
Attention Momentum Discipline
Clarity
Space RoutinesTime
Principles of Learning Models
of Teaching
Expectations
Personal
Relationship Building
Classroom
Climate
Assessment Differentiated
Instruction
Planning Objectives
Curriculum Design
Overarching
Objectives
Management
Instructional
Strategies
Motivation
Curriculum
MOVES
Figure 2.4 Abstractions
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R16
THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK
MOVES, PATTERNS, AND ABSTRACTIONS
Because teaching combines these eighteen areas of performance, it is important
to recognize how they are related to each other. Some of the areas of perfor-
mance have specific skills associated with them. We call these skills moves be-
cause they represent a brief action or a remark. Moves are quick, discrete, and
observable behaviors. They can be counted if you so desire. Many teaching skills
can be explained in terms of moves (Figure 2.2).
Other areas of performance involve teaching skills that are more pattern like
(Figure 2.3). They can’t be performed or seen quickly. An example would be
implementing a model of teaching. For instance, a teacher skilled in using
Taba’s (1962) nine-step inductive model orchestrates a series of events and fol-
lows certain principles for reacting to students. The performance unfolds over
time according to a certain regular and recognizable pattern. Being able to per-
form the pattern is the skill. It’s a cohesive, planned package that is greater than
the sum of its discrete parts. Skillful teachers understand moves as stand-alone
actions and patterns of moves that make sense only when viewed as purposeful
packages.
Some of the important things teachers do skillfully are hard to see at all. These skills
include choosing objectives, designing learning experiences, organizing curricula,
and assessing student learning. These areas of knowledge and skill are abstractions
(Figure 2.4). The connections between actions and decisions become clear only
over longer stretches of time or in conversation with a teacher because they are
driven by big-picture blueprints (overarching objectives, curriculum maps, etc.).
They are practiced before school, during planning, or after school while respond-
ing to students’ work. Although not directly observable, they nevertheless shape
and account for what is going on in a classroom at almost all times. These areas of
performance are found in Curriculum Planning.
CROSSWALKING THE SKILLFUL TEACHER FRAMEWORK
Readers wishing to know the relationship of The Skillful Teacher Framework
to widely used teacher evaluation rubrics can download detailed crosswalk
documents from The Skillful Teacher website (www.RBTeach.com/TST7). The
following crosswalks show which chapters and pages in The Skillful Teacher de-
scribe behaviorally the looks-like and sounds-like of various elements in the
rubrics:
Three kinds of
knowledge—
moves, patterns,
and abstractions—
comprise skillful
teaching.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 17
THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK
p Crosswalk aligned to Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching
p Crosswalk aligned to Kim Marshall’s Teacher Evaluation Rubrics
p Crosswalk aligned to Robert Marzano’s Teacher Evaluation Model
p Crosswalk aligned to the Massachusetts Model System for Teacher
Evaluation
p Crosswalk aligned to David Rose’s Universal Design for Learning
THE DETAILS OF THE SKILLFUL TEACHER FRAMEWORK
Part One of The Skillful Teacher explores the Foundation of Essential
Beliefs. Part Two addresses the Management areas of performance—those
most pressing and immediate needs for many teachers. Part Three address-
es Instructional Strategies. Part Four tackles Motivation. Part Five examines
Curriculum—the design skills for decisions about what education is for, what
shall be taught, and how to know if it has been learned. Thus the chapters move
from the specific and discrete to the complex; from those parts of teaching that
are moves, to patterns of moves, to decisions about design. Each chapter ad-
dresses a different area of performance. We frequently start by describing why
the area of performance is important and how it relates to the bigger picture
of teaching and learning. Then, we define concepts and categories useful for
understanding the area of performance and look at each category to lay out
the repertoire of ways teachers handle pertinent situations. We do this with
examples as often as possible. Next, we usually examine what is known about
matching teacher choices to students, situations, or curricula.
It is not absolutely necessary to read the chapters in order, but there are certain
cumulative benefits that make that desirable. Good discipline, for example,
builds on a foundation of teacher skills with Attention, Momentum, Expecta-
tions, and Personal Relationship Building. A teacher who is struggling with a
difficult class can turn to the chapter on discipline, which has references back
to specific management, instructional, and motivational areas of performance,
and are the first places to check when working with very challenging students.
Even experienced teachers should check their skills against the repertoires
available in each area of performance to see if there are ways to add to their
range, effectiveness, and ability to match the diverse needs of students in their
classrooms.
Video:
All areas of
performance
impact learning
Crosswalk Rubrics
PDF
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R18
THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK
CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
How Do We Define a Skillful Teacher?
p Skillful teachers are aware of the complexity of their job and work to be conscious and deliberate
about what they do.
p Skillful teachers want to control and regulate their teaching to have a positive effect on their
students.
p Skillful teachers are clear about what is to be learned, what achievement means, and what they
are going to do to help their students attain it.
p Skillful teachers are learners.
The Skillful Teacher Framework Encompasses These Areas of Performance:
1. A Foundation of Essential Beliefs: School, Cultural Proficiency, and Anti-Racism
2. Management: Attention, Momentum, Space, Time, Routines, and Discipline
3. Instructional Strategies: Clarity, Models of Teaching, and Principles of Learning
4. Motivation: Classroom Climate, Personal Relationship Building, and Expectations
5. Curriculum: Curriculum Design, Lesson Objectives, Planning, Differentiated Instruction,
Assessment, and Overarching Objectives
PART ONE:
INTRODUCTION TO ESSENTIAL BELIEFS
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 19
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | INTRODUCTION
Part 1
Introduction to
Essential Beliefs
Essential
Beliefs
Introduction
The Skillful Teacher is a book about how to make the knowledge base of teach-
ing more accessible. It is also about teacher learning and is a resource for it.
There are certain beliefs about children, about professional learning, and about
schools that bear heavily on a teacher’s willingness to learn, and what it is he or
she feels impelled to seek to learn. Without these beliefs, teachers are not com-
mitted to stretching themselves to acquire the expertise that none of us starts
with. Beliefs drive behavior, are often unexamined, and are resistant to change.
Without understanding one’s beliefs, it is impossible to understand one’s atti-
tude and motivation to learn new skills and approaches to teaching.
Chapter 3: “Schooling” takes on beliefs about the nature of profes-
sional teaching knowledge and describes how this view influences the
way “Adult Professional Culture” develops. Also in this chapter are es-
sential beliefs about the learning environments we create for students,
and the impact those environments have on student learning. Finally,
we discuss teacher efficacy and how important our own beliefs are
about what is possible for us to accomplish, even with students who
are discouraged and far behind academically.
Chapter 4: “Cultural Proficiency and Anti-Racism” separates out, for
special treatment, our beliefs about the need for culturally proficient
instruction in our classrooms and active anti-racism in our stance. In
this chapter, we trace the similarities and important differences be-
tween cultural proficiency and anti-racism.
In these two chapters, we push back against beliefs that stand in the way of
teacher learning. In particular, we push against the beliefs that there is no es-
tablished knowledge base on teaching, that improving schools requires noth-
ing more than recruiting superior people who know their content, and that
teaching knowledge consists of a prescribed set of effective behaviors. These
beliefs devalue the complexity of the profession and hobble teacher learning.
Unfortunately, they are widespread and articulated frequently from pulpits
of high visibility.
Beliefs drive
behavior, are often
unexamined, and
are resistant to
change.
3. Schooling
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 21
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | SCHOOLING
Essential Beliefs:
Schooling
There are certain beliefs about children, about professional learning, and about schools that bear heavily on a teacher’s willingness to learn, and what it is he or she feels impelled to seek to learn.
BELIEFS ABOUT TEACHING KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL
1. Belief: Teaching is intellectually complex, difficult, and demanding
work. The knowledge and skills required to teach successfully are on a
par with that required for proficient practice in architecture, engineering,
or law.
For those who believe that teaching is intellectually complex, difficult, and de-
manding and that, like any other true profession, its knowledge is based on
repertoires and matching, then the doors of professional dialogue are opened
wide. The need to learn with colleagues by examining situation specific ques-
tions comes to the fore, as does the need to reach out for new strategies and
ways of thinking in the public knowledge base (Saphier, 2005).
Think about why it is so difficult to get teachers to share their good ideas and
successful practices openly at faculty meetings and other forums. Teachers who
believe in the effectiveness paradigm assume there are right ways and wrong
ways of doing things—effective and ineffective (or at least less effective). Sup-
pose you share a successful practice that is different from what I do. The tacit
inference, based on my effectiveness belief system, is that either you are right
or I am. You are either showing me up or trying to tell me how to do it right,
which I’m not doing now. But if a school culture has internalized the belief in
the complexity of teaching and the view of professional knowledge posed in
this book, then I can hear your successful practice as an interesting alternative
for my consideration, not a prescription for how to do it instead of the way I
employ. Thus one belief essential to fruitful teacher learning and a strong pro-
fessional community is about the nature of professional knowledge itself; it is
based on repertoires and matching, not effective behaviors.
Teaching is
intellectually
complex, difficult,
and demanding
work.
Essential
Beliefs
Schooling
CHAPTER
3
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R22
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | SCHOOLING
2. Belief: The nature of professional knowledge is defined by areas of
performance, repertoires, and matching, not effective behaviors.
Skillful teaching requires informed and continuous decision-making based on
an understanding of multiple and interconnected areas of performance, reper-
toires, and matching versus learning a prescribed set of behaviors. Consequently,
teachers are never finished learning. They must constantly enlarge their reper-
toires, stretch their comfort zones, and develop their ability to match particular
situations to reach more students with appropriate instruction.
Skillfulness in teaching derives from having large repertoires so that you are
equipped to make choices in the major areas of performance that affect stu-
dent learning. Once you have the repertoires, skillfulness means making choices
thoughtfully based on reason, experience, and knowledge that are appropriate
for a given student, situation, or curriculum.
This is the nature of professional knowledge and its use in any profession. In a
profession, you have to have knowledge of your clients, your content, and the
array of tools particular to your craft in order to act with expertise and get good
results. So it is with teaching.
3. Belief: The knowledge bases of a professional teacher are many,
diverse, and complex; skillful teaching requires systematic and continual
study of these knowledge bases.
The seven knowledge bases, described in Chapter 1, include continuing devel-
opment in knowledge about content, generic pedagogy, content-specific peda-
gogy, children and their differences, behaviors of individuals in effective organi-
zations, and communications with family and community. For purposes of the
category system here, pedagogy includes the study of curriculum design and
planning. All of these are important areas of teacher knowledge in addition to
interactive teaching skill. Teachers must broaden their concept of professional
development to include these domains and find ways to build repertoires in
them.
4. Belief: The development of skillful teaching requires deep collabora-
tion and non-defensive self-examination of practice in relation to student
results.
We need each other in this profession. The complexity of the work requires
high-functioning teams that design lessons and common formative assessments
together, who do error analysis of student work, and who help each other with
the design and implementation of reteaching. This kind of deep collaboration
Professional
knowledge is
based on repertoires
and matching, not
effective behaviors.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 23
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | SCHOOLING
requires more than structures and protocols. It requires skillful leadership and
the interpersonal skills to build trust, safety, risk-taking, and determination
to reach all the children. “All the children belong to us” is the mantra of such
teams.
BELIEFS ABOUT THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT WE CREATE
5. Belief: The total environment of a school has a powerful effect on
students’ learning.
Teachers must participate actively with their colleagues to shape the school as a
learning environment. They must learn how to play a role in strengthening the
institution and see themselves as players beyond the classroom, responsible for
the system of the school. For this to happen, interdependence and collegiality
need to be built into the fabric of their working relationships. Interdependence
requires that they function as both leaders and team players and that they sup-
port a balance of autonomy and cohesion in curriculum and teaching practices.
Skillful teachers are leaders who take the initiative to influence colleagues to-
ward ideas they value and move the school toward practices they believe will
strengthen everyone. They are team players, collaborating with colleagues to
improve the school and help individual students, and willing to give up some
autonomy for actions implied by common visions and agreements.
The connection between teacher learning and this belief in interdependence
and collegiality is that only teachers who have regular interaction with their
colleagues through joint work can experience the benefit of their knowledge
and the synergy of creating new knowledge with others.
6. Belief: Learning is constructed as learners assimilate new experience
with prior knowledge.
Teachers who accept this belief must construct learning experiences where learners
are active, applying knowledge, and reflecting on its meaning out loud or in writ-
ing. It is their responsibility to create a balance between students’ time receiving
new information and practicing skills and their time actively constructing, assimi-
lating, and applying that information in real contexts. This implies that teachers
learn a variety of models of teaching and take it on themselves to learn how to
develop the influence strand of classroom climate described in Chapter 16. It par-
ticularly moves them to learn skills for making students’ thinking visible and find
ways to activate students’ knowledge in relation to new concepts (see Chapter 11,
“Clarity”).
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R24
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | SCHOOLING
It is a teacher’s
professional
responsibility
to design an
environment in
which each child
can succeed.
7. Belief: Learning varies with the degree to which a learner’s needs for
inclusion, influence, competence, and confidence are met.
The psychological and cognitive milieu that teachers create has an enormous
impact on what and how children learn. It is a teacher’s professional respon-
sibility to design an environment in which each child can succeed. Such an
environment is characterized by community, mutual support, risk-taking, and
higher-level thinking for all. It is also characterized by explicit attention to stu-
dents’ social and emotional learning.
Teachers cannot narrow their self-definition to being representatives of aca-
demic disciplines only. They must think of themselves as teachers of students
as well as teachers of a particular discipline. Influencing student motivation
becomes part of their job description, as well as teaching social skills. And they
become particularly interested in the skills for getting students to exert effective
effort (see Chapter 14, “Expectations”).
BELIEFS ABOUT TEACHER EFFICACY
8. Belief: Children’s learning is primarily determined by their effective ef-
fort and use of appropriate strategies. “Intelligence,” or the ability to learn,
is not a fixed, inborn trait. All children have the raw material to learn rigor-
ous academic material at high standards.
Most Americans believe that intelligence is a fixed, innate trait that is endowed
at birth, is unevenly distributed, and determines how well a student can do.
This belief in the bell curve of intelligence—that only a few students are smart
enough to learn sophisticated academic material at high standards—has huge
implications for teaching and learning.
“You can get smart” (Howard, 1990, p. 12). Teachers who have internalized this
belief believe it is their responsibility to give their students
p the belief that ability can be grown,
p the confidence that it applies to them,
p the tools to accomplish it, and
p the desire to want to.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 25
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | SCHOOLING
Effective effort and
good strategies
are the principal
determinants of
academic success.
Teachers who believe that almost all of their students can achieve at a high level
given the right conditions—that students can increase their ability through ap-
plication, focus, and good strategies—are almost driven to rethink their role as
a teacher. That new conceptualization would include being a teacher of strate-
gies as well as a teacher of an academic discipline. And it would include an
implied obligation for the teacher to diversify his or her teaching to match dif-
ferent student learning styles. When a student isn’t learning, it would drive the
teacher to ask, “How might I approach this differently or alter the conditions?”
And it would certainly imply developing the commitment to—and repertoire
for—conveying high-expectation messages to students.
Others (Gould, 1996) have documented the history of the bell curve’s limit-
ing view of intelligence, with its sad consequences for students. We present
this history in Chapter 14, “Expectations,” and we make the case that intel-
ligence can indeed be developed and that effective effort and good strategies
are the principal determinants of academic success (Howard, 1990; Resnick,
1995; Dweck, 2007). Our point is that a teacher’s belief about the nature of
intelligence and its limits (or limitlessness) forms a powerful frame around the
motivation to expand his or her teaching repertoires. Anyone serious about
professional development must address this belief system to unleash the full
energy of adults to expand their capacity to reach all students.
9. Belief: We can get underperforming, low confidence students to be-
lieve in themselves. We really can change their attributions so that they
outperform their own internalized stereotypes.
This is a belief about teacher efficacy. It means that not only do we believe that
all students can learn and that effective effort is the key to academic success, we
also believe we can get our students to believe it too and act from that belief.
Furthermore, we believe it is our job to do so. Chapter 14, “Expectations,” de-
scribes in some detail how we carry out that commitment. These how-to’s are
further elaborated on in High Expectations Teaching (Saphier, 2017).
Having completed over seven decades of desegregation since Brown v Board of
Education, we are experiencing the de facto resegregation of schools through
socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic neighborhood stratification. We are faced
with significant achievement gaps for African American, Latino, and other stu-
dents of color in our society. Communicating positive expectations and dis-
solving persistent negative stereotypes—perhaps, even internalized (Howard
& Hammond, 1985)—is especially important. The roots of what students will
do are planted firmly in their beliefs about what they can do. What are we, as
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R26
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | SCHOOLING
educators, doing to help students, especially students of color, become believers
in themselves as achievers? Avoiding the negative Pygmalion behaviors which
we describe in the Expectations chapter will be a good start, but what’s next? A
steady stream of authors and researchers are telling us that new curricula and
new, tougher standards are not enough.
“First, without a doubt, the indispensable characteristic of successful teachers
in low-income-area schools is a positive attitude. It is not enough for a teacher
to use the right words. The critical question is, what implicit and explicit mes-
sages are students getting from the teacher about their ability to learn?” (Frick,
1987, p. 20). No wonder Hattie (2009) finds that teacher efficacy has the highest
effect size of all the behaviors he reviews. The more teachers can press for and
attribute success to ability and effort as students go through school (rather than
luck or easy work), the more success we will have with all students. “If you have a
C average or below, you should spend three hours studying for this test” means,
“That’s what it will take to get an A, and you can do it.” This conviction about
student capacity makes it incumbent on teachers to teach students how to exert
effective effort; many come to school not knowing how to do so. That adds a new
dimension to the job of teaching.
Maybe, each school needs a person to shepherd that new job, a person in charge
of “exceeding expectations,” someone who shakes us up and goes around pe-
riodically reminding us to re-examine what we are expecting and demanding
of students in the way of performance. Perhaps, that will be one effect of this
chapter on you. In the end, the hope and the promise of this area of performance
is that it will elicit better performance from students and give them more equal
and fair school experiences.
10. Belief: Racism in our society and a dearth of cultural proficiency in
our classrooms exert a downward force on the achievement of students
of color that must be met with active countermeasures. To achieve our
espoused goal of educating all children to a high level, we need to become
culturally proficient and anti-racist.
Due to the importance of this belief in The Skillful Teacher Framework, we ex-
plore it in a separate chapter, Chapter 4, “Cultural Proficiency and Anti-Racism.”
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 27
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | SCHOOLING
CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Essential Beliefs About Teaching Knowledge and Skill:
p Teaching is intellectually complex, difficult, and demanding work. The knowledge and skills
required to teach successfully are on a par with that required for proficient practice in architec-
ture, engineering, or law.
p The nature of professional knowledge is defined by “areas of performance,” “repertoire,” and
“matching,” not effective behaviors.
p A professional teacher’s knowledge bases are many, diverse, and complex. Skillful teaching re-
quires systematic and continual study of these knowledge bases.
p The development of skillful teaching requires deep collaboration and non-defensive self-
examination of practice in relation to student results.
Essential Beliefs About the Learning Environment We Create:
p The total environment of a school has a powerful effect on students’ learning.
p Learning is constructed as learners assimilate new experience with prior knowledge.
p Learning varies with the degree to which a learner’s needs for inclusion, influence, competence,
and confidence are met.
Essential Beliefs About Teacher Efficacy:
p Children’s learning is primarily determined by their effective effort and use of appropriate strat-
egies. “Intelligence,” or the ability to learn, is not a fixed, inborn trait. All children have the raw
material to learn rigorous academic material at high standards.
p We can get underperforming, low-confidence students to believe in themselves.
To check your knowledge about Beliefs About Schooling, see the exercises on
The Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R28
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | SCHOOLING
NOTES
4. Cultural Proficiency and Anti-
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | CULTURAL PROFICIENCY AND ANTI-RACISM
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 29
CHAPTER
4
Essential Beliefs:
Cultural Proficiency
and Anti-Racism
Racism in our society and a dearth of cultural proficiency in our class-
rooms exert a downward force on the achievement of students of color
that must be met with active countermeasures. To achieve our espoused
goal of educating all children to a high level, we need to become culturally
proficient and anti-racist.
This belief is of such significance that we have devoted an entire chapter to it.
The topic invites us all to climb a big hill. It is foreign territory for many of us,
confusing and intimidating for others, and a long overdue social justice mis-
sion for still others. But it is inevitably a vital part of our work as educators.
Our goal in this chapter is to urge teachers and school communities to have
important and often difficult conversations about cultural diversity and race.
These conversations can and should lead to action that creates a more inclusive
and productive school experience for everyone. Although this can be difficult
work, the rewards are well documented (Ladson-Billings, 1995). An important
literature, many decades old, goes into depth on this topic far beyond what we
can accomplish in this short chapter. We did, however, want to put a stake in
the ground.
Let us start with a couple of postulates: cultural proficiency is not the same
as anti-racism, and racism is not the same as cultural improficiency. It is im-
portant for us, as teachers, to understand what is similar and what is different
across these two concepts, for both have profound implications for our teach-
ing and our ability to reach our students.
CULTURAL PROFICIENCY/IMPROFICIENCY
Cultural Proficiency is first a mindset that says, “I have to be curious about
my students’ cultures and learn about them. If I don’t, my students can’t make
adequate connections to the content I am attempting to teach because I won’t
be able to embed the learning in culturally relevant examples.” Zaretta Ham-
mond (2015) is not just saying: “I will create an environment of respect for your
Essential
Beliefs
Cultural
Proficiency
and Anti-
Racism
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R30
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | CULTURAL PROFICIENCY AND ANTI-RACISM
culture.” She is saying: “I will take the chains off your capacity to process infor-
mation.” The incongruence between a student’s home culture and the culture of
the school is the issue to be resolved by knowing the home culture of students of
color. This mindset then provokes the use of skills to apply that knowledge in the
design of culturally relevant lessons. These are vital skills for American teachers,
even those who teach predominantly white students. It cannot be omitted from
any text that attempts to profile the full range of generic pedagogy as we do here.
There is a scene in the French movie The Class in which a language arts teacher
is trying to get his students to write a personal essay about their lives. These 8th
graders, who are a very mixed group from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Middle
East, are resisting him. At one point, a student says, “There might be things we’re
ashamed to write about.” The teacher asks for an example. A Senegalese Muslim
student says, referring to his Tunisian buddy in the back, “You can be ashamed
of a friend’s Mom.”
Teacher: “So Boubacar, why? She isn’t pretty enough for you?”
Student: “No, no. For instance, Raba’s mom, she offered me a sandwich.
But I refused because I was ashamed.”
Teacher: “Ashamed to eat with Raba’s mother?”
Student: “No, it’s not that.”
Teacher: “It doesn’t make sense. Explain it to me.”
Student: “There’s nothing to explain. I just don’t want to eat with her out
of respect.”
Teacher: “You never eat with people you respect, out of respect!?”
Student: “I mean, c’mon. She’s not my girlfriend!”
Teacher: “You can only eat lunch with your girlfriend? Or “a” girlfriend?
Tell my why, Boubacar, I am interested.”
Student: “I can’t even explain it to you. Anyway, I’m ashamed even to talk
about it. I hang out with Raba. He’s my boy! So I respect his mom. I’m not
going to eat in front of her.”
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 31
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | CULTURAL PROFICIENCY AND ANTI-RACISM
Teacher: “So now we’ll know that if Boubacar eats in front of us, he is
demonstrating an utter lack of respect.”
Student: “No, it’s not like that. Oh God. Look, you just can’t understand.”
Teacher: “So I’m not smart enough to understand the great Boubacar?”
Student: “No, it’s just that you’re not going to get it.”
Teacher: “All right.” [He moves on.]
This teacher is Eurocentric in interpreting what his student says. He never
thinks that cultural differences could account for different behaviors or opin-
ions. In this same scene, he goes on to interact this way with two more students
who speak respectively from a Chinese and Tunisian cultural frame.
Even without knowing anything about Boubacar’s culture, a culturally aware
teacher might suspect there was a cultural reason and inquire into it. Why
might it be that Boubacar respects Raba’s mom, and therefore he says, “I’m not
going to eat in front of her”? Could there be a norm in Boubacar’s culture that
children do not eat in the presence of adults? Would eating at her kitchen table
violate a cultural norm? A teacher proceeding from this insight might instead
respond as follows:
Teacher: “Can you say more about what you mean by ashamed of a
friend’s mother?”
Student: “Raba’s mom, she offered me a sandwich. But I refused be-
cause I was ashamed.”
Teacher: “So there was something you felt ashamed about because she
offered you something to eat.”
Student: “No, I would be ashamed to eat in front of her.”
Teacher: “Oh, and so I’m guessing that would violate an important norm
in your culture. What is it in your culture, Boubacar, that makes it disre-
spectful to eat in the presence of adults?”
Student: “Well, you just don’t do that!”
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R32
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | CULTURAL PROFICIENCY AND ANTI-RACISM
With a culturally
proficient teacher,
students feel
included, that they
have a place in the
classroom because
their culture is
acknowledged, and
recognized as
having value.
Teacher: “…because it’s a sign of respect for children not to, is that
right?”
Student : “Yes.”
Teacher : “Thanks, it’s important for us to know that so we can avoid
putting anyone in an embarrassing situation when we’re in the company
of folks from Senegal.”
With a culturally proficient teacher, students feel included and that they have
a place in the classroom because their culture is present, acknowledged, and
recognized as having value in the artifacts of the class and the examples that are
used in lessons. At the very least, they experience curiosity and respect for their
cultural norms and values.
Cultural improficiency is about a lack in one’s understanding of people from cul-
tures other than one’s own. It makes students feel misunderstood and alien, like
strangers in a strange land. The opposite, cultural proficiency, enables behaviors
in the classroom that acknowledge and value the culture of those different from
oneself.
WORKING ON CULTURAL PROFICIENCY
Consider that over half of the children in American schools today are children
of color. Some of their families have come from central and south America,
Asia, eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. Like all chil-
dren in all schools, they need to feel known and valued to have their energy
available for learning. Zaretta Hammond (2015) argues that culturally profi-
cient teaching allows children to process information.
Nuri-Robbins and colleagues (2012) describe six stages of cultural proficiency
illustrated in Figure 4.1. They define these points as follows:
1. Cultural destructiveness is any policy, practice, or behavior that effectively
eliminates all vestiges of another peoples’ culture (p. 79).
2. Cultural incapacity is any policy, practice, or behavior that presumes one’s
culture is superior to that of others (p. 83).
3. Cultural blindness is any policy, practice, or behavior that ignores existing cul-
tural differences or that considers such differences inconsequential (p. 87).
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 33
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | CULTURAL PROFICIENCY AND ANTI-RACISM
4. People or organizations that are culturally pre-competent recognize that
their skills and practices are limited when interacting with other cultural
groups (p. 90).
5. Cultural competence is any policy, practice or behavior that uses the es-
sential elements of cultural proficiency as the standard for the individual
or the organization (p. 94).
6. Cultural proficiency is manifest in people and organizations who esteem
culture, who know how to learn about individual and organizational cul-
tures, and who interact effectively with a variety of cultural groups…not a
destination but rather a way of being (p. 97).
When teachers’ beliefs and practices are not culturally proficient, when children
feel that they and their cultures are “the other,” that they are outsiders, unwel-
come, or that their cultures are ignored, absent, or “less than,” their learning is
seriously compromised. The message is received as, “I am treated as an outsider
and less worthy. Less is demanded and less is expected of me in school. My very
identity is devalued. Therefore, school is not for me. It’s an alien environment.”
As teachers of all children, committed to equality of opportunity and raising
capable and involved citizens, we must figure out how to make students from
diverse cultural backgrounds believe that we, as individual teachers, and we, as
a school community, know and value their cultures. Therefore each of us must
Cultural
Destructiveness
Cultural
Blindness
Cultural
Competence
Cultural
Incapacity
Cultural
Pre-Competence
Cultural
Proficiency
Cultural
Destructiveness
Figure 4.1 Six Stages of Cultural Proficiency
Based on Nuri-Robbins, Lindsey, & Lindsey (2012)
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R34
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | CULTURAL PROFICIENCY AND ANTI-RACISM
(1) learn about the cultures of our students and (2) find ways to make their cul-
tures appear in validating ways in our curricula and our instructional examples.
That is the starting point for cultural proficiency, and cultural proficiency is a
new skill set that all American teachers must have. This is true even for those
teaching in homogeneous white communities. Otherwise, we inadvertently sup-
port developing into two countries instead of one nation that attempts to inte-
grate diverse populations.
The literature for developing cultural proficiency as a teacher skill set is broad
and deep, and it must now enter our professional knowledge base, our lexicon,
and our commitments.
BIAS AND RACISM
You can be moving toward cultural proficiency with actions such as visiting
students’ homes, and by studying other cultures, but still inadvertently act
towards your students with implicit biases (see the “Implicit Bias” online as-
sessment at www.implicit.harvard.edu). Sometimes messages based on implicit
biases—that individuals of a particular gender, ethnicity, or race are “less than,”
less intelligent, less responsible, less motivated—can be sent subtly. Messages of
this nature that students receive are even more damaging than those that flow
from cultural improficiency. Beyond being perceived as less valuable (cultural
improficiency), bias assumes someone is less able and less worthy because of a
trait like gender, ethnicity, or race.
Racism in the U.S. is not just about a void in one’s ability to see beyond one’s own
race as the norm and acknowledge differences with respect. It is about stereo-
types and oppression by a dominant racial group built into our institutions.
Racism is a social construct that operates as a system of oppression based on
race. By oppression we mean here the use of power to push down or deny advan-
tages and access to certain groups. And it shows up in the behavior of members
of marginalized groups toward themselves as internalized racism; it shows up in
the behavior of individuals from the dominant group committing microaggres-
sions as externalized racism (Sue, 2007); it shows up in the operation of struc-
tures like special education and the implementation of school procedures for
student placement as structural racism (Frattura & Capper, 2007); and it shows
up in public policies like mortgage red-lining, stop-and-frisk practices, and in-
vestment in where public transportation routes go and where infrastructure is
built as institutional racism (Alexander, 2012).
Racism is certainly a first cousin of cultural blindness and cultural improfi
ciency, but it is profoundly different. Almost all American immigrants came
Video:
Implicit Bias
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 35
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | CULTURAL PROFICIENCY AND ANTI-RACISM
from ethnic groups who chose to come here. Not so with citizens descended
from African slaves. American society harbors a heritage of enslavement that
still lives on in the world that surrounds people of color, particularly black
Americans. Ta-Nehisi Coates (2016) refers to it as the plundering of “the black
body” to fuel the economy of the entire country (not just the South) for two
centuries. This sense of blackness, however, is complicated by the diversity of
dark-skinned Americans who may not identify as “African Americans” and are
not descended from former slaves.
The presumed inferiority of African Americans shows up in a range of places
unknown to any other group or for so long a time. We can see this bias in
unequal distribution of governmental resources to schools, unequal access to
health care, in drug laws and the mass incarceration of black men, in the milita-
rization of police forces and the shooting of unarmed black men that has filled
the news in recent years. While these shootings are not new as events, their
being considered newsworthy events is new.
The American view of intelligence as innate, fixed, and deterministic com-
pounds the problem. It is reinforced periodically in books declaiming the
genetically inferior intelligence based on race (Jensen, 1969; Shockley, 1992;
Herrnstein & Murray, 1994). It mingles with other angles of racism and creates
the secret (and not so secret) belief that people of color, particularly African
Americans, are less intelligent than white people. This implicit racism induces
differential teacher behavior toward students of color (Torff, 2011; Rosen, 2017)
and stereotype vulnerability (Steele, 2010) among the students themselves—
lower performance in situations where race even subtly calls their ability into
question. One consequence of this history is what Claude Steele identified 25
years ago as “stereotype threat.” His book, Whistling Vivaldi (2010), summa-
rizes his quarter of a century of research in engaging and nonjudgmental prose.
“Stereotype threat” is a psychic condition that inevitably, for people of color,
induces a look around every room one enters to count how many people like
you there are and to react to any social cue that identifies you as a person of color
(like having to check your race on an application form or an exam header) with
an unconscious loss of performance edge. All humans are vulnerable to stereo-
type threat, but because of widespread racist beliefs about who is intelligent and
has the potential to become highly educated, students of color are more likely
to experience stereotype threat on a daily basis in school.
While the all-black Rosenwald Schools in the Jim Crow South did not throw
stereotype threat in the face of black children (though it was certainly triggered
by the surround-sound messages by the rest of society), integrated schools
inadvertently and inescapably do. This is not an argument for return to segrega-
Videos:
Microaggressions,
Stereotype Threat
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R36
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | CULTURAL PROFICIENCY AND ANTI-RACISM
tion. On the contrary, it is the reason why educators in integrated schools must
have high expectations and actively push and encourage students of color, just
as the best all-black schools did in the first half of the 20th century despite being
underresourced. And it is certainly a reason why all the professional learning we
advocate regarding cultural proficiency is applicable to the varieties of culture
represented by students in our schools. These students have a very different im-
migrant history, but the impact of racism ensures that they too experience the
macro- and microaggressions that African Americans experience.
Cultural and institutional manifestations of racism carry over into school and
curriculum as the stereotypes, distortions, or omission of cultures other than
white Western European. School and classroom audits of curriculum units for
cultural proficiency and for racism can be most revealing (Frattura & Capper,
2007).
Working on Anti-Racism
All of us, but especially those of us who are members of the dominant white
culture, need thorough education about these issues of race. We need informa-
tion and experiences that will cause us to examine our tacit beliefs about people
of color and the societal practices that reinforce these beliefs. And above all, we
need to build culturally relevant instruction into our practice (see Chapter 16,
“Classroom Climate”).
The developmental continuum for anti-racism (illustrated in Figure 4.2) might
be described using the following statements:
p Racism is any policy, practice, or behavior that effectively subjects a person
to oppression by a member of a dominant racial group.
p Color Blindness is any policy, practice, or behavior that uses the power of
the dominant racial group to deny recognition of differences to the op-
pressed group.
Figure 4.2 Anti-Racism Continuum
Racism Color
Blindness
Awareness
of Racial
Identity
Awareness
of White
Priviledge
Active
Anti-Racist
Actions
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 37
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | CULTURAL PROFICIENCY AND ANTI-RACISM
p Awareness of racial identity shows recognition and respect for those fea-
tures of one’s identity that are associated with race.
p Awareness of white privilege is recognition of the advantages in everyday
life and in navigating the rules and practices of government and the econ-
omy that accrue automatically to whites.
p Active anti-racism means taking actions to interrupt cycles of oppression
and end racism in society.
As teachers, we can deepen our understanding of racism by studying the cur-
rent manifestations of white privilege and the history of racism in our coun-
try and in other countries. Often, it is an unexamined history and one whose
consequences for people of color, especially African Americans, can be hard
for whites to comprehend deeply, at least deeply enough to begin to appreciate
the experience of people of color in our society.
LEARNING MORE ABOUT RACISM AND WHITE PRIVILEGE
Deepening white people’s understanding of the actual experience of people of
color within our country is fundamental to the forward motion we can and
must make toward an integrated and fair society. This is particularly impor-
tant for educators. Our teacher workforce is predominantly white, and our stu-
dent population nationwide is majority non-white. Even for white educators
in largely white school districts, this deepened understanding is essential, both
now and even more in the future.
For readers for whom the points made in this chapter seem exaggerated or too
far out of the mainstream for professional development, we recommend the
readings from the bibliography on The Skillful Teacher website titled “Waking
Up White,” a title we borrow from Debby Irving’s (2014) book of the same title.
This is a sequence of readings which we believe can take a person to this deeper
level of understanding. The sequence is important. If one is new to the journey
to anti-racism, reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’s (2016) profound book, Between the
World and Me, too early might blunt that book’s effect, because you won’t be
able to put his comments about the “black body” into proper context. Taking
the Implicit Bias test (implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/), referenced earlier, might
be a motivator to undertake this reading.
Readers may disagree with the sequence and even the readings and films we
have chosen. We look forward to suggestions you may offer. Together, we can
Video:
White Privilege
PDF
Waking Up
White
http://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R38
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | CULTURAL PROFICIENCY AND ANTI-RACISM
improve this list. However, we urge other organizations interested in improving
schools and moving social justice forward in our country to begin this study
and to do so in a sequence that does not overwhelm. We have to open our eyes
to what we have created and what our possibilities are as a multi-racial society.
Video:
How to Talk
About Race
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 39
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | CULTURAL PROFICIENCY AND ANTI-RACISM
CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Essential Beliefs:
Racism in our society and a dearth of cultural proficiency in our classrooms exerts a downward force
on the achievement of students of color that must be met with active countermeasures.
p With a culturally proficient teacher, students feel included and that they have a place in the
classroom.
p Racism is a social construct that operates as a system of oppression based on race.
p Racism shows up in a variety of forms: internalized racism, externalized racism,
institutionalized racism, and systemic racism.
p Manifestations of racism carry over into school and curriculum as stereotypes,
distortions, or omission of non-white cultures.
Six Stages of Cultural Proficiency:
(1) Cultural Destructiveness, (2) Cultural Incapacity, (3) Cultural Blindness,
(4) Cultural Pre-Competence, (5) Cultural Competence, and (6) Cultural Proficiency.
The Anti-Racism Continuum:
(1) Racism, (2) Color Blindness, (3) Awareness of Racial Identity, (4) Awareness of White Privilege,
and (5) Active Anti-Racism.
To check your knowledge about Beliefs: Cultural Proficiency and Anti-Racism, see the
exercises on The Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R40
PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | CULTURAL PROFICIENCY AND ANTI-RACISM
NOTES
PART TWO:
INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 41
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | INTRODUCTION
Part 2
Introduction to
Management
The most important issue overall for teachers regarding management is to keep
their eye on the prize: developing, monitoring, and adjusting their manage-
ment systems in ways that clear obstacles to student learning and help students
to develop their identities as capable, respected, and self-reliant high achievers.
Fred Jones (2013) defines classroom management as a “system that includes in-
structional strategies focused on making students independent and resource-
ful, motivational strategies that help students be more conscientious and ac-
countable, and discipline strategies that reduce goofing off, set limits, and train
students to be responsible and cooperate with one another” (p. 22). We think
that sums it up pretty well.
An effective management system paves the way for learning to occur with min-
imal interference and maximal nourishment. Thus Part 2 lays the groundwork
for successful instruction. There are six important management areas, each of
which has a chapter devoted to it:
Chapter 5: “Attention” addresses the question, How do teachers get
student attention, keep it focused on learning, and refocus it when it
drifts? This chapter explores recent brain research and relevant guide-
lines that emerge for focusing attention. It also offers a vast repertoire
of interactive tools that serve this purpose.
Chapter 6: “Momentum” addresses the question, How do teachers
anticipate, manage, or circumvent blocks to the smooth orderly flow
of classroom life in order to preserve maximum time for learning? In
this chapter, we identify eight categories of events teachers monitor to
minimize disruptions to the learning environment.
Chapter 7: “Space” addresses the question, How is the classroom’s
physical space arranged and used to support instructional objectives
and signal what is important? This chapter examines repertoire and
flexibility in furniture and seating arrangements with an eye to match-
ing them to different forms of learning and ensuring easy access, visual
Management
Introduction
An effective
management
system paves
the way for
learning.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R42
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | INTRODUCTION
and physical, to every student in the room. It also explores the ways in
which space allocation and location of materials and resources indicate
awareness of (and responsiveness to) students’ psychological needs to
feel a sense of ownership, privacy, and self-sufficiency.
Chapter 8: “Time” addresses the question, What principles of time al-
location do teachers need to use to guide the planning and implemen-
tation of successful learning experiences? The bottom line in this area
of performance is maximizing student-engaged and high-success time.
This requires effective management systems, attention to pacing and
rhythm during instructional time, and structures for providing ongo-
ing and meaningful feedback when students are engaged in indepen-
dent work.
Chapter 9: “Routines” addresses the question, What routines are im-
portant in order to maximize smooth operations and minimize wasted
time and energy for teacher and students? How do teachers ensure
that students know what the routines are, why they are important, and
how to carry them out? These questions are the primary focus of this
chapter.
Chapter 10: “Discipline” addresses the question, How do I eliminate
disruptions while building student responsibility and ownership? Vigi-
lance in other management areas lays a solid foundation on which to
build this sixth area of management. In this chapter, we highlight the
interconnectedness of areas of performance other than management:
personal relationship building, clarity of instruction, design of learning
experiences, the appropriateness of objectives, and the need to estab-
lish, communicate, reinforce, and uphold clear standards and expecta-
tions for behavior in order to help students learn what is appropriate
and inappropriate, acceptable and unacceptable in a communal envi-
ronment. Teachers also need to be prepared for the small percentage of
students who, for any number of complex reasons, require something
more. The chapter explains models of discipline that teachers can add
to their toolkits over time for use with the most resistant students.
Attention to each management area—and the conscious choices made within
them—can have a positive impact on the climate and tone of day-to-day class-
room operations. This in turn will create an environment conducive to learning
and achievement.
5. Attention
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 43
Management
Attention
Management:
Attention
Focusing student attention on learning experiences is perhaps the most fundamental management challenge a teacher faces daily, hourly, and moment to moment in any classroom. In many ways, “Attention” is the
bellwether area of performance among the group of management areas. Un-
less students are paying attention to the instruction, it does not matter how
good the lesson may be. Engaging and involving students on task in large-
group, small-group, or individual learning experiences is what “Attention” is
all about—indeed, what management is all about. It is the precondition for
instruction, the sine qua non for curriculum implementation.
WHAT WE KNOW FROM BRAIN RESEARCH
To determine what works and how to gain and maintain student attention most
effectively and efficiently, it is prudent to consider how some of the brain re-
search of the past two decades informs thinking. Jensen (2000) states that the
challenge for a teacher is knowing how to capitalize on the brain’s attentional
biases while also engaging students in meaningful learning. This challenge is
twofold: (1) capturing students’ attention and (2) sustaining their focus on
what the teacher deems to be important.
Two generalizations derived from brain research have implications for class-
room practice. The first is that “the human brain is designed to selectively at-
tend to stimuli . . . has a built-in bias for certain types of stimuli . . . and a
natural prioritization process is occurring all the time, consciously and uncon-
sciously” (Jensen, 2000, p. 121). Second, key factors in the brain’s initial filter-
ing include novelty or contrast to what is familiar, intensity of stimuli, move-
ment, and emotion (Wolfe, 2001; Jensen, 2000).
Zaretta Hammond (2015) adds a cultural perspective to all of this.
Before we can be motivated to learn what is in front of us we must pay
attention to it. Every brain’s RAS (Reticular Activating System) is tuned
to novelty, relevance, and emotion but each person interprets these three
elements through his particular cultural lens. Cultures based on an oral
CHAPTER
5
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R44
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
tradition rely heavily on the RAS to activate learning using music, call and
response, and other attention grabbing strategies to signal something im-
portant. (p. 48)
These imply the need to design learning experiences that are vivid, varied, and
delivered with passion and enthusiasm for the subject matter. Learning experi-
ences that begin with or incorporate an element of novelty or surprise grab at-
tention. Examples would be the physics teacher who introduces Newton’s first
law by ripping a tablecloth from under a place setting without disturbing it, the
math teacher who enters dressed as Cleopatra when she will be teaching about
number systems and place value, or two teachers who stage an argument in
front of the class to introduce a lesson on conflict and conflict resolution.
Children are often criticized for “not paying attention.” There is no such
thing as not paying attention; the brain is always paying attention to some-
thing. What we really mean is that the child or student is not paying atten-
tion to what we think is relevant or important. Attention, as all of us know,
is selective. (Wolfe, 2011, p. 80)
Jensen (2000) notes that the “brain is designed to attend selectively to stimuli,
prioritizing on the basis of perceived importance and screening out that which
seems to be less crucial to survival. The level of attention people apply to a learn-
ing situation is influenced or limited by their perception of its value” (p. 121).
And Wolfe (2011) holds that “two factors strongly influence whether the brain
initially attends to arriving information and whether this attention will be sustained”
(p. 83). These two factors are meaning and emotion. Thus for students to want
to attend, they need to know why something is important, personally relevant,
and worthy of their attention.
In this chapter, we describe ways in which teachers keep students alert by
p doing things in the moment that are surprising or out of the ordinary (like
breaking into song to give directions when student attention has drifted or
randomizing calling-on patterns so a student never knows for sure when it
will be her turn);
p enlisting interest in the content through the use of voice variety, gestures,
challenges, and props; and
p winning students’ attention with positive emotional overtones, such as
praise, enthusiasm, humor, and dramatization.
Teachers need to
build a repertoire of
ways to capture the
brain’s attention.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 45
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
BUILDING AN ATTENTION REPERTOIRE
Attention level is determined by the interaction of various factors: sen-
sory input (sources of information such as textbooks, videos, field trips,
etc.); data’s intensity or perceived importance; and the brain’s “chemical
flavor” of the moment. (Jensen, 2000, p. 123)
That teachers need to build a repertoire of ways to capture the brain’s atten-
tion is the important consideration here. Wolfe (2011) points out that although
novelty is an innate attention getter, it is also short lived. Repeated use of any
particular strategy or format can result in habituation—the natural tendency of
the brain to ignore a stimulus once it has become familiar.
Teachers need to consider the types of input or explanatory devices to employ
when presenting information and ensure that they enable students with differ-
ent modality strengths (auditory, visual, kinetic, and kinesthetic) equal oppor-
tunity to absorb and process information. (This is discussed in more detail in
Chapter 11, “Clarity” and Chapter 21, “Assessment.”)
Optimal Emotional State
All learning is state dependent: the physiological, emotional, postural,
and psychological state learners are in will mediate content. And these
states are related to the chemical “flavor of the moment” in the brain.
Chemicals can be too high, resulting in hyper or stressed states; chemi-
cals can be too low, yielding drowsiness. The learner’s state can be influ-
enced in the classroom with simple interventions. (Jensen, 2000, p. 125)
“Emotion drives attention and attention drives learning” (Sylwester, 1995).
Teachers need to recognize and do something when students’ emotional states
are either too low or too high to enable them to focus. They need to develop a
repertoire of ways to induce emotional state changes or bring them into bal-
ance when the need arises. To induce calm, for example, Jensen suggests calling
up predictable, ritual activities such as routine openings, closings, and greet-
ings. When the need is to energize or motivate, teachers might introduce nov-
elty or unexpected change. The former (inducing calm) points to elements of
classroom climate (Chapter 16), especially ways to create a sense of community
and belonging. This also makes the case for strategic use of a principle of learn-
ing called “Similarity of Environment” (Chapter 12). “Vividness,” another one
of the principles of learning, highlights inducing surprise to energize. It under-
scores why doing something out of the ordinary to surprise or startle students
can serve as an effective, in-the-moment, attention move.
“Emotion drives
attention, and
attention drives
learning.”
(Sylwester, 1995)
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R46
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
Benefits of Laughter
Laughter has been shown to boost the body’s production of neurotrans-
mitters critical for alertness and memory. Some studies have shown that
having fun and pleasant experiences improve the functioning of the body’s
immune system for three days. (Fry, 1997, as cited in Jensen, 2000, p. 125)
Teachers, like everyone else, need to enjoy the work they do. They need to be
able to laugh with students and see the humor in the everyday life of a class-
room. We attended a presentation by a motivational speaker several years ago
who put it this way: “If by 10 o’clock every morning, we haven’t had ourselves a
good belly laugh something is very wrong. It means we must be taking ourselves
too seriously because working with a room full of children is very funny busi-
ness!” Teachers need to give themselves permission to be silly or outrageous at
times and draw the students into their light mood. This can be done through the
use of props, costumes, dramatization, or telling funny stories. There needs to
be a balance in designing learning experiences that are both enjoyable and chal-
lenging (see the “Feeling Tone” principle of learning in Chapter 12).
Balancing Challenge
Optimal learning occurs when there is a balance between the level of challenge
and existing knowledge or skills. If the challenge is greater than the skills, it can
create anxiety; if the skills are greater than the challenge, boredom is likely. This
suggests that getting students into optimal learning states requires assessing the
potential gap between the readiness level of the student and the challenge pres-
ent in the learning experience. This sometimes calls for pre-assessment activi-
ties, analysis of the data, and differentiating the learning experience accordingly
(see Chapters 20 and 21 for more on each of these).
Using Physical Movement
When the brain is fully engaged it is more efficient and effective. Vigor-
ous physical activity is believed to increase blood flow to the brain.
Cross lateral movement that works both sides of the body evenly and
involves coordinated motion of both eyes, both ears, both hands, and
both feet activates both hemispheres and all four lobes of the brain. As a
result, cognitive functioning is heightened and ease of learning increases.
(Hannaford, 2005, p. 92)
Using physical movement can have dramatic effects on learning. Intermittent
physical movement throughout a learning experience is powerful for maintain-
ing the highest levels of attention. Jensen (2000) suggests starting a class period
Optimal learning
occurs when
there is a balance
between the level
of challenge and
existing knowledge
or skills.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 47
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
Teachers, who notice
that attention is
fading, need to ask
themselves how long
it has been since
students last moved.
with two minutes of stretching to increase the overall alertness students bring
to the learning experience. If learning experiences call for students to be seden-
tary for periods of time, the teacher needs to plan with movement in mind. The
movement doesn’t have to be a break from the focus of the lesson. If students
have a reason to move periodically (for example, get together with a learning
partner seated in some other part of the room for two or three minutes of stand-
up processing time, a team relay race where students go to the board one team
member at a time to build a proof to a problem, or groups working together to
build a human sculpture representing the structure of an atom), chances are
they will remain more alert and focused for longer periods of time. The move-
ment breaks don’t have to be long; they just have to be timely, occurring at least
every 20 to 40 minutes. Teachers who notice that attention is fading need to ask
themselves how long it has been since students last moved.
Building in Learning Downtime
Humans are natural meaning-seeking organisms, but excessive input
can conflict with that process. . . . You can either have your learner’s
attention or they can be making meaning, but never both at the same
time. The brain needs time to “go inside” and link the present with the
past and future. Without this, learning drops dramatically. We absorb
so much information unconsciously that downtime is absolutely neces-
sary to process it all. The brain has an automatic mechanism for shift-
ing (internal and external) and for shutting down input when it needs to.
(Jensen, 2000, p. 123)
When students are taking in information from any external source—for exam-
ple, by listening, reading, seeing, or doing—pauses must be built in systemati-
cally to give the learner time to absorb and organize, reflect and process the in-
formation, make connections, and construct personal meaning. If teachers don’t
consciously attend to this, the learner will do it anyway out of necessity and will
appear to have stopped paying attention. In Chapter 11, “Clarity,” we discuss
guidelines for how often and how long the pauses for processing should occur.
MOVES TO FACILITATE STUDENT ATTENTION
Skillful teachers lay the groundwork for focusing student attention by system-
atically incorporating the “Attention” principles and guidelines into the every-
day fabric of classroom life. There are a wide range of in-the-moment moves
that a teacher might use to capture, maintain, and recapture or refocus stu-
dent attention. Teachers tend to need these most when a learning experience is
whole-group oriented and teacher directed.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R48
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
Within this general class of “Attention” moves, there are five categories:
(1) desisting, (2) alerting, (3) enlisting, (4) acknowledging, and (5) winning.
These moves can be thought of as having affective characteristics (negative to
positive) and power-sharing dynamics (authority to attraction). The skillful
teacher’s repertoire for getting and keeping students on task should include at
least a few moves from each of these categories. This is critical to being able to
match the choice of move to what the situation warrants.
Keep in mind as we describe each of these that this list is meant to be an objec-
tive list of moves teachers make that get students’ attention. In other words,
we are describing every type of move we have seen or heard a teacher do that
was for this purpose, but without judging the appropriateness, effectiveness, or
relative merit of any individual move on the list. In order to determine the ap-
propriateness of each of these moves, each teacher has to examine the context
within which it is being used and its impact on the student.
Desisting Moves
Desisting moves carry the message, “Stop what you are doing and shift your at-
tention elsewhere,” or “Get with it.” They are most applicable when students are
drifting off course. All the moves in this category are ways of telling students that
they are doing something we want them to stop doing. Some are subtle, even
silent. Others are more up front, out loud, and forceful. Some imply or state spe-
cifically what the students should be doing instead. Each can be a constructive
way to signal we mean business and to get a student to shift focus or re-engage.
Table 5.1 identifies a range of desisting moves, ordered from most to least
forceful (or authoritative) and gives an example of each. To use these moves
most constructively, it is essential that our selection and delivery is aligned
with our motive to ensure that students’ attention is focused on what’s im-
portant while maintaining a positive feeling tone in the classroom. Hence,
we need to apply two guidelines in this category: (1) start small (use the least
authoritative or forceful move that will get the job done) and (2) escalate only
as necessary, especially with any of the more direct and forceful moves toward
the top, to signal that we mean business and deliver the message in a calm but
firm tone and ideally privately to save face for the student while constructively
re-engaging him.
Videos:
“I” Messages
(1 & 2), Signals,
Private Desist,
Gestures, and
Private Desists
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 49
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
Move Sounds or Looks Like
1. Punish, or deliver a
consequence
“That will cost you half of recess.” “You will be making up this time and the work this
afternoon on your own time.”
2. Exclude, or remove,
the student
“Leave the group, Michaela, and come back when you feel you are ready to focus.”
3. Sarcasm Should not be used. See page 50 for more detail.
4. Threaten with a
consequence
“Stop it now or leave the group.”
5. Judgmental reprimand “Stop that annoying tapping.”
6. Order
“Get back to work now.” “Sit on your hands until you’re absolutely sure you’re not
going to touch anyone.”
7. Specific verbal desist
Naming the behavior to stop and giving the student the appropriate replacement
behavior: “Stop dancing, Jim, and get back to your lab report.”
8. General verbal desist Vaguer language to stop a behavior: “Amanda, cut it out.”
9. Private desist General or specific but spoken to the student privately.
10. Group pressure
“Rafael, none of us can leave for gym until you’re with us.” The classmates chime in,
“Yeah, Rafael, come on!”
11. Peer competition “John’s ready. Are you, Beth?”
12. Move seat
“Jimmy, move over to table four, please.” “You two are such good friends that you will
be continuously distracted if I let you sit together.”
13. “I” message
(1) a nonjudgmental description of the behavior, (2) the way it makes you feel, and
(3) the tangible effect: “When you are talking in your table groups while I am giving
directions, it frustrates me. There are some real challenges to doing this task, and
some of you won’t be aware of what to look out for.”
14. Remove distraction
Without speaking to her, Mr. Glade walks by Antonia and picks up the object she is
playing with. He puts it in his pocket and continues the discussion with the class.
15. Offer choice
Observing Antonia playing with the eraser, Mr. Glade says quietly, “Antonia, you can
put it away or give it to me.”
16. Urge “C’mon, Jill, let’s get in gear!” or “Okay, let’s settle down and be really good listeners.”
17. Remind “What are you supposed to be doing, Shelly?”
18. Flattery
“You’re too conscientious to waste your time this way.” “That kind of behavior is
beneath your dignity. You are better than that.”
Table 5.1 Twenty-Four Desisting Moves
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We believe the use
of sarcasm is too
costly to the overall
psychological and
emotional climate
of the classroom.
Table 5.1 Twenty-Four Desisting Moves (continued)
Desisting Moves to Avoid
A move that can sometimes be seen and heard in today’s classrooms that we
believe should not be used is sarcasm. It can be damaging.
Regrettably, some teachers use sarcasm to redirect student attention and it usu-
ally does get students’ attention: not only the student to whom it is aimed but
to many others in class who may dive for emotional cover when it is delivered,
hoping they won’t be the next target. Sarcastic remarks, like these, are intended
to mock or deride a student:
p “Did you leave your head at home again, Grant?”
p “Imagine that! Grant is so busy watching what is going on outside that he
doesn’t know where we are in the book.”
p “Mackenzie (who is combing her hair and looking in the mirror), your hair
is ready for the cover of Seventeen, but I’d rather you were looking at the test
tube and what is going on in it.”
Move Sounds or Looks Like
19. Signals
Timer goes off, raised hand and countdown 5-4-3-2-1, music begins to play, or
something similar established with the students in advance and used routinely without
verbal comment to call all activity and noise to a halt (momentarily or to make a
transition). Or, without breaking the flow of talk with one student, the teacher holds
up a hand in a “stop” gesture to a third student, signaling him to cease interrupting
(or whatever else he’s doing) and perhaps implying by facial expression and body
language, “Wait a minute. I’ll be right with you.” Note: bright or flashing lights and
buzzing, humming sounds have been associated with triggering epileptic seizures and
should therefore not be used as signals.
20. Pause and look Teacher pauses and looks at the child or group until the behavior ceases.
21. Name dropping
Dropping a student’s name into the flow of conversation (not to call on the student but
for purposes of attention): “Now the next problem—Jess—that we’re going to tackle
has some of the same elements—Jess—but the exponents are simpler.”
22. Offer help “How can I help you get started with this, Hilda?”
23. Touch
Teacher places a hand gently on the student’s shoulder or some other neutral place—
or points to a specific part of the text in front of the student. This may or may not be
accompanied by the teacher’s stopping the activity and making eye contact.
24. Proximity
Being or moving physically near the student whose attention is wandering or likely to
wander.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 51
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Table 5.2 Thirteen Alerting Moves
Move Sounds or Looks Like
1. Startle Doing something out of the ordinary or surprising to capture attention. Noticing that
attention is wandering as a group listens to a recording, the teacher abruptly hits the
Stop button and pops a question: “Why do you suppose Jefferson felt that way about
Hamilton?”
2. Using student’s
name in instructional
example
“President Kiesha Royston sits impeached and convicted. Who then would become
president? And we thought life was tough under Kiesha! Now Vice President Christiane
Baker becomes president. It’s time to pack our bags and move to Canada!”
3. Redirecting partial
answer
Wendy has begun to answer, and you say: “Take it from there, Andrew. How would you
finish what Wendy is saying?”
4. Prealert “That’s right. Take the next one, Dwayne. Check him, Holly, and be ready to step in if he
calls for assistance.” (This is aimed at keeping Holly on her toes.)
5. Unison “6 times 6 is—Jane? That’s right. 8 times 8 is—everybody?” The goal is to get all
students to respond at once; other versions include students responding to questions
or problems on individual whiteboards that they hold up all at once (see dipsticking in
Chapter 11, “Clarity” for more ways to do this).
6. Looking at one,
talking to another
Looking at Royce, who is distracted and inattentive in the moment, the teacher says,
“Antonia, give us an example of—” (This lasts but a moment.)
7. Incomplete
sentences
“. . . and so, as we all know, the thing that we put at the end of a sentence is a—”
This might be accompanied by open hands and raised eyebrows at the group or hand
gestures encouraging someone to respond.
8. Equal opportunity The teacher establishes some sort of system (calling sticks or name cards, for example)
so that students know they will each be called on sooner or later, and perhaps at any
time. Students also know that they’re not off the hook once they are called on and could
be called on again at any time.
9. Random order Students are called on out of sequence of their seating pattern so they can’t predict
when it will be their turn and therefore have to be alert.
Video:
Random Order
Because sarcasm always involves some degree of personal derision—and be-
cause teachers are such powerful role models for students during these impres-
sionable years—we have taken the philosophical position that it shouldn’t be
used in any context. We believe the use of sarcasm is too costly to the overall
psychological and emotional climate of the classroom and is at least a small
killer of relationships.
Alerting Moves
Alerting moves are aimed at keeping students on their toes. Most of them,
listed in Table 5.2, function as moves intended to minimize distraction and
attention dropout and maximize participation and engagement. As with desist-
ing moves, the various alerting moves differ in the degree of force expressed in
the move.
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PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
Enlisting Moves
We call the third category enlisting moves because their purpose is to enlist, or
sign up, an individual student’s, or an entire group’s voluntary engagement in
curriculum activities. These moves (listed in Table 5.3) are intended to capti-
vate students and sweep them away in the interest or excitement of the activ-
ity. They capture attention by emphasizing the appeal or attractiveness of the
activity.
Acknowledging Moves
Sometimes students are inattentive for reasons that have nothing to do with
what’s going on in class or how skillful the teacher is. Some outside event is
weighing on them (or exciting them)—for example, their best friend refused to
sit next to them on the bus this morning, their parents have just separated, they
are playing in a championship game that afternoon, or hail the size of golf balls
starts falling outside the classroom window.
Merely acknowledging out loud to students your understanding of the distrac-
tion—or what’s on their mind—can enable them to pay more attention in class.
It is validating (and rare) to have one’s feelings really heard, and simply ac-
knowledging those feelings can facilitate attention. Here are a few examples:
p Example 1: There is a big game scheduled tonight. The teacher says, “I
know you’re excited about the hockey game tonight, especially with three
Video:
Piquing Students’
Interest
Move Sounds or Looks Like
10. Circulation The teacher physically moves around the room while facilitating large-group learning
experiences.
11. Wait time Explaining to students in advance that “think time” will always follow a question that is
posed and consistently inserting three to five seconds or more of silence after posing
a question to the whole group, allowing thinking time for all to process before any one
responds. Or once a student has been called on, the teacher stays out of the way for at
least five seconds so the student has the opportunity to construct a response. During the
silence, the other students are induced to focus on that question silently in anticipation
that it might be referred to them next.
12. Eye contact The teacher makes frequent eye-to-eye contact with all students in a group.
13. Freedom from
visual and auditory
distraction
Arranging the room so that small-group work takes place facing a corner or away from
the main visual field in the room, or so that instructional or quiet work areas are separated
from active and noisy areas. Alternatively, you direct the class, “Close your eyes and just
listen.”
Table 5.2 Thirteen Alerting Moves (continued)
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 53
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
star players right here in our midst. But I’m asking you all to put that on the
shelf for a while because today’s review is very important.”
p Example 2: Seven-year-old Sadé is distracted during reading group. Her
glance shifts repeatedly to the place she left to come to group (a display of
dolls from foreign lands that she was arranging). In a flash, the teacher sizes
this up and, knowing that Sadé realizes that lunch will immediately follow
reading, figures out that the child is feeling that she’ll never be able to finish
arranging the dolls. After lunch can seem like forever to a seven-year-old,
so the teacher makes an acknowledging move: “Sadé, I know it’s important
to you to get all the dolls neatly arranged. You can devote yourself to that
right before we go to lunch, I promise. Only now you need to work with us
on this reading because we won’t be doing this later. I’ll make sure you get
back there.” Getting the dolls arranged may not seem important from an
adult point of view, but such seemingly trivial matters can be consuming to
children and block their involvement unless teachers perceive and respond.
Acknowledging out
loud to students
your understanding
of the distraction—
or what’s on their
mind—can enable
them to pay more
attention in class.
Table 5.3 Nine Enlisting Moves
Move Sounds or Looks Like
1. Voice variety
The teacher varies his speaking tone, pitch, volume, or inflection to emphasize points
and add interest.
2. Gesture Using hand or body movements to emphasize points or add interest.
3. Piquing student’s
curiosity
“What do you suppose could possibly have caused Alexander to behave in such a
bizarre way?”
4. Suspense
With her back to the students, the teacher puts on a costume, a face, a wig, or
something else; ten to fifteen seconds elapse while the students wait to see what the
costume represents.
5. Challenge “This next one will fool all of you!”
6. Making student a
helper
“Jim, will you hold up those two test tubes for the group to see, please?” (Jim’s attention
has been wandering.)
7. Props
Using physical objects related to the content (for example, the take-apart human torso
or hats to represent different vocations).
8. Personification,
or attributing human
characteristics to
inanimate objects
“So, Sodium says to Chloride, ‘How’d ya like to hook up?’” or “Now, if Mr. W were to
walk through the door right now and look for things that started with his sound, what
would he find to make him feel at home?”
9. Connecting with
student’s fantasies
“So the NFL drafts Ben and signs him for three years at $28 million a year. Which tax
bracket is that likely to place him in?”
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R54
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p Example 3: Perceiving that Marvin is concerned about something, the
teacher makes this acknowledging move: “Are you afraid you’ll miss your
turn at the listening station, Marvin?” Marvin nods. “Look, take your time,
and do this paper well. I’ll see to it that you get your turn as soon as you’re
done, even if we’ve passed you on the sign-up sheet.”
p Example 4: Sometimes the teacher just needs to ask, “Brenda, what’s on
your mind? You don’t seem with us this morning.” Further probing and ac-
tive listening may or may not release this attention block. However, some-
times just talking about what’s on the student’s mind, without any solution
from the teacher, will be unburdening enough to permit the student to
re-enter here-and-now tasks.
Winning Moves
Winning moves, listed in Table 5.4, are similar to enlisting moves in that they
are positive and tend to attract rather than force students’ attention to the learn-
ing experience. However, we have distinguished winning moves from enlisting
moves because winning moves focus students on the teacher, whereas enlist-
ing moves focus students’ attention more on the activity or the content. This is
where teachers use their personality to mediate attention.
Table 5.4 Five Winning Moves
Move Sounds or Looks Like
1. Encouragement
Prompting students’ ongoing work, usually by means of voice quality and facial
expression: “Keep going, you’re getting it.” A student says, “I don’t know . . .” and the
teacher responds, “Sure you do. What’s one?”
2. Enthusiasm “That’s a fascinating topic for a paper, Nikki! Wait ‘til you see what’s in this Web site!”
3. Praise
Specific comments that acknowledge effort a student has invested and the concrete
impact it is having: “You really worked hard on that, Priya, and it shows everywhere!”
4. Humor
Joking in a positive, supportive manner, without sarcasm, that is mutually enjoyed by the
students.
5. Dramatizing
Acting out or performing material related to the lesson, or directing students to dramatize
experiences. Here the teacher switches into role and speaks a line of dialogue through the
persona of a character whose identity he has assumed, even if just for a single sentence:
“Well, here I go into the den of smiling vipers.” (The teacher has become newly elected
President Abraham Lincoln entering his first cabinet meeting where all the officers think
they’d be a better president than he and are in fact plotting to get rid of him.)
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 55
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
ANALYZING ATTENTION BEHAVIOR
All of the moves from all five categories could be arranged along a single con-
tinuum whose rule is authority to attraction (see Figure 5.1). Moves and catego-
ries at the upper end of the continuum employ the most teacher authority most
directly and firmly applied. As one travels down the continuum, the authority
component becomes less and less dominant. Thus Attention is an area of per-
formance of teaching that involves a more-or-less continuous scale of values
along a functional attribute, the functional attribute being moves whose end is
to engage, maintain, or re-engage students’ attention in the learning experience.
One way of thinking about the items in the figure is as a set of tools. We might
consider those in the desist category to be different types of hammers, those in the
alerting category to be different types of wrenches, those in the enlisting category to
be screwdrivers of various lengths, sizes, and tips, and so on. Just as a craftsperson
would recognize the various categories of tools and the subtle differences among
items within a category, so too can teachers study each of the categories and items
on this list as discrete and distinct tools available for use. And any craftsperson
would know that hammers are designed for certain types of jobs, wrenches for
other jobs, and so on. They select the tool that is best suited (or matched) to a par-
ticular situation or job. So too it is with this toolkit for teachers: being familiar with
and knowing how to use each of the tools is a goal to aim for over time. Acquir-
ing a few of the tools in each of the categories—that is, building a repertoire from
which you can pick and choose depending on the nature of the job—is essential to
becoming a master of your trade.
One way to use this continuum is to profile one’s own teaching performance. Which
attention moves do I use? How many and which of the five categories do I use? What
does my profile reveal about my attention repertoire? Some teachers have had col-
leagues or supervisors observe them to gather concrete examples of attention moves
in their notes. Then later, using the notes as evidence, they check off on the con-
tinuum the moves the teacher made. A self-profile or the pattern of attention moves
shown from such an analysis can be used to examine your existing repertoire and
the appropriateness and effectiveness of your choices, which leads to the issue of
matching. (Visit The Skillful Teacher website to complete a self-assessment.)
Matching Attention Moves
The Attention Continuum is intended to be an objective list; that is, no judg-
ments are implied about moves at the bottom being inherently better than
moves at the top, or vice versa. We are arguing, in fact, that all the moves have
a place, and each may be appropriate in a given context. This array of attention
PDF
Check Your
Attention Moves
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R56
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
ATTRACTION
AUTHORITY
DESISTING
ALERTING
ACKNOWLEDGING
ENLISTING
WINNING
Punish
Exclude
Threaten
Sarcasm
Judgmental Reprimand
Order
Specific Verbal Desist
General Verbal Desist
Private Desist
Bring in Group Pressure
Peer Competition
Move Seat
“I” Message
Remove Distraction
Offer Choice
Urge
Remind
Flattery
Signals
Pause and Look
Name Dropping
Offer Help
Touch
Proximity
Startle
Using Student’s Name in Instructional Example
Redirecting Partial Answer
Prealert
Unison
Looking at One, Talking to Another
Incomplete Sentences
Equal Opportunity
Random Order
Circulation
Wait Time
Eye Contact
Freedom from Distraction (visual and auditory)
Voice Variety
Gesture
Piquing Student’s Curiosity
Suspense
Challenge
Making Student a Helper
Props
Personification
Connecting with Student’s Fantasies
Acknowledging
Encouragement
Enthusiasm
Praise
Humor
Dramatizing
Figure 5.1 A Repertoire of Attention Moves
Video:
Attention
Continuum
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 57
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ATTENTION
moves offers a wealth of possibilities to classroom teachers. Teachers with well-
developed repertoires in this area of teaching respond to different students in
consistent but different ways. The following examples illustrate how Mrs. T
skillfully matches her attention moves to individual students:
p Example 1: Mrs. T knows that Daryl looks for power conflicts; he invites
tests of will with her or any other authority figure. When she uses almost
any of the desisting moves with him, he gets worse. For instance, he takes
a specific verbal desist as a challenge to tap his pencil even louder and see
what he can goad Mrs. T into doing, so she has learned to use alerting and
enlisting moves with him. If he really gets out of hand, she will move firmly
and remove him, but she often avoids the necessity for doing that and does
get Daryl to pay attention by challenging him with a question, pre-alerting
him, or by using the move of making a student a helper. She uses this last
move when she sees him tapping the pencil and says, “So there really were
four pyramids for the kings. Daryl, will you advance the PowerPoint to the
next frame so I can point to things from the front?”
p Example 2: Monica is a different sort of child. Although she also engages
in frequent off-task behavior, enlisting moves seem to overstimulate her.
Mrs. T explains, “It’s as if she interprets enlisting and winning moves as
‘I want to be your friend’ or ‘I want to play’ messages from me. She gets
carried away with the interaction and focuses too much on me.” While she
looks for other ways and other opportunities to meet this need for close-
ness that Monica seems to have during work times, Mrs. T uses midrange
desisting and alerting moves (reminding, the look, pre-alerts) consistently,
and successfully, with Monica when she’s off task.
Individual students, with different needs, require different moves, and skillful teach-
ers deliberately match their moves to students. Some experienced teachers are intui-
tive about the way they differentiate these moves across their students, and they are
known as effective classroom managers. They may not be able to explain why they
choose what they do. They just seem to know that they have it right. Perhaps, it is a
subconscious acuteness they have at matching attention moves to various students.
Whether or not they have this intuitive flair, all teachers can benefit from re-
flecting on the patterns of inattention among their students and examining
them in relation to the patterns of moves they seem to be making in response.
They may discover that they are overlooking part of their available repertoire
because they get so irritated with Adam, or that the repertoire could be en-
larged, or that they could do better matching if they looked for the reason be-
hind the inattention. Talking about a student (or a group) with a colleague us-
ing the Attention Continuum can be a highly engaging and productive activity.
Individual students
with different
needs require
different moves,
and skillful teachers
deliberately match
their moves to
students.
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Preconditions for Student Attention:
p Frame each learning experience for students.
p Use a range of auditory, visual, and kinesthetic explanatory devices when presenting
information.
p Pay attention to the feeling tone of the learning experience and mood of the students,
and adjust where necessary.
p Consider pre-assessment to determine where students are currently in relation to where
you want them to be by the end of the lesson, and design for differences in student readiness.
p Pause regularly and periodically to have students process what they are taking in before
adding more information.
p Plan for at least two minutes of physical movement of some kind within every 20 to 40
minutes of sitting time.
p Laugh with your students, and pay attention to the emotional climate in the room.
The Attention Repertoire:
1. Desisting
2. Alerting
3. Enlisting
4. Acknowledging
5. Winning
To check your knowledge about Attention, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher
website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
6. Momentum
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 59
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | MOMENTUM
Management
Momentum
Management:
Momentum
The concept of “Momentum” pertains to the smooth, ongoing flow of events in the classroom (Kounin, 1970). Teaching is full of interruptions to momentum. When these interruptions occur, students’ concentra-
tion is broken, and they are distracted or prevented from becoming involved in
learning activities. They experience downtime—time spent waiting for things
to get ready, get started, or get organized. When Momentum is not maintained,
students become bored or look for things to do, potentially filling their time
by daydreaming or engaging in disruptive behavior. When Momentum is ef-
fectively maintained, students experience smooth and rapid transitions from
one event to another. Movement of students and equipment happens without
bottlenecks, traffic jams, conflicts, arguments, or pushing and shoving. In this
chapter, we examine the behaviors teachers perform to manage Momentum
and keep things moving along in the classroom.
CONNECTIONS TO OTHER AREAS OF PERFORMANCE
In a general sense, many areas of performance relate to the concept of Momen-
tum. In Management: Attention does, insofar as students are kept interested or
at least focused on learning experiences; Routines do, in that efficient design
of routines for recurrent procedures expedites organizing and setting up, and
speeds transitions; Space does, in that effective arrangement of space facilitates
students’ finding things and getting involved and minimizes distractions; and
Time does, in that appropriate schedules provide for the ebb and flow of pupils’
available energy and attention span, avoiding unreasonable demands.
In Motivation: Expectations for work do, in that teacher persistence and clarity
about how things are to be done enable students to work more automatically
and make students individually efficient at moving from one thing to another;
Personal Relationship Building does, in that students’ regard for the teacher
makes them less likely to resist or disrupt.
Several of the Curriculum Planning areas of performance (Objectives, Assess-
ment, and Differentiated Instruction) can also have an impact on Momentum.
Mismatched material that is too hard, too easy, or inappropriately presented
When momentum
is effectively
maintained,
students experience
smooth and rapid
transitions from one
event to another.
CHAPTER
6
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R60
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can lead to bored or frustrated students who will certainly break the momentum
of classroom flow. In a broad sense, any mismatch of curriculum or instruction
to students tends to break momentum.
But to cast Momentum so broadly is to subsume all of teaching under its um-
brella. Indeed, any area of teaching performance, whatever the primary purpose
of the behaviors it considers, does have a secondary effect on momentum. How-
ever, we believe that it is valuable to focus on aspects of teaching that relate pri-
marily to maintaining momentum in the classroom. Therefore, we narrow our
definition of Momentum to eight key subareas (or kinds of teacher behavior)
whose primary purpose is to keep things moving along. Otherwise, if ignored
or improperly done, they break the orderly flow of events.
The eight categories of Momentum behaviors are an eclectic group, compris-
ing items that pertain to maintaining or at least enabling student involvement
in learning experiences, as all other management areas of performance do. But
unlike the behaviors in other management areas of performance, which can be
associated with other missions, these eight do not fit any other area of perfor-
mance and are primarily aimed at Momentum. They are (1) provisioning, (2)
overlapping, (3) fillers, (4) intrusions, (5) lesson flexibility, (6) advance notice,
(7) subdividing, and (8) anticipation.
PROVISIONING MOVES
Provisioning means having things ready to go—the space and the materials.
With adequate provisioning, the teacher does not call a group of students to-
gether and then leave them for a minute to fetch something needed for the les-
son from the closet. Students do not run out of needed materials during learn-
ing experiences so that they have to stop what they are doing and solicit new
stocks from the teacher. This does not preclude pupils’ restocking themselves
from known and easily accessible storehouses or supply points. It is when the
supply point is out of paper, for example, that momentum suffers. Materials are
out and organized before the start of lessons, and the space is arranged as neces-
sary before instruction begins. The room is equipped with things the students
will need or are likely to need for the activities that may predictably occur over
the day. Provisioning, like much of the rest of good management, becomes con-
spicuous by its absence. Nevertheless, there are many observable signs of good
provisioning.
Example: Audio visuals, technology, and demonstration equipment are
set up in advance. The teacher writes information on the board behind
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 61
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | MOMENTUM
a pulled-down map, so that the information is readily available when
the map is raised, and handouts are stacked near the site of a planned
lesson. For the room itself, activities, kits, games, listening stations,
books, manipulatives, and problem cards are laid out in an orderly
and visible fashion for pupils to find and engage; supply points are ad-
equately stocked; and a computer is ready. Next to it is a pad of paper
with a note giving location codes for three different areas students are
assigned to research that day. When provisioning is skillfully done, the
small amount of teacher time spent provisioning the environment dur-
ing the school day results in a maximum amount of time available for
focus on students.
OVERLAPPING MOVES
We borrow the term “overlapping” from Kounin (1970) and expand on his
definition: overlapping is the ability to manage two or more parallel events si-
multaneously with evidence of attention to both. “Manage” here includes two
aspects of teaching performance. First is keeping in touch with what is going
on in several groups, areas, or activities at once (the teacher may be involved
in one, more than one, or circulating among several sites). It implies knowing
the nature of the activity, the appropriate pupil behavior within the activity, and
the current quality of the pupil’s performance. Second is making moves to help
pupils over blockages. Blockages may come from pupils’ not understanding di-
rections or not knowing what to do next, their inability to resolve interpersonal
disagreements (for example, about sharing materials or about how to proceed
next as a group), their encounter of material above their frustration level, atten-
tion wandering, or finishing an activity and needing help making or planning
transitions to the next activity.
Overlapping requires something Kounin (1970) calls “Withitness,” meaning
that a teacher always knows what is going on in the room and shows it. It is a
prerequisite for overlapping. This withitness—a form of radar or “eyes in the
back of the head”—is necessary for noticing and responding to misbehavior in
its early stages. But in contrast to its disciplinary application, it is also the basis
for overlapping several simultaneous instructional events, as it enables teachers
to keep in touch with the flow of all of the events.
Building on withitness, teachers make moves to keep momentum going when
they notice a blockage or potential blockage. Here are a few examples of
moves that maintain momentum by helping students avoid or work through
blockages:
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Example 1: The teacher, seeing a student nearing the end of an art proj-
ect, says, “Where are you going to put it to dry, Jimmy?” Jimmy replies,
“Under the woodworking table.” The teacher responds, “Okay, fine. Af-
ter that, you can finish the book you started this morning.” The teacher
has provided a focus for the closure of the activity and the transition to
the next activity.
Example 2: As a pupil across the room appears stuck on his lab experi-
ment, the teacher says, “Mark, ask Jane for some help if you’re stuck.”
Example 3: As the teacher sees a child using the last of the paint, he
gestures for her to come over and reminds her to refill the paint jars
when she’s finished.
Example 4: When the teacher sees a group arguing over the position
of a senator on a bill, she says to them, “Where could you find out for
sure?” This is a way of directing the students back into constructive in-
volvement.
The point of overlapping is that all of these moves to maintain the momen-
tum of groups and individuals are made while the teacher may be instructing
a punctuation-skill group, listening to students in a group explain their think-
ing behind the math problem they are solving, holding a reading conference
with an individual student, inspecting a pupil’s lab report, or engaging in some
other primary focus. The teacher makes the management move without leav-
ing, interrupting, or seeming to remove attention from the primary focus but
for an instant. It is an accomplishment to perform overlapping effectively at any
time, and especially so when the teacher has a primary active role in a particular
learning experience.
FILLER MOVES
It happens regularly during the course of a day that teachers are caught with
groups of students for short periods (from 1 to 10 or 15 minutes) where nothing
is planned. Sometimes this happens in awkward places where standard class-
room resources are not available, for example, outside waiting for a late bus,
in the hallway waiting for a late class to come out of a specialist’s room (gym,
music), in an instructional group just ended where students have had it with
work, yet when there isn’t enough time to assign them anything else or even to
let them choose and start some other activity around the room before it will be
time to dismiss for lunch.
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In such situations, what does the teacher do to prevent the disruption of mo-
mentum? Some may be inclined to comment, “Why does the teacher have to do
anything? The students will just have to sit and wait, that’s all. Students should
know how to wait: it’s an occasional and unavoidable occurrence in life. It’s not
up to the teacher to entertain them at these times.” We would answer, “Yes,” a
consummation devoutly to be wished. But it doesn’t always work that way.
For some groups, not so in command of themselves, and for some situations,
relying on students to patiently sit and wait can be an unreasonable expectation
and may result in disruptions. In such instances, teachers may pull out a filler
to hold the class together for those few minutes, as these teachers did:
Example 1: Because the clock in her room is wrong, Ms. M arrives
with her first-grade class 5 minutes early for gym. There’s no use trek-
king all the way back to the room; they’d just have to turn right around
and return. So she asks the children to sit against the wall and move
close together so they can all see and hear her. “While we wait for the
other class to finish up, raise your hand if you can think of a word that
rhymes with fish.” She calls on three students who give different rhym-
ing words. “You’re clicking this morning. . . . Now . . . one that rhymes
with . . . lamp.” She calls on two more students.
Example 2: Surprisingly, lab teams 1 and 4 have finished their earth
science experiments and write-ups early and put their equipment safe-
ly away. Ten minutes still remain in the period. Mr. L knows the re-
maining lab teams will be asking questions, and he’ll need to be avail-
able for them. But to prevent downtime and fooling around for teams
1 and 4 (a distinct possibility with this class), he quickly writes eight
science vocabulary words on the board and calls up those students. He
gets them seated and started on a 20 questions review game and is then
back circulating among the experimenters in a scant 45 seconds.
Sometimes fillers are not as directly curriculum relevant as in these examples.
Primary teachers may just play Simon Says. A fifth-grade teacher may say,
“Okay, without anyone looking at their watches, raise your hand when you
think one and a half minutes are up. Go!” This game is a good way to quiet
a noisy bus for a few minutes. Secondary teachers may begin chatting with a
class about current events or school teams. None of these is necessarily a waste
of time, but it is worth distinguishing between fillers that pass the time and
fillers that bring in something of the current curriculum.
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MOVES FOR INTRUSIONS
Sometimes a teacher’s day can seem like a series of intrusions punctuated by
moments of instruction. These intrusions take many forms: pupils wanting
work corrected, wanting help, wanting directions clarified, or wanting disputes
arbitrated; adult visitors; incoming messengers; and public address announce-
ments. Every intrusion has the potential to disrupt momentum, but teachers
can handle intrusions in a way that minimizes their distracting influence on
student’s involvement with learning experiences.
Four basic levels of performance describe a teacher’s ability to deal with intrusions:
Level 1: Allows intrusions to fracture momentum.
Level 2: Deals with intrusions in a uniform way. For instance, the
teacher never allows students from outside an instructional group to
ask questions (that is, doesn’t tolerate intrusions of any kind), or al-
ways refers intruders to peers for help, or always has intruders wait
nearby until an appropriate moment to help them arises.
Level 3: Deals with intrusions in a variety of ways using different ways
at different times.
Level 4: Matches the response to the intrusion to the characteristics of
the students involved or to the particular situation. For example, this
may mean that the teacher knows that Andrea (the child she’s working
with) has fragile concentration and that even a delayed response to an
intruder will lose Andrea for good. At other times, it is the intruder’s
characteristics to which the teacher adjusts, sending off Charlie to get
help from a peer because she knows that Charlie can handle that, but
holding John in close while signaling him to be silent until she can
briefly and quietly help him because she knows John doesn’t have the
confidence to approach a peer. In summary, while the situation is simi-
lar the responses are different and the matching may be to the student
or to students in the group (those intruded on or to the intruder).
Sometimes the teacher matches the response to the situation rather than to the
student. For example, the case of a fast-paced verbal game involving a large
group may prompt the teacher to brook no intrusions at all, even from a stu-
dent the teacher would normally accommodate, in order to preserve the mo-
mentum of the game. Like all of the areas of teaching in this book, intrusions
remind us that the better we can match our responses to students or situations,
the more effective we will be.
Every intrusion has
the potential to
disrupt momentum,
but teachers can
handle intrusions
in a way that
minimizes their
distracting
influence on
students’
involvement
with learning
experiences.
Video:
Intrusions
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 65
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LESSON FLEXIBILITY
What do teachers do when lessons or planned activities are bombing? How do
they control momentum? We can distinguish four levels of teacher performance:
Level 1: Presses on with the lesson anyway.
Level 2: Drops the lesson and switches to something else.
Level 3: Keeps the lesson objective and tries to teach it another way or
vary the format of the lesson.
Level 4: Matches a new format to the needs of the group, or adjusts it
for characteristics of individuals.
Here is an example of the last and most sophisticated level of lesson flexibility:
Example: A group of students is full of energy, charged up after physi-
cal education class. They are having trouble settling down for paper
and pencil exercises on contractions. The teacher, sensing this, draws
a grid on the board, puts contractions in it, and calls the students up
to play a modified “Concentration” game in which they can actively
participate. The teacher has simultaneously maintained focus on the
instructional objective and the momentum of the lesson by matching
the format to the on-the-spot needs of the students.
ADVANCE NOTICE
Momentum can be broken if students are not prepared for transitions (Arlin,
1979). For example, if they are abruptly directed to cease one activity and begin
another without time to come to some satisfactory closure in what they are do-
ing. This is especially true when pupils are heavily invested in their activity, as
is often the case with creative expressive endeavors. They resent having to stop
what they are immersed in as much as a sound sleeper resents being rudely
awakened.
Teachers anticipate and soften these transitions by giving students advance no-
tice of when a transition is coming so they can get ready for it. For example, the
teacher turns on the song “Time Is Tight” and students know that by the time
the song ends they need to have ended what they are doing and be ready for the
next activity, or there is a digital timer projected on the SMART Board counting
“Momentum can be
broken if students
are not prepared for
transitions.”
(Arlin, 1979)
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down the three minutes left for students to wrap up. Perhaps it is just a verbal
warning, “two more minutes.” To continue the earlier analogy, advance notice
serves as the snooze button on the alarm clock.
SUBDIVIDING MOVES
When groups of students travel through the room during transitions between
activities or between phases of an activity (to line up, get their coats, go to the
library, get microscopes, hand in papers), they sometimes get clogged in physi-
cal bottlenecks. These jam-ups result in crowding and general unpleasantness,
and they cause downtime while students wait for the crowd to thin. Subdivid-
ing (or fragmentation, as Kounin [1970] calls it) means anticipating these times
and acting to prevent the jam-ups by dividing the groups into smaller units
(individuals, pairs, tables, teams, children wearing sneakers) that move one at a
time under the teacher’s direction. Meanwhile, students not in the unit currently
moving are occupied with finishing tasks, putting away materials, or other as-
pects of the transition (perhaps a filler).
Some teachers use their subdividing moves to reinforce items of recent cur-
riculum. For instance, they dismiss students for the bus by asking multiplication
facts or spelling words, or they call on individuals and allow them to exit if they
get the answer—“their ticket,” some teachers call it.
The kinds of subdividing described above are most appropriate for primary-
age children. Older students who can manage themselves in situations involv-
ing potential jam-ups may simply be allowed to proceed. In this case, efficient
teacher moves might include detailing several students to pass out materials to
the rest; storing materials at access points that accommodate several students
getting them at once; or sequencing or pacing activities so that small units of
students naturally come up for materials (or pass the potential jam-up or down-
time point) at different times.
ANTICIPATION
Anticipation is a quality of mind inherent in all seven situations described pre-
viously. But teachers possessing this quality exercise it in many subtle moments
outside the boundaries of those seven. So we need a general grab-bag category
to hold and describe such situations, and this is it.
Example 1: Consider this incident: The teacher has given the class ad-
vance notice to get ready to go to the auditorium where a brass quintet
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Skilled teachers
anticipate trouble
spots—incidents
that will break
momentum—
and make moves
to sidestep them.
will play for a middle school audience. “I hate concerts!” says Georgette.
One minute passes; some students are putting things away. Two min-
utes pass; a few students are gathering by the door. Georgette is looking
nobody in the eye and appears sullen. “Georgette, will you go down to
the auditorium and see if the seats are set up for us?” says the teacher.
Georgette goes. The class quickly lines up at the door, and the teacher
sets off with them. They meet Georgette halfway there; she reports that
the seats are set up and joins the class without protest as they proceed
to the auditorium.
Skilled teachers perform this way every day. They anticipate trouble spots—
incidents that will break momentum—and make moves to sidestep them. They
move students out of the way of temptation, give resistant individuals face sav-
ing ways to get out of self-made corners, and anticipate situations or combina-
tions of personalities that will break momentum and alter them—always before
the trouble starts. Here are a few more examples of situations that benefit from
a teacher’s use of anticipation:
Example 2: When children are called to the rug or to a class meeting
after cleanup, the teacher may anticipate that some will finish before
others and that an ever larger group will slowly be assembling in the
meeting area and waiting without focus (the meeting won’t start until
they’re all there). The same may happen with a middle school class that
filters into the room in dribs and drabs before the bell and at the bell
is dispersed all over the room. In both cases, by anticipating what is
likely to happen, the teacher can arrange to be present at the meeting
area doing some thing of interest to absorb the children as they arrive
(riddles, general chatter, a game, a brainteaser, writing something of
interest on the board, holding a novel object). Some groups left without
a focus at a time like this will provide one of their own—wrestling, ar-
guing, or other momentum breakers. A teacher who can recognize the
potential of the group will anticipate these times and be there to greet
them with some engaging activity as they arrive.
Example 3: Realizing that a small group will require much help and
teacher time as they do follow-up work on a new geometry skill, the
teacher will be sure the rest of the students are doing things they can
handle comfortably, both in terms of procedures, directions, and con-
tent. Otherwise, the teacher may feel “nibbled to death by ducks,” over-
loaded with demands for attention and help. As a result, the students
will experience downtime, and momentum will falter. So on the spot,
the teacher assigns a “challenge problem” that involves cumulative re-
view and application of previously learned concepts from the previous
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R68
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | MOMENTUM
section of the text (ones they can handle independently) to the bulk
of the class and calls together four individual students for a 10-minute
review of the new concepts taught.
Both of the previous examples involve anticipation and addressing the con-
cern with a filler activity. Fillers and anticipation are related. Anticipation is the
quality of mind that warns a teacher that without a filler at this moment, for
this group, there may be trouble. But fillers are only one response showing an-
ticipation. Anticipation is a bigger category than fillers. It is a kind of thinking,
usually spontaneous, and often tacit, that says, “If I don’t do X, momentum will
break down here.” X may be many things besides a filler.
Example 4: Mrs. R, in ending a class meeting of first graders, picks
children for the clay area first, then assigns other children to other ar-
eas. She does this because clay is the most popular activity and every-
one wants to go there. She anticipates that if she doesn’t deal with clay
first and get it off everyone’s mind, as well as reassure all children that
they’ll eventually get a chance there, it will be on everyone’s mind while
she tries to get the children to choose from among the other activity
areas. Thus the sequence in which she fills activity stations reflects her
anticipation of what would happen if she didn’t deal with clay first.
Anticipation is a difficult skill to observe, and for teachers to notice themselves
applying, because those who excel at it typically perform anticipation moves
spontaneously and intuitively rather than pre-planning them. But teachers who
experience difficulty in this area can often benefit from running advance men-
tal movies of the day they have planned, especially if they do so out loud in the
company of a colleague who’s helping them problem-solve momentum issues.
In this way, potential stumbling blocks to momentum may surface, and steps
can be taken to avoid them.
The Momentum area of performance is clearly concerned with teacher behav-
iors whose primary purpose is to minimize downtime, delays, and distrac-
tions and to keep things moving smoothly in the classroom in order to protect
maximum time for learning within each of the subareas. Teachers perform a
variety of moves specifically aimed at maintaining momentum. The more skill-
fully teachers select from their Momentum repertoire to match their moves to
the needs and characteristics of the students or situations involved, the more
smoothly and efficiently transitions are made and the more successfully mo-
mentum is maintained.
Anticipation
warns a teacher
that without
a filler at this
moment, for this
group, there
may be trouble.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 69
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
The Eight Categories of Momentum Behaviors:
1. Provisioning: have the space and the materials ready to go.
2. Overlapping: the ability to manage two or more parallel events simultaneously.
3. Fillers: unplanned activities to fill short periods (1 to 15 minutes) of time.
4. Intrusions: the response to the intrusion should match the characteristics of the student
or particular situation.
5. Lesson Flexibility: match a new lesson format to the needs of the group, or adjust it for
characteristics of individual students.
6. Advance Notice: give students advance notice of when a transition is coming so they can
get ready for it.
7. Subdividing: divide groups into smaller units.
8. Anticipation: anticipate trouble spots that will break momentum and make moves to
sidestep them.
To check your knowledge about Momentum, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher website
at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/rbteach/quiz/momentum.html
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R70
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NOTES
7. Space
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | SPACE
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 71
Management
Space
Management:
Space
Architects, interior decorators, and environmental engineers believe that the way things are arranged in space (including the space itself ) makes a difference in how people function. These professionals make their
living helping people to be happier and to function more efficiently through
better use of the physical environment. Schools need to apply their insights
to education for similar payoffs: increased satisfaction and productivity. This
chapter explores ways in which teachers can make the most advantageous use
of classroom and school space. There are two equally important but different
ways of looking at teachers’ use of Space.
One is to look at the way arrangements of furniture, materials, and space sup-
port the kind of instruction going on. What are the goals of the lesson? What
kind of learning environment does it ask for? How does the use of space sup-
port the lesson? Since lesson goals and lesson forms change, space arrange-
ments can be expected to change also. Teachers can use a variety of space ar-
rangements, and those arrangements can be rationally matched to the active
form of instruction.
The second way of looking at Space focuses not on its varying uses but on how
certain constant space-related issues of student life are handled: ownership and
privacy. Different students have different needs in these areas, and there are
ways that teachers can meet those individual needs. We look at Space in both
of these ways.
MATCHING SPACE TO INSTRUCTION
Teachers experience a wide variety of office arrangements when they confer
with school principals. Some principals speak to teachers across a desk; some
have the teacher’s chair next to the desk so that the conversation takes place
across the corner of the desk. Other principals have their desk in a corner fac-
ing a wall and turn their chair around to confer. Still others leave their desk
and confer with teachers around a coffee table where two or three chairs are
set. Each of those arrangements sends a different message about authority and
uses physical setting to set the climate for the kind of interaction the principal
CHAPTER
7
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desires. In the same way, teachers’ arrangements of classroom space send mes-
sages about their image of the learner and the kind of learning they intend.
Jacob Getzels (as cited in Lewis, 1979) has associated four such images with four
different patterns of classroom space.
First, he ties the “empty learner” image to the rectangular room arrangement:
“In these classroom designs, which were the standard in the early 1900s and
continue to be the most prevalent today, the teacher’s function is to fill the learn-
ers with knowledge. Hence all desks face front in evenly spaced rows toward the
front of the class and the source of knowledge, the teacher and his or her desk”
(Getzels as cited in Lewis, 1979, pp. 155–156). Getzels next connects the image
of the “active learner” to the square room arrangement: “In these rooms furni-
ture is movable, arrangements are changed, the teacher’s desk joins those of the
children and the learner becomes the center” (as cited in Lewis, 1979, p. 156).
Getzels’s third model is the “social learner” and the circular classroom: “Learn-
ing was perceived as occurring through interpersonal actions and reactions”
(as cited in Lewis, 1979, p. 156). It is the shape that many affective education
programs use today. One commercial affective education curriculum guide even
calls its program “The Magic Circle.” The final model is the “stimulus seeking
learner” and the open classroom: “Where learning centers, communally owned
furniture, private study spaces, and public areas replace classrooms, halls, and
traditional school furniture. The learner is seen as a problem finding and stimu-
lus seeking organism” (Getzels as cited in Lewis, 1979, p. 156).
Learners are, of course, all of these things. It is appropriate that students should
sometimes be good receivers of information, sometimes active learners within
teacher-planned tasks, sometimes heavily involved with each other in discus-
sion, and sometimes shapers of their own activities. No one of these physical
environments is the best; they are simply different and support different forms
of learning appropriate to a particular lesson’s goal.
Teachers can change space arrangements quite quickly for different purposes.
One high school teacher we know sometimes has four different arrangements
for four successive periods. The changes are made easily and quickly because
the students know the basic formats and do all the moving of desks in one or
two minutes, usually between classes. The teacher spends time at the beginning
of the year explaining these formats to the students and doing a bit of practice
arranging them, so the students can set up quickly from then on.
On one day we observed, the first class (seniors) started with desks in rows for
a recitation and presentation lesson on Russian short stories. The second class
(juniors) quickly rearranged the desks into clusters of six and began “committee
Teachers’
arrangements of
classroom space
send messages
about their image
of the learner and
the kind of learning
they intend.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 73
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | SPACE
work,” cooperative teamwork on planning and preparing analyses of various
American playwrights’ works. The teacher signaled the format as students were
entering the room, asking the first few students to set up for committees as
they came in. Others then joined in. The third class (sophomores), again on
signal, quickly put the desks in a large circle around the perimeter of the room
for a discussion of a class book-writing project involving elementary school
children in a neighboring school. As a class, they were going to make some de-
cisions and lay out a schedule for the project. The next period, a new class (also
sophomores) had a drill and practice lesson analyzing themes for variety in
sentence pattern. Their desks were arranged, as you may have guessed, facing
the teacher. Some basic arrangements lend themselves more easily to this kind
of flexibility. For example, “Mr. Orr’s grade five class sat at individual desks
placed around the perimeter of the room [perhaps facing the wall]. The open
area at the center of the room was used for more of the formal instruction and
for small group activities” (Winne & Marx, 1982, p. 496). This type of arrange-
ment gives students some privacy and insulation from visual distraction when
they are doing individual work. For a class meeting or total group instruction,
all they have to do is turn their chairs around and they’re in a circle. They can
go to tables in the middle for small-group work, either with a teacher or in
cooperative groups.
CONFIGURING CLASSROOM SPACE
Twos
This configuration enables partner work for any number of teacher directions:
“Compare your answers with a partner and reconcile any differences” or “Turn
to a partner and discuss how this character’s action compares with other books
we’ve read by Judy Blume.” The pairs of desks can be arranged in such a way as
to give the teacher maximum visibility and also to create aisles of movement
for the teacher to get proximity to each student quickly, either for one-on-one
help or for regaining wandering attention.
Circle
Either a circle or a “U” of chairs or desks enables eye contact among all the
students and supports true discussion better than other arrangements. Many
teachers report that the participation and interaction they want to induce
among students in reform-oriented math classes simply don’t happen as well
with traditional seating arrangements. So for teachers who work to “make stu-
dents’ thinking visible” as we describe in Chapter 11, “Clarity,” this arrange-
ment is highly desirable.
Most called on
Least called on
X T X
X
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R74
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Clusters
Students seated at clusters of desks or large tables support group work or com-
mittee work where students need to talk with teammates. This arrangement also
supports tasks for which materials need to be spread out for sorting, arranging,
comparing, or making displays.
Rows
This traditional arrangement supports solo student work, listening, viewing,
and test taking. It minimizes social distraction but does not prevent teachers
from pairing students up for periodic summarizing during instruction.
Perimeter
In this arrangement, desks are placed around the perimeter of the room with
the student chairs facing the wall. This arrangement reduces visual distraction,
yet allows students sitting next to one another to consult each other and do
partner work. The wall space in front of each student can be personalized with
a corkboard and other displays pertaining to that student’s classwork or per-
sonal artifacts. If students simply turn their chairs around, a “U” is instantly
formed for class discussion or for participating in a teacher-led lesson. This flex-
ible arrangement also gives the teacher a clear field and open path for reaching
any student quickly for help or management purposes. The room has to be big
enough so that all the students fit in the three-sided layout. The fourth side is
usually the blackboard or whiteboard and presentation section of the room.
“U”s
This arrangement packs in many students in large classes efficiently, yet it sup-
ports discussion, partner work, and proximity to the teacher. Teachers have a
harder time getting close to students in the back row, but this is a good compro-
mise for large class sizes.
Centers
This arrangement is intended for academic periods when students are expected
to move around to different stations or centers. Each center has a display or a
task with materials the students are supposed to engage in. Traffic aisles between
centers have to be clear and wide enough to facilitate easy student movement.
This arrangement requires clear and accessible directions at each station and
feedback mechanisms so students get information on how well they have done
with the task.
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CHOOSING THE BEST ARRANGEMENT
A key consideration in examining use of space is to note whether it is a rational
use. That is, are things arranged deliberately to best support the kind of in-
struction under way? If so, a second consideration is whether the arrangement
varies when the instructional format or objectives change. Hence, use of class-
room space can be classified according to one of the following levels:
Level 1: The teacher takes the space the way it comes (from the custo-
dian, the previous period’s teacher, tradition, or something else).
Level 2: Space is arranged according to a conventional design and
used conventionally and consistently, without variation.
Level 3: The space is rearranged periodically but experimentally, with-
out a clear rationale, mostly just for change itself.
Level 4: The space arrangement is constant but appropriate for in-
struction.
Level 5: The space is used flexibly for different instructional purposes
at different times, matched to curricular goals.
Within a given arrangement of space, the placement of materials can further
support instructional goals. Primary-grade teachers are often particularly
thoughtful about the placement of various items in relation to each other. For
example, art materials may be placed near a creative writing area to encourage
painting as a follow-up to creative writing. This kind of attention to location
and activity flow, though, applies equally well to high school. A display of nine-
teenth century American art may be placed over the supply table where stu-
dents periodically go for assignment sheets and to turn in papers in an English
class. The display might serve as a stimulus for a unit on American authors of
the period. References and connections to the pictures can be made when the
instruction starts.
OWNERSHIP AND PRIVACY
Getzels (as cited in Lewis, 1979) raises the issue of what spaces belong to the
students in a classroom or a school. She provides the following list:
p Desk: This is probably the most valued and protected space. In tradi-
tional classrooms, it may be the child’s only source of personal space.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R76
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In more open classes, it may be shared with others or no longer be a
part of the school furniture.
p Locker: This is considered a convenience space, and also private if
solely for the student’s use.
p Special class seat: In music, art, and library, if seats are assigned, a
certain degree of ownership will be attached to them.
p Chair: Often individuals and the group recognize individual owner-
ship of chairs. Robert Sommer (1969) notes, “People who remain in
public areas for long periods—whether at a habitual chair at a weekly
conference or on a commuter train—can establish a form of tenure.
Their rights to this space will be supported by their neighbors even
when they are not physically present.”
p Boys’ or girls’ room: This is definitely a child’s space. The bathroom
can be a private retreat for tears, anger, fights, secrets, mischief, and
daydreams. In some schools, it becomes the communal news center for
the underground student communication network. In some secondary
schools, it may become the property of a group of students, or it may
be locked by the administration.
p Playground: This space is child-owned and shared with other chil-
dren. It is powerfully real and memorable, considering the relatively
limited time spent in recess.
p Hall: These are no-man’s-land in most schools, a public avenue. No-
body owns them, but they’re very familiar territory. Perhaps the sense
of ownership would be similar to that felt for one’s lane or street at
home. In secondary school, it is the hub of socializing.
p Classroom: In some rooms, children feel a sense of ownership for the
whole room or sections of it. In other rooms, the desk may be the only
owned space.
p School building: Feelings of ownership increase with the years spent
in the building. Variations in intensity also depend on school philoso-
phies, building dimensions, and the degree to which children partici-
pate in school activities.
(Getzels as cited in Lewis, 1979, p. 130)
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 77
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | SPACE
Many students have a strongly felt need for a place of their own—not just
a cubby or a mailbox—but a workplace to occupy that is regularly theirs.
Adult readers may identify with this need. One of the authors consulted on
a weekly basis with a school for several years without such a space, and it
drove him crazy!
Left on their own, middle and high school students regularly take the same
desk in a class. It becomes “their” seat. College students and adults do the same
thing. As teachers plan classroom space, they should consider whether they
have adequately met students’ needs for ownership of space. That need varies
considerably with individuals, as does their need for privacy.
Private spaces like carrels or individual practice rooms restrict visual distrac-
tion and noise. There are students who benefit greatly from having such places
created for them or put at their disposal. Skillful teachers respond to these stu-
dents and match them with spatial arrangements that suit their needs. As they
look at their classrooms and other school facilities (libraries, media centers),
they ask themselves if enough private spaces have been provided to accommo-
date such students, because there are always a few of them.
TEN RECOMMENDATIONS FOR USING SPACE
The literature on the use of school space is sparse, and the research is even thin-
ner. A series of interviews we conducted with teachers showed support for the
following ten recommendations:
1. Materials students use should be visibly stored and accessible to facili-
tate efficient getting out and putting away.
2. Avoid dead space—open, purposeless space which lends itself to ran-
dom or unproductive student activity.
3. In some settings, for reasons of safety or control, it may be appropriate
for space to be arranged so the teacher can see all of it, with no blind
spots. In other settings, this guideline may be inconsistent with goals
relating to trust, privacy, and independence.
4. Vertical space (walls, dividers, closets, and movable cabinet doors)
should be employed productively—for example, for display, learning
stations, or storage of materials—effectively increasing usable space in
the classroom. Hanging artifacts or displays from the ceiling or mul-
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R78
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | SPACE
tilevel use of space in addition to the floor (lofts, for example, or other
erected structures) can increase effective usable space within a room.
5. Dividers placed on a diagonal with respect to the ninety-degree orien-
tation of the walls can channel student movement and visual fields in
interesting and deliberate directions.
6. Have a display area where students’ work, art, and other kinds of prod-
ucts can easily be seen and examined.
7. Keep active areas distant from quiet areas in a room to minimize dis-
traction and interference.
8. Keep adjacent activity areas far enough apart, or clearly bounded from
their immediate neighbor, so as to prevent distraction and interference.
9. Have clear traffic paths connecting functional areas of the room that
do not necessitate students’ walking through one area (and disturbing
things there) to get to another.
10. Empty furniture absorbs energy. Therefore, if you have fewer students
than chairs in a secondary class, don’t let the students spread out around
the periphery of the room with empty chairs between them and you.
Either eliminate the empty chairs, or move the students forward where
they can be in contact with you and with each other.
Overall, the message we get from reviewing the literature on space and class-
rooms is to be deliberate about its use. Teachers can make instructional spaces
more attractive, efficient, and flexible; in short, they can control and change
these spaces to best support instruction in moving from lesson to lesson.
Video:
Choreograph
the Flow
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 79
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | SPACE
CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Seven Classroom Configuration Options:
(1) Twos, (2) Circle, (3) Clusters, (4) Rows, (5) Perimeter, (6) “U”s, and (7) Center.
Ten Classroom Space Recommendations:
1. Materials students use should be visibly stored and accessible.
2. Avoid dead space.
3. If needed, for reasons of safety or control, arrange space so the teacher can see all of it.
4. Vertical space (walls, dividers, closets, and movable cabinet doors) should be employed
productively.
5. Use dividers placed on a diagonal to channel student movement and visual fields.
6. Have a display area for students’ work and other kinds of products.
7. Keep active areas distant from quiet areas.
8. Keep adjacent activity areas apart, or clearly bounded to prevent distraction.
9. Have clear traffic paths connecting functional areas of the room.
10. Either eliminate empty chairs, or move the students forward where they can be in contact
with you and with each other.
To check your knowledge about Space, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher website at
www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/rbteach/quiz/space.html
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R80
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NOTES
8. Time
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | TIME
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 81
Management
Time
Management:
Time
Time is the currency of life, and teachers run the bank for their students about six hours a day, an enormously powerful position. They run the bank even for “free choice” times, where the options available are those
offered or allowed by the teacher. When students do what, in what order, and
for how long is largely under the teacher’s control, and we know from recent
research that controlling how time is used has a big impact on student learning.
This includes time spent in places other than the classroom, like the cafeteria.
How long students spend in each of the environments the school offers and the
quality of that time is something faculty members control.
This chapter is about being as deliberate as possible in managing student time
use for maximum learning. It draws on the growing knowledge base of the field
to help us be better time managers for our students. The issues of time man-
agement for students center on allocation, efficiency, and pacing. Investigating
how we and our students are spending class time, and getting concrete and
accurate data about that, is likely to yield some surprises and some interesting
and useful insights.
TIME AS A CONSTRUCT
School effectiveness researchers over the past three decades have ranked
time—and time-related instructional variables—either number one or number
two on a list of eight to ten factors that are important to student achievement
(Scheerens & Bosker, 1997; Berliner, 1990; Good & Brophy, 2000; Greenwood,
1991; Tindal & Parker, 1987; Marzano, 2000).
A superficial look at that research may prompt one to say, “So what else is new?
Obviously, if students spend more time on math and less time fooling around,
they will learn more math.” But researchers are consistently in agreement that
it’s not that simple. Within reasonable limits, the issue is not about adding more
time but rather about how time is used (Aaronson, Zimmerman, & Carlos,
1999; Evans & Bechtel, 1996). Embedded in the research—and in the claims
associated with it—is a delineation and hierarchical classification of various
categories of time (see Figure 8.1). Starting with time in school, each of the
Controlling how
time is used well
has a big impact on
student learning.
CHAPTER
8
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R82
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | TIME
categories in Figure 8.1 includes and subsumes those below and inside its circle.
The closer the category is to the core of the nested circles, the stronger the corre-
lation is between time and student achievement. In this figure, time in school is
the number of hours or days that a student should be, or is, in attendance. There
are five categories of school time:
1. Allocated time is the amount of time in school formally scheduled for
instruction (versus non-instructional activities such as lunch, recess,
and changing classes).
Time in School
Allocated Time
Teacher
Instructional Time
Student
Engaged Time
Academic
Learning Time
Interactive
Instructional
Time
(Time on Task)
(Time Scheduled for
Academic Subjects)
(High Success
Time)
(Time Teacher
Instructs Students)
Teacher
Instructional Time
Figure 8.1 Time Allocations in School
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 83
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | TIME
2. Teacher instructional time is the amount of allocated time the teacher
is actually engaged with students delivering instruction or actively
monitoring learning experiences (versus doing management tasks
such as taking attendance and setting up equipment).
3. Student engaged time, often referred to as time on task, is the number
of minutes that students are observably paying attention to and fo-
cusing on instructional material (versus waiting, daydreaming, fooling
around, getting organized, and listening to announcements).
4. Academic learning time is the portion of time students spend engaged
in relevant academic tasks and performing those tasks with a high rate
of success. Relevant academic tasks and a high success rate distinguish
it from, and make it a subset of, student engaged time. For clarity, we
will call it high success time here.
5. Interactive instructional time is time spent directly with a student get-
ting instruction (one-to-one, small group, or large group), as opposed
to time spent alone doing seatwork or projects or working with a group
that’s not interacting directly with an instructor.
These categorical distinctions are very useful as a framework for studying this
area of performance and becoming ever more purposeful in maximizing its
impact on achievement. Data show that teachers who study their time use
make significant changes (Stallings, 1980) and get better student learning. Let’s
look at each one in more detail.
1. Allocated Time
Allocated time, or time set aside for instruction, reveals something about the
values of a district, a school, or a teacher. Time set aside for instruction and
time set aside for instruction in specific subject areas are related but separate
considerations in this category. An examination of each should yield data that
reflect some consensus across a school about what is important and what the
priorities are within those things that are important.
It is likely that the current standards movement will press schools to pay more
attention to and reach more common agreements about aligning time alloca-
tion with values and priorities and will result in providing some greater consis-
tency or uniformity for students. Historically, however, while researchers have
found little difference between time in school across schools, they have found
some very big differences in allocated time for academic subjects, especially
across elementary schools, and classes within a school where individual teach-
Teachers who
study their
time use make
significant
changes and get
better student
learning.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R84
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | TIME
ers tend to have more direct control over the daily and weekly class schedule.
For example, Caldwell, Huitt, and Graeber (1982) found that:
Time actually allocated for fifth-grade math ranged from 18 minutes to
80 minutes; allocated fifth-grade reading time ranged from 51 minutes to
195 minutes. Allocated time may also vary enormously within a class; for
example, in one study (Dishaw, 1977) one fifth-grade student spent 39
minutes each day on math while another student spent 75 minutes. These
differences in actual allocated time suggest that some students may have
two to four times as much opportunity to learn specific academic content
as other students. (p. 474)
Is it fair that because of a particular teacher’s talents and inclinations, his or her
class gets a great reading and writing program but practically nothing else? At
the schoolwide level, it is imperative that we examine how time is apportioned
throughout the day, the week, and the school year and ask questions like these:
p What percentage of time in school is allocated and protected for in-
struction?
p How else is student time expended?
p Do the percentages match our priorities?
p How might we decrease the amount of allocated time not devoted to
instruction?
p Over the years, what amount of a student’s time is spent learning what
subjects?
p Is there some consistency and rationale to this expenditure of time? If
not, then we are not really in control of the education we are delivering.
2. Instructional Time: A Matter of Efficiency
Instructional time—the percentage of allocated time a teacher is engaged
with students delivering instruction and actively monitoring learning experi-
ences—might be referred to as time on task for the teacher. Estimates of how
much class time is devoted to instruction vary widely, from a low of 21% to a
high of 69% (Conant, 1973; Marzano & Riley, 1984; Park, 1956; U.S. National
Education Commission on Time and Learning, 1994). If we take the highest
estimate of 69% as the upper boundary, we can conclude that of the 13,104
classroom hours theoretically available, only 9,042 hours are used for instruc-
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 85
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | TIME
Research generally
supports the positive
impact of increasing
the amount of
instructional time.
tion. This comes to about 695.5 hours per year or about 3.9 hours per day
(Marzano, 2003).
The research generally supports the positive impact of increasing the amount
of instructional time. Walberg (1997) found a positive relationship between
increased instructional time and learning in 97% of 130 studies (Marzano,
2003). One major study of 87 secondary classrooms (Stallings, 1980) found the
average engaged rate of teacher to students to be 73%. Some teachers used 40
minutes of a 45-minute period to develop concepts; others used only 20 to 25
minutes (Good & Brophy, 2000). Teachers who had lower rates of interaction
with students had classes with significantly smaller achievement gains (or no
gain at all), especially for low-performing students. This is true even if students
were on task most of the time. As Stallings (1980) explains, “The students are
on-task, but the teacher is not teaching. In those classrooms where no gain
was being made, the students were doing written assignments 28 percent of
the time and reading silently 22 percent of the time, and teachers were doing
classroom management tasks more than 27 percent of the time” (p. 14).
Maximizing instructional time requires organizing instructional activities and
expediting non-instructional ones (preparing materials, taking attendance,
managing transitions, dealing with discipline, and so forth) so there is a mini-
mum of downtime and unsupervised learning time. Hence, how much of the
allocated time we preserve for instruction is directly tied to classroom organi-
zation and management skills.
There is also a need to look at instructional time from a schoolwide perspec-
tive. Marzano (2003) proposes that “schools should make every effort to con-
vey the message that class time is sacred time and should be interrupted for
important events only, a message that is commonly conveyed in other coun-
tries” (p. 31). He cites Stigler and Hiebert (1999) who found that instructional
interruptions (such as PA announcements) were far more typical in American
classrooms than in Japan and suggests that we take measures to eliminate these
by decreasing or eliminating announcements during instructional time. Post-
ing “Do Not Interrupt” signs on our doors and referring to specific parts of
class as academic learning time helps students understand the need to put forth
greater effort to attend during those times.
3. Student Engaged Time and Time on Task
Engaged time, a subset of allocated time, is the time that students appear to
be paying attention to materials or presentations that have instructional goals.
Although often used synonymously with the concept of time on task, Berliner
(1990) distinguishes time on task as a subset—time a student is engaged in
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R86
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an appropriate learning task (for example, a student may be deeply engaged in
mathematics work at a time that has been allocated for science). Early studies
(Fisher et al., 1978) reported that, on average, students are engaged or attend-
ing for only a portion of allocated time—about 75% of it. But the range of stu-
dent engaged time was large—between 50% and 90%. Some studies (Stanley &
Greenwood, 1983) have shown significant differences in academic engagement
of high versus low socioeconomic status (SES) student groups. They write,
On a daily basis high SES students spent as much as 11 minutes (or 5
percent) more time per day engaged in writing, reading, and talking about
academic matters than did their low SES counterparts. . . . At this daily
rate, low SES students need to attend as much as one and a half months
during summer vacation to obtain an equivalent amount of engaged time
in one year. . . . Otherwise low SES students are at risk of academic delay.
. . . because of their lower daily engagement rates. (p. 11)
While more recent reviews of the research can establish only a moderate cor-
relation between engaged time on task and student achievement (Cotton, 1989),
it is critical that we seize every opportunity to maximize engaged time for all
students since it is the precursor to academic learning (high success) time. Re-
cent studies of student engagement (Hunter & Csikszentmihalyi, 2003; Sher-
noff, Csikszentmihalyi, Schneider, & Shernoff, 2003), in which large numbers
of secondary students used wristwatch devices to record their activity and feel-
ing states eight times daily, found that students spend a majority of class time
in non-interactive activities such as listening to lectures and doing individual
seatwork assignments. Interactive activities such as participating in discussions
(9%) and group or lab work (6%) accounted for only a small percentage of the
total time. Engagement, measured as a composite of interest, concentration, and
enjoyment, was higher in group and individual work compared to lectures, ex-
ams, or TV/video viewing. Students also reported being more engaged during
“flow tasks”—those that students felt competent to complete and were high in
challenge—compared to tasks that were low in challenge or that students felt
were beyond their capabilities.
Differences in engagement rates were substantial. For example, 42% of students
reported being attentive during low-challenge activities, whereas 73% report-
ed paying attention during activities that were more challenging and required
more skill (Emmer & Gerwels, 2006). Emmer and Gerwels cite other studies
related to eliciting student interest. Mitchell (1993), studying secondary math
classes, found that involvement in classroom materials was a strong predictor
of student interest. Identifying two kinds of situational interest characteristics
as “catch” and “hold” (elicitors and maintainers of interest), he found that group
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 87
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work, computers, and puzzles were three types of “catchers,” and meaningful-
ness and involvement served to “hold.” One of the best predictors of situational
interest was involvement, measured by perceived enjoyment in the activity and
“learning the material ourselves” and “doing something” versus listening to the
teacher talk or “come in, take notes, go home, do homework and it’s the same
thing every day” (Mitchell, 1993, p. 436).
Other studies soliciting teachers’ views (35 of 65 teachers were secondary lev-
el) of how they engage students found the most common method reported
by all teachers was the use of hands-on activities (Zahorik, 1996). At least a
third of the teachers also mentioned three other strategies: (1) personal-
izing the content (linking it to prior student knowledge or experiences),
(2) building student trust (by using activities that permit students to share
Management • Attention moves, especially those in the alerting, enlisting, and winning categories
(Chapter 5).
• Space arrangements that minimize distractions and facilitate learning objectives
(Chapter 7).
Instruction • Clarity concepts: framing the big picture by communicating objectives, itinerary, reason
for activities, and activating student knowledge to create context and establish rel-
evance; choosing explanatory devices that engage auditory, visual, and kinesthetic learn-
ing modalities; and making cognitive connections and checking understanding broadly
and frequently to ensure students understand (Chapter 11).
• Principles of Learning: embedded in lesson design, including active participation, vivid-
ness, meaning, feeling tone, degree of guidance, say-do, knowledge of results and feed-
back, reinforcement, goal setting, and keeping students open and thinking (Chapter 13).
Motivation • Classroom Climate: addressing elements from all three strands—building community,
creating an environment where it is safe to take intellectual risks, and cultivating personal
efficacy (Chapter 16).
• Expectations: employing the critical attributes of communicating expectations regarding
four kinds of standards and expectations and ensuring that all actions and interactions
with students communicate three key messages: “This is important; you can do it; I
won’t give up on you” (Chapter 14).
Curriculum • Lesson Objectives: setting objectives that are challenging but attainable for students
(Chapter 18).
• Differentiated Instruction: learning experiences that are differentiated in input, process,
and output to address differences in student readiness, interests, and learning styles
(Chapter 20).
• Assessment: ongoing in a learning experience to get and keep students on track
(Chapter 21).
Table 8.1 Areas of Performance Related to Increasing Engaged Time
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R88
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | TIME
ideas and experiences, make decisions, and be involved in planning and mak-
ing choices), and (3) group work. This research serves as an intriguing support
for the kind of student discussions described in Chapter 11, “Clarity,” on mak-
ing students’ thinking visible and the 24 verbal behaviors.
Many of the areas of performance discussed in other chapters can serve as di-
rect resources for positively influencing student engaged time and time on task.
Table 8.1 is a list of other areas of performance related to increasing engaged
time and specific subcategories that are most relevant to this topic.
All of these areas of performance afford us resources and ideas to increase our
capacity to influence student engagement. Most of them also serve as resources
to maximize academic learning time—the most significant time of all regarding
student achievement.
4. Academic Learning or High Success Time
In the research literature, the portion of engaged time that students are work-
ing on relevant academic tasks and performing those tasks with a high rate of
success is referred to as Academic Learning Time (ALT). We will simply call it
“high success time doing important work.” This is the category of time found to
have the most significant correlation with student achievement.
Similar to findings regarding student engaged time, the amount of high suc-
cess time students experience across classrooms varies hugely. In basic skill-
work, for example, it was found to be anywhere from 16 minutes per day in a
group of low-average classes to 111 minutes per day in a group of high-average
classes. High and low average does not refer to the ability level of the students;
it refers to the teacher’s ability to get more academic learning time for students
(Caldwell, Huitt, & Graeber, 1982).
Academic learning time says something about what kind of match exists be-
tween the current state of the learner, the material to be learned, and the design
of the learning experience itself (Anderson, 1983). High-average teachers pro-
vide “more than twice as much academic learning time as in the average case
and more than six times as much as in the low average case” (Caldwell, Huitt,
& Graeber, 1982, p. 477). These startling figures prompt a careful look at how
our students experience school time, since high success time correlates strongly
with achievement.
In order to increase high success time, we need to use time efficiently and struc-
ture learning experiences that enable students to be successful. Variance in high
success time must be traced to the appropriateness of assignments, the diag-
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 89
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nostic acumen of the teacher, and the adequacy of instruction and direction
given before students are turned loose on individual tasks—in other words,
our skill at clarity, structuring learning experiences, and matching objectives
to individuals and groups. Many of the suggestions listed for engaged time can
also serve as resources for attaining more ALT. Since scheduled time and al-
located time set the upper limits for academic learning or high success time, it
is worth considering things one can do in each of these categories to channel
more available minutes toward this end.
5. Interactive Instructional Time
High success time can be positively affected by the degree to which students are
engaged and interacting with the teacher, a category that researchers label in-
teractive instructional time. Instructional time is that portion of allocated time
when the teacher is actively focusing in some way on instruction and facilitat-
ing learning as opposed to attending to management issues. Engaged time is
the portion of time the student is focused and attending to academic learn-
ing. Students may be on task but working independently (for example, doing
seatwork, written assignments, or silent reading) while the teacher is work-
ing with other learners. Hence, interactive instructional time is yet a smaller
portion of both of those—the amount of engaged time in which an individual
student actually experiences direct interaction with a teacher, whether it is in
whole-group, small-group, or individual situations. When it comes to interac-
tive instructional time, research findings have indicated the more, the better.
The point is that when teachers are teaching, students are more likely to be
learning. Workbooks and other solo assignments that occupy students’ class
time don’t teach. This is not a surprising finding when one considers the im-
portance of teacher feedback, knowledge of results, degree of guidance, and
other principles of learning.
In the past, this finding led some to advocate for the direct instruction pattern
of teaching for whole-class groups as the most efficient form of instruction
(Rosenshine, 1981). This recommendation really misses the point. In the di-
rect instruction model, an individual student is not necessarily engaged and
interacting with the teacher. For this model to maximize interactive instruc-
tional time, the teacher needs to draw extensively on strategies from outside
the model. This means checking for understanding and building in process-
ing and summarizing time for students in pairs and small groups so that the
teacher can circulate and engage with individuals.
Furthermore, the direct instruction pattern (the “sage on the stage” model) is
only one way to get teacher-student interactive time, and suitable to only one
kind of teaching. There are learnings for which this pattern is clearly not the
When teachers are
teaching, students
are more likely to be
learning; workbooks
and other solo
assignments that
occupy students’
class time don’t
teach.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R90
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only or the best way—like teaching students to provide evidence for positions
or teaching the scientific method. All the models of teaching in Chapter 13 can
provide interactive teaching time, as can peer tutoring. Therefore, it is impor-
tant to put direct instruction in perspective. Direct instruction is effective for
teaching skills, and it works to the degree that it provides high proportions of
interactive instruction time. But there are other learnings besides skills and two
dozen other models of teaching that can provide interactive instruction.
Another way to maximize interactive instructional time is by engineering les-
sons so that students are actively engaged in all phases of the learning expe-
rience (input, processing, and output). The teacher’s role then is cast as the
guide on the side: mediating, monitoring, and facilitating the learning process
by providing guidance as needed, clarifying directions, responding to ques-
tions, posing questions to check for understanding and to stretch and extend
students’ thinking, and providing prompt and continuous feedback. For ex-
ample, this would be what we would see in the most effectively designed and
implemented cooperative learning experiences. What this actually sounds like
is recorded in the Bodner scripts reproduced in Chapter 11, “Clarity.”
Individualized programs are at high risk here. If they are poorly managed, stu-
dents, though active and involved, may get only a few minutes a day with the
teacher, and that is not enough. Teachers in this situation either need to do
more group work or manage individualization so students get more feedback
and guidance. It is the attributes of interactive instruction that are important
any way you can get them. It seems to us those attributes are clear explanations,
prompt feedback, knowledge of results, and appropriate degree of guidance.
Good computer-based learning systems can provide these features.
DIFFERENTIATING TIME TO LEARN
Benjamin Bloom’s work on mastery learning has added another important
concept to the knowledge base about time to learn or time a student needs
under optimal learning conditions to reach some criterion of learning (Ber-
liner, 1990). The idea is that most students can learn anything if they have the
prerequisite pieces of knowledge and skills in place and are given adequate
time to learn it. Giving students adequate time to learn doesn’t mean giving
them material and just waiting until they’ve gone over it long enough to ab-
sorb it. It means task analysis of new learnings, careful ongoing assessment,
and reteaching loops for students who need it—and for only those who do.
The view of time from mastery learning puts teachers on the spot along with
students. Mastery learning brings with it a requisite set of assumptions: that all
Most students
can learn
anything if
they have the
prerequisite
pieces of
knowledge and
skills in place
and are given
adequate time.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 91
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students are capable of achieving mastery of appropriate learning goals; that
when learning isn’t taking place, something isn’t yet right about how it is be-
ing presented to the student or the time given for the student to master it; that
mastery is essential in order for the student to progress; and that modifications,
adaptations, adjustments, and reteaching are all options available to support
that happening. In other words, one doesn’t blame the students if learning isn’t
taking place. Instead, there is a search for how to adjust, adapt, modify, and
reteach until the student is on board and “getting it.”
Mastery learning is a form of individualizing instruction. But individualizing
means more than self-paced here, more than marching through programmed
material. It means clear and comprehensive sequences of instruction laid out in
advance, broken down into pieces, and with options for how to deliver instruc-
tion of those pieces to students. Above all, it means monitoring what students
know and not giving up until they have met mastery criteria.
Finally, it means planning reteaching loops and simultaneous extension activi-
ties for students who got it the first time around. Such a two-ringed circus pres-
ents management and planning challenges that are a stretch for teachers who
are unused to managing multiple events in a classroom. In other words, mas-
tery learning requires differentiating learning experiences (one size doesn’t fit
all) and is once again an example of how the areas of performance of teaching
are interdependent and ever present. A sincere and focused effort to address
and afford students time to learn requires an exploration of concepts addressed
in the chapters on Momentum, Lesson Objectives, Differentiated Instruction,
and Classroom Climate.
CONDUCTING TIME AUDITS
At the beginning of this chapter, we suggested that collecting concrete data
about how time is spent in the classroom is likely to yield some interesting
and useful insights, as well as surprises. All of which can serve as a produc-
tive foundation for creative problem-solving around getting more currency for
students to spend toward learning. Marzano (2003) refers to this as conducting
time audits: gathering data that will reveal how much time in the day or a class
period is devoted to actual instruction, how much time in class is generally
taken up by non-instructional activities or management tasks, how much time
individual students are focused and engaged, what they are doing or what is
going on that distracts them, and so forth.
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We once studied the time use of students in five classrooms of a K–5 school
using a technique adapted from Engel (1977). The class was scanned every five
minutes, and a notation was made for each student on a class roster. The no-
tation recorded what the student was doing and with what level of attention
or involvement. From these data, a color-bar graph was constructed for each
student, color coded to study activities showing student time use over a whole
morning. Coded cross marks in black were overlaid on the color bar to indicate
degrees of inattention or non-involvement. Putting all the bars together on one
graph for the class gave the teachers an enormous amount of information on
individual students and patterns across the class.
For example, one teacher was losing a great deal of time in classroom
management: passing out papers, setting up in the morning, and getting ready
for transitions. Another teacher had students with low levels of involvement
due to social chatter at table groups—quiet and unobtrusive but nevertheless
persistent and interfering with their work. Another teacher found her students
were involved with individual tasks and projects, but sometimes received only
five minutes of direct teacher instruction in the course of the day. All of these
teachers made changes to increase their effectiveness after they saw their class
data. The changes involved more attention to momentum, rearranging space,
rescheduling their own instructional time, and clarifying their expectations for
student behavior. The point is that the obvious was not so obvious to them
until they directly faced objective data about their own students and their own
classes. When they had the data, they were able to improve their effectiveness.
Academic engaged time and student time spent in interactive instruction may
sound obvious enough, but teachers who get the numbers on their own classes
may well find some new priorities emerging.
Although there are structured formal models to use to conduct this type of
audit (Marzano, Kendall, & Gaddy, 1999), teachers could do much of this as
action research in their own classrooms independently or with the support of a
colleague present in the room. There are many kinds of data one might gather:
noting starting and ending times of activities, transitions, and length of time
spent on direction giving, for example. Comparing data gathered to what you
might have predicted or anticipated the data would look like can lead to fine-
tuning time estimates, problem identification, and pinpointing the means for
using time more effectively. Or a colleague could collect data for you about how
individuals or groups of students are spending their time: How much are they
engaged and on task? When they aren’t, what is going on? How much is interac-
tive instructional time versus independent work? What kind of success are they
having? The resulting data can be used to make adjustments and modifications
that might increase student productivity and level of performance.
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Leinhardt, Zigmond, and Corley (1981) found that:
Teachers must be vigilant in their search for children who are losing out.
While the average off-task rate was 15 percent, some students were
off-task more than 30 percent of the time. While the average amount of
teacher instruction (in reading) was 16 minutes a day, the range was from
1.4 minutes per day to 35 minutes per day (within the same class). While
the average time spent in silent reading was 14 minutes per day, some
students spent no time at all reading silently. Fortunately, teachers can
dramatically change the experience and performance of those students
who seem to be losing out without changing things for those who are
not. (p. 358)
But first, the teacher must become aware of who the students are and how their
time is being lost. Good time management comes from handling a number of
other areas of performance well. When students are on task, productive, and
experiencing success, it is more than good time management; it is successful
education. Good use of student time is a criterion for good teaching, an out-
come of all the things that go into good education. But there are some skills that
are distinctly part of efficient time management itself.
PACING AND RHYTHM
Matching has been an important theme with each area of performance. We
have advanced the notion that an area of performance contains a repertoire
and that skillfulness comes in matching choices from it to individuals, groups,
and curricula. So it is with pacing and scheduling. The same pace will not work
equally well for all classes. Carolyn Evertson (1982) found that the way teachers
paced activities varied greatly and corresponded to their success with high and
low performing classes, but they made quite a difference in low-performing
groups. Students in low-performing classes have a clear tendency to drop in
and out of participation, especially during seatwork. Some students refuse to
participate at all. Evertson (1982) provides descriptions and commentary on
two junior high teachers’ classrooms to show how differences in pacing affect
low-performing students.
Example 1: Teacher B and the disrupted classroom
[The teacher has just put the seatwork assignment on the board.] Marie
says, “I don’t have a book.” The teacher says, “Look on those shelves,”
pointing. Marie says, “Those aren’t ours.” The teacher says, “Some of
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them are.” Marie gets herself a book. Chico raises his hand and says, “I
need help.” About five students start the assignment right away. [There
are twelve students present.] The others are talking, have their hands
raised, or are going to the teacher’s desk. The teacher says, “Come on
up, Randy,” when she calls on him. When he gets there, “Larry, leave him
alone.” Larry stands and visits by the teacher’s desk. Chico puts his hand
up again. The teacher says, “Chico, what do you need?” He says, “Help.”
The teacher says, “Okay, wait a second.” Larry sits down by the teacher’s
desk and looks on as she tells him something. Chico calls out, “Miss,
are you going to help me?” She says, “Yes, Chico, but come up here.”
He says, “Aw, Miss, it’s too far.” The teacher ignores him, and he goes to
the teacher’s desk. [At this point, five students are at the teacher’s desk.]
(Evertson, 1982, p. 182)
This classroom description shows rather dramatically the difficulty students in a
lower-performing class can have in getting started and participating successfully
in an activity. At one point, five students were at the teacher’s desk, and most of
them were waiting for help. The teacher eventually helped nine students at her
desk during this seatwork activity. Having so many students in such close prox-
imity to each other frequently created problems and led to misbehavior which
the teacher was forced to respond to.
The dialogue also illustrates the poor task orientation that generally character-
izes the lower-performing classroom. Chico’s behavior here is typical of many
other students who are behind. He did not take academic activities seriously, he
was not willing to begin work on learning tasks, and he was not interested in
participating. Poor task orientation on the part of one student can lead to dis-
ruptive behavior from others, as we find when we continue this activity:
While the teacher is trying to work with Marie, Marie follows Chico’s lead
in teasing the teacher. She grabs the stapler. The teacher says loudly, “Uh
uh, come on, Marie.” Later, Marie grabs her paper away from the teacher,
wads it up, saying, “You wrote on my paper. You’re not supposed to write
on my paper.” Marie sits down. Billy, meanwhile, has continued to play
around and talk to Larry. The teacher says sharply, “Billy, you come up
here!” Larry says loudly, “That’s exactly what Miss ____ says, and it works
for her, too.” As Billy scoots his desk up, Larry sings, “Row, row, row your
desk.” (Evertson, 1982, p. 182)
When the teacher had to give individual attention to so many students, she
could not monitor the class efficiently, and it was more difficult for the students
to get the teacher’s attention according to the prescribed procedure:
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Chico, who has his hand up, calls out, “Miss, I can’t wait forever.” The
teacher says, “Just a minute.” Mark yells loudly, “Miss!” The teacher ig-
nores him and continues helping Marie. Then she goes to Pam, who has
had her hand up for a long time. A girl calls out from the front of the room,
“I need help.” She has her hand up, but she calls out. The teacher looks
at her and says, “Okay, I’ll be there in a second.” (Evertson, 1982, p. 182)
It should be noted that two of these students do not simply call out; they have
their hands raised. However, they know that simply raising their hands is not as
effective a signal as calling out. The teacher did not consistently enforce (in fact,
hardly enforced at all) the rule against calling out under these circumstances:
Chico calls out, “What time is it?” Billy tells him what time it is. The
teacher ignores them both. Billy and Chico are trading epithets like,
“Dumb head.” The teacher, helping the girls near the front, ignores them.
Then, she looks up and says, “Chico, do you need something else to
do?” Chico says, “No.” The teacher says, “Then be quiet.” (Evertson,
1982, p. 182)
A basic conflict existed in lower-performing classes between two demands of
the teacher: (1) the need to help students, and (2) the need to control disruptive
behavior. In this example, the teacher did not want to interrupt her interchange
with the girls near the front, but she was finally forced to respond when the off-
task behavior threatened to become disruptive.
Example 2: Teacher F and the productive classroom
The comparatively high achievement gain of Teacher F’s lower-performing
class recommends it for closer examination. Teacher F allocated considerably
more time for checking and discussion of work (13.7 minutes) and the presen-
tation of material—lecture or introduction to seatwork (14.4 minutes)—and
considerably less time for the final seatwork activity (22.5 minutes) than was
characteristic of the lower-performing classes in general. In addition, the lec-
ture or introductory phase of seatwork was structured differently, frequently
punctuated by two or more very brief, highly focused seatwork activities. In
this class, the lecture or introduction to the final seatwork activity usually ex-
hibited the following pattern:
Teacher F goes to the board, where there are 25 numbers written, and
begins rounding off the first one. He has the students do this on paper.
He says, “I want you to do the first five.” They are in columns of five. He
continues, “Then put your pencils down.” They are writing these numbers
down and he moves around the room. He stops the class (after about
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6 minutes) and asks David what his answers were. David frowns and
says that he didn’t get anything. “Who can help him out?” asks the
teacher. Robert says, “I got it.” The teacher moves on to the rest of the
column and then goes on to the A column which should be rounded to
the nearest hundredth. The students then do this column. Kermit calls
out, “Are we going to have homework, too?” The teacher says, “I’ll as-
sign that in a minute.” Kermit says, “Well, we don’t have time to work
on it if we’re going to do all of these.” Teacher F says, “Oh, we are not
going to do all of these.” The teacher goes to the board and asks for
the students’ attention and begins to go through the second column.
He asks Jackie to help him round off the first, and she says she didn’t
get it. He says, “I just asked you to help.” She looks at it and begins to
try it. He walks her through the problem. [At this point, when there are
approximately 10 minutes left, the teacher gives the seatwork assign-
ment.] (Evertson, 1982, p. 182)
This is another instance of interruption by brief seatwork periods:
[The teacher] says that they will be talking about addition of decimals.
He says that this is not really much different than adding whole num-
bers. The teacher has Johnny write the first problem out for him. He
says to him, “Tell me what to put down.” Johnny adds three and two
and says that it’s five. Then he adds six and nine and says that it’s
15; put down the five and carry the one. The teacher then asks him,
“Where do I put the one? Down here?” Johnny says, “No, you put the
one over the eight.” Then he adds the eight and gets nine. He tells him
to put the decimal between the nine and the five. When he’s through,
the teacher says, “Very good.” The teacher then starts asking them
review questions on decimals. As he asks questions, he reminds stu-
dents to “Raise your hands and tell me what place the decimal is in.”
The teacher calls on Gracie to do the second example on the board.
She declines, and then the teacher goes on to call on Edward. Edward
works through the problem and then says, “Tell me what’s wrong.” The
teacher says to him, “Well, let’s find out. How can we tell?” The stu-
dents call out that they can subtract to check. At 9:28 the teacher puts
up a third example. He tells the class that they’ll be doing the assign-
ment on their papers, and that they should go ahead and do number
three to see if they can get it right. The teacher starts walking around
checking to see if students are getting the problem right. There’s some
quiet talking in the room and the teacher is still walking around. At 9:41
the teacher says, “Let’s look up here.” (He works the problem on the
board. After that, he assigns them another problem to do at their seats
and walks around checking them.) (Evertson, 1982, p. 182)
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Teacher F copes with the problem of sustaining seatwork in his lower-per-
forming classes by incorporating some of the seatwork into the lecture (or in-
troduction to seatwork) in very brief segments, placing the responsibility for
maintaining lesson continuity with the students for only a very brief period
of time. The advantages of this format appear clear. First, a brief seatwork ac-
tivity is more likely to have a high task orientation than an extended activity.
Surrounding seatwork periods with lecture allows the more easily maintained
lesson continuity of the lecture to help support seatwork. Second, these brief
seatwork activities incorporated into the lecture enable the teacher to provide
more immediate feedback than extended seatwork activities. The teacher can
thus modify explanations during the lecture if necessary rather than interrupt
a long seatwork activity, as frequently happens in lower-performing classes.
In summary, the lower-performing class of Teacher F presents an important
contrast with Teacher B’s lower-performing class. Teacher B had a significantly
longer seatwork period and shorter checking and lecture activities, possibly
adding to her difficulties, inasmuch as seatwork is often a problematic activity
in lower-performing classes. In contrast, Teacher F minimized this problem
in his lower-performing class by reducing the length of independent seatwork
activity, which contributed significantly to the higher task orientation of his
class, as determined by observer ratings. The comparison suggests that long,
extended seatwork activities are counterproductive, adding to management
problems and minimizing good task orientation in low-performing classes.
Many middle and high school teachers have both high- and low-performing
classes in their schedule. Are they able to make adjustments, as Teacher F above
did, and pace classes differently for different groups? That is what we mean
by pacing and rhythm. One can look to see if time is structured for certain
individuals, as Teacher F did for a whole class. And the reasons for varying it
certainly go beyond the global word ability. In the Evertson (1982) study, “abil-
ity” really meant achievement on California Achievement Tests. There was a
distinction between high- and low-performing classes. There are many reasons
for high and low performance besides native ability, with its implication about
intelligence. Very capable, but easily distracted, students may learn best when
their pacing is regulated for short bursts of highly focused activities. Skillful
teachers look to create such arrangements for those who need it, while the rest
of the class may be paced quite differently.
Most secondary teachers who make the shift from the traditional seven-period
day to block scheduling find themselves needing to re-examine how they pace
and chunk the period to maintain student engagement. It is not a question
of whether students can stay focused for 75 to 80 minutes but rather how the
activities in the overall period are structured and balanced that counts. This
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might be length of time; balance of information input, processing, and output;
opportunities for physical movement at least every half hour or so; and variety
in interaction complexity (working alone, working interactively, participating
in large group).
SUPPORTING STUDENTS WITH ADD/ADHD
Another area of exploration regarding time and pacing has to do with students
who are diagnosed with attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Educators and medical professionals have ex-
pressed serious concern over the rapidly increasing percentage of students di-
agnosed with and medicated for ADHD. Data from CDC (2017) validates those
concerns:
p Approximately 11% of children 4–17 years of age (6.4 million) have ever
been diagnosed with ADHD as of 2011. The average age of ADHD diag-
nosis was 7 years of age. Boys (13.2%) were more likely than girls (5.6%)
to have ever been diagnosed with ADHD.
p The percentage of children with an ADHD diagnosis increased from
7.8% in 2003 to 9.5% in 2007 and to 11.0% in 2011. Less than 1 in 3
children with ADHD received both medication treatment and behavior
therapy, the preferred treatment approach for children ages 6 and older.
p Prevalence of ADHD diagnosis varied substantially by state, from a low
of 5.6% in Nevada to a high of 18.7% in Kentucky.
In Ritalin Nation: Rapid Fire Culture and the Transformation of Human Con-
sciousness (DeGrandpre, 1999), psychologist Richard DeGrandpre argues that
ADHD has more to do with changes in time expectations in our society than
better diagnosis of a physiological problem. Chip Wood (1999) wrote:
I see children who exhibit ADHD behaviors as suffering from temporal
trauma. Sadly, they are serving as “canaries” in the cage of time, espe-
cially in our schools, where their failure to thrive should tell us something
about their environment.
School schedules speed up year after year, putting more and more pres-
sure on children to manage a world filled with more transitions, extended
curricula, less predictability, and less time to accomplish more. It’s tough
on all children, but for these “canaries” who have a heightened sensitivity
to time pressures, it’s impossible. Our society and schools are faced with
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two possibilities. One is medicating more and more children in an effort
to decrease their sensitivity to our ever faster, less regulated pace of life
and education. Another is making changes in the structure and pace of
school life to reduce temporal trauma for all of our children. (p. 23)
WAYS TO REALIZE TIME RELATED GOALS IN THE CLASSROOM
Clearly there is a lot to consider when it comes to this area of performance. At
various points throughout this chapter, we have mentioned ways in which time
issues are intertwined with other areas of performance in teaching. Tables 8.2,
8.3, and 8.4 summarize areas of performance that relate specifically to managing
time efficiently and in service of supporting student learning and achievement.
Establish routines and procedures Develop a plan for dealing with housekeeping issues (lunch
count, attendance, permission slips, cleanup, announce-
ments) so these don’t compete with instructional time.
(Routines)
Delegate jobs Teach students how to do some of the management tasks
you would ordinarily do (wheeling the overhead projector
into place, distributing and collecting materials, chang-
ing desk arrangements, or moving furniture to match the
planned activity for the day) to reduce setup time and maxi-
mize the amount of time guiding their learning.
Reward efficiency Recognize and reward students who are using time wisely
and managing it well.
Have instructional materials ready and supplies
conveniently available
Students can access and return them independently and
efficiently. (Momentum: Provisioning, Space)
Allow sufficient time for transitions Avoid a harried pace, but challenge students to be efficient,
and teach them how to implement routines that save time.
(Routines, Space, Momentum)
Minimize time spent on discipline issues Deal with disruptions and off-task behavior quickly, directly,
privately when possible, and with the minimum it takes to
get the students back on track. (Attention, Discipline)
Table 8.2 Goal 1: Minimize Non-Instructional Time and Develop Efficient
Management Systems
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Table 8.3 Goal 2: Manage Pacing and Rhythm During Instructional Time
Give notice before
transitions
Provide students with advance notice when they have been cognitively or physically
engaged in a task or activity so they have time to shift gears. (Momentum)
Start and end lessons
on time with
meaningful activities
The opening and closing minutes of lessons are the moments that are most naturally
remembered. (Principle of Learning: Sequence)
Plan for active
engagement during the
opening and closing
minutes of the class
During opening minutes activate knowledge for an upcoming lesson, recall or practice
something previously taught, or record objectives for the class in their notes and during
closing minutes by summarizing and reflecting on what they have learned in class that
day, answering a question related to the day’s objective. Or use the closing minutes to
give assignments slowly and carefully, to pose challenging dilemmas for students to
ponder (end without closure), or to get personal involvement or commitments from stu-
dents on controversial issues or on contracts. The main point is to use them, not lose
them, by giving sharp focus and purpose to the beginning and ending minutes.
Have short
independent
opening assignments
Establish a routine where students anticipate coming into class and starting immedi-
ately and independently on a 3- to 5-minute opening assignment. (Principle of Learn-
ing: Similarity of Environment)
Calibrate time
thoughtfully, and help
students monitor it
When there is an activity students are expected to complete within a time frame, make
sure it is a reasonable time frame, let them know what it is at the outset, and provide
them with a way to monitor their pace accordingly (for example, a transparent timer on
a whiteboard, intermittent pacing reminders, or student timekeepers within groups).
Pause for students
to process and make
meaning
Pause every 8 to 10 minutes of direct instruction, and require students to process
what they have been hearing, seeing, or doing so they have an opportunity to absorb
it, register it in memory, and connect existing knowledge with incoming information.
(Principle of Learning)
Pulse the learning Balance or chunk periods of direct instruction and information input with independent
or small group opportunities for students to practice, apply, and get feedback and
support with new learning tasks. Consider the length of chunks that are best suited
to the performance level of the learners and the complexity of the material, and volley
between input and guided practice accordingly.
Allow time for thinking After posing instructional questions to all students, pause and protect at least 3 to 5
seconds of silence so all have the opportunity to process what the question is ask-
ing and to construct a thoughtful response (Wait Time I). Pause again after a student
answers to allow the response to be heard and absorbed by all and to give the student
time to extend, modify, or elaborate on the thoughts she has expressed. (Wait Time II)
Plan for physical
movement
If a learning experience requires students to sit still for long stretches, plan ways for
them to get intermittent physical movement (for example, stand and share, find a learn-
ing partner or other processing activities that require movement) at least every thirty to
forty minutes to keep their brains functioning at their highest capacity. (Brain research
on cognition)
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Table 8.4 Goal 3: Maximize Engaged and Academic Learning Time
Balance the
interaction
complexity
Strike a balance between whole-class, small-group, paired, and individual learning time.
Different learners have natural preferences, and too much of any one format can be a
hindrance to learning. (Differentiated Instruction)
Prepare students for
independent work
Be clear in your explanation of what is expected, and have students summarize direc-
tions and expectations with partners to avoid confusion and helplessness when they are
expected to begin the work. When appropriate, have students attempt an example while
you circulate, and check understanding before assigning a longer period of independent
work to ensure that engaged time becomes academic learning time.
Involve students in
modeling and demon-
strating work (being
the teacher)
Do this prior to or after independent practice while you act as a guide on the side. It
enables you to check understanding and keep students more actively participating.
Monitor independent
work
When students are working independently (alone or in small groups), consider it an op-
portunity to gather assessment data to inform instruction. Monitor the learning by walk-
ing around to find out how they are doing and to provide guidance and feedback, which
will keep them on track and increase the amount of high success time for all of them.
Accommodate dif-
ferent rates of task
completion
Plan learning experiences so there can be some flexibility with the length of time
individual students have to master skills or concepts and the degree of guidance they
receive while doing so.
Have relevant and
meaningful supple-
mental work ready for
students who finish
tasks early
Often this requires planning for and managing more than one concurrent activity that
students work on during an instructional period. (See Momentum: Fillers and Overlap-
ping, Differentiated Instruction.)
Collect data on how
time is actually being
used
This allows you to make informed adjustments to allocate time to maximize learning
time.
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WAYS TO REALIZE TIME-RELATED GOALS
AT THE SCHOOL LEVEL
If you are a school administrator, you have a role to play in prioritizing and
protecting learning time in your school’s classrooms. Here are a few suggestions
for how you might do that:
p Prioritize allocated time. Develop agreements about how much time
should be allocated in the schedule for various subjects and curricular
areas. Encourage teachers to collect data about how time is spent in
their classrooms.
p Protect instructional time. Minimize or eliminate disruptions and
intrusions into classrooms during instructional time; develop alterna-
tive ways to relay messages, make announcements, and touch base with
teachers.
There are probably no teachers anywhere who feel satisfied that they have had
sufficient contact time with students to be able to accomplish all that they hope
to, or all that they are expected to, in a given class period, day, or year. What we
have tried to do in this chapter is (1) show how multifaceted this area of per-
formance is, (2) suggest some ways in which one might thoughtfully and in-
tentionally examine how students are spending this valuable resource, and (3)
encourage the collection of concrete data in order to discover ways in which
we can take increasing control of time in school to get the highest rate of re-
turn on student achievement. To quote a respected colleague, “The quality of
our teaching is what changes time in the classroom. As teachers we have the
power to control the clock even if we often feel like the clock is controlling us”
(Wood, 1999, p. 217).
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Five Categories of School Time:
1. Allocated time
2. Teacher instructional time
3. Student engaged time
4. Academic learning time
5. Interactive instruction
Three Time-Related Classroom Goals:
1. Minimize non-instructional time and develop efficient management systems.
2. Manage pacing and rhythm during instructional time.
3. Maximize engaged and academic learning time.
To check your knowledge about Time, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher website at
www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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NOTES
9. Routines
PART TWO | MANAGEMENT | ROUTINES
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 105
Management
Routines
Management:
Routines
Classroom
routines reflect
well-rehearsed
procedures
thoughtfully
designed to nurture
a positive learning
environment where
students experience
both cognitive and
affective payoffs.
Where would we be without routines in our daily lives? We have rou-tines for getting up and ready for the day, routines for finding and storing important items at home and at work, and so on. We all
have hundreds of them that we practice unconsciously when dealing with ev-
eryday recurring events or situations. Clearly, routines are essential to our daily
lives. They become layered one on another, operate automatically, and free us
to maximize the time and energy we have to spend on more thoughtful and in-
teresting endeavors. For these and many other reasons, well-thought-out pro-
cedures and established routines are vital to successful classrooms. Or as high
school art teacher and author Michael Linsin (2014) puts it, “Routines are the
lifeblood of a well-run classroom.”
Classroom routines reflect well-rehearsed procedures thoughtfully designed to
nurture a positive learning environment where students experience both cog-
nitive and affective payoffs. The routines we establish include ones related to
housekeeping, safety and operational procedures, work habits and procedures,
developing social skills and behaviors, and academic processes. Procedures
become routines when students do them automatically without prompting or
supervision (Wong & Wong, 2009). Thus procedures need to be clear, efficient,
and directly taught. They must be modeled for students and practiced by them
to ensure that they fully understand them.
Embedded in the routines we establish, and in how we support students in
mastering them, are expectation messages about what we think is important
and our belief in students’ capacity to achieve the standards of performance we
set for them. Do our routines represent respectful and challenging standards of
performance from students? A very important overall question to consider also
is how our procedures and routines reflect an understanding of and respect
for the cultures of our students and the values they bring with them to school.
These are the dimensions of routines we explore in this chapter.
CHAPTER
9
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WHY ARE ROUTINES IMPORTANT?
“All students have some characteristics in common; one of the most significant
is the need for structured time. From energetic kindergartners to sophisticated
seniors, students need routines in their school day to keep them on track”
(Thompson, 2007, p. 88). Whether it is how to enter class and be ready for the
day (whether or not the teacher is visibly present), or how to secure materials
without the aid of the teacher, routines provide students with a sense of order,
predictability, and efficacy that they can manage and control things.
On the first day of school, Danielle Conway greets her first graders one by one
while assigning a number that coincides with their alphabetic position in the
class roster. Their first task, as they enter the room, is to use their number to find
the desk with the matching number along with their name plate. During that
first morning, students will learn that their number will also guide them to their
designated space in the coat closet, and to know their line-up position when the
class is going somewhere together. They will learn where and how to store their
snacks in one basket and their lunches on the shelf. They will practice how to
unpack, empty, and store their backpacks, in an orderly way, in the coat closet
(“sitting up tall and all going this way”) and how to line up in numerical order.
Before the end of the day, they will practice where to get mail and where to in-
sert it in their green “take home” folder (left is the “keep it home” side and right
is “return to school”). As the days progress, they will practice what it means to
“get started” in the morning, how to sit during partner reading, how to do their
weekly job assignment, the morning work routine, how to lead their classmates
in the daily calendar activities, and many more procedures that recur daily. The
closing to this chapter captures in one substitute’s note the overall impact of all
of this on the students. Routines provide security because they provide a sense
of order and predictability. When they don’t have it otherwise in their lives, this
sense of order and predictability is a cornerstone of what makes some of our
students want to come to school.
Procedures communicate and clarify our expectations for students. The extent
to which we practice them with students until they are learned, communicates
our conviction that they are important and we believe students can do them.
Knowing what to expect makes you comfortable; not knowing what to ex-
pect is when you have anxiety. It is such a simple thing to be consistent;
students know what they need to do (to get started for class). If they get
started without me, then I know I have done my job. (Meghan Conley, HS
Chemistry teacher)
Routines provide
security because
they provide a
sense of order
and predictability.
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Procedures and routines minimize downtime and delays and maximize time
for learning. In Ms. Conley’s chemistry class, students enter the room, pick up
their name cards on a side table (this serves as attendance taking) and place
them on their desks (which enables the teacher and classmates to learn names
quickly at the beginning of a semester, thus contributing to a more personal
classroom climate and sense of community); work to be submitted goes in the
“in-tray” on the windowsill; extra handouts from earlier in the week are in col-
ored and labeled folders on the supplies table for students to access; completed
homework is on the right side of students’ desks; planners or notebooks are
open to today’s date; the focus question or learning target of the day and the
assignments due for next class are posted on the board and students are copy-
ing them into their notebooks while those who finish first are copying their
solution to a homework problem on the board. If it is a lab day, students are
reading over the lab with a focus question that they will be answering at the
end of class as their “ticket to leave” and gathering the materials they will need
for the lab. In either case, three minutes into the class period we haven’t heard
anything from the teacher, yet all students are settled and either reading, writ-
ing, or comparing their solutions to those put on the board by classmates. This
whole procedure is aimed at saving both student and teacher time, eliminating
the “what do I do with . . .” or “where can I get . . .” time-killer questions at the
beginning of class, maximizing engagement from the minute the bell rings,
and freeing the teacher to circulate, gather data about homework (Has it been
attempted? Is it complete? Where are the struggles? What needs to be reviewed
or retaught?), and touch base with individual students.
Routines can be used to teach and help students develop self-regulation skills
such as self-management, self-control, and self-direction. These skills “help
students engage in behaviors such as attending, participating, following direc-
tions, organizing, managing materials and time, and completing assignments—
behaviors associated with increased academic and social performance across a
variety of subjects and school levels” (Korinek, 2016, p. 232). For example, when
students are taught how to routinely use organizational tools (schedules, plan-
ners, notebooks, checklists) where they regularly record and monitor assign-
ments or keep track of books read, steps they have completed in a project, time
spent on tasks or assignments, and so on, they are learning transferrable organi-
zation skills. We can help students develop time management skills by teaching
them to use a visual timer to pace themselves in completing a task or to monitor
when it is time to transition from one center (or one activity) to another.
Some teachers use a piece of music to signal the beginning and end of transi-
tion time or the time within which a task has to be completed with the expec-
tation that students will learn to pace themselves accordingly. High school art
teacher and author Michael Linsin (2014) makes the case for using music when
Routines can be
used to teach
and help students
develop skills such
as self-management,
self-control, and
self-direction.
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implementing routines as a way to “add energy and bounce . . . a productive
whirl of movement, of intent and purpose . . . and promote a spirit of coopera-
tion and liveliness among (our) students.” In his blog post How to Use Music
to Make Routines More Fun and Effective (Linsin, 2014), he elaborates on the
importance of choosing the music to fit the particular routine:
What’s so cool about this strategy is that the music both cues the start of
the routine and sees to its conclusion . . . It acts as a timing device, mov-
ing students along as they hustle to complete their responsibilities before
the song ends.
While there are many sources of free downloadable music available on the web,
Linsin mentions three sites he uses as resources for this purpose: Sound Project
2014, freeplay, and Televisiontunes.com.
Routines can be curriculum by virtue of their particular purposes and the learn-
ing embedded in them. Designed thoughtfully and deliberately, they can sup-
port what many would call the hidden curriculum: the indirect personal and
social learning students receive just from being present in a particular class-
room where the teacher has what we like to call “Overarching Objectives” (see
Chapter 22). Personal learning refers to students learning something about
themselves or some ability that might be described in terms of character devel-
opment rather than skill. Social learning refers to students’ learning something
about others, groups, or people together (e.g., cooperation, sharing). Programs
such as Responsive Classroom (www.responsiveclassroom.org) and Open Cir-
cle (Wellesley College Stone Center at www.open-circle.org) are full of routines
where students learn and practice personal and social skills such as how to greet
each other, how to compliment and receive compliments, how to apologize, and
so on. See Chapter 16, “Classroom Climate,” for more about these programs
and how we make this type of hidden curriculum an explicit agenda in our
classrooms.
ROUTINES AND PROCEDURES FOR WHAT?
The Routines area of performance encompasses a variety of kinds of classroom
procedures.
Housekeeping:
p How to enter the classroom, empty and store backpacks, organize coats
and boots, and get ready for class.
p The first 5 minutes.
Videos:
Entering Class &
First 5 Minutes
http://www.open-circle.org
http://www.rbteach.com/sites/default/files/tst7_video_list
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p How attendance (lunch count, etc.) will be taken.
p How and where to access supplies and replenish them when necessary.
p How to clean up after working in an area (lab station, center, project
area, etc.).
p How to do various housekeeping jobs that will be assigned throughout
the term.
p How to clean and organize your desk or cubby.
Safety and Operational Features of Class Business:
p Attention signals for making announcements.
p Noise level control.
p Leaving the room.
p Turn-taking.
p Lining up.
p Population limits at centers, work area, lab stations, etc.
p How to carry chairs, scissors, pencils.
p When and how pencils are sharpened.
p How to get supplies you are missing/forgot to bring.
p How to sit in a desk or where to sit in a meeting area.
p How to set up, use, and care for lab equipment.
p Emergency procedures (fire drills, lockdowns, etc.).
Work Habits and Work Procedures:
p How to enter the room and get ready for class.
p What to do when you finish work early.
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p What to do when you have a question, are confused,
or need help with something.
p Procedures for using an easel, computers, and other equipment.
p Where to submit assignments.
p How to use a timetable and milestone chart of events to track your
progress and be checked by the teacher when you are preparing for oral
presentations or a term paper.
p How class ends or what to do when the bell rings.
p How to get into and work in pairs or small groups.
p How to set up and manage your notebook or planner.
p What to do when you have missed class.
p Where to find handouts or missed assignments due to absence.
p How you can participate in and contribute to a class discussion.
Developing Social or Personal Skills:
p How to give and receive compliments.
p How to ensure that everyone is included and participating in small
groups.
p How to greet one another or refer to a classmate.
p How to show you are really listening when a classmate is talking.
Academics:
p Weekly goal setting and self-assessment of progress toward the goal.
p How to lead calendar time, and what we do and in what sequence.
p How to present your work to the class.
p What form to use when preparing for discussions.
Video:
Learning Positions
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p Where and how to sign up for extra help before requesting a retake on
an assignment or quiz.
p How to share your work with peers and get and give feedback to im-
prove it.
When skillfully performed, all of these routines are valuable ways of organiz-
ing and managing a class while developing student skills, self-discipline, and
self-management.
COMMUNICATING AND DIRECTLY TEACHING PROCEDURES
A first set of questions to ask about the use of routines is, Do the students know
clearly what’s expected of them in the way of procedures and routines? Do they
know what they’re supposed to do?
“Since a procedure explains how you (teacher) want something done it is the
responsibility of the teacher to have procedures clearly stated” (Wong & Wong,
2009, p. 170). Effective communication requires behaviors similar to those for
communicating expectations for work, including:
p Being direct: procedures are explicitly brought to students’ attention.
p Being specific: all important details are explained.
p Communicating with positive expectancy: a “you can do it” flavor.
The next set of questions is, Do students know how to do what is expected? One
of the most common misconceptions about routines is that procedures can
simply be announced and that students should know how to behave by now.
“Procedures become routines when students do them automatically without
prompting or supervision” (Wong & Wong, 2009, p. 170). A routine is a well-
rehearsed procedure designed by us. Therefore, it must be taught (Exhibit 9.1).
Direct teaching of a procedure includes the following:
p Modeling for students to see exactly what it looks like in action.
p Practicing until the procedure is mastered.
p Tenaciously adhering to it until integrated.
It is the
responsibility of
the teacher to have
procedures clearly
stated.
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p Reinforcement to make sure students absorb it and know that we con-
sider it important.
In short, to establish routines we need to communicate procedures clearly, teach
them directly, ensure that students understand and can practice them effectively,
and revisit or have students practice them again when we notice they are slipping.
Here are some additional thoughts to consider about procedures and routines:
p Along with teaching a procedure, provide the rationale for why it is im-
portant and how it will be beneficial to students.
p Plan strategically which procedures to introduce when and how many
to introduce at once. Korinek (2016) states:
Rather than simultaneously opening all specialty areas, centers, or equip-
ment in the classroom for independent student use . . . strategically focus
on a limited number of areas, model their use, and practice with feedback
to ensure most students are using spaces and materials appropriately
prior to introducing new options (Brown, 2013; Kenworthy et al., 2014).
(p. 234)
p Post procedures for students to reference when they are still not sure
what to do.
p To support students with limited reading skills due to age, disability, or
language differences, add pictures along with words to allow students to
be increasingly independent in following a procedure.
p Notice and acknowledge when students are practicing routines effec-
tively. Catch them doing well rather than focusing on what they aren’t
doing.
p Periodically, evaluate how well routines are working and whether you
are getting the most mileage out of them. Take action when they need to
be revisited, reviewed, or practiced again with feedback.
p Include students in assessing the effectiveness of the routine and in de-
ciding what needs to happen to improve or modify it.
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Exhibit 9.1 Teaching a Routine
1. Explain:
a. Define the procedure in concrete terms and give a reason for it.
b. Demonstrate the procedure; don’t just tell.
c. Demonstrate a complex procedure step by step.
2. Rehearse:
a. Have students practice the procedure, step by step, under your
supervision. After each step, make sure that the students have
performed the step correctly.
b. Have the students repeat the procedure until it becomes a routine. The
students should be able to perform the procedure automatically without
teacher supervision.
3. Reinforce:
a. Determine whether students have learned the procedure or whether they
need further explanation, demonstration, or practice.
b. Reteach the correct procedure if rehearsal is unacceptable and give
corrective feedback.
c. Praise the students when the rehearsal is acceptable.
ARE OUR STANDARDS APPROPRIATE?
The routines we establish and reinforce with students communicate to them
what we think is important and what we believe they are capable of doing. We
use the word “standard” to represent the level of challenge or rigor embedded
in a procedure. We use the word “expectation” to represent the level of convic-
tion we have—and communicate to our students—about their ability to meet
the standard we set. Hence, another critical set of questions to consider is about
the appropriateness of the standards inherent in the routines we establish. Are
the standards challenging yet attainable for students? When a standard is chal-
lenging (but attainable) students will have to rise to a new level and develop
their capacity in order to meet the challenge. Thus when students demonstrate
mastery of a routine they have reason to take pride in their accomplishment.
If students aren’t successfully implementing a routine might it be because the
standards we set are unreasonably high? Or conversely, are the standards we set
The routines
we establish
and reinforce
with students
communicate to
them what we
think is important
and believe they
are capable of
doing.
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so low that students aren’t taking them seriously? Are they clear? And finally,
what support structures are in place for the few students who will need initial
scaffolding in order to perform a routine successfully? In Danielle Berwick’s
first grade class, students enter class, immediately take out their planners, and
copy in the homework for that night that is posted on the board (e.g., “Study
your spelling words,” or “Read for 10 minutes,” etc.). One student in her class had
very challenging attention issues. He couldn’t focus long enough to look at the
board and look back at his planner and get the message copied. After a couple of
weeks of both teacher and students struggling for up to 30 minutes to hold him
accountable to do this, Ms. Berwick consulted with her instructional support
team. Together, they developed a plan: create labels that match the homework
assignments for the week, place them on the ledge under the message from the
board, and have him go and find the label that matched the posted homework
message instead of having him copy the message. Once he did so, he could bring
it back to his seat and post it in his planner. Not only did this result in his getting
the homework into his planner as was required of all students, but it did away
with the frustration for both teacher and student, and sometimes he actually
began to ask to try again to copy the message into his planner. Sometimes stu-
dents just need a little support to be able to successfully execute a routine that is
otherwise appropriate for the majority.
ARE THE STANDARDS EMBEDDED IN OUR PROCEDURES?
As with standards for the quality and quantity of academic work we set for
students, standards for work habits, procedures, and routines can be analyzed
using the following scale:
p High but reasonable: demanding but attainable by all students?
p Matched: appropriate for most students and scaffolded for others where
necessary?
p Too high: Are we demanding too much of students?
p Too low: Are we demanding less of students than they are capable of ?
p Confusing: inconsistent or unclear to students?
p Non-existent?
See Chapter 14, “Expectations,” for expanded definitions of each of these stan-
dards and a discussion of various levels of matching.
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Table 9.1 Self-Assessment of Classroom Routines
True?
1. No routines are established for relevant events; I react on an ad hoc basis.
2. A few routines are erratically followed.
3. Stable routines exist for most relevant events, with evidence of student training.
4. Stable and highly efficient routines are in place for all relevant events.
5. Routines are varied. I modify, experiment with, and use alternative forms to achieve the purpose.
6. Routines are matched to the group; they vary from class to class.
7. Routines are varied or scaffolded to match characteristics of individuals and mapped to goals
for them.
ANALYZING WHERE WE ARE WITH ROUTINES
The scale shown in Table 9.1 is a basis with which we can analyze and assess our
current level of performance when it comes to classroom routines. This scale
spans a range of answers to the question, Why are my routines the way they are?
They may serve efficiency, a valid and common orientation. They may serve a
general goal, such as giving students security through the predictability of cer-
tain recurring events. They may map to more specific goals for groups or for the
class as a whole, such as having students routinely record books they have read
in a register so that they take some responsibility for a form of record-keeping
and get to see and participate in building a cumulative index of their books
read; or assigning teams to areas of the room for cleanup so that the children
have to come to grips with group responsibility, handling the division of labor,
and dealing with individuals who won’t carry their weight. Exhibit 9.2 lists the
elements of an effective routine.We may create or adjust routines in the service
of objectives for specific individuals. For example, in a primary-grade class,
Gabriella may start each day by taking down a few chairs and then moving
into woodworking or clay (something with a motor emphasis), whereas Diego’s
starting routine may be worked out to reflect academics and time in a private
space. In an older class in which students are routinely expected to check the
board for morning assignments or for feedback from previous work, Annelyse
may need a personal “greet and escort” over to the board or a folder of her own
in which this information is placed. Tenth-grader Nico may be asked to end
each study hall with a log entry on what he has accomplished as a way of focus-
ing him. Braden may be asked to arrange the furniture for committee work at
the beginning of each social studies period, as a way of settling him down (and
getting him to class on time).
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HOW IS CULTURE REFLECTED IN OUR ROUTINES?
In Managing Diverse Classrooms: How to Build on Students’ Cultural Strengths,
Rothstein-Fisch and Trumbull (2008) share an in-depth account of the Bridging
Cultures Project, a project that was created to support teachers to use cultural
knowledge to increase the educational success of their students. Working in col-
laboration with a group of seven teachers (who became researchers in their own
classrooms and schools) where immigrant Latino students from Mexico and
Central America constituted the majority, they report that:
The result of the teacher’s efforts is a mountain of innovation: a collec-
tion of strategies and ideas for classroom organization that are completely
field-tested by teachers who have come to understand the central role of
culture in learning and teaching. The teachers did not set out to explore
classroom management, yet it became the first thing that they changed as
a result of their new understanding of the cultural values of their students.
(p. xiv)
It is not possible to do justice to summarizing all that Rothstein-Fisch and
Trumbull’s findings offer us in the short space of this chapter; for anyone who
is interested in developing capacity in this area, the entire book is worth a good
read. Instead, here we will share some highlights that might be useful in bring-
ing a cultural lens to examining the appropriateness of our routines and how we
teach them to students, with an eye to ensuring that none of our students is put
in a compromised position where they have to act in opposition to what they
have come to believe is the appropriate way to be.
One framework for understanding culture (that served as the foundation of
the Bridging Cultures study) focuses on some very fundamental differences
Exhibit 9.2 Elements of an Effective Routine
An effective routine is
• efficient,
• clear,
• communicated with positive expectancy (“You CAN do it. You WILL do it.”),
• taught to mastery (i.e., modeled, repeated, and practiced until it is internalized and no longer a “nag”),
• matched to a purpose and group, and
• sometimes matched to individuals where appropriate and necessary.
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between two types of cultural orientations: individualistic and collectivistic.
Rothstein-Fisch and Trumbull (2008) explain the differences:
The fundamental distinction between these two systems is the relative
emphasis placed on individual versus group well-being . . . it is not a
matter of valuing one or the other—individual or group—but rather the
degree of emphasis accorded to each. (p. 9)
Exhibit 9.3 summarizes some of the most important contrasts between the
systems. Acknowledging that although this framework has limitations (as
is true of any framework), Rothstein-Fisch and Trumbull (2008) found it to
be “a good place to start in order to grasp major differences among cultures”
(p. 19). They report that “using this streamlined framework . . . teachers were
able to generate an almost endless array of strategies for working with the stu-
dents and families they served” (p. 8).
Because these particular teachers were working with students who more typi-
cally come from a collectivistic cultural orientation, many of the shifts they
made in management strategies were guided by that filter: “an approach to stu-
dents as a group that takes advantage of its sense of community and desire for
group harmony” (Rothstein-Fisch & Trumbull, 2008, p. 101). They prefer to
use the term “classroom orchestration” versus “management.” Some examples
include routines established that involve students carrying on a group activity
Exhibit 9.3 The Individualism/Collectivism Framework
Individualism Collectivism
Representative or mainstream: United States,
Western Europe, Australia, and Canada
Representative of 70% of world cultures (Triandis, 1989),
including those of many U.S. immigrants
Well-being of individual;
responsibility for self
Well-being of group;
Responsibility for group
Independence/self-reliance Interdependence/cooperation
Individual achievement Family/group success
Self-expression Respect
Self-esteem Modesty
Talk orientation Social orientation
Cognitive intelligence Social intelligence
Adapted from Rothstein-Fisch & Trumbull (2008, p. 9)
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(versus working independently) if or when the teacher is temporarily absent
from the classroom, or transitioning between activities by having all students
gather in the meeting area and sing a song together or do a movement exer-
cise. One teacher, who had previously withheld recess as punishment for failure
to turn in homework, replaced this with a system in which volunteer students
helped their classmates successfully complete missing homework (p. 107).
Another interesting exploration of the ways in which cultural values intersect
or conflict with classroom procedures and expectations comes from Weinstein,
Curran, and Thompson-Clarke (2003). Here are a few of their examples:
Because Ms. Frank values collaborative learning, she places her stu-
dents’ desks in clusters and encourages them to help one another. But
she spends a lot of time at the beginning of the year explaining to her
second graders exactly what that means. She takes pains to distinguish
between helping and doing the work for the other person. She and her
students role-play different situations; for example, Ms. Frank pretends
she doesn’t know how to do a math problem and asks a student for help.
Then she asks the class, “Was that good help? Was that explaining or was
that doing the work for me?” Ms. Frank and her students also talk about
when it’s not permissible to help one another. She explains that some-
times work has to be done independently so that she can see what people
know how to do on their own. Ms. Frank realizes that it’s important to be
absolutely explicit about the norms for helping in her very diverse class-
room. Some of her children have cultural roots in individualistic cultures; it
is likely that the values of individual effort and self-sufficiency have been
deeply engrained, so these children may resist her efforts to encourage
peer assistance. In contrast, the children from more collectivist cultures
(e.g., African, Asian, Hispanic, and Native American) have probably been
taught the value of providing assistance to others; they may find it difficult
to resist helping their peers, even when they are directed to work indepen-
dently. (pp. 271–272)
When we establish norms of behavior, we have to ensure that students under-
stand what the norms mean in terms of specific behavior.
This is especially critical in culturally diverse classrooms, since different
cultures hold different views about appropriate behavior. In some cultures,
for example, making eye contact is a sign of respect, while in others re-
spect is communicated by maintaining an averted gaze. Teachers may
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expect children to sit quietly and “listen when someone is talking,” but
some African American students may be accustomed to a more active,
participatory pattern of behavior (“call-response”). (Weinstein, Curran, &
Thompson-Clarke, 2003, p. 271)
These are but a few examples of how we might use our understanding of cul-
tural values to guide the design of routines. Clearly, there is far more to culture
than this contrast of individualistic versus collectivistic presented here. This is
but one example of the relationship between cultural orientation and respect-
ful and effective classroom management. What this underscores is the need
for us to continuously develop our awareness of our own cultural orientation
(internalized values, assumptions, and beliefs) while simultaneously seeking to
better know those of our students, and to use that information collectively to
guide the design and implementation of classroom procedures and routines.
Cultural proficiency is an essential belief in The Skillful Teacher Framework
(see Chapter 2 and Chapter 4).
Rothstein-Fisch and Trumbull (2008) sum it up in this way:
As teachers we need to know how to examine our own cultural values;
develop understanding of the values of others and regard them in a non-
judgmental way; and apply what we learn about cultural differences to
the improvement of classroom practices. (p. xiv)
ORGANIZED CLASSROOMS ARE EASY TO RECOGNIZE
Routines and procedures are established so that the classroom seems to run au-
tomatically. Students know exactly what to do and when to do it (Stronge, 2002,
p. 28). When classroom procedures are poorly thought out—or not thought
out at all—the results are seen in disorganization, poor momentum, and often
discipline problems.
Most important of all, valuable instructional and learning time is lost. At the
end of one day in Ms. Conway’s first grade classroom, a substitute teacher wrote
the following note: “Anytime you need a sub for Ms. Conway’s room, call me. I
didn’t have to do anything. The kids ran the whole day: they knew what to do,
how to do it, when to do it. I just followed their lead.” On a scale of 1–10, that’s
a 10 in this area of performance!
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Routines Encompass a Variety of Classroom Procedures:
p Housekeeping
p Safety and operational features of class business
p Work habits and work procedures
p Developing social or personal skills
p Academics
How Procedures Become Routines:
p Modeling procedures for students to see exactly what it looks like in action.
p Practicing until the procedure is mastered.
p Tenaciously adhering to it until integrated.
p Reinforcing to make sure students absorb it and know that it is important.
Cultural Differences Need to Be Reflected:
p We need to be aware of our own cultural orientation (internalized values, assumptions, and
beliefs).
p We need to better know the cultural orientation of our students and use that information to
guide the design and implementation of classroom procedures and routines.
To check your knowledge about Routines, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher website at
www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
10. Discipline
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T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 121
Management
Discipline
Management:
Discipline
Good student behavior in a classroom derives from many sources. This chapter provides a comprehensive accounting of those sources and how to put them together. It is also a diagnostic map of what could ac-
count for off-task students and misbehavior when that occurs, and how to start
at root causes to remedy the situation. Think of this topic as having two strands,
both contributing to good student behavior:
Strand 1: a set of tools to prevent, diagnose, and treat problem behavior.
Strand 2: a set of tools for building student cooperation and self-discipline.
We also bring in material from other chapters that influences student behavior—
Personal Relationship Building, Clarity, and the Management areas of Space,
Time, Routines, and Momentum—each of which can cause behavior problems
if poorly handled. The sequential map of the two strands is shown in Figure
10.1. It synthesizes the diagnostic sequence we describe in more detail later.
This chapter is also very useful to any teacher implementing PBIS (Positive
Behavior Intervention and Supports) because of its concrete detail and exam-
ples. The PBIS literature is useful for any school or district that wants to plan
carefully and effectively for schoolwide consistency and implementation with
fidelity and correct pacing. However, this chapter enables a teacher who wants
to carry out PBIS in an individual classroom to go deeply into successful imple-
mentation.
“What do I have to do to get students to apply themselves to their work and
stop fooling around and being disruptive?” That is the bottom-line question
of Discipline. Many teachers spend a disproportionate amount of energy deal-
ing with it. Some then leave teaching because they find they rarely deal with
anything else. There is no question that good discipline is a prerequisite for
good education. We must bring all of our best knowledge to bear on it to stop
the needless dissipation of both teacher and student energy that it causes. We
have the knowledge and capability to retire this issue and move on to the ques-
tion most teachers are more interested in: “How do I build self-discipline and
responsibility in my students?” In this chapter, we address both questions. We
There is no question
that good discipline
is a prerequisite for
good education.
CHAPTER
10
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urge staff developers, principals, and instructional coaches to pay particular at-
tention to this section.
Our approach is organized around the following assumptions:
p All behavior has an origin or cause.
p There are at least 12 different causes of inattentive or disruptive behavior.
p Effective responses to disruptive behavior are chosen from a repertoire to
match the cause or causes.
p Effective discipline is built on a comprehensive approach that includes
four levels:
1. Laying a foundation of sound classroom management, solid instruc-
tional design and delivery, and building relationships with students;
2. Establishing authority by communicating expectations, setting limits,
and eliminating disruptions;
3. Building a strong classroom climate that nurtures cooperation, respon-
sibility, and self-discipline; and
4. Being familiar with more complex models of discipline that may be nec-
essary to implement with a very small percentage of especially troubled
or recalcitrant students.
TWELVE CAUSES OF DISRUPTIVE OR INATTENTIVE BEHAVIOR
All behavior has an origin or cause, and there are at least 12 causes of disrup-
tive or inattentive behavior in classrooms (Table 10.1). We’ll take a quick look at
these causes and then examine a few of them in depth. The reason for doing this
analysis is that prevention and response to off-task or disruptive behavior must
be done in relation to the cause of the behavior to begin with. Some of the causes
of these behaviors have their origins in our choices, not the student’s faults. As
we walk through each of the causes of disruptive or inattentive behavior, we
point to the many tools available to address specific issues of student behavior
addressed in detail in relevant chapters of this book.
All behavior
has an origin or
cause.
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Table 10.1 Twelve Causes of Disruptive or Inattentive Behavior
Cause 1: Poor General Management
Cause 2: Inadequate Personal Relationship
Cause 3: Inappropriately Matched or Boring Work
Cause 4: Confusing Instruction
Cause 5: Unclear Standards, Expectations, and Consequences
Cause 6: Student Not Knowing How to Do the Expected Behaviors
Cause 7: A Need for Fun and Stimulation
Cause 8: Value and Culture Clashes
Cause 9: Internal Physical Causes
Cause 10: External Physical Causes
Cause 11: Extraordinary Emotional Issues
Cause 12: Student Sense of Powerlessness
p Causes 1 to 4 all have to do with laying the foundations of management,
relationship building, and solid instruction. All are related to aspects of
teaching over which teachers have nearly complete control and, when well
executed, can serve as preventive measures to discipline issues.
p Causes 5 and 6 are directly related to establishing authority and safety by
ensuring that students know what is expected and how to do it.
p Causes 7, 8, 9, and 10 highlight characteristics that might be part of a stu-
dent’s makeup or natural or learned behaviors that collide with their other-
wise instinctive tendency to cooperate and participate in school.
p Cause 11 suggests the need to become familiar with seven sophisticated
models of discipline for the small minority of recalcitrant or troubled students.
p Cause 12, student sense of powerlessness and alienation, is dealt with ex-
tensively in Chapter 16, “Classroom Climate.”
Cause 1: Poor General Management
Competent handling of Attention, Momentum, Space, Time, and Routines
forms a foundation for good student behavior. Conversely, absence of their
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Inattention to or
mismanagement
of Attention,
Momentum, Space,
Time, and Routines
can leave students
with downtime
on their hands
and distracted,
frustrated, bored,
and/or tuned out.
skillful handling creates distraction and fragmentation. Here are some impor-
tant questions to consider in your classrooms:
p Have you anticipated potential downtime, delays, and distractions, and
planned in advance for them? Are you periodically monitoring what and
how students are doing when they are working independently? (See Chap-
ter 6, “Momentum.”)
p Before you begin instruction, do you ensure that students are focused and
attending? Do you use strategies that will keep students alert and on their
toes throughout a learning experience? When students resist or are unfo-
cused, do you draw on a wide range of moves to bring them back, or does
your repertoire collapse into repeated authoritarian moves that result in
power struggles? (See Chapter 5, “Attention.”)
p Are the space and furniture arrangements conducive to all students seeing
the board and having adequate private or quiet time for working indepen-
dently? Are all students within your visual range most of the time? (See
Chapter 7, “Space.”)
p Are time allocations reasonably matched (not too long or too short) to what
students will need to complete tasks, participate productively in group ac-
tivities, and sit still? (See Chapter 8, “Time.”)
p Have you established routines for what to do when a student enters the
classroom, needs help, is finished with work, and a myriad of other aspects
of daily classroom functioning so that you minimize downtime and unnec-
essary nagging and reminders? Do students know how to carry out the rou-
tines you have set? (See Chapter 9, “Routines.”)
The bottom line here is that inattention to—or mismanagement of—Attention,
Momentum, Space, Time, and Routines can leave students with downtime on
their hands and distracted, frustrated, bored, and/or tuned out. When this is
the case, it is likely that they will find an outlet somewhere for their energy
and creativity, and that outlet may well be disruptive to the class. One might
argue that with prolonged boredom, disruptions are probably a sign of good
mental health and physical vitality in normal children. So when there are dis-
cipline problems, especially if the problems are endemic to the whole class,
these management areas are the first places to look for causes and solutions.
What this points to are the measures teachers can take to minimize discipline
problems by applying the best of what they know in each of these areas of
performance.
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Cause 2: Inadequate Personal Relationship
The same holds true for personal relationship building with students. When
teachers invest time in getting to know their students, show them respect as
individuals, and treat them fairly, most students tend to reciprocate in kind.
Gordon and Burch’s Teacher Effectiveness Training (2003) devotes entire chap-
ters to communication skills that contribute to positive and productive rela-
tionships with students. In the absence of a good relationship, it is far easier for
students to act out, ignore expectations set for their behavior, and be resentful
(see Chapter 15, “Personal Relationship Building”).
Teachers who know their students well know what other challenges their stu-
dents may be dealing with outside the classroom. They may be able to refer the
student for additional resources to better support that student academically
or emotionally. A significant part of personal relationship building is showing
interest in and respect for students. There is strong message here for schools
where most of the children are of color and from poverty.
Students of color are disproportionately disciplined and suspended far in ex-
cess of their proportionality in the population. This is often explained as an in-
evitable consequence of violent neighborhoods, broken families, and poverty.
It is not, however, inevitable at all when students of color receive culturally
responsive teaching and a deliberate focus on community building by teachers
who are also “warm demanders” (Gregory & Weinstein, 2008).
Ullucci’s (2009) ethnographic study of six very successful teachers in an inner
city shows that structured, consequence-laden environments are not the auto-
matic default necessity:
While their classrooms were clearly in control, there was little actual at-
tention paid to management throughout the day. The positive behav-
iors that were evident were not the result of punitive discipline policies.
Instead, teachers relied on community building first, and management
tactics second. Teachers focused on relationships, communication, and
instilling a sense of belonging in their classes.
Management was less about rewards and punishments and more about
norms. From the classroom space itself, we can see teachers interested
in showing children that they belong. Their heritages and languages found
places in their classrooms, both through the materials available and
the conversations pursued. I believe students felt more a part of these
classrooms because teachers talked openly about students’ lives and
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experiences, and incorporated discussions around race and difference
rather than ignoring them. “Race does matter,” shared Peter during one
interview. And having conversations about things that mattered seemed
paramount to these teachers.
Students were expected to talk to each other, solve community problems
and tap into the role of emotion and feeling, both in their own lives and
in academic work. When students did misbehave, the actions were taken
in stride. Teachers often used humor to redirect students instead of read-
ing misbehavior as a personal attack on them. When needed, teachers
definitely redirected children who were off-task, but in a style of warm
demanders: teachers who have great commitment and respect for their
students while being disciplinarians. This distinction is key. Teachers in
this study were direct and sharp with their discipline. However, this style
did not tear at the dignity and self-concept of the children. (pp. 24–25)
Cause 3: Inappropriately Matched or Boring Work
Teachers need to make sure the work is appropriate for the students: challenging
but attainable. If it is too hard, too easy, or a consistent glaring mismatch to a
student’s learning style, the risk is frustration or boredom, either of which may
induce disruptive behavior. Considering how to scaffold and differentiate learn-
ing experiences so that all students can productively work toward achieving an
objective is an essential aspect of effective planning. But even if basic manage-
ment is handled well and instruction is of reasonable difficulty, there may still be
problems (see Chapter 18, “Lesson Objectives” and Chapter 20, “Differentiated
Instruction”).
Using the same format or activity structures day after day (too much lectur-
ing, too many worksheets, low-level questioning, or something else) may also
induce boredom and acting-out behavior in some classes. Consult Chapter 20,
“Differentiated Instruction,” which highlights variables that can be manipulated
to provide balance and variety in lessons.
Cause 4: Confusing Instruction
Confusing instruction induces frustration and boredom. Are concepts presented
to students in ways they can absorb and understand? Do they have time to pro-
cess and make sense of them? Does instruction align with what we know about
different modality preferences (auditory, visual, and kinesthetic), multiple
intelligences, and variety in learning styles? Are we checking for understand-
ing frequently across all students to ensure they are “getting it” as instruction
proceeds? Do students know what they are expected to get out of a learning
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experience and why they are doing particular activities? All of these concerns
are related to clarity of instruction. Consult Chapter 11, “Clarity,” and Chapter
12, “Principles of Learning,” which both serve as resources for minimizing con-
fusion during learning experiences.
For a self-assessment of where one stands on handling these first four causes,
go to The Skillful Teacher website (www.RBTeach.com/TST7) and try out the
protocol “Discipline/Learning Environment Self-Assessment.”
Cause 5: Unclear Standards, Expectations,
and Consequences
A more serious and more common cause of inattentive or disruptive behav-
ior is unclear expectations and consequences. The intricate web of mutual un-
derstandings that goes with them may not be clearly established between the
teacher and students. We have yet to find a teacher with widespread discipline
problems (rather than just one resistant child) who did not need help here.
Cause 6: Students Not Knowing How to Do
Expected Behaviors
Students bring to school both the manners and the cognitive habits they have
learned elsewhere. Failure to meet teacher expectations for lining up without
running, listening to directions, lining up their work neatly on paper, or for
putting materials away in an orderly way may simply come from the fact that
they don’t know how to do so. It is a fact that some kindergartners don’t know
how to walk rather than run in certain situations (which is to say they don’t
know how to predict consequences, control impulses, or plan physical move-
ments). For some children, it is important to directly teach some of the hid-
den rules of school and formal behavior: classroom survival skills such as how
to stay in their seat, how to participate appropriately, and where to put their
things.
Some older students don’t know how to categorize objects to expedite a cleanup,
much less plan their time and movements during it. In these cases, teaching the
behaviors step by step, not clever consequences or contracts, is the antidote to
the disruptive behavior. There’s no use trying to motivate students to do some-
thing for which they lack the tools. Assumptions can cause teachers to overlook
these possibilities. It may simply never occur to them that the deepening cycle
of threats and punishments has its origin in simple ignorance. We urge teachers
facing disruptive behavior to examine their students carefully. More often than
is realized, teachers assume capacities that are not there in students’ behav-
ioral repertoires. In these cases, putting the behaviors into their repertoires is
PDF
Discipline/
Learning
Environment
Self-Assessment
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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needed. A question not to overlook when trying to figure out a resistant class or
individual is, “Do they know how to do what I am asking them to do?”
In Lost at School (2008), Ross Greene goes into depth about teaching particu-
larly resistant students the skills they are lacking. He combines positioning the
behavior as a problem to be solved, being empathetic with the student, and
making a plan with the student that teaches the skills. His findings from re-
search and writings in this decade elevate this cause as one we should seriously
consider when analyzing student behavior.
Cause 7: A Need for Fun and Stimulation
Fooling around with friends is natural and healthy. Children would almost in-
variably rather fool around than do their work, so teachers should expect that
and not resent it. (Truth be told, we were probably like that too. And it never
completely goes away for some of us; watch adults at faculty meetings.) This
doesn’t change in any way the teacher’s responsibility to make instruction inter-
esting and relevant or to make the rules clear and enforce student engagement.
But it does perhaps temper irritation to remember that social urges and youth-
ful energy underlie some disruptive behavior.
Cause 8: Value and Culture Clashes
Cultural clashes between teachers and students may underlie resistant behavior.
This cause should be considered in classes where students’ home life has strong
ethnic roots in a culture different from the teacher’s. In addition to ethnicity,
another cultural dimension to be aware of is tacit rules—unspoken cues and
habits—of different socioeconomic groups:
For example, being able to fight or have someone who is willing to fight
for you [may be] important to survival in poverty. Yet in the middle class,
being able to use words as tools to negotiate conflict is crucial. (Payne,
2005, p. 60)
Other examples Payne cites include laughing when disciplined as a way to save
face in matriarchal cultures; inappropriate or vulgar comments that may be the
only language a child has learned for dealing with conflict; not following di-
rections, which may be due to the absence of practice or procedural memory
training; and incessant talking, which may be a manifestation of the partici-
patory nature of the family dinner table. Some of these examples border on
stereotyping. But other cultural differences, like avoiding eye contact and not
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participating in class discussion, may be rooted in cultural norms and need
acknowledgement rather than criticism.
The bottom line here is that a student may be behaving in ways that are consis-
tent with their own culture (racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic) but may be con-
sidered inappropriate in the school culture. It is imperative to examine inap-
propriate behavior with that in mind as a prerequisite to teaching replacement
behaviors for students.
Cause 9: Internal Physical Causes
Sometimes seemingly inattentive students in fact don’t hear well. They fail to
carry out directions not because they’re daydreaming or willful; they simply
mishear key words. We have known inattentive students to be diagnosed with
hearing loss after several years in primary school and after much energy went
into behavior modification and other focusing strategies for the children. Be
sure to rule out physical causes when working with children who appear resis-
tant or inattentive. These include vision, organic hyperactivity, thyroid irregu-
larities, fetal alcohol syndrome, drug dependency, ADD/ADHD, and a host of
other possible physical problems.
Cause 10: External Physical Causes
The environment of the class itself may be a mismatch for certain students,
and a simple change of the environment can reduce or eliminate problems
for them. The most obvious variable is the degree of structure in the class
(Colarusso & Green, 1973). High-structure environments leave students less
choice in what activities to do when, with whom, and where in the room. Low-
structure environments (which may nevertheless be highly planned and highly
organized) have more student movement and more flexibility in who does what
and when, since students are making more choices and are more in charge of
their personal schedules.
For some students, the predictability and organization of a highly structured
classroom environment represents a haven of comfort and security from an
otherwise outside world (or home life) of uncertainty or chaos. A classroom
in which daily schedules are published and adhered to, reasonable rules and
routines are established and followed, supplies are orderly and accessible, and
personal space (desk, locker, cubby, and so on) is assigned and controlled by
them can render school a welcome environment for some students, fulfilling
the basic human need to feel in control in ways they don’t experience elsewhere.
A student may be
behaving in ways
that are consistent
with their own culture
(racial, ethnic, or
socioeconomic)
but considered
inappropriate in the
school culture.
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In addition to structure, other environmental variables that might influence
behavior include the amount and kind of auditory and visual stimulation in
a classroom. Some people can completely tune out ambient noise, and others
are highly sensitive to and distracted by it. This is also the case regarding the
visual environment. The type or amount of lighting in the room can be a factor
interfering with or supporting concentration for some students. Learning style
experts (Dunn et al., 1995) highlight temperature and seating arrangements
as additional variables that can affect learners. A room too hot or cold leads to
physical discomfort that interferes with concentration. Thus there are a num-
ber of environmental factors that might affect student behavior.
In Teacher Effectiveness Training (2003), Gordon and Burch have some useful
checklists for other ways to modify the environment. When considering how to
improve students’ behavior, teachers should also look at the appropriateness of
the environments. They need to weigh how much these environments may be
contributing to (rather than reducing) problems. The goal is to arrange them so
that they do not play to students’ weaknesses and trigger disruptive behaviors.
Cause 11: Extraordinary Emotional Issues
Some strong emotional reactions may be short term and the impact short lived,
such as a feud with a friend, anxiety over a test, or a fight at home. Or they
may represent long-term, cumulative, and more significant psychosocial issues,
such as being convinced one is a failure, homelessness, abuse, or mental illness.
Some adolescents and even middle elementary students bring a sense of aliena-
tion and hopelessness to school that manifests alternately as withdrawal and
disengagement or defiance and hostility. Consult Chapters 15 and 16, “Per-
sonal Relationship Building” and “Classroom Climate,” which contain more
guidance for working with these students. The issue for these students is not
discipline; it is motivation and meaning. Whereas the foundations for orderly
classroom life that are presented in this chapter are necessary for alienated stu-
dents, they are insufficient; those foundations will not be enough to get them
engaged. Students who do not believe school has anything for them in life or
who have given up on their own capacity to improve their lives through educa-
tion require reaching beyond this chapter. The “Arenas” section in Chapter 14,
“Expectations,” and the teacher behaviors laid out there aim directly at students
who do not believe in themselves or in the value of school.
Despite all the best efforts in responding to these issues, there may still be a few
students who resist learning and do not function well in school. They may be
passive and withdrawn or act out severely and consistently. The final section of
this chapter addresses these students—the few, not the many; the troubled, not
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the norm. There are at least seven major systematic approaches for dealing with
resistant students, each cohesive and each different, and they are all effective if
used with the right students.
Cause 12: Student Sense of Powerlessness
Schools as institutions can resemble the army, prisons, and hospitals in the
way they may systematically make students feel powerless. They can frustrate
the basic human need for control by leaving little or no room for initiative,
decision-making, and leadership. This environment makes a significant percent-
age of children want to push back, and they do. If we use unilateral power, we can
control these students—but we will probably also make them hate school and
learn less. This is not a pitch for free-for-all schools. Learning is often hard work
and requires doing assignments given by teachers, and that is okay. But without
compromising high academic standards, teachers can structure their classes so
that students feel some ownership and control over their learning experiences.
Every increment of progress in this direction takes pressure off behavior man-
agement because students’ energy starts to push with instead of against. Later in
this chapter and also in Chapter 16, “Classroom Climate,” we elaborate on how
teachers can do this “power sharing.”
A COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH TO DISCIPLINE
Figure 10.1 summarizes the elements of a comprehensive approach to disci-
pline and represents the necessary sequence to be accomplished for building
a powerful learning environment for students. The diagram can serve as a re-
source for diagnosis and problem-solving when discipline issues are interfering
with classroom learning.
The levels in this figure are sequential and should be handled in priority order.
Experienced teachers may be working on climate and expectations at once
from day one, but they are sequential in the sense that each requires the one
before it to be successfully in hand before accomplishing the next level of
tasks. For example, if the environment is poorly structured (e.g., Momentum,
Space, Time, Routines), then the class operates chaotically and the teacher has
a tough time catching all the disruptions and becoming a person of signifi-
cance to the students.
If the rules are unclear (communicating Expectations), the teacher won’t be
able to deliver consequences for student behavior without being resisted and
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Figure 10.1 Discipline Tasks and Toolboxes
P O W E R F U L L E A R N I N G E N V I R O N M E N T S
ESTABLISHING FOUNDATIONS
MANAGEMENT
• Attention
• Momentum
• Space
• Time
• Routines
COMMUNICATING EXPECTATIONS
• Am I clear?
• Do I have conviction?
• Do Students Know?
LIMIT SETTING
• Body Language of
Meaning Business
BACKUP CONSEQUENCES
• Logical
• Varied
• Escalating
COMMUNITY
RISK-TAKING
INFLUENCE
AND CONTROL
MODELS OF DISCIPLINE
• Teacher Effectiveness Training
• Reality Therapy
• Logical Consequences
• Personal Influence
• Self-Awareness
• Behavior Modification
MOTIVATION
• Personal
Relationship
Building
INSTRUCTION
• Clarity
• Lesson Objectives
• Differentiated
Instruction
ELIMINATING
DISRUPTIONS
BUILDING A CLIMATE OF
COMMUNITY AND COOPERATION
DEALING WITH VERY RESISTANT STUDENTS
LEVEL 1
LEVEL 2
LEVEL 3
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seen as unfair. If the consequences are not clear, certain, and fair from the stu-
dents’ point of view, not only will the worst disrupters start to get the upper
hand, but the class as a whole won’t invest in building a responsible, inclusive
classroom community (Climate).
No teacher can focus on climate building if the earlier jobs are not solidly han-
dled. This sequence from bottom up is also a progression teachers can use to
diagnose potential causes of discipline issues as well as to uncover a myriad of
variables to adjust or fine tune.
Now, here in more detail are the four levels for establishing an orderly, safe, and
cooperative classroom environment.
Level 1: Establishing the Foundation
Begin by establishing a welcoming environment conducive to smooth manage-
ment. This means do the following:
p Make sure the environment in which the students learn is set up properly
with routines, time schedule, procedures, and physical space to facilitate
smooth operation and minimize downtime and distractions.
p Build relationships of regard and respect with students to signal that this is
a place where they are valued as individuals.
p Design and deliver instruction in a way that all students can experience
both challenge and success.
In examining causes one through four of disruptive or inattentive behavior we
proposed ways in which several of the Management areas of performance (At-
tention, Momentum, Space, Time, and Routines) lay a solid discipline founda-
tion. We also discussed the importance and benefits of investing in Personal
Relationship Building with students. Finally, we highlighted instructional areas
of performance (Lesson Objectives, Clarity, and Differentiated Instruction)
that can serve as toolboxes for making the foundation structurally sound.
Collectively, these areas of performance afford us a solid foundation for estab-
lishing preventive measures and for diagnosing and responding to discipline
issues that arise. The above-mentioned chapters of this book and the subtasks
associated with them are the place to begin when dealing with discipline. Are
they all in good shape?
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Level 2: Eliminating Disruptions
Communicate through your actions that students can rely on you to maintain
a safe and orderly environment. Even if you are totally committed to having a
democratic classroom where students are responsible for their own behavior,
this is necessary in order to garner the respect and significance you will need to
create any classroom climate you care about.
Establishing Authority and Safety Has Three Major Subtasks
p Subtask 1: Establish expectations for behavior with confidence and clarity
and build a crystal-clear understanding of the rules and the social contract
that will be the reference point for behavior. Involve the students to the de-
gree possible in creating a social contract, and act out the boundaries of the
rules so there is no ambiguity of what they mean. Later in this chapter, we
describe strategies for involving students in developing these rules.
p Subtask 2: Set limits by reacting with speed and decisiveness when behav-
ior is inappropriate or disruptive. One does this by noticing when student
behavior needs a response and responding quickly with the body language
of meaning business (Jones, 2013) and any other steps that are necessary
to preserve order and safety, both physical and psychological. Linda Lan-
tieri (2001) describes the relationship of classroom order and psychological
safety as follows:
“Children do not always know what is safe for them or for others,”
said Dorothy. “Discipline and limits are a way we create a circle of
safety for those not yet ready to do this for themselves. Picture these
limits as a big hug—our strong arms encircling the child with comfort
and safety.”
Once we see discipline as an act of love and containment, we can be
creative and responsive to the style and degree of discipline needed
with a particular child or group. . . .When we distinguish respect from
fear and provide limits to prevent children from harming each other,
we are not defending our power as teachers; we are helping group
members create the safety to be vulnerable and authentic with one
another. (p. 121)
p Subtask 3: The final subtask is responding to student behavior when nec-
essary with consequences that are clear, swift, fair, and certain. This means
having an escalating scale of consequences in mind and the backup systems
in place.
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Establishing Expectations at the Beginning of the Year
The opening weeks of a term or year are the prime time to ensure solid under-
standing of expectations, establish routines, and begin to build class cohesion.
It is useful to think of this period as one of teaching or training for the students.
Training requires practice; thus, if students are noisy and disruptive in the hall-
way, the teacher can say, “I can see we need more practice in hall walking from
the way we just came back from gym,” and take the class out for some practice
right then. This is not punitive; it is logical as a consequence.
Example: Nick Aversa, an eighth-grade teacher we worked with, spent
the first part of every period in the first weeks of school rehearsing his
students in how to enter class and get right to work. The routine in-
cluded crossing the threshold to class and stopping all talking, finding
a seat, getting out their notebook, and working on the opening activity
for class. Initially, he taught them why this is important and then walked
them through a series of practices from hall to classroom. From then
on, anytime someone forgot the procedure, the consequence was to
go back out into the hall and reenter correctly. Nick would signal this
by simply establishing eye contact with the offending student and then
looking at the door. The student would know what he had to do.
We have seen classes where the teacher’s expectations for student behavior are
lowered by the students; their behavior is so poor that the teacher concludes
they can’t behave any better. Watch out, though; the minute a person starts jus-
tifying behavior (or academic achievement for that matter) by saying, “What
can you expect, given their environment,” the students are in trouble. We are
convinced that what you expect is what you get—not right away, of course, but
eventually. The students may have to be taught how to meet higher behavioral
standards, but they are not constitutionally, genetically, or environmentally un-
able to.
There are examples all over the country that demonstrate that children from
the most chaotic and disadvantaged families and neighborhoods can behave
perfectly well in school if the adults demand it, teach them how to do it, and
believe in them. This last factor, “believe in them,” is the subject of Part Three
on “Motivation” (Chapters 14, 15, and 16). Students who don’t believe school
has any value for their future, especially in secondary grades, are much more
likely to be discipline problems; they feel they have little to lose. Maybe they
are frustrated and angry. So building their motivation to succeed in school has
a strong bearing on their willingness to respond to the environment of respon-
sibility and self-discipline that this chapter is about. Our point here is simply
to alert readers to our responsibility, both in our individual classes and collec-
The opening weeks
of a term or year
are the prime time
to ensure solid
understanding
of expectations,
establish routines,
and begin to build
class cohesion.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R136
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tively for the school, to maintain the highest standard for civil and respectful
behavior for our students.
In Chapter 14, “Expectations,” we describe four areas of classroom life where
teachers set standards of performance: (1) the quantity and quality of work, (2)
work habits and procedures, (3) business and housekeeping routines, and (4)
interpersonal behavior. When it comes to discipline, we are primarily focusing
on setting and communicating expectations in the last three areas.
Clarity and Conviction About Expected Behavior
The starting point here is the teacher. Do we (teachers) have clarity about what
we want from our students? Do we have conviction about what we can reason-
ably expect from our students? The distinction here is an important one. Clarity
about what we want a student to do or measure up to sets standards of behavior;
what we think a student will do—or is capable of doing—is about our beliefs
and expectations. Each plays a critical role in the results we get from students.
If we aren’t clear about standards of performance, students won’t know what
we are asking of them. If we don’t have conviction that students are capable of
achieving a standard of performance, we aren’t likely to inspire them to do so.
Is it reasonable to expect first graders to sit and listen at a classroom meeting for
more than 10 minutes? Are they capable of doing so? If you believe that your
first graders will never be able to sit for more than 10 minutes, they won’t. Are
your inner-city high school students too conditioned by street culture to give
respectful silence to peers doing a mock debate? If we believe that, then disre-
spect is what we will observe.
Every year, we work with at least one or two excellent teachers who are tal-
ented and caring people but whose effectiveness is reduced by their ambiva-
lence about expectations. They are unsure how reasonable it is for them to ex-
pect and to push students toward more responsible and attentive behavior in
class. They see the irresponsible behavior of students who appear out of control
but have family and other problems and feel they must make allowances. Thus
they undersell the students and undershoot with their goals for student be-
havior. Who says first graders can’t sit still in a circle and listen to each other
for a 15-minute meeting? Who says ninth graders can’t learn to function in
self-organized task groups to plan and organize a project?
Again and again, we have seen it demonstrated that teachers can get what be-
havior they want if they work hard enough at it, are tenacious and determined
enough, are committed to the idea that it is right and attainable behavior for
their students, and are willing to teach the skills their students may need to
function at that level. This is true even for some disturbed students, though they
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 137
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are more taxing, the setting may need adjustment, and this work will take con-
siderably longer. Expecting anything less is ultimately a disservice to students.
What you decide to “want,” of course, can be unreasonable and age inappropri-
ate, in which case what you get is what you deserve.
If you have a clear notion of what you want, and you keep expecting, expect-
ing, expecting, and say so out loud to students, with consequences when they
don’t measure up, with explanations of “why” over and over again, and with as
much kindness and rationality as you can muster, you will get there. But first
you must make some decisions about what is acceptable and unacceptable be-
havior and decide in order of priority what you want and that you will commit
to getting it.
The Taboo Exercise is a useful first exercise for faculties to do together to get
clarity, consensus, and conviction about behavioral expectations. A version of
this is a built-in feature of PBIS. Through the exercise, and the discussion it
necessitates, people get clearer about distinctions between the most serious and
unacceptable student behaviors that warrant uniform, immediate, and consis-
tent responses and consequences from the whole staff, and about behaviors
that are important to address or extinguish but far less serious and therefore
not worthy of community time and investment. In the latter case, individuals
decide how to address them. (See the Taboo Exercise on The Skillful Teacher
website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.)
Do Students Know What Is Expected of Them?
The prerequisite for strength in this area is that students have a clear and unam-
biguous picture of the expectations for their behavior. Something must happen
to get that information across. There are numerous ways this may be done: tell
them directly, make up a chart, brainstorm, or negotiate the class rules at a class
meeting. Expectations are sometimes not codified as formal rules or laid out
all at once, but they become known to students through what a teacher reacts
to consistently. Students must be clear about what we want from them. We save
a lot of time and energy if we communicate expectations directly rather than
leaving it to chance that students will figure them out.
Furthermore, expectations must be specific so there is no misunderstanding
or room for argument. It may not be enough to call for silent reading time;
the class may need clarification on what silence means. Does it mean absolute
silence, or whispering, or quiet talking? Can the students see the difference and
modulate in a controlled way between those levels? If “silence” really means
“quiet,” then perhaps it really should not be called “silence” and vice versa. If
students are supposed to arrive on time for class, does that mean being no more
than two minutes late, being in the room when the bell rings, being in their
PDF
Taboo Exercise
http://www.rbteach.com/TST7
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R138
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seats, or being in their seats with notebooks open and ready to go? Where these
boundaries are drawn is less important than that they are established clearly.
There must be no doubt as to when a rule has been broken.
You Have the Right:
p To be called only by your given or chosen name.
p To do your work without being disturbed by others.
p To be treated with the same respect that all people should have.
p To have your personal property rights respected.
p To ask questions when you don’t know until you understand.
p To get a good education and do your best work.
p To have and express your own opinion, even when you disagree with others, including the teacher.
p To know how you are doing in your schoolwork.
p To be safe from someone hitting or harming you.
p To have fun and play safely on the playground without being bothered by others.
p Not to be criticized for things beyond your control or for things that you didn’t know about.
p To be by yourself.
p To speak and listen to language that is appropriate for school.
p Not to be teased for being different.
Adapted courtesy of David Crump, former principal, Harrington Elementary School, Lexington, MA.
Exhibit 10.1 Sample Bill of Rights
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A Social Contract
Mendler and Curwin (1999) describe a comprehensive strategy for involving
students in rule making—called the social contract—to promote responsibil-
ity and respect and ensure there are clarity and buy-in regarding the rules of
classroom interaction. (See “Creating a Social Contract” on The Skillful Teacher
website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.)
Some teachers call this beginning-of-the-year rules exercise “constructing a
classroom constitution” or “bill of rights and responsibilities.” A colleague of
ours and a former classroom teacher, Dave Crump, used to start each school
year by having his students develop a list of what they wanted to be able to
count on as rights to be respected in their classroom that year (see Exhibit
10.1). Once they had generated a good list, they would discuss what each idea
meant and why it was important. Finally, they would vote on their top priorities
and construct a manageable list of 10 to 15 rights that everyone promised to
abide by. The final document was prepared, and each student signed it.
When infractions occurred or conflicts arose around behavior, Crump would
send students straight to the “Bill of Rights” to determine which of their rights
had been violated—or which right they had violated—and to decide what a fair
consequence might be. Frequently, this deliberation and discussion diffused
tension between peers, and by the time they were reporting back to Crump
they had pretty well resolved their issue.
Expectations need to be repeated often. That means, especially in the beginning
of the year, restating and reminding students about expectations and eliciting
expectations from students just prior to events that may strain the behavior.
It might sound like this: “We’re going to the auditorium now. What might it
be like there as we walk in? What will we need to do? What should we keep in
mind for our behavior as a good audience?”
Home Contact
Another useful strategy to clarify and reinforce expectations and build rela-
tionships with families is early home contact to establish a positive connec-
tion long before problems arise, and to enlist their support and cooperation
throughout the year in reinforcing the class contract. See The Skillful Teacher
website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7 for “Guidelines for Home Contact” pro-
vided by Fred Jones (2013).
Attitude of Positive Expectancy
Teachers should have an attitude of positive expectancy embedded whenever
they state and restate expectations. Positive expectancy has two aspects. The
first has the sense, “Why of course you’re going to do it!” This is not something
PDF
Creating a
Social Contract
Expectations
need to be
repeated often.
PDF
Guidelines for
Home Contact
http://www.rbteach.com/TST7
http://www.rbteach.com/TST7
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R140
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the teacher says outright, but it is the assumption conveyed by body language
and attitude. The other aspect of positive expectancy is encouragement and
confidence—the “I know you can do it” attitude. It is often associated with posi-
tive statements of specific behaviors or questions (“Remember you want to raise
your hand”) rather than direct desists (“Stop calling out!”).
Explicit verbal “positive attribution” conveys expectations as well. Consider the
following scenario:
The little boy, Albert, was standing near the teacher’s desk and when he
saw the drawings he promptly remarked, “They stink.”
Brigit’s smile vanished. The teacher took Albert aside, bent down to him
and said, “You may not know it, but that hurt Brigit’s feelings because she
really worked hard on those pictures. Now, I’m sure if you knew that you
were going to hurt her feelings, you wouldn’t have said that about them. I
don’t think you’d ever want to be that kind of boy, would you?”
Albert swallowed, and with his face down, he muttered, “No.” His teacher
then took his hand and said, “Come, let’s take a good look at her pictures
together, and we’ll tell her which one we like best.”
The teacher did not simply scold and disapprove, although her approval was
certainly at stake for Albert. What she did was remind him of a standard he
already understood, but that had not yet become a guiding principle for his
actions. Even though she didn’t state the standard formally, her reminder that
“It’s bad to hurt people intentionally” came through very clearly.
Albert was induced to apply this standard to his actions because of two
things his teacher did:
• She attributed underlying good intentions to him (“I’m sure if you
knew that you were going to hurt her, you wouldn’t have said that”).
By doing this, she was granting him membership in the good persons
“club”—a membership she assumed he desired. If he continued to
ignore the standard, he’d lose his “membership”—not just because
his teacher disapproved of him, but because the categories “per-
son who intentionally hurts others” and “good person” are mutually
exclusive. Research on children’s understanding of logic shows that
even five-year-olds can understand the idea of mutually exclusive
categories.
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• She asked him to define the kind of boy he didn’t want to be (one
who intentionally hurts others). By doing this, she was forcing him
to choose whether or not he wanted to keep his status as a good
person. If he did, he’d have to use the standard as a guide for his
behavior toward Brigit, as well as his future behavior toward others.
(Shulmand & Meckler, 1994, pp. 113–114)
Another way to convey positive expectancy is to be assertive in requesting ap-
propriate behavior. Lee Canter (Canter & Canter, 2001) calls for using one of
four attention moves—eye contact, proximity, mentioning the student’s name
while teaching, and proximity praise—to redirect students back on task. Here’s
an example he gives for mentioning the student’s name:
While at the board, the teacher notices that Tanya and Michael are off
task and not paying attention. The teacher, in a matter-of-fact manner,
continues the lesson saying, “I want all of you, including Tanya and Mi-
chael, to come up with the answer to this problem.” As soon as their
names are mentioned, Tanya and Michael immediately begin paying at-
tention. (p. 135)
If students counter with excuses or other diverting moves, Canter recommends
the broken record technique:
Teacher: “Sue, I want you to raise your hand and wait to be called on
before you speak.” (Statement of want)
Sue: “None of the other kids do.”
Teacher: “That’s not the point. I want you to raise your hand.” (Broken
record)
Sue: “You never call on me.”
Teacher: “That’s not the point. I want you to raise your hand.” (Broken
record)
Sue: “Okay, I will.”
In this interchange, the teacher kept repeating (broken record) what she
wanted from the child and would not become sidetracked by Sue’s re-
sponses. The teacher maintained control of the interaction with the child.
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In using this technique, you first need to determine what you want from
the interaction with the student (for example, “I want Sue to raise her
hand”). This becomes your statement of want and the gist of your interac-
tions. You can preface your statement of want with, “That’s not the point,
but I want you to raise your hand” or “I understand, but I want you to raise
your hand.” No matter what manipulative response the student presents,
if you respond with your statement of want—“that’s not the point, I want
you to . . .” the statement will be more effective. (Canter & Canter, 2001,
pp. 79–80)
This technique can be surprisingly effective, especially with students who are
verbal. When you use it, you must know what consequences (or range of con-
sequences) you are prepared to deliver if the behavior persists. Without that
clear image, your assertiveness will be hollow. Furthermore, after reasserting
the expectation three times, you must be ready to implement a consequence.
Recognizing and Rewarding Responsible Behavior
No discussion of consequences would be complete without examining posi-
tive consequences: how to respond to students—individual students or a whole
class—who are meeting expectations. Canter and Canter (2001) recommend
three guidelines for positive consequences: they should be things teachers are
comfortable with, that students like, and that comply with school and district
policies. Rewards might run the gamut from specific verbal praise (“Very nice
job of managing your participation in the small group discussion and including
everyone in the conversation”), a chance to be the line leader or the messenger
for the day, a “good news” note, a postcard or call home, a positive note sent
home addressed to the student, or a ticket that entitles the student to “purchase”
items in the class store.
There is a case to be made that good behavior should not be rewarded; it is
expected and should be the norm, so there should be no reward system. Nev-
ertheless, with certain classes where discipline problems are an issue, explicit
reward systems can play a useful role.
Mendler and Curwin (1999) note that some rules can have only positive conse-
quences when followed. They cite an example of a middle school teacher who
had a rule that paper airplanes could not be thrown in class during instructional
time. The consequence for every week of no airplane throwing was that the class
would have a paper airplane throwing contest. They report that “this creative
contract stopped paper airplane throwing for the year” (p. 82). They believe there
should be at least one positive consequence for each rule. In their earlier work,
Mendler and Curwin (1983) suggested an approach to positive consequences
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 143
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that relies more on social praise delivered in private. They like to catch students
being good and deliver both positive and negative consequences quietly, so only
the receiving student can hear. Thus when the teacher is bending over a stu-
dent to say something privately, the rest of the class doesn’t know whether it’s
something like, “You have continued talking to neighbors despite two warnings.
The consequence is you’ll have to stay after class with me and work out a plan
to avoid this behavior” or “You’ve been focusing on your work and written two
balanced sonnets this afternoon. That’s what I call being productive!”
In Tools for Teaching: Discipline • Instruction • Motivation (2013), Fred Jones
concisely describes a successful system he calls Preferred Activity Time (PAT)
for recognizing cooperation and efficiency in student behavior. PAT is not free
time. It is structured time for an activity the students really like to do; it is
commonly a lively game put to use as a review of academic material, but many
other choices are possible as well. With appropriate modifications, it works
equally well with secondary classes. With students, Jones calls this system “Re-
sponsibility Training” because they are learning to be responsible with time in
everything they do (not dawdling, off-task, or fooling around).
PAT is free. The generous teacher gives the class 30 minutes for use on Friday
each week (or 10 minutes each day); the rhythm of this choice depends on the
particular class and their capacity to defer gratification. The real hook of the
system is students’ ability to increase PAT with bonus PAT.
Class, before you get out of your seats, let me tell you what I want you to
do during this lesson transition. First, hand in your papers by laying them
on the corner of my desk. Then if you need to sharpen your pencils, this
is the time to do it. If you need a drink of water, this is the time to get it.
I want my cleanup committee to erase my boards and straighten up the
books on the shelf. I want everybody to pick up any paper you see laying
around the room and get your desks back on their marks.
I will give you two minutes to get this done. But you know from past
experience you can get it done in half-a-minute. So, let’s see how much
time you can save. All of the time you save will be added to PAT. Let’s
check the clock. [Pause until the second hand passes 12.] Okay, let’s
begin. (Jones, 2013, p. 266)
Skillful teachers work the room to prevent any “bootleg reinforcement” for
fooling around that peers might deliver. In these pages, Jones gives a number of
subtle tips about how to make the class successful and concludes the scenario
by adding 1:17 to the classes starting total of 30 minutes.
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Despite generous allotments of time for transitions, student don’t always “win” a
bonus, and 5 seconds over the set time will become a minus on the tally for PAT
that is always on display. However, time loss of PAT should not be used as a con-
sequence when a teacher can apply body language instead. The only time that
doesn’t apply is for high-rate disruptions (out of seat, talking) when the teacher
is seated and working with a small group.
All the pluses and minuses of PAT are noted by the teacher with the same neu-
tral affect we will see in the “Body Language of Meaning Business” section (see
p. 149). The implied message is, “This is just the way it is. You, the class, are in
charge of whether PAT is going up or down. You’re in control.”
Jones has sections in his book and on his website for desirable activities for
PAT at all grade levels and a section on how to deal with students who are will-
fully sabotaging the class. We recommend this section and, in fact, his whole
book. Jones’ PAT is a well-scripted version of the Good Behavior Game, a
time-tested form of recognition with 40 years of research supporting its power
(Flower et al., 2014).
Appropriate Consequences
Logical, Not Punitive
Rudolph Dreikurs (Dreikurs & Cassel, 1972) understood that punishment
breeds resentment, whereas logical consequences begin to teach students the
reality of the social order. Every act has a consequence, and to avoid unpleasant
results, students must behave in a way that will help guarantee favorable re-
sults. Punishment is any aversive stimulus (like writing, “I will not throw paper
on the floor,” one hundred times) intended to discourage the recurrence of the
behavior. The student will be less likely to do the behavior next time because
this unpleasant thing may happen again. Logical consequences, however, are
connected to the behavior in such a way as to feel like fair retribution for the
violation. If a student has broken a rule against copying another’s homework, a
logical consequence is to have to do it all over again under supervision (rather
than stay after school as punishment). The point is always to search for logical
consequences if consequences are deemed necessary.
A Range of Consequences
If each rule has an automatic consequence tied to it, you can get boxed into a
corner. Having only one consequence for each rule is a mistake. Mendler and
Curwin (1999) cite the case of a teacher whose consequence for undone home-
work was staying after school to finish it. One day one of her best students said,
“I’m sorry, Miss Martin, but my father was very sick last night. I had to babysit
while he was taken to the hospital, and in the confusion, I didn’t have time to
Punishment
breeds
resentment,
whereas logical
consequences
teach students.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 145
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get my homework done.” The teacher is now in the dilemma of either being
unfeeling and rigid (“I’m sorry, but you have to stay after school anyway”) or
letting the child off and teaching the rest of the class that good excuses can
pardon undone work. This could have been avoided if the teacher could pick
from an appropriate range of consequences for each rule. Mendler and Curwin
(1999) devote two chapters to developing and implementing consequences and
recommend four generic consequences that might be applied to most rules:
reminder, warning, practice following the rule, and a written plan. Hence, for
undone homework, the range of consequences might be: reminder; warning;
hand in work before the close of school that day; stay after school to finish it;
and conference with the teacher, student, and parent to develop a plan.
With this range of alternatives, Miss Martin could gently remind the student
that homework is due on time and then ask how her father is doing. In this way,
she is implementing one of the prescribed consequences yet is not being overly
rigid. With another student, who had been late six times that month, she might
make him stay after school and finish it. Fair need not always be equal.
Delivering Consequences
Every time an expectation is not met, we must consistently react (meaning “re-
act every time” though not necessarily the same way every time). The reaction
may be anything from a reminder to a consequence, but something has to hap-
pen. Otherwise, the students—especially resistant students—come to disregard
the expectation or become confused over where it applies. The transgression
usually cannot be ignored. Sometimes we may choose to ignore certain behav-
iors when they are minor and calling attention to them would just reinforce
them, or we may recognize them briefly. The general mission here is to com-
municate to students that your expectations are really your expectations. You
mean them. They get this message when they find we reliably call them on
certain behaviors and usually there is a consequence (Canter & Canter, 2001;
Jones, 2013; Mendler & Curwin, 1999; Rogers, 1987). Mere admonishing and
reprimanding without action that goes beyond words usually sends the mes-
sage that expectations are weak.
We must be tenacious about restating expectations and consistently reacting.
Individuals and sometimes whole classes will test teachers to the limits on this.
The thing is not to give up, even though misbehavior continues in the face
of specific expectations consistently upheld. Some very difficult students will
push to see if we really care (meaning care about them). If the reactions to the
misbehavior are reasonable, appropriate, and fair, tenacity will carry the day.
Lee Canter (Canter & Canter, 2001) tells the story of an aggressive third grader
who consistently abused other children verbally and physically. On several oc-
Every time an
expectation is
not met, we must
consistently react.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R146
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casions, he extorted money from his classmates. At a meeting with the child’s
family, the principal, and the teacher, a contract was signed that Carl would be
excluded from school if he did any of the following things: threaten children,
cuss them, extort money, or physically assault them. The family agreed to follow
through with the exclusion at home.
The next day, on the way into the classroom, Carl got into an argument with
another student and roughly shoved him. Ms. S immediately went up to Carl
and simply told him, “You pushed Sol. You’ve chosen to go home for the rest
of the day!” Ms. S contacted the office, and the principal called Carl’s mother,
who came to get him. Carl went home and spent the rest of the school day in his
room doing the work he would have done had he stayed in school.
The following day during a spelling assignment, another student refused to let
Carl copy his work. Carl became angry and threatened to beat the student up.
Ms. S, hearing this, told Carl what he had done and that he would be going
home again. His mother picked him up, and he spent the rest of the day at home
in his room. Carl behaved appropriately for the next two days. On the third day,
during free choice, Ms. S observed him cursing and screaming at a girl who
would not give him the puzzle that she was playing with. Ms. S repeated the
same procedure of informing him of what he had done and that by behaving
inappropriately, he had chosen to go home. For the first time, Carl became up-
set. He began to cry and say that he did not want to go home. Ms. S simply told
him that “he made a choice” and would be going home.
As was typical, the third time was the charm. Ms. S’s ability to deal assertively
with Carl’s behaviors let him know that his disruptions would not be tolerated.
Carl thus chose to control his temper and behave in an appropriate manner
with his fellow students.
It takes determination and tenacity to keep delivering consequences when the
behavior persists. But without that tenacity, students will not believe teachers
are serious about their expectations. Follow-through at the beginning of the
year on plans, such as the one Canter describes, will be keenly observed by the
rest of the class and lets them know you mean what you say. Inconsistency and
lack of follow-through, early in the school year, are a common cause of school
discipline problems. One teacher we worked with developed the protocol in Ex-
hibit 10.2 to keep herself neutral and clear because she knew Billy could thwart
her resolve if she were not absolutely clear and consistent.
Inconsistency
and lack of follow
through, early in
the school year, are
a common cause
of school discipline
problems.
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Exhibit 10.2 Sample Protocol for Dealing with a Challenging Child
Memorandum
TO: Staff
FROM: Ms. X
DATE: May 15, 2016
RE: Strategy to Help B
Here is the summary of our strategy for helping B improve his behavior:
Prevention: Before an activity begins, tell B.
If there is a change, alert him beforehand.
Intervention: Rationale:
To help B be aware of his behavior and its effect on others.
To provide him strategies to cope.
Strategy Steps:
1. Nonjudgmental, nonhumiliating, private warning combined with statement of
expectation and choice for B. For example: “B, you are________________.
I expect you to sing the song. You have a choice: You can stop _______________ and
start singing, or if I need to speak to you again, you’ll need to take some time out.”
2. If B persists, call Mrs. L on the intercom phone and ask her to connect you to Mrs. Q.
3. If Mrs. Q is not there, Mrs. L will contact another person and tell you where to take B.
The code words are, “I need to send you a message.”
4, Say to B: “You’ve made a choice by continuing to ______________.
You need to take some time out.
5. If B balks, say “B, you have made a choice. You can either go on your own, or if not,
I will call Mr. S.”
6. If B still doesn’t go, say, “You’ve made a choice by not going on your own. I will call Mr. S.”
7. Call Mrs. L to reach Mr. S.; Mrs. L will cancel with Mrs. Q.
PRAY
I’ve provided words to use should you find that helpful. The key idea is a choice and conveying to B that by
acting in certain ways he is making the choice.
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Canter elaborates on the virtue of persistence and consistency:
Children may not care if you keep them after school once, suspend them
every now and then, or send them to the corner infrequently. But there are
few children who would not care if they knew that they would have to stay
after school every day they chose to, even if it meant five days straight.
There are few children who would not care if they knew they would be
suspended every time they acted out, even if it meant three straight days
of suspension. There are few children who would not care if they knew you
would send them to a corner for their inappropriate behavior every time
they chose to go, even if it meant five times a day.
What we are trying to say is this: if you really care, the children will really
care. If you are prepared to use any means necessary and appropriate to
influence the children to eliminate their inappropriate behavior they will
sense your determination and quickly care about the consequences which
they will have to face consistently if they choose to act inappropriately.
(Canter & Canter, 2001, pp. 109–110)
Almost any behavior we really want to get, we can get if we have the deter-
mination because we do have the power. Does this mean that if one keeps
delivering consequences persistently, the behavior is sure to change? First, it is
possible to deliver a consequence over and over again consistently and have no
effect. That can happen if the consequence is not strong enough, or if it some-
how turns out to be a reward for the child. It can also happen if the behavior
comes from a physical cause, ignorance, or a value clash. Second, the way in
which the consequence was delivered in Canter’s scenario had a lot to do with
its success. The teacher did not blame, criticize, or humiliate the student; she
simply, but promptly, went up to him, noted the behavior (“You pushed Sol”),
and delivered the consequence (“You have chosen to go home for the rest of
the day”). She pointed out that going home was the child’s choice, in this case,
since he knew that pushing Sol would lead to that. Thus the teacher reacts with
matter-of-fact emotion rather than anger. It is, in fact, easier to react that way
when you know precisely what you are going to do. That knowledge (versus
the helpless feeling when dealing with a child who seems outside your control)
gives a teacher both confidence and calm, which allows for better judgments.
So being persistent with consequences can also fail if the consequence is not
delivered in the right way.
The specific technique described in Canter’s scenario is a strong one: systematic
exclusion of a student to eliminate particularly disruptive and persistent behav-
ior. But it can be very effective. Seymour Sarason (1996) describes another pow-
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erful exclusion technique (a time-out in a colleague’s classroom) that works
without families or contracts. It relies on the cooperation of another teacher
into whose room the child is sent for exclusion. The host teacher has a special
place the student goes to that is not fun and where the student does work (see
Consequence 11 on pages 167–170).
Limit Setting with Escalating Consequences
A consequence should be logical and fit the infraction in terms of magni-
tude and severity. Hence, it is important to develop a range of responses, from
small to large. The general rule of thumb in limit setting is to apply the law of
least resistance. Start small and escalate only as necessary to extinguish the
behavior. Knowing that we have a series of escalating consequences available
enables us to remain calm, yet firm and convincing, when addressing inappro-
priate behavior. Remaining calm is essential to setting limits and establishing
credibility and authority while preserving relationships of regard and respect.
Table 10.2 lists a hierarchy of escalating consequences, which we explain in
detail in the following sections.
Small Consequences
The consequences in this section take a low amount of time and effort from
the teacher and usually no follow-up.
Consequence 1: The Body Language of Meaning Business
We owe a lot to Fred Jones, who studied people with the “aura,” the teachers
with whom nobody seemed to fool around, and discovered that it was not
magic that caused students to respond to them. It was the subtle but specific,
observable, and learnable body language they manifested. This body language
communicated that they were serious about their expectations and would do
whatever it took to get them met. They rarely had to do more than send body
language signals, and they rarely had to implement backup consequences.
We recommend Jones’s Tools for Teaching: Discipline • Instruction • Motivation
(2013) to all beginning teachers and any teacher struggling with discipline
issues. The details of learning and implementing effective body language are
spelled out at length there. To give readers an idea of the nature of this body
language, Table 10.3 summarizes the steps from Jones (2013) for addressing
off-task behavior. It begins with understanding never to go any further with
the following limit-setting sequence than is required to produce the desired
result as described in Table 10.3.
A consequence
should be logical and
fit the infraction in
terms of magnitude
and severity.
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Table 10.2 A Hierarchy of Escalating Consequences
Small Consequences
1. Body language of meaning business/poker
2. Acknowledging a change in behavior and offering help
3. Quiet time
4. Verbal warning, privately delivered
Medium Consequences
5. Re-education (cafeteria school)
6. Hold up a mirror
7. Pulling the card
8. Letter home taped to desk
9. Account for behavior in writing
10. Time-out in classroom
11. Time-out in a colleague’s room
High Impact Consequences
12. Phone call home with student reporting in teacher’s presence what happened
13. Parent conference with home reporting and consequences; contract signed by teacher, student, and parent
14. Parent accompanies student to classes for a day as a condition for readmission (with parent supervision
finishing work in isolation)
15. In-school suspension
16. Saturday school
17. Deliver a student to parent at work
Last Resort Consequences
18. Suspension
19. Police
20. Expulsion
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Table 10.3 Steps for Addressing Off-Task Behavior
Notice Notice the disruptive behavior . . .
Excuse and square off Terminate whatever you’re doing, and say to the students you are working with, “Ex-
cuse me. I’ll be right with you.”
Turn completely.
Face the student squarely and look the student in the eye.
Make your face expressionless, arms hanging comfortably.
Take two relaxing breaths.
Name Say the child’s first name only, in a bland tone.
Take two more relaxing breaths.
The student may fold, but if not . . .
Move in (say nothing)
Walk slowly to the edge of the student’s desk until your legs touch it.
Stand upright.
Take two relaxing breaths.
The student probably folds, in which case you:
Thank and move out Thank the student, genuinely and warmly.
Wait fifteen seconds more.
Go to the second student who was involved (if relevant).
Thank him or her.
Wait fifteen more seconds.
Return slowly to the student you were previously working with.
Wait for two relaxing breaths.
Resume instruction.
But if student doesn’t fold . . .
Lean and prompt Lean over at the waist, resting your weight on one palm. (You’re back at the student’s
desk.)
Deliver a prompt on exactly what you want him or her to do next. (“Carrie, you have
two more problems to do. Let’s finish them up.”)
If the student starts working, wait for two relaxing breaths.
Then do the “thank and move out” sequence.
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Notice Notice the Disruptive Behavior
But in the unlikely event student still doesn’t fold:
Palms (say nothing) Lean slowly across the child’s desk, and place both palms flat on the far side of the
desk from you (ooze, don’t swoop).
Look at the student for two relaxing breaths.
When he or she resumes work, wait two more relaxing breaths.
Then do Moving Out.
Backtalk If the child displays helplessness, crying, denial, compliments, blaming, tangents, or
accusing you of incompetence, say nothing and take two relaxing breaths.
But if there’s more backtalk . . .
Elbow and prompt Bend your elbow, and place it on the child’s desk.
Repeat the prompt.
If a second student chimes in . . .
Camp out behind Stand slowly and walk around until you’re between the two students.
Lean your elbow on the table.
Reestablish eye contact with the first student (blocking student 2).
Take two relaxing breaths . . .
Slowly move out.
Adapted from Tools for Teaching: Discipline • Instruction • Motivation (Jones, 2013)
Table 10.3 Steps for Addressing Off-Task Behavior (continued)
Jones’s premise is that limit-setting in classrooms is like a poker game: students
play a card (test limits by trying out behaviors) and wait to see what card we will
play. If we “see them”—that is, respond in some believable way—the student
generally “folds” (gives in). Sometimes we need to “raise them” again—escalate
the consequence. The bottom line is not to play any higher a card than is neces-
sary to get the child to fold. We must play the game with confidence and convic-
tion, signaling that we are in control without needing to get emotionally rattled.
This premise is embedded in the sequence of steps illustrated in Table 10.3.
Reading this list of steps does not enable one to learn and carry out body lan-
guage poker successfully. One must practice it repeatedly and get feedback to
do it well, as Jones arranges in his courses and we do in ours. We urge readers
to take this information seriously (though the study and practice of this behav-
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ior is fun and does provoke lots of laughs) because it is so potent. If there was
ever a good example of acting one’s way into a belief, this is it. Practicing these
behaviors is practicing an attitude as well—the attitude of teacher resolve and
persistence—and developing confidence.
Here are accounts from three teachers who have been in our courses—one
each from high school, middle school, and elementary—of their experience
applying the body language of meaning business. All three were experienced
teachers, well regarded, and successful. They did not have significant discipline
problems, but they still found learning these techniques well worth the effort.
Example 1: Charlotte Thompson—High School
I have been working on discipline this week. Luckily, I have not gotten
to the “palms and ooze” stage! In fact, I have noticed that by waiting
for the students to turn squarely and completely around facing me, all
problems were cut off at the pass. [She means a long pause after a desist
move until the student has completely re-engaged attention.] This week
I stopped the class with, “Excuse me, class,” and went over to two girls
and quietly explained why it was necessary for them to stop talking. I
assume because the entire class was watching me speak to them very
quietly while leaning over their desk that they were a bit embarrassed. It
did correct the problem.
I did have one student this week who was rather persistent in not settling
down. I went over to his desk and just stared. Unfortunately, he seemed
to enjoy that and did not cease his showing off. I got to step 6 with him,
although I must admit I skipped step 5. I was not at all confident that he
knew what to do, so I was somewhat anxious to get to the prompt. He
spends a good deal of time spacing out. But it did get him back to work
and he stayed settled afterward for a pretty good length of time.
Example 2: Jeanne O’Reilly—Middle School
Using the sequence sheet on body language, I decided to try it in class.
The first day I used it, I was amazed at how easily and well it worked. In
my first class, I never went beyond saying the name and taking the two
breaths. For the purpose of this experiment, I want to focus on what
happened with Phil. Phil is a good student, though easily swayed. He is
very capable, and therefore though he disrupts the learning of others,
his behavior rarely damages his own grade. He tends to infuriate his
teachers.
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On that fateful day, body language was really more in the back of my
mind. I had been rereading the steps and finally decided to use it. I was
at the front of the class leading a discussion when Phil started up with
little comments to everyone within range. Normally, I would walk over to a
student like Phil not saying anything but just standing near him or behind
him while continuing the discussion.
I almost surprised myself (as well as Phil) when I excused myself to the
class, squared off, waited, and said his name as blandly as I could. He
folded immediately. It occurred twice more, and that was it.
Well, I immediately began using it. My favorite thing about body language
is how much it minimizes my own anger. I simply don’t become as irritated,
and the breaths really do keep me calm. My problem is remembering to
use it. I find that when I’m tired or stressed, I lapse back. I do feel that this
is one of the most valuable techniques I’ve learned anywhere.
Example 3: Lisa Farmer—Elementary School
There are times when children’s behavior is inappropriate. In my kinder-
garten classroom, inappropriate behavior surfaces during our morning
calendar meetings. The children usually talk and move about, switching
places with their classmates. What I find most difficult is disciplining the
behavior while keeping the momentum of the meeting. I decided to try the
science of body language to see if more body language and less speaking
would help at the meeting.
While I was beginning our morning meeting, Michael had his back to the
circle and faced the blackboard talking to a friend. I called his name and
made my face expressionless. He turned around and looked at me.
When he saw my face, he looked at his classmates and quickly and dra-
matically sat down. He then gave me what I believe is a “smiley face.”
Because I kept looking straight at him, he looked down. I waited. He did
look up again and found me still looking at him. What was most interest-
ing was the reaction of the rest of the class. Michael’s friend Adam turned
around and followed Michael’s lead in settling down. The others sat qui-
etly watching. This first episode ended with my saying thank you and
moving on to the calendar without interruption from Michael.
The first lesson I learned was that you can make a child aware of and stop
inappropriate behavior with the bare minimum discussion. Without dis-
cussing it, the behavior stopped, and neither of us felt put down, angry,
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or uncomfortable. Though I have used a look or eye contact previously,
what made this effective was the waiting through two breaths. Since that
first episode I have used this technique with other children and other situ-
ations effectively. During recent attempts, I have had to move close to the
child, but I have never had to do more. One more important component
is squaring off. The student seems to know you mean business because
you are not moving.
“Body language poker,” as Jones calls it, is a form of consequence for students
who fool around. It is the lowest stakes and most common form of response
successful teachers make to disruptive or inattentive behavior, and it eliminates
most of it. But teachers must have a clear series of escalating moves to reach for
in order to have the confidence to implement good body language. “What if it
doesn’t work?” runs through every teacher’s mind, especially beginning teach-
ers. If the body language doesn’t work (it will almost all the time, if done well),
one can move up the hierarchy of responses and consequences slowly, always
escalating only the minimal amount necessary to eliminate the disruptive be-
havior, confident in what you can do if you have to.
Consequence 2: Acknowledging a Change in Behavior and Offering Help
This is a gentle and positive way of reprimanding and is similar to the desist
move in the Attention Continuum (see Figure 5.1 in Chapter 5) called “offer
help.” The teacher talks privately to a student and says something like, “Jim, I
notice you’ve had a hard time staying focused today. Is there some way I could
help you get back on track?” or, “What would help you refocus and get back
on track?” Sometimes this will lead to help in the form of moving the student’s
seat.
Consequence 3: Quiet Time
This consequence is really an opportunity offered for a student to regain com-
posure and self-control when behavior, such as excessive talking, is getting out
of control. “Juan, I think you need a little quiet time to regain your focus. What
part of the room would be good for you to use?” Quiet time can be replaced
with a walk around the classroom or a one-minute stroll in the hallway that the
student takes to regain control and focus.
It is different from time-out (Consequence 10) because time-out is teacher en-
forced and the beginning and ending times are usually teacher determined.
Teachers can work out a cuing system with individual students who do not read
their own signals and indicate when it would be advisable for them to take such
a quiet time. The agreement is that the reason for taking the quiet time is for the
student to take the initiative to refocus.
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Consequence 4: Warning
Warnings inform individual students that they are getting near the threshold
of receiving an aversive consequence. The warning can be delivered privately in
the student’s ear. “That’s 1, Kiesha.” Maybe when she gets to 3, the consequence
becomes automatic. Students have to know what the consequence is, and every-
thing we said in the previous section about consistent and certain implementa-
tion of the consequence must be carried out.
Warnings may also be delivered publicly by writing a student’s name on the
board and putting a stroke next to it for stage 2. These warnings are objective,
low-affect moves that can be delivered without even mentioning the student’s
name or interrupting the flow of instruction in any way. Calm, neutrally de-
livered warnings avoid confrontation and blame, and they convey the message
that this is just the way of the social order, as Dreikurs (Dreikurs & Cassel,
1972) would say.
It is not absolutely necessary that students know exactly what will happen to
them when they cross the threshold. In fact, it can be even more effective if they
don’t, as long as they know something will happen, and they won’t like it. And
even if they don’t know what will happen, you (the teacher) need to know the
range of options you may actually carry out.
Medium Consequences
These consequences require some teacher time and effort, and they are some-
what risky and inconvenient for the student.
Consequence 5: Re-education
Cafeteria school is a favorite example of this consequence. Students, who mis-
behave in the cafeteria, are required to attend cafeteria school following after-
noon dismissal or during recess. They receive a real “class” in cafeteria manners
and appropriate behavior with modeling, practice, and testing. The unstated as-
sumption is that if they knew how to behave properly, they would. This positive
attribution of intent is slightly tongue in cheek, but not entirely.
Many students in early grades do need practice in the impulse control and ex-
pected norms to wait quietly in audiences or contain their urge to run in hall-
ways. The older the students are, the more aversive cafeteria school is. And the
bonus is that students don’t want to repeat being sent to it and don’t form the
usual resentment that detention or other punishments generate.
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Consequence 6: Hold Up a Mirror: Simple Counting
or Anecdotal Record-Keeping
This consequence is about holding up a mirror to the student about his or her
behavior. Here’s an example of the first version: simple counting.
Example 1: Latoya is always calling out and interrupting in class.
It is impulsive on her part, and the teacher decides to use simple count-
ing to highlight the behavior and call Latoya’s attention to it. After a group
one day, the conversation goes something like this.
Teacher: “Latoya, do you know that you call out a lot without raising your
hand? It’s really distracting to me and unfair to the rest of the kids who
want to speak.”
Student: “I’m sorry. I’ll stop. I promise.” (They have had these conversa-
tions before.)
Teacher: “Are you really willing to work on it? Well, I’d like to help you.
How many times do you think you call out in a lesson?”
Student: “I don’t know—maybe five?” (It’s more like 25.)
Teacher: “Well, let’s see tomorrow. I’ll put a piece of masking tape on
my wrist, and every time you call out, I’ll put a mark on it without saying
anything or stopping the lesson, but you’ll be able to see me doing it and
you’ll know what it means. Okay?”
Student: “Okay.”
This technique can be highly effective in reducing habitual or impulsive
behaviors when no more serious issues are involved than attention get-
ting and impulsivity. Simply seeing the teacher make a stroke on the tape
reminds the student of the goal: to reduce calling out.
“Oops,” says Latoya, as she sees another stroke going down. Soon she
learns to anticipate a stroke before a call-out and starts inhibiting the
call-outs herself. Afterward, the teacher and Latoya can add up the total
call-outs and set a goal to reduce the total tomorrow. A week of this may
be sufficient to teach the inhibition Latoya needs to control calling out.
This technique, and other forms of specific counting or record-keeping about
behaviors, make students more aware of what they’re doing and make the re-
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duction of unwanted behavior a mutual teacher-student goal. The counting is
the feedback to students about their progress and needs to be prompt, com-
plete, and frequent (Van Houton, 1980). Students have to be willing to try for
the technique to work. Sometimes a teacher count of a behavior before discuss-
ing it with students produces data with which to confront them. They may be
so surprised by how often they behave inappropriately that the shock value will
motivate them. Teachers can use the technique on a whole class as well as on
individuals. Here the goal becomes lowering the class total of call-outs or what-
ever is the inappropriate behavior being brought to awareness.
Another version of this strategy is anecdotal record-keeping: pausing to write
verbatims of incidents when children have outbursts or interruptions, and then
sharing the data with the student. The simple power of data without judgment
is illustrated by the story of Simone.
Example 2:
Simone Was Out of Control
I thought I’d tried everything—until the day I stumbled onto a solution that
completely changed my teaching style.
Watching Simone, my tallest, lankiest, loudest third grader clunk around
the classroom in my wedge heeled shoes was enough to make anyone
chuckle. (Teachers who’ve chosen comfort over style will understand my
shoes weren’t on my feet.) But Simone’s frequent, disruptive outbursts
were no laughing matter.
“Simone,” I demanded stridently, “take off my shoes!”
“I was just trying them out,” she replied, not at all abashed, continuing her
jaunt around the room. Michael had the audacity to smile as she sallied
past.
“What are you laughing at, stupid face?” Simone snarled.
“Sit down, Simone,” I intervened wearily, “and please try to remember
that we don’t call each other names here. You owe Michael an apology.”
“I do not!” she exploded. “He laughed at me, and I don’t like his ugly
face.”
Losing all remaining composure, I yelled, “Sit down and be quiet.”
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I Was at a Loss
This was just one of many times Simone’s inappropriate behavior upset
me and unsettled the whole class. Sometimes her explosions were an-
gry; sometimes they were rambunctious. But they were always frighten-
ing. Simone simply had no idea how overwhelming she was to me or to
her classmates.
Despite all our troubles, I couldn’t help liking Simone for her generosity
and enthusiasm. And I know she liked me, too. She frequently brought
me an apple in the morning. “For you, because you’re the best teacher
I’ve ever had,” she’d announce as she put the apple on my desk. But
our up-and-down relationship was underscored by the fact that I rarely got
to eat my apples. Simone was usually angry at me long before noon,
and when she got mad, she’d reclaim the apple or hurl it into the waste-
basket. Many times, she’d jab her pencil into it with harsh, angry thrusts.
The pattern was set by mid September. Several times a day, Simone
would explode, and I would reason, cajole, placate, issue ultimatums—
and too often yell—in vain attempts to control her outbursts. I’d already
tried sending her to the principal’s office, but she liked going there. I’d
called her mother several times, but our conversations led nowhere.
Nothing was working, and I was exhausted at the end of every day. Cor-
rectly or not, I blamed Simone for how out of control I was feeling in the
classroom. In truth, I was an emotional wreck—too caught up in the daily
drama to think of a way out of my predicament.
When Out of the Blue . . .
Though it was only September, I was beginning to look longingly to sum-
mer vacation as my only out. Then suddenly, and unexpectedly, I stum-
bled on an amazingly simple solution.
I was with a reading group—not Simone’s—and the other groups were
working independently. Suddenly, the relative calm was shattered by a
spate of Simone’s angry, hurtful words. I simply couldn’t summon up the
energy to play my usual role—rush over to her, reprimand her sternly, and
try to make amends to whichever of the children was her victim. Instead,
I thought to myself, I’m going to write down what happened, and by the
end of the day I’ll at least be able to remember what she did that was so
horrible. So I leaned over to my desk, picked up a yellow tablet and pen
and began writing. When I had a verbatim record of her words, I looked
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over toward Simone to find her and most of her classmates staring at me.
Sensing that the fireworks were over for the moment, I laid down my pen
and returned to my reading group.
The next explosion occurred as we were about to begin a science lesson.
Simone couldn’t find her textbook, so she snatched Kara’s book, scream-
ing angrily: “Kara keeps stealing my stuff.” Again, I reached for my tablet
and began to write.
This time, Simone hurried over and demanded to know what I was writing.
Showing her the tablet, I said, “I’m just writing down what you say and
do.” Seeing her words appear in front of her seemed to shock Simone:
she returned to her seat, and we had science without a single interruption.
By 3 o’clock, I noticed that whenever I saw Simone starting trouble or
gearing up for an outburst, all I had to do was pick up my pen and she’d
stop instantly. I kept up this new strategy. Within a week, Simone’s tirades
no longer controlled my classroom.
It Was Magic
I was thrilled. Now that I could finally think straight, not only did I continue
to wield my mighty pen but I had the time and energy to notice what Sim-
one and her classmates were doing right. I began taking care to praise
them for their good behavior. Consequently, there was more of it.
By now, I was completely enamored of my pen, and I began to experi-
ment with extending its power. Whenever I felt overwhelmed or bewil-
dered, I found I could clarify things by jotting down notes. It was a way of
taking a step back and surveying what was going on.
If this writing strategy works so well for me, I thought, why wouldn’t it
work for 8-year-olds, too? I issued a new classroom rule. Henceforth,
all complaints had to be in writing. I designed and duplicated complaint
forms that provided space for the signature of the complainant, the name
of the accused, and a description of the crime including date, time, con-
ditions, corroborating witnesses, and details of any physical evidence. I
stored the forms next to a “Complaint Box.”
Initially, I checked the box each afternoon and rendered judgments and
punishments. Soon, however, I hit upon the idea of rotating the judgeship.
Committees were formed to review the complaints, eliminate frivolous
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claims, and decide valid ones. The students also suggested punish-
ments, although I retained veto power.
Apogee and Apples
The new system made the children responsible for their own behavior.
That made them feel powerful and more confident. They even began to
come up with their own rules—such as the rule that no one involved in a
dispute could sit on a committee that week.
Just when our classroom was beginning to look more and more like The
People’s Court, the number of disputes started declining. By spring, we
were holding court only once a week, and the committee that reviewed
the complaints rarely had more than one or two they considered valid.
Looking back over that year, I find myself saying a silent thank you to
Simone. I’ve been reaping the benefits of what she taught me ever since
that stormy September morning when I picked up a pen and started
writing. Just as my pen and yellow tablet had come to signal serious
intent to her and the class, the complaint form and a pencil reminded
the children to stop and reason. As for me, besides enjoying the taste of
success, I got to eat a lot of apples. (Arnold, 1987, pp. 44–45)
Consequence 7: Pulling the Card
This behavior from Fred Jones (2013) is a more developed form of the warn-
ing. To implement, you must have a card file on your desk with the name and
home phone number of each student, including the work number of a family
member. When misbehavior reaches a certain level, having already issued a
warning to a student, you (1) catch the student’s eye; (2) take a relaxing breath;
(3) walk slowly to your desk without calling attention to yourself; (4) casually
pick up the card file; (5) leaf through it; (6) pull the student’s card while look-
ing at him and lay it on the corner of your desk face up; (7) look again at the
student without expression (Jones calls it “your best Queen Victoria face”) as
you place the card file back on your desk; and (8) resume instruction, giving
the student one final look.
Consequence 8: Letter Home Taped to Desk
No discipline management technique comes with a guarantee, so what if the
disruption continues even after you have pulled the card? How can you still
stop the disruption without taking on the cost and risks of medium backup
responses? The final response in your hierarchy of small backup responses
is one more that comes from Fred Jones (2013): write a letter home to the
student’s family and tape it to the student’s desk with an appropriate warning.
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The procedure goes something like this:
1. Following at least two other warnings (small consequences), catch the
student’s eye, go to your desk, and sit down and begin to write a brief
letter (five sentences or less) home:
“Dear [parent’s name]:
Today in class I have had to deal with [briefly describe the behavior].
I need your help.
If we work together now, we can prevent this from becoming a real prob-
lem. I will call you tomorrow, at which time we can make a plan.
Thank you for your help.”
2. Sign the letter, and put it in an envelope.
3. Address the envelope, but don’t stamp it yet.
4. Take the letter and tape it to the student’s desk while privately letting
him know it is a letter to his parents or guardians about his behavior in
class:
“If I see no more of this behavior before the end of [the day or week] then,
with my permission and in front of my eyes, you may tear up this letter
and throw it away. If, however, I see any more of this behavior, I will send
the letter home or hand deliver it. Do I make myself clear? For now, all I
care about is getting some of this work done. Let’s see if we can keep life
simple.” (pp. 316–317)
Consequence 9: Student Has to Account for the Behavior in Writing
Many schools require students who have been sent to the administrator’s office
to write an account of why they have been removed from class and sent there.
The writing is not much of a nuisance for the student since he or she has noth-
ing to do in the office anyway, and it gives the student a chance to make his or
her side of the case. The writing is not such an aversive behavior. But when the
writing has to take place in the student’s own classroom and be given to the
teacher who saw the behavior and called it, that is a different matter. Some years
ago, Viv Swoboda, then an eighth-grade teacher, used the writing accountability
technique to quell a rising tide of off-task behaviors. Here it is in her own words:
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Because the class I have this year is particularly challenging and continu-
ally testing the established limits, I have done a lot of thinking about logical
consequences for inappropriate activities in school. I am very conscious of
how much school time gets wasted dealing with inappropriate behaviors,
and how some students continually draw the class and me away from the
day’s lesson. I struggled with what would be appropriate logical conse-
quences for the various class disruptions that I could consistently imple-
ment without giving myself a lot of extra work in the process.
I decided that I would develop a form that a student would have to fill
out each time they did something inappropriate in school. I asked the
students to respond to five questions:
1. What was your inappropriate activity in school?
2. Why was your activity inappropriate for school?
3. What are the negative effects that your inappropriate actions have on
others?
4. What consequences would keep you from doing this inappropriate
activity in the future?
5. Why is it necessary to have rules in order for a school to function
smoothly?
I would give the student the form after asking them to stop the inap-
propriate activity. The form needs to be returned to me by 8:00 the fol-
lowing morning. Students knew I recorded the inappropriate activity in a
notebook, but I usually didn’t record it until after class because I try not
to break the momentum any more than necessary.
In the beginning, there was a lot of complaining from the students ev-
ery time I gave them a form to fill out. I had spent a lot of time talking
about what I was doing and why and had asked for their suggestions
for ways to eliminate the many inappropriate activities that happened
during classes. I made a slide of the form, went over the form with each
one of my classes, and explained why I had included each of the ques-
tions. When it came time to use the form, I wasn’t going to discuss it and
continue taking time away from the lesson. In the beginning, some of
the students tried to engage me in a debate, but I simply gave them the
form, reminded them I needed it back by 8:00 the following morning, and
quickly tried to refocus the class on the lesson.
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After two days, the students realized that they weren’t going to draw
me into a debate and that I was consistently going to ask any student
who was doing something inappropriate to complete one of these forms.
Ninety-nine percent of the students brought back the forms by the next
morning. I had the one percent of students who didn’t return the form
complete it during their ten-minute break that occurs during the middle of
the morning. It was torture for those students to have to sit at their desks
and complete this form rather than be able to socialize with their friends.
They decided they would rather complete the form for homework than
give up precious time with their peers.
The number of inappropriate activities in my class has diminished tremen-
dously. Before I started using these forms, there may have been twelve
times a day that I might have spoken to students about doing something
that was inappropriate in class. When I first started using the form, I would
give out about six forms a day. Now I may pass out one form in three
days.
I learned that my students really could control their inappropriate actions
in school. This form really isn’t a terrible punishment, but it is enough of
an annoyance that it encourages most of my students to think before they
do inappropriate things in class. This system has worked for me because
it doesn’t require a lot of my time. I keep the forms in a folder on my desk
that I can reach easily, so I keep the break in the class’s momentum to a
minimum. Students asked what I was going to do with these forms. I told
them it depended on whether the inappropriate actions stopped.
Some students didn’t want their parents or school administrators to be-
come involved, and these forms were a clear record of who was disrupt-
ing the class. After the students all saw the form, they felt there should be
a question asking why they did what they did. They felt it was important
for me to have that information. I will include that question on a revised
form.
Consequence 10: Time-Out in the Classroom
Time-out is an elementary technique not usually suitable in secondary school. It
is often a feature in behavior modification programs and thus is unpopular with
educators who prefer more child-centered approaches. However, Ruth Charney
(2002), one of the most humanistic and child-centered educators in the United
States, devotes an entire chapter in Teaching Children to Care to implementing
time-out. We recommend her version.
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Marty is jostling Kintara for the second time in the back row of the rug
area where classroom meeting has just started. “Marty, time-out.”
Marty gets up from her seat and goes to the time-out chair, located in
a visible (not central) area of the classroom. She sits for five minutes
or until she receives a gesture from her teacher to return to her group.
Signaled by her teacher’s nod, Marty quietly returns to her place. There
has been no explanation, no discussion. The unstated message is: “You
know the rules. You know you are disturbing the meeting. You will be able
to recover your controls and return as a member of the group.” Later, the
teacher will check in to make sure that Marty does understand why she
was sent to time-out. (p. 168)
Charney (2002) makes a point of introducing the procedure of time-out to the
children carefully and completely. “It’s a way that grownups help children get
back in control. Children can also teach themselves to get back their controls
and remember their rules. I stress that time-out is a job; it is work to recover
your controls.” Note the careful way Charney (2002) frames time-out:
Everyone forgets their controls sometimes and everyone forgets the rules
sometimes. Children forget the rules, so do teachers and parents. Our
rules make it safe and good for everyone in school: not just me, not
just one or two other people—everyone. So it’s very important that we
respect the rules and use them. When we do forget or choose not to use
a rule, we need to remember. We need a time-out. Time-out is a chance
to recover the rules so we can keep our classroom safe and good and to
gather our own controls. Then we are ready to come back and join the
group.
The key to using a time-out effectively is to pay attention to the small
disruptions [see the echo of this principle in Fred Jones], the minor in-
fractions and misbehaviors. We take action before the lesson is in ruins,
before self-controls—the student’s and our own—deteriorate. When we
wait for things to get worse, we are rarely disappointed.
We don’t allow the minor drumming on the desk to reach a crescendo.
The nagging and nuisance behavior does not go on until finally all our
“buttons” are pushed. The background whispers and snide teasing are
not ignored until fists fly and tears pour. (p. 173)
A pattern of casual “shut-ups” is not allowed to grow into one of constant
insults. Noah may not call Mark “Fatty,” even if he claims he’s joking.
Kevin may not use his superior size to push others aside, take a pencil
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or reserve first place in line. The group lesson might be stalled if I say,
“Martin, the blackboard is this way!” for the fiftieth time between clenched
teeth instead of saying, “Martin, time-out.” The small sideshows will not
devastate the lesson or the temper of the teacher. But, unless they are
confronted, these “small disturbances” add up to constant noise and in-
terruptions which drain and divert the best intentions. Often they are the
very things we pretend not to notice.
Alex regularly careens around the room—his idea of walking is full speed
ahead. He’s a large boy, and he frequently bumps into the furniture, other
children, and even largish teachers. He’s quick to say “sorry” and express
genuine regret, but if he slowed down he would hardly crash at all and
no one would get hurt. Why make a fuss? He’s only ten—he can’t help it.
But the fact is he can help it. He can move slowly and with planning—or
not move at all.
It is important that children understand that they can help it. Minor distur-
bances are within their control. (p. 175)
In the immediate enforcement of time-out, lengthy verbal explanations
and negotiations are strictly avoided. Imagine if instead of the directive,
“Time-out,” the teacher had said, “Donny you need to go to time-out,
because you are rolling a ball and not listening to Christie.” Would Donny,
now the center of attention, be more apt to agree or argue, “I was so lis-
tening . . .” An argument might lead next to a confrontation, and Christie’s
sharing would quickly take second place to the duel between teacher and
student.
If the teacher had just reached over and taken the ball from Donny, called
his name or nudged him gently back into the activity, with no mention of
time-out, wouldn’t that be as effective and easier? Not likely. Too many
reminders (more than one) allow small disturbances to keep erupting like
popcorn—one after another—and keep taking the attention of the teacher
and group. Time-out sends the message that you are truly expected to
follow the rules. (p. 178)
At the right moment—after a time-out—explanation and discussion help
students construct meaning and take responsibility. At the wrong time—
while a rule is being enforced—discussion stimulates evasion. (p. 180)
We recommend readers read Charney’s (2002) entire chapter (and book, for that
matter) to get the full flavor of this decisive yet humanistic version of time-out.
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Consequence 11: Time-Out in a Colleague’s Room
Time-out in a colleague’s room was first written about, to our knowledge, by
Seymour Sarason in 1971. It was intended for elementary grades. With modi-
fications, we have used it successfully in high schools as well, including inner-
city high schools. Here is Sarason (1996) describing the version for young chil-
dren (see Exhibit 10.3 for a summary):
Relationship building techniques for influencing the unmanageable child
are indispensable to involving him constructively in the classroom, but they
are usually insufficient to produce the dramatic suppression of hostile defi-
ance that is necessary if he is to be allowed by the principal to remain in
school. For the child’s own welfare, therefore, it is necessary to work out
with the teacher influence techniques that effectively suppress the child’s
defiant outbursts almost at once, unless teacher and psychologist feel that
he would profit from a brief exclusion from school. The use of exclusion
from school as an initial influence technique, however, is usually not nearly
so effective with the defiant child as other measures. One of three tech-
niques for suppressing defiant outbursts is implemented along with the
relationship building techniques in the case of each unmanageable child.
Exhibit 10.3 How Time-Out in a Colleague’s Classroom Works
Adapted from Sarason (1996) pp.165-167.
1. Introduction
a. Introduce exclusion move to the whole class with its causes and consequences. It is a way of helping
students remember and follow rules that allow them to enjoy learning.
2. Implementation
a. Give one private warning with specification of behavior.
b. Give a public explanation of why the child is being removed.
c. Remove the child, voluntarily or physically if necessary, or call the parent.
d. Time-out is maintained for a half-hour.
e. The child is excluded from participation or interaction with the second class.
f. Review the situation with the class:
-Alternative ways the excluded child might have acted
-Reasons for the rule
-How to help the child follow the rules
3. After-School Interview
a. To help, not to embarrass, is the motive.
b. The teacher hopes a warning will be sufficient in the future.
c. The teacher explains that it was the child who decided, by his or her behavior, when to be excluded.
d. Show the child affection and respect.
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The most commonly recommended technique for suppressing defiant
behavior is that of excluding the disobedient child from his classroom and
placing him for half an hour in a classroom nearby. The success of exclu-
sion depends on the preparation given by the psychologist or counsellor
to the teachers and school personnel involved, the support or toleration
of the principal, and the precise manner in which the teacher prepares her
class and implements the technique [italics added]. Any such dramatic
recommendation, of course, requires the approval and comprehension
of the principal, whose begrudging acceptance of the plan could under-
mine teachers’ use of it. The principal must also participate in selecting
the relatively experienced teacher with whom the unmanageable child’s
teacher pairs. Teachers have an antipathy to imposing on each other: the
excluding teacher usually feels embarrassed about depending on another
teacher, and the receiving teacher is concerned about her class being
unsettled by the visitor. These understandable concerns must be recog-
nized and assurance given that the plan may be stopped if it creates more
problems than it solves. The participating pair of teachers must be fully
briefed on the rationale and dangers in the plan so that they experience
as few surprises as possible in implementing it. From our experience with
the exclusion plan we now routinely brief participating teachers on several
points. When a child is received in another room, he is to be given a seat
at the back and excluded from any form of participation or interaction in
the class. Before making this clear to teachers we occasionally found the
excluded child excitedly participating in the receiving teacher’s classroom
activities. We also now prepare the excluding teacher for the problem of
a child refusing to leave the room. He is to be carried out by the pair of
teachers if he is in kindergarten through second grade. Older children re-
fusing to leave their rooms are to be informed that unless they do so their
parents will be phoned immediately. Never has a child refused to respond
to either pressure. Never has an excluded child posed the slightest prob-
lem in the receiving classroom. Never has a child greeted the exclusion
with anything but distasteful embarrassment.
So far the exclusion has the ingredients of an effective technique for sup-
pressing defiant outbursts: it immediately terminates the disobedient be-
havior without introducing complications in either the receiving or exclud-
ing classrooms. Its unpleasant quality for the child renders it an effective
influence technique in shaping more compliant subsequent behavior. The
most significant source of power adhering to the plan, however, is prob-
ably not its unpleasantness per se but its decisive ability to force on the
consciousness of the child the limits beyond which he may no longer go;
in short, to underline by dramatic action those rules that other children
remember and obey through verbal injunctions alone. It also gives the
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teacher a measure of authority she had been lacking in verbal injunctions.
If the plan is to maximize the child’s chances of remembering and follow-
ing classroom rules it must be introduced to the whole class not as an
angry punitive retaliation by a distraught teacher but as a way of helping
children to remember to follow rules that allow them to enjoy learning.
It should be explained to the children repeatedly that a child will be ex-
cluded not because he is unwanted or disliked but because he needs the
brief opportunity in another classroom to reflect on the rules he has been
disobeying. By introducing the procedure to the entire class in a group
discussion it does not appear as though the defiant child is being singled
out; the shock of implementing the technique is reduced to more man-
ageable proportion; and its rationale is communicated during a period of
relative calm in the classroom. In their actual implementation of the plan
teachers are cautioned against excluding children when they are furious
with them, waiting instead until they have regained their composure. At
that point the child is to be given one private, unembarrassing warning
that clearly states that if a specific behavior does not cease he will be
excluded. If several children are acting up defiantly they are to be warned
publicly, but in no case is a child excluded unless he had one and only
one private warning from the teacher to remind him clearly of the rule he
is breaking and of impending exclusion if he does not stop disrupting the
class. Contained in such private warnings must be the teacher’s attempt
to explain to the child how he is disrupting the class, together with what-
ever relationship building techniques she feels appropriate and feasible.
Should the child subsequently defy the warning intentionally, he is to be
led out of the classroom by the teacher who explains to the entire class
in the presence of the child why he is being excluded.
On returning to the classroom after delivering the child to the receiving
teacher, the excluding teacher reviews the situation with her class, em-
phasizing the reasons behind the relevant rules and alternative ways in
which the excluded child might have acted. Whenever possible her re-
marks are channeled into a group discussion that can be used to marshal
the support of the class in helping the excluded child. Once children have
expressed their expected bitterness toward the defiant child in such dis-
cussions, the teacher can elicit more sympathetic interest from them in
helping him, especially when she points out that she needs help from the
class in teaching the excluded child to follow class rules. Such discus-
sion can be used to marshal the support of the class on a meaningful
basis for the teacher to develop with her children a causal and change
oriented view of surface misbehavior. If the excluded child is to derive
from his exclusion the maximum incentive and minimum discouragement
to changing his ways, the teacher must schedule a short after-school
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interview with the child on the day of his exclusion. Like the class discus-
sion, the follow-up interview is an essential ingredient in effecting a rapid
suppression of his defiant outbursts. During the interview the teacher can
explain how she excluded the child to help him remember class rules
rather than to embarrass him, how she hopes that in the future a warn-
ing will be sufficient to induce the child to control his behavior, how it
is the child himself and not the teacher who decides whether he is to
be excluded from the room. Finally, the teacher can use the interview to
explore with the child whatever difficulties he is experiencing in the class-
room, promising the child confidentiality if he wishes to reveal something
personal. Throughout the interview the teacher makes clear her affec-
tion and respect for the child, indicating how his misbehavior is at least
as discrepant with his own hopes for himself as it is with hers for him.
The psychologist can be helpful in reducing the aversion some teachers
express about “psychoanalyzing” their students. As long as they do not
probe deeply and listen warmly and acceptingly to any problems the child
discusses, their common sense and professional ethics, he tells them, are
adequate guides. Most of the inner city children who require psychother-
apy will never receive it; thus the teacher’s may be the only interest ever
expressed in their emotional lives. Of course, the psychologist is always
available to review with a teacher any material that baffles or disturbs her.
We have never regretted encouraging teachers to conduct such therapy
like interviews, though we have played down the suggestion with some
teachers more than others. One outcome of such interviews is that they
establish an open line of communication between child and teacher by
dramatizing the teacher’s wish to help him by talking with him rather than
by forcing him to change. (pp. 136–139)
For older students, physical removal is obviously inappropriate, but most of the
other features of Sarason’s original design still apply. A receiving teacher, pref-
erably in a grade widely separated from the student’s, has to be identified, and
a routine for accepting the student nonjudgmentally but in a non-reinforcing
setting must be prearranged. The wide separation of grade level results in young
children going to older children’s rooms and vice versa. This adds to the aver-
sive nature of the strategy because of the embarrassment or intimidation of
being sent to such a room.
A monitoring adult, dean, or security officer may be needed to escort the stu-
dent to be removed to the receiving classroom. And some work for the student
to do should be sent with him or her as well.
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High Impact Consequences
These consequences are particularly aversive for the student and signal that
serious improvement is needed.
Consequence 12: Phone Call Home with Student Reporting What
Happened in Teacher’s Presence
The teacher calls the parent: “Mr. Palmer, this is Justin Rivera, your son’s teacher.
There’s been an incident in class with your son, Michael, and I’ve asked him
to explain to you himself what happened. Would you hold a second while I
pass the phone to Michael?” If the student leaves out any important details, the
teacher can remind him to insert them.
It is sometimes surprising how tough adolescents will turn to jelly after lots of
hostile bluffing when you actually pick up the phone. If there is strong reason
to expect physical abuse will follow at home, do not use this consequence.
Consequence 13: Parent Conference with Home Reporting and
Consequences; Contract Signed by Teacher, Family, and Student
In this fairly heavy-duty consequence, the family has been in for a conference
with the teacher and perhaps the assistant principal as well. A behavioral con-
tract has been written with certain behaviors and consequences at home as well
as at school (Exhibits 10.4 and 10.5). Reports are sent home frequently about
the student’s behavior, and the consequences delivered at home are contingent
on the reports from the student’s teachers.
Consequence 14: In-School Suspension
In-school suspension is a vehicle for students to evaluate their behavior and
make choices. It is important that the suspension be framed that way for the
student and carried out with that effect authentically. Those supervising the
suspension room must see their role as helping a student evaluate choices and
making a plan for successful re-entry into mainstream classes. This counseling
presence is important for a successful in-school suspension program.
Consequence 15: Saturday School
Students who have been disruptive repeatedly during the week in school and
failed to respond to consequences have probably missed significant amounts
of class time. As a consequence, they may be required to come to Saturday
School (usually Saturday morning from 9 to 12) where they must make up
missed work. Staffing must be available to implement this approach, and it
must be clear that Saturday School is not a place to “serve time” in a punitive
sense, but rather a requirement to make up work the student missed during
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Exhibit 10.4 Student Agreement
Smith Middle School
STUDENT AGREEMENT
Smith Middle School (SMS) is a place of learning and growing through a variety of experiences. Each student
has the rights and privileges of our program as well as the responsibilities. Each student owns his behavior and
the consequences of the behavior, good and bad. Upon entry to SMS, Daniel will be expected to abide by the
code of behavior as described in general in our school handbook (pages 25 and 26). More specifically, he will
be expected to demonstrate the following appropriate behavior:
Arrive to school on time daily.
Arrive to each class on time and prepared with class materials, books, and writing utensils.
Complete all assignments (homework, classwork, and special projects) according to teacher
directions and turn them in on time.
In class: Pay attention.
Focus attention on the class lesson.
Any behavior that interferes with his learning or the learning of other students will not be tolerated. This includes:
Speaking out
Moving out of his seat
Looking around
Making sounds
If he does act inappropriately, the teacher will simply state, “Daniel, this is inappropriate. If you do it again, you will
report to the office.”
Daniel will report to the housemaster, and the discipline referral form will be completed.
Mrs. Z will receive a copy of all discipline referral forms.
If two discipline referral forms are necessary in one day, Daniel’s mother will be contacted,
and he will have to go home for the day.
It is important to note that each referral involves the assignment of two demerits, and once the demerits add up to
a suspension, it will be assigned.
Mature behavior is also expected in the corridors, cafeteria gym, and locker room.
There will be no pushing, shoving, swearing, or insulting. The same results as described earlier will apply.
Daniel will leave the school grounds at 2:05 unless he has been asked to stay by a teacher.
As is the case for all SMS students, Daniel is welcome to attend our roller skating parties, dances, and special
events. However, again as is the case for all SMS students, if Daniel’s behavior warrants it, he will be asked to
leave, and attendance to future events will be subject to review.
A meeting will be scheduled after Daniel has been at SMS for four weeks to review his behavior. It is important
that he understand this STUDENT AGREEMENT and sign it.
__________________________________________(Principal) ________________________________(Student)
__________________________________________(Housemaster) ________________________________(Parent)
__________________________________________(Coordinator) _______________________________ (Chairperson)
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Exhibit 10.5 Educational Contract
EDUCATIONAL CONTRACT
Student’s Name: Daniel
Effective: Nov. 15, 2017
Review: Dec. 15, 2017
Classroom Behavior Expectations
Daniel will arrive to class on time.
Daniel will come to class prepared (pencils, paper, book, etc.).
Daniel will speak out in class only after raising his hand and being recognized.
Daniel will conduct himself in a courteous and respectful manner.
Daniel will not interfere with other students’ rights to learn, or the teacher’s right to teach.
Consequences
First Offense: After a violation of the stated expectations, Daniel is required to leave the classroom and study in
the Quiet Study for the remainder of the period.
Subsequent Offenses: On a subsequent offense within the day, Daniel is required to leave the classroom and
will be sent home after the parents have been notified.
Teacher
After a violation of the expectations, the teacher will signal Daniel to leave the class and notify the office. The
teacher will in no way influence Daniel to do or not to do anything. (No urging, reminding, coaxing, encourag-
ing, or scolding.) The teacher agrees to respect Daniel’s right to fail or succeed on his own.
Principal
On notification of a violation of the expectations, the principal agrees to see to it that Daniel leaves the class if
the signal has been given by the teacher is not acted on by the student.
Student
Daniel agrees that he is fully responsible for himself and that everything he does and does not do is done or not
done by his own choice. He agrees to take responsibility for his failure as well as his success.
Cc: Mrs. X
Mr. Y
Ms. G
Daniel’s teachers
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the week. Thus it is required as a logical consequence of disrupting learning
time, not an alternative way to sit detention.
Consequence 16: Parent Accompanies Student to School
The embarrassment factor is at work in this consequence, which is both novel
and effective from the middle grades on up. Here is an account of how one
middle school implemented this consequence:
Bob Browning spent a day at Wilson Junior High School in Hamilton, Ohio,
some time ago. That in itself is unremarkable: Browning, after all, is presi-
dent of the city’s board of education. As he moved from class to class,
taking his seat at student desks and quietly sitting through each period,
some of the teachers got nervous. “They had no reason to,” Browning
says, “but it was understandable.” Yet the most uncomfortable person in
any of those classes was Browning’s son, Sam, an eighth-grader, be-
cause Bob Browning wasn’t in class in his official capacity. He was there
in a more important role, as Sam’s father, and he was taking part in a
program that subjects kids who break school rules to an ingenious—and
devilishly effective—deterrent: bringing Mom or Dad to school.
“I got the idea accidentally,” remembers John Lazares, Wilson’s 37-year-
old principal. “A kid came into my office whom I had seen a number
of times for minor discipline problems—talking in class, being late, not
bringing materials, driving the teachers crazy. I just got fed up and said,
“The next time I see you, we’re going to have your mother come in and
see what we have to put up with all day.” The reaction I got from him was,
“Do anything you want, but don’t have my mother come in.” I’d never had
this reaction from a kid before—and we’ve had kids arrested for drugs,
suspended and expelled. He begged me not to have his mother come in.
Something lit up in my head.”
Situated in an industrial city midway between Cincinnati and Dayton, Wil-
son has a student body that reflects the city’s racial, economic and ethnic
diversity—and divisions. Until nine years ago, when a controversial new
school superintendent began a citywide disciplinary crackdown, Ham-
ilton’s schools were scarred by violence, tension and drug use. By the
time Lazares became principal last January, the school had a functioning
code of conduct and an improving reputation. But up to 60 of Wilson’s
860 students were expelled every semester, and dozens more were being
suspended for everything from tardiness to fighting in school.
“One of the worst things that can happen to a child is to be suspended
from school,” says Lazares. “It’s a waste. He spends three days at home
for some little misdemeanor, and it makes him happy to be out of class.
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I decided to tell parents, “Okay, if you’ll come in and spend one day in
class with that kid, I’ll take the suspension away.”
So far about 60 parents have put in their time at Wilson. “I thought it was
great that I could come down and eliminate a little trouble for my son,”
Bob Browning says gamely. Sam was in trouble for missing detention.
“I enjoyed it,” says Ella Neal. “It helped me a lot to understand what the
teachers had to go through and to understand my child much better.”
Her son, James, had been disrupting his seventh-grade class. Kids seem
to improve dramatically when their parents come to Wilson. After-school
detentions are down from 20 a day to zero on some days; expulsions
have dropped to 11 since the program began. Only a handful of parents
have refused to join what Lazares calls his Parent Involvement Program;
many are eager to come. “For a lot of them, it’s their first time in a school
building since they graduated,” he says.
On a recent morning, a few “veterans” discussed the program. “I was
embarrassed,” said Sam Browning. “One kid cried all day,” said Shane
Isaacs. Shane cleaned up his act when his parents simply met with the
principal and threatened to go to class with him. “This is a tool for pre-
ventive discipline,” says Lazares. “Kids who have seen other kids’ par-
ents in school stop causing problems, because they don’t want their own
parents to sit with them all day.”
Punishment is only one aspect of the Wilson program. “In education,
we’re only as effective as the parents,” says Lazares, “and now we have
parents who call us once a week to check up on their kids’ progress. If
a child has been a discipline problem and goes for a while without caus-
ing trouble, I call them up and say, “You’re doing something right.” Each
teacher now makes five phone calls—positive or negative—to students’
homes every week. Lazares personally calls the parents of every child
who makes the honor roll: 200 phone calls one week. “I want to notice
those kids who do a good job” he says. (Ryan, 1987, p. 10)
Consequence 17: Deliver Student to Responsible Adult at Work
This consequence follows an escalating series of responses to a student’s disrup-
tive behavior. A responsible adult, who should be no stranger at this point to
the problems in school, is notified that a car is on the way over with the student.
Last Resort Consequences
These consequences do nothing to improve behavior or reintegrate the student
into school life and we should go to extreme lengths to avoid them. Suspension,
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especially for older students, can easily be a reward of free time to get in trouble
out of school and has the huge opportunity cost of students missing instruction.
In-school suspension is always better and at least preserves both time for learn-
ing and for reintegration of restitution.
Consequence 18: Suspension
We do not recommend suspension because it is usually a reward rather than a
penalty, at least for older children. Students get unsupervised time away from
school, lose academic time, and have more access to getting into trouble. It
may become necessary, however, to separate a student from campus for a pe-
riod of days where facilities are not available for in-house suspension. In this
case, every effort should be made to arrange for the student to be in a super-
vised environment, perhaps some form of community service. Above all, when
the suspension is over, a plan needs to be made with some accountability in it
between the student, family or guardian, and the school for the conditions of
readmission to school.
Consequences 19 and 20: Police Involvement; Expulsion
By the time we get to numbers 19 and 20, we have effectively given up. These
extreme measures are obviously the end of the line and require hearings and
due process. We include them to complete the loop on the hierarchy of conse-
quences. Interestingly, Restorative Discipline, to be discussed at the end of this
chapter, can sometimes get us out of this last resort situation.
Level 3: Building a Climate of Community Safety and Agency
We want to build responsibility and self-discipline into classroom life. This means
moving away from teacher control to building internal controls in each student
and community responsibility for the classroom climate and environment (see
Chapter 16, “Classroom Climate”).
Giving Students a Real and Legitimate Sense of Control,
Influence, Responsibility, and Power
Teachers can structure classes so students feel some ownership and control of
what goes on. Doing so can reduce discipline problems. However, this is no sub-
stitute for clear expectations and consequences. They should come first. One
first-year teacher, who never did get expectations and consequences sorted out
that first year, nevertheless salvaged the year from total disaster by starting an
individualized contract learning system. This system gave students some owner-
ship and control by setting academic goals and providing them with good feed-
back. The students invested in it, and energy that might have gone into fighting
the teacher went into meeting their learning goals instead. But it was still a rocky
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year with less than optimal learning. If expectations had been established right
from the beginning, her contract system would not just have salvaged this par-
ticular class, it would have put it into orbit. So though we are strong advocates of
the ideas to follow, our caution for any beginning teachers reading this section is
to invest in getting expectations and consequences clear first.
There are three excellent approaches for giving students ownership in class-
room life:
1. Negotiating Mendler and Curwin’s social contract (see page 139).
2. Using goal setting (see Chapter 12, “Principles of Learning”).
3. Teaching through one of the five cooperative models of teaching (see Chap-
ter 20, “Differentiated Instruction”).
Sometimes teachers grant students ownership or a stake in classroom opera-
tions because they let the students in on something the teacher has noticed and
invite them to work on addressing the problem. A high school English teacher
in one of our courses shared the following example:
Example 1: While studying the Clarity area of performance, the teacher
had an insight that he might often be playing “guess what’s on the teach-
er’s mind” in his question asking. He shared this with his class the next
day and asked if they concurred. They did. He then asked them what they
could do about it, specifically what action class members might take if
he victimized them with such a question or if they observed him doing
it to someone else. After collecting ideas in a general class discussion,
they settled on the following procedure: when students felt that they had
been asked such a question, they could call the teacher on it and ask
him to restate the question. Alternately, students who could not answer
a question could redirect it to another student in the class by name. At
other times, the teacher would go around the class in order, asking review
questions about the text read for homework. If the student could not
answer a question or answered incorrectly, the next student would get
the same question. If three students in a row failed to get the answer, the
teacher would acknowledge that it was a poor question and rephrase it.
The net result for these students, previously a low-performing class, was
higher class participation and higher achievement.
It is our belief, however, that there was a lot more going on here than simply
eliminating “guess what’s on the teacher’s mind” questions. First, the teacher
was showing fairness in admitting that he could be the cause of a problem for
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students and looking in an open way for a solution (see Chapter 15, “Personal
Relationship Building”). Second, these techniques gave the students some voice
in determining the rules of the classroom game and controlling the flow of events.
Example 2: Another way to give students influence and control is through
incentive and reward systems. One teacher we know tried to increase
students’ motivation for doing homework assignments well. It had been
his practice to give students daily quizzes based on homework readings.
One day he told them that if they got four 100s in a row, they could earn a
free 100 points that they might then “spend” on future quizzes at any time
and in any way they pleased. They could skip some future quiz and take
100 on it, they could take 30 points of it and elevate a 70 to 100 sometime
in the future, or just save the points. He found that students’ efforts on
homework assignments and quizzes dramatically improved, even those
students who had already been doing well. Our hypothesis is that what
was powerful about this technique was the way in which it gave students
something to control: a bank account of earned points. Whether they
earned them and how they would spend them was entirely within their
control. (For the students already scoring well, perhaps it was insurance
against future mishaps.) Other teachers have replicated that technique
but have eliminated the requirement that the four 100s be in a row: simply
attaining four 100s earns the 100-point bonus.
These two ingenious experiments suggest to us that there are many places in
classroom life to look for ways to give students more legitimate control.
Building Community in the Class
William Glasser’s (1969) classroom meetings, Gene Stanford’s (1977) cycle of
activities for developing effective classroom groups, relationship building activi-
ties (Wilt & Watson, 1978), cooperative learning (Dishon & O’Leary, 1998), the
social competency program (Krasnow, 1993), and the Responsive Classroom
program (Charney, 2002) are all approaches for building the kind of affiliation
and harmony in a class that can prevent discipline problems. When relation-
ships among class members are stressful or fractious (or both), these strategies
can lower the pressure and productively rechannel energy that is going into
fighting with one another. The Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emo-
tional Learning (CASEL) is the leader in advancing these curricula today (Dur-
lak, Domitrovich, Weissberg, & Gullotta, 2015).
Classroom Meetings
Classroom meetings are a powerful practice for building a general sense of
community in a class or handling problems such as scapegoating, bullying, and
cliques. In Schools Without Failure, Glasser (1969) describes in detail how to
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conduct classroom meetings and reports: “I haven’t met a child incapable of
thinking and participating to some degree in school if we let him know we
value what he can contribute” (p. 97). That belief is essential for a teacher who
wants to make classroom meetings work, because being nonjudgmental and
accepting of student contributions is a key skill in leading meetings. The meet-
ings are the vehicle through which students experience participation, the sense
of being valued, and a sense of being part of something real. Class meetings are
held regularly (at least weekly and preferably several times a week), with stu-
dents and teacher seated in a tight circle. Teachers lead the whole class in non-
judgmental discussions about topics that are important and relevant to them.
There are three types of meetings:
1. Open-ended
2. Social problem-solving
3. Educational diagnostic
In open-ended meetings, either teacher or students introduce a topic for dis-
cussion. One of the teacher’s roles is to build a focusing question for the students
around the topic, which can be anything of current interest to the students. In
citing a meeting where the students wanted to talk about Disneyland, the teacher
asked, “Who would like to go to Disneyland?” Almost every child responded
affirmatively. “Suppose someone gave me two tickets to Disneyland and said I
should give these tickets to two children in my class. To whom should I give
the tickets?” In addition to translating open topics into focused discussions,
teachers use skills of active listening and summarizing. Open-ended meetings
begin building a sense of involvement with each other and lay the foundations
for using the meetings for generating significant investment in academic work
and the more difficult area of social problem-solving.
Glasser’s (1969) description of a social problem-solving meeting explains how
classroom meetings can be used to improve some of the more intractable (and
usually untreated) sources of disruptive behavior in classes:
At another meeting, Mike was introduced as the topic. Physically over-
weight and not too clean-looking in appearance, with hair in his eyes and
a very loud, offensive voice, and holes in all his tee shirts caused from
biting and twisting and chewing on them, he was not pleasant to behold!
Mike said he didn’t like the class because they didn’t like him. When
asked why they didn’t like him, he said it was because he was fat. The
children eagerly disagreed.
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They said that had nothing to do with it. Mike wanted to know why, then.
He was given the opportunity to call on those children he wanted to ex-
plain to him what they found offensive about him. Someone said it was
because he wears funny hats to school, like the pilot’s helmet he wore the
day before. (Incidentally, he never wore it again.) Some said he dressed
sloppily. Martin said it was because he said things that hurt people. For
example, when Martin came home from Europe and showed the class
several treasures that he brought to share, Mike said he didn’t believe
they were from Paris and that he bought the same things here. Martin
said that hurt his feelings. David said that when he shared things with
the class, Mike blurted out similar derogatory remarks. (Mike still has not
cured himself of this, by the way.) John, who had become much more in-
trospective and perceptive, said it was because Mike always made funny
faces and looked up at the ceiling with a disgusted look on his face when
people tried to talk to him. While he was saying this, Mike was doing just
that. John said, “See, Mike, you’re doing it right now, and you don’t even
know it.” Mike was asked if anyone, in his opinion, went out of his way to
be nice to him. He said, only Alice, whom he liked. Everyone giggled. Alice
said she didn’t care if everyone did laugh at her, she liked Mike and was
not ashamed to be his friend. She liked being nice to him. We talked as a
group about the importance of having one friend at least.
The others found that no one really tried to go out of his way to be his
friend, but each person would try to make some gesture to show they
would try in the next week. They really rose to the occasion, but soon
forgot about it and were their usual apathetic selves. However, no one
seemed to go out of his way to be nasty, which was a change. Alice con-
tinued being nice to Mike, and the children stopped teasing her about it.
Harriet, who was one of the girls who was teasing Alice, apologized in a
class meeting for doing so and she said she had once been teased for
befriending someone without other friends, and that it took more courage
to be his friend and yet she wanted to. She told Alice that even though it
had hurt her feelings when the others teased her, she had forgotten and
teased Alice and that she was sorry, and she could really understand how
Alice felt. There has been a tremendous change in Mike this semester. He
is not lackadaisical about his work or appearance, speaks more quietly,
uses more self control, plays a fairer game in the yard, gets along much
better with others, and has more (or some) friends. (pp. 152–153)
We have had teachers read this account and get scared off by it. It seems to some
like opening wounds or beginning a process that could get out of control. Yet
two teachers with difficult classes with whom we have worked have brought up
comparable issues in their own classes and view their own series of meetings as
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among the most significant accomplishments of their careers. We are glad they
took time to work up their courage, because they were also working up their
skills at leading meetings on safer topics.
These kinds of issues can fester and hurt and drain students’ energy, and bring-
ing them out into the open with skillful leadership can make dramatic differ-
ences in class climate. Neither the teacher in Glasser’s (1969) account nor those
with whom we have worked were trained in counseling techniques. They were
regular classroom teachers who had the courage and the commitment to want
to help students build strong community within their classes and knew that
there were large dividends for the effort in academic learning as well.
The teacher in the excerpt above decided that Mike could benefit from specific
examples of how his behavior put others off and called for them. Furthermore,
the teacher decided that it would involve Mike more (and make it safer for
him) if Mike did the calling on other children. When the teacher asked Mike if
anyone went out of his way to be nice to him, the teacher sensed an appropri-
ate moment to turn the discussion around and focus on the positive. When the
group talked about the importance of having one friend at least, the teacher
asked a few key questions to guide the discussion that way.
Recognizing such key junctures and opportunities comes from the learning
that occurs in undertaking social problem-solving classroom meetings. It is
not the sort of thing one rushes into the first week of school, but these skills
are within the grasp of most teachers. Overall, regularly practiced classroom
meetings are one of the most significant climate builders for successful learn-
ing. While he was teaching high school English, Gene Stanford (1977) came to
the same conclusion and developed a carefully sequenced series of activities
to build class cohesion over a year. He organized activities according to the
stage of growth a class was in as it moved toward mature functioning. Students
have to know something about one another before they can appreciate or be-
come involved with one another, so Stage I is orientation. In Stage II, activities
explicitly develop norms of group responsibility (through teaching awareness
of others), responsiveness to others (meaning good listening skills), coopera-
tive skills, consensus decision-making skills, and social problem-solving skills.
Stage III is coping with conflict; Stage IV is about productivity; and Stage V is
about termination, that is, dealing with the end of the year, the end of the life
of the group, and people’s feelings about that. All this he integrated with an
academic program and an emphasis on writing.
A number of models of cooperative learning structure academic tasks in such
a way that students build affiliation, mutual understanding, and class cohesion.
These models usually have students work in groups, with the activity struc-
Regularly practiced
classroom meetings
are one of the
most significant
climate builders for
successful learning.
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tured so that either task completion or reward (or both) depends on every-
one’s participation. Yet groups are not penalized for having slow students or
rewarded for having the best students in them. For an excellent summary of
how to implement these techniques, see Dishon and O’Leary (1998). Coopera-
tive models are also outlined in Chapter 20, “Differentiated Instruction.”
This section of the Discipline area of performance has attempted to connect
good discipline—meaning more narrowly an absence of disruptive and re-
sistant behavior—with building a sense of community in the class. From our
point of view, building community would be worthwhile in and of itself, but
there is no denying it is also a powerful preventive force against discipline prob-
lems. Simultaneously, it is a wonderful source of strength for building environ-
ments that support the best kind of academic learning. Chapter 16, “Classroom
Climate,” has much additional material on these themes of ownership and com-
munity building.
Mr. Butler’s Class
As a capstone to this section on developing student ownership and involvement
in classroom life, we offer the amazing case of Mr. Butler, the only teacher in
an entire high school with a functioning ninth grade class, and what Kitzmiller
(2013) calls his invention of “Apprenticed Authority” for creating an engaged
learning community among students. “This apprentice model clearly delineates
the rules and norms, and once they demonstrate compliance with these rules
and norms, they earn the right to positions of authority” (p. 25).
As I looked around the room, I noticed that, in many ways, this classroom
looked quite similar to others in the building. Even though it was a sunny
day, the windows were so filthy that they only allowed the faintest of light
to penetrate the glass panes. Many of the blinds in the room were ripped;
the floor was warped and stained. And like the other classrooms, Mr.
Butler’s fluorescent lights emitted an unappealing pale yellow light and a
slight humming noise that could distract anyone, especially ninth grade
adolescents. The television that rested on the back table had a black
streak across the screen from a permanent marker. It was a demonstra-
tion of the vandalism that plagued the entire building.
Yet, at the same time, there were marked differences between this class-
room and others that I had visited. There were several handmade posters
displayed on the walls. One had an image of an infant with a barbell that
said, “Baby, this is Mr. Butler’s class. You have to pull your own weight.”
At the front of the room, the chalkboard contained a meticulously hand-
written outline detailing the learning objectives for today’s lessons. Di-
rectly next to each task on the outline, he had indicated how each activity
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in the lesson plan corresponded to the state standards and the school
district’s mandated curriculum. Such clearly articulated learning direc-
tives and goals were rarely seen at Washington High School. At the front
of the room, Mr. Butler had posted a list with each student’s name and
class standing. The list contained a tally of the student’s completed and
outstanding assignments for the semester. In other classes, Washing-
ton students complained that they never knew how they were progress-
ing in the semester. They did not know what assignments were missing;
grades, they argued, were arbitrary and calculated completely at the in-
structor’s discretion (Fieldnotes, January 28). In Mr. Butler’s classroom,
each student could easily track the grades that he or she had earned
over the course of the semester. Furthermore, missing assignments were
clearly indicated. Again, this was a rare sight.
At 9:23, the bell rang for the beginning of fourth period and Mr. Butler told
me that this class is a General English class (the chalkboard lists plans
for both his General and Honors courses). As students entered, they ex-
hibited behavior that one might observe at any high school. Some of the
girls set their books on their desks and immediately moved to the hallway
to sneak a few minutes of gossip before the final bell rings. Others walked
in, took their seats, and discussed lunch options. At 9:27, the bell rang
again to indicate the beginning of class. Suddenly, the tenor of the class-
room changed. One of the students leaped out of his seat and locked
the classroom door. (I later learned that this was a safety precaution so
that other students do not barge into his classroom and it prevented late
students from entering without being acknowledged). Then, the student
read the journal question on the board, which is the first objective on the
lesson plan. As the young man did this, Mr. Butler calmly walked around
the room, clipboard in hand, and looked around to see who was present
that morning. Once the young man finished reading the journal prompt,
the students began writing their responses. At that moment, I realized
I was witnessing an unfamiliar sight. There were no cell phones. There
were no late arrivals. There were no shouting students. I was stunned. In
the past seven months observing other classrooms at Washington High
School, I had never seen a ninth grade classroom seated and ready to
learn the instant the bell rang.
As soon as everyone was settled, Mr. Butler told me to sit next to Malika
and asked her to explain how classroom expectations, seat rank, and
mentor position operated. Malika told me that classroom expectations
were a list of rules that students must follow in Mr. Butler’s classroom.
The expectations were a combination of school rules—students must ar-
rive at class on time in their uniforms—as well as rules that were specific
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to Mr. Butler’s classroom—students must respect the classroom mentor.
In theory, everyone in the school should have abided by the school uni-
form rule (khaki pants and a white or green collared shirt) since it was a
school policy. There are explicit rules that tell teachers to send students
who have jeans or hooded sweatshirts to the main office immediately.
However, I witnessed a variety of ways that students routinely violated
this rule during my observations over the course of the academic year.
For example, one morning, a young woman walked into her classroom,
unzipped her khaki pants and revealed a pair of jeans that she had worn
under the khaki pants. When I questioned her about it, she said, “I do this
all the time. I wear the khaki pants to get through the metal detector in the
morning and then I take them off. I like jeans better” (Student 5, interview;
Fieldnotes, January 28). Other students hid hooded sweatshirts, which
the administration called “hoodies,” in various lockers around the build-
ing. They entered the school building and passed through the metal de-
tectors in their uniforms and then went to their lockers to put their hoodies
on over their uniforms (Fieldnotes, February 1). Students routinely ignored
this rule since teachers and administrators did not consistently punish
those who violated it.
Things operated differently in Mr. Butler’s classroom. When students failed
to uphold this or any other classroom rule on the list of expectations, he
never raised his voice and he did not negotiate. Rather, he simply asked
them to pull out their sheet, told them which expectation they broke, and
deducted a set number of points from their class average. Malika told me
that students did not like this because losing points for behavioral or aca-
demic problems on the class average affected the student’s class seat or
rank. This concept of seat rank mimics the methods professional orches-
tras use to determine where each musician sits. The points determined
the student’s rank, which in turn, determined the student’s seat. Students
earned points based on their academic progress as well as their adher-
ence to classroom expectations. Thus, students who excelled academi-
cally, yet fail to meet other classroom expectations were ranked lower
than those students who met expectations and did well academically. The
points can fluctuate each day, depending on student performance on ex-
ams, journal entries, and behavior. When students entered the classroom
each day, they checked the point sheet hanging on the wall in the front of
the classroom to determine where they were supposed to sit. Since this
information was public, each student knew the peers’ performance.
To help students with their academic progress, Mr. Butler gave them a
list outlining the assignments that they must complete each marking pe-
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riod. The list indicated each assignment’s due date and point value. Ma-
lika remarked that this list is “very useful because it helps me remember
what I have to do in his classroom.” She continued, explaining that in
other classrooms, teachers often did not explain assignments or return
student work, and so, “it is difficult for me to know how I am doing in
those classes.” Even though “the work is much harder” in Mr. Butler’s
classroom, she explained, “at least I know what I need to do” (Student 6,
interview; Fieldnotes, March 28). Mr. Butler required students to write the
lesson plan and journal questions each day in their notebooks. Accord-
ing to Malika, there were two reasons for this. First, if the students had
the lesson plans in their notebooks, they always knew what assignments
and tasks they must complete. Second, since each lesson plan clearly
indicated the learning objective for the day, the students had a clearer
sense of what they were learning and why. Malika told me that this sys-
tem helped her with her academic work since she knew exactly what Mr.
Butler wanted her to do each day and how it related to the learning goals
he set for them.
Malika explained the classroom mentor’s role, saying that the classroom
mentor does “whatever a teacher would normally do.” During this visit,
Jeremy served as the classroom mentor. Jeremy, not Mr. Butler, locked
the door and read the lesson plan at the beginning of class. When the
students completed their journal entries, Jeremy asked for volunteers to
share what they have written. Jeremy selected two students. The stu-
dents walked to the front of the room and read their journal entries to the
entire class. As they did this, two students who were seated in the back
of the room began talking. Eventually, the noise escalated to the point
where everyone in the room could hear them. Mr. Butler deducted points
because these students violated the expectation that students will be
respectful while others are speaking. Then, he told Jeremy to sit next to
these two disruptive students and remind them to be respectful and sit
quietly during the presentation. Jeremy walked over to them, sat at their
table, and calmly told them that they should not be talking during presen-
tations. Suddenly, their chatter ceased (Fieldnotes, March 28).
The mentor position is one example of how Mr. Butler distributed author-
ity in his classroom. During my observations, classroom mentors took
attendance, passed out books, led class discussions, and disciplined
students (Fieldnotes March 31, April 4, and April 18). When I asked Mr.
Butler about the mentor position, he told me that the position is a privi-
lege; it is not automatically given to students. Students must earn the
right to be in this position of authority. To be a mentor, students must
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have completed all of their assignments and must have followed expecta-
tions. Furthermore, Mr. Butler reserved the right to revoke the position at
any time if the mentor did not maintain good standing in the community
(Fieldnotes, March 31). During my observations, this never happened.
For the most part, teachers at Washington High School constantly la-
mented about the unruly, unmanageable, disobedient ninth grade class.
As a result, the roster chair divided ninth grade sections among teachers
so that one teacher did not have to bear the burden of teaching too many
ninth grade sections. Typically, teachers had one, maybe two sections of
ninth grade students. Not Mr. Butler. He had five. Everyone knew that his
sections lacked the characteristic disruption, chaos, and confusion that
plagued the other ninth grade sections. As a result, other ninth grade
teachers envied him and were eager to try his system in their classrooms.
They argued that it seemed easy to replicate. It seemed simple. Mr. Butler
gave students points for good behavior and academic work. He deducted
points for inappropriate behavior and weak academic work. However, ev-
ery time teachers tried to model Mr. Butler’s practice, they failed. I saw
this discussed over and over again, in whole-school faculty meetings,
in department meetings, and in casual conversations. Everyone told Mr.
Butler that his system simply did not work in his or her classroom. They
would credit their failures with a multitude of excuses. He had “better
students” than they did. He had “easier classes.” His schedule was bet-
ter. No one asked him why it might have failed (Fieldnotes, November 26
and March 1).
It seems that these teachers did not realize that Mr. Butler’s point system
was not simply a form of glorified behaviorism where students earn and
lose points, which in fact, seems like Weber’s notion of power (Weber,
2005). Rather, the points and expectations provide the structural sup-
port that enables him to distribute authority to his students. I must admit
that I never realized the complexity of his practice until I questioned him
about it one afternoon. In April, I told Mr. Butler that I had some reserva-
tions about his practice and asked if he would be willing to answer a few
questions that I had. I was increasingly concerned that the point system,
with its ranks and expectations, promoted a meritocracy that focused
primarily on individual efforts among his students. Mr. Butler bluntly re-
marked that he thinks competition can be a useful tool for engaging stu-
dents. Besides, he said, much of our success later in life is based on
individual merit and competition, and so, he believed there was room for
competition in any classroom. He explained that he tried to balance the
meritocracy by giving students “booster points.” These points, he argued,
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created a sense of community while simultaneously acknowledging indi-
vidual achievement.
Mr. Butler explained that his idea of “booster points” stemmed from his
own experiences as a runner in college. The coach wanted all of the ath-
letes to run a mile in less than seven minutes; if they accomplished this
goal, they could go home. If they did not accomplish it, they had to con-
tinue running. Of course there were some that could do this easily, while
others struggled. Like any race, the fastest runners stayed in the front of
the pack and the slower ones were relegated to the back. One day, how-
ever, the group decided to try something new: the fastest runners ran in
the back to push the slower runners. They called this the “booster mile”
because it boosted those who were not initially successful.
Mr. Butler took this idea and applied it to his own teaching practice. Ac-
cording to him, booster points served as a mechanism to help students
understand that they are responsible for supporting their peers in the
classroom. Students could earn “booster points” for a variety of things.
For example, he assigned them to peer editing groups, and when stu-
dents were ready to turn in their work, they turn in a final product as well
as drafts with peer editing marks. Mr. Butler assessed the final product
as well as the support that the student received from his or her group.
If the peer group was supportive, the students receive booster points.
Students also earn booster points for helping their peers with presenta-
tion skills or with exam preparation. While this process is difficult in the
beginning, since it is so new for these ninth graders, by the end of the
year, the students began to realize that they were more successful work-
ing together than they were working on their own.
As he continued, he told me that “my practice is like bamboo. There is a
clear structure, but it has flexibility.” He said that the classroom expec-
tations and seat ranks provided him with the structure, but the booster
points promoted flexibility and allowed him to distribute authority more
widely for students as they are ready for it (Teacher 6, interview; Field-
notes, April 18). For example, as I said, he encouraged students to study
together for exams, and in a nontraditional twist, he allowed students to
take exams whenever they are ready (Fieldnotes, March 31 and April 4).
Thus, students did not always take exams on the same date. Every day,
the mentor asked if anyone would like to take an exam that day, and
those who were ready selected the exam that they wanted to take. They
used their expectations sheets to gauge what needed to be done by the
end of the marking period and adjusted their schedules accordingly. This
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flexible system gave students freedom and power, in other words, the
authority to decide when they were ready to take an exam and prove what
they have learned.
Students did not challenge Mr. Butler’s authority because they recognized
it as legitimate (Weber, 2005). Furthermore, by giving students positions of
authority that are typically reserved only for teachers, Mr. Butler not only
asked his students to recognize his authority—he also challenged them
to become active participants in cultivating and upholding the authority
he deliberately distributed to the entire community. He wanted them to
become his apprentices, and thus, instead of one teacher, there were
24 teachers in his classroom. He clearly articulated expectations that he
believed they could reach; he provided flexibility to help each student
succeed; and he distributed authority to encourage them to participate in
upholding the structures he instituted. The approach works because, as
John Dewey suggests, “the social control resides in the very nature of the
work done as a social enterprise in which all individuals have an opportu-
nity to contribute and to which all feel a responsibility” (Dewey, 1997, p.
163). This is the secret to his success. (Kitzmiller, 2013, pp. 25–31)
This is mighty testimony to the power of student ownership and empowerment,
and an intriguing challenge to the urge to over control.
Level 4: Dealing with Very Challenging Students
Over the years, one can build a repertoire of advanced models of discipline to
use for the most resistant students who have the most emotional issues. This is
not a target for beginners. Successfully mastering the first three levels will take
care of the vast majority of the discipline issues any teacher faces. But for the
most intractable students, the sophisticated models of discipline will be useful
from time to time.
For our most challenging students, approaches beyond what we have presented
in this chapter may be necessary. For these students one of the seven therapeu-
tic models of discipline developed in the 20th century may be called for. These
are students who continue to resist and disrupt despite clear expectations and
consequences and despite the teacher’s best efforts at creating ownership and
building community in the class. These children bring significant emotional
issues through the door with them every morning and act out their needs in
disruptive behavior that is resistant to standard measures of behavior manage-
ment. Fortunately, there are not too many of them. Most of the students who
initially appear to be in this category just need more clarity, conviction, and
tenacity about expectations and consequences.
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The Skillful Teacher website explores these seven models in some detail and
presents an important matching framework for how to choose from among
them to match the apparent psychological needs driving the student behavior:
1. Behavior Modification
2. Self-Awareness Training (Cognitive Behavior Modification)
3. Personal Influence
4. Logical Consequences
5. Reality Therapy
6. Teacher Effectiveness Training
7. Restorative Discipline
Each model has an intellectual parent, a central figure who has pulled it togeth-
er and written extensively about it. The exception is Behavior Modification,
which has so many parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins it is hard to single one
out. All seven models are good when used appropriately, and no one of the sev-
en is inherently better than any other. It will be our position that anyone with
the position of “Behavioral Interventionist” or “Adjustment Counselor” should
be thoroughly trained in all seven, and know how to match them to student
needs and how to coach teachers in supporting implementation of the best
model choice for their most challenging students. You can learn more about
the seven models on The Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
A NOTE ABOUT POSITIVE BEHAVIOR INTERVENTIONS
AND SUPPORTS (PBIS)
The comprehensive approach to discipline laid out in this chapter integrates
basic management, personal relationships, crystal-clear expectations, and
appropriate consequences along with a developmental approach to building
strong classroom climate among students. This is a climate of community, so-
cial learning, and student ownership. PBIS does the same. The difference is that
PBIS, a nationally supported approach to discipline developed by George Sugai
of the University of Connecticut and R. Horner of the University of Oregon
(Sugai, & Horner, 2006) lays out a systematic plan for getting buy-in to the
approach on a schoolwide and districtwide basis. In the PBIS literature, which
we recommend, one can find a systematic model of phases and stages for
PDF
Seven Therapeutic
Models of
Discipline
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explaining the comprehensive approach, getting parent buy-in, building faculty
interest, and bringing teachers together to get agreement about expectations,
consequences, and positive “gotchas” to systematically give positive acknowl-
edgement for helpful student behavior. PBIS divides consequences into 3 Tiers
which roughly correspond to the four levels of the Hierarchy of Consequences
in Table 10.2.
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Twelve Causes of Inattentive or Disruptive Behavior:
Cause 1: Poor General Management
Cause 2: Inadequate Personal Relationship
Cause 3: Inappropriately Matched or Boring Work
Cause 4: Confusing Instruction
Cause 5: Unclear Standards, Expectations, and Consequences
Cause 6: Student Ignorance of How to Do the Expected Behaviors
Cause 7: A Need for Fun and Stimulation
Cause 8: Value and Culture Clashes
Cause 9: Internal Physical Causes
Cause 10: External Physical Causes
Cause 11: Extraordinary Emotional Issues
Cause 12: Student Sense of Powerlessness
p Effective responses to disruptive behavior are chosen from a repertoire to match the cause or
causes.
Effective Discipline Is Built on a Comprehensive Approach of Four Levels:
1. Laying a foundation of sound classroom management, and solid instructional design and
delivery, as well as building relationships with students.
2. Establishing authority by communicating expectations, setting limits, and eliminating
disruptions.
3. Building a strong classroom climate that nurtures cooperation, responsibility, and
self-discipline.
4. Being familiar with more complex models of discipline that may be necessary to
implement with a very small percentage of especially troubled or recalcitrant students.
To check your knowledge about Discipline, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher
website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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NOTES
PART THREE:
INTRODUCTION TO INSTRUCTION
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PART THREE | INSTRUCTION | INTRODUCTION
Part 3
Introduction to
Instruction
Instruction addresses the skills teachers use to deliver the goods: the cognitive
knowledge and skills of their academic disciplines.
Chapter 11: “Clarity” summarizes over a century of research on cog-
nitive science as it applies to successful teaching and learning. This is
the material most people think of when they hear the word teaching. In
this book, we have defined teaching as a much bigger construct: any-
thing a person does that increases the probability of intended learning.
Nevertheless, Clarity skills are vital for creating successful learning
experiences for students. They scaffold learning, make it accessible in
varied and powerful ways, check to see if it has been assimilated, and
get inside students’ heads to identify misconceptions and confusions.
The repertoires within Chapter 11 form a bedrock of good pedagogy.
A supplementary document that analyzes the manifold purposes of
questions is available on The Skillful Teacher website (www.RBTeach.
com/TST7). The “Questioning Skills” document summarizes the re-
search on higher- and lower-level questions and shows the need for all
students to experience higher-level questions and higher-level think-
ing, regardless of their current skill level. We then make the case for
planning questions in advance and model how to do so in a way that
brings out the most important aspects of our content. It describes how
to teach students to ask good questions, an important life skill.
Chapter 12: “Principles of Learning” summarizes over a century of
laboratory research by cognitive psychologists. This domain of teach-
ing skill, neglected in recent decades and substantially missing from
teacher preparation, is a powerhouse of cognitive science for making
learning efficient. Those interested in accelerating student learning
and making it more durable will find a treasury of techniques here.
Instruction
Introduction
PDF
Questioning Skills
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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Experienced and already successful teachers often exclaim on meeting
this body of information, “Why haven’t I heard about these principles
before?!”
Chapter 13: “Models of Teaching” will appeal especially to readers 5 to
15 years into their careers who are looking for intellectual stimulation
for themselves and their students. This is the section of the knowledge
base for designers who wish to craft lessons that develop thinking skills
as well as academic knowledge.
The application of cognitive science in Part 3 is a rich resource for teachers when
they are planning lessons. It is especially valuable for teachers working together
in professional learning communities to come up with reteaching strategies.
11. Clarity
PART THREE | INSTRUCTION | CLARITY
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 195
Instruction
Clarity
Instruction:
Clarity
Why is it that some people are better than others at getting us to un-derstand things? What do they do to be more clear? Clear teachers do far more than speak or lecture in an organized and easily com-
prehensible way, though that is not irrelevant to student understanding. These
teachers guide student thinking in deliberate ways along a structured route
engineered for thinking and learning. This is the scientific part of teaching.
We can use what we know from a century of cognitive science to maximize
the chances of students’ assimilating, integrating, remembering, and being
able to use concepts and skills. No content expert comes into teaching already
equipped to accomplish this skill-intensive job.
“Clarity” is an area of performance that targets mental acts within students’
heads that result in understanding or being able to do something. If they use
the knowledge base of cognitive science well, what teachers do has a great deal
to do with what goes on in students’ heads. Unfortunately, as Graham Nuthall
(2005) points out, it is possible to have a smoothly functioning, lively classroom
where all the students appear happily occupied with worthwhile tasks and yet
no mental acts conducive to learning are taking place. Consider this episode:
22 x 23 = ? is the problem, and many in the class have gotten it wrong.
“What many of you did,” says the teacher, “was to multiply the 2’s so you
got 22 x 23 = 45. That’s wrong. It’s 25.” He erases “45” and writes “25” in its
place. “The 2 doesn’t change.” Then he moves on to the next problem.
The teacher has covered the problem, but he certainly hasn’t explained it. The
episode is notable for its omissions—for what didn’t happen—more than for
what did. The teacher didn’t check to see if there was any understanding of
the rule at work for doing this sort of problem (Na x Nb = Na+b). He didn’t ask
students to explain the rule to see if there was any conceptual understanding
of why the rule works. He didn’t do any explaining of the process for doing
the problem. Importantly, he didn’t elicit any student participation to see how
many students and which ones might still be confused. For instance, he didn’t
check to see if any students could now do a similar problem. All he did was
CHAPTER
11
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indicate wrong and right answers. There is little about this episode that is clear—
to either the teacher or his students.
Clarity is the heart of what people usually mean when they think of teaching:
cognitive interaction. There are 10 categories of teacher behavior in Clarity, each
with its independent, deep, and validated research base (see Figure 11.1). We
have grouped them into these five functions:
1. Framing the learning
2. Presenting information
3. Supporting mental engagement
4. Getting inside students’ heads (that is, cognitive empathy)
5. Consolidating and anchoring the learning
We examine each of these categories of behavior and discuss the choices or reper-
toires available to us within each category.
1. FRAMING THE LEARNING
Framing the learning is divided into two groups of teacher behavior: (1) Com-
municating the Big Picture, which includes information teachers share with their
students to provide context for the lesson of the day, and (2) Assessing Readiness
to Receive, which involves gathering data from students to determine what they
already know or having them make preliminary connections to the upcoming
learning experiences.
Communicating the Big Picture
This first group of behaviors consists of behaviors that help students place new
information in a larger framework of meaning in the beginning of a lesson. They
are the following:
p Communicating the lesson objective: what the students will know or be able
to do at the end of the upcoming instruction.
p Giving students the itinerary: the list of activities or sequence of events
they’ll be doing.
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Figure 11.1 Clarity Functions and Categories of Teacher Behavior
• Summarizing• Communicate
the Big Picture:
• Objectives
• Itineraries
• Connect to a
big idea
• Preview
academic
vocabulary
• Explain why the
objective is
worthwhile
• State reasons
for activities
• Communicate
criteria for
success
• Assess Readiness
to Receive:
• Activate and
build students’
current
knowledge
• Pre-assess
• Anticipate
confusions and
misconceptions
• Explanatory
Devices:
• Analogies and
metaphors
• Gestures,
demonstrations,
and modeling
• Modeling
thinking aloud
• Physical models,
and visual
representations
• Graphic
organizers
• Interactive
whiteboards
• Mental imagery
• Presentation
software
• Minimal and
progressive
cueing
• Simulations,
educational
games, and
role plays
• Choose an
explanatory
device
• Speech
Patterns:
• Vagueness and
mazes
• Respecting
formal and
informal English
• Explicitness:
• Intentions
of cues
• Focus of
questions
• Necessary
steps in
directions
• Meaning of
references
• Make Cognitive
Connections:
• Showing
resemblance
• Compare and
contrast
• Extend to
implications
and future
actions
• Make transitions
between ideas
• Signal activity,
pace, level, or
content shifts
• Foreshadow
• Check for
Understanding
• Press on
• Read body
language
• Ask questions
• Dipsticking
• Unscramble
Confusion
• Making Students’
Thinking Visible:
• 24 operating
principles
• Break unhelpful
practice habits
1. Frame the
Learning
FIVE WAYS TO SUPPORT STUDENT UNDERSTANDING
2. Present
Information
3. Support
Mental
Engagement
4. Get Inside
Students’
Heads
5. Consolidate
and Anchor
Learning
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p Reminding students of the big idea or essential question of this lesson.
p Previewing academic vocabulary embedded in the lesson.
p Explaining the reason for an activity and how it helps meet the objective.
p Explaining why the learning is worthwhile and why it might matter to learn
this material.
p Identifying criteria for success when a student product or performance is
involved.
Research shows consistent correlation between these behaviors and improved
student learning. We do not yet know with numerical accuracy the proportional
role each plays in the ocean of factors that bear on student learning, but we do
know that each one matters and that there are a variety of ways to accomplish
each of them. We know further that a repertoire of these ways has been devel-
oped by practitioners. That is where we have discovered the repertoires devel-
oped below and, indeed, throughout The Skillful Teacher.
Communicating the Objective
The main point in communicating objectives is to introduce lesson activities with
something that casts them within a bigger frame, purpose, or objective so that the
students know what they’re going to learn, and what to focus on when they read,
listen, watch, or perform during instruction. Communicating objectives lets stu-
dents know, ideally, what they will know or be able to do as a result of the lesson.
This teacher is making a clear statement of an objective by letting students know
what they’ll be able to do when the instruction is over: “Today, we’re going
to learn how to write on paper what you’ve been telling me out loud in math
groups—that you have one-half, one-fourth, or three-fourths of a whole some-
thing. There is a special way of writing numbers that stand for those things,
and when we’re done today you’ll be able to use it.” On the board, she writes:
“SWBAT [students will be able to] use math language with accuracy and under-
standing to represent simple fractional parts.”
Most of us have been taught how to say and write behavioral objectives. That
language serves a purpose, but it need not be used all the time. The example
above happens to be a behavioral objective stated in language to match eight-
year-old children, but the objective may not be a detailed behavioral one at all.
Video:
Framing the
Learning—
Itineraries and
Big Ideas.
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Other language patterns can serve as well, for instance, “We’re going to look
at this film and see what we can learn about the personality characteristics of
Hemingway the man.” Once again, students are directed toward what they’re
supposed to focus on while viewing and what they’re supposed to know at
the end of the lesson. Such statements frame the big picture and should be
worded in student-friendly language to give students an overall orientation
to what is to follow so they can attend to what is important and make sense
of subsequent activities.
We have found that many schools now require teachers to write a daily objec-
tive on the board for students. That can be a useful practice so that students
have something to refer back to, but posting it is not sufficient. It has to be
accompanied by making sure students know what it is and what it means.
The point is that learning is empowered when students understand what they
are aiming to learn (Beesley & Apthorp, 2010), and something has to happen
beyond posting the objective on the board to assure that students understand
it. In Chapter 18, “Lesson Objectives,” we go more deeply into how one en-
sures the objective is appropriate for the students and that they understand
it. Those are the main points to remember.
Certain forms of constructivist teaching do not need to start with a state-
ment of the objective at the beginning of a lesson. Instead, the lesson might
be framed by a question to be answered through inquiry. In this way, stu-
dents can channel their efforts and curiosity, and focus their observations
productively. For example, the objective for a math lesson in the elementary
grades might be, “Students will be able to explain how a fractional part of an
overall area can have different shapes within that area.” Rather than state this
at the outset of the lesson, the teacher might say, “How many different ways
can you make quarters with rubber bands on this geoboard?” It is essential
that we know in clear terms what the mathematical objective is and eventu-
ally cause the students to produce language that captures this understanding
in their own words.
We don’t really know if the students understand the lesson objective unless
we ask them. A physics teacher we know regularly invites a visitor into his
room, especially during lab periods. The students have a checklist where they
get a bonus point if they explain the objective to the visitor; another, if they
explain how the activity they’re doing serves the objective; and yet another,
if they can explain the relevance to life of what they’re learning. Exhibit 11.1
presents the rubric used for this activity. Visitors are very popular with stu-
dents in this classroom!
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Giving Students an Itinerary
An itinerary is like an agenda or roadmap. It delineates the sequence of events
that will occur over the course of a class period. It tells what activities will take
place and in what order. For example, it is common to hear a teacher say, “This
morning we’ll be going over questions you have about last night’s assignment,
then beginning our study of cell structure with a video. The last 30 minutes
of the period will be time to continue working together on your group proj-
ects.” This useful information gives students a mental sequence to follow and lets
them know what to expect. An itinerary also affords students the opportunity to
keep track of what has happened, what is currently happening, and what’s still
to come. Learners with sequential learning styles are particularly responsive to
the practice of posting itineraries in a visible place.
Physics I
Teacher Spot-Check Rubric
Pre-Archimedes
Name:
For the teacher spot-check, you will be graded by the following rubric.
You must have at least 2 rubrics completed that meet the standard.
Standard Exceeds Meets Standards Comments
S7d: Student explains
a scientific concept to
others.
Explains how the ac-
tivity will help them to
learn the content.
Makes a connection
between activity and
the real world.
Explains the activity to
the visiting teacher.
Knows the goal of the
lesson.
Explains what has been
discovered so far in the
activity.
Explains what their role is
in the activity.
Teachers:
If students don’t offer up information unsolicited, please ask them probing questions regarding the items in the
“Meets Standards” column.
If a student is unable to explain any one of the items in the “Meets Standards” column, do not give them credit.
Please initial on the appropriate line below.
Exceeds Standards _______________
Meets Standards _______________
Does Not Meet Standards _______________
Teacher Signature: _______________________________ Date: ________________________
Exhibit 11.1 Teacher Spot-Check Rubric
Adapted from Janece Docal and Jeff Schmitz
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An itinerary serves as a complement to the objective but doesn’t replace com-
municating the objective itself. The objective specifies the learning outcome for
students (the destination); the itinerary tells them how they will get there. The
true test of whether students have understood the objective of a lesson might be
whether they can explain the connection between events on the itinerary and
what they are expected to know or be able to do when they have reached the
end of the journey (the objective). Giving clear directions and outlining what
procedures students are going to follow also complements but does not replace
communicating an objective or sharing the itinerary.
Connecting to a Big Idea
Another aspect of communicating the Big Picture and putting the immediate
lesson in the larger context is connecting students with the big idea of the unit,
and perhaps the essential question that embodies it. For example, “The water
cycle is one of the natural processes the earth uses to keep itself alive; and us
alive too. We’re exploring whether that cycle is in any danger and if we can do
anything about it.”
At the beginning of a unit, the teacher may spend considerable time developing
these big ideas. And during the unit, teachers often remind students of the big
idea at the beginning of a given lesson and connect the objectives of the day
with that idea: “After today’s material on water shortages, we may have a new
slant on private-public utility companies.”
Another possibility is to return to an advance organizer or concept map that
was used at the beginning of a course or unit of study to visually preview for
students how all of the concepts in the unit are interrelated or connected, or to
make connections between a new topic and what students have studied previ-
ously. The intention is to help students see where the daily focus of an objective
is part of a larger overall picture. Hattie (2009) cites research showing that ad-
vance organizers, when used to introduce new material, have a facilitative effect
on both learning and retention (Luiten, Ames, & Ackerman, 1980).
Previewing Academic Vocabulary
When the content of the lesson or the learning experience includes academic
vocabulary that might be new to students, this means highlighting those words,
expressions, or phrases in advance (posting them somewhere visually where they
can be revisited during the lesson) and explaining what they mean. Sometimes
it means simply posting them and mentioning that they will come up during
the lesson and explaining them later when they appear in context. Sometimes it
means adding them to a word wall or having students illustrate what they mean
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to ensure understanding. This anticipation of and attention to unfamiliar techni-
cal or academic vocabulary or expressions (“in comparison,” “as a result”) is espe-
cially critical for second language learners (Short & Echevarria, 2005).
Explaining Why the Objective Is Worthwhile
Communicating to students why the objective is worthwhile is the “Who cares?”
question. Students may know exactly what it is about the Vietnam War that
their teacher wants them to understand at the conclusion of the lesson, but they
may not think it matters. For some students, understanding the usefulness or
relevance of a learning objective makes a big difference in their investment in
the lesson. Writing about “quadrant-one learners” in describing different learn-
ing styles, McCarthy and McCarthy (2005) make the point that all learners need
reasons for why they are studying what their teachers are asking them to learn.
But knowing the reason is more than nice; it’s essential for imaginative learn-
ers. Many teachers erroneously assume that students buy into learning because
they see their teachers as experts who know what should be learned (McCarthy,
1987a). McCarthy says, “Students need reasons of their own. Giving them a rea-
son, a need of their own for proceeding, is so simple and fundamental that one
can only marvel that it is not done” (p. 92). We think, parenthetically, that this
same generalization applies to all adult learning as well, whether it be in college
courses, staff seminars, or professional development offerings. For all learners,
it will be useful to know why the topic is important to learn, and for a segment
of each audience it will be essential.
It is particularly important for some learners (and useful to all) to know the
reasons for understanding the principal causes of the Vietnam War and U.S.
involvement: “The reason this is important to us is that the Vietnam War has
causes in common with many other wars in history. If this country enters an-
other war, it’s likely that many of you will be urged to enter into the armed
services and have friends who go to fight. Therefore, it will be important to you
as citizens to be able to follow current events and the decisions of your leaders
in government to see where we’re headed. As citizens, you can make informed
choices in voting for leaders who stand for policies you want. Our study here
will help you decide in the future what you think we should fight for as a country
—and at some point, that choice is sure to be yours.”
Although not as dramatic, we might be equally clear about why it is worth-
while learning geometric proofs; studying myth as a literary genre; or learning
to identify by their attributes igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks.
Giving reasons for learning doesn’t necessarily happen with every lesson. Many
lessons are taking students one increment further or developing their skill one
degree higher on a particular objective. At the beginning of new units or topics,
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however, giving reasons for our objectives can be particularly appropriate. And
it never hurts to remind students from time to time why something is impor-
tant. Preparing to deliver these reasons to students can be a useful exercise for
us as teachers too. If we can’t formulate a good reason for learning something,
maybe we shouldn’t be teaching it.
Stating Reasons for Activities
Surprisingly, students often have no notion about the purpose of activities they
are asked to do and make no link between activities, the lesson objective, and
instruction they have just received (Tasker, 1981). “Reasons for activities” sim-
ply means telling students why they are asked to do a particular activity; why
the activity will help them learn something or contribute to a larger learning
or task performance. This is an example: “The reason we’re doing this experi-
ment is to show how hard it is to take data and record information simultane-
ously. You just can’t do it. So like all scientists, we’re going to have to extrapolate
our readings. Remember that term—extrapolate—from the graphs we worked
on in the chapter?” Here is another example: “The reason we’re doing these
sentence-combining worksheets is so you can use these same techniques to
make your own writing more interesting in the adventure stories we’re writing.”
These moves build a series of links back to objectives from individual activities
and between activities themselves as seen in Figure 11.2.
Sometimes the explanation shows students how the current activity fits into
patterns of other experiences they’ve been having or are about to have. This is
an example: “The reason I’m asking you to locate these references in the online
database is to ensure that you know how to use the software. Next month, when
you start your research papers, you’ll want to use this database a lot, and I won’t
T H E O B J E C T I V E
ACTIVITY
ONE
ACTIVITY
TWO
ACTIVITY
THREE
Figure 11.2 Reasons for Activities
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be around to help much of the time. So you’ve got to be able to use it indepen-
dently to find worthwhile resources related to your topic.”
Without these explanations, many students do assignments mechanically, with
minimal care and investment. They do them because they’re “work” and you’re
supposed to do your work. But the work isn’t leading, in a meaningful way,
toward anything they understand. Teachers who have worked with learning
styles and studied the intriguing work of McCarthy and McCarthy (2005) and
Gregorc and Butler (1984) know that quadrant-one learners—that is, big pic-
ture people—especially need to understand these connections.
Communicating Criteria for Success
The criteria for success in a student task, often a bulleted list, reveal in detail
what we really want the students to know or be able to do. Coming up with cri-
teria is a planning skill. Communicating them to students is a clarity behavior.
Clear teachers don’t keep criteria a secret; they make sure students understand
them and can use them to self-assess their work.
Chapter 18, “Lesson Objectives,” addresses, in detail, developing criteria for
success and the related topics of rubrics and providing students with exemplars
of student work that meet criteria. We mention these here, however, because
it is important to introduce and ensure that students understand the criteria
for success at the beginning of instruction or prior to working on a product or
performance in which they are expected to demonstrate achievement of the
lesson objective. We want to do everything we can to ensure that the quality of
their work meets the established criteria.
Assessing Readiness to Receive
The behaviors in this category also take place prior to instruction with new
material—sometimes in an earlier lesson—and increase the likelihood that in-
struction will be effective for more students. Two of the three (activating prior
knowledge and pre-assessment) provide data for the teacher to take into con-
sideration when finalizing the instructional plan, and may, in fact, provide data
to inform the third: anticipating confusion. Consider the importance of these
moves when it comes to our second language learners.
Many English language learners struggle with curriculum content because
they lack background knowledge of the topic or have gaps in the informa-
tion they have learned. Teachers must either activate what prior knowledge
exists and apply it to lessons or explicitly build background knowledge for
these students. For example, immigrant students may not have studied the
The criteria for
success reveal
in detail what we
really want the
students to know
or be able to do.
Video:
Criteria for
Success
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US Civil War in their native countries, but they may have studied another
war or even experienced a military conflict firsthand. By tapping into what
students know about such conflict, the teacher can set the context for a
lesson on the US Civil War. (Short & Echevarria, 2005, p. 11)
Coming up with examples of concepts in ways that connect to students’ cultural
history (for example, immigrants from El Salvador and that country’s civil war)
does two things. First, it validates their culture and history; culturally sensitive
teachers go out of their way to do this. Second, it enables cognitive connections
to something the students understand.
Activating and Building Students’ Current Knowledge
An activator is an activity designed to get students’ minds active and in gear
about a topic before they learn anything new about it. Activators can serve
many different purposes. They can be used to accomplish the following:
p Have students preview upcoming information.
p Pique student interest and support mental engagement.
p Gather data about what students already know.
p Surface misconceptions.
p Build confidence: “I already know something about . . .”
p Adapt lesson plans to match students’ background knowledge.
Research shows a cognitive payoff for student learning when teachers do this.
Techniques that activate students’ current knowledge about a topic not only
get students’ minds into a state of interest and heightened awareness but can
prevent the dreaded “Charlie Brown syndrome”:
Recall what Charlie Brown does when he gets a new book. Before he even
looks at the book, he counts pages—625 pages—“I’ll never learn all that!”
He is defeated before he starts, before he has had a chance to realize
that he does not have to learn all that. It is not all new. He already knows
something about it. He has not given himself the chance to learn what he
already knows about what he is supposed to know. (McNeill, 1984, p. 34)
There are many different ways one might activate and build students’ knowledge.
A teacher might ask students, “What do you already know about X (the upcom-
Video:
Activators
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ing topic)?” And as students brainstorm, the teacher records (or has students
individually record) their connections. As the concept or topic is studied, stu-
dents can go back to these initial lists to compare what they have learned with
their original ideas. Sometimes students find themselves fitting new learning into
old charts, and sometimes they find parts of their old conceptions contradicted.
In any event, having created an image of what they already know about a topic
places a map before them against which they bounce (and into which they put)
new information. It is in this way that activating serves the big picture.
Several variations of this idea (having students start with a blank piece of paper
and fill it with what they already know or at least think they know to be true)
are widely used in classrooms. “Know, Want to Know, and Learned” (some-
times referred to as “KWL” or the “three-column activator”) is one such ex-
ample used to preview and then summarize learning. As ideas are generated,
they are recorded in one of two columns: “What I Think Know” and “What I
Want to Know.” As students pursue the topic, they review the initial chart and
complete the third column, “What I Learned.” We use an alternate version in
which the three columns are “Know,” “Think I Know,” and “Want to Know”
(see Exhibit 11.2). We introduce a topic or show students a stimulus on a topic
they haven’t yet studied (headlines from a newspaper article, a picture on a
book cover with the title) and ask them to share aloud what they know, think
they know, or would like to know about this. As they share ideas, they assign
them to one of the three columns. No discussion or question answering occurs
during the building of the chart. This activity produces active participation, re-
veals student preconceptions, and generates student-owned agendas for read-
ing, viewing, listening, and investigating.
The charts are worth saving for a return visit after reading the piece or studying
the topic. Some “knows” may turn out to be untrue; some “think I knows” are
validated and others overturned; and all the “want to knows” should have been
answered or might lead to follow-up research.
Exhibit 11.2 Sample KWL Chart
Global Warming
Know Think I Know Want to Know
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Sometimes students need more than a blank sheet of paper (figuratively speak-
ing) to surface prior knowledge and begin to make connections to a topic.
There are other forms of activating that give students data to think about in
relation to the topic. A wordsplash (Hammond, 1985) takes 10 to 15 key words
or terms from an article, story, or text chapter and “splashes” them at random
angles and positions on a chart or whiteboard with the topic or focus of the
article in the center. In the sample (Figure 11.3), the words are about an animal,
the paca, found in Central America. Prior to reading, students are asked to fol-
low the rules of brainstorming in groups with a recorder as they respond to the
following direction: “Generate sentences for each of these terms to show how
you think they might be related to pacas, which are rodents found in South
and Central America.” This technique promotes wide student participation,
higher-level thinking, focused reading, and better comprehension. Because the
responses they generate should be considered tentative or speculative—and
subject to verification later—only one student in each group should record the
ideas generated, and the recording can be done directly on a copy of the word-
splash. Once students have studied the topic, they can each have copies of the
wordsplash and create a final reference copy for themselves with correct con-
nections for each term.
Sometimes students need to be given even more information about a topic
in order to preview it and activate their current knowledge. An Anticipation
Guide (Exhibit 11.3) invites students to react to statements about a topic with
either an agree-disagree or true-false response. In true-false, the statements
all reflect something a student should know with certainty when the lesson or
unit is complete. Some of the information contained in the statements might be
more familiar, affording all students an opportunity to feel confident that they
know something. Some of the statements might be ones that raise curiosity,
but most they wouldn’t be sure about; others might actually contain a com-
mon misconception with the intent of finding out how many of the students
PACAS–A RODENT TO
REPLACE CATTLE?
Inprinted
20 lbs.
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Def
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“Gibnut”
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Figure 11.3 Wordsplash
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have already bought into inaccurate information that will need to be addressed
head-on during the lesson/s. The advantage to this format is that regardless of
background knowledge all students can participate, take a stand on each item,
and hopefully get invested in finding out whether or not they are correct as they
learn about the topic. Once again, the ideal would be to return to this activator
during the course of instruction—or at the conclusion—and have students iden-
tify the correct responses to the statements. They might be asked to turn the in-
correct or false statements into true statements. With an agree-disagree format,
students can return to their original opinions as they study and decide if they
have changed their position. The important thing is that they are previewing
and reviewing ideas and concepts that are at the heart of the learning objectives.
Preview Anticipation Guide Review
I think . . . Photosynthesis Now I know . . .
YES NO YES NO
Shared with permission by Paul J. Frisch, Science Department, Fox Lane High School, Bedford, NY
Photosynthesis is ONLY performed by plants.
Phototrophs are the ONLY type of autotrophs.
The organism that performs the MOST photosynthesis on earth is algae.
Photosynthesis converts light energy into chemical energy.
Photosynthesis can only occur during the day.
Photosynthesis converts organic compounds into inorganic compounds.
Leaves are a special organ adapted for absorbing and catching sunlight.
Phototropic cells contain special organelles called chloroplasts.
Chloroplasts contain a special green pigment call chlorophyll.
Chlorophyll absorbs mostly green light.
Chlorophyll is the only pigment in chloroplasts that absorbs sunlight.
Plants and other phototrophs absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen.
Plants never need oxygen.
Glucose is the only end product of photosynthesis.
Oxygen released from phototrophs comes from the oxygen originally found in
carbon dioxide.
Exhibit 11.3 Sample Anticipation Guide
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A whole repertoire of activating techniques has been developed by practitio-
ners and researchers in the reading and language fields and are well worth
studying by teachers in all academic disciplines. They vary in terms of how
much information is given to students and how much students are asked to
generate themselves. Some take more time than others; some are verbal; some
are visual; some require advance preparation of materials; others don’t. What
they all have in common is that students actively seek to make connections to
an upcoming topic prior to beginning the study of it. Thus all have the effect of
getting students cognitively engaged and ready to receive.
To choose an activator that best matches a particular lesson or unit of study,
consider the following:
p What is my purpose?
p What is most important for students to know about this content, skill, or
strategy?
p What data do I already have about student understanding of this content
and what level of student interest in this content do I anticipate?
p What additional data do I need?
p Which of the activators will best suit these needs?
For a repertoire of activating strategies, visit the www.RBTeach.com web-
site and see our publication, Activators (Saphier & Haley, 1993), which gives
detailed directions for implementing 24 techniques.
Pre-Assessing Students’ Knowledge
Although it is true that the extent to which students will learn new content
is dependent on factors such as the skill of the teacher, the interest of the
student, and the complexity of the content, the research literature sup-
ports one compelling fact: what students already know about the content
is one of the strongest indicators of how well they will learn new informa-
tion relative to the content. (Marzano, 2004, p. 1)
Ausubel (1968) writes, “The most important single factor influencing learning
is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this, and teach him accordingly”
(p. 36). Gathering this information matters. If adequate prior knowledge is
absent, even a great lesson on new material will go for naught. If students
http://www.rbteach.com
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know more than we thought, we can go faster. If they lack some necessary prior
knowledge, then we need to alter the lesson plan and fill those gaps.
Pre-assessment and the data we collect as a result serve as the foundation for
critical planning decisions. This includes how we might want to differentiate in-
struction; what we will address with whole-group instruction; how we can form
flexible small groups to match teaching and learning experiences to student lev-
els of readiness or need with particular skills and objectives; and how to identify
confusion, misconceptions and other problems that might cause students dif-
ficulty with mastering an objective.
The activators we described earlier, have the purpose of getting students’ minds
engaged with a new topic. In addition to creating a desire to know and a sense
of competence in students, some activators can also serve as assessments of stu-
dents’ prior knowledge if completed individually by students, thus getting us
two for the price of one.
An Anticipation Guide is one example; a Sort Card activity is another. In a
math Sort Card pre-assessment, every student is given a set of cards each con-
taining a fraction. Students are asked to sort them into categories based on
their value. That can tell us quickly how well (and which) students understand
and can identify equivalent fractions. Here is another example: give students
a set of cards containing science vocabulary words, definitions, or sentences
missing key vocabulary words. Ask them to create triads of cards that go to-
gether. This will give us a quick sense of what terminology is familiar and what
needs to be explained or studied prior to introducing a new science topic.
The main purpose of a pre-assessment is to find out what students know and to
ensure that students’ prior knowledge gives them the readiness they need for
the upcoming instruction. Thus an important distinction between an activa-
tor and a pre-assessment is that an activator can be done with large or small
groups of students working together, whereas a pre-assessment must be done as
an individual activity in order to gather data from every student and to use the
data to guide instructional plans. This enables us to give all students the addi-
tional instruction they need to prepare for the new learning. This is particularly
important with background knowledge that is going to show up in a text and
is assumed by the author to be available to readers. Lemov (2017) emphasizes
this point. In Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement (2004),
Marzano discusses six principles we can apply to building background knowl-
edge and delineates thousands of academic vocabulary terms that are founda-
tional to understanding concepts in 11 different content areas.
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There are many other direct ways besides activators to find out what students
know. A brief quiz the day before a lesson, a scan of the previous night’s home-
work, a 3-2-1 self-assessment of students’ degree of familiarity or confidence
with terminology or processes relevant to a topic, a quick-write: all these might
serve as a tool for pre-assessments.
Anticipating Confusions
There are three forms of anticipating confusions. One of them means finding
out what the misconceptions are and addressing them directly. Otherwise, they
will linger and distort students’ assimilation of instruction (Eaton, Anderson,
& Smith, 1984). Strategically designed pre-assessments or activating activities
can serve as terrific resources for uncovering misinformation students have
internalized. The Photosynthesis Anticipation Guide (Exhibit 11.3) is a good
example of that. Can you find the untrue statements that are based on miscon-
ceptions?
Two other forms of anticipating confusions are predicting in advance the mate-
rial that will be hard to learn and noticing or perceiving on the fly that students
might not understand.
1. Misconceptions
A cartoon shows a little boy standing on his head on a bathroom scale. His
friend reads the weight and says, “Your head weighs 43 pounds—same as your
feet.” As in the cartoon, students bring many misconceptions to instruction,
misconceptions that can be resistant to change and interfere with instruction if
they are not recognized and contradicted.
A series of investigations by science educators (Eaton, Anderson, & Smith,
1984; Eylon & Linn, 1988) revealed many misconceptions students have about
how the world works: for example, “air is empty space”, “my eyes see by direct
perception” (rather than receiving reflected light), and “we have summer when
the earth is closer to the sun.” They bring these misconceptions to instruction,
and unless we discover them, surface them, and explicitly contradict them, stu-
dents hold onto them and reconcile them with the instructional information.
The resulting maps they create in their heads may seem logically consistent, but
they’re wrong and present serious obstacles to learning. This can happen even
when the instruction is ostensibly clear as a bell—because of the failure to ac-
count for the misconceptions students bring with them to the instruction. And
though the research is best developed for science concepts, there is no reason
to believe the same thing does not happen with concepts from any discipline.
We must be aware that students do not come to class as blank slates.
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2. Predicting in Advance
In a second form of anticipating confusion, teachers use what they know about
their students and their content to anticipate confusion and probable points
of misunderstanding because the material is difficult to understand or easy to
misinterpret. The teacher anticipates, for example, that when explaining free fall
in physics, students might think free fall refers only to an object falling toward
earth, straight down from a height. Free fall, however, means any situation in
which an object is moving only because of the force of gravity. That includes the
motion of an object in orbit around a central body, like the moon around the
earth. It is accurate to say the moon is in free fall around the earth or that space
shuttles are in free fall around the moon when they are in stable orbit. Free fall in
these situations means “falling around,” that is, with circular motion of objects
in orbit in space.
By anticipating confusions, teachers become aware of places where students are
likely to have difficulty understanding and can spend time clarifying the mate-
rial before students become confused. Science curriculum supervisor Jaunine
Fouché (2015) describes a protocol she uses that includes “predictive question-
ing” and “strategic discourse” to effectively uncover and clarify students’ mis-
conceptions. The protocol has four phases where students predict (the outcome
of a potentially discrepant event), explain (their reasoning), observe (the actual
phenomenon or data), and revise (by engaging in small-group discourse that
leads to them revising their explanations based on new evidence).
3. Noticing “On the Fly”
Sometimes a teacher becomes aware of a possible confusion on the fly while
teaching and makes a preventive move right then. A student is correctly solv-
ing an algebra equation but is manipulating terms in his head at a rate the other
students might not be able to follow. So with an on-the-fly move to prevent
confusing the other students, the teacher interrupts the student and says to the
class, “Wait! See what he’s doing here. He’s doing two steps at once in his head;
he’s cross-multiplying and taking the square root. Okay, go ahead, Todd.” This
teacher has slowed the action for the benefit of the others and unpacked the two
steps that Todd was doing simultaneously in his head, which the teacher antici-
pates the other students might not be able to understand.
Anticipating confusion on the fly is one of the most subtle and difficult perfor-
mances to observe because when one does this effectively, students do not, in
fact, become confused. We “head it off at the pass,” taking care of the potential
lack of understanding before it develops. For this reason, it represents a high
level of sophistication in clarity. It requires both the disposition and ability to get
inside students’ heads. This is, in fact, the foundation of this entire set of clarity
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skills. Teachers who are skillful at clarity want to know how learning is going for
their students, and they have a repertoire of ways for finding out. They have a
degree of cognitive empathy for the workings of the learners’ minds—an ability
to put themselves in the learners’ shoes—and that guides everything they do.
2. PRESENTING INFORMATION
This section is about that part of teaching and learning in which we are directly
teaching (or reviewing) new content, concepts, and skills. Two major consider-
ations here are the devices we use to introduce or explain a skill or concept and
the characteristics of our verbal presentation that accompanies them.
Explanatory Devices
Explanatory devices are tools that can be used to present information and ex-
plain concepts within any content and any approach to teaching. The repertoire
includes the explanatory devices listed in Table 11.1.
When a concept or a process is being presented and explained, we know that
some learners will rely heavily for understanding on visual representations
(diagrams, models, demonstrations); some on auditory representation (verbal
analogies, modeling thinking aloud); and others on tangible, concrete repre-
sentations (physical models or materials they can manipulate, simulations they
become a part of ). Most of us rely to varying degrees on all three modalities for
taking in and absorbing information most effectively. Known for his extensive
research on second language learning and bilingualism, Jim Cummins (2001)
Table 11.1 Explanatory Devices
• Analogies and Metaphors • Minimal and Progressive Cueing
• Gestures, Demonstrations, and Modeling • Simulations, Educational Games, and Role Plays
• Modeling Thinking Aloud • Computer or Tablet Applications
• Physical Models and Visual Representations • Charts and Diagrams
• Graphic Organizers • Audio and Video Recordings Including Singing
• Interactive Whiteboards • Highlighting Important Information
• Mental Imagery • Pictures and Photographs
• Presentation Software • Translation into Simpler Language
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uses the terms “context embedded” and “context reduced” to describe the differ-
ence between information communicated with and without accompanying con-
textual clues (intonation, gestures, visuals, etc.) that support meaning making.
He underscores the critical importance of accompanying verbal or linguistic
presentations with visuals and other contextual cues to ensure that cognitively
demanding concepts are made accessible to second language learners.
Thus when we think about how to best serve all of our students with these tools,
we must ask ourselves, “Am I explaining in ways that enable all students to see,
hear, and experience the content or concept?” If not, we are missing some learn-
ers. An advantage to planning with this in mind is that we are more likely to
maximize the benefits of even a singular explanatory device by enhancing how
we use it. For example, we might want to use fraction rods (a physical model)
to demonstrate the concept of equivalent fractions. Students will see the model
and hear us talk through the explanation as we demonstrate. But if we give each
of them a set of fraction rods to construct the model along with us, we incorpo-
rate the third (kinesthetic) modality.
Any one of the explanatory devices—or a combination—can be powerful ve-
hicles for supporting student understanding. Because many of the explanatory
devices are self-explanatory, we discuss these in more detail: (1) analogies and
metaphors; (2) gestures, demonstrations, and modeling; (3) modeling thinking
aloud; (4) physical models and visual representations; (5) graphic organizers; (6)
interactive whiteboards; (7) mental imagery; (8) presentation software; (9) mini-
mal and progressive cueing; (10) simulations, educational games, and role plays.
Analogies and Metaphors
Analogies support student understanding when they connect the new learning to
something the students already know. In some cases, they create visual images, for
example: “The growth of a glacier is like pancake batter being poured in a frying pan.
As more and more substance is added to the middle, the edges spread farther and
farther out” (Ormrod, 2004, p. 245). When appropriately chosen, analogies are effec-
tive devices for augmenting student learning (Bulgren, Deshler, Schumaker, & Lenz,
2000). However, Ormrod cautions that teachers must “point out ways in which the
two things being compared are different, otherwise students may take an analogy too
far and draw incorrect conclusions” (p. 224).
“A metaphor basically reimagines or re-expresses something in one category
(domain) in terms of another category (domain) to clarify or further thinking”
(Wormeli, 2009, p. 6). For example, English teacher Karen Molter describes an epic
as a baseball game: “the hero starts at home, needs to leave for a quest, encoun-
ters trials along the way that prevent him from his ultimate goal: returning home”
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(Wormeli, 2009, p. 151). These can be especially effective to support understanding
for second language learners when we can create a metaphor that re-expresses a
concept in a domain that is familiar to the students. Wormeli offers a “metaphor
quality scale” as a guide to ensure that our metaphors serve our intended purpose
of supporting understanding of a concept. He includes the following attributes:
p Items being compared are identifiable to the student.
p The metaphor doesn’t distort the truth or leave to chance students focusing
on an attribute of the compared item that is misleading.
p Taken literally, the metaphor can’t be true.
p The items being compared exist in different domains.
p The metaphor engages the recipient personally (has personal meaning, is
clever or witty). (Adapted from Wormeli, 2009, p. 12)
Gestures, Demonstrations, and Modeling
The best, most charismatic speakers and influencers know the importance of
using hand gestures (Van Edwards, 2015). While it may seem a small or incon-
sequential part of our presentations and explanations, there is a considerable
body of research that highlights how beneficial the intentional use of physical
gestures can be for reinforcing and highlighting the content we are presenting.
In a 7-minute YouTube video, Vanessa Van Edwards (author and founder of
the website The Science of People) highlights several ways in which we can use
hand gestures to “underline or bold” our words and create anchors or hooks
for our students. For example, anytime we mention a number (“there are 4
reasons why . . .” or “3 critical attributes of . . .”) we can punctuate by holding
up a matching number of fingers. If we are talking about growth, “really BIG
growth” or a “really BIG problem” can be represented by stretching our arms
wide; “just a tiny bit of growth” or “just a little problem, no big deal” can be ex-
pressed with a slight separation of two fingers. To support students in tracking
and keeping separate our explanations of two ideas, groups, characters, etc., we
gesture by holding one in the left hand and one in the right (“in this election,
we have the leading Republican candidate”—left hand—“and the leading Dem-
ocratic candidate”—right hand). Then, anytime we reference one group or the
other, we hold them in the hand as originally referenced. For more examples of
this kind of gesturing visit www.scienceofpeople.com.
Teachers of world languages capitalize on the intentional use of gestures and
modeling when speaking in a language that students are learning. Students learn
Video:
Gestures
http://www.scienceofpeople.com
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vocabulary and structure of the language by simultaneously hearing it modeled
and seeing gestures that cue the meaning. Total Physical Response (TPR) is a pop-
ular scheme for embedding gesture in language learning (Asher, 2003).
Demonstrations and modeling are more self-evident as devices for explaining a
process or a concept. They might include a physical education teacher demon-
strating the proper way to hold or swing a bat, a first-grade teacher modeling for
students how to space letters when printing a word, an art teacher demonstrat-
ing how to throw clay on a wheel, or a math teacher demonstrating the use of
a graphing calculator. The teacher serves as an example when both visual and
auditory demonstration of the steps in a process are needed. Note how this form
of modeling is different from the one that follows, Modeling Thinking Aloud.
Modeling Thinking Aloud
Modeling Thinking Aloud is another one of the least seen and most powerful of
the explanatory devices. It is especially useful in teaching any kind of problem-
solving or multi-step complex operation or procedure. Yet it is noticeably absent
especially in middle and high school classrooms (Lapp, Fisher, & Grant, 2008).
It is done in front of the class as a dialogue with oneself thinking through a
process step by step as a student would, and role-playing just what to do. This
includes being puzzled, making mistakes, self-correcting, and checking oneself
along the way. By doing the thinking aloud, we show students where the pitfalls
are and how to get through common hang-up points, as well as model the ap-
propriate steps.
A partial example of modeling thinking aloud for organizing notes to write an
essay on the Civil War might sound like this:
Let’s see. I’ve got all these note cards I wrote while I was reading the dif-
ferent books. Let me lay them out in front of me. [Lays cards out on table.]
Hmmmm. Now, how can I use them to figure out what to say? Maybe I
can group them. Let’s see . . . these three are notes about how different
battles went, the mistakes, and the good strategy moves. Okay, I’ll put
them together. . . . And these ones are about Lincoln hiring and firing the
various generals. [Puts those together.] And these are about the stuff and
money each army had behind it, and how they raised money in the North
versus the South to pay for the army. [Puts those together.] . . . No, wait.
This one with “value of land” isn’t really about financing the war. It’s about
farming and getting supplies. [Goes on grouping the note cards and say-
ing out loud what she’s thinking.]
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. . . Okay, now I’ve got the groups. What’s the point I want to make about
each group? The topic sentence? . . . So this group, the generals. Well,
Lincoln went through a lot of them before he found Grant. That could be
the point. . . . Anything else? Well, actually he gave them each a long
time and a lot of leeway before he fired them. They had to really mess up
before he would relieve them of command. And they all did! Okay, that’s
my point then, two points really: that Lincoln gave them a lot of leeway
to prove themselves, but he replaced them when they messed up. Now
let’s see, how will I frame that topic sentence?
Subsequent modeling thinking aloud in this scenario might be used to show
how one chooses supporting details for the topic sentence from the note cards.
Think-alouds can be used with all age levels to explicitly teach reading com-
prehension strategies (making connections, visualizing, asking questions). It
is applicable in any content area for showing how good readers do certain
things before, during, and after reading. Think-alouds can be used to model
thought processes a tennis player goes through in planning and executing a
serve, or how to factor a quadratic equation, or how to apply criteria for suc-
cess to self-evaluate a piece of work.
Modeling Thinking Aloud is different from explaining the steps in a process
through direct teaching. Figure 11.4 illustrates the planning steps for effective
Modeling Thinking Aloud. While we are doing it, we become actors on stage,
intentionally not interacting with our audience, and instead putting on a kind
of “cognitive show” for them. We need to alert students in advance that they
will be our audience, should watch closely what is going on, and be prepared
to describe afterwards what they saw and heard. As we make our internal dia-
logue external, students should hear us:
p Asking ourselves questions.
p Weighing alternatives and using criteria to choose.
p Self-correcting after false starts.
p Persisting when an initial approach doesn’t yield progress.
The last step in modeling thinking aloud is to collect from the students what
strategies they saw us use, what questions we asked, etc. This summarizing on
their part enables us to assess what they did and didn’t notice, and to highlight
anything essential that they missed. If we record the essentials as they sum-
Video:
Modeling Thinking
Aloud—Elementary
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marize, we also create a visual artifact (a poster) that can serve as a reference of
the process for students when they are working independently.
Lapp and colleagues (2008) describe a process of interactive think-alouds that
embeds the gradual release of responsibility (Pearson & Gallagher, 1983) in
three stages: modeling, scaffolding, and practicing independently. Following
the initial teacher modeling, the think-aloud becomes interactive, guided by
the teacher with pauses that prompt students to use the strategy on their own or
with a partner. Lapp illustrates the interactive nature of this phase in a detailed
script of a high school chemistry teacher modeling for students how a proficient
reader grapples with the problems of unfamiliar vocabulary, new concepts, text
features, and text structures and how to apply what they already know to com-
prehend complex text. As the teacher moves into the interactive phase, she con-
tinues to read the text aloud, pausing intermittently, and prompting students to
apply a strategy: “Make a prediction . . . now read with a partner and check your
prediction . . . turn to your partner and share an experience you have had like
this . . . what does this make you think about? . . .” Thus students have a guided
opportunity to try on relevant and specific strategies that will support them
in making meaning. The final phase has students summarize what they have
learned and practice independently.
M O D E L I N G T H I N K I N G A L O U D
Identify the
skill you want
to teach
Select a task or
example that
requires the
successful
application of
the skill
Figure out the
exact steps
needed to
complete the
task you want
students to apply
later on their
own
Plan a
think-aloud
script as if
you are a
struggling
student,
making sure
you anticipate
pitfalls, traps,
and difficulties
and how to
overcome them
1 2 3 4
Figure 11.4 Four Planning Steps for an Effective Modeling Thinking Aloud
Video:
Modeling Thinking
Aloud—Secondary
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Guidelines for Planning the MTA
1. Identify the skill you want to teach.
2. Select a task or example that requires the successful application of the skill.
3. Figure out the exact steps needed to complete the task you want students to apply later
on their own.
4. Plan a think-aloud script as if you are a struggling student, making sure you anticipate pitfalls,
traps, and difficulties and how to overcome them.
Guidelines During the MTA Lesson
5. Explain Why. The students have to know why the teacher is doing the modeling. Tell them what
you want them to learn from it.
6. Model. Model the skill using the following guidelines:
a. Put yourself in the role of the learner
b. Have an audience
c. Do not let the audience interact with you
d. Think aloud through the task, operation, or problem. Be sure to include asking yourself
questions, weighing alternatives and encountering difficulties, false starts and
self-corrections, persistence.
7. Debrief. After completing the think-aloud, ask the students what strategies or procedures they
saw you utilize as you performed the task.
8. Record and Display. Record the steps of the task and post the visual where students will be able
to refer to it for future use.
9. Practice the Steps. Have students practice the steps out loud so that they can get feedback on
whether they covered all the steps. Think-Aloud Paired Problem-Solving (TAPP) is a powerful
way for students to practice the think-aloud steps in groups.
10. Extend. Encourage student to think about using the Think-Aloud process for other applications.
Exhibit 11.4 Ten Steps for Modeling Thinking Aloud (MTA)
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To be most effective, think-alouds should be planned in advance, outlining for
ourselves exactly what needs to be modeled: the thought processes and struc-
tures that are most salient, the traps, and pitfalls that students are likely to en-
counter, and the strategies students need to navigate difficulties. See Exhibit
11.4 for a summary of the steps for effective Modeling Thinking Aloud.
Physical Models and Visual Representations
A model is something students can see and sometimes touch that is used to
explain an idea, or the nature or meaning of a concept to be learned. Models
might be actual concrete objects (tools or artifacts from another time period to
understand aspects of a culture), physical replicas (a torso of the human body
containing removable organs and components of each system, a scale relief
map showing various geologic formations), manipulative objects that represent
the value or nature of the concept (Cuisenaire rods for demonstrating math
operations and place value concepts, multi-colored cubes that can be linked
together to show DNA structure), or visual representations (showing how mul-
tiplication works using arrays of cut-out graph paper).
Figure 11.5 A Model of Three Ways to Multiply
An example of a visual representation 1 x 12 is shown in Figure 11.5. One long
column of 12 squares cut out from chart paper where the squares are one square
inch represents 1 x 12; 2 x 6 is represented by two columns of six squares, also
cut out from the same chart paper and taped on the board next to the 1 x 12
column; and another array of three columns with four squares in each column
(3 x 4 = 12) is taped right next to the other two. This presents a model of three
different ways to multiply numbers and get the same product. Thus it serves as
a sense anchor in memory for the concept that teachers and students can use as
common references for the idea, “Remember when we had the arrays of graph
paper taped to the board? Well, that’s the kind of relationship that’s going on in
this word problem.” Figure 11.6 shows additional models representing multi-
plication in different real-world situations.
3 X 42 X 6
1 X 12
3 X 4
2 X 6
1 X 12
Video:
Physical Models
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0 5 10 12”
4” 4” 4”
15
Equal Groups
Three bags of candy with 4 in each bag.
How many candies?
Allocation/Rate
She walked 3 miles each hour. She walked for 4
hours. How many miles did she walk altogether?
Array Models
Sue has a cupcake tray. It holds 4 cupcakes in each
of the 3 rows. How many cupcakes does she have?
Area Models
The room is 3 feet by 4 feet. How many square
feet of carpet are needed?
Scaler Models
Sue has $4. Tom has three times as much.
How much money does Tom have?
Cartesian Models
She has 3 pairs of pants and 4 shirts.
How many different outfits can she put together?
Linear/Measurement Models
She measured 3 groups of 4 inches.
How many inches?
3 x 4 = 12
3 x 4 = 12
3 x 4 = 12
3 x 4 = 12
3 x 4 = 12
3 x 4 = 12
3 x 4 = 12
3 times as many
3 miles
Figure 11.6 Multiplication Models
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Technology affords us an unbounded variety of opportunities to explain con-
cepts, structures, time, and place using visual models that are colorful, animated,
and often able to be manipulated by students and viewed from a 3-D perspective
to support understanding.
Graphic Organizers
Graphic organizers (Figure 11.7) are “words on paper, arranged to represent
an individual’s understanding of the relationship between the words” (Clarke,
1991, p. 30). Concept maps (Novak, 1991) and thinking maps (Hyerle & Alper,
2011) are a specialized subset of graphic organizers where the form of think-
ing (cause-effect, part-whole, comparison and contrast, description, or problem
Historical
Fiction
set in
past
times
based in
historical
setting
may not
be
historically
accurate
Government
Local State National
Figure 11.7 Graphic Organizers
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and solution) embedded in printed or spoken text indicates the use of a particu-
lar format for the diagram. In other words, the visual form of each organizer is
matched to the kind of thinking it is intended to represent.
When used as an explanatory device in a presentation, students witness a teacher
recording key ideas or terms and their relationships on an enlarged version of an
organizer to make the verbal presentation more visual. See Figures 11.8 and 11.9 for
an example of how science teacher, Nancy Sanger, uses two organizers (compare-
contrast and cycle) to explain the processes of photosynthesis and respiration, how
they are similar and different, and the interplay between the two processes in the
production and absorption of carbon dioxide and oxygen. As she walks through
her presentation, she records key words in their respective places. Thus students are
able to track visually what she is explaining verbally. At the same time, students are
recording along with her (taking notes) on their own copy of the organizer. Finally,
students are asked to use the organizer to explain the processes to a partner and to
sketch or explain these processes in their own words in their interactive notebooks
where they have inserted the organizers. Note the interplay and progression Nancy
has embedded here between teacher narrative and visual representation followed
by student-generated narrative in an effort to support true assimilation of the con-
tent and concepts. What do you think this accomplishes?
Uses CO2
Releases O2
Autotrophs
Chloroplast
CO2 & O2
involved
?
Complementary
Processes
?
Uses O2
Releases CO2
Autotrophs
&
Heterotrophs
Mitochondria
Photosynthesis Respiration
Figure 11.8 Compare and Contrast Double Bubble
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CO2
Plants
(Autotrophs)
O2
Photosynthesis
Respiration
CO2O2 Photosynthesis
Respiration
Plants
(Autotrophs)
(Plants + Animals)(Plants + Animals)
CARBON/
OXYGEN
CYCLE
Figure 11.9 Carbon/Oxygen Cycle
There are a great many terms used for special-purpose graphic organizers: mind
maps, story maps, semantic maps, webs, concept maps, thinking maps, and clusters.
Some of them (mind maps, clusters, semantic maps) are used for recording a
rapid flow of ideas, and are taught to students for their own use in recording and
organizing their thoughts prior to writing or research. Others (story maps) are
used when students are reading literature to record plot line and character de-
velopment in visual form. Still others (concept maps, a term commonly used in
science and social studies) are used to record the relationships between concepts
and facts in visual form and profile the essential attributes and non-attributes
of the concepts themselves (Bulgren, 1991). A research tradition in the reading
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field (Armbruster, Anderson, & Ostertag, 1989; Heimlich & Pittelman, 1986;
McGee & Richgels, 1986) has demonstrated that graphic organizers improve
comprehension when used as adjuncts to good instruction. Even students in
the primary grades can understand ideas more clearly when they are repre-
sented through graphic organizers.
Graphic organizers help students accomplish the following:
p See relationships between concepts and elements.
p Organize information into a coherent structure.
p Pay attention to important items.
p Capitalize on visual learning and activate the right brain.
Beyond their use as explanatory devices, graphic organizers are very worthwhile
tools for students to learn to use for planning (a piece of writing or presenta-
tion), organizing their note-taking when reading text, and summarizing their
understanding of content or concepts and their relationships to one another. For
some students, using a graphic organizer to represent their understanding can be
preferable to writing a narrative. In order for students to use organizers in these
ways, they have to learn that all text is written according to some structure of
thinking. Then they need to develop a mindset for analyzing what type of think-
ing or relationships are embedded in text and be able to identify a corresponding
graphic form that could be used to represent it. Thus the different forms of or-
ganizers need to be introduced systematically and practiced over time. Then one
might hear a teacher give this assignment: “Take notes on your reading tonight
and choose the form of graphic organizer you think most appropriate.” This is
asking students not only to be active readers, but also to be analysts of the form
of thinking used to organize the information.
Teachers can move students toward independence with graphic organizers, and
toward being active thinkers and readers by phasing in these devices slowly, as in
the following sequence over several weeks or a semester.
p Phase 1: The teacher makes a presentation or leads a discussion and re-
cords information using a graphic organizer as class discussion develops.
p Phase 2: The teacher chooses the form and fills in the main entries and
subordinate entries as discussion proceeds. The teacher identifies the form
of organizer being used and names the kind of thinking it represents.
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p Phase 3: The teacher chooses the form, fills in the main elements of the
form for the students, and has the students fill in the rest.
p Phase 4: The teacher chooses the form of the organizer, and students make
all the entries.
p Phase 5: Students choose the form and make all the entries.
Graphic organizers are very useful tools for directly teaching thinking skills be-
cause identifying and naming the form of thinking behind the organization of
the material under study automatically happens at mature stages with this device.
Interactive Whiteboards
In a study that involved 85 teachers and 170 classrooms, teachers used
interactive whiteboards to teach a set of lessons, which they then taught
to a different group of students without using the technology (see Marzano
& Haystead, 2009). . . . The results indicated that, in general, using interac-
tive whiteboards was associated with a 16 percentile point gain in student
achievement. This means we can expect a student at the 50th percentile
in a classroom without the technology to increase to the 66th percentile in
a classroom using whiteboards. (Marzano, 2009, p. 80)
Marzano (2009) identifies three features of interactive whiteboards that have a
statistically significant relationship with student achievement: using the learner
response devices (26-percentile point gain in student achievement); the use of
graphics, and other visuals (pictures, video clips, sites such as Google Earth,
graphs and charts) to represent information; and the interactive whiteboard
reinforcer in which teachers signal that an answer is correct. This may include
dragging and dropping correct answers into specific locations, acknowledging
correct answers with virtual applause, and uncovering information hidden under
objects. Interactive reinforcers were associated with a 31-percentile point gain
in student achievement.
But the point is, it is not just using whiteboards, it is using them well. Because the
study also showed that in 23% of the cases teachers had better results without the
interactive whiteboards, video was used to study teachers using the boards and
found several potential pitfalls in the use of the technology:
p Using the voting devices but doing little with the data.
p Not organizing or pacing the content well (running through important in-
formation quickly without allocating time for students to analyze or interact
with one another).
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p Using too many visuals (making it difficult to identify the important content).
p Paying too much attention to reinforcing features (where the emphasis
seemed to be on eliciting applause rather than clarifying content).
He makes the following recommendations for using whiteboards more effec-
tively:
p Group information into small meaningful segments before developing
digital flip charts, then develop the flip charts to complement the organiza-
tion.
p Plan places to stop the presentation so students have an opportunity to
process and analyze new information.
p Ensure that visuals clearly focus on the important information.
p Limit the number of visuals and amount of written information on a flip
chart.
p After collecting student responses using voting devices, pause to discuss
the correct answer along with the incorrect answers and elicit opinions
from as many students as possible as to why they chose a particular answer.
p When using reinforcing features (like virtual applause), make sure stu-
dents focus on why an answer is correct or incorrect to keep the focus on
essential content.
When used effectively, additional advantages of whiteboards cited in other re-
search include the positive effect they have on student engagement and motiva-
tion to participate, the ability to support a variety of learning modalities (audi-
tory, visual, and kinesthetic), and the opportunity to enhance student retention
and review processes (SMART Technologies White Paper, 2004).
Mental Imagery
One of the most powerful and least used explanatory devices is mental im-
agery. When used for explaining and supporting student understanding, it
means guiding students through a well-structured comprehensible narrative
that enables them to form images in their heads of a concept; an analogy for
a concept; or a setting, a mood, a period in time that is unfamiliar to them, or
is difficult to explain or represent through other means. The narrative is used
to guide the details of the images we want them to form. The uses of guided
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imagery are legion and cross all curriculum areas. A guided imagery trip of a
seedpod traveling from the mother plant to germination miles away can illus-
trate the steps and mechanisms of seed migration memorably. A trip inside an
imaginary atom can illustrate properties of nuclei and electron orbits in ways
that would not be feasible or accurate using a physical model. An imagery trip
around a familiar playing field can firmly anchor the concept of perimeter. Using
guided imagery to reconstruct conditions inside the Mayflower prior to landing
on the New England coast can make the study of the colony’s founding vivid
and real for students. Using imagery to have primary children see themselves
re-entering the room after recess, checking the assignment board for tasks, and
walking slowly and quietly to their places can dramatically improve behavior
at transitions.
The following guidelines are useful for planning imagery exercises with students:
p Clarify for students the purpose of the imagery experience: “I want you to be
able to understand the vast relative distance that exists between the nucleus of
the atom and the electrons orbiting around that nucleus.”
p Set the scene: “We are going to take a trip inside an atom.”
p Provide background knowledge and/or vocabulary to support mental imag-
es. Sometimes a simple teacher-drawn sketch or picture will enable students
to understand the imagery: “So in an atom we have three critical components:
the nucleus that contains the protons and the neutrons and the electrons orbit-
ing outside of the nucleus. This imagery is designed to help you see what I can’t
sketch accurately here: how far away from the nucleus an electron can be at a
given point in time.”
p Direct participants to get in a comfortable position, preferably without
crossed limbs. “Relax, check that your feet are on the floor, head is up to sup-
port you in forming images, eyes closed.”
p Prepare and deliver a script with sufficient detail to evoke images.
p Plan pauses at appropriate points to allow images to form.
p Use music if it fits. “New age” or baroque pieces are often recommended.
Note: While music can be really useful in blocking out a myriad of distract-
ing sounds in the environment and anchoring the images students form,
there might be some learners who find the music itself a distraction because
they get focused on the music rather than the narrative. It is a good thing to
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find out after using it a first time whether students found the music helpful
or distracting to guide your planning in the future.
p Check for understanding. We need to conclude any imagery experience by
checking for understanding, asking students to describe or draw what they
saw to ensure that they absorbed the most important points the imagery is
trying to represent.
As effective as mental imagery can be for supporting student understanding,
we need to be aware that in any class there may be some students who are
weak visual learners and cannot image easily. This is no reason to avoid us-
ing imagery; strengths can be built through practice. But it is a strong reason
to acknowledge the possibility beforehand to prevent such a student blaming
himself or herself (or you) for inadequacy. Bailey White (2009) has written a
humorous piece titled “The Dance of the Chicken Feet” that could be used to
address this issue with middle to upper grade students. Finally, as is the case
with any one of the explanatory devices, this is also a reason not to rely exclu-
sively on imagery to teach a particular piece of content.
We need to prompt students who have imagery skills to use them as tools for
comprehending and teach those who don’t how to use it. A natural extension of
using imagery to explain a concept is to teach students how to form images in
their minds to support comprehension and retention of what they read. Conyers
and Wilson (2014) refer to them as “brain movies” that help students make sense
of complex nonfiction subject matter. Citing research by Allan Paivio on dual
coding theory (the notion that human “cognition consists of both a verbal system
for language and a non-verbal visual spatial one for images”), Conyers and Wil-
son (2014) advocate the need to explicitly teach students how to form images as
they read in order to “tap into both the verbal and visual-spatial representational
systems, making abstract concepts more concrete and thus more meaningful and
memorable.” They outline a process for doing the direct teaching of imagery.
Algozzine and Douville (2004) describe a strategy called the Sensory Activation
Model (SAM) which is designed to assist students in constructing their own
multi-sensory images (see it, hear it, taste it, smell it, feel it). With SAM, teachers
model and then explicitly teach students how to use SAM as an aid in the con-
struction of their own images to enhance both reading and writing processes.
Imagery has long been used in sports to improve physical performance (Whisler
& Marzano, 1988). Athletes use mental rehearsal to focus their minds, concen-
trate, and practice and, in the process, improve their performance. In school,
these same powers can be brought to bear to focus attention on academic mate-
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rial, elucidate meaning more clearly, and activate visual and right-brain channels
for stronger learning.
Presentation Software
Presentation software includes any program (PowerPoint, Prezi, Keynote, Haiku
Deck, etc.) we might use to create a sequence of text and graphics, and some-
times audio and video to accompany our direct teaching. To use it effectively,
many of the same guidelines mentioned earlier for interactive whiteboards
apply (Boesenecker, 2011):
p Plan your presentation first, then design your slides to support and comple-
ment it.
p Less is more: limit the number of slides (approximately 5 substantive slides
for every 15 minutes of presentation) and limit the number of words per
slide (some experts recommend a “6 x 6” guideline: maximum 6 bullet
points per slide and 6 words per bullet point).
p Keep the focus on the content—avoid complex or brightly colored back-
grounds; stick to black on white or something equally simple.
p Stick with simple animation—“appear on click” vs. slide, twist, or warp text
as it is introduced.
p Use the slides as a complement to your verbal presentation—design bullet
points that present key words, phrases, or ideas; use your slides as visual
cues for your presentation.
p Avoid reading from your slides and face the audience, not the screen, as you
present.
p Use slides to show material you can’t present verbally: to integrate graphics,
images, tables/charts, or video.
p Include a summary slide that captures your main points or leaves students
with an important thought.
Minimal and Progressive Cueing
Sometimes all a student needs by way of explanation is a simple cue. In small-
group or one-to-one tutoring, a teacher might use silent finger pointing as a
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minimal cue to call a student’s attention to an attribute of a word or a part of
a problem he needs to look at again. For example, if a student reads “cot” as
“cat,” the teacher silently points to the “o” in “cot” as a minimal cue. The mini-
mal part of the cue-giving is important here. It is just enough to get students
to look at what they need to but not so much as to deny them an opportunity
to think through the error. If necessary, the teacher progresses up the scale of
cues, making successive cues less and less minimal, until the student gets it. In
the example above the next cue might be to spell the word aloud, stressing the
“o” in “cot” but not telling the word. If that doesn’t do it, a next cue might be to
supply a more familiar word with the same pattern and vowel sound, like “not.”
Once again, the minimal aspect of the cueing is the intent—just enough to sup-
port student success without doing the thinking for them.
Simulations, Educational Games, and Role Plays
The terms “role play” and “simulation” are often used interchangeably, and
both can have qualities that are game-like (entertaining and fun). All three
are closely related forms of attempts to represent reality through experiential
learning activities where learners interact with one another or virtually in a
context related to a learning objective.
Role play can take on a variety of forms, but all require learners to put them-
selves in someone else’s shoes or themselves to be in an imaginary situation.
Each participating learner has a specified part to play. It is typically an un-
rehearsed dramatization in which individuals improvise behaviors (dialogue
and actions) that illustrate acts expected of persons involved in defined situa-
tions. In successful role plays, learners assimilate information that is provided
about their role and then act out the assigned roles in accordance with their
interpretation of how their character would behave in the situation (Killen,
2006). Examples of this might include debating an issue as representative
members of political parties running for office, or dramatizing a contempo-
rary scene as characters from a Shakespearean play. Role plays can involve stu-
dents playing the part of inanimate objects such as becoming molecules and
acting out their behaviors in a chemical reaction. Role plays can also be used
to help students develop specific skills. For example, how to ask for assistance
in a foreign country, how to answer the telephone courteously, how to respond
to a racist remark or sexist comment, or how to respond with growth mindset
talk when someone speaks from a fixed mindset.
Simulations are about things (or systems) and how they behave, and they may
or may not incorporate role play. A simulation might involve students learning
about how infectious diseases spread and become an epidemic; emergency man-
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agement when dealing with a disaster in which they assume the roles of emergency
management personnel, prepare for, and then deal with a disaster; the separation
of powers in the federal government by designing a new school lunch menu with
specialized roles (lead chefs, menu writers, nutrition inspectors). Simulations can
be live, face-to-face interactions among students, or they can be computer-based.
Referring to computer simulation technology as “interactive pretending,” Pren-
sky (2007) highlights several advantages it offers as a tool for explaining:
Computer simulation technology is a way of looking at objects or systems
that encourage a learner not only to wonder “What would happen if . . . ?”
but also to try out those alternatives virtually and see the consequences. It
is a way for learners to acquire experience about how things and systems
in the world behave, without actually touching them. Because so many of
the things we need to understand these days are either too complex, too
vast, too small, too far, or too dangerous to be experienced directly, we
can no longer rely exclusively, as we did for so long, on hands-on learning.
Simulation provides us a solution and is in fact the only way to experience,
try and learn many of the things we want our students to know about.
(p. 2)
As is the case with several of the other explanatory devices (mental imagery,
modeling thinking aloud), it is critical that learners not only have the expe-
rience, but that we also build in the follow-up step of getting the learners to
process and summarize what they have learned. Otherwise, we can’t be sure
the activity was successful in promoting understanding and connecting to the
intended objective. Killen (2006) cites Brookfield (1990) and Davis (1993) in of-
fering the following menu of sample questions for debriefing a role play:
p How did it feel to play this role?
p How do you feel now?
p What do you think you learned from this role play?
p Do you think that your actions and reactions, and those of the other players
were realistic?
p What issues do you think remain unresolved?
p Could other approaches to resolve the issues have been more effective, real-
istic, or satisfying to you?
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Questions for observers when a role play is done by a few students with others
observing:
p What do you think were the key points or actions in this role play?
p How realistic was the situation portrayed in this role play?
p Did the role play highlight any general principles related to the issues we
are studying?
p Which actor behaviors do you think were appropriate or inappropriate?
p Did any of the role players behave in stereotypical ways?
p What would you have liked to see in the role play that did not occur?
Choosing an Explanatory Device
To analyze your own use of explanatory devices, you can make a simple count
of how many and which you use in explaining and clarifying information.
There is no evidence we know of that any one of these devices is better than
another, but there is considerable support for variety in teacher presentation
as correlated with effectiveness. Using several devices in lessons is one form
of variety certainly. Common sense argues that by using a repertoire of these
devices, a teacher can increase the likelihood of retaining students’ attention
and engaging their learning style. Given that these are explanatory tools, it
is important to consider variety from the perspective of learning modalities.
Do the explanatory devices you use afford students the opportunity to receive
information through auditory, visual, and kinesthetic modalities? If not, how
might you bring your teaching more into balance along those lines so that
all learners, regardless of modality strengths, will have equal opportunity for
learning?
Speech Patterns
Another critical factor in presenting information to students is the clarity of
our speech and the many aspects that encompasses. It must meet certain min-
imum criteria for diction, pronunciation, articulation or enunciation, gram-
mar, syntax, choice of words (appropriate vocabulary) in order for students to
absorb and understand what is being explained or presented. We also need to
monitor our rate of speech coupled with intentional pauses in our delivery to
allow time for students to digest what we have said. Even the pitch and tone in
our voices can support a comfortable atmosphere for learners, or can induce a
By using a
repertoire of
explanatory
devices, a teacher
can increase
the likelihood of
retaining students’
attention and
engaging their
learning style.
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stressful climate. All of these characteristics of our speech become paramount
when we have second language learners in our audience.
Vagueness and Mazes
Smith and Land (1981) have analyzed the speech patterns of effective and in-
effective teachers. Their studies and others consistently show negative effects
on students’ achievement when teachers use “vagueness terms” and “mazes” in
their speech. They give this example of vagueness terms (italicized in the follow-
ing passage):
This mathematics lesson might enable you to understand a little more
about some things we usually call number patterns. Maybe before we get
to probably the main idea of the lesson, you should review a few prereq-
uisite concepts. Actually, the first concept you need to review is positive
integers. As you know, a positive integer is any number greater than zero.
(Smith & Land, 1981, p. 38)
This example illustrates mazes (with the mazes in italics):
This mathematics lesson will enab . . . will get you to understand number,
uh, number patterns. Before we get to the main idea of the lesson, you
need to review four conc . . . four prerequisite concepts. The first idea, I
mean, uh, concept you need to review is positive integers. A positive num-
ber . . . integer is any whole integer, uh, number greater than zero. (Smith
& Land, 1981, p. 38)
As evident from the examples, mazes are false starts or halts in speech, redun-
dant words, and tangles of words. Vagueness terms take many forms (see Table
11.2). Hiller, Fisher, and Kaess (1969) and Smith and Land (1981) presented
evidence that vagueness occurs as a speaker commits himself or herself to
deliver information that he or she can’t remember or never really knew. It can
also occur when a teacher does not wish to appear authoritative about informa-
tion and allows a confused sense of personal relationship building to obscure
clarity. Such confusion can occur when a teacher endeavors to be seen as open
to student ideas and as a facilitator rather than an information giver. What re-
sults is a tentative teacher who uses many vagueness terms. Delpit (2006), in her
work with linguistically diverse students and her writing about second language
acquisition, underscores the importance of the clarity of our speech and what
we model for students:
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Table 11.2 Vagueness Terms
Category Examples
Ambiguous designation Conditions, other, somehow, somewhere, someplace, thing
Approximation About, almost, approximately, fairly, just about, kind of, most, mostly, nearly,
pretty (much), somewhat, sort of
Bluffing and recovery Actually, and so forth, and so on, anyway, as anyone can see, as you know, basi-
cally, clearly, in a nutshell, in essence, in fact, in other words, obviously, of course,
so to speak, to make a long story short, to tell the truth, you know, you see
Error admission Excuse me, I’m sorry, I guess, I’m not sure
Indeterminate quantification A bunch, a couple, a few, a lot, several, some various
Multiplicity Aspect(s), kind(s) of, sort(s) of, type(s) of
Negated intensifiers Not at all, not many, not very
Possibility Chances are, could be, maybe, might, perhaps, possibility, seem(s)
Probability Frequently, generally, in general, normally, often, ordinarily, probably, sometimes,
usually
The acquisition and development of one’s native language is a wondrous
process, drawing on all the cognitive and affective capacities that make
us human. . . . Learning to produce an alternate form (second language
with alternate vocabulary, register, style etc.) is not principally a function
of cognitive analysis, thereby not ideally learned from protracted rule-
based instruction and correction. Rather it comes with exposure, comfort
level, motivation, familiarity and practice in real communicative contexts.
(p. 49)
Respecting Formal and Informal English
Beyond acceptable speech in general, there are some things that are not so
obvious. A teacher might match aspects of speech—choice of vocabulary, level
of formality or informality, cadence, rate—to their students, thus making con-
cepts, directions, and examples more readily comprehensible to all. This would
include making connections and translations with students whose neighbor-
hood and family language is not standard English.
There are ways of speaking and using language different from standard English
that derive from children’s family and ethnic culture. There are four points we’d
like to make about these language patterns. It is important that we do the following:
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1. Notice them and understand how they work.
2. Value them as the sophisticated and complex systems of syntax and gram-
mar that they are, and not hold them as “less than.”
3. Observe how they affect communication in such ways as story structure,
cadence, and speech pattern.
4. Use all of this in a respectful and pedagogically planful way to teach stan-
dard English.
In her groundbreaking book, Ways with Words (1983), Shirley Brice Heath stud-
ied the language of communities of poverty in Appalachia. Her analysis includ-
ed normal discourse and storytelling structure. Heath goes into depth analyzing
both discourse and storytelling in the town of Tracton, where the population is
black. Heath’s analysis shows how it is subtle and sophisticated, but quite differ-
ent from neighboring Roadville. The story syntax of the whites in Roadville is
also idiosyncratic, often containing proverbs or witty sayings, but different from
the blacks. Heath concludes: “Both Tracton and Roadville are literate communi-
ties and each has its own traditions of structuring, using, and assessing reading
and writing” (p. 230).
When we have children from cultures that have nourished alternate speech
and story forms, it can be a strong tool to use that knowledge as a base from
which to develop student proficiency with standard English. In A Framework
for Understanding Poverty (2005), Payne gives a number of suggestions for how
to use this base:
p Formal register [standard English] needs to be taught.
p Casual register [culturally specific variations on standard English] needs to
be recognized as the primary discourse for some students.
p Have students write in casual register and then translate into formal register.
To get examples of casual register down on paper, ask them to write the way
they talk.
p In the classroom, tell stories both ways. Tell the story using the formal
story structure, and then tell the story with the casual register structure.
Talk about stories: how they stay the same and how they’re different.
p Encourage participation in the writing and telling of stories.
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p Show students how much the formal register affects [life chances, includ-
ing] their ability to get a well-paying job. (pp. 34–35)
A problem with Payne’s book is that she associates these alternate forms of lan-
guage use with poverty. These variations are culture and race specific rather than
generically characteristic of poor families. And furthermore, many families—
white, black, or Latino—who find themselves living below the poverty line have
good standard, or as Payne would say, formal register English in their reper-
toires.
Payne uses Martin Joos’ terms “formal” and “casual register” to distinguish col-
loquial language with a cultural base from standard English. By calling for-
mal register middle-class English and associating casual register with poverty,
Payne puts language patterns into economic categories, thus glossing over dif-
ferences that are race and culture specific. She has been criticized for general-
izing about children of generational poverty so as to create a negative stereotype
about behavior and language that is associated with income and class (Bomer
et al., 2008; Gorski, 2006).
The larger point we should take away, however, is that whatever the cultur-
al roots for speaking and writing children bring, they must learn standard
English to maximize their employment opportunities in 21st-century United
States. Teachers need to recognize the validity of the cultural forms of speak-
ing with which their children arrive and use this understanding in instruction.
Even more important would be to understand the values, norms, and history
of their original family culture so as to include connections within the cur-
riculum (Culturally Relevant Instruction). This duality—insuring that all stu-
dents become literate and skillful with standard English while continuing to
integrate the rich cultural identities they bring with them to school—is aligned
with Django Paris’ (2012) notion of culturally sustaining pedagogy. For more
on this see Chapter 15, “Personal Relationship Building.”
3. SUPPORTING MENTAL ENGAGEMENT
If we were to liken clear instruction to a solidly constructed brick building, then
framing the learning would be similar to framing the building itself. Our pre-
sentation and use of explanatory devices would be the bricks in the structure,
and this next category would be like the mortar that connects the bricks and
holds them together. Being explicit and making cognitive connections for stu-
dents are tools we can use to strengthen the learning experience and preempt
obstacles to student engagement and understanding.
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Explicitness
Explicitness is a category of behaviors—four different kinds—that stitch together
instructional episodes. Explicitness means expressly communicating and not
leaving to implication these four events:
p Intention of cues
p Focus of questions
p Necessary steps in directions
p Meaning of references
When any one of these is missing, instruction falls apart, and so does learning.
These behaviors are often more visible when absent because of the confusions
and cognitive gaps that occur when they are omitted.
Intentions of Cues
Effective explainers cue students explicitly to make the connections and use the
kinds of thinking that will lead to learning the material. They leave no logical
gaps. Instead they build little bridges for students between cues they give and
how the students are supposed to use them. For example, while studying the
onset of World War I, a teacher says, “Be sure to read the generals’ speeches on
both sides that are in the Appendix. They will give you ideas about where they
stood on the importance of glory vs. suffering.” Thus there is an explicit heads-
up about what to read for.
Teachers who are not explicit make assumptions (unfortunately, often faulty)
about students’ ability to read their cues or their intentions. These teachers are
often guilty of playing “guess what’s on the teacher’s mind” or “guess why we’re
doing this” games that intimidate and confuse students. Here is an example of
inexplicit cuing behavior. The teacher is attempting to build an image that will
help students learn the word concave:
Before defining “concave,” Orr [the teacher] asked, “Where do bears
sleep?” He thought students would create an image of a cave that would
help them remember the definition. Both students [we interviewed] no-
ticed this odd question and understood that it was supposed to provide
a device for learning the definition. However, neither perceived that this
device was an image. (Winne & Marx, 1982, p. 510)
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Orr didn’t have a bad idea here. He was just so inexplicit with his cue that the
students couldn’t use it. He intended the image of the cave to be a visual mne-
monic: “When you stand in front of a cave, the space seems to belly away from
you. Likewise, a concave surface curves away from you.” If he had said that, the
students might have understood his cue and been able to use it to remember
what concave means.
Focus of Questions
Sometimes the focus of questions isn’t explicit, and the result is another ver-
sion of “guess what’s on the teacher’s mind.” In the previous example, there are
several good answers to Orr’s question, “Where do bears sleep?” (in the zoo, in
the woods, all over North America, etc.). But he wants only one from the pos-
sible universe of correct answers.
Here is another example. A Latin teacher has a student read a question from an
exercise in a text. “What type of question is that?” the teacher asks. The student
does not respond. No other students volunteer or appear to know either. What
the teacher really means is, Which of the six types of questions on yesterday’s
handout—questions with quid, cur, quis, quem, ubi, or quo—is this? He as-
sumes the student realizes this, but the student doesn’t. The teacher doesn’t
realize that “what type” is not a cue to the student to scan the six types on yes-
terday’s worksheet and pick one. The universe of possible answers the student
is scanning is not six choices; it is infinite, and so he is at a loss.
The teacher then directs the student to turn to yesterday’s handout and read the
first item. The student obliges. In a tired voice, the teacher says, “Okay, please
read the next item.” Again, the student obliges. This second item is an example
of the type of question from the exercise that confounded the student. The stu-
dent finishes reading it. There is a pause. The teacher gives the student a wide-
eyed look: “Well?” “Oh,” says the student and goes on to identify the text line as
a quid question.
This confusion would have been avoided if the teacher had been explicit about
the mental operation he wanted the student to do: “By ‘what type,’ Luis, I mean
which of the six types we discussed yesterday. Check your handout compared
to the text line you just read. Everybody else check, too, to see if you’ll agree.”
Teachers who are explicit show students directly how what they’re doing (now
or next) is connected to something familiar, something they know or have
done previously that will help them get to the learning goal.
Being explicit means anticipating and intentionally inserting links, references,
or phrases that enable learners to know why questions are asked and how di-
Video:
Explicitness
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rections or examples relate to learning tasks. “He always asks us questions we
can’t answer,” is a common report that students make about unclear teachers.
They can’t answer questions because the teacher fails to define or at least refer-
ence the domain the question is tapping. Consider this episode: “What is good
writing?” asks Ms. Arroyo, and she has a specified list of attributes in mind that
she proposes to get up on the board. But the question is a “sucker” question;
students are going to volunteer all sorts of plausible answers that don’t fit in
with her lesson plan. That would be okay if she were to collect them all, dis-
cuss them, and then perhaps compare them to the text list she has in mind. If
instead, she’s going to say “no,” and “that’s not quite what I’m looking for,” and
invalidate much good student thinking as she “develops” (that’s how her lesson
plan puts it) her list, then she doesn’t really mean, “What do you think good
writing is?” She means, “What do I think good writing is?” In other words,
“Read my mind.”
Another easy trap for teachers to fall into regarding explicitness is asking ques-
tions in series. Good and Brophy (2000) describe a teacher, who in discussing
the War of 1812, asks the following in one continuous statement:
“Why did we go to war? As a merchant how would you feel? How was
our trade hurt by the Napoleonic War?” The teacher is trying to clarify the
first question and focus thinking on an economic cause of the war. In his
attempt, he confuses. If instead he were to say, “Our focus question is,
What economic conditions existed in the United States that might have
precipitated our decision to go to war? Let’s start with what you know
about the merchants.” (p. 390)
Questions in series are a temptation when we ask a question and get silence
from the whole class. We want to give a clue, so we ask another question that is
intended to lead the students toward our focus. What we may accidentally do is
jerk students’ train of thought around, and leave them confused as to what we
are really after.
Necessary Steps in Directions
We may direct students to begin tasks but inadvertently leave out necessary steps
in the directions. This can happen when we make unwarranted assumptions that
students understand the conventions for how certain tasks are done. A teacher
says, “Get together in groups of four or five and brainstorm as many endings as
you can for this short story.” He has not instructed groups to choose a recorder, to
aim for a target number of possibilities, and to generate many different possibili-
ties but not develop those possibilities in detail until later. So they all start brain-
storming without recording, some groups stop after their first one or two ideas,
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and some take their first idea and get lost in the details of an idea that turns out
not to be very logical or interesting. Just a few more explicit steps in the direc-
tions could have made a huge difference in groups’ productivity. Another ex-
ample of giving inexplicit directions is, “Fix these sentences and then move on
to the next assignment.” Some students have interpreted “fix” as “cross out and
write over the words that are wrong” (which the teacher, in fact, intends). Oth-
ers are recopying the entire sentences with the corrections, which is taking four
times as long. As a result, they won’t have time to finish the second assignment.
A simple insertion like, “Fix these sentences by crossing out and writing over
words that don’t belong or need to be revised” would get everyone on track.
A still deeper way to get students to understand the focus of directions is to
give a partial model of how to frame their thinking to carry out a task given
to them. This can be a sentence starter. For example, we have asked students
to contrast the reasons different politicians in the South gave for secession in
1860 and said, “So when you’re answering, you might say: Jones argued for the
preservation of the rights of states to make their own decisions, whereas Smith
thought preservation of the Southern economy based on slavery was the main
argument. He called this the Southern way of life.”
Including specific language forms in sample answers (“Jones said X, whereas
Smith said Y” or “Jones said X, in contrast to Smith, who said Y”) and asking
students to model their answers cues them to what their teacher meant by the
direction. Language and thought are intertwined, so sharing sample language
forms of exemplary answers when giving directions guides students with more
precision into productive work. Overall, the goal of this area of performance
is to spell out completely what we mean in our directions and not assume the
steps are obvious to our students.
Meaning of References
Sometimes we make references to famous people, ideas, events, or works that
are intended to elucidate current instruction, but the students may not know
the references, and so they confuse rather than clarify. In fact, they may detract
from instructional effectiveness because as students try to puzzle about the
reference by asking themselves what it means, they may miss the next one or
two points that are made. For example, a teacher who says, “Reading James Mi-
chener’s Hawaii can make one feel like Sisyphus, which becomes apparent by
about Chapter 25.” That sentence won’t mean anything to students who don’t
know that Sisyphus was a cruel Greek king who was condemned to forever roll
a huge stone up a hill in Hades, only to have it roll down again every time he
neared the top. Therefore, to feel like Sisyphus means to feel hopeless about
ever finishing. An art teacher walking by a student who is doing detailed
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beautiful work on his piece comments: “You are going to be the Michelangelo
of the 21st century.” While the teacher means Michelangelo, who painted the
Sistine Chapel, the student is envisioning a ninja warrior named Michelangelo,
a comical crime fighter living in the sewers of New York City. Being explicit at
times like these would not foreclose our using arcane references, but would cue
us to explain them on the spot so students could understand.
Making Cognitive Connections
The behaviors identified in this section are a complement to moves described
in the explicitness section because each represents a way of building bridges for
students. The bridges may be related to time: between what is happening in the
present, previous, or future learning. Or they may signal shifts and transitions
between ideas, activities, pace, or level of difficulty. All of them are intended to
positively affect student engagement and understanding.
Showing Resemblance to Something Students Already Know
It is useful to show how new learning resembles students’ previous work or
knowledge, demonstrating to students how things we are talking about resem-
ble what they already know (Book & Galvin, 1976). It is appropriate to make
this move within many styles of teaching simply as a good clarifier. Here is an
example of this move:
Teacher: “When we first worked on multiplying, you learned that it was
related to addition. . . . how?”
Student: “Repeated addition.”
Teacher: “Right! Meaning what?”
Student: “Multiplying is like adding the same number over and over again
. . . as many times as you’re multiplying it by.”
Teacher: “Okay, very good. Now this division operation we’ve been work-
ing on today is really a lot like multiplication, except what it’s doing in short-
cut fashion isn’t adding a number over and over again, it’s . . . what?”
Student: “Subtracting it.”
Teacher: “Right! Everybody see that? Matt? Can you explain in your own
words how division is like multiplication?”
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Student: “It’s the backwards of multiplying.”
Teacher: “An interesting way to put it; Lily, what do you think Matt means
by backward?”
Here’s another example from a beginning chemistry course:
Teacher: “So we’ve proven this welding torch burns hotter than the
straight propane burner. Do you remember what we did at the beginning
of the year, heating sodium chlorate in the test tube? What happened
when we held a glowing ember over the tube?”
Student: “It burst into flame.”
Teacher: “How did we explain that?”
Student: “Heating the sodium chlorate drove off oxygen and the oxygen
made the ember burn faster and hotter.”
Teacher: “Right! And a welding torch is like that. We’ve got these two
tanks . . . [and goes on to show how a welding rig mixes two gases,
acetylene and oxygen and that the presence of the extra oxygen vastly
increases combustion temperatures].”
The integrating of the old with the new takes place here and builds intellec-
tual links between items of information in such a way as to keep the picture
of the whole emerging chain visible too. As students learn the new item, they
simultaneously see the whole chain that is now one link longer. The link and
chain analogy may break down for bodies of information that relate in other
ways—like a web, for example. But the Clarity move serves the same purpose
of linking the new item with the larger picture of established knowns (Ausubel,
1968; Gagné, 1992).
Bulgren (1991) and others, from the Institute for Research on Learning Dis-
abilities at the University of Kansas, use anchoring tables to show in a visual
and precise way exactly what the similarities and differences there are between
new and old concepts.
An anchoring table (Figure 11.10) is a graphic organizer—in this case, a
special-purpose one—to compare and contrast new information to previously
learned information. The steps for phasing in the use of an anchoring table
with students are the same as those described for other graphic organizers.
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The purpose of showing resemblance to something students already know is
to look backward. We make the connections for the students because we want
them to see that the new learning coming up really isn’t so new or different (or
so hard), and that it fits in with something they already know—there already
exists a structure or a continuum in their heads to accommodate it.
The difference between this kind of integrating and “activating students’ current
knowledge” is that activating looks forward. It gets up on screen, as it were, stu-
dents’ existing conceptions. The associations or connections come from them
as they see it at that moment. Thus their minds are warmed up, and they have
something to compare and contrast with the new learning when it comes along.
What they already have may or may not be accurate, may be complete or incom-
plete. The purpose of eliciting the information from them is to get them think-
Figure 11.10 Anchoring Table
FAMILIAR
INFORMATION
CELL
CHARACTERISTICS
SUMMARY: A cell is a structure in which the nucleus controls
activities, the membrane regulates, and the
mitochondria produces energy.
Similar Concepts
NEW
INFORMATION
FACTORY
CHARACTERISTICS
Management
Fence/
Security System
Power Plant
Controls activities
Regulates what
enters or leaves
Produces energy
Nucleus
Membrane
Cell
Mitochondria
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ing and give them a reference point against which to test the new learning.
They may ask themselves, “Is what we learn about chemistry indeed what we
thought chemistry to be?”
Asking Students to Compare and Contrast
Another way of getting students to see connections between past and present
concepts or topics is to structure an activity that prompts them to generate con-
nections. “Compare and contrast the Hemingway short story we just read with
the O. Henry story we read last week.” This task calls for students to review each
story, go into it, analyze it, and extract attributes of each author’s writing to see
how it is like or unlike attributes of the second author.
Compare and contrast tasks implicitly call for higher-order thinking in which
one actively uses one’s knowledge of the two items. You have to retrieve what
you know and then manipulate it mentally. This is one of nine instructional
practices included in Marzano’s list of instructional strategies that have a high
probability of enhancing achievement for all students in all subject areas at all
grade levels. The effect size for this teaching practice is very high (1.61) for an
average percentile gain of 45 (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).
Marzano and Pickering (2010) offer several guidelines for structuring the
compare-contrast task in order to increase its effectiveness. These include hav-
ing students relate new content to something familiar, or topics of personal
interest or relevance, and identifying the characteristics upon which the com-
parison will be based. In other words, when we ask students to generate these
connections, we explicitly identify the basis for the comparison: physical char-
acteristics (“How is the structure of an atom similar to/different from the parts
of a bicycle?”); a process (“How is the process of photosynthesis like playing
a game of soccer?”); a sequence of events (“How is the sequence of a bill be-
coming a law like . . . now name a sequence of events familiar to the student”).
Comparing and contrasting lends itself beautifully to graphic organizers; skill-
ful teachers draw on that powerful visual tool to empower the learning.
Extending to Implications and Future Actions
Anything we do that causes students to think actively about academic material
is an aid to learning. That is why questions that propel students to apply knowl-
edge to a real situation (or to think about how they would apply it) augments
learning. These are examples: “How might this court ruling affect criminal in-
vestigations?”; “What effect do you think this genetic finding will have on the
way people live their lives?”; or “How could you use this knowledge about area
and perimeter if you were redoing your kitchen?”
Skillful teachers
use graphic
organizers as
powerful tools
to empower
learning.
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Discussions that develop from initial application questions like these can
strengthen student understanding significantly. The 24 operating principles de-
scribed in the upcoming section on Making Students’ Thinking Visible serve as a
rich repertoire of tools for facilitating these kinds of discussions.
Making Transitions Between Ideas
These are brief, within-lesson transitions like segues made by an announcer and
mostly applicable where direct instruction is taking place. We don’t have the op-
portunity to guide transitions between items of information unless we are lead-
ing the instructional activity. In terms of clarity, these moves are verbal markers
that help students follow the roadmap as the teacher makes a left turn here, a
right turn there, or circles back to the point of origin. It might sound like this:
“Okay, that word problem required us to multiply. Now let’s move on to the next
one and see if it is the same.” Notice the difference between that remark and a
teacher who simply says, “Okay, let’s move on to the next problem.” Telling the
students to move on gets them from one place to the next but does not provide
a transition.
A transition move takes something about what has just been done and relates it
to what’s coming up immediately. It provides intellectual links like integrating
moves do, but instead of linking to the learner’s past experience, or learning from
other disciplines or other times, this link is between what has come immediately
before and what’s coming right now—in the lesson itself (Murray, 1991). Here’s a
good example: “So that’s how the commercial banking system multiplies money
deposited in checking accounts and creates new money. Now another way new
money gets created is through consumer credit. Let’s look at how all those plastic
credit cards add to the banking system to create even more money.”
Signaling Activity, Pace, Level, or Content Shifts
These moves are simple statements at transition points to prepare students for a
change in the nature of cognitive work:
p Shift in activity: “Okay, that’s all we’re going to do with the lab reports today.
Now let’s take a look at the next chapter so we can preview the new material.”
p Shift in pace: “We’re going to pick up the pace now, so get ready for a little
more action!”
p Shift in level of difficulty: “Now we’re moving on to three-step problems
instead of two-step, but still with the same operations.”
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p Shift in content: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to be using these vo-
cabulary words today in our essays, so keep them handy and in a safe place.”
This kind of shift makes direct links between what has just been completed
and what’s immediately to come in the flow of instruction—even if “im-
mediately” is interrupted by overnight.
Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing puts intellectual markers or hooks in place for items that are
down the road and will not be dealt with the very next time students work on
this subject. Consider these two teacher statements:
1. “Well, you couldn’t have two hydrochloric acid molecules on that side of
the equation because it wouldn’t balance. You don’t have to worry about
that now, but soon we will get to this notion that chemical equations must
balance. When we talk about balancing equations, we’ll be experimenting
with the proportions of different chemicals that get used up in a chemical
reaction.”
2. “And if you think Laura worked hard helping Ma around the house, wait ‘til
you see what she did with Pa Ingalls around haymaking time.” “What’s that
mean?” a student asks. “Well, that’s harvesting the hay and that was a very
important part of farm life then . . . now too. Anyway, haymaking is coming
up in a couple of chapters. I think you’ll enjoy that section.”
These examples of foreshadowing take a term or an idea that crops up and cre-
ate brief images of what it will be like or what it will be about. This is done so
that when the students get to that point, it’s not totally strange territory. “Oh, I
remember we talked about that last week,” a student may say to himself and start
assimilating the ideas into his cognitive framework. Foreshadowing moves may
crop up as moments of opportunity during instruction and are often unplanned.
For instance, in the case of the second example above, the students commented
on how hard Laura works around the house, and their remarks made the teacher
think of the days of hard labor Laura spent with her father making hay, so she
brought it up for comparative purposes, knowing it was coming up in a few chapters.
4: GETTING INSIDE STUDENTS’ HEADS: COGNITIVE EMPATHY
Cognitive empathy means the teacher is viewing and actively assessing the
learning experience from the student’s perspective in order to find out what is
going on in their heads and to make strategic decisions from that frame of ref-
erence. This dimension of clarity is directly aligned with formative assessment
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practices and is central to good teaching because it enables teachers to know
when and what students aren’t understanding and to zero in on and clarify what
they don’t understand.
To accomplish this, there are three categories of moves a teacher might make:
(1) checking for understanding frequently and in a variety of ways to monitor
for student confusion, (2) unscrambling confusion to identify specific points
of confusion or misconceptions and address them, and (3) getting students to
make their thinking visible thus revealing how and how well they are under-
standing the material at hand. Each of these categories contains a repertoire
of options, and there is increasing depth of access to student thinking among
the three. Making Students’ Thinking Visible, a new level of sophistication in
teaching skill, is a constellation of 24 principles of teacher action that does give
diagnostic information of where student misunderstanding lies. But Making
Students’ Thinking Visible combines and goes far beyond simple checking and
unscrambling; it also creates a robust talk environment where all students par-
ticipate and high-level thinking skills are called for.
Checking for Understanding
We use the word checking to describe what teachers do to determine whether
students are understanding or confused. When teachers are checking, they are
attending to—and proactively reaching out to gather—data from students, or
responding to indicators that students are struggling, in an effort to determine
“yes . . . no . . . who?” is getting what. There are five ways we can describe what
we might see:
1. Pressing on
2. Reading body language
3. Asking recall-level questions
4. Asking comprehension-level questions
5. “Dipsticking”
These five are not mutually exclusive. We might be employing several of them at
different points or simultaneously during the same lesson. Each provides us with
a different kind of data about who is or is not understanding, what is unclear or
confusing, and what we need to do to clarify. As you move from the first to the
last option, notice that we get increasingly specific and deeper information from
students. In the last instance (dipsticking), we are also ensuring that we get the
Video:
Checking for
Understanding
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data from all students. What is important about checking is that we are doing it
frequently, getting the kind of data we need to assess the depth and breadth of
understanding across all students, and using the data to guide our instruction.
Pressing On
Pressing on is essentially the absence of checking. It means presenting informa-
tion or assigning tasks without any active or apparent check for understand-
ing. In some limited instances, pressing on might be intentional and appropri-
ate (i.e. in fast-paced reviews of material previously taught when it is more
of a summary to highlight or review key information that has already been
learned). But it is a liability if it is happening regularly, or if we fail to check
because we are unaware that a concept or task might require more or different
explanation than we planned. Thus pressing on should happen sparingly in
most lessons.
Reading Body Language
Reading body language means attending to students’ posture, gestures, facial
expressions, and using them as indicators about whether students are “getting
it” or not. While students’ overt body language might cue us when there is con-
fusion, it is risky to rely solely on body language as evidence of understanding.
Students might look totally attentive and absorbed in what is being presented
but be totally confused, and either unaware that they are or good at giving us
the look that implies they are engaged when they are totally lost or tuned out.
In one study of student thought processes during instruction, Peterson and
Swing (1982) describe how students fooled observers who judged them to be
attending to the lesson:
Melissa’s responses to the stimulated-recall interview suggested that she
was not attending [although observers judged from her behavior that she
was] and instead seemed to be spending much of the time worrying about
her performance and the possibility of failure. For example, when asked what
she was thinking after viewing the first videotape segment, Melissa replied:
“. . . since I was just beginning, I was nervous and I thought maybe I wouldn’t
know how to do things.” After viewing the second segment, Melissa said
the following: “I was thinking that Chris would probably have the easiest
time because she was in the top math group.” After viewing the third seg-
ment Melissa responded: “Well, I was mostly thinking about what we talked
about before—I was making a fool of myself.” Finally, after the fourth seg-
ment, Melissa stated: “Well, this might be off the subject. I was thinking
about my crocheting meeting `cause I wanted to have it done.” (p. 485)
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Asking Questions
To check more overtly and directly for general student understanding, we typi-
cally ask questions. Putting Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom & Krathwohl, 1956) to the
side for a minute, the types of questions we ask can be considered as two catego-
ries: (1) questions that require students to recall information, and (2) questions
that require students to demonstrate comprehension or higher-level thinking.
Asking Recall Questions
Recall questions call for factual answers that come directly from the material
presented, and they actually dominate most classroom discourse. They are about
who, what, when, where; usually have a right answer; and are often referred to as
closed questions. Two examples are, “What is the formula for finding the area of
a triangle?” and “What are the three events that contributed to our involvement
in Panama?” This type of checking enables us to ensure that students have the
foundation information or can recall the facts or basics necessary to think and
reason at higher levels.
Asking Comprehension Questions
Comprehension questions require students to use information they recall and
apply it in some way. Frequently, these are “How? Why? What if ?” types of
questions that invite students to demonstrate deeper levels of understanding
of a lesson’s concepts or operations. The question, “What would you multiply
to get the area of this triangle (one that has measurements marked, but no
terms labeled)?” requires both the recall of the formula and an understanding
of how to apply the formula to a specific triangle. Comprehension questions
can be answered only if students truly understand the concept being checked.
Another example is, “Why couldn’t ‘gobble’ be on the page (where the guide
words on the dictionary page are hunt and mound)?” Students can only answer
this question if they understand how guide words bound the range of entries
on a dictionary page.
Note that during checking, we sometimes think we are getting a reading on com-
prehension, but in reality, we are only checking recall of key words: “So the key ele-
ments of photosynthesis are . . . ? . . . (chlorophyll) right and (sunlight) right, and
one more . . . (carbon dioxide). Right. OK, you really do understand photosynthe-
sis.” Compare this to a question like, “In which of these environments (enumerate
a-b-c) do you predict the plants would grow stronger and healthier? Why?” For a
more in-depth exploration of questioning, see the document “Questioning Skills”
on The Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
PDF
Bloom’s
Taxonomy
Questioning
Skills
PDF
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Dipsticking
We refer to the fifth way of checking as dipsticking, a term popularized by Mad-
eline Hunter in the 1970s. It means taking a reading on the learning and decid-
ing whether to move on or to add some more teaching, just as the oil dipstick
in an auto engine gives you a reading on whether the oil level in the reservoir
is sufficient to drive on or if it needs refilling. Dipsticking involves quick and
frequent checks for understanding and data gathering throughout the lesson
and getting responses from most or all students simultaneously. Figure 11.11
highlights three different forms of dipsticking one might use.
Dipsticking for Self-Assessment Using Signals
Hunter and her colleagues taught students to use signals—thumbs up, thumbs
down, thumbs to one side—to self-assess and to send periodic messages to
teachers about how well they understand something. There are any number
of other ways to gather similar data. For example, asking students, “Nod your
head if you’re with me so far” or “Show me your green card if you are really
with me, a yellow if I am starting to lose you, a red if I’ve completely confused
you . . . I’m checking my teaching.” We have found that when teachers make
it clear that this is an assessment of their teaching—not an evaluation of the
students’ learning—they get more honest and accurate data from students.
Enlisting students in giving us this kind of feedback throughout a lesson leaves
us less reliant on body language for detecting confusion and can be very useful
for determining the need to pause and clarify. Getting students to take respon-
sibility for honestly assessing how well they are understanding and thereby
helping us regulate the pace and clarity of our teaching is one way of building
a classroom culture where students become agents of their own learning. The
obvious limitation of this kind of self-assessment is when students don’t know
what they don’t know, or think they do understand when actually they don’t.
F O R M S O F D I P S T I C K I N G
WITH SIGNALS
Self-Assessment
• Thumbs up
• Hands on head if . . .
• Sign turned over
• Red, yellow, green cards
Content Check
• Fingers make math operation sign
• Correct punctuation marks in air
• Hold up cards:
A for area
P for perimeter
B for both
WITHOUT SIGNALS
• One-question quiz
• Unison response
• Lots of questions
• Verbal fill-in-the-blank sentences
• Short writing assignment
Figure 11.11 Forms of Dipsticking
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Dipsticking with Content Check Using Signals
A more developed form of dipsticking gets an actual content answer from each
student, often in the form of multiple choice where all students choose and sig-
nal a response. In trigonometry, a teacher says: “When I call for the signal, hold
up one, two, three, or four fingers to show in which quadrant the angle will
terminate.” In an English class, each student has cards that say S (for sentence),
F (for fragment of a sentence), and RO (for run-on). The teacher says, “Hold up
the appropriate card after I read each of the following . . . ”
Dipsticking Without Signals
Both of the earlier forms of dipsticking involve students’ sending signals with
their hands, cards, or another device. Dipsticking can also be accomplished
by getting all students to respond in ways other than signaling. Some teachers
pause in the middle of classes and give one-question quizzes or short writing
assignments and then circulate and look over shoulders as students are writing
to see how everyone is doing.
A teacher might ask a high volume of questions across a broad range of students
in a short period of time. Many classrooms are now equipped with electronic
response systems (clickers) where students enter responses to multiple choice
or short answer questions simultaneously and the overall class results are posted
anonymously to a large screen for all to see. Thus in an instant, a teacher and
students can get feedback about areas of confusion or concern. Dyer (2016) pro-
vides a useful list of such devices and apps on the Northwest Evaluation Asso-
ciation website at http://www.nwea.org/blog/2016/take-three-55-digital-tools-
and-apps-for-formative-assessment-success.
We can use dipsticking to assess recall, or comprehension to a degree, or both.
Recall or comprehension questions enable us to assess the depth or degree of
student understanding. Dipsticking is used to simultaneously assess the breadth
of understanding—how many students respond successfully or appropriately to
a given prompt or question. Finally, the intent is that this type of assessing is
happening frequently across all students during instruction.
Dipsticking does not have to be a constant feature of every lesson. It could be
out of place in true discussion where a line of argument is being developed
or in a conceptual change lesson when students are encountering events in
conflict with their native theories, constructing new theories to account for
what they’ve observed, and testing the new theories. But even here there will be
benchmarks when we will want to check students’ understanding of something
everyone should know. At those times, taking a true dipstick reading will pro-
vide much needed information about who does and who doesn’t understand.
Videos:
Dipsticking 1 & 2
http://www.nwea.org/blog/2016/take-three-55-digital-tools-and-apps-for-formative-assessment-success
http://www.nwea.org/blog/2016/take-three-55-digital-tools-and-apps-for-formative-assessment-success
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Unscrambling Confusion
When we detect that students are confused, the next clarity task is to find out
what the students are confused about and tailor re-explanations according-
ly. We call this unscrambling confusions, and it has a number of options from
which to draw:
p Do nothing at the moment.
p Acknowledge the confusion and move on.
p Re-explain.
p Isolate the point of confusion with pinpoint questions.
p Have a student explain his or her own current thinking.
p Persevere and return.
The first option, doing nothing in the moment, means making no response to
the perceived confusion and continuing with the lesson.
The second option, acknowledging the confusion, means making it known to
students that we are aware of it but want them to stay with us a little longer
before dealing with it. “I know this is a little difficult to see just yet, but hang in
there, and I think it will make sense with a few more examples.”
A third option is to launch into a re-explanation of the item. It may be slower
or more detailed than the first explanation, or it may be a re-explanation using
a different explanatory device. In either case, we are presenting the same thing
over again without any venture into the students’ thinking, relying heavily on
what we perceive to be the source or the nature of their confusion, and re-
explaining from that perspective.
A fourth option is to pose pinpoint questions to discover precisely where in the
sequence of learning the student became confused. When that point is isolated,
we swing in, economically omitting re-explanation of anything the students
have already assimilated, and move on with the re-explanation from there.
A fifth option is to ask students to describe or explain their thinking, probing
for how a student thinks about the concept or operation. This means truly lis-
tening to students and trying to understand their frame of reference or way of
conceptualizing the item.
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Questions or prompts like these can draw out the understanding:
p “How did you get that answer?”
p “How do you approach this kind of problem?
p Tell me what you did or thought about?”
p “What did you try first? Why?”
p “Tell me what you do understand. Let’s start there.”
You will notice that as we move through this continuum of choices, we gather
more evidence about the source of confusion from the student, and thus we
are more informed about what we need to do to clarify or reteach effectively.
When we choose to get students to explain their own thinking we sometimes
discover that apparently “wrong” answers aren’t really wrong at all if we under-
stand the student’s assumptions and logic. As well, using the student’s frame of
reference with its meaning orientation enables us to re-explain the concept (or
ask a series of questions that will bring the student closer to self-discovering
the concept) from a vantage point that will have more meaning for the student.
We might also discover that the concept turns out to be outside the boundaries
of the student’s thinking system, in which case, it’s an inappropriate objective
altogether. That is quite an important thing to find out. For example, if we are
working on clarifying the different powers municipal governments have from
county governments, we may discover some students don’t really know what a
municipal government is!
The final option, persevering and returning, might be an integral part of the
previous three but with an additional element: the return. We persevere when
we find a student confused. We stick with the student, perhaps have several ex-
changes with him. Other students may then contribute missing elements of the
explanation. Then, most importantly, we come back to the first student to have
him summarize or fully state the explanation. This “return” visit is not only a
check for understanding of that first student but is also an important signal of
confidence in the student. It gives him an opportunity to emerge in triumph as
the final synthesizer.
Sometimes there isn’t time in the period for us to unscramble all the confusions
of all the students—a reality we all live with. In that case, what a perseverant
teacher does is note or record who specifically is still foggy on the new con-
cept, and make some provision for a return engagement with those students
(e.g., arranging for a short small-group session right then and there perhaps, or
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asking Rafael and Olivia to stop by after classes for a few minutes to ensure that
they will receive the support they need). Notice how this option ties in with
sending high expectations messages. In Chapter 14, “Expectations,” we include
returning to students who don’t get it yet as one of the 10 arenas for sending
the three key messages: “This is important; you can do it with effective effort; I
won’t give up on you.”
Making Students’ Thinking Visible
The context thus far for having students explain their thinking has been to un-
scramble confusions. The notion of making a student’s thinking visible, how-
ever, has far greater reach. It is about creating a robust talk environment for
all students where they are both challenged and enabled to think deeply, fre-
quently, and critically, and to interact with one another while developing deep
understanding of the concepts we are teaching.
Over a five-year period, District 2 in New York City went from sixteenth to first
place in achievement by investing in the development of these skills broadly in all
their teachers (Alvarado, Elmore, & Resnick, 2000). Making Students’ Thinking
Visible (MSTV) was not the only focus of their improvement efforts, but it was a
major factor in the improvement of teaching and student cognitive engagement.
We take the phrase “Making Students’ Thinking Visible” from an article pub-
lished by David Perkins (2003) and a title repeated in recent years in a book by
Ritchhart, Church, and Morrison (2011). The design of this complex teaching
skill has origins going back to 1975 (Easley & Zwoyer) and a rich history in the
‘80s with clear examples in the work of Deborah Loewenberg Ball, Magdeline
Lampert, and Deborah Schifter. Lauren Resnick advanced “Accountable Talk”
in the ‘90s as another version of these powerful ideas. During that decade, Lucy
West and others in New York’s District 2 developed these skills further as a key
element of their groundbreaking instructional coaching model.
Making Students Thinking Visible brings together six strands of successful
teaching and learning (Figure 11.12). It’s the combination of these strands that
produce the results. Consider the following:
p If you can both listen to children and accept their answers not as things to
be judged right or wrong but as pieces of information which may reveal
what the child is thinking, you will have taken a giant step toward becom-
ing a master teacher (Easley & Zwoyer, 1975, p. 25).
p It was listening to their own students solve problems that made the greatest
difference in [teachers’] instructional practice (Borko & Putnam, 1995).
Videos:
Making Thinking
Visible—Explain
Your Thinking
1 & 2
Videos:
Agree/Disagree,
Teachers Getting
Students to Talk
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p My definition of a good teacher has changed from “one who explains things
so well that students understand” to “one who gets students to explain
things so well that they can be understood” (Reinhart, 2000, p. 478).
These authors argue for the special importance of knowing what is going on
inside students’ heads. The behavior they are urging, however, goes beyond the
checking and unscrambling behaviors we have profiled previously in this chapter.
They are part of a tradition of educational research that advises teachers to:
p Structure your interaction with students so you have frequent access to
what and how they are thinking about the topics you are teaching. This
means asking them to frequently express, verbally or in writing, what their
thinking is.
Figure 11.12 Diagram of MSTV Six Strands
Classroom
Climate
M A K I N G
S T U D E N T S ’
T H I N K I N G
V I S I B L E
Key
Concepts
Student
Engagement
High Level
and Critical
Thinking
21st Century
Skills and
Common Core
Academic
Vocabulary
Social-
Emotional
Learning
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p Get students engaged in explaining the rationale for their thinking and
supporting it out loud.
p Cause interaction and discussion among students about the thinking that
surfaces.
p Build a climate of safety and mutual inquiry among students so they are
not afraid of being wrong and will actively speak their minds (see Chapter
16, “Classroom Climate”).
Making Students’ Thinking Visible means creating a classroom environment
where students:
p Do the majority of the talking.
p Are expected to explain their thinking.
p Show they are listening to one another.
p Are willing to admit confusion or not knowing.
p Challenge each other’s thinking nonjudgmentally.
p Take initiative to explain another’s thinking (including how s/he might
have made an error).
p Take responsibility for helping others who don’t get something as quickly
as they have.
In the long run, these behaviors become a way of being and interacting for the
teacher and students, thus permeating the environment. So what does it take to
make all of this happen? Figure 11.13 represents the multiple dimensions that
it takes to create this learning environment, beginning with the constellation of
teaching skills involved.
24 Operating Principles
“Constellation of Teaching Skills” on the concept map includes the use of 24
operating principles, the ability to dig into content and identify the most im-
portant concepts that should be the focus of instruction, and designing sub-
stantive questions that will guide classroom exploration and lead to student
understanding of those concepts. A repertoire of 24 operating principles one
can use to facilitate student talk and check how one’s practice is develop-
Videos:
Struggle—
Normalizing
Mistakes,
MSTV Demo
PDF
24 Operating
Principles
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ing is available on The Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
These operating principles name and explain choices a teacher makes during a
discussion to engage more students in the conversation, to facilitate student-to-
student dialogue, and to get students to reveal and evaluate their reasoning in
support of developing genuine understanding. Many of the operating principles
can and should be taught to students so they can adopt and apply them when
working independently in peer-group learning experiences. They can be used
as a checklist for how one’s practice is developing. Our online course (www.
RBTeach.com) is a carefully designed three-credit experience to learn how to
Figure 11.13 MSTV Concept Map
Deeper
Understanding
Talk Ratio and
Participation
More Complex
Thinking
Language of
Thinking
Better Listening
New View of
Errors
Safety and
Risk-taking
Feeling
Respected
and Valued
Productive
Interactivity in
Pairs and Groups
24 Operating
Principles and
the Verbal Moves
that go with
them
Digging into
Content
Planning
Questions at a
High Level of
Thinking
Curiosity
Social Learning
Class Climate
Respect
Understanding
of Content
Give-Ups
• Saving Kids
from Struggles
• Doing All the
Talking
• Driving for
Coverage
Developmental
Stages
Set the Stage
• Explicit
Explanation
of Why
• Arrange the
Space
Permeates the
Environment
21st Century
Skills
Thinking Maps
Habits of Mind
Thinking Skills
Programs
Constellation
of Teaching
Skills
M A K I N G S T U D E N T S ’ T H I N K I N G V I S I B L E
Embedded
Values
Key
Concepts
Connections Student
Effects
http://www.rbteach.com/TST7
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implement these 24 principles in the classroom. The course contains dozens of
video examples of K–12 teachers who are proficient with these skills.
As is true in so many aspects of instructional practice, the operating princi-
ples represent only one component of a larger constellation of teaching skills
necessary for successful implementation. Knowing how to unpack content to
identify the “must knows,” the most important knowledge and skills (or big
ideas) for all children to understand is essential (see Chapter 18, “Lesson
Objectives”), because there will always be more potential material than time
allows. Finally, we have to design substantive questions. Therefore, in plan-
ning we should come up with interesting, meaty questions that will get at these
most important ideas, and challenge students to explore their understanding
of a topic or concept.
In addition to teaching skills, there are the following embedded values (see Fig-
ure 11.13, MSTV Concept Map) that drive building skill at Making Students’
Thinking Visible:
p Curiosity about what really is going on in students’ heads and commitment
to making instructional adjustments as needed.
p Valuing student-to-student social interaction as a powerful facilitator of
learning.
p Desire to create a climate where students will risk being wrong and know
it is safe to do so.
p Respecting all learners as capable thinkers.
p Determining that every student should understand the content; thus il-
lustrating and engaging students in exploring concepts, ideas, and skills in
multiple ways until they do.
Breaking Unhelpful Practice Habits
Creating this kind of student-centered talk environment often forces us to give
up some of these common competing habits of our practice.
Doing Most of the Talking
If we are accustomed to doing the majority of the talking during learning ex-
periences, we have to give over time for students to do more of it, keeping in
mind that learning takes place when the teacher stops talking and students
start processing.
Videos:
Accountable
Talk, MSTV in
Small Groups,
Classroom
Climate
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Coverage
If we yield to the constant pressure for speed to cover a lot of material in ex-
change for ensuring students’ understanding, it winds up being a lose-lose. We
may have to re-evaluate and prioritize what’s most important to cover and how
we can teach it most effectively so students have the opportunity to learn it.
Saving Students
If we are uncomfortable when students struggle and feel the need to “save them
from embarrassment,” we need to consider the messages it sends when we bail
them out rather than support them in working through their struggle. Letting a
student struggle, and hanging in with them while they do sends two critical ex-
pectation messages to the student: “I believe you can do this and I won’t give up
on you.” The other side of restraining our urge to save students and re-explain
ourselves is that we enable the thinking that brings students to new insight and
ownership of solving problems or overcoming confusions.
As we have worked with teachers who are committed to fully implementing
Making Students’ Thinking Visible, we have discovered a few other things
worth mentioning here. Implementation is a developmental process for both
teachers and students. For the students, an initial introduction can be really
worthwhile. Share with students some things you will be doing that are dif-
ferent from what they might be accustomed to (asking them to explain their
answers, to agree or disagree with one another’s thinking, to add on when
someone else speaks, etc.) and explain your reason for doing so (e.g., not be-
cause their answers are necessarily incorrect but because you are interested in
hearing the thinking behind them). You might need to address the fact that
you will be shifting from students raising hands to calling on anyone and all
because everyone has something to contribute, and you and they should hear
many ways people are thinking about an idea to truly ensure their under-
standing.
There are also some room arrangements and behavioral norms to consider. Is
seating arranged so students can see each other’s faces when someone is speak-
ing, and look at one another when they are responding? Are students accustomed
to speaking loudly enough so everyone can hear? What norms of behavior do
you want to establish with them about how to do things like disagree respectfully,
use one another’s names when they are commenting on what someone said, etc.?
The operating principles are also sequenced to a degree to reflect an evolutionary
process: calling on all students, pausing after posing a question or after a student
answers (wait time), responding nonjudgmentally, and validating confusion are
foundational to creating a safe and inclusive learning environment. Asking stu-
Video:
Allow Struggle
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dents to explain their thinking, restate what someone else has said, or turn and
talk to a partner before sharing with the whole group are a next set of moves that
are less challenging for both teacher and students to implement initially. From
there on, the progression is a bit less linear and is intended to offer many options
for building a rich talk environment over time.
Thinking developmentally from a teacher’s perspective, the initial stages are
likely to be first—identifying which of the operating principles (or moves) we
want to add to our practice and experimenting with them until they become
more automatic. Over time other stages include the following:
p Expanding the variety of moves we use to get more students participating
and interacting with each other.
p Using these moves with individuals and groups that tend to be less confi-
dent and participatory in class discussions.
p Teaching our students how to use these principles when they are working
together in groups so that this kind of talk environment permeates all that
we and they do.
Some teachers we have worked with actually provide students with a printed
list of the operating principles and identify a few they want them to practice
in their small-group learning activities. Another shift comes from focusing
on what we are doing to focus on the impact of our choices on students—on
their dialogue in the classroom, things like which and how many students have
participated and how frequently, whether students entered the conversation
voluntarily or at our request, and the degree to which students’ contributions
build on and are connected to other’s ideas. In other words, we shift from re-
flecting on our own practice to examining at a deeper level the impact all of this
is having on our students.
For an interesting history of the development of this constellation of skills, see
“The History of Making Students’ Thinking Visible” for this chapter on The
Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7. A powerful constellation
of skills like this has many intellectual parents and skilled masters of applica-
tion. It is well worth reading because it establishes the durability of the effects
and also honors those who have done so much to build a potent element of our
professional knowledge base. Included in this history is an excellent view of
how the skills develop in children over a one-year period in Jill Bodner Lester’s
class. Please check out this resource.
PDF
The History of
Making Students’
Thinking Visible
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Video:
Summarizing—
Exit Tickets
5. CONSOLIDATING AND ANCHORING
LEARNING BY SUMMARIZING
Summarizing is the final item in the list of instructional strategies for clarity.
It means explicitly pulling everything together for all to see or hear. It can be
done at strategic points during a lesson after a cohesive chunk of content has
been dealt with: “OK everybody, before we go on to the Legislative branch of
government, draw a diagram that represents what you know about the Execu-
tive’s powers.” It should be done at the conclusion of every lesson to maximize
the likelihood that students’ final focus is about processing and internalizing the
most important takeaways from the lesson. Summarizing can be accomplished
by the teacher or the students, but getting the students cognitively active in do-
ing it is of primary importance.
There are two principles of learning (see Chapter 12) that underscore the impor-
tance of summarizing at the conclusion of a learning experience: sequence and
say-do. The sequence principle says that what happens in the beginning and end
of events or experiences is what people tend to retain longest. We increase the
likelihood that the important ideas will stick when we begin a lesson by sharing
the objective with students and protect the last few minutes of a learning experi-
ence to revisit the objective and summarize essential ideas or understandings
related to it. The say-do principle tells us that whether learners take in informa-
tion by reading it, hearing it, seeing it, or some combination, retention is limited
until the learner reconstructs it for himself. It is when the learner has to shift
from receptive into active mode with new information (putting it in his or her
own words and images, talking about it, writing about it, explaining it to others,
applying it) that retention improves significantly. In other words, when students
get cognitively active with the material, they have to personally reorganize the
information and concepts they have received so that they can represent them in
their own words.
Asking students to do the summarizing means asking them to represent what
they have learned in their own words. It is the “in your own words” feature that
is critical because it forces learners to sift, reorder, and organize information
themselves. They can’t just let the new learning lie on the library shelf of their
minds as a memory trace. They have to pick up the pieces and put them together,
and the very act of doing so strengthens the learning. When we ask students
to do the summarizing themselves, we increase the likelihood that more of the
learning will stick, and that they will deepen their understanding of concepts.
When the summarizing task or prompt is clearly aligned with the objective of
the lesson, the responses students produce enable us to assess the accuracy,
depth, and breadth of student understanding, and to use the data we collect to
Video:
Summarizing—
The Stoplight
Method
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make instructional decisions for the next lesson. Finally, when all students are
involved in summarizing simultaneously (a short individual writing or draw-
ing activity), another powerful factor is added, the principle of learning called
“Active Participation” (see Chapter 12, “Principles of Learning”).
There are many ways to accomplish this summarizing so that all students are
involved. Having students keep a learning log where they enter the lesson objec-
tive as a question (“How are fractions and decimals related?”) at the beginning of
class and respond to the question at the end of the lesson is one option. Similarly,
students might summarize with an exit ticket that requires them to solve a
sample problem representative of the lesson objective. Each of these puts stu-
dents in the “reconstruct and process” mode while also providing us with forma-
tive assessment data to determine how well and which students have mastered
the objective so we can make reteaching plans for those who aren’t there yet.
Robert Marzano makes a strong case for getting students to represent new in-
formation in nonlinguistic formats that don’t rely on language. Citing a 2009
study (Haystead & Marzano, 2009) he notes “across 129 studies in which teach-
ers used non-linguistic strategies—such as graphic organizers, sketches, and
pictographs—with one class but not with another class studying the same con-
tent, the average effect was a 17-percentile point gain in student achievement”
(Marzano, 2010, p. 84). He goes on to discuss five key characteristics of nonlin-
guistic representations to take into consideration in maximizing the benefits:
p Nonlinguistic representations come in many forms, and the selection
should match the type of content addressed and the amount of time
available.
p The representation chosen and completed by the student must focus on the
crucial information to be learned and represented.
p Students should explain their nonlinguistic representations to communi-
cate their intentions and reveal their confusions of misunderstandings.
p Nonlinguistic representations take time, and to get the full effect the time
has to be allocated.
p Students should revise their representations for accuracy when necessary.
While each of the above examples gets students to summarize on paper, we can
also ask students to do it verbally, in pairs at the end of class, or at appropriate
stopping points within class. Doing this addresses the say-do and sequence
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principles, and affords students the opportunity to hear other’s thinking and to
talk ideas through, thereby increasing the likelihood that students will clarify
their thinking and remember and retain important ideas. What we lose when it
is not an individual written response is the opportunity to gather formative data
from each student. Thus it is important to decide when and how it is critical to
have that information and to structure the summary format accordingly.
How frequently should summarizing occur within a lesson? Rowe (1983) has
demonstrated that students’ performance increases when we pause after ap-
proximately 10 minutes of teacher-led instruction and provide about 2 minutes
for students to process what has been presented. Prompting students to sketch
an important concept, or to respond to a focus question with a partner or small
group, to explain a concept, to fill in a graphic organizer, to read their notes
to one another—any of these might be the focus of the two-minute processing
time. Thus when a lesson is going to include input to students (teacher presenta-
tion, textbook reading, video viewing, group discussion) for periods longer than
10–15 minutes, we need to chunk the input by inserting pauses and processing
prompts. These prompts should require students to reconstruct for themselves
what has been presented in each chunk. That will maximize the likelihood that
they internalize and retain what is being presented.
Summarizing questions can be made specific and tailored to any content: “Based
on our discussion so far, tell your partner the principal causes of the Civil War.
Then have your partner tell them back to you.” If the class has reached consensus
on the causes, this is a summarizing of the information. If the class has not
resolved the question, having pairs work like this is more than summarizing,
especially if they are asked to back up their respective arguments. In addition,
a teacher may ask students to summarize in writing (perhaps in notebooks) the
main idea of each section in textbook chapters. Having to stop and summarize
periodically as they read forces active cognitive processing. Learners have to
put what they have learned in their own words to write a summary. Voila, better
learning. Studies have shown improved comprehension of text (not just stories)
with convincing consistency (D’Angelo, 1983) when students do this kind of
summarizing. A number of writers offer useful models for teaching students
how to do this summarizing in writing as they read (Hahn & Gardner, 1985).
Visit www.RBTeach.com to find a repertoire of formats for getting students to
summarize. Our publication, Summarizers (Saphier & Haley, 1993), describes
them in detail. Some are short, some longer; some call for verbal responses,
while others call for written or sketched; some can be done individually, while
others call for student-to-student interaction; some require advance prepara-
tion, others can be done on the spot. These are questions that help to decide the
focus and the format of a summarizer:
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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p What is my purpose for using a summarizer? To check understanding? To
surface confusion or misconceptions? To deepen understanding? To sup-
port retention? To gather formative assessment data?
p What is most important about the content, skill, or strategy we studied
today?
p What data do I need about students’ understanding of this concept?
p What level of thinking do I want students to do in processing this learning?
QUESTIONING SKILLS
Questions are the dominant mode of communication in most classrooms (Bel-
lon, Bellon, & Blank, 1992) and the second most dominant teaching method
after teacher talk (Cotton, 1988). Teachers spend between 35% to 50% of teach-
ing time posing questions (Long & Sato, 1983 as cited in Hattie, 2009). Because
questioning is done for many purposes, we could say that it occurs during nearly
all the areas of performance described in The Skillful Teacher. Consequently, one
of a teacher’s most important skills is designing and posing worthwhile ques-
tions. The significance of this topic is reflected in the plethora of books written
about questioning. We synthesize what we believe is the most practical and
important information on this topic over the last 30 years. There are five main
points about questioning that we want to highlight. Each has large implications
for practice:
1. Be deliberate about the purpose of your questions.
2. Engage all students in higher-level thinking questions.
3. Use questioning strategies that maximize student engagement.
4. Plan questions carefully.
5. Develop students’ capacity to ask questions.
We expand this section in the “Questioning Skills” document on The Skillful
Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7 and invite particular attention
to the pages on planning questions and developing students’ capacity to ask
good questions, which we see as an important life skill.
PDF
Questioning
Skills
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Five Ways to Support Student Understanding:
1. Framing the Learning:
p Communicating the Big Picture
p Assessing readiness to receive
2. Presenting Information:
p Explanatory devices
p Speech patterns
3. Supporting Mental Engagement:
p Explicitness
p Making cognitive connections
4. Getting Inside Students’ Heads:
p Checking for understanding
p Unscrambling confusion
p Making Students’ Thinking Visible
5. Consolidating and Anchoring Learning:
p Summarizing
To check your knowledge about Clarity, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher website at
www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
12. Principles of Learning
PART THREE | INSTRUCTION | PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 267
Instruction
Principles
of Learning
Instruction:
Principles of Learning
This chapter describes 24 packages of power, each one self-contained and ready for use by itself, each a possible addition to any teacher’s reper-toire, and each certain to increase the rate and durability of students’
learning. A strong claim? Perhaps. But for once in education, a certain one.
What do these names mean to you: Ivan Pavlov, Edward Thorndike, Clark
Hull, John B. Watson, Edwin R. Guthrie, Hobart Mowrer, Kenneth Spence, Ed-
ward C. Tolman, and B. F. Skinner? We don’t hear much about them these days,
yet these are people who approached learning as a phenomenon about which
universal laws might be deduced and operating principles discovered, and they
discovered quite a few of them. The tradition of their research goes back to
1885 (with Hermann Ebbinghaus) and is the strongest, longest, and soundest
base we have in education for how-to recommendations. Taken together, their
principles do not add up to a cohesive theory or approach to teaching that
we get from some of their more contemporary counterparts (Jerome Bruner,
David Ausubel, Jean Piaget). Instead, each of these principles was shown in its
own way to make a contribution to learning effectiveness, and they lie scattered
about the literature like so many precious stones waiting to be picked up. Many
of them were collected in the 1970s and put into accessible form for teachers by
Madeline Hunter and her associates. Teach More, Faster is the title of one of her
classic books. However, these principles have not become part of the currency
of in-service teacher training or college teacher education.
As you read this chapter, you will recognize some of these principles from your
own teaching. We find that most teachers routinely use six or seven of them in-
tuitively, without knowing the labels you will learn for them here. Some teach-
ers use more, some fewer. We have yet to find a teacher who uses them all, how-
ever, and so we believe that there is something new in this chapter for everyone.
We have identified 24 of these principles in the literature (see Figure 12.1).
What they all share in common is that each offers some sort of guideline for
designing learning experiences. One might think of principles of learning like
the spices used in food preparation: some seasonings are used regularly in most
every dish a chef prepares (salt, pepper, sugar, parsley, to name a few), while
Knowing the
Principles of
Learning enables
us to design
excellent learning
experiences.
CHAPTER
12
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others are used more selectively (cumin, tarragon, coriander). To a chef it is not
a matter of the more spices the better but rather knowing the spices and applying
them strategically where they will enhance the flavor. This is also the case with
principles of learning: some apply broadly to most learning experiences (mean-
ing, active participation, say-do), while others apply more selectively (isolating
critical attributes, contiguity, mnemonics). Knowing the principles of learning
enables us to apply them strategically to design excellent learning experiences.
Figure 12.1 Principles of Learning
P R I N C I P L E S o f L E A R N I N G
Cognitive Motivational Technical
Application
in Setting
Concrete
Semiabstract
Abstract
Isolate Critical
Attributes
Meaning
Modeling
Teach for Transfer
Goal Setting
Keeping Students
Open and Thinking
Knowledge of
Results
Reinforcement
Attention and
Engagement
Breaking
Complex Tasks
Close Confusers
Contiguity
Cumulative
Review
Degree of
Guidance
Mnemonics
Practice
Say-Do
Sequence
Active
Participation
End Without
Closure
Feeling Tone
Similarity of
Environment
Vividness
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 269
PART THREE | INSTRUCTION | PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING
We have divided the principles of learning into four categories, those that (1)
offer guidance for enhancing cognitive impact, (2) influence motivation, (3)
address technical aspects of design, and (4) impact student attention and en-
gagement. For additional summaries and extensions of the principles, see Hil-
gard & Bower (1966), Bugelski (1971), and Hudgins (1977).
DESIGNING FOR COGNITIVE IMPACT
Application in Setting (from Skill to Setting)
Students should practice new behaviors or skills in the settings and in the way
those learnings will be used in life. Thus spelling will more likely transfer to
composition if spelling tests embed new words in sentences (perhaps from
dictation). The ability to listen to others will transfer to real discussions and
to conflict resolutions if practiced in class meetings and real or simulated dis-
agreements. Notice that we used the word transfer in both of these examples.
Application in setting is a principle that, when applied, makes it more likely
that transfer will occur. As part of teaching for transfer, one is likely to see
several instances of application in setting. Application in setting is something
we see and give as a label to single-instance activities that are having students
use a skill in some real-life context, such as identifying and labeling logical
fallacies (the straw man fallacy) in arguments of current political candidates.
But to claim teaching for transfer itself, there would have to be a series of such
activities deliberately orchestrated so as to progressively distance the skill from
abstract academic contexts. Each of them singly may have been by itself an
example of application in setting.
Concrete-Semiabstract-Abstract Progression
Teachers using this principle begin with tangible or manipulative materials at
one stage of instruction, move to pictorial representation of the same material
and, at still later stages of instruction, deal with the same materials with the
students in purely abstract ways. This progression is effective not only with
young children who are at Piaget’s stage of concrete operation but also with
adult learners. Dealing with concrete materials anchors images and experiences
that later connect with and are summoned by the abstractions that refer to
them. No one has to learn everything by experience (you don’t have to be bit-
ten by a rabid dog to learn they’re dangerous), but experience anchors learning
in a powerful way. Herron’s 1975 study using models in chemistry instruction
showed that using concrete materials was startlingly effective for developing
concepts in college chemistry courses.
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Isolation of Critical Attributes
Teachers who practice this principle identify the critical unvarying attributes
or elements of the item under study and label them. Particularly with regard to
definitions of new concepts, they isolate the qualities or attributes essential to
the concept, attributes “without which it is not” (without which the object is not
the object but something else).
Example 1: “What are the critical attributes that define an estuary?” The answer
is “delta or fan shaped, at the bottom of a river, brackish water (part salt, part
fresh), and sedimentary deposits at the bottom. Without any one of these four
elements, we don’t have an estuary.”
Example 2: When preparing students to write myths in their study of liter-
ary genres, it is very useful to develop the following list at the start: (1) Heroic
figures, (2) Magic, and (3) Explains the origin of a natural phenomenon. These
are the essential attributes—the defining attributes of myth. If any one of them
is missing in a story, it’s not a myth. Teachers can develop the list of attributes
in a number of ways—for example, by having students read a variety of myths
and extract what they have in common, consult reference books for definitions
of myth, or tell students the attributes in direct instruction with examples. How-
ever it happens, that it happens can make a positive difference to learning.
A second way to use the principle has to do with concepts that are similar but
different—perhaps concepts that are close relatives. For example, in comparing
tattling and reporting, the teacher could develop two parallel lists of attributes
and compare them. For tattling and reporting, the lists would be identical ex-
cept for one item: intent. Intent (to get someone in trouble as opposed to giv-
ing needed information) is the critical attribute that discriminates tattling from
reporting. Here is a thought experiment: what is the critical attribute that dis-
criminates prejudice from discrimination?
So far, we have discussed two slightly different ways to use the principle: (1)
listing the definitional attributes that make something what it is (“myth” for
example) and (2) comparing two parallel lists of similar concepts to distinguish
the critical attributes that separate the target concept (tattling) from its close
relative (reporting). A third use helps us see which from among the many at-
tributes that may characterize an entity are the critical ones—the ones it must
have to separate it from the pack. For example, many mammals have hair and
bear their young alive (rather than in eggs), but some mammals do not have
those characteristics. However, all mammals nurse their young. That is the criti-
cal attribute without which a mammal is not a mammal. Through any of these
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three variations—isolation of definitional, essential, and critical attributes—
this principle can strengthen learning.
When teachers highlight items as important, that is not isolation of critical
attributes. Things can be important without being critical attributes—for ex-
ample, “These four formulas may be the most important things to know in the
chapter” or “These three events may be the most important things to know
about the month preceding the Civil War.” Neither set of important things,
however, is the critical attribute of anything. Highlighting important items is
something teachers do deliberately, and usefully, to focus students’ attention
on more important items, but that is quite different from identifying the defi-
nitional attributes of a concept.
In exploring the difference between a developed and a developing country, the
teacher may highlight certain critical attributes that define developed, such as
mechanized planting and harvesting, an efficient national market distribution
system, and an infrastructure of highways and transportation networks. It is
not enough, however, for this list of attributes simply to be presented in the text
or on the board. The teacher must see to it that the critical attributes are gen-
erated, call the students’ attention to them (or elicit them from the students),
and then have students apply the attributes in deciding which cases (here, what
countries) do or do not contain those critical attributes. When students can
discriminate developed from developing countries through analysis of critical
attributes in new settings or in studies of countries where they’re not specifi-
cally asked to look at them as developed versus developing, then learning has
transferred.
Meaning
The more meaningful and relevant the task or application of information is to
the students’ world, the easier it is to learn. Teachers using this principle may
make explicit references to students’ personal experiences as a tie or a hook
for connecting content with students’ lives, or they may simulate the experi-
ences in the learning activity or in some other way embed the new content in
the students’ meaning framework. One teacher using this principle gave us the
following example: “The goal is to understand the difference between chronol-
ogy and history. I do a two-part assignment. For one day, students are asked
to keep a time line of their activities. The next day, they are to write a narrative
history of the one day for which they kept the time line, showing, where pos-
sible, a cause and effect relationship.” This assignment makes a nice distinction
between chronology and history around a context that has intimate personal
meaning for the students (i.e., their own day’s activities).
The more
meaningful and
relevant the task
or application of
information is to the
students’ world, the
easier it is to learn.
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Modeling
Learning can be enhanced by modeling new skills or operations and preserv-
ing these models for student reference during early stages of learning. After ex-
plaining and demonstrating the algorithm for two-digit multiplication (or the
format for writing a book report, or anything else with procedures and steps),
the teacher leaves a model showing the separate steps on the board as students
go to work practicing examples.
Conceptual models that have visual representations of what concepts mean and
how they work improve student recall of the concept and performance on prob-
lems that ask them to extrapolate from what they have learned (Mayer, 1989).
For example, a lesson on radar included a five-step diagram that showed a se-
quence in which a radar pulse moves out from the source, strikes an object, and
bounces back, with the distance determined as a function of the total travel time
(Van Merriënboer, 1997). Perkins and Unger (1989) posit that powerful concep-
tual models have four characteristics:
1. Analogues: provide some kind of analogy for the real phenomenon of interest.
2. Constructed: fabricated for the purpose at hand.
3. Stripped: extraneous clutter is eliminated to highlight critical features.
4. Concrete: phenomenon is reduced to concrete examples and visual images.
Transfer (from Setting to Setting)
This principle is at work when teachers create a series of assignments or tasks
in which the call for using a skill is progressively distanced from direct instruc-
tional settings.
Example 1: After differentiating fact (that which is immediately verifiable by
the senses or that on which most experts in the field would agree) from opinion
(a belief; evidence exists to support differing beliefs), the teacher has students
label examples as fact or opinion: for example, “Mary is wearing a sweater” and
“Mary is the prettiest girl in the class.” Examples are made progressively more
difficult (“Some people believe in reincarnation”). Eventually, students are asked
to generate the examples themselves. Then, they are asked to bring in newspa-
per articles (a new setting) to analyze for fact and opinion. Finally, students are
given cues to transfer their skill to settings where it isn’t an assignment to distin-
guish fact from opinion, as in text readings.
Video:
Transfer
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Sometimes there is no need to do anything extra for transfer to occur because
it happens by itself. If students have learned to borrow in subtraction, they will
probably transfer the skill to the supermarket that very afternoon when buying
supplies for a class party. But for many skills, transfer does not happen sponta-
neously, so we need to engineer a series of events that will induce it. The final
event in the chain, the actual transfer of the skill to a new context, is one that
students take by themselves. That is what makes understanding this principle a
bit tricky. We take students along a planned series of steps up to the edge of the
water, but they have to jump in themselves for there to be evidence that transfer
has actually occurred.
Example 2: Ms. Crane is teaching her middle school students about charac-
terization. They look at pieces of dialogue and physical actions of characters
in stories to see what these pieces of behavior reveal about the characters. The
objective is to learn to recognize how authors develop readers’ images and un-
derstandings of characters through dialogue and physical actions. In the long
term, Ms. Crane wants her students to be able to use characterization in every-
day life: to “read” people they encounter, making inferences about what they
are feeling and thinking from bits of dialogue and physical actions the students
observe. In other words, she wants them to transfer their ability to recognize
characterization as a literary device to their own ability to use it to understand
people they meet. After analyzing the text in novels for characterization, she
assigns students to watch one of their favorite TV programs. They are to take
down bits of dialogue, or describe physical actions they see that are in some
way indicative of the character’s personality. Later in the week, her students are
asked to bring in examples of characterization from their observations of peo-
ple in their neighborhood or their family. Thus she is progressively distancing
their use of characterization from the academic context of novels they are read-
ing, and pressing them to use the skill in ever closer approximations of real life.
If students have learned to read novels and plays for authors’ biases, transfer
has occurred if they then read nonfiction and magazine articles in the same
way. Teachers encourage this kind of transfer by proper sequencing of assign-
ments and pressing students to be aware of the multiple applications of their
learning (Brown, 1989; Fogarty, Perkins, & Barell, 1991). This principle is easily
confused with (but different from) application in setting, where a skill taught in
an abstract setting is put to use right away in a realistic setting.
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DESIGNING FOR MOTIVATIONAL IMPACT
Goal Setting
The point here is goal setting by students. When students get involved in goal
setting for their own learning, they learn more. In addition to being common
sense, this conclusion is strongly supported by a line of research (Schunk &
Gaa, 1981). When students take ownership for goals (either self-set, teacher-set,
or jointly negotiated), their motivation to accomplish them and their ability to
self-evaluate (and self-regulate) increase.
Student goal setting will not happen by itself except for very motivated students.
Teachers have to do something to facilitate the process—for example, take a few
minutes of class time for students to write their goal for the period (or the unit)
on a piece of paper or hold periodic goal-setting conferences with individual
students at timely intervals (like the beginning of new units or projects). These
conferences can be quite short, but the goals chosen should be recorded, and
students should be asked later to evaluate how they did.
Student goal setting does not automatically lead to increased student perfor-
mance. Certain properties of effective goals need to be present. They need to
be specific, challenging but attainable, and able to be accomplished soon. Spe-
cific goals contain items that can be measured, counted, or perceived directly
as criteria for accomplishment. “Try my best” doesn’t fit this mold, “Master the
twenty spelling demons” does.
The more difficult the goal is, the more effort the student will expend, provided
the goal is viewed as attainable. In guiding students to set goals, teachers have
to help them walk the tightrope between what is “duck soup” and what is unre-
alistically difficult.
Finally, goals that can be accomplished in the short-term work better than long-
term goals. This does not mean long-term goals should not be set, only that
long-term goals need to be broken down into short-term goals or subgoals with
their own plans of action, if one is to be maximally effective in reaching them.
Learning or work accomplishment goals for students seem to work best around
specified skills and products, and for time spans of one period to several days
rather than over several weeks or months.
A common misinterpretation of this principle is that it means students are
picking what they will study (that is, the content). This is not the case. Much
more often (and usually, more productively), they are setting goals about speed,
quantity, or quality.
When students
get involved
in goal setting
for their own
learning, they
learn more.
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Example 1: Speed Goal
Teacher: “Glen, how many of these do you think you’ll get done in the
next half-hour?”
Glen: “I think this whole page.”
Teacher: “Really? Do you really think that’s a reasonable amount?”
Glen: “Yes, I’ll do it.”
Teacher: “Okay. Show them to me when you’re done.”
Example 2: Quantity Goal
Teacher: “How many references will you use in researching that, Brenda?”
Brenda: “About six.”
Teacher: “Okay. If you think that’s enough, put it down in your outline
sheet.”
There is no particular rate at which the researching must be done (except ul-
timately, the deadline of the paper). It is a commitment Brenda makes to do
a specified amount. The same kind of goal might apply to how many books
students will read for free reading or how many extra credit or supplementary
exercises they’ll do.
Example 3: Quality Goal
With these goals, students make a commitment to how well they’ll do some-
thing. This can take the form of targeting what aspect of their work they’ll focus
on improving. Teachers can give them the assignment to explain what they’re
working to improve and perhaps ask for it in writing.
Teacher: “So, Jamie, what’s your quality goal going to be on this paper?”
Jamie: “I’m going to work on improving spelling and punctuation.”
Teacher: “How about you, Tara?”
Tara: “My goal’s going to be to use fewer tired words.”
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By getting students to set goals, teachers do not relinquish their ability to make
assignments. They enlist the students in making personal commitments to
speed, quantity, or quality. It is possible to have students choose content in
some cases—“I want to learn everything I can about frogs,” says Freddy. There
are places where it will fit in with curriculum requirements and time available
to help Freddy do so (especially if one of the teacher’s goals is to stimulate and
support an inquiring attitude). But it may be equally powerful to get students
to set quality goals, thus involving them inevitably in self-evaluation to come
up with a target for improvement. In our experience, this principle of learning
is one of the least practiced in education. If we devoted just a little time and
energy to it, we might see big payoffs in student performance and in students’
learning directly about self-regulation and self-evaluation.
Teacher Responses to Student Answers
Art Costa (1985) pointed out that the way teachers respond to student answers
is probably more important than the questions themselves. Every time a stu-
dent answers a question, a teacher does something. Similarly, if a student re-
sponds with silence because he or she can’t answer the question or is slow to
think it through, teachers can still do something: give a cue, refer it to another
student, or offer to help. It is through these acts—repeated hundreds of times a
day—that teachers set a climate about whether it’s safe to open one’s mouth in
this class. It is through teachers’ patterns of actions at these moments that they
exert a force either to keep students open and thinking or to become a force to
restrict thinking and risk-taking.
This arena of classroom life—responses to student answers—is also an arena
through which teachers send the three critical expectation messages: (1) “This
is important,” (2) “You can do it,” and (3) “I won’t give up on you.”
Knowledge of Results (Feedback)
This teacher skill is more often called “feedback” than “knowledge of results.”
Knowledge of results should be specific and timely. Practitioners of this prin-
ciple give explicit feedback to students on their work as rapidly as possible after
completion. The rationale is that this feedback has optimum corrective impact
when most proximal to the student’s engaging the materials and maximum
communicative effect when it is both full and specific. Full and complete feed-
back is a form of respect by which teachers show students they value students’
work enough to look at it closely. In Chapter 14, “Expectations,” we go into
considerable detail about how to give feedback to students in effective ways.
Here are two examples of knowledge of results:
The goal setting
principle of
learning is one
of the least
practiced in
education.
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Example 1: On completing a worksheet on social changes resulting from the
Industrial Revolution, students see answers displayed on an overhead (or re-
vealed from behind a rolled-up map). They correct their own papers and then
ask the teacher clarifying questions.
Example 2: Students correct their own workbook and worksheet pages from
answer books, fixing all individual mistakes and explaining their errors.
Feedback from a teacher to students does not mean this principle is in opera-
tion, and finding out how they did on a test is not the principle. Students find
out how they did at some point in every class, so there’s nothing special about
that. What is special and what empowers learning is feedback that is rapid, spe-
cific, and complete. Computer games give instantaneous knowledge of results,
though not always with specific information about how to improve.
Teachers can claim they’re using knowledge of results if they’re giving students
feedback about how they did very soon after they perform, along with an op-
portunity to self-correct or at least see what would have to be done to improve
(Butler & Winne, 1995).
Reinforcement
A reinforcer is anything that strengthens a behavior and can range all the way
from edibles and tokens to teacher statements of recognition like, “You stuck
with that hard one until you got it and you didn’t give up!” Verbal reinforce-
ment is the focus here because although it is so overworked in the literature
and is such a common part of teacher vocabulary, it is astonishing how seldom
it is used skillfully. Many opportunities for applying this powerful stimulus
to learning are missed. The knowledge base tells us that verbal reinforcement
should be precise, appropriate, and scheduled from regular to intermittent.
Precise means that the statement should specify exactly what it is that the
learner has done that is good: “You didn’t rush today, and you got them almost
all right” is better than “Good work.” The student is much more likely to re-
produce the high accuracy rate, which is due to not rushing, if not rushing is
explicitly reinforced. When a teacher says, “You finished those problems and
then you put your stuff away without my giving you any reminders, and you
started on your writing. That’s great,” the student knows what is great.
Appropriate reinforcement is important. If a student doesn’t want it, it’s not
reinforcing. Being praised in front of someone else may be embarrassing. Be-
ing told his handwriting is “nice” may turn off a sixth-grade athlete and get
What empowers
learning is
feedback that is
rapid, specific,
and complete.
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him kidded by his pals. More appropriate feedback for him might be, “John,
you’re one of our best ball players and I see your fine motor coordination is just
as good as your coordination on the ball field” (Hunter, 1977). It is easy to see
why studies of praise and reinforcement that count frequency of the behavior
and look for correlations to student achievement never get anywhere. Only ap-
propriate use of reinforcement works.
Scheduling is the third important feature of reinforcement. B. F. Skinner dis-
covered that behaviors established through operant conditioning become more
stable and more durable if reinforcement is delivered with every occurrence
of the behavior at first. But then, reinforcement should skip occasional occur-
rences at random, and the span of unreinforced occurrences between reinforc-
ers should gradually be lengthened. Use of intermittent scheduling to establish
behaviors is more in line with a systematic plan for behavior modification a
teacher might use to develop hand raising versus calling out or promptness
versus tardiness to class.
Although researchers universally agree on the positive effects of intrinsic rein-
forcement, a debate has raged for years over whether extrinsic reinforcers ought
to be used. Chance (1992) has put the matter in perspective by pointing out
the conditions under which extrinsic reinforcers are not only okay (meaning
they do not damage students’ motivation to do the activity when there are no
reinforcers around) but are helpful to learning. Chance points out that extrin-
sic reinforcers include teachers’ smiles, praise, congratulations, saying “thank
you” or “right,” shaking hands, a pat on the back, applauding, providing a cer-
tificate of achievement, or other behaviors that “in any way provide a positive
consequence (a reward) for student behavior” (p. 203). Extrinsic rewards can
decrease motivation to engage in a behavior (say, reading) if it is given as a task
contingency—for merely participating in an activity, without regard to how
well one does at it. But when rewards are success contingent, that is, delivered
when students perform well or meet goals, there is no negative effect on engage-
ment with the activity later when rewards are no longer given. Indeed, success-
contingent rewards tend to increase interest in the activity.
Intrinsic rewards are available to students only if they can perform sufficiently
well in an area to get the reward, for example, if they can read well enough to get
the pleasure of a good story. “While intrinsic rewards are important, they are
insufficient for effective learning for all students” (Chance, 1992, p. 206) if one
has to rely on them exclusively.
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TECHNICAL PRINCIPLES OF DESIGN
Breaking Complex Tasks into Simpler Parts
One often sees evidence of this principle when teachers are attempting to ex-
plain or clarify operations students have failed to grasp. The task is broken
down into smaller parts, and one part, now isolated, is focused on for learning.
For example, if students are having trouble with word problems, the teacher
may have the students identify the central question and the operation called for
without doing any computing. Or students may be asked to draw a picture of
what happens in the problem as a way of conceptualizing it, again without any
computing. This principle manifests as task analysis and ensures that sequen-
tial prerequisites for present learning tasks are established.
Close Confusers
Ensure an adequate degree of original learning before “close confusers” are in-
troduced. Teachers following this principle are careful not to confuse or weaken
recently learned items—say, the letter “d”—by introducing too soon new items
easily confused with it—the letter “b.” In this example, the primary teacher will
go on to “t,” then maybe “f,” then some other letters, all the while reviewing “d”
in the expanding set of letters recognized, and then finally introduce “b” as a
new letter when “d” has been thoroughly learned and practiced.
To generalize the statement of this principle in other terms, teachers should not
sequence new material so as to require fine discriminations between two con-
tiguous terms when grosser discriminations can be used first. The making of
fine discriminations can be demanded when at least one item of the content pair
has had an adequate opportunity to be thoroughly learned. This is something to
monitor in using textbooks where close confusers like rotation and revolution,
weathering and erosion are introduced at the same time. Similarly, exceptions to
rules are not to be introduced until original rules are practiced and established
sufficiently. Mindful of this principle, a secondary teacher writes:
Constitutional law is a central part of any middle school social studies
curricula. Instruction frequently involves explanations of the Bill of Rights,
including illustrations of case law. For example, “freedom of speech” is
usually tackled by considering yelling “fire” in a crowded theater. Before
a teacher can realistically ask students to distinguish between accept-
able and unacceptable forms of “free speech,” he must be sure that they
have a grounding in the basic concepts, including the important case
law. Once they have this, they can examine a more complex situation.
Video:
Close
Confusers
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Contiguity
“First impressions stick” is one way of thinking about this principle. Events, ob-
jects, operations, and emotions close to each other in time and space tend to
become associated in the mind of the learner. A first association, once learned,
is hard to unlearn—whether it’s calling Mary Ann “Mary Lou” the first time you
meet her and finding yourself doing so every time thereafter, or adding the tens
column first, then the ones, and finding that a hard habit to break.
Learners should not be allowed to practice errors and build an incorrect as-
sociation. Students who practice footnotes in the wrong format the first time
find that the wrong model interferes with the right one when they finally learn
it. This principle pertains mainly to paired associate memory and procedural
learning like vocabulary words and math algorithms, not higher-level thought
questions. For memory learning, the implication for teachers is to anticipate
errors where they are likely to occur and prevent these errors, even by giving
the right answer where appropriate (for example, a new sight word) before a
student has a chance to make a wrong guess (and thus learn a wrong associa-
tion that must later be unlearned). Teachers should never allow a student to
leave a paired associate learning situation with a wrong answer; the last re-
sponse that occurs should be correct.
Teachers should also be on the watch for potential negative emotional associa-
tions students may form. For example, students coming into class after a recess
full of fighting and negative emotions who are then introduced to a new topic
may form negative associations with the topic that will interfere with their fu-
ture learning. This is not the time to introduce poetry for the first time, for
example. The teacher might preface the introduction to the topic with a brief
activity that raises positive feelings in students.
Cumulative Review
Any information or skill one doesn’t actively use tends to be forgotten. There-
fore, old learnings should be included in practice and drills of new material so
that these old learnings are periodically exercised. As students move on in a skill
sequence, the range and number of skills demanded in the practice exercises
grow cumulatively to include all the old skills. To prevent practice tasks from
becoming unwieldy when the range of skills is big, only a representative sample
of them is included in exercises focusing on new material.
Certain skill sequences automatically cumulate old skills in new products with-
out any design steps required by the teacher—for example, report writing. As
students learn new punctuation and grammar skills, these are automatically
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practiced each time writing takes place and are expected to be done correctly.
And as students use more elaborate language forms and learn to organize ideas
better, these are also automatically expected to be continued in future writing.
But other skill sequences require more deliberate design for cumulative review
to take place effectively.
In drilling on flash cards to learn times tables, each new pack should contain
a representative sample of all previously learned facts, and occasional packs
should be reviewed entirely to solidify old learnings. In learning geographical
features of a country in South America, the features should come up again and
again in the context of the questions about the country’s elections, political
system, and economy. A violation of this principle would see students study-
ing the geographical features of all the South American countries in sequence,
then going back and studying all their political systems, then all their cultural
highlights, and so on.
Degree of Guidance
How much guidance will students need to get the most out of or just to get
through the task? Guidance should be high with new tasks and withdrawn
gradually with demonstrated student proficiency.
Evidence for this principle cannot be simply to observe teachers delivering differ-
ent degrees of guidance to different students. Evidence must cite different degrees
of guidance offered to the same student or group of students over time as they
progressively show increased proficiency with the new material. “Gradual release
of responsibility” is another phrase for this idea. This is sometimes difficult to see
in short observations. Nevertheless, a teacher may introduce a new skill to a class,
and immediately provide adequate guidance in practicing it. This may mean
working with just one group after introducing haiku to the whole class, while
giving the rest of the class something else they still need to practice but without
so much teacher guidance. And then rotating through the class with groups that
focus on the new skill. Or it may mean the teacher puts on track shoes and gets
around to everybody, giving guidance and help where needed. The latter is more
time efficient if the teacher can pull it off. Pulling it off is not so much a function
of teacher skill as good judgment—what new material will or will not require
more intensive individual guidance for students to be able to use it proficiently.
Mnemonics
Teachers using this principle help students use mediational devices for remem-
bering new learning—devices such as imagery, anagrams, or jingles (“30 days
hath September”). Here is a familiar one:
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p Desert: one “s” all alone in the desert.
p Dessert: you get bigger in the middle if you eat too much of it.
There are many mnemonic devices, and a growing body of research com-
paring their effectiveness. For example, one particularly effective technique,
the keyword technique, is used for learning new vocabulary words and new
terms. Students are asked to learn a keyword (word clue) for the new term
that sounds acoustically similar to it (for example, “purse” for “persuade”;
“he’s a date” for “hesitate”). Then, students are asked to remember the con-
tent of a cartoon that contains the keyword interacting in some way with
the definition of the new term. Levin and others (1982) show a cartoon for
the new vocabulary word “persuade.” One woman points to a purse in a store
and says, “Oh, Martha, you should buy that PURSE!” Martha replies, “I think
you can PERSUADE me to buy it.” At the bottom of the cartoon is written,
“Persuade (Purse): When you talk someone into doing something.” In these
cartoons, one character’s utterance contains the keyword, and the other con-
tains the new term to be learned. Studies have been highly positive and uni-
form in demonstrating the effectiveness of this technique for learning new
words (Levin, 1993).
Here are the steps in using mnemonic keywords:
1. Think of a sound-alike or rhyming word you know that resembles the
new word you’re trying to learn. This word is the keyword.
2. Make up a visual cartoon in which both the keyword and the word to be
learned are represented in the action or the objects.
3. Have dialogue between two characters in the cartoon, one using the
keyword and the other the word to be learned.
4. Make the dialogue meaningful, and arrange it so that the context of
the dialogue and the cartoon illustrates the meaning of the word to be
learned.
Practice
Practice should be massed (frequent practice sessions, close together in
time) at the beginning of learning a new skill or operation, then distributed
over increasing intervals of time. The smallest unit of new information that
retains meaning should be practiced at any one session, and worked on for
the shortest unit of time to allow the students to feel they have accomplished
Long practice
sessions with
academic
skills quickly
reach a point
of diminishing
returns.
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something. After students have achieved proficiency, they should practice
learned items two or three more times to make the learning more permanent
(over learning). Unlike athletics and motor skills, where practice makes perfect
and the more the better (up to a point), long practice sessions with academic
skills quickly reach a point of diminishing returns.
Example 1: For areas like the times tables, each fact is a unit of meaning on its
own, separate from the others, and only one or two of them should be intro-
duced at a time, embedded in groups of already known facts for drill. Certain
tables and groups of facts, however, such as the 10 times table, group all at once
as a single unit of meaning. In teaching students to analyze a story, which is
a complex task, only one part would be assigned at first, say, identifying the
setting; describing the plot would come later. In practicing a difficult piece of
music, the student would practice not a page or a bar (which might be too small
a unit to have meaning) but a measure.
Practice sessions should be short (two to five minutes) and frequent (twice a
day rather than twice a week). This is quite at odds with the schedules we often
see when students labor over workbooks in classrooms.
Example 2: If a teacher wants students to practice writing news stories in a
journalism course, the lead (that is, the opening sentence or paragraph that
contains all the critical information of who, when, where, why, and what) is a
meaningful unit. Students may be asked to practice writing just leads for fre-
quent short practice periods before being asked to write entire stories.
Say-Do
The more perceptual modes one engages for students—seeing, hearing, mov-
ing, touching—the better the learning will be. But in striving to increase the
range of perceptual channels made active during learning, be particularly
aware of the power of having learners say their learning out loud and get in-
volved in using it to do something. The title of this principle, say-do, is meant
to highlight the powerful effects achieved when these two channels for express-
ing learning are engaged.
What do we know about the relative power of various perceptual channels for
acquiring information? How much do students retain over time if the only way
they acquire information is to read it versus hearing it versus seeing it? What
if they both see and hear the information? What if students were to read the
information and then summarize their learning out loud to someone (read,
say)? What would be the learning retention effects if students read information
to acquire it, then had to summarize it out loud to someone, and finally put the
Practice sessions
should be short
(2 to 5 minutes)
and frequent
(twice a day).
The more
perceptual modes
one engages for
students—seeing,
hearing, moving,
touching—the
better the learning.
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10%
20%
30%
50%
70%
90%
Read
0.6
0.8
1.0
Hear
See
Hear and See
Read, Say
Read, Say, Do
information to work by actually using it to do something? The graph in Figure
12.2 summarizes the relative effectiveness of different perceptual modes. At first
glance, the most surprising assertion in the chart is the magnitude of the boost
in learning retention when “say” is added to the simple input channel of reading.
The effect would probably be similar for see-say and hear-say, though there are
no studies found to verify this claim. Studies of the effect of learning logs and
dialogue journals confirm positive learning effects for hear-write and read-write
(Connolly & Vilardi, 1989; Fulwiler, 1987; Pradl & Mayher, 1985).
To summarize in your own words, either verbally or in writing, what you have
learned in a given experience is a complex cognitive act. It causes search and re-
trieval of memory, organization of ideas, and summoning of language to recast
the meaning in your own terms. It is logical that this complex set of cognitive
acts would create neural networks and deepen memory traces. The implications
for teaching and learning are large. Foremost is the call to have students stop
and summarize, either singly in journals or together out loud in pairs, what
is important in a recent episode of learning. The need to create such pauses
means that a teacher will build periodic summarizing into teaching as a regular
practice. The “do” part of this principle means getting students active, as soon as
possible, using the materials in some realistic way.
Despite the popularity and frequent citation of the bar chart, it is an oversimpli-
fication of the research findings on complex material (Fadel & Lempke, 2008).
There is a considerable literature, however, on the effects of student verbaliza-
tions of their learning (King, 1990; Morrow, 1985; Pauk, 1974; Webb, 1982). One
particularly well-designed study by Mackenzie and White (1982) comes close
to including all the conditions in Figure 12.2. In their study of eighth and ninth
graders’ learning and retention of geographical facts, they involved learners in
three different conditions to learn facts and skills in the geography of coasts, in-
Figure 12.2 Relative Effectiveness of Different Perceptual Modes
Adapted from many studies.
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cluding information about landforms and plants. All three treatment groups
studied a carefully designed programmed learning package of materials con-
taining 35 pages and 37 questions to encourage processing (Read). The program
was supported by 60 photographs on 35mm slides (See).
Other characteristics of the program were statements of expected perfor-
mance, worked examples and test items, practice at working new data,
prompts to stimulate recall of relevant information and subordinate skills,
indications of relevance of information to subsequent application, and
transfer of verbal propositions to maps, diagrams and slides. (Mackenzie
& White, 1982, p. 626)
Treatment group 1 received the package described. Treatment group 2 also
went through the programmed package and in addition went on a field trip
to a beach, two sets of cliffs, and two mangrove flats where the pictures in the
program had been taken. The students were given an explanatory field guide
designed to reinforce the information in the program they had done at school.
A teacher guided them around the five sites, pointing out items in the guide. In
the middle of the trip, students had to complete one set of questions. So in ad-
dition to the classroom-based instruction of treatment group 1, this group had
a great deal more of seeing and hearing built in to their experience, as well as
more calls to answer questions about the information. Treatment group 3 also
went on the field trip, but with some powerful additions:
At each site students received a worksheet, a map of the area, and a
tide table. The teacher supervised while the students, individually and in
groups, completed the tasks on the worksheets. Group discussions (Say)
were held frequently. Students were continually required to do things (Do):
observe, sketch, record, answer questions. Several unusual events were
arranged, such as walking through the mud of the mangrove shore, tasting
foliage for salinity, scrambling over cliff platforms, wading in the sea. It is
emphasized that the students in [treatment group 2] saw the same things
. . . and spent the same time at each site. They had information repeated to
them more often, but did far less. (Mackenzie & White, 1982, p. 627)
The achievement results in this experiment were striking. In the initial achieve-
ment tests, both field-trip groups outperformed the classroom-only group by
a wide margin, but the two field-trip groups were about equal to each other
in student achievement means. After 12 weeks, however, the retention with
respect to initial mean scores was 51% for the classroom-only group, 58% for
the treatment 2 field trip-group, and 90% for the treatment 3 field-trip group.
The addition of say and do together in this condition had a huge impact on
long-term retention.
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Sequence and Backward Chaining
The first and last items in a series are the easiest to remember; the one just
past the middle is the hardest. Learning can be accelerated by chaining a se-
quence backward from the last item, and sequences can be broken into small
parts to avoid interference. This set of principles is applicable to rote learning
and is easily observed when practiced in math fact and spelling drills or any
other body of items in some sequence that students are expected to memorize
(such as poems). Teachers can use this knowledge to improve the learning
of items in the difficult positions. The sequence (or list) can be shortened or
split in half so the difficult item becomes first on the shortened list. The order
of items can be changed; the hard parts can be given extra practice; the hard
items can be made more vivid (darker print, use of colors). A high school
Latin teacher writes:
Students are expected to learn ten new Latin vocabulary words each
week. (1) They quiz each other from the list at the beginning of each class
period for five minutes. (2) Then they drill alone on the ones they missed
in the partner quiz. (3) They write the list in their notebooks along with
the meanings, putting the ones they missed first and last in the reordered
list (and second and ninth if need be). Words they know best are put in
the just past the middle position. They cover the answers with their hand
and go down the list several times quizzing themselves. This procedure
is repeated each day, with missed words in first and last positions. The
whole thing takes about ten minutes, which I use to circulate and talk to
individual students.
This principle of sequence and the importance of the first and last positions
is also applicable to the use of time. What happens at the beginning and end
of a class period (or day or term) is most easily remembered. Thus these spots
should be milked to maximum advantage for learning (for more see Chapter 8,
“Time”).
PRINCIPLES FOR ATTENTION AND ENGAGEMENT
Active Participation
In classes where teachers use this principle, students are operating, respond-
ing, moving, and talking during the course of the learning experiences. Sitting
passively and listening is not characteristic of learning experiences embodying
this principle. Active participation of all students might not require small or
large muscle movement or manipulation. It could conceivably involve written
Video:
Sequence
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participation, with each student responding to each question, or it could be all
verbal participation, with the setting structured in such a way that many stu-
dents can talk at once, divided into pairs or small groups to reach consensus on
something or debate some issue.
There are many techniques for structuring this kind of participation from stu-
dents. For example, after finishing a presentation of the structure of an atomic
nucleus and the meaning of atomic number versus atomic mass, the teacher
says, “Okay, now explain to your neighbor the difference between atomic num-
ber and atomic mass.” Teachers aware of this principle look for opportunities
to make that kind of move.
End Without Closure
Consider the impact of this teacher statement: “Think about three ways you
might get out of this dilemma and be ready to share them with us tomorrow
when you come in” (Russell, 1980). Leaving students without an answer and
with something percolating overnight may be more effective, in some cases,
than coming to a neat ending of each class with all issues resolved.
Feeling Tone
Feeling tone propels learning in proportion to degree. This principle posits that
students learn more, and faster, in proportion to the level of feeling—positive
or negative—provoked during the learning. The rule is held to apply only up
to a point. On one side, the more pleasurable the learning experience is, the
more the learning will take place—up to the point where the pleasure takes
over and begins crowding out the learning. In other words, there is a point of
diminishing returns for efforts to make learning pleasurable. When teachers
raise the level of students’ concern (“I’m going to check you all individually on
this material this period”), learning is potentiated, but only up to a point. Too
much concern turns into anxiety, quickly interferes with learning, and blocks
it. Again, a point of diminishing returns is quickly reached.
Application of this principle sees teachers either making moves to make
learning experiences enjoyable (without becoming hedonistic) or raising
levels of concern (“We’ll be having a quiz on this material sometime this
week”), but neither to the extreme. Judging the extreme, or the point of
diminishing returns, is not a judgment for which rules can be cited. To
credit this principle as operative, however, an observer would have to cite
evidence of teacher moves to raise positive or negative feeling tone and be
subjectively convinced (by watching student reactions) that extremes had
not been violated.
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Similarity of Environment
Similarity of environment (actions, feelings, formats, routines) elicits the learn-
er’s mindset to perform. This principle holds that certain features of the en-
vironment, when regularly associated with a particular type of learning or a
period in which a type of attention or work is expected, trigger a mindset in
learners that “plugs them in” and turns on their operators for that particular
kind of lesson or activity.
For certain kinds of learning, teachers can regularly use repetitive formats of
the environment—certain space, time, and routine features—to create expecta-
tional mindsets in their students for that kind of work. For example, a science
teacher we know has 30 lab coats hung on a row of pegs inside his classroom
door. When students enter, they are expected to put on a lab coat and proceed
to their seats. The lab coats signal a change of mindset into being scientists.
In addition, teachers may warm up students for a lesson by doing an activity
that starts them thinking the way they’ll be asked to think in the lesson. For
instance, suppose a teacher is going to do a lesson on outlining that requires
students to categorize their ideas into topical groups. The teacher may warm
up the class by playing “Guess My Category” (Table 12.1). The teacher slowly
develops the lists below on the board, writing the terms one at a time in the
order indicated, under “yes” for positive examples of the category and “no” for
negative examples. The students must guess the category to which the “yes”
examples belong (in this example, “southern states”).
Table 12.1 Guess My Category
Yes No
Mississippi New York
Virginia Wyoming
Georgia California
Kentucky Iowa
Florida Arizona
Similarity of
environment
(actions, feelings,
formats, routines)
elicits the
learner’s mindset
to perform.
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When the game is over, the teacher says, “Now, the kind of thinking we were
doing here is similar to what our minds have to do with facts in this outlining
activity for today. Take out your note cards and . . .”
Russell (1980) points out that this activity is also an excellent sponge for stu-
dents arriving in class (see Chapter 6, “Momentum”). It gets them involved im-
mediately with a meaningful activity, yet does not penalize those who haven’t
arrived yet. Thus it eliminates downtime and waiting.
Vividness
The vividness, liveliness, energy, novelty, or striking imagery of a learning ex-
perience is thought to impress new learning on students more deeply through
mediation of the attentional mechanisms. One can claim this principle to be
in operation by virtue of observed student reaction to learning experiences.
An example would be the “oohaah” reactions, the high level of arousal or emo-
tion (surprise, fascination) attributed to observed student behaviors (wide
eyes, open mouths, rapt gazes, unusual stillness). In trying to practice what
he preaches, one of us once introduced a group of teachers to the principles
of learning by pulling a series of small giftwrapped packages out of a case la-
beled “idea bag” to highlight that each principle is discrete and valuable, self-
contained and important.
In the next chapter on “Models of Teaching,” we look at teaching as a play-
wright looks at a script. We look at the design and sequence of the whole lesson
and what discrete teacher moves have to do with the overall design of a par-
ticular kind of learning; the principles of learning are always there and always
relevant.
Video:
Vividness
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Designing for Cognitive Impact:
1. Application in Setting Practicing new behaviors in settings where they’ll be used.
2. Concrete-Semiabstract- Following as a progression with the introduction of new material.
Abstract Progression
3. Isolation of Attributes Highlighting and labeling the attributes.
4. Meaning Connecting to students’ personal experience.
5. Modeling Stepwise products, procedures, and processes preserved for student reference.
6. Transfer Engineering a planned sequence of activities that progressively distances the
skill from abstract academic contexts.
Designing for Motivational Impact:
7. Goal Setting Student ownership, specific, challenging; able to be accomplished soon,
then over the longer term.
8. Teacher Responses to Supply questions for which answers are right, deliver promptly,
Student Answers and hold accountable.
9. Knowledge of Results Promptly through monitoring (feedback).
10. Reinforcement Precise, regular, and intermittent.
Technical Principles of Design:
11. Breaking Complex Tasks Simpler, smaller pieces; isolating trouble spots for focused work and practice;
into Simpler Parts higher frequency practice and repetition of new items.
12. Close Confusers Ensuring an adequate degree of original learning before introducing close confusers.
13. Contiguity Don’t allow practice of errors.
14. Cumulative Review In practice, periodically including representative sample of previously
learned material.
15. Degree of Guidance High with new tasks; withdrawn gradually with familiarity.
16. Mnemonics Devices to aid in memory (keywords, images in sequence, jingles).
17. Practice Massed at beginning, then distributed; smallest meaningful units;
short practices; overlearning.
18. Say-Do Using all perceptual channels but emphasizing particularly saying and doing.
19. Sequence and First and last are easiest; just past the middle is hardest.
Backward Chaining
Principles for Attention and Engagement:
20. Active Participation Encouraging through unison, checking with a partner, signals, and so on.
21. End Without Closure Follow-up at a later time, to invite percolation.
22. Feeling Tone Fun, but not too much; worry, but not too much.
23. Similarity of Environment An activity that gets minds in gear for upcoming events.
24. Vividness Varying of practice formats.
To check your knowledge about Principles of Learning, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher
website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.rbteach.com/TST7
13. Models of Teaching
PART THREE | INSTRUCTION | MODELS OF TEACHING
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Instruction
Models of
Teaching
Instruction:
Models of Teaching
For students of teaching, few other efforts are as rewarding and as chal-lenging as learning new models of teaching. Even the most mature and sophisticated of professionals can add to their repertoires and their power
to reach a broader range of students. It is an ideal area of study for advanced
professionals between their fifth and fifteenth year of teaching.
A model of teaching is a pattern of instruction that is recognizable and consis-
tent. It has particular values, goals, a rationale, as well as an orientation to how
learning shall take place. This could be by induction, discovery, wrestling with
puzzling data, organizing information hierarchically, or through heightened
personal awareness. That orientation is developed into a specific set of phases
teachers and students go through in order, with specific kinds of events in
each phase. Each model of teaching is a particular entity with specific compo-
nents, well worked out, and with markedly different appearances and effects.
Each of the dozens of models (Figure 13.1) is a design for planning lessons to
achieve two outcomes: (1) the teaching of content and (2) the teaching of a par-
ticular kind of thinking. Almost any model can be used to teach a given piece
of content. Although the information learned may be the same, the intellectual
experience for students will be different.
For example, if Mr. Jones uses Taba’s inductive model for a lesson on Heming-
way, he wants students to learn not only about Hemingway but also to learn to
think inductively. The model is carefully sequenced to get students into that
kind of thinking. If he teaches through the Jurisprudential Model, he may want
the same learnings about Hemingway, but he also wants his students to think
like lawyers, taking positions and arguing them with evidence. If he uses the
Group Investigation Model, he may still want students to learn the same core
information about Hemingway, but he also wants them to learn about group
process, leadership, and coordinated plans of inquiry. If he uses the Advance
Organizer Model, he wants them to learn about hierarchical thinking and sub-
ordination of ideas. Models of teaching provide a way for teachers to be more
articulate and precise about implicit learnings students take from instruction.
They enable us to broaden the ways we instruct and thus broaden the range of
students’ intellectual experience in school.
A model of teaching
is a pattern of
instruction that is
recognizable and
consistent.
CHAPTER
13
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Research over many decades has shown that no one model is superior to the
others for achieving learning as measured by test scores. That only stands to
reason, since that was not their intention. Models of teaching were not created
to be more efficient hypodermics to inject knowledge into students’ heads. They
were intended to teach students how to learn and think in different ways. Educa-
tors can use a variety of models to match students’ preferred learning styles and
broaden students’ capacity as thinkers and learners beyond their favored style.
Teachers who have multiple models in their repertoires may use several differ-
ent ones in a day or even within a class period. Teachers who master additional
models find themselves able to modulate across them like connoisseurs, thus
giving professionalism a new dimension. Let us examine the models themselves,
first with a more detailed description of what a model is and then with a look at
a number of specific models.
Figure 13.1 Families of Models of Teaching
FAMILIES OF MODELS OF TEACHING
Cognitive
Social Behavioral
Information
Processing Personal
Inductive Thinking
(Taba)
Concept Attainment
(Bruner)
Advanced Organizer
(Ausubel)
Inquiry Training
(Suchman)
Scientific Inquiry
(Schwab and many others)
Awareness Training
(Schultz, Perls)
Nondirective Teaching
(Rogers)
Synectics
(Gordon)
Programmed Learning
(Skinner)
Mastery Learning
(Bloom)
Training
(Gagne)
Jurisprudential Teaching
(Shaver)
Group Investigation
(Thelen)
Role Playing
(Shaftel)
Cooperative Learning
(Johnson, Slavin, Aronson)
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An Example: The Inductive Thinking Model
The Inductive Thinking Model has nine logical steps:
1. Enumerating or gathering data
2. Grouping
3. Labeling
4. Discriminating
5. Comparing
6. Inferring
7. Hypothesizing
8. Evidencing
9. Generalizing
This model, introduced by Hilda Taba, prizes developing students’ ability to
make inferences from data. Like all other models, it has a series of phases that
unfold over time like acts in a play. Each phase looks and sounds different from
the previous one, but like scenes in a play each is carefully articulated with the
previous and the succeeding phases to achieve a cumulative effect.
A teacher who wished to use the model to present a lesson on Ernest Heming-
way might start by showing a video biography of Hemingway’s life. This is
phase 1: gathering data. After the video, the teacher would ask students to re-
late items of information they remembered and would record the information
on the board or on charts. The items might appear disconnected and random:
“Had a fishing boat named the Pilar.” “He went to Spain three times during the
Spanish Civil War.” “He had a house in Key West.” “He liked to write early in
the morning while sitting on a balcony overlooking the streets of Paris.” Per-
haps, the class might collect two dozen such items that students would remem-
ber and contribute to the list. Phase 1 of the model always collects a database
of some sort.
In phase 2, students would group the items from the database that belong to-
gether. They would look at the sentences on the board and put certain items
together because they bear some relationship with one another.
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In phase 3, students would give a title or a label to the groupings they were creat-
ing. Examples might be, “Hemingway’s work habits as a writer” or “Hemingway
the outdoorsman,” in which information about hunting on the Serengeti and
fishing in Michigan would appear. Students around the class might group items
in similar clusters, but there would also be some differences in the categories
students created.
In phase 4, the students’ groupings of the items about Hemingway would be
displayed in some fashion for all to see (charts, overheads). In this phase, dis-
criminating, students explain the thinking behind their categories. “What really
made this grouping hang together?” The categories and the thinking behind
them are compared and contrasted as the teacher guides the students through
a discussion of the different ways the information could be grouped and why.
In phase 5, the students make inferences, for example: Are any ideas occurring
to them about Hemingway as a result of what they have done so far? Are there
any inferences they would be willing to make about Ernest Hemingway as a
man? In a recent demonstration lesson we did with adults, one person said at
this point, “I think Hemingway was really a very lonely man.” At no point in the
video does Hemingway’s biographer ever make that point explicitly, so no single
item of information in it would ever lead a viewer to that conclusion. Yet as a
result of having been through these phases and manipulating the data intellectu-
ally in the way those phases require, inferences such as this and others become
available to students.
There are several other phases to this model, but we will not develop them in any
detail. Our objective is only to show that the steps or phases in a model of teach-
ing unfold in a planful way so as to lead students toward developing a particular
way of thinking. We could summarize the first five phases of Taba’s model by
listing the key question of each phase:
Phase 1: What are the data?
Phase 2: How would you group the data?
Phase 3: What name would you give to your categories or groups?
Phase 4: What makes your groups hold together?
Phase 5: What inferences would you be willing to make about
the topic?
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EIGHT MODELS OF TEACHING
The notion of models of teaching was introduced by Bruce R. Joyce in 1968
through Teacher Innovator: A Program to Prepare Teachers, funded by the U.S.
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. In 1972, Joyce and Marsha
Weil published Models of Teaching, which described a large number of models
in detail. These descriptions have been updated in eight subsequent editions
(1980, 1986, 1992, 1996, 2000, 2003, 2008, 2014), which have added models
and elaborated prior descriptions until we now have over two dozen models of
teaching well described with anecdotes, examples, and outlines of steps. These
books have been an important contribution to the literature on teaching be-
cause they made operational the theoretical approaches to learning developed
by such luminaries as Jerome Bruner, David Ausubel, B. F. Skinner, William
Glasser, Richard Suchman, Jean Piaget, and others.
To analyze each model of teaching, Joyce and Weil asked and answered the fol-
lowing questions for each theorist:
p What is the orientation to knowing and learning to know in this model?
Does the teaching appear to be aimed at specific kinds of thinking and
means for achieving it?
p What sequence of events occurs during the process of instruction?
What do teachers and students do first, second, third?
p How does the teacher regard the student and respond to what he or
she does?
p What teacher and student roles, relationships, and norms are encour-
aged?
p What additional provisions, materials and support systems are needed
to make the model work?
p What is the purpose of the teaching? What are the likely instructional
and nurturant effects of this approach to teaching?
The descriptions of these models display the range of teaching alternatives and
allow comparison of their unique features. The language of models enables us
to visualize clear patterns of action in teaching and learning. Thus we can talk
more precisely about what we might do if we taught a lesson through a different
model. We can also talk more precisely about why we might do so and what the
expected effects of using a particular model might be.
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This chapter provides an introduction to eight models of teaching. Each is de-
scribed in only the briefest details; in-depth study is required for gaining skill
in them. We illustrate the range of models that have been developed and the
wonderful menu for learning that lies before us. Most teachers already use one
or two of these models, but few of us have been exposed to the full range, much
less trained in the subtleties of implementing them and matching them to dif-
ferent students and curricula.
Our intention is to give a flavor for the different qualities of mind that models
of teaching develop in students. Readers can focus further reading and learning
on models that best meet their current priorities. On The Skillful Teacher website
(www.RBTteach.com/TST7), we provide a bibliography of original sources on
the models for readers interested in going beyond this chapter on a given model
provided by Joyce and Weil. To make the models more vivid, we use a specific
content area, beginning geometry, in our survey.
Advanced Organizer Model
Advanced organizers are concepts derived from well-defined bodies of knowl-
edge: mathematics, grammar, sociology, and so forth. The set of geometry
concepts in Figure 13.2 illustrates a well-defined, integrated, and progressively
differentiated set of organizing concepts.
In the Advanced Organizer Model, these concepts are introduced by the teacher
progressively, one by one, through lectures, films, demonstrations, or readings.
The student then applies the organizer and demonstrates mastery of the geom-
etry concept. For example, the teacher might define an acute angle as any angle
that is less than a right angle (less than 90 degrees), and then might clarify specif-
ics through examples. In phase 2, the student might be asked to make a drawing
P R O G R E S S I V E D I F F E R E N T I AT I O N
Point
Space
Line Segm
ent
Line R
ay
A
ngle
Vertex
Side of A
ngle
C
ongruent
R
ight A
ngle
A
cute A
ngle
O
btuse A
ngle
Straight A
ngle
Figure 13.2 Progressive Differentiation in Geometry Concepts
PDF
Models of
Teaching
Bibliography
http://www.RBTteach.com/TSTS7
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Positive Exemplars Negative Exemplars Attributes
Greater than
90 degrees
Less than
180 degrees
X
Z
Y
X
ZY
X
X
X
Z
Y
Z
Y
Figure 13.3 Exemplars of Concept Attainment
that represents an acute angle and to label it ABC. From exercises, such as this
one, the teacher can determine student mastery, step by step, and integrate new
ideas with previously learned content, which Bruner calls “integrative recon-
ciliation” (Bruner, 1979). Then, the teacher moves on to subsequent organizers.
A teacher using this model primarily seeks to advance the conceptual organiz-
ers of a body of knowledge and promote a meaningful assimilation of informa-
tion. “Meaningful” means within the context of a hierarchical arrangement of
knowledge. Students are expected to learn these organizers because they are
basic and fundamental to academic knowledge. Some consider these concep-
tual organizers the bread and butter of school learning.
Concept Attainment Model
Closely related to the Advanced Organizer Model is the Concept Attainment
Model—learning by logic, analysis, comparison, and contrast. Instead of ad-
vancing the concept, the teacher presents the concept in the form of positive
exemplars, and the students search for attributes to identify the concept (Figure
13.3). The teacher also uses nonexemplars that do not contain attributes of the
concept to assist students in determining relevant attributes.
The student is expected to arrive at the concept inductively—to learn by iden-
tifying the salient features and formulating an abstract statement. The concept
illustrated in Figure 13.3 is, “any angle that is greater than a right angle and
less than a straight angle.” The mathematical label is less important than the
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student’s awareness of these defining attributes. Later, the students can learn the
name for this concept: obtuse angle. In the model of teaching, students learn the
attributes of the concept first by deriving them.
The value of using the Concept Attainment Model is that students learn not
only the concepts themselves but the awareness of how concepts are formed
from attributes. They acquire sensitivity to logical reasoning and a deepening
regard for alternative points of view. These instructional and nurturant effects
are learned through practice with concept attainment. The student, in effect,
reconstructs knowledge through guided learning.
Inductive Thinking Model
The Inductive Thinking Model enables students to generate knowledge as if
they themselves were scholars responsible for producing insights into factual
reality. Consider the array of data in Figure 13.4. Then, ask a series of questions
to lead students through a systematic sorting of the basic angles:
p What do you see?
p Which ones belong together? Why?
p What would you call them? Why?
p What do you notice about one of the groups?
p What similarities and differences do you see?
p What do these tell you about geometry?
p What do you think would happen if . . . ?
p What evidence would you use to support your guess?
p What can we say is generally true?
The likely concepts from such a logical process might more or less approximate
formal knowledge of geometry, but there is no guarantee, nor does it matter to
the teacher that a student doesn’t know the concepts in advance. In this model,
the teacher values student thinking: attention to logic, sensitivity to language,
awareness of building knowledge, and concept formation. The students work
cooperatively toward building ideas about the shapes.
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Inquiry Training Model
In inquiry training, the student is expected to put his or her knowledge to work
to solve a problem. In the process, there is more knowledge to be gained in
both substance (mathematical knowledge) and process (inquiry training).
Let us say that the problem is to make two squares and four equal triangles out
of a rectangle measuring 5 inches by 1 inch. To solve the problem, the student
needs to construct a solution consisting of geometry concepts—a process of ver-
ifying relevant facts about objects, properties, conditions, and events—and si-
multaneously hypothesize possible configurations of space, shape, and size. For
example, the student might think through the solution shown in Figure 13.5.
Figure 13.4 Using the Inductive Thinking Model to Generate Knowledge
a. b. c. d.
e. f. g. h.
i. j. k. l.
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After being presented with the problem, students are encouraged to inquire
together as a group while the teacher answers yes-no questions, seeks clarifi-
cation, encourages student verifying, hypothesizing, and explaining behavior,
and guides the group dynamics.
This model introduces a more tentative knowledge in which organized knowl-
edge from the disciplines is synthesized and employed in the formulation of
a solution. Mastery of knowledge is not the goal of instruction. Rather, the
student is expected to test out his or her own knowledge. In addition, students
learn strategies for inquiry by witnessing their own inquiry behavior and learn-
ing to ask questions about objects, events, properties, and conditions. This hap-
pens when teachers and students go over their problem-solving behavior fol-
lowing the total class exercise. There is an interdependence in inquiry learning
too. Students learn to listen well and use the insights of others for solving a
problem. It also provides learners with experiences that prepare them for the
uses of knowledge in actual situations.
Figure 13.5 Inquiry Training Solutions
1
2
3
4
5
1
2
3
4
5
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Awareness Training Model
The preceding models were developed from information processing theory
and represent traditional approaches to teaching. However, knowledge of
geometric space and points in space can be a personal experience as well.
Awareness training seeks to bridge the individual’s own experiences with ex-
periences of other people—in this case, those of a mathematician. Imagine
students with a rope who are able to experience geometric configurations
equivalent to line segments and triangles (see Figure 13.6). After experienc-
ing geometry in this way, students would be encouraged to discuss their feel-
ings and thoughts—that is, to give form to them in language within the social
context of the classroom.
These experiences may appear elementary, but they are in fact extremely rich
in personal relevance and serve to integrate knowledge and self. The teacher
values the students’ world and the students’ ability to express themselves. In
this model, personal awareness is held as a first type of knowing that can un-
dergird subsequent learning. It takes advantage of the insight that we all like to
be around people who can express their personal realities as well as those more
commonly held by communities of scholars.
Synectics Model
The synectics model has been derived from a set of assumptions about creativ-
ity and analogies. Creativity means seeing connections between the familiar
and the strange, and exploring new solutions to old problems. It means cre-
ating and attending to psychological states such as detachment, involvement,
autonomy, speculation, and deferment. We attain these psychological states
through analogies, which lead to the attainment and mastery of new and dif-
Figure 13.6 Awareness Training Model
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ficult material and novel vantage points for reconsidering problems. Both the
means and ends of teaching are influenced by these assumptions.
In Making the Strange Familiar, a title Gordon (1973) gives to certain phases of
synectics, the teacher introduces the new material or content through lecture,
video, or demonstration. Without comment, the teacher then solicits a possible
analogy and asks students to describe it. To personify the analogy, the students
act it out. Describing and acting out the analogy provide the particulars for the
fourth and fifth steps—listing the similarities and differences between the anal-
ogy and the new material. Finally, the students return to the original material
to examine and review it, and to discuss details that might have been omitted
from previous activity during the analogical thinking. Consider the following
example:
Step 1: The teacher presents material on geometry.
Step 2: The students select an analogy—in this case, a tree.
Step 3: The students describe the tree in detail.
Step 4: The students act out being parts of a tree.
Step 5: The students point out similarities between the tree and geom-
etry—for example, the “angle of the branches to the tree trunk” or “the
points from where the branch begins to end.”
Step 6: The students point out differences—for example, that the
crooked branches are not straight lines.
Step 7: Teacher and students consider what aspects of geometry were
not covered in the discussion of similarities and differences.
The synectics process induces creative thinking and mastery learning of con-
tent. It is both a personal experience that integrates geometry and personal
knowledge and an analogical one that capitalizes on students’ ability to make
connections. In addition, it is a wonderful group experience. Those who diver-
sify their efforts to learn through the Synectics Model achieve several goals:
mastery of subject matter, analogical thinking, personal integration, fun, and
group productivity.
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Nondirective Teaching Model
Learning is a personal experience. In this model, the student experiences plan-
ning, responsibility, and a teacher who values the individual’s perspective. Ac-
quiring responsibility for one’s own learning and the skill to plan and develop
those plans is no small matter. A teacher who wants students to become inde-
pendent learners can use nondirective teaching to establish the interpersonal
relationships that can facilitate personal productivity. The following conversa-
tion shows how this works:
Mr. Rogers: “John, we’re going to study geometry for the next three
weeks, and I’m hoping each person will plan a personal project.”
John: “What do you mean, Mr. Rogers?”
Mr. Rogers: “Well, what would you like to learn about geometry?”
John: “I’ll be honest: I never thought about geometry. To me it’s just
another school subject.”
Mr. Rogers: “I understand. We plan so much of your activity in school
that it just doesn’t seem right to have to think about it for yourself. How-
ever, it is important to me that you have this opportunity to set your own
goals, to develop the project, and to share with me in assessing your
progress.”
John: “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
Mr. Rogers: “I’d like to help you. As a teacher, I’ve learned a great many
planning skills. I guess that’s what makes this project so important to me.”
John: “What do you mean?”
Mr. Rogers: “Well, I want you to learn to organize your own learning,
to feel a sense of responsibility for where you’re going and how you get
there—more important, that you feel progress. I know you can do it, and
I want to help you.”
This type of experience for the student is not casual or mindless teaching. In its
own way, it is a rigorous experience for both the teacher and the student. The
teacher who normally plans and organizes instruction uses that knowledge and
skill to facilitate the student’s own efforts. It is necessary to share the student’s
Learning is
a personal
experience.
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anxiety and anger, yet remain firm in efforts to support him or her. The student
lacks the know-how to move along, but with courage, experience, and a sense
of making progress, structuring learning becomes easier and more productive.
There are some persuasive reasons for using the Nondirective Teaching Model.
Students learn to take charge of their own school lives, not in the sense of ex-
cluding teachers and other students but in the sense that some part of what goes
on is from the individual; it belongs to the student. Personal development is a
goal. Students also become aware of their feelings and thoughts about them-
selves and others, and they are required to deal with them. Finally, students
learn to plan and organize, carry out, and evaluate their own learning.
Group Investigation Model
When a teacher thinks about teaching geometry, he or she is not often likely
to consider social-oriented models of teaching because the traditions of math-
ematics education have been centered on the individual and mathematics
content. Nevertheless, there are many opportunities for group activities that
promote affiliation and interpersonal skills, and also provide opportunities for
collective inquiry and other problem-solving experiences. In this model, the in-
dividual gains mutual support during the time spent learning problem-solving
behaviors. These are relevant to students not only during schooling but after
graduation, when the application of mathematics is done in the workplace as
members of teams.
Group Investigation, a problem-solving model for groups of students, consists
of the following events:
1. Students experience a puzzling situation.
2. Students discuss their reactions.
3. Students identify the problem.
4. Students make a plan and discuss roles.
5. Students carry out the plan.
6. Students reflect on their experiences.
In these events, the teacher guides the group dynamics and acts as a resource
person. The social climate is cooperative.
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An example of the application of group investigation to teaching geometry is
how to measure heights. Such objects as flag poles, buildings, and trees are
difficult to measure with devices, and getting students to plan and carry out
original strategies for problem-solving has both the effect of practical problem-
solving plus enhancing the more mathematical solution to the problem. The
students need to explore aspects of the problem in practical ways, and their
efforts to resolve these practical problems provide varied experiences, which
help them appreciate a more generalizable solution.
In order to teach geometry through the Group Investigation Model, a teacher
has to appreciate both the instructional and nurturant effects of instruction. The
experience involves respect for different people’s points of view and knowledge
construction, learner independence from the teacher, effective group process,
a commitment to group inquiry and social dynamics, and disciplined inquiry.
Group investigation synthesizes these value orientations. From an observer’s
vantage point, we need a multifocal perspective to appreciate the richness of
this model of teaching.
PATTERNS OF INSTRUCTION
Besides the models of teaching, there are three other common patterns of in-
struction in classrooms today: lecturing, recitation, and direct instruction, which
probably between them account for the majority of what goes on in classrooms.
Lecture
A good lecture is systematic and sequential and conveys information in an
orderly and interesting way. Effective lecturers draw skills from the Attention,
Clarity, and Differentiated Instruction areas of performance, as well as from the
Lesson Objectives and Curriculum Design areas of performance. The pattern of
teacher behavior in lecturing, however, draws nothing from any internal theory
of good lecturing or cohesive theory of learning. A lecture is a composite, with no
secondary goal about learning how to learn. When the lecture is a step in the Ad-
vanced Organizer Model, then the story is different. Nevertheless, a good lecture
is a worthwhile educational experience and certainly has a place in schooling.
A lecture is poor when the performance on one or more of the five areas of
performance listed earlier is poor, not because of poor performance of a model
called lecturing. A poor lecture may qualify as no teaching at all. If the con-
tent is not organized around the course objectives and is not designed with
the principles of organization in mind, even an interesting speaker, who holds
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students’ attention or keeps them amused with clever anecdotes, may be doing
no teaching. Students can look forward to class and be entertained but leave
without having learned a thing.
Recitation
A recitation is an oral test. The teacher asks questions, students respond, and
the teacher makes value judgments on the responses. Its goal is to cover the
material, go over it, ask questions, and see who knows what. By the time it’s
over, all the important material should be out (or have been said by someone
and heard by all). Reviews for tests are often recitations. A recitation doesn’t
have a series of steps, but we could construct this list of events and qualities
that might determine a good recitation:
p Covered all the material.
p Highlighted important items.
p Identified student confusions.
p Got maximum student participation.
p Took opportunities to stimulate higher-level thinking.
If we wanted to judge the quality of a recitation lesson, we would have to go
back to the management areas of performance of “Attention,” “Momentum,”
and “Clarity.” Recitations have a place in school, but not as large a one as they
seem to occupy. When a recitation is over, students and teachers are aware of
who knows what, who has read the assignment, and who gets A’s. As an edu-
cational experience used for more than an occasional review, it has no guiding
principles or point of view behind it and little chance that the students will get
better at learning in some particular way.
Direct Instruction
Direct instruction is usually used for skill work and does have a series of phases,
which Joyce calls a syntax:
1. The teacher states the aims of the lesson.
2. The teacher presents concepts or an operation.
3. The teacher gives examples or demonstrates.
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4. The teacher asks questions to check student understanding.
5. Students practice with direct monitoring, feedback, help, and hints
from the teacher, usually in the group.
6. Students practice alone (seatwork or homework).
7. The teacher corrects and decides whether to reteach, regroup, or
move on.
8. The teacher gives frequent assessments.
Direct instruction lacks model status because it has no theoretical basis. It has
no teacher-student response pattern or deliberate environmental conditions
tailored to optimize a specified learning behavior among students. But we
know that good direct instruction in groups with high time on task produces
mastery of skills. Direct instruction reflects the current trends toward training,
task analysis, and biofeedback. These preferences for instruction, which have
evolved from the business community, reflect values of efficiency and effectiveness.
MODELS VERSUS PATTERNS OF INSTRUCTION
Lecturing, recitation, and direct instruction are prominent patterns of class-
room instruction, and most teachers view them as models of teaching. But
in theory and practice, they are not models at all. Models of teaching have
elaborate theoretical statements, and descriptions of patterns of behavior that
teachers can be trained to perform. There are discrete teacher-student interac-
tions that characterize one model and distinguish it from another. Models are
similar to theatrical plays, though not so closely scripted.
If teachers know the model, they can visualize the classroom activity before
it occurs, and use that image to monitor and regulate the flow of activity. The
content and goals of models are equally distinctive. In one model, the content
is derived from an academic discipline, such as mathematics; in another it may
draw from recent student experiences for the content. A model will be chosen
not only to convey content but to stretch the way students think and learn
about learning.
Models of teaching allow teachers to ask of good teaching, “Good for what?”
and to answer out of the things (e.g. logical thinking, inductive reasoning, per-
sonal self-organization, cooperation, and group skill) a particular model is de-
signed to be good for.
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UPDATE ON THE MODELS OF TEACHING
Some readers will notice that the reference dates for these models of teaching
range from the 1950s to the early 1970s. This indeed was a time of innovation in
teaching, and many of the models of teaching were researched by scholars and
elaborated on by educators interested in classroom instruction. Some educators
embedded specific models of teaching in curriculum materials made available
during that period. It was a productive time in American education, a time dur-
ing which instructional innovations flourished under the leadership of govern-
ment sponsored research and university scholarship.
What has happened between then and now? In many ways, the models of teach-
ing are fully developed approaches to help students develop their thinking skills,
and there are teaching guides with planning materials available to aid teachers
and curriculum developers. Joyce, Calhoun, and Hopkins’s Models of Learning
(2002) recasts or refocuses these same strategies as models of learning. The au-
thors describe their intent to teach thinking skills through curriculum imple-
mentation: “As we study the four families of Models of Teaching, we try to build
a mental picture of what each model is designed to accomplish. As we consider
when and how to use various combinations of models and, therefore, which
learning strategies will get priority for particular units and lessons and groups
of students, we take into account the types and pace of learning that are likely
to be promoted” (p. 36). When teachers apply the models of learning to class-
room lesson planning and planning units of study, the models often become
fragmented. For example, the Inductive Thinking Model has nine logical steps,
but in a lesson a teacher might find only two or three of them. This is important.
The original models of teaching or learning are complete packages, but in class-
rooms today, only part of the full model may be in use.
Consider a U.S. history teacher who asks her students to enumerate the pos-
sible causes of colonists’ discontent prior to the Revolutionary War. Though she
might be implementing the Inductive Thinking Model of teaching, which has
nine steps, she might be able to implement only enumerating the causes and
getting her students to explain them. In a specific lesson, it may not be not pos-
sible to implement all the steps in the model, but the fragment nevertheless can
contribute to the larger process of inductive thinking and learning.
In the 9th edition of Models of Teaching (2014), Joyce, Weil, and Calhoun included
descriptions to approaches to learning that are potent but not fully developed
models. They are, nevertheless, additions to our teaching repertoires valuable
for any professional. For example, Joel Levin’s Mnemonic Keyword approach to
learning the meaning of words is a powerful strategy for blending visuals, mean-
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ing, and memory for new words in any language. The “cross cutting concepts”
within the National Academy of Sciences Next Generation Science Standards
and the integration of academic disciplines within these standards pushes the
boundaries of teaching and learning in healthy and ground-breaking directions.
Few educational researchers understand teaching and learning better than Joyce
and his colleagues. In the third edition of Models of Teaching (1986), they write
about the different models, the effects on learners of the different approaches to
teaching, and the need to adapt teaching to different learners’ styles.
What makes these models attractive to teachers is that teachers can help stu-
dents build a repertoire of thinking skills—inductive reasoning, deductive
reasoning, analogical thinking, inquiry training, concept building, and others.
Joyce and colleagues (2002) write, “Debates about educational method have
seemed to imply that schools and teachers should choose one approach over
another. However, it is far more likely that for optimum opportunity to learn,
students need a range of instructional approaches drawn from the information
processing, social, personal and behavioral families” (p. 70). Teachers can get
excited about students having control over a repertoire of thinking skills as they
work their way through elementary and secondary schools.
A second line of inquiry that Joyce and his colleagues pursued became a signifi-
cant influence on the school culture literature of the era. This was the evolution
of peer coaching, the collegial school, and their work on professional develop-
ment. From the very beginning, they used peer coaching to learn specific mod-
els of teaching. Learning the teaching models required an understanding of
theory and practice, strategies and specific teaching skills, and savvy attention
to adult learning. Teachers worked together to study the theory of the teaching
models, identified the mini skills that make the models work in the classroom,
practiced the models by simulating them in small groups (pairings and triads),
and discussed the place of models in the classroom. They worked with thou-
sands of teachers over a 25-year period and evolved a peer coaching model that
went from informal gatherings to a formal process called peer coaching.
Their model of peer coaching consisted of theory, demonstration, practice,
feedback, and application by teaching in the classroom with their students.
Joyce and his associates began work on peer coaching in the early 1970s as an
effort to help teachers learn different models of teaching and implement them
in their classrooms. In the 1980s, their research on peer coaching focused more
on small groups of teachers and on student learning and how teachers can cre-
ate better learning environments. Joyce and Showers (1986) wrote, “There is no
evidence that simply organizing peer coaching or peer study teams will affect
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students’ learning environments. The study of teaching and curriculum must
be the focus” (p. 12).
It wasn’t long before the importance of a collegial school environment surfaced
as a key condition for in-service professional development. Improving school-
ing requires promoting the evolution of the school organization and the re-
lationships between the adults to find a model of schooling that fits the 21st
century. Current trends include greater accountability, shared power and gov-
ernance, and higher expectations for student achievement. All of this activity
to rejuvenate the schools requires cooperation among teachers, school leaders,
and public officials. Teachers must ask themselves: “Am I prepared to work with
formal knowledge of teaching and learning? Am I prepared to work with oth-
ers to develop a collegial school and to create a professional environment for
lifelong learning? Am I prepared to work toward more democratic schools for
the 21st century?”
Like a good case study, models of teaching have evolved from an innovation in
teaching and learning to a full-blown theory of schooling and professional de-
velopment. The current conventional wisdom about the importance of collabo-
ration, professional learning communities, and deprivatizing teaching owes a
debt, that should not be forgotten, to the 40-year history of those who devel-
oped models of teaching and peer coaching.
So, as we go forward now, the models of teaching are there for our use in im-
proving student thinking skills. Peer coaching is there to facilitate the process
by which teachers learn new models and transfer that learning to their class-
room teaching. We are still educating children by teaching them to read and
write, but the school has a much larger purpose. Everyone in the school build-
ing has to grow stronger and better, and for that we need a different culture, a
more collegial environment, and a school more accountable to itself and the
public. The development of models of teaching play a significant role in the his-
tory of these growing perceptions.
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Eight Models of Teaching:
1. Advanced Organizer: Designed to increase the efficiency of information processing
capacities to absorb and relate bodies of knowledge.
2. Concept Attainment: Designed primarily to develop concepts and how they are formed
from attributes.
3. Inductive Thinking: Designed primarily for the development of inductive mental processes
and academic reasoning or theory building, but these capacities are useful for personal and
social goals as well.
4. Inquiry Training: Designed primarily for the development of problem-solving, data gather-
ing, and hypothesis testing.
5. Awareness Training: Awareness training seeks to bridge the individual’s own experiences
with experiences of other people.
6. Synectics: Personal development of creativity and creative problem-solving by connecting
the familiar with the strange.
7. Nondirective Teaching: Emphasis on building capacity for self-instruction and through
this, personal development in terms of self-understanding, self-discovery, and self-concept.
8. Group Investigation: Development of skills for participation in democratic social
processes through combined emphasis on interpersonal and social (group) skills and aca-
demic inquiry.
To check your knowledge about Models of Teaching, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher
website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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NOTES
PART FOUR:
INTRODUCTION TO MOTIVATION
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Part 4
Introduction to
Motivation
Emotions are everywhere. There is never an instant of waking life when they
are not present and influencing the energy level we bring to tasks, the level of
focus, the amount of investment. Part Four addresses the things teachers do
that influence the emotional state of students, either positively or negatively,
and thus their capacity to invest in academic learning. Students’ attention and
investment in academic tasks is affected by their relationship with their teach-
ers (“Personal Relationship Building”); it is influenced by their interpersonal
relationships with peers, the feelings of support and community on the one
hand, or on the other hand feelings of fear and defensiveness against ridicule
(“Classroom Climate”). And finally, it is influenced by their own confidence
that they can grow their ability to perform academic tasks versus self-doubt
or belief in innate low ability (“Expectations”). For those who have wondered
where the domain of feeling and the whole child enters into the picture of skill-
ful teaching, this section is for you. Another way to cast these three chapters is
that they circumscribe our influence on student motivation. Why are students
motivated to work hard and learn? This question is important because motiva-
tion is the linchpin of student learning. Therefore, nurturing motivation where
it doesn’t seem to exist becomes part of our responsibility as teachers.
Do you accept that nurturing motivation is part of your job? Consider that the
level of motivation any of us has is powerfully conditioned by people who are
significant in our lives; people who are in relationships with us and who we
admire, respect, like, or love. The adults who are the most influential figures in
children’s lives outside their families are their teachers. Teachers often spend
more time with children than any other adult in their lives. Therefore, deliberately
influencing student motivation is not a job we can dodge. As teachers, we are
significant figures in our students’ lives and in the motivation they form to be
learners. Because we are so powerfully positioned to influence it, we are throw-
ing away legions of children if we choose not to engage this task. Influencing
students’ motivation to learn happens in complicated ways, but in ways that we
can see in behavior that is understandable. Part Four takes up the specific how-
tos of this aspect of teaching by laying out the repertoires for building relation-
ships, communicating belief, building confidence in students, and construct-
ing classroom climates of community, psychological safety, and ownership.
Motivation
Introduction
Motivation is
the linchpin of
student learning.
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Chapter 14: “Expectations” describes the Myth of the Bell Curve and
shows what high-expectations teachers do to get low-performing, low-
confidence students to believe in themselves. The six elements of “Effective
Effort” are laid out as well as how to teach students to exert it.
Chapter 15: “Personal Relationship Building” goes into detail about how
teachers make student feel known and valued.
Chapter 16: “Classroom Climate” describes how skillful teachers build
a climate of community, risk-taking, and influence where students feel
safe to make mistakes and that their peers are on their side.
Here’s an example of how the three fit together. Suppose one day I check for
understanding and find you don’t understand exponents. I then work with you
after class to unscramble your confusions; I am using clarity skills, to be sure.
But the fact that I take the time to do this and it’s with you, that I pursue you
to make the appointment and go out of my way to really help you get it—that’s
something I wouldn’t do if I didn’t value you. In fact, the whole episode conveys
a Personal Relationship Building message: you are a valued person to me. I care
about you. Now in addition, while I am explaining common denominators to
you, I may use phrases that are encouraging (“Yes, yes, keep it up”) and I may
express confidence in your ability to get it (“You’re almost there. I know you’re
going to get this!”). So within this event is also the positive “I believe in you”
expectation message. When your friends hear you are staying late with me for
twenty minutes and won’t be going home on the bus with them, they are quite
accepting of you putting out that extra effort; they don’t make fun of you because
you’re staying with the teacher. The climate among the students in the class is
supportive of one another putting out effort to learn and get help, either from
each other or from the teacher. The range of these behaviors in this vignette
prompts us to ask, how do we conceptualize our role in nurturing motivation
and inspiring it where it doesn’t exist?
The Anatomy of Caring: The expressions “caring” and “make students feel
known and valued” are prominent in recent literature. Whether one surveys
the current literature on what’s needed most to improve our schools or on what
parents and students say when asked what matters, the resounding theme that
emerges is relationships and the sense that people care. How does caring present
itself in the classroom setting? “My teacher is really caring.” “How do you know?”
“I know he cares about me because he: (1) won’t let me get away with not doing
my work. There’s no escape! (2) encourages me and makes me feel smart; (3) goes
out of his way to help me when I’m stuck and makes sure I get it; and (4) wants
to know what I’m interested in and how things are going in my life.” In Chapter 14,
“Expectations,” we deal extensively with the first two student responses. Chapter
11, “Clarity,” presents the tools for the third response. The fourth response is
directly connected to Chapter 15, “Personal Relationship Building.”
“Long after leaving
school, students
remember fondly
and in graphic detail
those teachers who
cared and painfully
those who did not.
They may not recall
the content these
teachers taught, but
their human impact
is indelibly imprinted
in their minds.”
(Gay, 2000, p. 49)
14. Expectations
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Motivation
Expectations
Motivation:
Expectations
In 1968, Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson published a landmark book: Pygmalion in the Classroom. It caused such a public stir that they were in-terviewed on the Today Show. What they had proven was that if you created
expectations in teachers, even false expectations, about children’s potential to
perform at high levels, the teachers acted as if they could. And the children’s per-
formance actually rose to higher levels. The thing was, the researchers had given
the teachers false information about the children’s potential—random IQ scores.
So, here we had a situation that birthed the line in the film Stand and Deliver
in which the Jaime Escalante character says, “Students will rise to the level of
expectations, Señora Molina.”
What a profound finding! Acting toward students as if you believed in them and
their capacity caused the students to act as if they believed it too! And therefore,
they exceeded predictions and prior performance. Later in this chapter, we will
go into the details of how teachers behaved toward these students and how dif-
ferent this behavior was from how they acted toward students for whom they
held lower expectations. What should be noted is that Rosenthal and Jacobson’s
findings triggered a staff development program (Kerman, 1979) and a research
tradition still active today (Hattie, 2012). And they brought to the fore a deep
interest in how we convey our expectations to students in our daily behavior.
In this chapter, we unite three strands of this work. Strand 1 is how we convey
to students the standards for good work that we want them to produce. Strand
2 is the theories that underpin a potential revolution in education: Attribu-
tion Theory, the Growth Mindset, and the countervailing evidence about the
bell curve of ability. Strand 3 is the behaviors through which we convey our
expectations and our beliefs in their capacity to each student personally. This
strand also goes deeply into the behaviors through which we can do attribution
re-training, that is, get low-confidence, underperforming students to believe in
themselves and act effectively from that belief. In service of these strands, we
distinguish by definition between standards and expectations.
Within Strand 2, we challenge explicitly the belief in the bell curve of academic
ability and make the case that all our students, unless they suffer from organic
Video:
Pygmalion in the
Classroom
CHAPTER
14
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S TA N D A R D S A N D E X P E C TAT I O N S
Work:
Quantity and
Quality
CLARITY
Do I know clearly
what I want from my
students?
Do I have conviction
about what I want?
1
Study Habits
and Work
Procedures
2 3 4
Business and
Housekeeping
Routines
Interpersonal
Behavior
COMMUNICATION
Do my students know
what I want?
KEY MESSAGES
Do all students receive
three messages?
• This is important
• You can do it
• I won’t give up on you
MATCHING
Is what I want from
these students
realistic and
challenging?
Ask These Questions
brain defects, have the capacity to achieve proficiency even if they are several
grade levels behind. We advance this claim in the face of the many disadvan-
tages we know children of color and children of poverty face. And we make the
case that we can, and, in fact, that it is our job to give them the belief, confidence,
tools, and desire to achieve proficiency. Our students can grow their ability, and
we can teach them how.
STRAND 1: WHAT YOU EXPECT IS WHAT YOU GET
What are the meaning and significance of the terms “standards” and “expecta-
tions,” and how does each have an impact on the learning environment we create?
The word expectations can have two different meanings: (1) a standard of per-
formance we are hoping for and (2) our anticipation (or prediction) about what
one will be able to accomplish. Both are important constructs, and it is critical to
separate and conceptualize each clearly, for each plays a significant role in creating
an atmosphere conducive to student achievement at high levels. Throughout this
chapter, we use the term standard to describe the level or type of performance a
teacher wants from students and expectation to mean what a teacher thinks (be-
lieves or predicts) students will do. We illustrate the nature and critical impor-
tance of each and how they intersect with one another to influence the messages
students receive that impact their performance and achievement. Figure 14.1 out-
lines the key issues for teachers to consider in addressing “Expectations.”
Figure 14.1 Standards and Expectations
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Standards: Four Kinds
Standards signal to students what is important, what it is we want them to ac-
complish, and how we want them to behave. In a classroom setting, there are
four general categories for which teachers set standards of performance:
1. Quality and quantity of work
2. Work habits and work procedures
3. Business and housekeeping routines
4. Interpersonal behavior
Standards for the quality and quantity of students’ work specify the char-
acteristics of work that make it acceptable. These might include things like:
p Explaining how the student solved a problem in both pictures and words
(quality).
p Supporting the hypothesis in a lab report with measured data (quality).
p Demonstrating proper form in four foul shots (quantity and quality).
p Responding to questions in complete sentences (quality).
Standards for work habits and work procedures pertain to how students go
about their work, not the products of their work. These are ongoing habits and
procedures that students are routinely expected to use in their work, not direc-
tions on how to do individual assignments. These might include things like:
p Responsibility and procedures for getting and submitting assignments
when a student has been absent from class.
p The process for previewing directions before beginning a task.
p The procedure for entering class and getting started immediately on the
“bell work” for the day.
p What, when, and how often to update an independent reading log.
At the beginning of the year, there may be repeated and direct attention to
teaching these procedures to students, and the teacher will remind students
Videos:
Hallway
Conversations,
Entering Class
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There should be no
secret about what
is expected and
what it will look
like when students
are meeting
expectations.
of these ongoing procedures, from time to time, until they are established and
working well. Eventually, they won’t be talked about at all. They just function,
underlying the academic work students are doing.
Standards for business and housekeeping routines pertain to nonacademic
work-related procedures such as:
p How attendance and lunch count are done.
p Responsibility and procedures for cleanup in the lab or a work area.
Standards for interpersonal behavior pertain to how students should treat
each other, interact with one another, and cooperate with the teacher, for ex-
ample:
p Treat every classmate with respect; listen attentively when they speak; ask
questions when you don’t agree with someone or understand them; and be
patient and quiet if someone needs time to think after you finish speaking.
p When asked to work together, make every effort to work in a way that is
helpful to everyone.
Each of these four categories of standards is considered separately because it is
possible for a teacher to be very clear about what’s important and to have con-
viction that students will be able to achieve the standards set in one category
but not necessarily to be as clear in all four. As a result, teachers might find that
they get great results, for example, on students following work procedures but
inconsistencies or low performance when it comes to their treatment of one
another or the quality of work they are producing. This signals an opportunity
for teachers to step back and ask anew, “So what is it that I think is important?
What is it that I want from my students?”
How We Communicate Standards
How do students come to know what is expected of them? How do teachers
ensure that students know and understand what is important? There should be
no secret about what is expected and what it will look like when students are
meeting expectations. Let’s begin by examining 10 behaviors that are common
among teachers who create atmospheres of high expectations and get great re-
sults with their students:
1. Direct Communication: The standard of performance is explicitly brought
to students’ attention, verbally, in writing, or through a visual model.
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2. Specific Communication: The details of the standard for students’ per-
formance are clearly stated or otherwise spelled out. Criteria for success
are delineated, and exemplars of student products or performances are
shared and carefully examined with students. When the task or assignment
is sufficiently complex or multifaceted, rubrics might be presented and ex-
plained—or developed with students (see Chapter 21, “Assessment”).
3. Repeated Communication: The standard is repeated often to make sure
students absorb it.
4. Positive Expectancy: The standards are explained with an accompanying
expression of teacher confidence (sometimes challenge) signaling “You can
do this.” Another version of positive expectancy that has a more impera-
tive quality is, “Of course, you’ll meet this expectation!” The implication
conveyed by tone and body language is, “It’s what’s done!”
5. Modeled: This has two meanings. The first is to show or demonstrate. A
teacher may clarify for students what is desired by performing the behav-
ior or providing models. The purpose of this form of modeling is clear
communication. The second meaning of modeling is to “practice what
you preach.” In regular practice and behavior, the teacher is a model of
thoroughness, self-evaluation, courtesy, or whatever else is expected of
students. Whether it’s standards for procedures, interpersonal behaviors,
work habits, or application of skills, students take powerful messages from
observing how faithfully teachers follow their own dicta.
6. Personal Contact: There are frequent occasions of face-to-face interac-
tions with students—before, during, and after class, even in the hallway.
Perhaps, they’ll be jocular: “Hey, Noah! Before you get locked up in your
shoulder pads this afternoon, you’re going to see me with those correc-
tions, right?”
7. No Excuses: Teachers hold students accountable, putting them on the
spot when work is not turned in, is late, or is inadequately done, and do
not let them off the hook by accepting inadequate explanations. Teachers
give the work to students to correct or do over, set deadlines, offer help
when necessary, or make provisions for students to get what they need to
do the work (materials, peer tutoring, reteaching, or something else). “No
excuses” means giving consequences without rancor or anger that are in-
tended to improve performance when performance is poor.
8. Recognizing Superior Performance or Significant Gains Over Past
Performance: When students do well, there is special recognition that
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highlights their accomplishment such as posting especially good papers on
a bulletin board, displaying a product in a public place, complimenting in
front of the class, or giving a “Greatest Gains” award.
9. Logical Consequences for Poor Performance: Something happens as a
result of not doing homework or classwork, or doing shoddy work, being
late, sloppy cleanup, or the many other areas of student performance for
which teachers have expectations. As a result, students become convinced
the teacher means it. Effective consequences are made clear in advance to
students, are varied so there is a range of consequences rather than just
one rigid one for each expectation, are logical rather than punitive, are
delivered with appropriate affect, and teachers make it clear that the stu-
dents have made a choice. (These attributes are developed in more detail
in Chapter 10, “Discipline.”) For example, a student who chronically fails
to do homework becomes a member of the “homework club” that meets
two days after school. The student can choose which day to attend but is
required to attend for a minimum number of weeks until homework is
caught up and starts coming in on a regular basis. A student who does
poorly on a test is required to attend two after-school help sessions before
taking the test again to earn a better grade and will be granted the higher
grade achieved in the retake.
10. Tenacity: Teacher persistence in pursuit of getting students to meet an ex-
pectation is convincing testimony that the teacher means it! But how the
teacher displays tenacity and with whom can also be powerful messages,
either pro or con, to low-confidence underperforming students. We will re-
turn to this topic later in this chapter when we tackle how teachers convince
discouraged students that “smart is something you can get.”
11. Feedback: Feedback about student performance is a final way students find
out what our expectations are. Practicing good feedback is a critical element
of successful teaching. It is part and parcel of a complex array of interactive
and interdependent practices that successful teachers do. Our colleague,
Caroline Tripp, shows in Figure 14.2 that the development of effective feed-
back systems is the product of and dependent on strength in three areas:
objectives, assessment, and standards of performance.
First, clear objectives must be communicated to the students in advance.
No one can give (or use) specific and detailed feedback without a clear im-
age of what students are supposed to be aiming for. Second, teachers must
have appropriate assessment tasks or devices for observing and measuring
student performance. Third, teachers must have precision about the specific
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standards of performance (or criteria for success) to indicate proficiency
and ensure that students know and understand these criteria so as to use
the feedback given to improve their performance. In order to expend the
energy it takes to create good feedback systems and implement them assid-
uously with all students, teachers must have expectations that all students
have the capacity to succeed.
We need to make feedback a regular and ongoing event for students be-
cause it keeps them focused on what’s important and supports them in
investing their effort in incremental improvement and achievement. The
effort we invest in providing specific, detailed, timely, and personal feed-
back to our students signals that we think the work is important, that they
can do it, and that we are there to support them in investing their effort
effectively. For feedback to have maximum effect, students have to be ex-
pected to use it to improve their work and, in many cases, taught how to do
so. This is where student self-assessment and goal setting become part of
the package. (See pages 350-355 for more on feedback.)
Figure 14.2 Areas of Effective Feedback
CRITERIA
for
SUCCESS
OBJECTIVES
ASSESSMENT
FEEDBACK
on Student
Performance
We need to make
feedback a regular
and ongoing event.
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STRAND 2: GROWTH MINDSET (EFFORT-BASED ABILITY
OR INCREMENTALIST THEORY)
We have stated that teacher tenacity and quality feedback are skill sets that
move students toward believing in themselves. The implication is we wouldn’t
take the trouble to act in these ways (be tenacious and give useful feedback)
if we didn’t believe in our students and want them to succeed. But for low-
performing, low-confidence students much more is needed. They don’t think
they “have it.” That is, they don’t think they’re smart enough or have ability in a
particular academic area. Thus they don’t put forth sufficient effort for mastery.
You may hear them say, “It’s too hard,” “I can’t do it,” or “Nobody in my family
can either.”
This section takes on the all-important constellation of teaching skills that en-
ables us to get students to change their minds about their ability and to be will-
ing to learn how to exert effective effort on their own behalf. This implies our
own conviction that all students can achieve well in school. We have to perceive
them all as having sufficient ability to do so and have confidence in our own
capacity to meet students where they are now and move them incrementally
toward meeting those standards. Both of these conditions can be seriously af-
fected by the theories that we hold about people and their capacity to grow and
develop.
How do our beliefs about “ability” influence our behavior, the messages we
send to students about their intellectual capacity, and our effectiveness in com-
municating high expectations to all students? How do students’ beliefs about
ability influence their motivation to work hard and their confidence that they
can achieve at high levels? We explore two theories about innate ability and its
relationship to performance and achievement. As you read, consider which of
these theories dominated the environment in which you spent your formative
years and how each of these theories plays out in your teaching.
The Bell Curve of Innate Ability
The innate ability theory about achievement and development is best represented
by the bell curve as an uneven distribution of intellectual ability in human be-
ings (Figure 14.3). Carol Dweck (2008) has popularized the term “fixed mind-
set” to represent this view of ability. Embedded in this theory are the following
assumptions:
p Intellectual ability is a “thing,” a unitary entity that is real.
p Intellectual ability is innate; that is, it comes with us as a package at birth.
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p The amount of intellectual ability we are given at birth remains relatively
fixed or stable throughout our lifetime. It doesn’t vary much as we proceed
through our lives, and we can’t change or affect it much.
p Innate ability is unequally distributed; some of us are born with more of it
than others.
p Intellectual ability determines how far a person can go and how well he or
she can do, especially at academic material.
p Intellectual ability is measurable. We can test to tell how much of it a stu-
dent has and arrange for each student to be in the right kind of educational
environment for his or her abilities.
Most of us were raised in an environment that reinforced this theory and set
of assumptions, and we bought into those assumptions as if they were fact.
This is not a statement of blame. It’s a statement about the air we breathe in a
society where this belief is played out more strongly than anywhere else in the
world. These are undiscussed assumptions that dominated our country and
our schools throughout the 20th century and still have pervasive influence.
Our contention is that these assumptions are wrong. For a history of the con-
cept of “intelligence” as it developed in the United States and evidence that it
is malleable, see “Debunking the Myth of the Bell Curve” in High Expectations
Teaching (Saphier, 2017). An abbreviated version of this history of the idea of
Videos:
Debunking the
Myth of the Bell
Curve (1 & 2)
55 70 85 100 115 130 145
IQ
2.1%
13.0%
2.1%
13.0%
34.1% 34.1%
Figure 14.3 The Bell Curve
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“intelligence” and how it got so deeply embedded in American culture and school
design is available on The Skillful Teacher website (www.RBTeach.com/TST7).
The effort-based theory (see Figure 14.4) posits that all children are born with
sufficient innate ability to achieve anything asked of them in school, and that
this ability (in fact, intelligence itself ) is malleable through effective effort.
Whether a student does achieve and develop (get smarter) is not a matter of
having the raw material or ability, but rather believing he or she has what it
takes (confidence) and investing effort effectively (working hard and acquiring
knowledge and strategies for working smart). Another way of summarizing
this theory is that “Smart is not something you are; smart is something you
get (incrementally) by working hard and working smart” (Jeff Howard, The
Efficacy Institute).
Indeed, all teachers see differences in children every day in their classrooms,
sometimes big differences in readiness to learn, in speed of learning, in motiva-
tion, and current academic performance. Some students are way behind the oth-
ers. But unlike a fixed mindset or entity theorist, where the differences would be
explained away as how much intelligence or innate ability one is endowed with,
a person with a growth mindset or an incrementalist believes that all children
have the intellectual capacity to eventually meet proficiency standards. It is not a
limited brain that is holding them back, but any number of other variables, all of
which can potentially be modified, accommodated, or influenced in some way.
Figure 14.4 Effective Effort
Adapted from Jeff Howard, Efficacy Institute, Waltham, Massachusetts.
EFFECTIVE
EFFORT
Hard Work
ACHIEVEMENT
CONFIDENCE
ABILITY
Strategies
+
+
PDF
History of
the Idea of
“Intelligence”
in the United
States
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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When confronted with differences in children’s development or performance,
those who hold to this theory interpret the disparity as a function of disadvan-
tages (or lack of opportunities) that have created obstacles to their development
and learning. This might include limited experiences, absence of mediation or
intervention, conflict of values related to school achievement, low self-esteem,
mismatch in learning-teaching style, and a myriad of other possible causes,
none of which is internally hard-wired in a person, and all of which may be
subject to change under the right circumstances. Students clearly have different
aptitudes (a natural talent or ability for something), but they all have enough to
attain proficiency in literacy and numeracy at rigorous standards. Two assump-
tions are embedded in this theory:
1. There is no way of telling from children’s attitudes, speech, cleanliness,
clothing, record of past performance, and current performance what they
are capable of learning and achieving if given time, motivation, and in-
struction that reaches out to meet their needs.
2. Differences of color and culture have nothing to do with the capacities of
children’s brains.
Whereas the innate theory is deterministic, the incrementalist theory—or
effort-based ability—is optimistic. Incrementalists engage in an ongoing quest
to discover what will enable students to turn on and take off.
Attribution Theory
Both explanations for achievement and development have been explored
historically as part of a body of research referred to as “attribution theory”
(Dweck, 1999, 2002; Nicholls, 1978; Weiner, 1996). Attribution theory is con-
cerned with the explanations we give ourselves when we succeed for why we
succeeded, and when we fail for why we have failed. The research suggests that
the explanations we give ourselves about the causes of our successes and fail-
ures (attributions) are based on our perceptions, and those perceptions and
explanations ultimately influence our self-concept about our ability. They also
influence our expectations for future situations, feelings of power and efficacy,
and subsequent motivation to put forth effort. Weiner found four basic reasons
to which individuals might attribute their success or lack thereof: ability, task
difficulty, luck, and effort. Weiner arranges them in the grid shown in Figure
14.5. According to Weiner, successful, confident people attribute their success
to internal factors (having the ability and exerting effort) and lack of success
to the internal factor they control and can most readily influence (effort). Un-
successful, low-confidence people tend to attribute success to external factors
(task difficulty: “Must have been an easy test,” and luck: “I guess I just luckily
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studied the right chapters!”) and lack of success to external factors (again, luck
or task difficulty, those over which they have no control) with a secret inner fear
that they really just don’t have enough ability.
Young children believe success comes from effort; in fact, effort and ability are
synonymous to them (Nicholls & Burton, 1982). But as they get older, some
children start attributing academic success more and more to innate ability
rather than effort. This creates a bind, because for such children the only pos-
sible conclusion if they are not doing well is that they must be dumb. Thus many
low-performing students opt out of school and quit trying by middle school
because it’s better to be considered lazy (or not care) than dumb.
Dweck (1999) found that children (and adults) tend to be either entity theorists
about intelligence and achievement or incrementalists. Entity theorists believe
that intelligence is a thing—an entity that is fixed and responsible for any suc-
cess. Conversely, having low intelligence results in poor academic performance.
Ability
Task
Difficulty
Effort Luck
Internal External
Constant
(Stable)
Variable
(Unstable)
Figure 14.5 Attribution Theory
Adapted from Weiner, 1974.
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Entity theorists take every assignment, every test, every task as an evaluation of
their innate ability in a direct, causative way. These students form what Dweck
calls a “performance goal orientation” toward academic work. Low perfor-
mance (errors) indicates low ability. High performance indicates high ability. “I
only like to do the things I already do well,” says a girl who is an entity theorist.
Incrementalists believe that ability is built incrementally through effort and use
of feedback from the environment. They form a “learning goal orientation,”
according to Dweck, where their goal is to learn something new rather than to
prove themselves able, as is the goal of an entity theorist.
The consequences of these two internal theories of intelligence and the goal
orientations that go with them are huge. Imagine the pressure a student feels who
is constantly on trial, who experiences every academic challenge as a measure of
self on a dimension so highly prized in our society: intelligence. Not all students
(or adults) are at the poles of the entity versus incrementalist continuum, but
large numbers are. The closer students are to the entity pole, the harder it is to
mobilize energy and strategies when experiencing difficulty. Instead, they tend
to interpret difficulty as a measure of limited ability and frequently give up. The
closer a student is to the incrementalist pole, the more likely he or she is to treat
difficulty and errors as data saying that working harder or working smarter (dif-
ferent strategies) is what is needed in order to overcome the difficulty.
This is why an examination of standards and expectations is so central to the
work of teachers. The standards of performance teachers set, and the beliefs
they hold about a child’s capacity to meet those standards play a vital role in the
messages sent to students and ultimately in what students are likely to achieve.
So just how do these come together and play out in our classrooms? Let’s now
examine how we might be influenced by our own attributions about students.
Are the standards (or level of proficiency) targeted for students appropriately
rigorous (challenging but attainable)? How strong is your conviction that all
students have the capacity to achieve them? We could place each of these con-
structs (standards and expectations) along intersecting continua (see Figure
14.6) with the x-axis representing a continuum of low to high standards and
the y-axis representing a continuum of low to high expectations. The standards
a teacher sets and the expectations a teacher holds about each student’s capac-
ity to meet or achieve those standards could be anywhere along those continua.
Figuring out where standards of performance should be set requires some
knowledge of age-appropriate norms for students, clear proficiency targets in
state frameworks, and some specialized knowledge of the class composition
order to make valid judgments. Using these as guidelines, we need to strive to
make the standards appropriately challenging but attainable for all students.
Videos:
Attribution
Theory (1, 2, & 3)
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The relative rigor of the standards and the degree of conviction we have about
the capacity of our students to achieve them will have an impact on how we
behave and the messages we send to our students. It is possible, then, to create
several different kinds of scenarios that might be played out in a classroom:
p High standards, low expectations: The teacher sets high standards of per-
formance but does not believe or expect that all children can or will achieve
them. A teacher with this mindset might say: “I set tough standards in this
course. There’s a certain amount of work to be done, and I expect everyone
to do it. No excuses. Some will cut it; some won’t. Some just don’t have
it—or have the drive—and will fall by the wayside. That’s just the way it is.”
p Low standards, low expectations: This plays out when a teacher has little
conviction that students have the ability to achieve much and consequently sets
Figure 14.6 Standards and Expectations
FAMILIAR
INFORMATION
HIGH
STANDARDS
LOW
EXPECTATIONS
+
STANDARDS
HIGH
STANDARDS
HIGH
EXPECTATIONS
LOW
STANDARDS
LOW
EXPECTATIONS
LOW
STANDARDS
HIGH
EXPECTATIONS
EXPECTATIONS +
–
–
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low standards of performance. A teacher who holds this mindset might
say: “I don’t ask much of these kids. School just isn’t the place for them.
They are borderline dropouts. They are going to end up in hourly wage
jobs. They don’t see the relevance of this course to anything they will do
one day. I just want to get through the semester with them without a hassle.
At least they are coming to class. I’ll do some things to make it fun, and if
they behave reasonably, they’ll pass the course.”
p Low standards, high expectations: This describes a teacher whose ac-
tions are based on little conviction that students are capable of meeting
high standards but wants students to feel good about themselves. So, he
sets low standards of performance and celebrates students’ meeting them.
A teacher who has this mindset might inflate student grades based on the
amount of effort the student has invested rather than on what he or she
has achieved. This can create a negative enabling situation: giving A’s for
mediocre performance with the delusion that the good grade will build
student confidence.
p High standards, high expectations: This teacher sets high standards of
performance, believes all students have the innate ability to achieve them,
behaves in kind, and is determined to do everything in her power to help
students get there. “I understand that kids in here have different degrees
and kinds of developed abilities and speeds of learning. I know some of
them have more background for getting this material, and maybe they’re
just quicker. But I also know what a quality performance is like from a
student, and I know what it means to really know this subject. I press them
all toward that standard of excellence. I make special provisions for the
students who are behind to try to bring them along as far and as fast as
they can go. I provide extra boosts and help those who need it, and I know
they’ll still move along at different rates and with different degrees of suc-
cess. But the standard is there, and I differentiate instruction to match their
needs, scaffold learning experiences to support incremental progress, and
push them all toward ever closer approximations of success. If they don’t
get there yet, at least they learn about excellence and get rewarded mightily
for their incremental steps toward it.”
Many states have frameworks that provide overall proficiency targets that stu-
dents should reach at end-of-grade level or end-of-course. In this sense, the
standards are externally set. The goal is to get all students to proficiency with
these standards. But what about students who are way behind? We have to
strike the correct balance of push and pace, accelerate the learning of students
who are behind, and set standards of performance for them to reach each quar-
ter or each year that put them on pace for proficiency at a targeted time in the
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future. The standard of performance we are talking about is one that repre-
sents an appropriate stretch, so that all the students who are behind can catch
up to age-appropriate proficiency, and all the students already on pace can be
stretched or deepened in appropriate ways.
The bottom line is that our beliefs influence our perceptions of individual stu-
dents, and those perceptions influence how we behave—and ultimately what
students achieve. We must consider how our perceptions about each student’s
capacity to achieve are influencing the standards of performance we set and the
ways in which we behave daily. We communicate our impressions to students
about their academic ability and capacity to achieve by subtle and indirect mes-
sages that students read and that influence their academic performance. There-
fore, it is incumbent on all of us to take a step back and examine the mindset we
hold about innate ability and the limits or liberties we bring to students’ learn-
ing as a result. We explore the importance of beliefs in Chapter 3, “Essential
Beliefs: Schooling,” and in Chapter 4, “Essential Beliefs: Cultural Proficiency
and Anti-Racism.”
What else might we see in classrooms where all students are perceived as ca-
pable of achieving high standards of performance? What would we be doing if
we believed the effort-based incrementalist theory, the Growth Mindset, and
acted out of that orientation?
High Standards—High Expectations
Commitment to the incrementalist belief can show up in teachers’ behavior,
classroom practices, school structures, and even conversations with one an-
other. Teachers set standards of performance they believe to be rigorous, im-
portant, and appropriate. They know where each student is in relation to those
standards and adapt instruction to accommodate student differences in readi-
ness levels (current knowledge or skills), learning and processing styles, and
motivation. They don’t pull back, give up, or dilute expectations and academic
press for any of them. In other words, they differentiate their instruction (see
Chapter 20, “Differentiated Instruction”).
These teachers send positive expectation messages to all children regardless of
their race, wealth, learning, or language differences. They seize every opportu-
nity in regularly recurring classroom situations to reinforce the messages chil-
dren get that their teacher believes they can do it and won’t give up on them.
Teaching policies and practices are conscientiously geared toward instilling in
children life-liberating beliefs about themselves. These teachers teach students
and families about attribution theory and make effective effort an explicit agenda
to combat fixed mindsets. They don’t expect all students to learn at the same
Beliefs influence
our perceptions of
individual students
and how we
behave—and what
students achieve.
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rate or meet standards at the same time, especially when there are wide differ-
ences in their prior preparation. But these teachers take it as their responsibility
to constantly examine and manage their own potential biases of seeing current
student performance through the lens of innate ability. They teach children to
believe in themselves and explicitly teach them how to work not just harder
but smarter with appropriate strategies. Every teacher can create the condi-
tions where children want to put forth the necessary effort, and this should be
an integral part of all our work. Some of what this commitment looks like at
the school or district level is the focus of the excellent book Whatever It Takes
(DuFour, Eaker, Karhanek, & DuFour, 2004).
Three Critical Messages
Getting Students to Believe: “This Is Important, You Can Do It, and I’m Not
Going to Give Up on You.”
It will help to share current research with your students and teach them about
brain plasticity, as Carol Dweck (2007) recommends, but that will not be
enough for many students. This is because most of them have accepted the
message of the bell curve that “ability” is fixed for math, ELA, sports, public
speaking, and the list goes on. Sending high expectation messages like: “This
is important, every single one of you can do it with effective effort by working
hard and acquiring strategies, and I won’t give up on you” and convincing stu-
dents that they have the capacity to achieve at high levels (attribution retrain-
ing) is a moment-by-moment, everyday mission for a teacher. The messages
can (and must) be woven into the fabric of everything that transpires in class.
We acknowledge the influence of the many social factors (beyond our imme-
diate control) on far too many children. But the one area we can do the most
about is the messaging and positive support, both emotionally and through
instruction, in the environments we do control—the classroom and the school.
The power of these environments has been demonstrated again and again.
The point we want to make here is that students who are on the low end of
the achievement gap—usually children of color and often also of poverty—
have been getting messages about their “ability” all their lives and have expe-
rienced being behind academically so long that many have bought that story.
How could they not? So if we are to eliminate the achievement gap, we have to
change these students’ minds about their ability and persuade them about the
possibility of becoming good students.
Strand 3 develops that premise by examining 10 arenas of classroom life that
are vital in our efforts to build student confidence and convince them we be-
Video:
You Can Do It
Videos:
Growth Mindset
Explained,
Growth Mindset
MoJo 1–5
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lieve in them. Without focused attention to these arenas of everyday interac-
tion, there is little chance of getting discouraged, uninvested students to invest
their effort in school.
STRAND 3: THE BEHAVIORS
High Expectations Teaching: Ten Arenas of Classroom Life
What opportunities can we seize daily to convince students that “Smart is
something you can get” and build their confidence and conviction that they
can achieve proficiency? An arena is a place, structure, setting, or interaction
in which regularly recurring events happen and can be observed. The arenas
listed below in Table 14.1 represent opportunities for a teacher to communicate
behaviorally to students what is important, and that he or she believes they
have the capacity to achieve it. Reflecting on these arenas and our practices
within each one affords us the opportunity to consciously align some of the
most subtle behaviors and practices with sending powerful and positive high-
expectation messages to all students.
Table 14.1 Ten Arenas for Communicating High Expectations
1. Calling on Students
2. Responding to Student Answers (including when students don’t answer)
3. Giving Help
4. Changing Attitudes Toward Errors
5. Giving and Negotiating Tasks and Assignments
6. Feedback According to Criteria for Success:
• Unmet expectations
• Students doing well
• Significant change in performance
7. Framing Reteaching
8. Tenacity When Students Don’t Meet Expectations
9. Grading
10. Grouping
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Arena 1: Calling on Students
The notion that teachers communicate their impressions to students about
their academic ability by subtle and indirect messages is not new. In a landmark
study, Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) called attention to ways in which teacher
perceptions of student ability result in differential treatment of students and
have a positive or negative impact on their inclusion in classroom discourse
and ultimately their performance in the classroom. Teachers were given falsi-
fied records of students’ IQ scores: high-performing students might be repre-
sented as having high, average, or low IQs and low performers as having high,
average, or low IQs. And that information, rather than the students’ actual IQs,
influenced how teachers dealt with their students and, most importantly, how
the students achieved. Cooper (1979) later organized these differential teacher
communication behaviors into five categories:
1. Climate: “It was found that teachers who believed they were interacting
with bright students smiled and nodded their heads more often than teach-
ers interacting with slow students. Teachers also leaned towards bright stu-
dents and looked brights in the eyes more frequently” (p. 393).
2. Demands: “Students labeled as slow have been found to have fewer op-
portunities to learn new material than students labeled as bright” (p. 393).
3. Persistence: “Teachers tend to stay with the highs longer after they have
failed to answer a question. This persistence following failure takes the
form of more clue giving, more repetition, and/or more rephrasing. Teach-
ers have been found to pay closer attention to responses of students de-
scribed as gifted. Teachers allowed bright students longer to respond before
redirecting unanswered questions” (p. 394).
4. Frequency of interaction: “Teachers more often engage in academic con-
tact with the high- than low-expectation students” (p. 394).
5. Feedback: “Teachers tend to praise high-expectation students more and
proportionately more per correct response, while lows are criticized more
and proportionately more per incorrect response” (p. 395).
There are 12 distinct behavioral items in these five categories, and they provide
empirical evidence that teacher perceptions of a student’s ability can lead to
classifying students as “brights” and “slows” and to acting differently toward
them, thus creating self-fulfilling prophecies. Table 14.2 is a list of related ques-
tions you might investigate as you examine and reflect on your own practice.
Video:
Praise the
Process
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Table 14.2 Pygmalion in the Classroom
How often do I do the following? Never Rarely Sometimes Very Often Always
Smile and nod more toward “highs”?
Lean more toward “brights”?
Look “brights” more in the eyes?
Give “slows” fewer opportunities to learn
new material?
Stay with “highs” longer after they have
failed to answer a question?
Give “highs” more clues when they fail
to get an answer—more repetition or
more rephrasing?
Pay closer attention to the responses of
“the gifted”?
Allow “brights” longer to respond?
Have more frequent academic contact
with “highs”?
Give “highs” more praise per correct
response?
Give “lows” more criticism per incorrect
response?
Do any of the above more with girls than
with boys, or vice versa?
Calling on students is a way of inviting them to participate in classroom dis-
course and to signal that their voice, thoughts, opinions, concerns, and questions
are important. So in this arena we ask ourselves these important nine questions:
1. Who gets called on?
2. How do they get called on? By whom? Randomly? Systematically? Hand
raising?
3. How do I ensure that everyone is included?
4. How frequently do individual students get called on?
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5. What do I do if students don’t volunteer to participate?
6. What are students called on to do?
7. What level of thinking is called for in the question?
8. Do I insert sufficient wait time (minimum of 3 to 5 seconds) after posing a
question or a prompt before calling on anyone, so all students have an op-
portunity to process the question and construct an answer?
9. What do I do to ensure that all students can participate effectively?
In addition, we might arrange for peer observation and feedback, as did Sam
Kerman’s program “TESA: Teacher Expectation, Student Achievement” (Ker-
man, Kimball, & Martin, 1980) for the behaviors we have listed under “Pyg-
malion in the Classroom” in Table 14.2. The bottom line here is to examine
the extent to which there is some sort of equal opportunity for all students.
Whether it is answering questions, participating in a discussion, surfacing prior
knowledge, or some other purpose for student participation, all students must
get the message that their input is important, that they are capable of higher-
level thinking, and that their teacher believes they have important things to
offer and will ensure that their voice is represented and heard.
Given that perceptions can have a powerful influence on behavior, we ask you
to consider the possibility that all children have the capacity to do rigorous
work to high standards and to act as if that were so to suspend disbelief and
invest energy in searching for ways to create the conditions in which this would
become a reality for all students. It is our contention that if we behave as if we
can reach every child and we continue to strive to create the conditions that are
optimal for their learning, we will see more miracles than we could have imag-
ined and see more students reach proficiency than ever before.
Arena 2: Responding to Students’ Answers
Another arena through which expectations are communicated is what teach-
ers do right after a student has responded or spoken in class. This is a powerful
arena, where the teacher’s actions have embedded messages about what’s im-
portant and about his or her belief in the student’s capacity. Art Costa, profes-
sor emeritus at California State University, Sacramento, has pointed out that
the way teachers respond to student answers may be more important than
the questions themselves. These are moments that happen hundreds of times
a day, and what we say and do at these moments can influence the way stu-
dents participate in lessons from that point on. Our responses to student com-
Video:
Pygmalion
Effects
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ments or answers signal to individuals—and cumulatively to the whole class—
whether it is safe to speak out, whether a student can risk trying something that’s
hard, and whether the climate is supportive of thinking and effort or punitive for
not having the right answer. Consider how a teacher might respond to students
answering the question, “How do you find the area of a circle?” Let’s look at the
examples in Table 14.3.
Depending on how the teacher responds, a student may internalize one or more
of the following messages:
p “I’m dumb.”
p “Well, I muffed that one!”
Table 14.3 Responding to Students’ Answers
Response Sounds like
Criticize “That’s not even close. Come on, wake up!”
Give the correct answer “No, it’s pi r 2.”
Redirect to another student after
the first student’s answer
“Judy, can you tell us?”
Redirect to get more, build, and
extend
“Okay. You’re on the right track. Judy, would you add anything to that?”
“Wrong” with the reason “Not quite, because you left out the exponent.” Then the teacher waits while
the student tries again.
Supply the question for which
the answer is right, cue, or hold
accountable
“That would be right if I asked for the formula for the circumference. Now do
you remember anything about the use of exponents in that formula? [Now
the student gets it right.] Right! And I bet you’ll remember that after lunch if I
check you too. I’ll ask you then, and I bet you’ll get it!”
Wait time Silence.
Follow up question to double
check or extend
“Can you tell me how you were thinking about that?”
Acknowledge “Umhmmm.”
Restate in fuller language “Okay. So, you get the area by multiplying pi times the radius of the circle
squared.”
Ask the student to elaborate “Can you tell me more about what you meant by that?”
Praise “Way to go!”
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p “My job is to guess the answer in the teacher’s head, and say it in precisely
the way he’s thinking it.”
p “I muffed that one, and I should get back in gear. I know this stuff.”
p “The teacher thinks I can think this one through and get it.”
p “What I said was worthwhile, but there’s more.”
p “My teacher really listens to what I say.”
p “My teacher really wants to know what I mean. There must be something
worthwhile in what I said.”
p “My idea wasn’t as good as that one. Boy, I’m glad I didn’t get called on.”
p “Wow, I guess I did pretty well on that one.”
p “It’s not safe to risk an answer here unless you’re really sure.”
p “It is safe to risk an answer in here. If I don’t get it, I won’t be put down.”
p “I can say what I think and be respected and accepted for that.”
p “If I can’t get it, I’ll be helped to remember or figure it out.”
It is likely all of us have received these messages at one time or another in our
experience as students. Clearly, the effects can be powerful. What the teacher
does or says after a student responds in class can engage students and open
their thinking or close them down; can make them feel more confident, curi-
ous, encouraged to participate, or afraid, timid, protective, quiet, and defen-
sive. Simultaneously, the effect is either to stimulate students to search, scan,
wonder about, reflect, think, try to get it right, shine, impress, and win (or
protect themselves from getting wounded).
These responses form a repertoire (see Table 14.4). No one of them is inher-
ently best, most appropriate, or most effective. Readers could create the context
in which each of them, even criticizing (but not put-downs), could be appro-
priate. Matching is the name of the game. Several of them, however, are par-
ticularly effective for specific purposes and should be considered for inclusion
into any teacher’s repertoire. Wait Time (or silence) is one such behavior.
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Table 14.4 Teacher Responses to Student Answers
Ways of moving
on to another
student
• Criticizes: “Come on. That answer shows no thought at all.”
• “No” and redirects to another student.
• “No” then gives the correct answer.
• “No” with the reason, which may serve as a cue.
• Moves to another student if the first student doesn’t answer.
• Redirect to another student to add, build, or extend. “Would you add anything to that,
Zach?”
• Student authorized to call on another student to answer in his or her place.
Ways of sticking
with a student
• Supplying the question for which the answer is right, cuing, and holding the student
accountable.
• “No, but it’s good you brought it up because others probably thought that too.”
• “Try again.”
• Validate what is right or good about an answer and then cue, sticking with the student.
• Ignore the answer and cue the student.
• Wait time II.
• Follow up with an expression of confidence or encouragement: “I think you know.”
• Ask the student to elaborate.
• Call for a self-evaluation of the answer.
• Follow up with an expression of confidence or extend.
• Ask the student to elaborate.
• Call for a self-evaluation of the answer.
• Follow-up question to clarify: “Are you saying that . . . ?”
Ways of
acknowledging,
affirming
• “Um-hmmm.”
• Repeat the student’s answer.
• Restate the answer in fuller or more precise language.
• “Right.”
• “Right” with the reason.
• Praise or praise and extend.
In the late 1960s, Mary Budd Rowe (1987) discovered that if teachers purpose-
fully paused and waited a minimum of 3 seconds or more after asking a ques-
tion, many students who ordinarily did not answer did so, answers tended to
be full sentences rather than single words or phrases, and the answers were at
a higher level of thinking. Rowe also discovered most teachers wait on average
less than a half-second after asking a question before jumping in with cuing,
redirecting, telling the answer, or restating the question. Her research continued
for almost 20 years with similar findings. Waiting 3 to 5 seconds after posing a
question is referred to as Wait Time I.
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Waiting after a student has responded is called Wait Time II. This response be-
havior achieves similar desirable outcomes to Wait Time I. Teachers tend to in-
crease the cognitive level of their questions, and students increase the cognitive
level of their answers, speak in more complete and more elaborate sentences,
exhibit less tentativeness in their responses, and are more likely to start re-
sponding to each other and to comment on each other’s answers (Figure 14.7).
While the idea of pausing for at least 3 to 5 seconds after posing a question
or responding to a student answer appears to be simple and straightforward,
most who have experimented with it will agree that it is initially uncomfortable
Figure 14.7 Wait Time
W A I T T I M E
A purposeful pause of 3-5 seconds or more
After
a Student
Answers
After
Asking a
Question
After
Calling on
a Student
After
a Student Asks
a Question
E F F E C T S
1. 300-700% increase in the length of student responses.
2. The number of unsolicited but appropriate student responses increases.
3. Failures to respond decrease.
4. Confidence increases—there are fewer inflected responses.
5. Speculative responses increase.
6. Teacher-centered question change in number and kind.
• The number of divergent questions increases.
• Teacher ask higher-level questions (Bloom’s taxonomy).
• There is more probing for clarification.
8. Students make inferences and support inferences with data.
9. Students ask more questions.
10. Contributions by “slow” students increase.
11. Disciplinary moves decrease, and more students are on task.
12. Achievement on logic tests improves.
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and easy to forget to do. We are so used to filling silences with talk that unless
we specifically commit ourselves to try wait time and get someone in to watch
us trying it, we will likely fail to internalize this valuable behavior. Hence, it is
a behavior where coaching or some form of peer feedback can be particularly
helpful. The very presence of an observer reminds us of the commitment and
increases the likelihood of successful practice. Wait time—or “think time”—is
a behavior we believe teachers should teach to students so they know what it
means and why it is being used and so they can be comfortable using it them-
selves and honoring it when it happens in the classroom.
Supplying the question for which the answer is right, cuing, and holding the stu-
dent accountable is another that we should include in our repertoires because it
accomplishes several things. First, it salvages self-esteem. As Madeline Hunter
(1982) says, “Our job is to help learners be right, not catch them being wrong.
When someone is humiliated or feeling unworthy, their perception narrows.”
This strategy also strengthens a connection between the answer and the ques-
tion it goes with by supplying that question. To use this strategy with every
wrong answer would not be practical, but it is an excellent strategy to use from
time to time and especially when there’s a question to link up with the wrong
answer, often an item of recent learning.
The ways of moving on to another student in Table 14.4 represent how a teacher
might respond when a student has an (apparent or actual) incorrect answer.
While there is nothing wrong with making it clear when an answer is incor-
rect, it does matter how a teacher says it, and what he or she does next. Each
of those moves is a different way of saying “no” or “not quite,” but a common
characteristic of all of them is that the teacher responds and then moves on to
someone else.
The moves for sticking with a student in Table 14.4 represent how a teacher
might stay with a student. Teachers who stick with students—especially if their
initial response is seemingly incorrect—send messages that they have confi-
dence in their students’ ability to think through to an appropriate response.
Giving a student a cue and lingering sends quite a different message from saying
no and immediately calling on another student. Cuing the student but then call-
ing immediately on another says the teacher doesn’t really think the student has
the capacity to use the cue. Whereas any response from this continuum might
be effective in a given situation, the main point is that teachers who convey
positive expectations and build confidence and risk-taking in students practice
many moves from the middle of the continuum.
Sometimes teachers in our workshops ask how an instructor has enough time
to do such sticking and cuing with students and still get through all the mate-
Wait time is a
behavior we
believe teachers
should teach to
students.
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rial they wish to. The fact is that it takes hardly any more time at all to do so
—seconds more at most. Sticking with a student does not need to slow the rate
of coverage (though for other reasons, such slowing down might be a very good
idea). But consider the cost of not sticking with students who don’t answer or
answer incorrectly the first time. The individual student can easily feel inept
at a moment like this and shut down cognitively. Also, by not sticking with
the student, the teacher forfeits the chance to support a student’s thinking and
explicitly build confidence in his or her capacity to perform with academic
material. Every long wait or period of silence when a student feels intimidated
or unsure about a question is an opportunity to build confidence and capacity.
Finally, it is not only the single response to an individual student that matters,
but also the pattern of responses over time that signals what the teacher thinks
is important.
There are other responses as well to student answers.
p Asking a follow-up question to double-check or extend (called a probe in
research literature) is a way of checking to see if the student really under-
stands the meaning of an answer or is just parroting. For example, a student
might be able to recite “pi r2” without knowing that r stands for the radius
of the circle. So a follow-up question might be, “And the r stands for . . . ?”
p Asking students to elaborate on their responses helps the teacher know
what they really meant: “Could you explain that further?” “I’m not sure
what you meant by that, Jerry. Can you say a little more?” “You need to be
more specific, Jane. How far exactly are you saying the fulcrum has to be
from this end?”
p Acknowledging a student’s answer nonjudgmentally leaves the door open
for further comment from other students or for adding to the original an-
swer by the same student. (“So one possible explanation is . . . Thank you.
What might be some others?”)
p Restating in fuller language is a move a teacher might do for the benefit of
the other students—to make sure they understood what the answer meant.
Teacher asks, “Why do you suppose we celebrate Lincoln’s birthday but not
all presidents’ birthdays?” Student says, “He freed the slaves.” Teacher says,
“So you are thinking that he did something really important and that’s how
we decide whose birthdays to celebrate?”
p Giving Praise can be an effective response to a student answer, but only
if used well (Dweck, 2002; Henderlong & Lepper, 2002). Brophy’s (1981)
definitive review of the research on praise summarized how to praise well.
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To be effective, teacher praise must be:
• Specific. It specifies exactly what is praiseworthy about the student’s per-
formance: “John, I’m impressed with the variety of verbs and sentence
patterns you used in this composition. This is your best work so far.”
• Contingent. The praise is dependent on successful student performance
and not given randomly or for encouragement. Noncontingent praise
(given randomly and sometimes for incorrect answers) is frequent and
found most often among teachers who have low expectations for stu-
dent learning.
Within any given class, it is most likely to be directed toward the low-
est achievers. No doubt such praise is given in an attempt to en-
courage the student. However, it seems likely that to the extent that
the students recognize what the teacher is doing, the result will be
embarrassment, discouragement, and other undesirable outcomes.
(Brophy, 1981, p. 13)
• Genuine. The teacher means it. The praise is not manipulative, or given
to reinforce (that is, engineer) a specific behavior, but it reflects real ap-
preciation on the teacher’s part.
• Congruent. Gesture, tone of voice, stance, and posture send the same
message as the words. If the teacher leans back, looks away, and says in
a bored tone of voice, “I can see you really worked hard on these prob-
lems, Freddy,” Freddy is not likely to be convinced.
• Appropriate. The choice of words, setting, and style is matched to the
particular student. Public praise to individual middle school students
can embarrass them. Public praise for certain behaviors can make them
want to crawl under the table: “Oh, John, your handwriting is so tidy
and neat” (said to a macho eighth grader).
Brophy (1981) also points out that effective praise:
p Uses students’ own prior accomplishments as the context for describing
present accomplishments.
p Is given in recognition of noteworthy effort or success at difficult (for this
student) tasks.
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p Attributes success to effort and ability, implying that similar successes can
be expected in the future.
p Fosters endogenous attributions (students believe that they expend effort
on the task because they enjoy the task and/or want to develop task-relevant
skills).
Each of the behaviors just described—wait time, supplying the question for
which the answer is right, cuing, holding the student accountable, follow-up
questions, asking students to elaborate, acknowledgment, restating in fuller
language, and praise—has research to support it as an effective teacher behav-
ior (Costa, 1985; Dunkin & Biddle, 1974). There is similar support for “redi-
recting” in the literature, and even a case for the appropriateness of criticism
with certain students as long as the criticism is not a put-down (Graham, 1985).
These findings have been reinforced by subsequent research (Dweck, 2002;
Henderlong & Lepper, 2002).
Since many of these response techniques are inherently worthwhile in and of
themselves for stimulating thinking and attaining clarity, they are worth adding
to all teachers’ repertoires. And it is a good bet that among the list cited, there are
several new ones for any teacher. (Least frequently seen, in our observations, are
wait time, asking students to elaborate, and effective praise.) But beyond incorpo-
rating them into one’s repertoire is the issue of matching. Are the response tech-
niques being used appropriately in the right situation and with the right students?
Wait time, for example, is less appropriate when asking low-level questions or
doing drills. Giving students time to think and process is most effective when
higher-level thinking is called for. Redirecting prematurely can deny a student
the opportunity to think through an answer or refine one already given. Restating
in fuller language can aid the understanding of the rest of the class, but if done
unnecessarily or to excess can teach students not to listen to one another. The
bottom line here, as elsewhere in the quest to develop skillful teaching, is to work
first to expand repertoires to respond more appropriately to more students in
different situations, then improve the effectiveness of matching, and finally, skew
responses to the middle part of the repertoire so as to take every opportunity to
build confidence and capacity in students.
When Students Don’t Answer
Sometimes students are called on and don’t answer or don’t have a ready an-
swer, and there is that loaded second or two in which we must make a decision:
Do we get embarrassed for the student and want to get the spotlight off that
child? Do we stick with the student, giving cues? Do we ask the question over
again? Do we redirect the question to another student?
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1. Wait time I
2. Repeat the question
3. Cue
4. Ask a simpler question
5. Ask a fact-only question
6. Give choices for the answer
7. Ask for a yes-or-no response
8. Ask the student to repeat or imitate an answer
9. Ask for a nonverbal response (shaking the head or pointing)
10. Instruct the student to say, “I need more time to think,” or “I don’t know yet. Please come back to me.”
There is a progressive continuum of responses (Table 14.5) we might employ to
keep students open and thinking when they don’t answer. The benefits of wait
time have been described earlier. Simply enduring a little silence while Caitlin
grimaces may give her the time she needs to come up with the answer. Modeling
this behavior—taking time to think after a student has posed a question—can
have a powerful influence too.
Once, we attended a session where David Perkins, co-director of Project Zero at
Harvard University, was asked a question. He turned his head, looked sideways,
then up at the ceiling, and continued in silence for a full 10 seconds. By this time,
I was getting nervous for David as a presenter and looking for something to say,
some way to jump in and rescue him from what seemed like a paralytic attack. But
just at that moment, David looked the questioner calmly in the eye and delivered
a brilliant reply, paragraphs long, with no wasted words. He didn’t appear in the
least ruffled. He had simply been comfortably thinking out his answer. It was I
who had been uncomfortable with the pause, not Perkins! Several other times in
that session, similar pauses for reflection followed complicated questions from
the audience. After the first time, I was not worried about David anymore and
spent the time thinking about the question too. In fact, Perkins’s modeling of
wait time for himself to think through an answer had an immediate effect on
the class. The whole discussion became more reflective and thoughtful. And
by having our instructor model his willingness to think before he spoke, we
became more comfortable doing so. The result was to elevate the level of the
entire discussion.
Table 14.5 Responses to Use When Students Don’t Answer
Adapted from Good & Brophy (2000)
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Turning to the other behaviors on the continuum, we see a progression where
less and less is required of the student, until finally only imitation or head shak-
ing is requested. This continuum was adapted from Good and Brophy (2000)
for nonresponsive students. Their point is that students should not be allowed
to practice nonresponsiveness, instead they should be expected to participate.
As long as they appear to be trying to answer the question, the teacher
should wait them out. If they begin to look anxious, as if worrying about
being in the spotlight instead of thinking about the question, the teacher
should intervene by repeating the question or giving a clue. He or she
should not call on another student or allow others to call out the answer.
(Good & Brophy, 2000, pp. 192–193)
Arena 3: Giving Help
Another arena of significance occurs when teachers give students help. This
occurs in two ways: (1) students ask for help, or (2) students don’t ask for help
but the teacher gives it anyway (unsolicited help).
Student Asks for Help
Giving help happens dozens of times a day. Read the following two scripts. In
one, the teacher conveys positive expectations for the student. In the other, the
teacher conveys negative expectations (Good & Brophy, 2000, pp. 229–230).
Example 1: Positive Expectations
Student: “I can’t do number 4.”
Teacher: “What part don’t you understand?”
Student: “I just can’t do it.”
Teacher: “Well, I know you can do part of it, because you’ve done the first
three problems correctly. The fourth problem is similar but just a little harder.
You start out the same, but then you have to do one extra step. Review the
first three problems, and then start number 4 again and see if you can figure it
out. I’ll come by your desk in a few minutes to see how you’re doing.”
Example 2: Negative Expectations
Student: “I can’t do number 4.”
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Teacher: “You can’t? Why not?”
Student: “I just can’t do it.”
Teacher: “Don’t say you can’t do it. We never say we can’t do it. Did you
try hard?”
Student: “Yes, but I can’t do it.”
Teacher: “Well, you did the first three problems. Maybe if you went back
and worked a little longer you could do the fourth problem too. Why don’t
you work at it a little more and see what happens?”
An analysis of word choice and phrases in each of these dialogues illustrates
how powerful a brief exchange between teacher and student can be in sending
positive or negative expectations messages. In the first script, the teacher’s first
question—“What part don’t you understand?”—credits the student with under-
standing most parts and asks him or her to zero in on the stumbling block. When
the student stalls, the teacher explicitly expresses confidence in the student’s ca-
pacity: “Well, I know you can do part of it, because you’ve done the first three
problems correctly.” Then, the teacher goes on to give explicit coaching help and
promises to return in a few minutes “to see how you’re doing.” The teacher will
help but believes the student can do it. Nevertheless, the student won’t be left
hanging. The teacher will return as a safety net if there is still difficulty.
In the second script, the teacher asks, “Why not?” when the student says, “I
can’t do number 4.” That’s a “gotcha” question. If the student knows why she
can’t do it, she would be able to move forward and ask for more specific help.
The teacher then responds to, “I just can’t do it,” with an injunction, “Don’t
say you can’t do it,” and a bit of moralizing: “We never say we can’t do it.” The
teacher may mean that as an encouraging gesture, but whatever hope there is
of being encouraging gets crushed by the no-win question: “Did you try hard?”
If the student has already been trying hard, only one conclusion is possible: “I
must be dumb.” And if the student hasn’t been trying hard, then she or he must
admit sloth. The implication, though without much hope, is that maybe longer
and harder will somehow put the student over the top. But the teacher gives no
specific strategic help. “See what happens” is the parting shot, and the student is
left feeling that not much more will happen.
The point of studying these two scripts is to increase awareness of word choice
and approach when students ask for help. With only subtle changes in what
we actually say, we can convey confidence, point out how students can use
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what they already know, give strategies or cues as help, and check back at ap-
propriate intervals, or we can moralize, simplify or dumb down the task, sug-
gest inadequacies, hint blame, and convey (sometimes masked behind polite
words) that we really don’t think the student is capable of doing the task. One
outcome we desire for readers of this section is that you will find yourselves
carrying a third eye and ear into your own classrooms. The third eye and ear
are your own! And it is monitoring and giving you feedback as you speak when
you are asked for help. What messages are you conveying as you interact with
students to give help?
Unsolicited Help
Graham and Barker (1990) and Zimmerman and Marinez-Pons (1990) found
that when teachers give unsolicited help, students often conclude their teachers
think the students are not able and need support. As a result, some will begin
acting as if to confirm this belief. Another side effect of premature unsolicited
help is that students learn not to struggle, that struggle is bad, that struggle
means they are unable—which is exactly the way entity theorists plunge deeper
into a subtractive belief system.
This is tricky, because teachers want to be available to the students who need
the most support. In fact, we want to arrange our time and other resources to
deploy them efficiently to support students who do need extra help. How do
we do so without inadvertently sending debilitating expectation messages? We
think the answer lies in the subtleties of word choice and body language, as in
these examples illustrate:
p Instead of going right over to Brian on the first problem and saying, “Need
help, Brian?” Mr. Flood works with another child near him and watches
how Brian is doing.
p He is able to pick up early if Brian is struggling. “Trouble?” he says off-
handedly while catching Brian’s eye. “No,” says the student. “Okay, a good
scholar knows when to ask for help. So, struggle is good. But be strategic,
and ask me or someone else if you hit a wall.”
p “Trouble?” Mr. Flood says off-handedly as he catches Brian’s eye. “Yeah,”
he says. “Okay. So, what part has you hung up?” “The whole thing.” “Okay;
now you can do this with a little coaching. What’s the first step?”
Another recommendation is to make asking for help a rewarded behavior, used
by “good students” or “scholars” in the culture of the classroom, when a student
Videos:
Confidence
Building,Tenacity,
Allow Struggle
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has used her own resources first. That way you won’t have to give much unsolic-
ited help. You can establish such a culture by teaching, practicing, and reward-
ing such behavior explicitly. It becomes part of the curriculum.
Arena 4: Changing Attitude Toward Errors—
Persevere and Return
There are at least two ways in which any one of us can interpret errors or mistakes
we make: as an indication of weakness or lack of ability or as an opportunity for
learning and growth. If I believe errors are signs of weakness, I will avoid them at
all costs. In fact, I will avoid topics and types of work where I think I may make
errors so I don’t have to face the “truth” about my low aptitude in that area. Also,
I will get impatient with work that does not come easily or quickly because I will
interpret the difficulty as a sign of my low ability. But if I interpret errors as feed-
back (data to be used to indicate gaps), I can fill or alternate approaches I must
seek out; then I do not shy away from material I do not grasp quickly. This view
requires an underlying belief in one’s capacity to be able to understand the work
ultimately by working at it and a belief that it’s worth the effort.
Teachers have the opportunity every time they help students deal with error to
help them interpret it as data to deal with rather than as a low-ability message—
for example:
p “You can do this if you have the right strategy, Carl. So you must need a dif-
ferent strategy. Let’s see, which ones have you tried, and which ones haven’t
you tried yet?”
p “You’re able to understand stories when you have the right background
knowledge, Julie. So there must be something the author is assuming about
experiences you’ve had that isn’t true. Let’s see, what could it be? Show me
one of the places you got confused.”
p “Well, you do fine experiments when you understand what the task really
is. So there must be something in the directions that didn’t communicate.
Take me through the lab setup, and show me where it’s unclear.”
Our intention here is to highlight the significance of students’ attitude toward
error and suggest how teachers might respond when errors occur so as to sup-
port the incrementalist view of intelligence and a learning-goal orientation. (In
Chapter 16, “Classroom Climate,” we examine how teachers build a climate for
risk-taking and confidence so that students learn to treat errors as opportuni-
ties for learning.)
Videos:
Persevere and
Return, Mistakes
Help Us Learn, My
Favorite No
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Arena 5: Giving and Negotiating Tasks and Assignments
In Chapter 11, “Clarity,” we discuss many important aspects of giving assign-
ments and tasks. These include ensuring that students know why they are do-
ing the assignment (the purpose and objective), are clear about what to do (the
directions), and know how their work will be evaluated (criteria for success).
However, when we give students assignments we also convey messages about
whether we think the task is hard or easy, whether we think students will strug-
gle as individuals, whether we believe students will succeed, and whether we
think success will depend on students’ ability, effort, or luck. It is important to
examine the messages we send students through the way we give assignments.
A teacher says to her sixth graders: “This weekend your assignment is to read
the last three chapters of Tituba and be prepared to name the factors that you
think contributed to a climate in Salem for the witch hysteria.” So far that’s
pretty straightforward. The students may have some confusion about what
“climate” or maybe even “factors” means in this context, but let’s suppose the
students know what’s expected. No messages have been sent to individuals yet.
How do they get communicated?
As the students go out the door, Ms. Hunt stops several of them for a private word:
p “Kaneisha, you should do really well on this. You’ve been reading carefully
and taking good notes on each of the last two assignments. I think you’re
ready to put it all together.”
p “John, how much time are you going to put in on this tonight?”
p “Marie, you’re taking your book home, aren’t you?” [Marie smiles and says,
“Sure.”] “Uh huh. Right!” [Ms. Hunt purses her lips.]
p “Do the best you can, George. At least read all three chapters.”
Ms. Hunt has sent Kaneisha a high, positive-expectation message. She thinks
Kaneisha is ready for a good performance that puts it all together. It’s hard to tell
what message she has sent to John. If John is a slacker and she has communicated
before that she thinks he is, then John may interpret her question to mean, “I don’t
think you’re going to really do this, John.” And John may be inclined to conform
with that preconception. But maybe she has had a series of conferences with John
and done goal setting with him around planning his time use for homework. Per-
haps, she is reminding him of the agreements he made and getting him to commit
to a real number of minutes right now that she’ll hold him accountable for the next
day. Then the message is quite different from the slacker inference. It sounds as if
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Ms. Hunt doubts Marie is going to take her book home. Her “Uh-huh. Right!”
may give Marie license to skip the work—because her teacher expects her to.
George is getting a low-expectation message. The teacher will be content if he at
least plows his way through the words in the book, but she doesn’t expect him
to be able to think through the question. At best, George will plow but not likely
think. The expectation is no higher than getting through the three chapters.
The expectation is actually less, since the teacher has said, “At least try,” which
implies that he won’t be able to do it but that “trying” a little is expected.
These examples illustrate how the choice of words combined with body lan-
guage communicates inner beliefs (the confidence we have) about what stu-
dents can do and about what they will do on a given assignment. In addition to
individual comments at the door and elsewhere, teachers sometimes commu-
nicate to a whole class at once about an assignment. If Ms. Hunt says, “Now this
will be hard; it requires thinking back to all the other chapters we read too. But
I know you can do it if you take your time and use your notes from our previous
discussions,” she is sending a positive, high-expectation message to the whole
class at once. Acknowledging the difficulty of the task validates students’ exert-
ing effort. It’s not supposed to be easy. Calling a task easy is a no-win message.
If it turns out to be easy, the student has no sense of accomplishment. Anyone
could have done it. If children struggle and it was supposed to be easy, they may
conclude they are stupid or not good enough at it, otherwise it would be easy.
In addition to verbal messages to individuals and whole-class groups, there are
whole-class messages that may be embedded in written direction sheets to stu-
dents about assignments: “This problem set is important and is a good chance
to raise your grade. Use this opportunity well.”
We hope readers will listen to themselves during these daily and repeated mo-
ments when they communicate assignments and tasks to students. And espe-
cially attend to the side comments they make to individuals right after giving
the task and the directions. In addition, we urge readers to seize these oppor-
tunities to send deliberately positive and encouraging messages to individuals
who may be low performing, have low motivation and low confidence: “Char-
lene, this is a good one for you to show your stuff on. Now come on, dig in
tonight. You’ve got a great brain, and I want to see you use it as a leader in
tomorrow’s discussion!”
Arena 6: Giving Feedback According to Criteria for Success
Given the commitment we are focusing on here, namely to convince students
that smart is something you can get, the manner, the precision, and the persis-
tence with which we give feedback to low-confidence students is particularly
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important. We consider “capacity building responses” to be a refined and im-
proved version of what is commonly called “feedback.” Bellon and colleagues
(1991) clearly state its critical importance: “Academic feedback is more strongly
and consistently related to achievement than any other teaching behavior. This
relationship is consistent regardless of grade, socioeconomic status, race, or
school setting” (p. 277). Hattie concurs, “The most powerful single modification
that enhances achievement is feedback. The simplest prescription for improving
education must be dollops of feedback” (as cited in Ainsworth & Viegut, 2006, p.
89). These assertions are backed by a considerable body of research including a
number of studies reporting the good effect-size that feedback systems can have
on student performance. The ranges reported are between .5 and 1.8 (Black &
Wiliam, 1998, 2004; Meisels, 2003; Rodriguez, 2005). An effect-size of 1 standard
deviation translates into approximately 35 percentile points on a standardized
test and 100 points on the SAT. So what exactly are teachers doing who get these
effects? Skill at giving student feedback is a generic and foundational skill for suc-
cessful teaching and deserves the intensive look that follows.
Verbal Feedback to Students
Picture students working individually and in pairs, and their teacher walking
around looking over their shoulders. There are many interactions that happen
at times like this. A teacher may give a tip, ask a question, point out an error,
stop and re-explain something a student appears not to know, give some praise.
Usually, the starting point for the interaction is student work the teacher is
looking at. Research on how to make these interactions have positive effects on
student learning has been grouped into a category called “feedback.” However,
the term “feedback” is often defined quite differently.
Chappius (2014) says feedback occurs during learning and does not do the
thinking for the student. She joins Hattie in saying it includes “guidance on how
to proceed” (Hattie & Timperly, 2007) and suggestions where appropriate. Hat-
tie (2012) further subdivides feedback into Task Feedback, Process Feedback,
and Self-Regulation feedback. Black & Wiliam (1998) say feedback should be
about particular qualities of a student’s work, with advice on what the student
can do to improve. Fisher and Frey (2012) recommend we use prompts and
cues to guide students’ thinking when we see shortcomings in their work. They
also distinguish between responding to errors and to mistakes. A mistake is
caused by failing to do or see something you could have done or seen. An er-
ror, on the other hand, is caused by lack of knowledge, a gap that needs to be
filled. Wiggins (2012) defines feedback in a narrower way: it simply provides
students with information about the gap between their current performance
and one that meets the criteria for success. With all the good thinking by these
authors about feedback, the multiple presumed definitions of the word without
Video:
Exemplars
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separation of functions gets confusing. We make the case here that feedback,
guidance, advice, cuing, suggestions, challenges, prompts, and pointing out dis-
crepancies are all different from one another and all useful when properly ap-
plied. What we are studying here is the skill of responding to student work or
performance in the optimal way so that it builds student capacity. So let’s use
the phrase “capacity-building responses” as a category to reflect on all the dif-
ferent purposes of our responses to student work and how these responses can
be productive. Here’s why: looking at the significant amount of literature as far
back as the 1950s there are two clear themes:
1. The response of a teacher to student work should include objective and
nonjudgmental information.
2. The response should be helpful to the student in advancing his or her learn-
ing. It should prompt student self-evaluation and increase the student’s ca-
pacity to improve or take the next needed step.
What kind of responses could do this? There are many, and they fall along a
continuum of simple to more complex. At the simplest level is a cue. A cue is a
minimal response that calls the student’s attention to what’s missing or wrong
and is called a “progressive minimal cue” (see Chapter 11, “Clarity”). Here is an-
other example. A student pronounces the word hateful as “hatful.” The teacher
covers the “ful” with a finger leaving “hate” exposed and asks the student what
that word is. The student’s attention is thus focused on seeing the “e” at the end
and remembering what e’s do at the end of a three-letter word to produce a long
vowel sound. “Oh, hate!” says the student. Then, the teacher lifts the concealing
finger and points to the whole word “hateful.”
At the next level is a prompt. Fisher and Frey (2012) define it as a statement that
causes the student to do some metacognitive work. For example:
Teacher: “I see page numbers in parentheses.”
Student: “Oh, I gotta add quote marks or they’ll think I stole the words.”
Teacher: “I’m reading these words and they sound pretty academic, not
like the rest of the paper.”
Student: “I guess I better think about the sources a little more and make
sure they’re really my words.”
At a more complex level, the interaction with the student may also give objective
information comparing what the student has done with the criteria for success.
Use “capacity-
building
responses”
to reflect the
different purposes
of our responses
to student work
and how these
responses can be
productive.
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The late Grant Wiggins in 2012 wrote: “Feedback is not advice, praise or evalu-
ation. Feedback is information about how we are doing in our effort to reach a
goal” (p. 10). Wiggins was proposing a definition for the term “feedback” that
was specific and contained four attributes. The characteristics of this kind of
response to student work are that the responses are (1) specific, (2) detailed, (3)
nonjudgmental, and (4) factually point out what aspects of proficient perfor-
mance are present and which are absent (if any) from the current work the stu-
dent has produced. “You have shown every step of your solution; your calcula-
tions are accurate. But your units are not labeled.” In many situations, pointing
out what’s missing or which of the criteria for successful work have not yet been
met, is enough to focus students on what they need to do next. If a teacher says,
“But your units are not labeled,” most students know they should go back and
label the numbers with the appropriate units.
One might call it “pure” feedback. In everyday talk, “feedback” can mean
anything said or written about a student’s product or performance. Examples
would be “Great job” (Praise), “You look terrible!” (Criticism), “That’s pretty
good, but it would be better if you included more details to support your case”
(Judgment and Guidance). We want here to get away from the “anything goes”
version of feedback to distinct and professionally defined terms.
Educational researchers, many of whom tacitly accept this broad “anything-you-
say” concept of feedback, write about “good” feedback and “bad” feedback. We
are working to create a profession with a common language and concept system
and a professional vocabulary where important terms have clear definitions that
are precise, broadly known, and used universally, like “tort” and “deposition” are
in the legal profession. Therefore, we want to use an equally precise definition of
feedback. It’s a professional term with precise meaning, and we happen to know
that when one gives feedback according to this definition, there are positive ef-
fects for students. Consequently, we adopt Wiggins’s definition of feedback as a
third level of capacity-building response after “cue” and “prompt” to student work.
In 2004, Wiggins separated the definition of feedback from guidance and eval-
uation, because sometimes pure “feedback” as defined above is enough to get
a student to improve. But that isn’t always so. If it’s not, one should add advice
or guidance to help the student take action to improve the product or perfor-
mance. Feedback gives information about how current performance compares
to mastery. Guidance tells one where to go or how to proceed to improve the
product or performance. The findings about successful responses to student
work are consistent around one aspect: what we say or write to students about a
particular piece of work needs to help the students improve the work. So some-
times guidance is needed to enable students to address the missing attributes of
good work that the feedback identified.
Video:
Guidance
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For example, the teacher might say, “You identified the author’s main points
and showed evidence of why you chose each one, but you made no comments
about the author’s point of view about the generals” (Feedback). Or he might
say, “Take a look again about what he said about the background of the WWI
generals to see if you pick up anything about his point of view” (Guidance).
Sometimes guidance needs to be more specific than “look at the background of
WWI generals” and may take the form of a focusing question, such as, “What
do you think was the generals’ common experience studying the history of the
British Empire and perhaps, also, the honor codes at their elite private schools . . .
what might those two things have to do with their view of war?” (a more direct
level of guidance). The research on responses to student work that increase stu-
dent performance doesn’t say that guidance must be present, it says the infor-
mation must be useful to the students. Feedback without guidance can, indeed,
be useful. But if it isn’t enough, then plunge in with nonjudgmental guidance.
There is also a range of other responses to student work that have a positive
place, such as encouragement, expressions of confidence in the student’s capac-
ity to reach proficiency or produce a quality product, excitement at the progress
this current product represents (a form of encouragement), or request to show
it to another student.
Using Group Critique to Generate Feedback to Students
Ron Berger has a lovely video called “Austin’s Butterfly” in which he shares with
primary students progressive approximations, each one more sophisticated, of
a drawing of a butterfly by a first grader. Austin received group critique of each
of five drafts of the drawing that was “kind, specific, and useful” (Berger, Rugen,
& Wooden, 2014, p. 151).
What this video illustrates is that useful guidance or advice as part of effec-
tive feedback can be delivered through group critique of student work samples
guided by a teacher. Berger is careful to point out that the spirit of this critique
must be continuous improvement, and the advice by peers guided by strong
norms of support and helpfulness.
Thus far, we’ve constructed a continuum for “capacity-building responses” that
is consistent with the research that points out that effective responses to student
work must provoke active processing on the part of the student. We now have a
continuum of “capacity-building responses to student work” that goes from the
most simple to the most elaborate.
Separate from this continuum is the presence of affect in body language and/
or verbal language that is encouraging: “Oh, you’re getting so close!” There is
Video:
Descriptive
Feedback
Video:
Group
Critique
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nothing in the research literature or the canon of common sense to suggest one
should have flat, neutral affect, or in any way contain one’s natural cheerfulness
and enthusiasm. However, the literature does imply we must resist the urges to
jump in, give the answer, re-explain, or do the work for the student. What we
should do is (1) cue if that fits, (2) give pure feedback, (3) stop and see if the
student can proceed, if not (4) give useful advice and suggestions for how the
student can act to improve the work, and (5) include any encouragement or af-
fect you think is appropriate. Be sure not to say, “This is easy” in an attempt to
be encouraging.
There are a few important bullets to add to Grant Wiggins’s list. We believe that
pure feedback should also be:
p Timely (meaning in close proximity to the student producing the work)
p Frequent
p Clear
Written Feedback, Guidance, and Evaluation
Everything we have said about verbal feedback pertains to written feedback on
student work. What we would add is that on written feedback, there are choice
points about how many areas to take on. The point is that guidance and evalu-
ation make little difference unless the student is clear about goals, means, and
feedback. When teachers respond to student writing, they have an opportunity
to apply the attributes of feedback as we have defined it. However, responding
to students’ writing calls for us to do much more than give pure “feedback.” Re-
sponse in writing should often give students credible information about what
they’ve done that is effective and why and give useful input about how to make
it better. This is more than feedback. Teachers skilled at responding to student
writing have a hierarchy of purposes in mind, and different ones may show up
at a given time. For example, responding to students’ mechanical and spelling
errors for editing purposes may be reserved for a later draft and not occur at all
in responding to an early draft. What thoughtful teachers do in responding to
student writing is give help, specific suggestions, or some kind of guidance that
students can use to improve their next draft.
Here are some different purposes skilled writing teachers have in mind in re-
sponding to students’ writing:
1. To show what resonated for the teacher-reader as an audience.
Video:
Feedback
According to
Criteria for
Success
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2. To highlight, specifically, the things students are doing that are appropriate,
skillful, or effective in their impact on a reader and explain why.
3. To lead the student to the next most appropriate stretch or improvement
in their writing with suggestions or guidance, using the technical language
of writers to do so (“show, don’t tell,” “use strong verbs”). This kind of re-
sponse is not solely objective (that is, only comparing student products to
exemplars), it also seeks to help the student improve by giving direct leads
or asking focused questions that guide the student to improvement.
Let’s examine the three different sets of comments on the same paper from pro-
fessional development materials published by Writers’ Express (www.amplify.
com/curriculum/the-writers-express-curriculum) shown in Exhibit 14.1. Com-
pare the first two examples to the third one. The first teacher catches every er-
ror. This could be appropriate for a piece of writing that was rich and complete,
needing only technical repairs. But for this particular early draft the effect on
the student might well be discouraging. Instead of asking for a thesis statement,
the teacher supplies it for the student. There is the assumption that the student
knows that “frag” means “sentence fragment” and can use that cue as sufficient
to self-correct. There is little shown that the student can build on, nothing to
motivate the student to improve the writing, only an implied injunction to fix a
myriad of technical errors.
The second teacher tries to be encouraging in her comment, but winds up
being wishy-washy and vague, offering no specific suggestions except “keep
going.” What reason would the student have to keep going? “Watch those
fragments” may not be enough to help the student see where she’s written one
or know how to fix it. Because the comments don’t respectfully engage with
the student’s work, they don’t encourage him to continue writing. In addi-
tion, because they don’t make clear what they want him to do next, they can’t
improve his skills.
The third teacher has crafted responses more likely to support good writing
habits and lead to improvement. She does self-reports on the impact of specific
words: “Yum. My mouth is watering.” She underlines the words that produced
that effect, thus identifying the specifics. She shows she is attending to the con-
tent by responding to an arguing point of the student (“I also feel like sleeping
helps me to focus”). The teacher then challenges the student to improve her piece
by focusing on a specific skill (“Show, don’t tell”) and gives her guidance for do-
ing so (“Pretend you are in school after not getting enough sleep. Write 3 sen-
tences to convince me . . .”). The exercise is constructed to highlight the right size
bite for the student, which the teacher decides is writing the sentences to show,
not tell—just that. So the exercise represents a diagnostically determined focus
http://www.amplify.com/curriculum/the-writers-express-curriculum
http://www.amplify.com/curriculum/the-writers-express-curriculum
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Exhibit 14.1 Teacher Comments (Writers’ Express)
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Exhibit 14.1 Teacher Comments (Writers’ Express) (continued)
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Exhibit 14.1 Teacher Comments (Writers’ Express) (continued)
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for this student, in this piece of writing, to improve the next most important skill
as determined by the teacher. And what we hope is that the technical errors high-
lighted by the first teacher response are noted by this third teacher and that they
will be targets for skill development in later feedback and remediation.
Responses to writing that show the teacher is thinking diagnostically, providing
guidance for improvement, and matching response to students’ particular needs
is applicable in any academic discipline where writing is called for—social stud-
ies, science, music, art, and physical education. Guidance is also appropriate
in response to student performance in any discipline even when writing is not
called for! Let’s look at a few examples:
p Drama class: “When you swung your arms while going stage-left (teacher
starts with data), it strongly conveyed the character’s cockiness (communi-
cates effect of the behavior). Try it again at a slower pace so we can see what
the effect is.” (suggestion)
p Art class: “The sudden bright color here (data) draws the eye to the sun (ef-
fect) much as Van Gogh would do. Try muting the color down here so the
competition for attention isn’t too distracting to the viewer.” (suggestion)
p Science class: “You adjusted the scale to highlight the similarities and
differences in the treatments (data). That made your data collection and
graphic display very clear and accessible (effect on reader). One can look at
both your matrix and bar graphs and see your points (more on effect and
why). But I cannot tell so clearly from your “conclusion” what you think the
meaning of the data is for action in power plants.” (feedback)
Exhibit 14.2 shows an example of a different kind of response in which the
teacher focuses on asking good questions to push the writer, Christian, to ex-
pand both his plot and his character development. Note the progress of the stu-
dent’s writing between the first two drafts. Only on the third draft (not shown
here) will the teacher focus on technical and grammatical elements.
Notice that there is an underlying belief in these transactions between teacher
and student. The belief is that learning to write is a process of steady growth
and has many different elements. Doing a piece of writing in this teacher’s class
is not an event that ends when an assignment is turned in. The message to the
student is consistently invitational and encouraging. It is also respectful because
it attends to helping the student develop characters and stories in which that
student is interested. The intention of the response is to help the student develop
some skills related to learning to write, not necessarily to produce a “correct” or
finished product.
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Exhibit 14.2 Teacher Comments (Writers’ Express)
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Exhibit 14.2 Teacher Comments (Writers’ Express) (continued)
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Exhibit 14.2 Teacher Comments (Writers’ Express) (continued)
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Threaded within teacher feedback are tacit expressions of confidence (or not)
embedded in the language used. First, if feedback is specific, detailed, frequent,
and useful, the implied message is that we want the students to master the ma-
terial and are giving them every support to do so. Otherwise, we wouldn’t take
the trouble to create all the feedback. Second, while “pure” feedback is non-
judgmental and simply identifies what students have or haven’t accomplished in
light of a set of established criteria or standards, the responses we make to stu-
dent work often do and should include more than pure feedback. They should
also include encouragement, appropriate leads, and suggestions for how to im-
prove it, and so on. This is especially true when responding to students’ writing,
both fiction and nonfiction (see more examples from Writers’ Express at http://
www.amplify.com/curriculum/the-writers-express-curriculum). So it is impor-
tant not only to give students a high volume of specific, useful feedback, but also
to pay attention to the embedded belief messages that surround the feedback
(Table 14.6).
Reacting When Students Do Well
When students do well, it is important that the praise given to them attributes
their success specifically to effort (and perhaps, secondarily, by implication to
their having sufficient ability). It sounds like this: “You came in for extra help,
studied before the test, and took your time checking your answers before hand-
ing it in. And it really paid off !” The moment of responding, the actual event
Feedback Implied Message
“Jim, you listed your findings in the lab report but
never addressed the next two questions about the
conclusions you draw from the findings and new ques-
tions this has raised. This isn’t up to your best work.”
Jim, you are capable of good work.
“So these are the parts you have to improve to have a
first-class essay.”
You can, indeed, make this first class. There are some
parts of it to address and then you’ll be there.
“What help do you need in order to make this meet
standard?”
If you identify the help you need, the resources are here
and you can meet the standard.
“Now the only thing you have to do is get a really
potent lead.”
You’ve done a good job and have met most of the cri-
teria. If you get a potent lead you will have a complete
and high-quality product.
Table 14.6 Implied Messages Embedded in Feedback
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http://www.amplify.com/curriculum/the-writers-express-curriculum
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in which it is delivered either verbally or in writing, is one of those moments
when we need a heightened awareness of our choice of words, body language,
and tone of voice so as to send a positive expectation message.
Two other regularly recurring situations call for teacher reaction: (1) when stu-
dents don’t meet the expectations we set and (2) when there is a significant
change in performance. Each of these situations represents an opportunity to
reinforce effort as the cause of the results a student has produced (attribution
training). It is through these reactions that students get the message about how
important something is, and whether we believe they are capable of achieving
the performance targets.
Reacting to Unmet Expectations
When students do poor work, it is important that they hear about it in a way
that conveys our belief that they can do better, and that we are looking for in-
vestment of their effort because we believe it will pay off. Some students may
display reluctance or resistance when we react in a direct (and sometimes high-
energy) way. However, students can also easily interpret low affect, a neutral,
or noncommittal response to low-quality work as an expression of our lack of
interest or belief in them. And it often is.
In the absence of an appropriate reaction, many students will not believe suf-
ficiently in themselves to work harder or do well. This danger is particularly
present for students who believe it’s their innate ability that either enables or
disables them to perform (Dweck, 2002). When students who hold this belief
find something to be challenging or do poorly at something they attempt, they
interpret it as confirmation of not having enough ability. These same students,
according to “attribution theory” (Weiner, 1996), believe that when they do
poorly it is because of task difficulty—and underneath that belief, the damning
suspicion that they are not bright enough. Therefore, when students do poor-
ly, going after them with high-energy and positive affect becomes an implicit
statement of belief in their ability and a call for more effort. It is an opportunity
to retrain their attributions about what causes their success and failure.
Reacting to a Decline in Performance
A significant decline in performance is another opportunity to send expecta-
tion messages and do attribution retraining. It could sound like this: “This is
nowhere near the standard you’re capable of. We need to figure out what is
happening and what you can do to get back on track.” A remark like that from
a respected teacher can be a powerful spur to a flagging student.
The moment of
responding is when
we need awareness
of our words, body
language, and tone
of voice to send a
positive expectation
message.
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Reacting to Increase in Performance
Suppose a student with a D average gets an 83 on a test. The teacher stops the
student on the way out the door and says, “You did really well on this test. Why
do you think you did so well?” The student pauses, looks down, and mumbles,
“Must have been an easy test.” (Note the connection to external attribution—
luck or task difficulty). The teacher replies, “Easy test! I don’t give easy tests;
everybody knows that. And you got number 14 right. That was the hardest one.
Now come on, what do you think you did to accomplish that?”
This teacher is trying to get the student to consider that not only does he have
the ability to do well, but that there is something he has done to bring about
this result (effort attribution). But if the student doesn’t see himself as having
that ability, he will more than likely be silent at this point in the dialogue. The
suggestion behind the teacher’s question can be threatening in several ways:
“What if I am capable of good work? Will she expect it of me all the time? What
if I tried and couldn’t do this well again?” Another student may want to keep
expectations low just to avoid working hard.
Another possibility is that by challenging the student to think about why he
succeeded, the teacher may be throwing him into social jeopardy. Some seg-
ments of school peer culture are built around not doing academic work well
and not connecting to school. To embrace being a student and be seen as trying
hard could be interpreted as a rejection of one’s peer group norms. This dynamic
may occur for some students of color where striving in school settings gets in-
terpreted as “acting white” (Fordham & Ogbu, 1986). A teacher who seizes op-
portunities like the student doing unexpectedly well on a test needs to be ready
to support the student through the thinking and the possible perceived risks:
“Well, you think about it, and when you come in tomorrow, I’m going to ask
you again why you think you did so well.” Whether or not the student has a
response tomorrow, the hope is that the student will start thinking about the
possibility that he is capable of higher performance than he’d imagined and
weighing the risks and rewards of trying hard. It is also a time for the teacher
to devise strategies for how to work with him to provide support and scaffolds
while he proves to himself that he has what it takes.
Arena 7: Positive Framing for Reteaching
It is a common event for a class to end with several students who don’t yet fully
understand the material. What, if anything, is going to happen so they have
another chance? This is another of the regularly recurring situations where we
can seize opportunities to build student confidence or miss opportunities and
inadvertently signal to some students that there is no hope for them.
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If we assume that some students won’t or can’t ever get it really, or get it only
partially, we feel obligated to move on to new material and drop their gap in
understanding by the wayside. “After all, they get what they can get. I can give
them slightly different assignments (translation: less demanding) so they can
feel success (what they really feel is shame). I have to move on with the cur-
riculum. After all, I have to get these kids ready for the Regents/APs/finals! I
can’t hold the others back!” The belief behind this statement is that the slower
students couldn’t really ever get the material anyway, and that getting all stu-
dents to pass requires slowing down the whole class and dumbing down the
standards.
But what if we really believe that all students can reach a high standard given
hard work, effective effort, and adequate prior knowledge? What instructional
practices would we be considering? We would provide time and structure to
Criterion test
in advance
Self-nomination
Acknowledgment
of difficulty or
complexity
Clear time, place,
teacher,
or source of
Information
Recognitions for
self-nominees
SCHOLAR’S LOOP
Fluid movement
between groups
permitted at
student option
Extension
activities for
others
Teacher
tenacity and
encouragment
A normative
practice in
the room
• Criterion test in advance
• Acknowledgment of difficulty or complexity
• Self-nomination
• Clear time, place, teacher, or source of information
• Recognitions for self-nominees
• Extension activities for others
• Fluid movement between groups permitted
at student option
• Teacher tenacity and encouragement
• A normative practice in the room
Figure 14.8 The Scholar’s Loop
Video:
Framing Reteaching
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reteach for students who don’t “get it” the first time around. In addition, we
would employ all of the best practices in differentiating instruction and take
the initiative to design courses, units of study, and lessons accordingly. This
means pre-assessing readiness levels, analyzing the data we collect, and design-
ing learning experiences that are geared to a common objective and standard of
performance while incorporating options as to how students will arrive there.
The options might include variety in how students take in information, how
they process or practice what is to be learned, and how they are expected to
demonstrate understanding and achievement of the objectives. The degree and
kind of support are variables that would be differentiated as well.
One possibility for differentiating support is setting up what some call a re-
teaching loop or a “scholar’s loop” (Figure 14.8) as a regular classroom practice.
For students who didn’t get it quickly or the first time around, a scholar’s loop
is a time and place where a concept or idea previously introduced is taught
again or made available again to students with additional explanations, differ-
ent examples, or different perceptual modes. It may or may not be teacher led.
Other students or other adults may lead it. Self-directed learning experiences or
computer simulations may be in the loop. But something happens for students
who didn’t get it the first time around to ensure they do get it, and at the original
level of rigor and at the original standard, not a watered-down one.
The loop has these components:
p Students should be asked to self-select for the reteaching loop. To do so,
they have to self-evaluate: “Do I really get this?”
p Students need the clarity and aid of a criterion test or task given to them in
advance so they can accurately self-assess. The learning target or the perfor-
mance they are shooting for should be no secret.
p The teacher creates and continually reinforces a psychological climate of
safety and esteem for students who nominate themselves for the scholar’s
loop by:
• Explaining to students when the process is introduced—and regularly
reinforcing—that scholars are people who desire to understand some-
thing at a very deep level.
• Explicitly acknowledging the difficulty of the material: “This is really
quite difficult, because you have to get used to thinking about two
things at once: identifying the relevant information and the relevant
operation.”
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• Praising the thoughtfulness of self-evaluation and the risk it takes to
say one doesn’t know something: “Good going, Kristina. You looked
hard at your writing and decided to get a boost in this skill before mov-
ing on. You’re going to know it very thoroughly when you’re through,
and probably incorporate this skill into your writing for life.”
• The teacher encourages the students who have entered reteaching while
they’re there. “Keep struggling—you’ve almost got it. I know you’re go-
ing to get there. Try to put it in your own words now.”
• The teacher acknowledges difficulty and makes the reteaching loop a
team effort: “I must not be saying it right. Manuel, can you take a crack
at putting it in your own words and explaining it to Katrina?”
The most important part of the reteaching loop is the tenacity and expressed
confidence of the teacher to each student that sticking with it will bring suc-
cess. That means frequent assessments and follow-up with the students until
they succeed. Creating reteaching loops often requires breaking the class into
groups and giving the other members of the class an enrichment or extension
activity to apply their knowledge in new contexts. It takes extra time and effort
to come up with those activities. There is no doubt that carrying out the belief
that all children can learn to a high level calls for more work from teachers than
if they allow those who don’t get it first and fast to settle to the bottom of the
tank. Sorting students has always been easier than teaching them. One way to
make the workload more reasonable in managing reteaching loops is to team-
teach. Two teachers with a double-size class can divide up the preparation
chores when they decide they need to have reteaching and extension activities.
It is no small challenge to design differentiated learning experiences. To do so
calls for a broad instructional repertoire, and implementation requires high
levels of management skills. But we know it is what we have to do if we are
to reach all of our students. Developing the capacity to offer this quality of
learning experience for students must be the ongoing aim of any professional
teacher. Then, we can convince low-performing, low-confidence students that
they have what it takes to succeed in school and in life. (Chapter 14, “Models
of Teaching,” Chapter 19, “Planning,” and Chapter 20, “Differentiated Instruc-
tion,” present the keystones for differentiation.)
Arena 8: Tenacity
This quality surfaces in response to resistance, and it subsumes repetition and
consistency. When students resist reasonable teacher expectations and getting
them met seems hopeless, teachers who persevere display tenacity. For example,
Carrying out the
belief that all
children can learn
to a high level calls
for more work from
teachers.
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a teacher goes to study hall to get a student when he doesn’t show up for an
extra-help session or reminds a student she’s expected at 1:15 to go over some
work and hands the student a sticky note saying, “1:15 Room 310!” as she leaves
class. The messages are, “This is important, you can do it, and I won’t give up on
you.” After all, effective effort is the key to student achievement.
Striking a Balance on the Tenacity Continuum
Tenacity is a quality or behavior that raises some interesting challenges and
questions regarding the messages we send. On the one hand, the behaviors de-
scribed have a quality of chasing a student in an effort to convince him that he
can and must do it and that the teacher is there to ensure that he knows and sees
that. Some amount of persisting is critical when dealing with students who don’t
necessarily believe in themselves and their capacity to do well yet. On the other
hand, the responsibility for ensuring that learning takes place cannot rest solely
with the teacher. Students must do their part in order to develop ownership and
the self-efficacy that results from accomplishment. Decisions about how much
to persist and when to back off—or get tough—and allow a student to experi-
ence the negative consequences of his inaction can be an ongoing balancing act
(see Figure 14.9). How much persisting does a student need to internalize the
message that a teacher really believes he can do it and cares enough to see him
through it? How much support does a student need before he is ready to go it
on his own? When is a student really prepared to assume more independent re-
sponsibility for his success? When is it time for the teacher to back off, hold the
student accountable, and give him the reins to steer his own success? Persisting
to the extreme can signal, “The only way you can succeed is if I do it for you.”
Getting tough too soon denies a student the opportunity to succeed.
For students with little confidence, the path we pursue along the tenacity contin-
uum is rarely unidirectional. Instead, it is more like an ongoing, calibrated dance
to the left and right of center, ever attempting through our actions to keep two
messages in balance: “You can do this” and “I won’t give up on you,” and all the
while signaling “this is important” (this being whatever we are being tenacious
about). The message of tenacity is that the teacher cares. The choice about how
to display that with individual students is a matching decision. When students
(and adults) are asked to recall their best teacher and explain why, this quality
is almost always high on the list: “I could run, but I couldn’t hide.” Tenacity isn’t
always appreciated at the time a student is experiencing it, but when all is said and
done students know it means we care. They are grateful for it later.
Arena 9: Grades, Retakes, and Redos
Grading practices send strong implicit messages about what is important and
the teacher’s beliefs in students’ capacity. Consider the practice of allowing stu-
dents to retake tests. Many teachers allow students to retake a test if they do
Video:
Frequent Quizzes
and Self-Correction
Effective effort is
the key to student
achievement.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 371
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poorly. What is significant here is how we determine the grade the student
receives. Does the student get the higher of the two grades, signaling that dem-
onstrated learning—and persevering toward that end—is what matters? Or do
we average the second (usually better) score with the first to compute the final
grade? Consider the implications of this practice and the messages it sends.
I won’t give
up on you
Persist
It’s solely your
responsibility
Ensure success
at any cost
G O A L
“Teach”
responsibility
through
consequences for
nonperformance
M E T H O D S
M E S S A G E
Learn it or
take the
consequences
TOO SOFT TOO TOUGH
Denies sufficient
learning opportunities
and help
T E N A C I T Y C O N T I N U U M
O U T C O M E
T H E B A L A N C I N G AC T
Makes
kids
dependent
Figure 14.9 The Tenacity Continuum
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Students who manifest genuine effort and reach equal proficiency with others
(who got it the first time around) get lower grades. Thus speed is rewarded over
effort and all that may have gone with it (seeking appropriate help, consulting
others, extra hours on the job, soliciting feedback and critique from others,
goal setting). The implicit message this sends is that getting it the first time
around—or faster—is more worthy or important than ultimately reaching high
performance. We care more about speed than perseverance and demonstrating
proficiency, for that is what we reward.
Some will argue that giving the higher score as the final score will encourage
students to skip studying the first time, because they can always have another
crack at it. We think, however, that very few students will be more inclined
to put off study because they see retakes as a safety net. This has been borne
out anecdotally with every teacher we know who has adopted the practice of
allowing retakes. Students who adopt procrastination as a policy soon find
themselves so far behind that the safety net doesn’t help much. One teacher we
worked with addressed this concern by requiring that students come for two
after-school help sessions in order to be allowed to retake a test. This ensured
that she and the student would have a chance to find out what kind of help and
reteaching the student needed in order to be successful the second time. It also
did away with the concern that students would abuse the retake system since a
retake required extra investment of their time and effort.
Letter grading is another practice that sends strong implicit messages about what
is important and our belief in student capacity. The A through F grading system
is based on a belief that the purpose of schools is to sort students and identify
those who get it and achieve proficiency and those who don’t. But what if the
purpose of schooling is to prepare all students to graduate with proficiencies
that will equip them to be high-functioning, productive, competitive, and con-
tributing members of society? What if we believed that society needs all students
to meet the standards of the courses they take because the nature of the work-
place and of the world requires all its citizens to be able to do problem-solving,
work with others, and use language effectively? What if we believed that what we
spend time teaching and what students spend their time trying to learn is im-
portant enough that all students need to attain proficiency? What if we believed
that all students have the ability to meet standards we set given adequate prior
knowledge, sufficient motivation, and good instruction? Then, the only grading
system possible would be one based on mastery rather than sorting.
If that were the case, the only grades that would make sense are A, B, and “not
yet,” where “B” means “meets the standard” and “A” means “above and beyond
the standard” or beyond the requirements of the course. Any student who has
“not yet” met the standards of proficiency defined for the course or demon-
Videos:
Errors and Retakes
(1 & 2), Student Self-
Correction (1 & 2),
Peer Teaching
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strated mastery of the knowledge called for is not finished with the work of the
course yet. The grade is an incomplete. To adopt this grading policy, we have to
take seriously our efforts to get all students to meet a standard, which requires
being clear about what the standards should be and what they look and sound
like. In addition, opportunities must be available—after school, on weekends,
in the evenings—wherever they can be found or created to offer students re-
teaching and additional help. We know of several high schools that have ad-
opted and attempted to implement this policy. In one, faculty members and
community volunteers are in the school on Tuesday and Thursday evenings
and on Saturday mornings to help students finish their “not yets.”
To be sure, this is a dramatic shift from the way schools have done things up to
now. As a result, it calls on us to be inventive, creative, and relentless in seeking
ways to overcome the obvious obstacles to implementing such a practice. But
until there is this kind of shift, schools will continue through current grad-
ing practices to contradict any mission that seeks to convince students that
the whole purpose of schooling is to show them that they have the ability to
achieve and to ensure that they have adequate opportunities to do so.
The belief that all students can achieve high standards with rigorous academic
material transforms nearly everything about the way we approach schooling, and
grading is only the tip of the iceberg. The practice of giving “A, B, not yet” grades
opens a positive Pandora’s box of implied changes in instructional practices, staff
development for expansion of teacher repertoires, and community support for
quality schooling for all children. Chapter 21, “Assessment,” elaborates on what it
takes to replace grading with more informative reporting systems.
Arena 10: Grouping
The grouping of students for instruction is an arena that can send powerful
messages about a teacher’s belief in students’ capacity—not because of the
practice itself but because of several important variables associated with group-
ing students:
p The standards students are pressed to reach once they are in a group
p The flexibility of entry and exit from the group
p The quality of instruction
p The tenacity of the teacher, and his or her expressed belief in the students’
capacity to learn
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p The understanding the students themselves have of why they are in a par-
ticular group
Many years ago, one of the instructors in our group at Research for Better Teach-
ing was tracked with the lowest-performing eighth graders in his junior high
school. This was true tracking. The students stayed together for all subjects and
were put together on the criterion of prior academic performance—the classic
low track. This placement might have condemned him to low performance and
low expectations for the rest of his school career, but it didn’t. The difference
was that this teacher started the year saying to his whole group: “You’ve fooled
people long enough. We know you have good brains and can do well in school.
And we believe it’s too important for your future to continue to allow you to
do so poorly. So this year you’re going to work as you never worked before,
learn more, and do better than you ever have before.” The students’ pace was
accelerated, and the assignments and demands escalated significantly, as did the
intensity of the instruction they received. By the end of the year, most of them
had mastered two years’ worth of academic content!
Well-documented examinations of tracking in the United States (Oakes, 1985,
1995) show conclusively that low-track students are systematically disadvan-
taged by low expectations, less opportunity to learn, less interesting material,
and less interesting teaching. The studies show further that children of color,
especially in urban districts, are particularly disadvantaged. Yet recommenda-
tions to eliminate tracking and do heterogeneous grouping in secondary schools
don’t always appear to help. The reason is that changing the structure won’t help
without changing teaching, beliefs, and attitudes of adults and students. The
one exception to this generalization may be the practice of summarily elimi-
nating the lowest track in multi-track schools and applying the standards and
expectations of the next higher track to the lower-track students who are incor-
porated into the next track up.
The research on heterogeneous grouping, synthesized from a number of origi-
nal studies as well as two excellent research syntheses (Gamoran, 1992; Slavin,
1988), finds that the overall average achievement of students (referred to as
“productivity” in the literature) in tracked and untracked schools is about the
same. Tracked schools are not more “productive” than untracked schools—or
vice versa. But tracked schools produce a bigger spread of student achieve-
ment than untracked schools. The highest-performing students do bet-
ter in some tracked schools, probably because they are offered accelerated
curricula (and boosted by the confidence of adults who expect them to do
well). The low-track students do much worse in tracked schools than the lowest-
performing students in untracked schools. On the surface, this seems to imply
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that untracking is good for low-performing students but cheats the most ca-
pable high-performing students of reaching their full potential.
Yet we know from individual studies that low-performing students in tracked
schools can do well if grouped and given accelerated programs with high ex-
pectations for their success. And we also know that the most capable students
in untracked settings can be suitably challenged if their teachers are equipped
to differentiate instruction.
The inferences seem clear from studies of tracking in secondary schools:
p Eliminate the bottom tracks where multiple tracking is present.
p Help all teachers to internalize the beliefs and behaviors in this chapter for
communicating high positive expectations to all students.
p Help teachers diversify their teaching repertoires and differentiate learning
experiences so that top tracks can be collapsed and include a wider range of
students without denying the highest-performing individuals their chance
to be fully challenged.
Now, let’s look at the data from the elementary studies. Tracking in elemen-
tary schools doesn’t seem to affect the achievement of either the high-or low-
performing students much. Slavin (1993) argues that the reason for this low
effect is that elementary tracking probably does not reduce real heterogeneity
very much. Thus the elementary tracks are still quite heterogeneous. However,
many authors, such as Jeanne Oakes (1985, 1995), speculate that the damage
to self-esteem and motivation inflicted on elementary children labeled as low
track is deep and permanent and shows up later in secondary school perfor-
mance. Consequently, tracking children in elementary schools seems to be all
loss and no gain. The one exception is that certain studies show that gifted stu-
dents may be advantaged by homogeneous grouping in the elementary school.
Many of their needs, however, can be met by differentiated instruction in the
regular classroom by teachers who have extensive repertoires.
Tracking and between-class grouping mean that groups of students are sorted
by perceived ability or prior performance. Tracking tends to mean students are
sorted by general ability and grouped together for all their courses in secondary
schools. In less rigid school structures, students can take high-track courses in
some subjects and lower-track courses in other subjects. Between-class group-
ing is the term most often used in reference to elementary schools and means
forming grade-level classrooms that contain students of similar ability.
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Within-class grouping—often referred to as “flexible grouping”—means stu-
dents are grouped temporarily for instruction in some skill, concept, or opera-
tion where they all need exactly that instruction; they are homogeneous in their
readiness for and need of what the group is going to work on. The research on
this kind of temporary grouping is strongly positive when the following four
conditions are present:
1. The students are heterogeneously grouped most of the day.
2. The grouping is for a specific skill being taught.
3. Grouping is flexible; it remains intact only as long as it takes for students to
achieve the goal the group was formed to address.
4. Teachers adapt the pace and level of instruction to the readiness and learn-
ing rates of the students.
Another elementary grouping model, the Joplin plan, though rarely imple-
mented, has particularly strong positive findings in numerous studies on read-
ing achievement. This is an elementary grouping model where students are as-
signed to heterogeneous classes for most of the day but regrouped throughout
the whole school for reading instruction with others who need similar instruc-
tion, regardless of class or grade. Since strong positive research findings often
don’t lead to wide adoption of proven practices, this story should not be a sur-
prise. Why is this the case? It can be inferred that to implement a Joplin plan
requires a high level of organization, leadership, and teacher communication,
conditions for effective change absent in far too many schools.
What implications can we draw from the research on grouping?
1. Flexible within-class grouping should be used from time to time.
2. There is a risk that students will get remedial, dumbed-down instruction.
First, flexible within-class grouping should be used from time to time, even
in high school classes, for focused instruction in specific areas where ad hoc
groups need more input, guidance, or practice, as long as the four caveats cited
above are followed. In order to do this within-class grouping, teachers need to
have worthwhile activities prepared for the other students, be able to manage
student engagement, and give feedback on progress to those not in the instruc-
tional group. Thus the teacher must bring to bear well-developed repertoires of
Management skills in Space, Time, Routines, and Momentum, and Planning
skills to include selection of Lesson Objectives, Differentiated Instruction, and
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Assessment. Ninety-minute periods or some other configuration of extended
class periods prove especially useful because they give the flexibility to do
small-group instruction within classes and still have time for whole-group ac-
tivities and discussions. The bottom line seems to be that good instruction for a
wide range of students may require that teachers have the capacity to do small-
group instruction, and good small-group instruction requires well-developed
repertoires on a wide range of other areas of teaching performance.
Second, the greatest danger of tracking or grouping of any kind is that students
get dull, skill-drill-oriented, remedial, dumbed-down instruction. The cost is
not only their self-esteem but also their interest and motivation. Most likely,
they don’t believe they are very capable, and they don’t need poor instruction
and meaningless curriculum to reinforce that belief. Low-skill, low-performing
students, whether grouped together for instruction or not, must be involved in
learning experiences about interesting and relevant topics. Above all, these stu-
dents must be involved with higher-level thinking and discussions rather than
passive worksheet activities that call for little more than identification and recall.
For example, teaching approaches that make interesting discussions possible
with low-skill, secondary-level readers involve explicitly teaching these stu-
dents reading comprehension strategies, like reciprocal teaching (Palincsar &
Brown, 1984); text-text, text-self, and text-world connection making (Keene
& Zimmerman, 1997); study skills like note-taking, use of graphic organizers,
and double-entry notebooks; and note studying within the regular curriculum.
It also means teaching them discussion skills, discussion formats (e.g., litera-
ture circles, Socratic seminars), and social skills.
We need to systematically build with students the capacity to use the good
brains they have to interact successfully with higher-level thinking. It is a re-
minder that we are not only content specialists and teachers of subjects but
also teachers of learning. And that role includes teaching students how to use
strategies and skills for more effective learning. This requires drawing on all the
other material in this book on learning styles, variety in learning experiences,
clarity devices, principles of learning, and so forth to identify strategies and
skills to teach to students explicitly and magnify their school competence as
effective learners.
Connections to Clarity
When a teacher wants students to believe in themselves and learn effective ef-
fort, certain of the “Clarity” behaviors presented in Chapter 11 become par-
ticularly important. Checking for understanding becomes a passion because
the teacher intends to reteach skills or concepts to students who didn’t get it
Low-performing
students, grouped
together for
instruction or
not, must be
involved in learning
experiences about
interesting and
relevant topics.
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PART FOUR | MOTIVATION | EXPECTATIONS
the first time around. Thus the teacher is driven to collect formative assessment
data in an ongoing way at the end of each chunk of instruction: “I’ve simply got
to know where they all are to design the grouping for the next class.”
Similarly, the commitment to reach the students who are behind or lack confi-
dence makes these teachers extend themselves to those kids and make sure they
understand the criteria for success and get feedback according to those criteria
especially frequently.
“Making Students Thinking Visible” becomes a constellation of moves that
surfaces students’ misconceptions, gaps, and confusions—another key way
for the committed teacher to gather data of who needs what (see Chapter 11,
“Clarity”).
Beyond the interactive behaviors and deliberate use of language described in this
chapter are certain classroom structures, mechanisms, and routines whose very
existence embeds the three critical messages of “This is important, you can do it,
and I’m not going to give up on you.” The how-tos of the mechanisms listed below
are beyond the scope of this book but can be found in High Expectations Teaching
(Saphier, 2017). They generate student agency and ownership in powerful ways.
Summarizing Arenas and Their Significance
The 10 arenas of classroom life highlighted in this chapter represent innumer-
able opportunities for us to positively influence students’ confidence in their
capacity. They serve as specific tools for building life-liberating beliefs (see Table
14.7). The tools are subtle, simultaneous, and ever present. We need to be aware
of how we are using them, because the consequences on student motivation and
achievement are enormous. Our patterns of behavior should be consistent with
the belief that all students can learn rigorous academic material at high stan-
dards. What we say regarding “all students can learn” must be congruent with
what we do. If we seek to overcome the constricting grip of bright-slow class
prejudice, which researchers are saying is an unfair restriction on the equality of
educational opportunity offered to students, then we will consciously monitor
any tendency toward the unholy 12 behaviors Cooper (1979) identified.
We will seize the opportunities present in each of these arenas to send positive,
high- expectations messages to all students, press all students toward excellence,
and give students lots of opportunities to exceed our expectations. Using skills
in these arenas, we can consistently send messages to students about what is im-
portant, that we believe they can do it through their effort (and ours), and that
we won’t give up on them.
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What about getting students to believe that their effort really can and does make
a difference? Earlier in this chapter, we summarized attribution theory as the
study of the explanations people give themselves to explain their successes or
failures. We also summarized Dweck’s research suggesting that children have a
tendency to believe that it is either their innate ability or their effort that primar-
ily accounts for their success or lack thereof. In the arenas section of this chap-
ter, we suggested that we seize opportunities in these everyday interactions with
students to convince them that they have more than enough mental capacity to
do high-quality work. We have attempted to make a strong case that teachers
must do everything possible to convince students that each one of them has the
capacity to do rigorous work to high standards and that it is investment of their
effective effort (working hard and acquiring strategies) that will enable them to
see that for themselves. This brings us to attribution retraining.
EFFECTIVE EFFORT AND ATTRIBUTION RETRAINING
How can we teach students to exert their effort effectively? Attribution retrain-
ing means getting students to change their attributions of success and failure
away from factors over which they have little immediate control (luck, task
difficulty, and innate ability) to the factor over which they have the greatest
control: effort. Teaching effective effort means making students aware that ef-
fective effort (effort that results in achievement of a goal) is a combination of
working hard and applying effective strategies. Emphasizing the strategy com-
Life-Limiting Beliefs Life-Liberating Beliefs
• Mistakes are a sign of weakness. • Mistakes help one learn.
• Speed is what counts. Faster is smarter. • You are not supposed to understand
everything the first time around. Care,
perseverance, and craftsmanship are
what count.
• Good students can do it by themselves.
Competition is necessary to bring out the
best in students.
• Good students work together with others and solicit
help and lots of feedback on their work.
• Inborn intelligence is the main determinant of success. • Consistent effort and effective strategies are the main
determinants of success.
• Only the bright can achieve at a high level. • Everyone, not just the fastest and most competent, is
capable of high achievement
Table 14.7 Life-Liberating Beliefs
Adapted from Saphier & D’Auria (1993)
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ponent with students is essential to giving them an explanation other than lack
of ability when they are working hard and aren’t yet seeing progress.
Teachers need to make attributions and effective effort explicit topics of conversa-
tion with students so that they are aware of the variety of ways that people explain
their successes and lack thereof. We need to find out what the students believe
about what makes someone successful and help them to see connections between
their accomplishments and the effort they have invested to achieve them. A num-
ber of teachers in our courses have taught attribution theory directly to their
students as a way to get the conversation started. Students need to be taught what
effective effort means and how to employ all six of its attributes (see Table 14.8).
Let’s look at each attribute in more detail.
1. Time: Do I put in sufficient time to get the job done? Although time
alone is far from sufficient to accomplish difficult academic tasks, it is ab-
solutely required. And it is true that some students truly don’t realize that
several hours of outlining, drafting, and editing may be required to make an
essay meet a high standard.
2. Focus: Am I working efficiently and without distraction? Work time
should be efficient and low in distraction. There is plenty of latitude for in-
dividual style in defining focus. Some students don’t find music, even loud
music, distracting while they work. In fact, for some it is a way of blocking
out other environmental distractions. But talking to friends about the up-
coming weekend or watching TV while doing academic work is not com-
patible with the concept of focus.
3. Resourcefulness: Do I reach out for help and know where to go for it?
Students need to know to reach beyond themselves for help, know how to
Table 14.8 Attributes of Effective Effort
Adapted from a model developed by Jeff Howard.
1. Time An understanding of how much time it takes to do the job well.
2. Focus No TV or other distractions; concentrate only on the work.
3. Strategies If one approach isn’t working, keep trying different ways until you find one that
works.
4. Resourcefulness Knowing where to go and whom to ask for help when you’re really stuck.
5. Use of Feedback Looking carefully at responses to your work so you know exactly what to fix.
6. Commitment Being determined to finish and do the very best work.
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do so, and where to go. Sources of help may be other people (study bud-
dies, homework help centers, relatives) or other sources (reference books,
online services, reference librarians).
4. Strategies: What strategies am I using or could I use? Do I have al-
ternatives when a strategy isn’t working? Students need to know and use
appropriate strategies to deal with academic tasks. A voluminous literature
confirms that students do significantly better in academic work when their
teachers explicitly teach them strategies for improving reading compre-
hension, organizing and revising writing, and reviewing, remembering,
and summarizing (Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991; Pressley, Borkowski, &
Schneider, 1987).
5. Use of feedback: How or where can I get feedback on how I am do-
ing? What does the feedback tell me about how to improve my per-
formance? Good students listen to and look carefully at the feedback they
get from teachers and use it to improve their performance.
6. Commitment: When something is difficult, do I stick with it? Do I re-
ally try hard? Effective effort is grounded in will. You have to want to ac-
complish something to put out the effort and organize yourself to complete
a tough learning task. You don’t have to like it, but you do have to be com-
mitted to trying hard.
How to Support Effective Effort
Some version of Table 14.9 might be given to students periodically to reflect on
a project they are submitting, or an exam they are preparing for, to keep in their
minds what it means to invest effective effort.
Each of the attributes of effective effort has implications for things we can do to
support students in investing their effort effectively:
p Time: It is worth discussing with students and coming to agreement about
how much time they should expect to spend on an academic assignment
to meet high standards.
p Focus: Students have to have a clear idea of what the focus is, that is, the
precise instructional objective. We need to create clear images for students
of the performances they should be shooting for. That means more than
just telling the objective, it means showing them what meeting it would
look like (communicating criteria for success and sharing exemplars where
feasible). Focus also means eliminating distractions when studying.
Video:
Teaching Effective
Effort
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p Resourcefulness: This means teaching students directly what the resources
are and how to use them. In a fourth-grade class we visited, groups of chil-
dren were giving reports on Native American tribes. It could have been any
fourth grade in America—models of hogans, teepees, longhouses—except
for one thing. Every group started its report with a child’s recounting where
he or she had gotten the information, what the obstacles were, and how the
child had overcome them. This was a teacher who had taught the students
how to use outside help to get information and who expected them to do
so at every opportunity.
p Strategies: It is our responsibility to teach students how to use learning
strategies, regardless of the content area and grade levels we teach. We all
need to be teachers of reading, writing, thinking, and reasoning strategies
as they are essential, transferable skills for learning in every discipline. Stu-
dents need to learn how to use strategies like these to do academic work:
• Graphic organizers for planning, note-taking, and summarizing.
• Periodic summarizing to support retention and deepen understanding
while reading, watching, or listening to information.
• Note-taking to bring meaning to and deepen understanding of what
their notes say.
• SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Respond) to preview a reading
to support comprehension.
• Mnemonic keyword technique for memorizing (see Chapter 12,
“Principles of Learning”).
Videos:
The Power of
Concentration,
Teaching
Strategies
Student effort checklist √
1. Did I put in sufficient time to get the job gone?
2. Did I focus efficiently and without distraction?
3. Did I reach out for help and know where to go for it?
4. Did I use different strategies and alternatives?
5. Did I get and use feedback during my work?
6. Did I stick with it even when it was hard?
Table 14.9 Student Effort Checklist
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PART FOUR | MOTIVATION | EXPECTATIONS
Students should participate in constructing strategy lists (“Ways to Remember
Something,” “Effective Ways to Study for a Test,” “Strategies for Getting Help”)
that hang on the classroom wall or go into their notebooks for future reference.
Finally, students should have practice naming and evaluating the effectiveness
of the strategies they have used, and identifying alternatives where necessary.
David Perkins refers to this as developing reflective intelligence and proposes
that it accounts for a significant dimension of a person’s intelligent behavior
(Perkins, 1995).
Teachers must also help students see how these strategies can be transferred to
other academic tasks. Otherwise, students may not think to use the strategies
beyond the specific context in which we teach them. (The how-tos of “teach-
ing for transfer” are explained in more detail in Chapter 12, “Principles of
Learning.”)
p Feedback and praise: Earlier in this chapter, we discussed responding
to student performance using feedback and praise. To use feedback and
praise as a vehicle for attribution retraining, we need to intentionally em-
bed specific effort and ability attributions in our responses:
• “You’ve proven in your work all week that you have the brainpower to
do some very challenging problems. There must be some strategy you
aren’t using yet that would be the breakthrough on these. Let’s look at
how you are approaching them and do some brainstorming.”
• “You really concentrated on organizing your ideas and taking time to
plan before you wrote your final piece. Nice job!”
• “You stuck with the task—you never gave up—and now look at what
you’ve accomplished.”
• “When you saw that your first strategy wasn’t working, you took an-
other approach; and now look at the progress you’ve made on this.”
Effective effort requires that we teach students to examine our feedback and
use it. Behind students doing so to good effect is that they know the criteria
for success and that our feedback tells them how they are doing on those crite-
ria specifically. In the video referenced in the sidebar that supports this point,
the teacher explicitly makes time and space for student to use the feedback, as
Dylan Wiliam recommends in the video “Feedback According to Criteria for
Success,” referenced earlier on p. 355.
Video: Students
Use Feedback
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p Commitment: To help students understand the importance of commit-
ment and to mobilize them to make it, we need to teach them how to set
goals that are specific, challenging, attainable, written, and revisited (see
Chapter 12, “Principles of Learning”). Goal setting and having students
review their goals frequently gives students the tools for making commit-
ments that go beyond hopes and empty promises. It also causes students
to self-evaluate and brings them in frequent contact with their teachers to
share the evaluation and the data on which the goal was based.
Attribution retraining requires us to monitor our language and replace state-
ments like “Good luck” with effort-oriented statements such as, “Give it ev-
erything you’ve got,” and replace comments like, “Don’t worry; it’s easy,” with
statements like, “This is really challenging work. It’s hard stuff, so give it your
undivided attention, stick with it, recall all of the strategies you have for [what-
ever is involved], and you will get it.” And when students have done very well,
instead of saying, “You are so smart!” we need to say something like, “You have
obviously really applied yourself, and your effort paid off.”
We need to talk with students about their life-limiting and life-liberating beliefs
(listed in Table 14.7 on page 379) and consider how our classrooms and school
can be designed to reinforce the life-liberating beliefs (see Chapter 16, “Class-
room Climate”).
Finally, we might give students a tool for self-assessing their effort (separate
from their achievement) and ask them to score themselves at the end of certain
assignments or projects. Marzano, Pickering, and Pollock (2001) offer the ru-
brics shown in Exhibit 14.3 that pair achievement with effort; the student scores
both. Presumably, if one kept a running record of student achievement and ef-
fort using these rubrics, students themselves could draw conclusions about the
connection between the two. This effort rubric focuses only on continuing to
work or “pushing myself.” An effort rubric could also include “using feedback”
and “trying other strategies.”
Some additional suggestions for teaching and reinforcing the value of effective
effort, compiled by Ann Stern, a senior consultant at Research for Better Teach-
ing are listed in Table 14.10.
Videos:
Perseverance,
The Power
of “Yet,”
The Power
of Words
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PART FOUR | MOTIVATION | EXPECTATIONS
Scale: 4 = excellent; 3 = good; 2 = needs improvement; 1 = unacceptable
A: EFFORT RUBRIC
4. I worked on the task until it was
completed.
I pushed myself to continue working
on the task even when difficulties
arose or a solution was not
immediately evident.
I viewed difficulties that arose as
opportunities to strengthen my
understanding.
3. I worked on the task until it was
completed.
I pushed myself to continue working
on the task even when difficulties
arose or a solution was not
immediately evident.
2. I put some effort into the task, but
stopped working when difficulties
arose.
1. I put very little effort into the task.
B: ACHIEVEMENT RUBRIC
4. I exceeded the objectives of the task
or lesson.
3. I met the objectives of the task or
lesson.
2. I met a few of the objectives of the
task or lesson, but did not meet
others.
1. I did not meet the objectives of the
task or lesson.
Student Assignment Effort Achievement
Rubric Rubric
Fri., Oct. 22 Homework— 5-paragraph essay 4 4
re: Animal Farm
Wed., Oct. 27 In-class essay re: allegory 4 3
Thurs., Oct. 28 Pop quiz 3 3
Exhibit 14.3 Effective Effort Rubrics
Adapted from Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock (2001).
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R386
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Table 14.10 Teaching and Reinforcing Effective Effort
How often do you? Never Rarely Some-times
Most
of the
Time
Always
1. Tell personal stories of your effective effort.
2. Ask students to recall times they succeeded
because they didn’t give up.
3. Search for stories and examples of inspirational
people students look up to who have achieved and
excelled because of their persistence, determination,
and hard work.
4. Use literature; share books about effort and where
the central characters don’t give up.
5. Make effective effort a theme in your team or
school.
6. Recognize and celebrate effort: “You have really
developed your skill in creating vivid images in your
writing. All of your revision efforts paid off. This piece
should be published!”
7. Praise effort, not intelligence, in your choice of
language.
8. Prior to doing a task, have students identify what
strategies they will use to be successful. Collect them
on charts. Post and add to these charts as time and
tasks go on.
9. When students succeed, ask them to identify what
accounted for their success, and hold them account-
able for figuring out how their effort played a role.
10. Saturate your environment with efficacy mes-
sages.
11. Have students use the effort and achievement
rubric in Exhibit 14.3 to score themselves and track
the relationship between their effort and achievement.
12. When a student says, “This is easy,” you reply, “It
wasn’t always easy. What did you do to get smart at
it?”
13. Have students visualize the actual physical moves
(follow guidelines of mental imagery) for arranging
time and place for effective practice or study.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 387
PART FOUR | MOTIVATION | EXPECTATIONS
Coda
The Expectations area of performance is an example of the way in which
teaching is more a calling than a job. If successful teaching involves getting
students to be believers in themselves, then that is a way in which this business
resembles the clergy more than a craft. The thrust of this whole chapter is that
we need to behave as if we believe that all students can learn rigorous material
at high standards.
Different though we each may be in our genetic endowment, if we could all do
the incredibly complicated analytical task of learning to speak and communi-
cate by age three, then we all have enough intelligence to do academic material
well—that is, if we exert enough effective effort. The key word here is effective.
Just exerting more effort—harder or longer—is no guarantee of success for a
struggling student.
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
STRAND 1: What You Expect Is What You Get
Four Kinds of Standards:
1. Quality and quantity of work
2. Work habits and procedures
3. Business and housekeeping routines
4. Interpersonal behavior
Eleven Ways to Communicate Standards: (1) Direct Communication, (2) Specific Communication,
(3) Repeated Communication, (4) Positive Expectancy, (5) Modeled, (6) Personal Contact, (7) No
Excuses, (8) Recognizing Superior Performance or Significant Gains Over Past Performance, (9) Logi-
cal Consequences for Poor Performance, (10) Tenacity, and (11) Feedback.
STRAND 2: Growth Mindset—Effort-Based Ability or Incrementalist Theory
• “Smart is not something you are; smart is something you get (incrementally) by working hard
and working smart” (Jeff Howard, The Efficacy Institute).
• The three critical messages: “This is important. You can do it. I’m not going to give up on you.”
• Attribution Theory and Attribution Retraining
STRAND 3: The Behaviors of High Expectations Teaching
The 10 Arenas of Classroom Life:
1. Calling on Students
2. Responding to Students’ Answers
3. Giving Help
4. Changing Attitude Toward Errors—Persevere and Return
5. Giving and Negotiating Tasks and Assignments
6. Giving Feedback According to Criteria for Success
7. Positive Framing for Reteaching
8. Tenacity
9. Grades, Retakes, and Redos
10. Grouping
To check your knowledge about Expectations, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher
website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
15. Personal Relationship Building
PART FOUR | MOTIVATION | PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP BUILDING
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 389
Motivation:
Personal Relationship
Building
In his “Bearhug” poem, Ondaaje describes how his child from the bed-
room has been calling him for a goodnight kiss. The father yells, “Okay,
I’m coming.” But he was finishing something and then does this and that
before he finally responds to the child’s calling. As Ondaatje slowly walks
through the bedroom door he sees his little boy: “He is standing arms
outstretched waiting for a bearhug. Grinning.” Ondaatje gives a marvel-
ous poetic description of the way a parent hugs a child. But then, almost
as an after-thought, two short lines end the poem: “How long was he
standing there like that, before I came?” (van Manen, 1991, p. 104)
All our children are standing there, not so obviously with their arms out-
stretched, waiting to be hugged. Do we see them? The long reach and powerful
grasp of caring relationships in schools is well documented in close to sev-
enty years of education research (Ancess, 2003). Consistent research suggests
a strong association between student-adult relationships and student reten-
tion, achievement, graduation, and aspirations, especially in an urban context
(Stanton-Salazar, 2001; Valenzuela, 1999). Emotional bonds with adults serve
as a foundation for the development of intellectual and social competence in
students (Newmann, 1993). This chapter addresses “caring relationships” in the
classroom (Velasques, West, Graham, & Osguthorpe, 2013). One way students
conclude teachers care about them is if the teachers are seen to be working hard
to make sure they can learn.
You can tell the difference between a fake teacher and a real teacher.
The real teachers want to get inside of how you’re doing something, so
maybe next year they can do it differently. A real teacher, he’s someone
who works the day shift teaching you, and taking the information he gets
from you and going back on his lesson plan or the lesson plan he gets
here from the school, he will take what they give him and change it up to
what he thinks from what he got from his students will match how they
learn. You’re still getting what you need of all the elements in that class,
but he’s teaching it a whole different way. If the principal came in and
said, “OK, what’s this? We didn’t give you that!” He’d say, “My kids will
learn better if I did it this way.” (Interview conducted by A. Platt, 2002 )
Motivation
Personal
Relationship
Building
Video:
No Child Left
Unknown
CHAPTER
15
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So you show you care about my learning by going out of your way to reshape a
lesson that didn’t work the first time. You are also willing to take me aside and
reteach materials and to make extra help readily available, and do so in a way
that expresses belief in me (see Framing Reteaching in Chapter 14, “Expec-
tations”). In Chapter 14, “Expectations,” we provide an extensive view of tenac-
ity: the persistence with which you will pursue me, do not accept poor work,
express confidence in me, and push me to learn. Conflict and tension may arise
between student and parent demands and what the teacher deems best for the
student (Goldstein, 1998), but the teacher will not lower his or her expectations.
About these teachers students often later say, “I could run, but I couldn’t hide.”
Personal relationship building complements hard work and insistence on qual-
ity production from students. As one Latina student stated about her teacher,
“She [the teacher] tries to help me. Whenever I don’t get something she tries
to help me by reteaching the lesson.” Another Latino student stated, “She asks
if we need help” (Garza, 2009). Together, they result in what the literature calls
“caring.” But one also notes that “academic opportunities were balanced with
relational experiences” (Velasques, West, Graham, & Osguthorpe, 2013).
HOW GOOD PERSONAL RELATIONS
CONNECT TO STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT
Why is it that good personal relations are connected to student achievement?
What do teachers do to create these relationships? What are the repertoires for
developing and maintaining positive teacher-student relationships?
Geneva Gay (2000) writes:
I think interpersonal relations have a tremendous impact on the quality
of teaching and learning. Students perform much better in environments
where they feel comfortable and valued. Therefore, I work hard at creating
a classroom environment and ambiance of warmth, support, caring, dig-
nity, and informality. Yet, these psycho-emotional factors do not distract
from the fact that my classes are very demanding intellectually. Students
are expected to work hard and at high levels of quality. (p. 197)
Judith Kleinfeld (1975) coined the term “warm-demander” to describe the per-
son Gay pictures. “Warm” without the “demanding” is problematic. “Demand-
ing” without the “warm” is as well (Rivera-McCutchen, 2012). A teacher who
invests time and energy in building relationships with students signals to them
that they are respected and valued as worthwhile individuals, which most often
results in students’ liking and respecting their teacher. In turn, students will par-
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ticipate and contribute positively to the classroom climate, and they will be less
likely to buck the program or become discipline problems.
In the face of positive relationships, students more readily accept rules, pro-
cedures, and disciplinary actions that follow violations of the rules (Marzano,
2003). Students who have neutral or negative relationships with their teachers
are less inhibited from misbehavior and more likely to disengage. In one study
of how ethnically diverse high school students, who have experienced disciplin-
ary problems, explain the causes of conflicts with their teachers, Sheets and Gay
(1996) note that “the causes of many classroom behaviors labeled and punished
as rule infractions are, in fact, problems of students and teachers relating to each
other interpersonally” (pp. 86–87). Positive relationships contribute to a class-
room climate where there is greater energy available for and devoted to learning.
Adolescents are ready to work and achieve when they know that people
care about them, that what they’re learning matters, and that they pos-
sess the skills necessary to meet a given challenge. . . . Effective middle
school teachers . . . recognize that if they do not meet their students’
social and emotional needs, they will waste their content area expertise.
Students simply will not achieve academically when their affective needs
go unaddressed. (Daniels, 2005, p. 52)
A strong positive relationship says to a student, “I value you and I want the best
for you,” which renders a teacher a significant adult in the student’s life and af-
fords the teacher opportunities to demand and support more academic rigor
from their students. The relationship can serve as a vehicle for influencing aca-
demic identity, convincing students that they are capable of performing at high
levels, and getting seemingly unmotivated students to come to school, stay in
school, complete assignments, participate in class, and persist in the face of aca-
demic challenges. Teachers can use a relationship “as leverage to help students
transcend difficult and troubling times, develop personal discipline, and recon-
nect when they are at risk of dropping out” (Ancess, 2003, p. 63).
As a result, we see strong connections between “Personal Relationship Build-
ing” and several other areas of performance, most notably “Classroom Climate”
(affording students a sense of safety, belonging, and willingness to take risks),
“Discipline” (and classroom management), “Clarity,” “Differentiated Instruc-
tion,” and “Expectations” (influencing students’ willingness to work hard and
see themselves as academically able to achieve high standards). Some suggest
that Personal Relationship Building is the keystone to these other very signifi-
cant areas of teaching performance. In addition, recognizing the importance of
warm teacher-student relationships becomes an anchor for pursuing tailored
instructional delivery and for the design of culturally relevant lessons.
Students simply
will not achieve
academically
when their
affective needs
go unaddressed.
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. EIGHT KEY TEACHER TRAITS AND BEHAVIORS
When students are interviewed about their relationships with teachers, there is
a cluster of teacher characteristics or traits and certain classes of teacher behav-
ior students repeatedly mention as important (Ancess, 2003; Cushman, 2003;
Johnson, 1976). Following are these teacher traits (Figure 15.1):
1. Acknowledging students
2. Communicating value
3. Respecting students
4. Demonstrating fairness
5. Exhibiting realness
6. Being open to humor and having fun
7. Building students’ interests into learning experiences
8. Culturally relevant instruction
1. Acknowledging Students
Students describe ways teachers make them feel noticed and acknowledged:
p Greeting students individually as they enter the room, pass in the halls,
and so forth.
p Welcoming them back when they have been out due to illness.
p Making eye contact with them during whole-group instruction.
p Noticing when they aren’t participating and encouraging them to do so.
p Noticing when a student has confusion on his or her face and doing
something about it.
p Using procedures to ensure that all student voices are heard in class
discussions.
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Figure 15.1 Eight Key Teacher Traits for Personal Relationship Building
CULTURALLY RELEVANT
INSTRUCTION
STUDENT
INTERESTS
HUMOR
AND FUN
COMMUNICATING
VALUE
PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS ARE BUILT THROUGH
ACKNOWLEDGING
STUDENTS
EXHIBITING
REALNESS
DEMONSTRATING
FAIRNESS
RESPECTING
STUDENTS
Video:
Communicating
Value
2. Communicating Value
We believe there are at least five subcategories of things students notice that
give them a sense that the teacher values them: (1) showing interest in them,
(2) being a good listener, (3) communicating high expectations to them as in-
dividuals, (4) re-establishing contact if there has been a reason to discipline a
student, and (5) being accessible to them.
Showing Interest
Showing interest encompasses all the ways in which teachers show interest in
students as individuals and as learners. This includes the following:
p Knowing where students live and what their neighborhood looks like.
p Listening carefully and actively learning about their concerns and
fears.
p Asking about their strengths and interests.
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p Finding out what their daily schedule looks like in and out of school.
p Knowing what their responsibilities are outside school.
p Getting to know these things early in the year.
p Asking how their day is going.
p Inquiring about them if they are out of school or ill.
p Knowing students’ names, and using them when addressing them in
and out of class.
One of our colleagues tells a story about a night when she was helping her fifth-
grade son with his homework. Right in the middle of reviewing for his social stud-
ies test, he put his pencil down and announced, “I had the best day of my whole
school career today, Mom!” She responded, “Really? What happened that made it
so good?” He replied, “Three times today when I was walking in the hall, teachers
who have never had me in their classes passed me and said, ‘Hi, Jon.’ Mom, they
knew my name, and I never even had any of them as my teachers!”
Teachers can make students feel important by:
• Connecting academic work to their interests.
• Using their names in instructional examples.
• Having brief one-on-one conversations.
• Making time to see and be available to them outside class.
• Asking what’s bothering them when their facial expression says
something is wrong.
• Attending their extracurricular events to cheer them on
Showing interest in them as learners might include:
• Gathering data from them and teaching them about the types of
learners they are.
• Finding out what their positive and negative experiences have been
thus far in school or in a particular subject area.
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• Finding out what they already know or have experienced in rela-
tion to a topic or skill to be taught.
• Interrupting a lesson to check their understanding (frequently and
broadly across the class).
• Getting their input at the close of class about what supported their
learning and what hindered it, and responding to what their re-
sponses reveal.
• Finding out why a student might not be participating.
• Finding out what they think is hard and what’s not.
• Finding a way to discern if they aren’t comfortable participating in
a large group.
• Finding out how and with whom they are comfortable or uncom-
fortable working.
• Showing interest in the subject matter taught and presenting mate-
rial to students with passion and enthusiasm.
• Making connections to their world so they see reasons why the
material is worth learning.
Hammond (2015) extends this framework of interest to the compassionate
level of being concerned when a student or student’s family experiences illness,
trauma, loss, or some other form of difficulty.
At a time when it is vitally important for adolescents to experience school as a
stable, predictable, and hospitable place to be, Rodriguez (2005) underscores
the importance of these efforts:
Solid teacher student relationships give urban adolescents an anchor as
they learn in an often unpredictable environment. To help students re-
spond to our efforts, teachers must first acknowledge students as per-
sons, legitimize their knowledge and experiences, and engage with them
personally and intellectually. In doing so, educators recognize students
as whole people and show them that they are valued, thereby relaying a
message of hope. (p. 80)
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Being a Good Listener
“She really listens to me” is a common statement students make about teachers
they like and respect. “I know my teacher cares because he takes me seriously
when I share my personal and academic problems.” Students yearn for teachers
who are willing to listen and really hear what they have to say (Daniels, 2005).
We believe there are at least two dimensions of listening that matter to students:
focus and empathy.
Listening with focus:
p Listening attentively and without interrupting.
p Acknowledging (verbally or non-verbally) what is being said.
p Inquiring for details rather than making assumptions when informa-
tion is vague or unclear.
p Checking understanding by paraphrasing or summarizing to ensure
that we have heard accurately.
p Posing reflective questions that invite further thinking or exploration of
a topic of interest or concern to a student.
Many teachers practice these behaviors naturally and, at a less-than-conscious
level, in situations that don’t involve intense emotion. However, in times of high
excitement (enthusiasm, stress, tension, anxiety, frustration, annoyance, dis-
tress) on the part of the listener or the speaker, we need to be more conscious of
monitoring these behaviors.
Listening with empathy:
Listening with empathy means listening in a way that enables us to understand
both the content of what the speaker is saying and the feelings that accompany
the content. This is particularly important the more intense the emotional state
of the speaker and/or the listener is, or in situations where one’s perspective
about something is quite different from another’s.
Active listening, a core skill taught in communication and conflict management
training, is a particular way of listening and responding to another person with
the intent of coming to understand the other’s point of view. Active listening
involves paraphrasing or summarizing what the speaker has said, and the para-
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phrase is an acknowledgment, as well as a check for understanding, regarding
the content of their remarks and the inferred feeling state of the speaker. It is an
attempt to signal to the speaker that he or she has been heard on multiple lev-
els (content and affect). For example, when a student says, “I just can’t do this
work! These problems are too hard. There is no way I will ever get this done.
I don’t have enough time. I give up!” An active listener might say, “So you’re
stuck on these problems [content] and getting really frustrated [feeling].”
A student who has come to class late, is without homework regularly, and has
been falling asleep in class says in an after-school meeting with the teacher
“I have to drop this class. I have too much work to do; I don’t have time to
do homework. My boyfriend says I never have time for him. I have to babysit
my little sister and brother every day ‘til my mother gets home at night, and I
have a job three nights a week to help pay our rent.” The teacher says, “So you
have several very significant responsibilities in addition to everything you are
expected to do to keep up in school, and you are overwhelmed with trying to
balance it all.”
In both instances, the teacher as listener is using the paraphrase of content
and emotion to ensure that he has accurately understood what is going on for
the student before offering suggestions, giving advice, or providing another
perspective.
A teacher who actively listens communicates concern for the student’s personal
feeling states and her desire to understand. Although it can be used manipu-
latively and insincerely, on-target and genuine active listening is the verbal be-
havioral embodiment of empathy. When combined with accuracy and respect
(Egan, 1975), active listening makes children feel understood and cared about
(Aspy & Roebuck, 1977; Rosenberg, 1999).
High Expectations and Persistence
Students who have persistent teachers internalize a message something like
this: “You wouldn’t take the time or exert the energy to push me and persist
with me if you didn’t think I was a worthwhile person. Especially if you do
it with humor, some nurturing, and encouragement. I know you value me. I
warm to that, and feel respected by it.”
Students interpret communicating high expectations, holding them account-
able, and supporting them in meeting expectations as their teacher regarding
them as a worthwhile person.
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High expectations might be communicated about:
p Academic performance
p Work habits
p Interpersonal behavior
p Being an active participant in class
p Showing up and being on time for class
p Taking responsibility
p Assuming leadership roles
That a teacher communicates high expectations constitutes the basis for rela-
tionship building. How a teacher does this is the central focus of Chapter 14,
“Expectations.”
Persistence is what we do to “chase” when students aren’t living up to our ex-
pectations or performing up to par; when they are resistant, passive, or practice
avoidance behaviors in the face of challenge. In short, when students don’t yet
see themselves as capable of achieving or measuring up, persistence signals our
conviction that they can do it, and we won’t give up on them.
Persistence might show up as:
p Finding a student in the halls and reminding him he needs to see you.
p Making extra time to work or be with a student.
p Sticking with a student and explaining until he gets it.
p Finding three more ways to explain something when the first three
didn’t work.
p Wake-up calls to a student who is chronically late to school.
Persistence and support are the left and right hands of effectively communicat-
ing expectations.
Persistence
signals our
conviction that
students can do
it, and we won’t
give up on them.
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Re-Establishing Contact
When a teacher strongly reprimands a student (for example, sends the student
out of the room) or carries out some high-voltage disciplinary move (“You
cannot destroy someone else’s work. If you can’t help him rebuild it, this area is
closed to you for the day”), his or her relationship with that student may be un-
der a cloud of tension (as it should be). After such incidents, the teacher who
keeps good relationships looks to interact in a positive, personal way with the
student around some other context. There is no apology in the teacher move or
any implied backing down from the firmness of the previous move. It’s simply
a way of saying, “Okay, let’s get in touch again. I still value you as a person.”
This is “re-establishing contact”: conveying the message that, while the behav-
ior was unacceptable, the teacher is not carrying a grudge, and the relationship
remains intact. It removes the tension between the teacher and student, and
gives the student an emotional entry back into the flow of activities.
Toshalis (2015) also makes the point not to react with anger when a child is
displaying anger:
We should consider ourselves lucky when students trust us with their
anger. We often claim that when they share with us their despair, fears or
excitement, it’s a sign we have a good relationship with them, but it’s rare
when educators are also pleased when students trust us with their rage.
And on those occasions when we choose to engage students’ anger,
we often squander a potential connection by attempting to tamp down
their expression. We’ll say “calm down,” “take it easy,” or “lower your
voice.” The message we’re sending is that conditions that inspired their
anger are far less important than the way the anger is articulated. This
preserves inequity as much as it silences dissent. (pp. 19–20)
We want to point out that the anger Toshalis describes is not the impulsive
outbursts of children who lack inner controls; that calls for a totally different
way of thinking and responding (see Chapter 10, “Discipline”).
Being Accessible
Being accessible means making time available for students outside class time.
It might be to provide extra academic help to students or support with per-
sonal or social issues students want to talk about. Students notice when teach-
ers are giving up their “own time” (lunch, before and after school, free periods)
to be available to them, and they interpret this as a measure of the teacher’s
commitment to them (Ancess, 2003). It’s not enough just to say to students,
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“I’m available after class each day for help.” Students have to believe we mean it
and that coming to us will be a productive and confidence-building experience.
Therefore, often we have to say it again and again, and sometimes be even a bit
more tenacious by requiring some students to show up until they see it is really
not a punishment but a service to and for them.
3. Respecting Students
“Respect and fairness (equity) are identified as the prerequisites of effective
teaching in the eyes of students . . . at all levels of schooling—from elementary
to high school” (Stronge, 2002, p. 16). Respect from the student point of view
has several faces and has some overlap with acknowledging and valuing them.
Table 15.1 lists some examples of how students define respect (Ancess, 2003;
Cushman, 2003; Gay, 2000).
It is also interesting to note how often in interview studies students comment
on the appearance and dress of teachers they like. Perhaps, students take good
grooming and neat, clean clothes as a sign of respect and regard from us.
4. Demonstrating Fairness
Students know that by coming to school they are making a bargain with
teachers, and they want it to be a fair one. . . . Whether they are “hard” or
“easy” teachers, the adults who win students’ trust and respect are the
ones perceived as scrupulously fair in carrying out this usually unspoken
bargain. (Cushman, 2003, p. 24)
Fairness seems to be the absolute prerequisite for personal regard. Unless students
perceive a teacher as being fair in making decisions that bear on them (making
assignments, arbitrating disputes, giving help, choosing teams), they cannot be-
gin to like him or her. So on what basis do students determine whether a teacher
is fair? Table 15.2 lists examples of what students tell us about fairness (Cushman,
2003; Jackson, 2016; Kobrin, 2004; Wubbels as cited in Marzano, 2003).
Students are asking us to keep no secrets about what is expected of them aca-
demically and behaviorally, to inform them ahead of time exactly what we will
use as a basis for assessing their performance, to give them feedback based on
the established expectations, and to be treated as individuals capable of high
performance. At the same time, they ask that we monitor and avoid anything
that could be construed as preferential or discriminatory treatment.
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Table 15.1 How Students Define Respect
Treat us as valued and capable
human beings.
Give us chances to express our opinions and views
without being put down.
Involve us in decisions that will directly affect us. Speak to us with the same courtesy and respect you’d
want from us.
Treat each of us as capable of
challenging work.
Treat us as individuals and care about what’s going on
for us.
Appreciate our differences and
individual styles.
Ask for our help or input when our peers are having
problems.
Treat our work and products with care. Don’t compare us to other students.
Recognize why we might participate and why
we might not. Afford us both options.
Respond to our inappropriate behavior or unacceptable
academic performance without denigrating us.
Discipline us privately when the need arises. Respond to misbehavior at the individual level rather than
holding the whole class responsible for the actions of one
student or a small group.
Be honest and matter-of-fact when rules are
broken, and remind us why it matters.
Remember that we are often insecure, and when we act
in unacceptable ways, please be kind and respond with
that in mind.
Treat our mistakes as just that, and help us to
learn from them.
Correct our errors without using put-downs, making us
feel dumb, or shaming us.
Tell us what to do right. Try to work out behavior issues with us before calling home.
Use our time well. Be prepared for class or give us something meaningful
to do while we wait.
Know your material, and present it enthusiastically. Teach interesting and important material.
Use curriculum and activities that relate to our
interests and strengths.
Present ideas and activities in ways that we can relate to.
Remember we need to stretch and talk periodically. Show interest in our success, and help us to get what
we need from school.
Display our hard work. Give us feedback on our work that shows you really
examined it.
Give us feedback that we can use to improve our
performance.
Follow through on agreements and commitments, and
don’t betray our confidences.
Return our assignments in a timely manner. Behave in ways you expect us to behave.
When we tell you things in private, keep them
private.
When we take risks, support us, and protect our right to
make mistakes and learn from them.
Inspire us as a role model of what you expect from us.
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Table 15.2 What Students Say About Fairness
Let us know what to expect from you so we don’t get taken by surprise.
Let us know your plan: share the itinerary, objectives, expectations for work, and criteria by which
you will assess our work.
Tell us how you will grade our work before we do it, and give it to us in writing (in a handout or on the walls).
Grade us fairly.
Create reasonable rules, apply them consistently and fairly, and be flexible.
Treat us consistently, but also as individuals.
Don’t play favorites, alienating some of us while being friendly with others.
Don’t favor the students you think will do best.
Don’t make assumptions. Ask questions when there is something you don’t understand.
When there is conflict between two of us [students], be sure you hear both sides of the situation before
delivering consequences.
Let us know when you are displeased with our actions; don’t just simmer until you blow up at someone.
Warn offenders two or three times at most; then impose the consequence.
5. Exhibiting Realness
Students want teachers who “are willing to talk about their own personal lives
and experiences” (Stronge, 2002, p. 15). Because a teacher is in a position of
authority, this dimension of relationship building is important to consider. Au-
thority can act as a screen that distances relationships and obscures the hu-
manness of thinking, feeling people with personal histories of lived experience.
When young children address their teacher figure as “teacher” rather than by
name, we get a glimpse of the teacher as authority. Students begin to see their
teacher as real, as a person, only if the teacher lets them. There are behaviors
that reveal aspects of ourselves to allow this image of authority figure to be
tempered by images of teacher as a real person. Sharing anecdotes with stu-
dents from our own lives and integrating appropriate personal experiences into
explanations and presentations enables students to get to know us as people.
One of the strategies, described in Chapter 5, “Attention,” is an “I message”— a
statement a teacher might make to a student or students in response to an inap-
propriate or off-task behavior. In an “I message” (Gordon, 1974), the teacher
explicitly states her feelings and the behavior or circumstance that made her
feel that way. When there exists a relationship of regard and respect, “I mes-
Videos:
Realness 1, 2
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sages” can be another way to let students see their teacher as a person with
feelings. Gordon reports numerous cases of children who, when confronted by
“I messages,” change their disruptive behavior; these children had no idea their
behavior was affecting their teacher adversely.
Zaretta Hammond (2015) takes realness a little further by citing “selective
vulnerability.” “People respect and connect with others who share their own
vulnerable moments. It means showing your human side that is not perfect. .
. . Psychologists have long known that self-disclosure is one of the hallmarks
of intimate, trusting relationships” (pp. 79–80). Examples include being will-
ing to apologize and admit a mistake, as well as more revelatory acts like the
following:
Tell your story by weaving it into your lesson—what were you like as a
student? What were your favorite subjects? What were some challenges
for you? Bring in pictures of yourself as a child during your school days.
Share a new skill or process you are learning—not the finished product
but the less-than-perfect beginning and middle parts.
Share your interests with the whole class and then find fellow fans . . .
(Hammond, 2015, pp. 80–81)
6. Being Open to Humor and Fun
William Glasser (1998) says humor is a form of caring, and that the need to
have fun is one of the five basic human needs. Teachers need not be comedians,
but those who respond openly to humorous moments or who can kid with stu-
dents seem to strike particularly responsive chords. Students talk about liking
teachers who are happy and smile a lot, have a great sense of humor, tell funny
stories, can laugh at themselves, can joke around and laugh when a student
makes a joke that is funny or when something genuinely humorous happens in
class. In other words, they want to know that we know how to have fun and can
enjoy doing that with them.
7. Building Student Interests into Learning Experiences
The better we know our students as individuals, the more information we have
with which to make instructional decisions like how to make the content rel-
evant and personally meaningful, how to hook student interest, how to group
students for academic tasks, and how and when to intervene or offer sup-
port. When these decisions reflect awareness of student interests, background
knowledge and experience base, characteristic behaviors, and learning style
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orientation and preferences, we are most successful in matching the learning
experiences to the unique needs of our students. Thus students have a greater
chance of succeeding academically.
8. Culturally Relevant Instruction
A culturally relevant lesson design is particularly important for students of color
and ESL students who may come from countries with different cultures than
the dominant U.S. Eurocentric culture. Students will feel known and valued
when their cultures, histories, and heroes show up in the references, connec-
tions, characters, and artifacts of lessons. Culturally proficient teaching allows
students to process information (Hammond, 2015) because their minds are not
fighting the energy to cope with a foreign environment. A classroom that has
no recognition of a student’s culture feels unfamiliar; it conveys the message
“you are not included” to students. Zanger notes, “Interviews with Latino high
school students found that they did not feel as if they were part of the school or
the classroom; they spoke of feeling invisible and of being treated as if they were
less worthy than other students” (as cited in Rolón, 2003, p. 41).
Elyse Hambacher and Elizabeth Bondy (2017) go so far as to call this kind
of instruction “culturally relevant critical care,” borrowing a term from Mary
Roberts (2010):
This way of thinking synthesizes the work of scholars, particularly schol-
ars of color, who describe educators, care for marginalized students as an
act of social justice (Bouboeuf-LaFontant, 2005). Such caring is “culturally
relevant” because teachers learn about and respond to the values, knowl-
edge, and histories of their students; it’s “critical” because it shows insight
into the sociopolitical realities of students’ lives, particularly a history of in-
justice that shapes their educational experience and opportunities. (p. 50)
Two other ideas Bondy and Hambacher advance in this important article are
“audacious hope” and “asset based thinking”—ideas that carry embedded caring
for students of color. For more on this topic, see Chapter 4, “Essential Beliefs:
Cultural Proficiency and Anti-Racism.”
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
p The quality of relationships between teachers and students is a deep and constant backdrop
to all that is transpiring in classrooms.
Eight Key Teacher Traits That Support Personal Relationship Building:
1. Acknowledging
2. Valuing
3. Respecting
4. Demonstrating fairness
5. Authenticity (realness)
6. Humor and having fun
7. Building students’ interests into learning experiences
8. Culturally relevant instruction
To check your knowledge about Personal Relationship Building, see the exercises on
The Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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NOTES
16. Classroom Climate
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Motivation:
Classroom Climate
The research on classroom climate is thin but clear. Thin because the vol-ume of studies is much smaller than in the cognitive areas, clear because the findings are consistent across populations, ages of students, and sub-
jects. Whenever students feel empowered, accepted, and safe to take risks and
try things that are hard for them, they like school better and learn more (Fraser,
1986; Fraser & Fisher, 1983; Fraser, Malone, & Neale, 1989; Haertel, Walberg, &
Haertel, 1981; Matsumura, Slater, & Crosson, 2008; Moos & Moos, 1978; Nun-
nery, Butler, & Bhaireddy, 1993; Reyes et al., 2012).
This sounds like common sense, and it is, but the research in this area is ap-
proximately where research on “Clarity” was 30 years ago. At that time, we
knew that teachers who were rated as “clear” on a Likert scale got better re-
sults with students. We did not know, however, what they did in their practice
to earn those ratings. We did not have a construct for the elements of clarity
and how they were related to one another, an operational model for how they
worked in interrelationship, or a sense of whether some of the elements were
more important than others. We know a great deal more about clarity now.
We can, at least, profile essential elements and use data to support their indi-
vidual contributions to successful teaching and learning. The same is not true
for classroom climate. We are still at the Likert scale stage.
Although the tradition of research on classroom climate has roots in the 1920s,
Withall (1949) was the first to formulate a definition of the group phenom-
enon known as social-emotional climate. He noted a general emotional factor
which appears to be present in interactions occurring between individuals in
face-to-face groups. It seems to have some relationship to the degree of accep-
tance expressed by members of a group regarding each other’s needs or goals.
Operationally defined, it is considered to influence the following:
pp Inner private world of each individual
pp Esprit de corps of the group
pp Sense of meaningfulness of group and individual goals and activities
Motivation
Classroom
Climate
CHAPTER
16
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pp Objectivity with which a problem is tackled
pp Type and extent of interpersonal interaction in the group
Studies since then have examined high-inference variables and found better stu-
dent achievement when the class is rated high on measures such as cohesiveness
and satisfaction and low on measures such as friction, difficulty, and competitive-
ness (Fraser & O’Brien, 1985). Overall, these studies show that students’ cogni-
tive, affective, and behavioral outcomes are related to students’ perceptions of
psychosocial characteristics in classrooms (Battistich et al., 1995; Chavez, 1984).
Four propositions speak to the importance of classroom climate (Figure 16.1):
1. The basic psychological needs of all human beings make up an ac-
knowledged and universal list: safety, self-control, affection, inclusion,
self-esteem, recognition, self-actualization, freedom, and fun (Dreikurs
& Grey, 1968; Glasser, 1965, 1998; Maslow, 1962; Schutz, 1967).
2. The degree to which one’s psychological needs are met determines how
much energy and attention is available for learning. If an individual is
hurt and severely wanting in any of these needs, learning slows to a
crawl or a halt. If these needs are adequately met, learning proceeds
normally. If they are met at a high level and nourished, learning flour-
ishes.
3. Classroom climate directly influences how students do in school. It in-
fluences individually how their thermometers read on each of the basic
A Student’s
Individual
Psychological
Needs
Class
Climate
Student
Learning
Success Learning,
Relationship with Teacher
Rigorous Curriculum
Skillful Teaching
Family, Community,
Friendships
Enriched Experiences,
Quality Out-of-School Time
In-School
Out-of-School
Figure 16.1 Psychological Needs and Student Learning
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psychological needs. It is a major variable shaping the degree to which
each student’s psychological needs are met during class time.
4. When the climate goes beyond meeting safety and security needs and
develops strength on the important dimensions of climate—community,
risk-taking, and influence—learning accelerates.
CLASSROOM CLIMATE: WHAT IS IT?
This is our operational definition of classroom climate: “the feelings and beliefs
students have, and the cumulative patterns of behavior that result from those
feelings and beliefs regarding community and mutual support, risk-taking and
confidence, and influence and control.” Community and mutual support are
defined as an individual’s feelings in relation to a group—feelings of accep-
tance, inclusion, membership, and maybe friendship and affection. Risk-taking
and confidence represent an internal, personal dimension that is influenced
significantly by the reactions of others to one’s behaviors. Putdowns and sar-
casm, however subtle they may be, reduce one’s confidence that it is safe to risk
thinking and trying. A classroom climate that rewards effort and persistence,
de-emphasizes speed, and helps students learn that errors are merely opportu-
nities for learning, not signs of personal deficiency. Influence and control rep-
resent the dimension of class climate that pertains to personal efficacy, defined
as one’s power to produce effects. It answers the following questions: To what
degree do I, as an individual, get to make my presence felt legitimately in help-
ing things function here? How am I empowered to be a player, an influencer,
someone who matters, as opposed to a silent cipher whose existence makes no
observable difference in the flow of life in the room, to say nothing of making
choices about how I spend my own time? All three of these dimensions of class
climate matter for student learning.
These three major strands of classroom climate are summarized in Figure 16.2,
which treats each as a developmental aspect of climate. Developmental in that
there are stages of sophistication and maturity for each of the three strands, so
a teacher planning to strengthen any of them would do well to plan activities
and new practices with the stages in mind. The stages for the first strand, com-
munity and mutual support, are well treated in the developmental literature
(Aspy & Roebuck, 1977; Johnson & Johnson, 1995a; Wood, 1994a). The stages
in the other two strands are more hypothetical, though their elements are sup-
ported individually by research. The sections that follow examine each strand
separately and describe the meaning of each element in it. We also describe
specific strategies and practices teachers can use to develop them.
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Community and
Mutual Support
CREATING A CLIMATE OF HIGH ACHIEVEMENT FOR ALL STUDENTS
Confidence and
Risk-Taking
Influence and
Control
Believing That . . .
Mistakes = Empowering students
Knowing others Mistakes help vs. sign of weakness to influence the pace
of the class
Greeting, acknowledging, Care, perseverance, Speed counts Negotiating the rules
listening, responding, and craftsmanship vs. Faster = Smarter of the “classroom
and affirming count game”
Group identity, Good students Good students do Teaching students to
responsibility, and solicit help and vs. it by themselves use the principles of
interdependence lots of feedback learning and other
learning strategies
Cooperative learning, Effort and effective Inborn intelligence = Students using
social skills, class strategies = main vs. main determinant knowledge of learning
meetings, group determinants of of success style and making
dynamics success choices
Problem-solving and Everyone is Only the few Students and their
conflict resolution capable of vs. bright can achieve communities as
high achievement at a high level sources of knowledge
Figure 16.2 Climate of High Achievement for All Students
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COMMUNITY AND MUTUAL SUPPORT
This dimension of climate describes the degree of inclusion, affiliation, and
mutual support students feel with one another. When it is well developed, the
student can say, “I feel accepted and included here. People are on my side. I can
help others, and they will help me.”
Within this dimension are five levels of development, each paired with a char-
acteristic statement:
1. Knowing others: “I know these people and they know me.”
2. Greeting, acknowledging, listening, responding, and affirming: “I feel
accepted and included. People respect me, and I respect them.”
3. Group identity, responsibility, and interdependence: “I’m a member of
this group. We need each other and want each other to succeed.”
4. Cooperative learning, social skills, group meetings, and group dynam-
ics: “I can help others, and they will help me.”
5. Problem-solving and conflict resolution: “We can solve problems that
arise between us.”
These relationships of warmth and inclusion don’t get built by accident or by
themselves. Teachers contribute through their behaviors to the strength and
texture of the climate of inclusion and affiliation that students experience
(Cabello & Terrell, 1993). This includes their verbal interaction patterns with
individual students, their means of handling conflicts between students, the
cooperative structures they introduce for interaction among students, and
their explicit teaching of social skills.
Knowing Others
Gene Stanford, a high school English teacher, identified this strand of class-
room climate as a developmental continuum in his 1977 book, Developing
Effective Classroom Groups. He realized that the foundation of being a group
member was knowing something about the others in the group. As a result, he
regularly did brief “get acquainted” activities (21 are listed in his book) in the
early months of the school year with students in his classes.
Teachers who periodically take a few minutes several times each week to do
these activities do not report time problems keeping up with the curriculum
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or studying what is required. These modest frontend investments in building
community increase efficiency and time on task in the long run. This is true for
the other levels of community building in this strand.
Dozens of books are available with excellent “get acquainted” activities (Bennett
& Smilanich, 1994; Seigle & Macklem, 1993; Shaw, 1992; Stanford, 1977) that are
active and enjoyable. In “People Bingo” or the version called “Find a Person
Who,” students mingle and try to get signatures in boxes of a grid where facts
are listed about others in the group, for example, “Spent a year outside the U.S.”
Each student has to find the person matched to that fact and get his or her sig-
nature in that box. Some activities are lengthier, like structured interviews of
partners. After the interview, the partners introduce each other to the class or
to a small group based on the interview.
One of our favorites has always been “Artifact Bags,” which is just as popular
among groups of adults as it is among fifth graders. Participants bring in unla-
beled shopping bags containing five items that represent something about their
lives or interests. At each session, one participant chooses a bag at random and
displays the items in it one at a time to the other participants, who are sitting in
a circle. Participants try to guess who the owner is. After the fifth item is shown
and described by the person who has been picking from the bag (some items
may be too small for all to see thoroughly when just held up), the group makes a
collective guess. Then the real owner reveals himself or herself and explains the
significance of each item. There may be time to do two or three people at each
session. The popularity of this activity with adults signals how little opportunity
there is in schools and school districts as workplaces to come to know one’s
colleagues. One doesn’t have to take the whole faculty away on a retreat to pay
attention to group and relationship building.
Community building strategies gain importance in the overall picture of class-
room climate building for students as the forces of scheduling and course struc-
tures assume more importance starting in the sixth grade. These forces deper-
sonalize and fracture the sense of community for students.
Greeting, Listening, Responding, Acknowledging,
and Affirming
Have you ever noticed that in some settings (sometimes in whole towns) people
look you in the eye, smile, and greet you when you walk by or enter their space?
Beyond simply getting students information about each other, we should work
on creating the conditions and teaching the skills of acknowledging and re-
sponding to one another. People who are greeted and acknowledged regularly
feel affirmed and tend to be more available for learning. In the morning meet-
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ing structure at the Greenfield Center School in Greenfield, Massachusetts, the
first activity uses one of the dozens of formats available for having the children
greet one other around the circle. This is not a practice confined to the primary
grades. Positive greeting is a form of acknowledgment worth fostering at any
age. Wood (1994b) writes:
It is important for students [of grades 4, 5, and 6] to not only greet each
other in the morning, but to learn to greet any member of the class in a
friendly and interested way. Issues of gender, cliques, and best friends are
developmental milestones for 9–13-year-olds. Greetings help students to
work on these issues in a safe structure every morning. It is the entry
point for the teacher in her social curriculum each morning. (p. 162)
A sample greeting activity appropriate for the elementary grades is a ball toss
greeting, which can be varied so that it will be challenging and build coop-
eration for older children. It begins with the children standing in a circle and
greeting each other one at a time by tossing a ball. For example, Leslie starts
the greeting by saying, “Good morning, John!” and then tosses the ball to John.
He returns Leslie’s greeting, then chooses another child in the circle to greet
and toss the ball to. When the ball has been tossed to everyone except Leslie, it
finishes by returning to her with a greeting. In a variation, the ball goes around
one more time silently (with no greeting or talking) repeating the pattern it
just made. Children will enjoy doing it several times this way and competing
against the clock (Stephenson & Watrous, 1993).
Acknowledging and affirming one another can be structured into group meet-
ing times. The social competency curriculum (Seigle & Macklem, 1993) uses
“Spotlight” as an activity to affirm positive attributes and behaviors. One child
is picked by the teacher (a different one each time) to be in the spotlight. The
others then take turns giving the selected child compliments with specific ex-
amples: “Tim, it’s nice the way you are considerate of other kids, like when you
made room for me to get into the circle.” Each child may speak only once and
must address the child selected, not the teacher. The child in the spotlight listens.
Good listening can be taught explicitly. Students can be warmed up to the qual-
ities of good listening by doing a mirroring exercise. Two partners stand and
decide who will be the leader (person A) and who the follower (person B). Part-
ner A puts his or her hands up and moves them around, palms facing partner
B, who has to make his or her hands exactly mirror A’s hands. After about 45
seconds, the facilitator calls “time,” and partners switch roles. A becomes the
follower and B the leader. To do this activity well, both partners need to focus
intently on each other; that sets the stage for direct teaching and practice of
social skills, especially listening.
People who are
greeted and
acknowledged
regularly feel
affirmed and
tend to be more
available for
learning.
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Direct teaching of children to listen involves role playing and practice. It can
begin by asking students, “Think of someone who really listens to you. Why do
you think that person does it?” Role play listening attentively with the class, and
have them tell you what they saw and heard. Record their answers. Next, have
students describe someone they know who doesn’t listen. Do a role play with
someone, and record what students say about the behaviors they heard and saw.
Students are now ready to practice listening in trios: one listener, one speaker,
and one observer.
Many teachers embed listening practice in classroom routines—for example, by
asking a student who wants to speak to summarize what the previous students
said in a discussion. This request is thrown out randomly so students can’t pre-
dict when they’ll have to summarize.
Group Identity, Responsibility, and Interdependence
Cooperative learning structures (Kagan, 2015) and cooperative models (John-
son & Johnson, 1987; Slavin, 1986) encourage team building because they form
natural groups where individuals are allied with one another. Creating a team
name, a logo, or a banner becomes a natural way for getting the students in-
volved with one another. On a higher level, students start depending on one
another and see how they need one another. Jigsaw structures (Aronson, 1978)
force interdependence because students must rely on their peers to learn certain
material so they can present it to the others on the team. In a Jigsaw, academic
material is divided into parts and individual parts are assigned to team mem-
bers. Team members study their parts and then meet in “expert groups” with
other individuals from other teams who had the same part. In expert groups, the
individuals compare notes and help each other prepare to go back to their home
base teams and teach their parts to peers. Thus all members of a home base team
are responsible for knowing all the information, but must rely on peers to get
much of it.
“Broken Squares” is an activity often used to introduce students to interdepen-
dence. Five perfect squares, each 6 inches on a side, are cut into pieces, mixed
up into five piles, and put in five envelopes (see Exhibit 16.1). Each team of five
gets one envelope each. Their job, without talking or signaling, is to make five
perfect squares. Individuals may not take pieces from anyone else; they can only
give pieces away. When they give a piece to a team member, individuals may not
put the piece in place in the person’s puzzle; they can just give it to the person.
Debriefing this activity with the questions listed in Exhibit 16.1 provides a fine
entry point for discussing what happens if a person is ignored or withdraws or
if someone tries to dominate the task. Regular academic tasks can be adapted to
the “Broken Squares” structure. An oak tag sheet with spelling words (or techni-
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Exhibit 16.1 Broken Squares Activity
Adapted from Pfeiffer & Jones (1974).
6″
6″
A
A
B
C
D
C
E
F
F
A
G
H
A
I
J
Directions for Marking a Set of Broken Squares
A set consists of five envelopes containing pieces of cardboard cut into different patterns that when properly
arranged will form five squares of equal size. One set should be provided for each group of five persons.
To prepare a set, cut out five cardboard squares, each exactly 6″ x 6″. Place the squares in a row and mark
them as below, penciling the letters lightly so they can be erased.
Lines should be drawn so that, when the pieces
are cut out, those marked A will be exactly the same
size, all pieces marked C the same size, etc. Several
combinations are possible that will form one or two
of the squares, but only one combination will form all
five squares, each 6″ x 6″. After drawing the lines on
the squares, and labeling the sections with letters,
cut each square along the lines into smaller pieces to
make the parts of the puzzle.
Label five envelopes 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Distribute the
tag board piece into the five envelopes: envelope has
pieces I, H; 2 has A, A, A, C; 3 has A, J; 4 has D, F;
and 5 has G, B, F, C.
Erase the penciled letters from each piece, and write
instead the number of the envelope it is in. This make
it easy to return the pieces to the proper envelope, for
subsequent use, after each group has completed the
task.
Each set may be made from a different colored card-
board.
Directions
Each of you has an envelope that contains pieces of
oak for forming squares. When the signal is given, the
task of your group is to form squares of equal size.
Each square will measure 6″ x 6”. The task will not
be completed until five perfect squares have been
formed.
Rules
1. No members may speak.
2. No member may ask another member for a piece
or in any way signal that another person is to give
him or her a piece. (Members may voluntarily give
pieces to other members.)
(The letters on the pieces are irrelevant to the
task; they are just for getting the pieces back into
the right envelope at the end of the exercise.)
Processing “Broken Squares”
1. What happened first? What strategies were used
in the beginning?
2. What were you (each individual) thinking about in
the first few minutes?
3. What happened next? Did strategies shift? Were
there different phases to how you functioned as a
group?
4. Did someone make a move that shifted the
group’s approach or in some way broke up the
log jam?
5. Did anyone feel left out or appear to be left out?
6. What roles did each individual play in the group?
7. What did you become aware of about yourself
regarding cooperation and competition?
8. What insight/awareness did you get about the
group’s cooperative tasks?
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cal words or foreign language or English vocabulary words) can be cut up into
a pile of individual letters. The letters are sorted randomly into five envelopes.
Each of five team members gets one envelope. Their job as a group, without
talking or taking pieces from another, is to build the words, spelled correctly. A
poster of the words spelled correctly should be available for the group to consult
while doing the task.
Social Skills and Group Dynamics
The fourth level of community building focuses more explicitly on developing
the skills to work effectively in groups. Social skills are taught in the manner
of the listening example described earlier. Class meetings become a common
framework for teaching and exercising these social skills, which are often posted
by name around the classroom. Three excellent sources on how to run classroom
meetings for social skill development are Glasser (1969), Seigle and Macklem
(1993), and Wood (1994b).
Consensus-seeking exercises with an analysis of behavior and results afterward
are useful. Tasks such as “Lost in Space” and “Arctic Survival” (Lafferty, 1992)
give problems to teams from fifth grade on up that require prioritizing a list
of items; for example, which 10 of 20 potential items should be taken from a
crashed plane if the group has to survive in subarctic conditions until rescued?
Individuals do the task alone first, and then redo it with team members by shar-
ing information and the rationales they used. The group choices almost always
turn out to be closer to the expert’s best answer than any individual’s answer
alone. Thus the point is made about the benefits of pooling expertise and using
consensus. After the activity, groups follow directions to examine the roles vari-
ous members of the group played when they were working together. Valuable
learning emerges about what behaviors individuals can do to make groups effec-
tive. Information emerges about blocking behaviors, and what each individual
could do to be a more potent group contributor next time.
“Mysteries” (Stanford, 1977) is another such structure. The clues necessary to
solve a mystery are put on 3-by-5 inch index cards, and one clue is given to each
student. The task is to identify the culprit with deductive logic by a process of
elimination, if all the information from all the clues is available. The students
who sit in a circle can read their card aloud but cannot give it to anyone else,
and no student can read another student’s card. This structure forces students to
share information, organize it, and develop organization and leadership skills.
As with all other such tasks, the analytical discussion afterward (called process-
ing) is the most important part of the activity. It is here that students reflect on
what helped and what obstructed the group’s progress, and they make commit-
ments about what they’ll try to do better next time.
Video:
Explicitly Teaching
Social Skills
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In “Mysteries,” the class is asked to make an accusation only when they all agree.
If they are wrong, the teacher doesn’t give the right answer but sends them back
into the group to re-examine the evidence. In any event, after 20 minutes, the
activity ends if the guilty party hasn’t been identified, and the class returns to
the task on another day.
The things students learn about successful group processes and individual so-
cial and task skills from these activities do not necessarily transfer into their
everyday behavior unless teachers specifically plan for that transfer. Successful
teaching of social skills requires
1. naming the skill,
2. creating an understanding of the utility of the skill in life,
3. modeling it,
4. having students practice it, and
5. giving students direct feedback on how they’re doing.
In addition to feedback from their teacher, having students process (that is,
discuss and self-assess) their own level of functioning in a group consistently
correlates with better skill development and better academic learning (Yager,
Johnson, Johnson, & Snider, 1986). The explicit teaching of social skills and
the frequent debriefing or processing by students of how they did build an ex-
pectation through repetition ensures that the skills will be used generally in
the classroom. Transfer to settings outside school is more likely to happen by
following the guidelines of the principle of learning called “teach for transfer”
found in Chapter 12.
Problem Solving and Conflict Resolution
The final stage of development for a healthy classroom or school community is
building the capacity of its members to solve their own conflicts. This work in-
cludes acknowledgment that conflicts are normal and that controversy, which
is not the same as conflict, is actually good for learning.
Conflict is defined as a situation where the needs of two people are at odds,
and the current course of behavior or action appears to make one the winner at
the expense of the other. Conflict resolution means coming up with a solution
that meets the needs of both parties or a compromise that both can live with.
Most conflict resolution models have similar steps and teach similar skills. For
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example, Thomas Gordon’s (1974) model includes the skills of active listening
and I messages, which are vital communication skills to enable people to work
through classic conflict resolution steps.
The following seven steps occur in most programs (see Johnson and Johnson
[1995a] for details and elaboration of these steps):
1. Recognize your anger. Calm down and collect yourself. Some pro-
grams teach relaxation or self-imposed time-out techniques for this
stage.
2. Identify the real problem. Break it down into these components:
p• Jointly define the problem as small and specific.
p• Determine what each person wants.
p• Determine how each person feels.
p• Exchange reasons and rationale for positions.
p• Reverse perspectives.
This stage can take some time. Many models advocate teaching stu-
dents to identify their needs, not to speak in terms of actions or the
solutions they want. Probing questions, clarifying questions, and con-
siderable active listening are often required here. That is why a neutral
mediator is often introduced into the process.
3. Decide on a positive goal. State a desired outcome in positive terms—
for example, “We will both get enough time at the computer to rewrite
our drafts.”
4. Think of several solutions. Brainstorming techniques are often taught
to students in this stage.
5. Evaluate the solutions. Pick one to try.
6. Make a plan. Often just picking a solution (e.g., “Share the computer
time after lunch fifty-fifty”) isn’t enough. A specific plan is needed des-
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ignating who will do what, when, and where. The plan may need to be
written and agreed to in writing.
7. Evaluate the plan. See if both parties are keeping their part of the
bargain, if the plan is good, or if it needs to be revised.
We are convinced that Johnson and Johnson (1995a) are right; every student,
not just some, should be trained as a mediator. It is in being a mediator that
students learn and internalize the skills of conflict resolution. Only then will
they have the skills available for their own autonomous use when they get into
conflicts. The implication is that mediation training for all students is the most
powerful model for teaching effective conflict resolution skills and getting stu-
dents to transfer them into daily practice. Social problem-solving meetings, as
described by Glasser (1969), are an ideal forum for developing these steps and
the skills to go with them.
In the only classroom climate study to investigate differential effects of climate
variables by gender and race, Deng (1992) found that the achievement gap be-
tween blacks, Hispanics, and whites in mathematics and between boys and girls
in mathematics widened when community was weak and tension was high.
This finding underlines the importance of community as a variable in academic
achievement for girls in math and perhaps for students of color in all subjects
when classes are integrated.
RISK-TAKING AND CONFIDENCE
As we move from community building to the domain of risk-taking, we ex-
amine what teachers can do to promote confidence and a safe atmosphere to
“go for it.” The five levels of this dimension of classroom climate are not as
clearly developmental as they are in community because each level here is a
belief rather than a set of steps. We believe that the foundation of intellectual
risk-taking in classrooms is built on internal beliefs about errors and what they
mean, about speed of learning and what it signifies, and about the need to get
it on your own as opposed to working with others and getting help. Productive
beliefs about errors, speed, and getting help may be derived from one’s basic be-
lief about intelligence (i.e., that intelligence can be developed and everyone can
do well if they put in the time and use good strategies to learn). Whatever the
relationships between these beliefs turn out to be, it is clear that we can identify
a repertoire of teacher behaviors associated with strengthening each belief.
It is in being
a mediator
that students
learn and
internalize the
skills of conflict
resolution.
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Table 16.1 Five Beliefs That Underlie Risk-Taking
Positive Beliefs Negative Beliefs
On errors:
Mistakes can help one learn.
On errors:
Mistakes are a sign of weakness.
On speed:
• You are not supposed to understand everything
the first time around.
• Care, quality, and perseverance count.
On speed:
• Speed is what counts.
• Faster is smarter.
On getting help:
Good students solicit help and lots of feedback on
their work.
On getting help:
Good students can do it by themselves.
On effort and ability:
• Consistent effort and effective strategies are the
main determinants of success.
• Everyone is capable of high achievement, not just
the fastest.
On effort and ability:
• Inborn intelligence is the main determinant of
success.
• Only the few who are bright can achieve at a
high level.
Table 16.1 shows the five beliefs introduced in Chapter 14, “Expectations,” that
underlie risk-taking. The positive beliefs are life-liberating, the negative ones
are life-limiting.
This risk-taking dimension of classroom climate concerns the amount of confi-
dence a student has and the amount of social and academic risk the student will
take. If it is well developed, a student might be able to say, “It’s safe to take a risk
here. If I try hard, learn from errors, and persist, I can succeed.” There remains
a need to collect specific strategies and approaches for nourishing student risk-
taking. Some authors acknowledge the importance of risk-taking but seldom
explain how to cultivate it. For example, Lampert (1990) writes, “A big piece of
teaching for understanding is setting up social norms that promote respect for
other people’s ideas. You don’t get that to happen by telling. You have to change
the social norms—which takes time and consistency” (p. 26).
Here is another example. In a wonderful exposition on the practices of exem-
plary teachers who use cognitive strategies to move students from novice to
expert in their problem-solving in various disciplines, Bruer (1993) writes:
The benchmark lesson on gravity begins 6 weeks into the course. By
this time Minstrell [the teacher] has established a rapport with his class.
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He has created an environment conducive to developing understanding,
a climate where questioning and respect for diverse opinions prevail, a
climate where the process of scientific reasoning can be made explicit
and self-conscious. Even veteran teachers marvel at how uninhibited
Minstrell’s students are in expressing ideas, suggesting hypotheses, and
arguing positions. (p. 42)
How does Mr. Minstrell get his students to be so uninhibited?
A few days later, Minstrell and the class analyze their reasoning about the
time it would take a 1-kilogram and a 5-kilogram object to fall the same
distance. They run the crucial experiment—a miniature replay of Galileo’s
apocryphal experiment at Pisa. After both balls hit the floor simultane-
ously, Minstrell returns to the board where he had written the quiz an-
swers. “Some of you were probably feeling pretty dumb with these kind
of answers. Don’t feel dumb,” he counsels. “Let’s see what’s valuable
about each of these answers, because each one’s valuable. Why would
you think heavier things fall faster?” (pp. 43–44)
Now we are beginning to get clues about creating this uninhibited atmosphere.
Here is a final example acknowledging the importance of risk-taking:
Inquiry teaching is difficult for teachers and requires skills that must be
developed through intensive staff development. If a student whose an-
swer is challenged does not trust the teacher, or the other students, the
follow up question, intended to cause the student to think more deeply
about the subject, may have the opposite effect. The student may inter-
pret the follow up question as a clue that the initial response was wrong
and that he or she is about to be made to feel foolish in front of the rest of
the class. Threat seems to reduce our ability to think at higher levels, and
what could be more threatening than public failure and ridicule?
For this type of instruction to be effective, a teacher must create a class-
room environment where students feel safe to express their thinking,
where they trust their teacher and fellow students, and where they un-
derstand the difference between criticizing ideas and criticizing people.
(Ellsworth & Sindt, 1994, p. 43)
This interpretation of the effect of removing threat—the threat of being laughed
at, feeling foolish, or being wrong—is resoundingly confirmed by research on
brain function (Sylwester, 1995). What then can we say about specific ways to
strengthen the climate for risk-taking?
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Normalizing Errors
Americans tend to believe in the fixed, innate, and unalterable nature of intel-
ligence. Most children learn early in school that mistakes are signs of weakness
instead of data to use and an opportunity for learning. Cultivating the latter be-
lief about mistakes is the very foundation for confidence and risk-taking in the
classroom. Thirty years ago, Jerome Bruner (1979) represented this idea when
he said that a teacher’s goal should be to help students “experience success and
failure not as reward and punishment, but as information” (p. 90). People who
succeed in building this element of climate do so explicitly. Beverly Hollis, a
reading teacher in Sudbury, Massachusetts, writes:
At the beginning of the year, when students are reticent to answer and
wait time has been exhausted, I ask my class, “Is this a life or death situa-
tion? No, well, so what if you’re wrong then? This is one answer out of the
trillion you will give in your life, so what if it’s wrong? If it is wrong, I guar-
antee I won’t let you leave until you’ve heard the right answer, and you’ll
probably remember the information much longer for having missed it. But
most importantly, you will have taken a risk by giving an answer. So many
insightful answers and comments are never made and, therefore, never
discussed and further explored because you, as students, are afraid to
be wrong. I don’t want that to be the case in this room.”
Having the ability to (1) risk being “wrong,” (2) maintain a positive self im-
age if you are “wrong,” and (3) move on rather than dwelling on a “wrong”
answer are essential attributes for success, not only in school but through-
out life. I talk with my students about risks in my personal life—my month-
long wilderness canoeing trip—and risks I’m taking by teaching a concept
or a unit in a particular way. I’ll say, “I want to try something new I’ve
learned in a class I’m taking, and I need your feedback.” I always ask for
my students’ feedback after every unit. I tell them they can say they dis-
liked a particular approach I used on the material covered as long as they
offer positive criticism in pointing out what they didn’t like and why, and
if they offer alternatives or suggestions of what I can do to make it better.
[Notice that in letting students critique her units, Ms. Hollis is giving them
power.] I also give them choices about how they want to learn a particular
unit and ask them to tell me why this would be the best approach to take.
They love having “the power”! They have been incredibly perceptive, and
as a consequence, they have been very accepting of my high expectations
and my criticism when they fall short of the mark. I have students earn ex-
tra credit points to improve their grades on tests by listing what they were
mixed up about or how they “messed up” on a test answer and what they
learned. And I openly and readily admit my own mistakes.
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Hopefully, this climate of honesty and risk-taking allows me to correct
students and myself without any of us feeling guilty or stupid for having
made a mistake. (Used with permission from Beverly Hollis.)
Anna Shine of The New England School of English in Boston says:
One of the behaviors I encourage is making mistakes or guessing. I tell
my students that I don’t care if they are wrong, but I do care if they don’t
try, that there is no shame in trying and making a mistake or in falling
short of their goals, but there is shame in not trying. And worse than
shame, a learning opportunity is not maximized. Again and again, I say to
them, “Mistakes are not important; understanding is.”
Obviously, students will not take risks unless it is safe to do so. So, in
my classroom, I try to create this environment, to make it safe to make
mistakes because students can learn from mistakes. In fact, I reward
students with big (two inches in diameter) gold stars in two situations.
One is if they produce great work, and the other is if they produce great
mistakes.
On the first day of class, when I show them my gold stars, they look at me
as if I’m crazy. “A gold star for a mistake?” they think. “She doesn’t know
what she’s doing.” However, they soon learn that a gold star mistake is
a mistake from which every student in the class can learn something.
By making this great mistake, the student has provided everyone with a
new learning opportunity, and the student himself has learned that it is
safe to take a risk. By taking that risk, he grew (his knowledge and his
confidence), the class learned, and he received one of the coveted gold
stars. (Used with permission from Anna Shine, founder, The New England
School of English.)
In a similar vein, Terry McCarthy of the North Pole Elementary School in Fair-
banks, Alaska, gives “bravery points” to students who have the courage to try
hard questions or problems even if they’re not sure they can get them. In these
and other ways, thoughtful teachers deliberately create and nurture climates of
risk-taking and safety to make errors.
Care and Perseverance Versus Speed
A second belief about learning that children have is that faster is better in-
stead of believing that care, quality, and perseverance are what matter. What do
teachers do to disabuse students of the life-limiting belief in the virtue of speed
versus care and perseverance? In Chapter 14, “Expectations,” we described a
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policy on retakes of tests that would grant students as a final grade the higher
score they got on a test or its retake no matter how many tries they took (assum-
ing alternate forms of tests are available). This practice would replace averaging
the test and its retake. Beyond that practice, giving only A, B, and “not yet” as
grades signals that ultimate performance at high standards is what teachers are
after, and nothing less will do. Getting there after suffering through a period of
“not yet” does not make one’s A any less valuable—just longer in coming.
Use of wait time, with an explanation of it to the class, is an everyday practice
that reinforces thoughtfulness and perseverance rather than quickness. Mary
Ann Pilat of the Wellesley Massachusetts Middle School uses a related practice,
called the “Level Playing Field”:
I explain to students that linear thinkers can come up with prompt an-
swers to class discussion questions, but that gestalt, divergent thinkers,
an equally legitimate learning style, often are stimulated onto side con-
nections and thoughts by questions in class. So while following those in-
teresting thoughts, the speedster linear thinkers have answered the ques-
tion and appear to be getting all the answers. Divergent thinkers tend to
participate less in class. So to make the playing field level for them in get-
ting ready for a class discussion, I put the major questions we’re going to
discuss on the board and give everyone five minutes to think about them
first before starting the discussion. I’ve been getting much greater par-
ticipation from lots more kids, including some who never spoke in class
before.
A final strategy for valuing care and perseverance above speed is the routine
practice of reteaching loops described in Expectations. To make reteaching
loops do what they can for classroom climate, nominating oneself for inclusion
in a loop must be a behavior of high esteem and status in the class.
Getting Feedback and Help
Another factor that obstructs learning and contaminates many classroom cli-
mates is the belief that “good students do it by themselves,” instead of the belief
that what makes good students is that they solicit help and lots of feedback on
their work. Teachers support the development of this belief by explicitly mod-
eling and encouraging it and creating structures that manifest it. For example,
the peer editing process in place in many writing programs can be applied to
reports in other subjects; students would be expected to have peers critique
their drafts according to commonly understood criteria and to do final drafts
with their input in mind. Other structures for mutual help can be made part of
classroom routines:
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pp Students can take turns taking notes for the “absentee folder,” which
sits on a desk in the back of the room as a resource for absent students.
When students come back after an absence, the notes help them catch
up on what they missed, and the student who took the notes is avail-
able for personal help to the student who was absent.
pp Teachers can organize students in groups or pairs of “study buddies”
who are expected to help each other interpret assignments and prepare
for tests.
pp Various models of cooperative learning build in incentives for all team
members so that each member does well. Improvement of any indi-
vidual’s score on a quiz over that person’s previous average earns points
for the whole team. Team study time is provided so the members can
help each other out (Slavin, 1986).
Many other activity structures, such as Teammates Consult, Four Corners,
Pairs Check, and Learning Buddies (Kagan, Kagan, & Kagan, 2015), are avail-
able to help students commit to asking for appropriate help.
Effort and Ability
To the degree that students believe intelligence is innate, fixed, measurable, and
unevenly distributed, they will probably also believe that whatever quantity of
intelligence they have is the main determinant of how they will do in school
and elsewhere in life (Howard, 1995). It is difficult to be brought up in the United
States believing anything else, for the concept of intelligence as an entity that
regulates our possibilities is more developed and more influential here than in
any other nation. In fact, the concept of intelligence as a fixed and measurable
entity was created in the United States between approximately 1890 and 1920
(Gould, 1982; Oakes, 1985).
In this section, we move on to the consequence of this belief, to the fruits of
its opposite, and how to transform students’ belief into that opposite image.
The opposite belief—the life-liberating one that fuels motivation and acceler-
ates learning when it replaces the belief that innate intelligence is the main
determinant of success—is that consistent effort and effective strategies are
the main determinants of success (Howard, 1995). With these two things in
place, everyone, not just the fastest and most confident, is capable of high
achievement.
Attribution theory explains the dynamics at work in the two different be-
lief systems (Weiner, 1972). The theory posits that the reasons we give to
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ourselves (the attributions we make) for our success when we succeed and
for our failure when we fail have a dramatic impact on our future behavior.
In fact, these internal explanations account for our future behavior. Teachers
who want to help students change their beliefs about the value of effort and
the importance of good strategies versus innate intelligence pursue positive
behaviors in the 10 arenas of classroom life described in Chapter 14, “Expec-
tations.” For example, they stick with students who don’t answer quickly, give
cues, and use wait time. The arenas, through which the three messages—“This
is important,” “You can do it,” “I won’t give up on you”—are sent, are also the
vehicles for convincing students they have enough intelligence to do rigorous
material well. What students need to do is work long enough, be resourceful,
and learn strategies that will help them. Their teacher’s responsibility is to
teach them those strategies explicitly.
STUDENT INFLUENCE
“Effective teachers know that to become engaged, students must have some feel-
ings of ownership—of the class or the task—and personal power—a belief that
what they do will make a difference” (Dodd, 1995, p. 65). This belief is echoed
in two bodies of literature from the 1980s and 1990s. First, many frameworks
for understanding thinking and personality style (Harrison & Bramson, 1982;
Myers & McCaulley, 1985) find large percentages of people who have the need
to be in charge or in control of at least certain aspects of their environment in or-
der to function well. Second, the literature on constructivist learning and teach-
ing posits that learning for true understanding requires students to construct
their own meaning (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). This involves owning their own
questions and pursuing their own lines of inquiry with teacher guidance. These
two literatures support the same proposition: successful teachers find ways for
students to have some ownership and influence over the flow of events and the
intellectual life of the classroom.
There are many ways to offer students choice and influence over their lives in
school. One pertains to the social system of the classroom—the rules of the
classroom game—as opposed to the rules for interpersonal behavior one of-
ten sees posted on classroom walls. The rules of the classroom game pertain
to social norms and procedures for conducting class discourse. They are often
undiscussed and unwritten, though that is something we recommend changing.
The teacher asks a question, the student responds, and the teacher evaluates is
a typical cycle of discourse reflecting the “rule” that the teacher will control the
talk in the room. Without losing control of the class or the curriculum, a teacher
can permit students to participate in shaping and operating these procedural
systems for discourse and class business.
Successful
teachers
find ways for
students to
have some
ownership and
influence.
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Another route to ownership and influence goes through learning style and
choices. Many authors (Mamchur, 1990) urge giving students choices whenever
possible about how to work on learning new concepts or carrying out assign-
ments. Student choice making can be improved and empowered by knowledge
about their own learning styles. Finally, students can have some joint owner-
ship of the intellectual life of the classroom through the way in which questions
are posed and meaning is generated.
Five levels of depth and sophistication of strategic approaches give students au-
thentic influence in classroom life. Whereas you could work on them in any order
or even simultaneously, it is useful to understand which ones are more complex
and why. Then you can choose them appropriately. You need not address the five
issues sequentially and wait for a certain level of development before beginning
practices aimed at another level. For example, there is no need to wait until stu-
dents are stopping a class to ask for clarification before teaching students about
their own learning style and how to use that knowledge to influence assignments.
But it might be worth bearing in mind that the five approaches described do
increase progressively in complexity. Therefore, if you are interested in develop-
ing student ownership and influence, you might start with the simpler and then
move slowly to the more complex forms of student ownership.
1. Stop My Teaching
“Stop my teaching” refers to empowering the students to use signals to tell a
teacher when the instruction is leaving them behind. Katz (1992) talks about
giving her son, a beginning teacher, some basic principles of practice for suc-
cessful teaching:
One of the things you always want to do as a teacher . . . teaching chil-
dren old or young, doesn’t matter who, you always want to teach the
children to say to you things like: “Hold it; I’m lost.” “Can you go over this
one more time?” “Is this what you mean?” “Can you show me again?”
“Have I got it right?” . . . ways in which you empower the learner to keep
you posted on where they need help. If the children are very young you
just say, “Pull my sleeve,” whatever, as long as the child has the strategy
to say to you “I don’t get it.” “I’m lost.” “You’re going too fast.” “Hold it”
and so on.
Teachers who take this injunction seriously develop signal systems that
students can use to indicate on their own initiative that they are lost and
want the teacher to stop and explain again. Hand signals like thumbs
down held tight against one’s chest could be such a signal. Or students
could put red, yellow, or green cards on the corner of their desks like
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traffic light signals. Thus teachers could get a quick visual read on how
well students were understanding a discussion.
When the idea of stopping the teaching becomes part of classroom culture,
other symbols or phrases come to represent the practice. One teacher told
her class the story of a family vacation where she and her husband and six
children stopped at McDonald’s for lunch. Loading up hurriedly in the tightly
packed van after their quick meal, they didn’t do a head count and were four
miles down the road before she said, “Where’s Manuel?!?” Manuel was back
at McDonald’s.
The teacher now uses that phrase frequently in class as a coded signal: “Have
I left you at McDonald’s?” and the children also use the code to signal when
they’re getting lost. “Ms. Swift, I think I’m back at McDonald’s!” The humor-
ous shared code serves to authorize the practice of stopping the teacher’s
teaching, and the teacher’s affirming reaction shows the practice to be a val-
ued one that earns kudos for the child rather than a frown or a veiled accusa-
tion of inadequacy.
2. Negotiating the Rules of the Classroom Game
Negotiating the rules of the classroom game involves students in creating the
routines and procedures of classroom discourse and class business. These rules
are different from the rules of behavior that teachers and students commonly
work out at the beginning of the year. The rules we are talking about here are
usually tacit, underground, and unstated. They pertain to teacher-student and
student-student interaction around such issues as questions and answers, class
dialogue, and procedures and protocols for taking turns. Recitation lessons of
teacher questions and student answers do indeed often turn out to be a game,
where students try to win by getting the right answers and avoid losing by
shrinking into invisibility when they don’t know the answers. (For a good ex-
ample of this, see Task 3: Building a Climate of High Achievement in Chapter
10, “Discipline.”)
3. Teaching Students to Use Principles of Learning
and Other Strategies
A third way to give students influence in classroom life is to share with them
teaching and learning strategies we use ourselves. By including them in the se-
cret knowledge of teaching and learning strategies, we give students choices,
power, and license to control their learning.
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Many of the principles of learning set out in Chapter 12 should be taught to
students directly so they can use them to be more powerful learners. The same
is true for a number of the explanatory devices in Chapter 11, “Clarity.” This
is a good moment to review those principles to decide which ones you think
would be most beneficial to turn over to your students as tools for learning.
The more we are interested in empowering students and giving them choices,
the more we will explicitly put learning at their disposal and urge them to use
it autonomously.
Here are some of our nominees for principles and tools to teach to students:
pp Sequence: Students can use this principle to sequence their own lists
when studying vocabulary words (or anything else that is sequential in
nature) so that the items hardest for them are in the optimal first and
last positions.
pp Practice: Students can use knowledge of this principle to optimize
their personal practice schedules.
pp Goal setting: Students can use this principle to set realistic academic
and behavioral targets for improvement and make effective plans of
action to meet them.
pp Explanatory devices: Visual imagery and especially graphic orga-
nizers can become regular tools for students. Imagery can be used to
pause during study and construct meaning in a visual way. Graphic
organizers can become a habit as a note-taking technology through
which students assimilate information as they read, hear, or see it.
Teachers can integrate the use of these devices into assignments and
work toward having students choose when and how to use them.
While passing these strategies on to students, teachers who are aware of attri-
bution theory and are committed to conveying the three expectations messages—
“This is important,” “You can do it,” and “I won’t give up on you”—will see they
have a special opening. They will seize frequent opportunities to connect the
use of these strategies with student success rather than let students attribute
successful performance to intelligence. “Well, Kendra, did you use any graphic
organizers when you reviewed that chapter? No? Well, look—you’re a strong
visual learner; you and I both know that. Let’s go over how to use that strategy
with material like this. I know you can make it work for you!”
The more we
empower students
and give them
choices, the more
we explicitly put
learning at their
disposal and urge
them to use it
autonomously.
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4. Learning Style and Choices
“Students using knowledge of learning style” means teachers are not just using
their knowledge of learning style to adapt lessons for the styles of their students.
They are teaching the students about their own learning styles and the implica-
tions of those styles for what kinds of assignments will be difficult and which
will be easier. Furthermore, they encourage students to use this knowledge to
guide their study routines and even to ask for modifications in assignments that
allow them to use their strengths. These steps set the stage for a more com-
plex level of empowerment—giving students explicit choices over assignments,
forms of tests, and forms of projects.
Hattie’s (2009) meta-analysis shows that adjusting teaching for students’ per-
ceived learning style has a weak influence on student learning. But enabling
student choice with learning style as one arena for exercising choice is different.
The variable here is choice, and preferred learning style is one element in the
repertoire of choices we can offer.
Many teachers have been to a workshop on learning style, and some may be trained
in one or more of the learning style frameworks. These frameworks help us under-
stand the similarities and differences in the ways humans take in, process, and express
their learning. They also help to understand the features of the learning environment
and the different kinds of activities that work best for individuals. For example, some
people learn best when they can talk and interact with others as they deal with new
concepts. Others like to read, listen, view, and assimilate alone before interacting with
others. This body of knowledge about learning style preferences can be a powerful
vehicle for giving students ownership in classroom life.
Helping students understand their own learning style sets the stage for some
important forms of empowerment. First, students can predict (and teachers can
help them predict and prepare for) the difficulty of certain assignments or tasks
that do not match their preferred learning style. If teachers set the stage properly
and teach about learning style, the value system associated with learning style
frameworks enables students to see their difficulty in certain tasks as attribut-
able to differences, not deficiencies. Second, the capacity to predict learning style
match or mismatch to tasks enables students to mobilize extra effort and seek
help when appropriate. When teachers encourage students to use knowledge of
their own learning style to do either of these two things, they are empowering
them in significant ways.
The simplest place to start teaching students about learning style is with modality
preference: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or combinations of them. Simple modality
Helping students
understand their
own learning
style sets the
stage for some
important forms
of empowerment.
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preference tests (Barbe & Milone, 1980) can be used to have students identify their
preferences. Then teachers must look for and share out loud with students that they
are looking for ways to vary their teaching to address different modalities.
Another framework for learning style differences that students can use in the
same way is the left brain–right brain or global analytical framework. Dunn and
Dunn (1978) provide another useful set for students to know about and use to
empower their learning effectiveness. Gregorc’s (1985) framework provides a
fourth and more complicated but highly useful cut at style difference. McCarthy
and McCarthy’s (2005) 4MAT System is a fifth, and Gardner’s (2006) multiple
intelligences framework a sixth. Finally, the sophisticated Myers-Briggs provides
a seventh.
All of these frameworks are worthy of study, and we believe they are a useful
part of teachers’ professional knowledge. But for the sake of classroom climate
and this particular dimension of influence, the point is to choose one of them
and work on giving the framework to students, that is, teaching them to use
it not to label themselves but to modulate their effort, seek help when appro-
priate, and sometimes take the initiative to alter assignments based on their
self-knowledge from a learning style perspective.
Giving students license and encouragement to speak up in this way to ask for
modifications of assignments brings us to other ways to give students choices.
What kinds of choices do students get to make about their academic work, and
how do they do it? Carolyn Mamchur (1990) writes: “Giving students choices
may seem like a complex issue. But actually, it is dead simple. The rule is this:
whenever you can give a student a choice of any kind, do it” (p. 636).
A “nonreport,” an idea we found some years ago in Mindsight magazine, is a
good example of students’ influencing assignments and the shape of products.
There is nothing particularly unique about nonreports. They are simply outside
assignments—but with several major differences.
A nonreport is anything that does not fall into the category of straight
written information. The task is to convince students accustomed to the
way school is supposed to be that their teacher will accept and value
their ideas. Their first question is usually, “What do you want?” since they
know that pleasing the teacher is the quickest way to a good grade. Here
is how a nonreport works:
1. Impress on students that a standard written report will receive no
credit, since it does not meet the requirements of the assignment.
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2. Make the assignment worth enough points so that not doing it will
result in a substantial drop in grade. At first, there is a great risk in do-
ing something not completely spelled out, so the risk of losing credit
must be greater.
3. Create a grading scale that gives equal merit to content and to cre-
ativity (more loosely, to the effort the student has to make to person-
alize the knowledge he or she conveys).
4. Keep the topic very general, giving the students ample opportunity
to select from among a wide variety of ideas. For example, if you are
studying a unit on measurement, allow them to select anything at all
dealing with measurement. Point out to them that there are few oc-
cupations (hobbies, sports, etc.) that do not contain measurement of
some kind. Give them examples. Challenge them to name something
that apparently has nothing to do with measurement—but be quick
enough on your feet to find the measurement involved.
5. If they insist, and they may at first, give them a couple of examples of
nonreport type formats (they are endless and limited only by imagina-
tion). For example, they could create a game, write a song, role play
a game show, do a slide or tape presentation, make a scrapbook, or
build a model. But warn them that they will receive more credit for
doing something you haven’t thought of than copying something you
have. And stick by that statement!
6. Perhaps most important, don’t do this assignment unless you are
willing to truly value the students’ ideas. If you can’t suspend your
own idea of what is right or good and try to see the product from their
point of view, they will never believe you again. But neither should
you give credit for hastily conceived and executed junk. I once re-
ceived a shoebox with a hole punched in one end that was labeled
“Working model of a black hole.” Hah!
I have found that giving 10 points for the idea, 10 points for the execution,
and 10 points for the content, plus 5 for effort, works out well—a total of
35 points. The effort points come in when a person has had three weeks
to do a project that might be reasonably well done but obviously took only
15 minutes compared to someone else who spent several hours. You can
tell by looking.
The first time you do this, you will probably receive the usual assortment
of collages, collections, and posters copied from books. But when these
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students see the more adventurous, creative, and “fun” projects getting
all the praise, they will be more willing to let go a little the next time.
By the end of the first year that I had students do these projects, I turned
them loose on a topic we had not covered in class: solar energy. They re-
searched the topic, did their Nonreports—including a working parabolic
solar cooker and a miniature solar greenhouse complete with Trombe
walls made of plastic soft drink bottles—and presented them to the class,
thus covering almost all the important aspects of solar energy—with no
effort on the part of the teacher. One of the most rewarding aspects of
these assignments is that, frequently, the students who usually get C’s
or D’s in regular assignments really come into their own on Nonreports.
Nonreports allow students to plan, research, and execute. It evokes their
creative potential and forces interaction with the content. Many students
sought “experts” to help them and learned the intricacies of carpentry,
photography, sound and art—because they wanted to. And it is tremen-
dously exciting to see projects come into the classroom that are far be-
yond anything the teacher would have assigned or expected. (Mindsight,
New Lenox, IL, 1989)
We would add specific criteria for success that make it clear to students exactly what
the attributes of quality work in the nonreport will be. For example, in the nonreport
on solar energy, the criteria could be: (1) explains three different ways of converting
solar energy, (2) discusses costs and efficiencies of various forms of solar energy,
and (3) uses data to compare the efficiency of solar, fossil fuel, and nuclear energy.
Students using these criteria could create dozens of different kinds of products to
represent their learning, from radio shows to models to hypercard assemblies. Ran-
dolf and Evertson (1995) give a simple example of student choice that suggests
how plentiful the opportunities are for giving them:
Ms. Cooper often delegated tasks that would typically be assigned [by
her] to students. We have already described students as providing the
text for writing class through Sharing Models/Generating Characteris-
tics. In this activity, students also took on the task of controlling the floor,
which would traditionally be a teacher task. Areas of student control in-
clude deciding how to participate, getting the class’s attention and lead-
ing the discussion by calling on peers. . . . Student readers usually stood
in the front of the room, but Ms. Cooper gave students the option of read-
ing from their desks. Students were given the same choice when they
shared their rough drafts with the class. The fact that Ms. Cooper did not
define this aspect of appropriate participation gave students choice in
how to manage this aspect of controlling the floor. (p. 22)
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The ability of students to make choices and control the activity flow and the
discourse within the group is partially responsible for the success of cooperative
learning. In all cooperative learning models, students work in groups in which
they control the dialogue, who speaks, when, and for how long.
5. Using Students and Their Communities as
Sources of Knowledge
This aspect of Classroom Climate building is about ways to reach out and re-
spect the experience and questions students bring to class.
Constructivist Teaching
Constructivist pedagogy brings student influence to the intellectual life of the
classroom and may be the most advanced level of student ownership. It is also
the most complex and requires the largest paradigm shift for teachers. Most
of us, after all, were educated in schools where other people’s constructions
of knowledge were handed to us for consumption and digestion. Brooks and
Brooks (1993) provide five overarching principles of constructivist pedagogy:
1. Posing problems of emerging relevance to learners.
2. Structuring learning around “big ideas” or primary concepts.
3. Seeking and valuing students’ points of view.
4. Adapting curriculum to address students’ suppositions.
5. Assessing student learning in the context of teaching. (p. 33)
There is still a place in good education for “active reception learning,” as Aus-
ubel (1963) calls it. But there is also a large place for carefully designed teaching
that allows students to construct meaning for themselves. Randolf and Evertson
(1995) in their analysis of interactive discourse in a writing class describe this
kind of pedagogy:
The construction of knowledge, which takes place through negotiation,
depends on the redistribution of power from teachers to students. The
fact that knowledge is presumed to come from students defines students
as knowledge holders, an identity usually retained by the teacher. (p. 24)
Constructivist teaching puts students in the legitimate role of knowledge gen-
erators and knowledge editors, whether in science, social studies, language arts,
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or any other academic discipline (Brooks & Brooks, 1993). The examples in
the Randolf and Evertson study describe a series of lessons on literary genre.
They show how teachers’ conscious regulation of dialogue and interaction with
students can make students genuinely empowered knowledge generators. For
example, one teacher, Ms. Cooper, asked students to bring in examples of fables
to share and discuss in class so they can extract the characteristics of fables by
analyzing these examples. At one point, she asked the class to look for general-
izations they could make about the morals of fables:
Teacher: “What can we say about the characteristics of morals? [Stu-
dents offer some suggestions.] Maybe we need to explain what a lesson
or moral is—how to be a better person. I’m going to put that up, unless
you have objections.”
Laurie: “They’re trying to prevent you from making mistakes.” [Teacher
writes, “Stories are used to help you become a better person and not
make mistakes.”]
Tim: “I disagree. Sometimes some of the things are wrong.”
Hillary: “Can be” [used to help you]. [Teacher changes “are” to “can be”
in the sentence on the board: “Stories can be used to help you become a
better person and not make mistakes.”]
Onika: “But everybody makes mistakes.”
Teacher: “You’re right,” [Adds to the sentence on the board: “or learn
from characters’ mistakes in the story.”] “but the purpose of the fable is
to help you not to make so many mistakes.”
In analyzing this episode, Randolf and Evertson (1995) comment:
The discussion begins with Ms. Cooper’s question. The answers she re-
ceives do not give her the information she wants, so Ms. Cooper supplies
her own answer: a moral teaches how to be a better person. In stating
her answer, Ms. Cooper clarifies her question: she is asking about the
purpose of a moral. With this new information, Laurie is able to supply a
response that Ms. Cooper validates by incorporating it into the character-
istic she is writing on the chalkboard. So far Ms. Cooper is in the position
of authority in the classroom: she initiates the topic, students respond
with possible answers, and she evaluates them, rejecting all responses
until she hears one that fits her expectations.
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The nature of the interaction changes, however, as Tim questions the
characteristic that is the joint construction of Ms. Cooper and Laurie. In
effect, Tim takes on the role of evaluator of the response, moving Ms.
Cooper into the role of co-collaborator with Laurie. Ms. Cooper’s response
is thus demonstrated to be as open to evaluation as any other partici-
pant’s response.
Onika and Susan then join the deliberation, questioning the need for mor-
als as they have defined them in class more than they are questioning
the definition itself. Why, they argue, should morals try to keep you from
making mistakes, when you’re going to make them anyway, and they help
you learn? These contributions are initiations of a new topic, which Ms.
Cooper responds to and evaluates by treating them as negotiations of
meaning, signaling her acceptance by incorporating the new contribution
into the statement on the board. Thus the characteristic as it is finally
stated is the joint construction of Ms. Cooper, Laurie, Tim, Hillary, Onika,
and Susan. (pp. 23–24)
Similar scenarios can be found in the literature for helping students construct
knowledge in science and mathematics. This kind of teaching requires a role
shift of significant proportions for some teachers away from being dispensers of
knowledge to facilitating negotiation of meaning by students.
The role of the teacher in constructivist science teaching is often to involve stu-
dents in predicting phenomena, then reacting to observed phenomena and con-
structing hypotheses, which they then test to account for their observations.
For example, most students predict that heavy objects fall faster than lighter
ones—which is incorrect. The hypothesis-making and dialogue about subse-
quent experiments and explanations that constructivist teachers facilitate have
similar qualities to the dialogue in the Randolf and Evertson example.
The changes that take place when teachers move to include more constructivist
teaching in their repertoire are subtle but significant. The classroom does not
look any different, and the assignments and topics may not seem much different.
Where the changes show up is in dialogue with students and in the roles teach-
ers and students are playing in the conversations they have in class. Though
surface changes may appear small, the role shift is large, and the evidence is
strong that the effect is large in student motivation, effort, and understanding
(Newmann & Wehlage, 1995).
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Culturally Relevant Instruction
As fully half of all children in the United States are of color, it is especially
important to be creating schools that acknowledge and value the culture of
all students. Excluding these children’s cultures from school artifacts, customs,
arts, and curriculum not only demotivates but alienates significant numbers of
students (Cummins, 1986). Ladson-Billings (1995) brings this argument into
the more immediate domain of curriculum by pointing out that using the com-
munity as a source of curriculum experiences makes learning meaningful and
active and also culturally relevant:
Early in the school year, one teacher asked the students to identify one
area in which they believed they had expertise. She then compiled a list
of “classroom experts” for distribution to the class. Later, she developed a
calendar and asked students to select a date that they would like to make a
presentation in their area of expertise. When students made their presenta-
tions, their knowledge and expertise was a given. Their classmates were
expected to be an attentive audience and to take seriously the knowledge
that was being shared by taking notes and/or asking relevant questions. The
variety of topics the students offered included rap music, basketball, gospel
singing, cooking, hair braiding, and baby sitting. Other students listed more
school-like areas of expertise such as reading, writing, and mathematics.
However, all students were required to share their expertise. (p. 481)
Some may wonder how such open-ended assignments can be congruent with a
school curriculum that contains specific skills the students are supposed to be
mastering. By using practices described in Chapter 21, “Assessment,” teachers
can weave objectives for research, organization, reading, writing, and speak-
ing skills (or any other skills that are in the curriculum) into the criteria for
good presentations by student experts. The point that Ladson-Billings makes
is that the students own the knowledge they present, and the knowledge is
acknowledged to have value. The “classroom experts” assignment is a practice
that is congruent with augmenting student ownership and influence because
the knowledge of students and the culture from which that knowledge comes—
the students’ own culture—is explicitly validated by a school learning activity.
Culturally relevant instruction is the topic of the article from which the Ladson-
Billings excerpt comes. Culturally relevant instruction does not mean teach-
ing about other cultures, though that can have value. It means validating the
culture of students by including in-school learning experiences, topics, scenes,
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and knowledge that derive from the culture of the students themselves. It looks
not only to individual students but also to the community from which the stu-
dents come as a source of curriculum experiences:
One teacher used the community as a basis of her curriculum. Her stu-
dents searched the county historical archives, interviewed long term resi-
dents, constructed and administered surveys and a questionnaire, and
invited and listened to guest speakers to get a sense of the historical de-
velopment of their community. Their ultimate goal was to develop a land
use proposal for an abandoned shopping center that was a magnet for
illegal drug use and other dangerous activities. The project ended with the
students making a presentation before the City Council and Urban Plan-
ning Commission. One of the students remarked to me, “This [community]
is not such a bad place. There are a lot of good things that happened
here, and some of that is still going on.” The teacher told me that she was
concerned that too many of the students believed that the only option for
success involved moving out of the community, rather than participating
in its reclamation. (Ladson-Billings, 1995, p. 479)
CLASSROOM CLIMATE SURVEY
This is a good point to assess where you are in your thinking and practices about
classroom climate. We encourage you to respond to the survey questions in Ta-
ble 16.2 and compare your answers with your colleagues’. (You can also down-
load a survey from The Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.)
PDF
Classroom
Climate
Survey
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Table 16.2 Classroom Climate Survey
1. Community and Mutual Support Your Answers
How are students encouraged to get to know one another and to get
to know other people?
When are students listened to, acknowledged, and affirmed as
worthwhile, important, and cared-for people?
When do students learn group responsibility and interdependence?
What opportunities are there for learning social skills and cooperative
learning?
How are conflict resolution strategies being learned and practiced
in the classroom and around the school?
2. Risk-Taking and Confidence
What are the times when students are encouraged to take risks and
find out it’s okay to do so?
What do I do to disabuse students of the life-limiting belief in the
virtue of speed versus care and perseverance?
When does the belief “good students solicit help and lots of feedback
on their work” get communicated in the classroom?
In what ways do students learn that effort makes the difference?
3. Student Influence
What are the times when students are in a controlling or influencing
role?
What principles of learning are students knowledgeable about and
encouraged to use?
What are the opportunities for giving control to students within the
models of teaching being used?
What opportunities are there to have students be authentic knowl-
edgeable producers and structure classroom discourse from the
constructivist perspective?
What opportunities are there for students to be experts?
What are the ways in which the local community culture is viewed
as a source of authorized curriculum and as a worthwhile source of
knowledge?
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
pp Whenever students feel empowered, accepted, and safe to take risks and try things that are
hard for them, they like school better and learn more.
pp Our operational definition of classroom climate: “the feelings and beliefs students have and
the cumulative patterns of behavior that result from those feelings and beliefs regarding com-
munity and mutual support, risk-taking and confidence, and influence and control.”
Three Major Strands of Classroom Climate:
1. Community and Mutual Support:
Knowing others; Greeting, listening, responding; Acknowledging, and affirming; Group
identity, responsibility, and interdependence; Social skills and group dynamics; and
Problem-solving and conflict resolution.
2. Risk-Taking and Confidence:
Normalizing errors; Care and perseverance versus speed; Getting feedback and help; and
Effort and ability.
3. Five Ways Students Can Have Influence:
(1) Stop my teaching;
(2) Negotiating the rules of the classroom game;
(3) Teaching students to use principles of learning and other strategies;
(4) Learning style and choices; and
(5) Using students and their communities as sources of knowledge.
To check your knowledge about Classroom Climate, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher
website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
PART FIVE:
INTRODUCTION TO CURRICULUM
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PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | INTRODUCTION
Curriculum
Introduction
Part 5
Introduction to
Curriculum
Part 5 addresses the thinking and design that go into planning successful in-
struction. The anchor and starting point of planning daily lessons is a good
curriculum. The standards movement has caused a rethinking of what good
curriculum is and how to create it. Since schools are making the commitment
to have all students reach proficiency, just presenting material and covering
topics is no longer acceptable. Curricula must be designed so there is great clar-
ity about what schools want students to learn and how to know when they do.
Chapter 17: “Curriculum Design” describes what teachers should
have in hand from the district so their planning is solidly rooted in the
commitments made to what children are supposed to be learning. A
good curriculum provides the intellectual superstructure from which
teachers take guidelines for the direction and content of their lessons.
Chapter 18: “Lesson Objectives” that are clear and appropriate enable
teachers to carry on with good lesson planning. Fuzzy thinking about
objectives is at the root of an enormous number of teaching and learn-
ing shortfalls in our schools.
Chapter 19: “Planning” is a detailed exposition of the cognitive sce-
narios good teachers go through in their heads prior to instruction.
The planning never produces results if the objective is fuzzy or inap-
propriate.
Together these three chapters form a piece. They need each other. Good plan-
ning requires good objectives to be anchored and purposive. A good objective
needs a good curriculum behind it to be important and clear. Successful teach-
ing requires that professionals also be knowledgeable and skillful at all three.
Chapter 20: “Differentiated Instruction” profiles the variables teachers
control in designing learning experiences for their students. The thir-
teen variables described in this chapter are, in fact, a comprehensive
layout of design features we can differentiate to address the individual
learning needs of our students.
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Chapter 21: “Assessment” provides the framework to make assessment
a tool for student learning, not just a measuring device. It also empha-
sizes student ownership and the motivational opportunities inherent in
good assessment practices.
Chapter 22: “Overarching Objectives” describes the way in which our
core values and sense of personal mission can influence our instruction
and have positive consequences for student learning.
17. Curriculum Design
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | CURRICULUM DESIGN
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 443
Curriculum:
Curriculum Design
The curriculum for any subject or course at any grade level consists of a set of
agreements between the district office (or academic department) and its teach-
ers. This chapter describes those agreements. Teachers need to understand the
status of these agreements thoroughly if they are to effectively choose instruc-
tional materials for daily use, participate in curriculum development groups,
and, most importantly, be skilled at planning good lessons. After defining and
describing these agreements, we highlight the ones we believe are essential for
every district to have and for teachers to use as a foundation for their lesson
planning. Whether a curriculum is tight or loose is determined by which of
these agreements are firmly in place.
AGREEMENTS OF CURRICULUM
Records of the agreements that have been worked through can be found in
curriculum guides in most schools and districts. The curriculum children actu-
ally receive depends on how faithfully these agreements are carried out. These
agreements (the essential ones have an asterisk) address the following:
pp Topics to be taught*
pp Big ideas*
pp Units of study organized around the big ideas*
pp Learning expectations (or learning outcomes) for a grade or course*
pp Uniform assessments (sometimes called benchmark assessments), es-
pecially final assessments, interim assessments, and unit assessments*
pp Criteria for proficiency on assessment items*
pp End-of-course samples of proficient student work (an exemplar every-
one can look at to see exactly what the district really means by the
learning expectation)*
Whether a
curriculum is
tight or loose
is determined
by which
agreements are
firmly in place.
CHAPTER
17
Curriculum
Curriculum
Design
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pp Pedagogical practices
pp Pacing guides and curriculum maps
pp Lesson plans
pp Time allocations
pp Instructional strategies
pp Materials
pp Resources
Many districts are not sufficiently explicit about what their curriculum is. An addi-
tional problem may be insufficient control over how it is implemented, even when
certain elements are clear. As a result, the experience of children going from grade
to grade may depend on individual choices teachers make about what to teach. It
is important to know the stance your district has taken toward curriculum so you
know what you’re accountable for. Otherwise, there’s a lot that can go wrong. And
what can go wrong with curriculum? Consider the following possibilities:
pp There isn’t one.
pp There used to be one; it might be around here somewhere.
pp There is one, but nobody teaches it.
pp There is one, but people teach what they want out of it, which means the
students’ experience is inconsistent.
pp There are no common assessments.
pp The curriculum is the textbooks.
pp The curriculum has neat activities, not a focus on student learning.
pp There is a curriculum, but it does not match the standards teachers are
responsible for.
pp The curriculum office says what to teach, when, and for how long, with
what materials, what methods, and exactly what to say as you teach it,
making teachers feel as if they have no leeway.
It is important to
know the stance
your district has
taken toward
curriculum so you
know what you’re
accountable for.
Otherwise, there’s
a lot that can go
wrong.
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Districts can avoid these problems and give teachers a solid ground on
which to stand that balances cohesiveness, accountability, and professional
decision-making. The agreements that comprise a curriculum (or absence of
agreements) are about what is required, what is recommended but optional,
and what is free choice for each of the elements. Table 17.1 shows these same
elements in a format that can be filled in with specifics to profile the status of
agreements for any given curriculum.
It is certainly not necessary, or even desirable, to have districtwide require-
ments or uniformity on all the elements. However, we do advocate having the
three key elements in place that together define learning outcomes: (1) end-
of-course exemplars of proficient student work for a grade level or a course,
understood, and used in common across the district for skills and academic
content; (2) uniform final assessments; and (3) clear criteria for student suc-
cess listed for interim benchmark assessment and the final assessment. The
Table 17.1 Matrix of Curriculum Agreements
Curriculum Element Required Recommended but
Optional
Free Choice
Topics
Big Ideas
Units of Study
• Big ideas
• Guiding questions
Learning Expectations
Uniform Performance Assessments
Criteria for Proficiency
End-of-Course Exemplars
Pedagogical Practices
Pacing Guides
Lesson Plans
Time Allocations
Instructional Strategies
Activities, Materials, and Examples
Resources for Teachers
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exemplars define for everyone what the standards are. When the interim or final
assessment is a test (rather than a performance), the test items are quite impor-
tant. This is because, when combined with criteria that define the desired level
of performance, they also define the learning objectives. Without agreement on
these three things, it is impossible to know what the district’s standards are.
For consistency sake, we also recommend uniform unit assessments across grade
levels and courses and at benchmark periods (e.g., quarterly). That’s the most basic
level to have a curriculum that is coherent. On that basis, the district can say to
families, “We have consistency over the learning designed for your child.”
Of course, districts should also come to agreement about what topics students
should study in academic units, with big ideas specifically identified. This keeps
teachers’ daily planning focused on the big ideas (enduring understandings).
For pedagogical practices, we recommend an emphasis on formative classroom
assessment and frequent feedback to students. These items are required criteria
in the “Standards for Accreditation” for K–12 schools issued by the New Eng-
land Association of Schools and Colleges (2000). Finally, the foundation of any
curriculum is a compact list of exactly what we want students to learn or be able
to do (learning expectations or outcomes). The list should be one or two pages,
suitable for handing to a newly hired teacher as a roadmap of the year. The items
on this list should highlight the learning expectations that are essential versus
those that are important or just nice to know.
For the other items listed, we take no value position. What is required and what
is optional should be a local teacher and school decision based on context and
needs. It’s simply that what the local decision is should be clear to all concerned
(and it often isn’t).
DEFINING ELEMENTS OF CURRICULUM
In this section, we define each element of curriculum listed in Table 17.1.
Topics
A topic is a bounded content focus: for example, the Civil War, fractions, Henry
David Thoreau, heat, or French Impressionism. Topics are usually divided into a
list of subtopics. Wiggins and McTighe (2005) write about the overloaded cur-
riculum and recommend choosing what is essential knowledge to teach as op-
posed to what is important and, finally, what is nice but not essential. Doug
Reeves (2002) calls the essential items “power standards.” He describes these
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Properly chosen
themes are really
essential questions
in disguise.
as having durability and leverage because they are useful in a range of cir-
cumstances and academic disciplines. Graphing is an example. We apply our
knowledge of graphs to reading newspapers, social studies and science text-
books, and directions for operating equipment we buy. The reason for making
these discriminations is to enable teachers to prioritize the mass of material in
their curricula. Agreement about which topics or skills are required is one way
to take care of this need.
Themes are broad areas of inquiry thought to be of overarching significance,
like social justice, understanding differences, how scientists think, and solv-
ing complex problems, that may run the duration of a course or a year. Not all
curricula or school districts choose to embed themes in curricula. A theme
by itself is an inadequate organizer for the topics in a curriculum or a unit,
and excessive use of themes can lead to pure activity-based teaching (“Let’s do
friendship. I have some great books on friendship”). In contrast, an essential
question for this topic might be, “What is friendship?” and the learning experi-
ences might enable students to create a list of attributes for friendship. Properly
chosen themes are really essential questions in disguise.
Big Ideas
Big ideas (or enduring understandings) are important ideas that students
should carry away from the study of a topic. A big idea is an understanding
that is intended to last a lifetime. Here are some examples:
pp “The planet’s resources are finite.”
pp “There is a conflict between acting in the long-term interest of the environ-
ment and the short-term interest of certain economic groups.”
pp “If you want to assess the effect of a change (mechanical, scientific, or even
social), you have to hold the other variables constant while you experiment
with changing one thing at a time.”
An enduring understanding gets to the heart of the academic discipline. Table
17.2 provides some samples from elementary literacy and mathematics. Big
ideas are interesting and applicable. They give students a reason and a focus for
studying smaller elements in the curriculum. They provide a cognitive hook for
the item currently under study in a unit. It is important for a teacher to show
how an item under study connects to a big idea. When that happens, it serves
both cognitive and motivational purposes.
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Curriculum is also empowered by well-chosen guiding questions (or essential
questions) to frame and motivate the lessons. A guiding question is a funda-
mental query that directs the search for understanding. It is open ended and
succinct, and it contains emotive force and intellectual bite. It raises other im-
portant questions and frames outcomes as culminating insights derived from
inquiry. Everything in the unit is studied for the purpose of answering it. Ex-
amples would be, “What is worth fighting for?” “Where do waves come from?”
“Who was a great person?” (Traver, 1998).
Units of Study
A unit is an organization of student experiences that are sequenced deliberately
to create a cumulative effect. The unit package provides materials for students
to study, materials for teachers to use for advancing ideas and skills, student
tasks, directions for student activities, and a host of supplementary ideas and
guidelines for teachers to use. Not all units contain big ideas, but they should.
Certain segments of elementary reading, writing, and mathematics instruction
may not be organized into units, but rather be considered continuous strands
of instruction. Primary reading curriculum is an example where a balanced lit-
eracy approach uses guided reading of sequenced texts to develop a wide range
of skills arrayed on a continuum. Even without units of study, however, teachers
can still teach for big ideas. Table 17.3 summarizes key terms from the Wiggins
and McTighe model and shows their relationship to one another as well as to
goals for units and the mastery objectives for lessons.
Table 17.2 Enduring Understandings for Literacy and Math
Literacy
• Understanding is promoted by a reader’s use of strategies and tools.
• Different forms of print have different functions.
• Knowledge about genre characteristics helps a reader construct meaning.
Math
• Estimation prior to performing a computation helps ensure reasonable answers.
• Any measurement other than counting produces an approximate rather than exact value.
• There is a one-to-one match between real numbers and points on a line.
Adapted from Weston, Massachusetts, public schools.
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Good units are planned backwards from a clear image of what we want the
students to be able to do at the end. The end-of-unit assessments are designed
right after the identification of the big ideas. This is in marked contrast to the
dominant 20th-century method, where the topics were picked first, then the
activities were designed, and then the students were tested by assessments de-
signed at the end. The two approaches are summarized in Figure 17.1.
Table 17.3 Examples for Examining Curriculum
Terminology Example 1 Example 2 Where you might see it
Overarching theme of
year
What is a just society? What is a just society? On a banner over the board
Enduring understand-
ing (big idea)
There is a tension in
foreign affairs between
acting in one’s national
self-interest and respect-
ing the national sover-
eignty of others.
The planet’s resources are
finite. There is a conflict
between acting in the long-
term interest of the environ-
ment and the short-term
interest of certain economic
groups.
This generalization may be
brought out in class discus-
sion, sought in student
learning logs, or converted
into a question for essays
or debate, for example.
Essential question
(guiding question)
Is the U.S. military justi-
fied in actively interven-
ing in the internal affairs
of another country? If so,
when?
When is it appropriate to
promulgate regulations for
environmental safety that will
cost jobs?
In a corner of the board
or in materials framing the
unit.
Broad content goal for
a 2-week study
(a unit objective)
The Panama Case: Using
Defense Department and
State Department docu-
ments from the period,
as well as news reports
from the New York Times
archives, students will
be prepared to compare
and contrast the cases
of the Falklands, Gre-
nada, and Panama.
Using online national data-
bases and reports from the
EPA and the electric power
industry, students will be
able to take a position and
defend their cases for rais-
ing or not raising pollution
standards at electric power
plants.
Assignment sheets.
Specific mastery
objective (performance
indicator) for the next
2 days (a lesson ob-
jective)
Students will be able to
explain the mechanisms
and sequence of steps
in the drug trade through
Panama in the 1980s.
Students will be able to use
statistics about rising use
of fossil fuel from multiple
sources to graph the power
industry’s contribution to air
pollution.
On the board as class
begins and shared explicitly
with students.
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Figure 17.1 Design Sequence: Old Model, New Model
O L D M O D E L
N E W M O D E L
1. Design
Curriculum
2. Plan Instructional
Strategies
3. Implement
Instructional
Strategies
4. Design
Assessments
5. Assess
Students
6. Grade and Rank
Students
1. Identify Standards
of Key Knowledge
and Skills
2. Design
Assessments
3. Identify
Performance
Standards
4. Share
Assessments
with Students
5. Design Sequence
of Learning
Experiences
7. Evaluate and
Revise Instruction
6. Assess
Students
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Learning Expectations
The following statements are taken from state standards documents and are
examples of what might be given to a teacher to identify the knowledge or skills
fourth graders are expected to master by the end of the year:
pp Students will be able to identify the meaning of common idioms and figura-
tive phrases (English Language Arts).
pp Students will be able to express an opinion of a literary work or film in an
organized way, with supporting detail (English Language Arts).
pp Students will be able to use concrete objects and visual models to add and
subtract common fractions and represent answers in lowest terms (Math).
These statements are typical of those found in standards documents across the
50 states. A more comprehensive list of such statements can serve as a simple
map of what to teach. However, these statements do not specify the level of dif-
ficulty or complexity of the reading or the comparison that the students are ex-
pected to produce. These statements of learning expectations do tell us for what
student performances we will need exemplars, but they don’t spell out precisely
the level of performance expected or the criteria for determining proficiency. So
it is one useful resource in need of others.
Uniform Performance Assessments
Good curriculum contains specifications for evidence of student learning, spe-
cifically tasks, assignments, tests, and quizzes that would produce this evidence.
This evidence may come from observations of student performance, interviews
consisting of question and answer exchanges with students, and sample student
products. Such assessments may also include performance tasks, products, and
projects that are uniformly given to all students across a grade level in a given
subject to evaluate student mastery of the material at the end of a unit. As cur-
riculum gets more developed, uniform assessments come every quarter, not
just at end of the course or year.
Criteria for Proficiency
The uniform performance task is not quite enough. We need explicit, public
grading criteria as well. For example, consider this learning expectation: “Ex-
press an opinion of a literary work or film in an organized way, with supporting
detail.” Following are the criteria for success:
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pp An introduction that summarizes the work’s genre, plot,
or main point
pp A statement of your opinion
pp Three details to support your opinion
pp One text-to-text connection
pp Summary
These criteria direct us to scrutinize a student product for specific features
that, if present, allow it to be evidence of proficiency. Criteria are sometimes
represented in analytic rubrics, devices designed to show relative and specific
degrees of completeness of student product in relation to specific criteria. It is
the criteria behind the rubrics that are most important, however. Rubrics are not
always needed, but criteria are.
End-of-Course or End-of-Year Samples of
Proficient Student Work
An end-of-course or end-of-year sample of proficient student work (often re-
ferred to as an “exemplar”) is a template against which to compare evidence that
an important proficiency has been met by a student. It embodies in a finished
product and makes concrete exactly what we expect students to be able to do
in a particular academic area at the end of a semester or school year. These are,
for example, sample student responses to data-based questions that meet cri-
teria for proficiency, writing products that show the level of skill students are
expected to display, projects, problems solved, lab reports written, and videos of
verbal presentations, among others.
A benchmark is a specific performance to shoot for that marks progress to-
ward, not final attainment of, a higher goal. Runners set themselves targets or
benchmarks that gauge their progress toward a winning time. They feel good
when they pass the benchmark, but their training isn’t over yet. The benchmark
signals that a significant increment of improvement has been passed. Thus there
should be more benchmarks in a course or grade level than just one at the end of
the course or semester. There can be as many or as few as are appropriate for the
content or skills being learned. In guided reading in the primary grades, each
alphabetical level of book is a benchmark of a sort. A child moving up from “M”
to “N” books has passed a benchmark with specific observable performance as-
sociated with it. In many schools, quarterly assessments are developed to spell
out intermediate levels of performance on the road to final proficiency.
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Pedagogical Practices
A pedagogical practice is a commitment to a form of instruction that has a
research base or perhaps a philosophical base. For example, a district or
a curriculum department may have a commitment to writing across the
curriculum, in which case all teachers may be asked to have students keep
written learning logs of some kind in which they reflect on their learning each
day. Or the school may have a commitment to cooperative learning, project-
based learning, integration of technology, or a certain balance of formative
and summative assessment that they expect, as well as student self-assessment
and goal setting. Such commitments might show up in how curriculum is
constructed and implemented. Above all, such practices, if expected, should be
explicit to all and part of induction for new teachers.
Pacing Guides
A pacing guide is an approximate timetable that lays out how much time
it usually takes to complete each set of lessons of each unit of study. This is
particularly useful to teachers who haven’t taught a curriculum before. A scope
and sequence chart often lays out a sequence of topics or skills for a content
area but does not give a sense of how long components take to learn under
normal circumstances. A curriculum map (Jacobs, 1997) is a diagram that
shows the development from year to year of content and skill knowledge. This
allows a school and district to avoid repetition (“But we learned about latitude
and longitude in fifth grade and seventh grade . . .”) and make sequencing of
content rational, reinforcing, and without gaps.
Lesson Plans
Lesson plans are detailed implementation scenarios that specify the learning
objectives and experiences students will go through and tasks they will be asked
to do. Many other components may be part of the scenario too, like motivators,
activators, descriptions of equipment to use, pages in books, and assessment
devices. We devote Chapter 19, “Planning,” to this important topic.
Lesson plan samples are often part of good curriculum guides, but detailed plans
for individual lessons should be made up by teachers who use the unit plan as the
framework and district lesson plans and materials banks as resources to draw
from. Why? Because good planning requires teachers to think deeply about the
content, analyze what prerequisite skills and knowledge will be fundamental
to understanding the new material, and consider that in light of what they
know about their students. They need to plan pre-assessment, determine how
to best present a concept to match the needs and their students’ background
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knowledge, anticipate confusions students may have during a given lesson, and
so on. Consequently, a detailed implementation scenario should stem from the
teacher having dug into the content herself and determined how to support all
students in achieving the lesson objective.
Time Allocations
Certain districts mandate how many minutes per day must be spent on certain
subjects in elementary school. In some schools, this can go so far as how
many minutes within the language arts block are spent on guided reading,
interactive writing, free reading, and other topics. These time allocations may
be recommended, mandatory, or nonexistent. It all depends on what is decided
in the local context and what has been clearly agreed to.
Instructional Strategies
It is also possible that there are some schoolwide or grade-level commitments
to particular instructional strategies, like the use of certain graphic organizers,
selective manipulatives in math, and particular discussion formats or reading
comprehension strategies. Sometimes they are integrated into curriculum
designs. In contrast to pedagogical practices, which are big conceptually like
constructivism and active learning, an instructional strategy is small such as
modeling thinking aloud, “Carousel Brainstorming,” and so on.
Activities, Materials, and Examples
At a very detailed level, it may be expected or perhaps only recommended that
teachers use particular instructional materials, like fraction bars for math or the
TCI History Alive Curriculum (www.teachtci.com) or a particular apparatus
to illustrate acceleration as a principle of Newtonian physics. Required use of
certain textbooks adopted districtwide falls in this category.
Resources for Teachers
Depending on the size and budget of the district, any of the resources listed
in Table 17.4 may be available for teachers to draw on. A distinction must be
made between materials and resources. Materials are tangible items used to
implement lessons, to teach the curriculum. Resources are what teachers use to
prepare themselves to teach it well.
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Table 17.4 Resources for Teachers
1. Print Materials • Curriculum guides
• Lists of recommended books and materials
• Unit guides
• Recommended websites
• Sample lessons
• Curriculum libraries of great units
2. Physical Materials • Math manipulatives
• Science apparatus
3. Human Resources • Building-based curriculum specialists
• Staff development on planning skills
• District curriculum specialists
• Staff development on analysis of data
• Staff development of teachers
• Culture of sharing units and materials
• Professional norms of joint planning
4. Other Resources • Collections of instructional materials available for loan
• Association memberships
• Funds for attending content area conferences and professional development
workshops
A LESSON FROM A CURRICULUM POINT OF VIEW
Lesson plans are guided by the curriculum but not necessarily spelled out in
the curriculum. Let us define a lesson as a time span when a teacher takes a
bounded chunk of material from a unit or a topic and creates an experience
or a series of experiences for students. The idea is that when the lesson is over,
most of the students have learned whatever was the target, whether a skill (for
example, locating places by latitude and longitude) or a concept (for example,
the separate powers of the three branches of the U.S. government and their
checks and balances on each other).
This definition of a lesson is, therefore, tied to material to be learned rather
than to time. A lesson can take more than one class period. If a lesson is good,
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it will have most of the following parts, although not all may be used in a single
class period because some steps are coming later or have already happened:
pp Precision: A clear statement of objective in mastery language (what stu-
dents will know or be able to do) exists, plus other elements profiled in
Chapter 19, “Planning.”
pp Connections: There are links with similar lessons being taught elsewhere
in the district with regard to rigor, consistency, and alignment.
pp Rigor: The standards for proficiency are high enough.
pp Consistency: “Proficient student performance” has the same meaning
throughout the school or the district.
pp Alignment: What’s supposed to be taught is actually taught and actually
tested.
LESSON PLANNING AND INSTRUCTION
The implementation of a lesson is marked by unplanned behaviors that come
from a teacher’s instructional repertoire and decisions made on the fly that are
not always premeditated. These include the following:
pp Checking for understanding (frequently and broadly) to identify when to
slow down, stop, or reteach, and for whom.
pp Unscrambling confusions by getting students to make visible their think-
ing, assumptions, or processes.
pp Being explicit.
pp Making cognitive connections.
Teachers design lessons that are based on what is in the curriculum. Their les-
sons may or may not draw heavily on district support materials, unit guides,
and other resources. But the lessons themselves, that is the sequence of activi-
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ties and tasks students do daily, are formulated by the teacher as designer. They
are not specified and required in the curriculum. This does not mean that the
teacher has to make them up from scratch each day. It’s just that in a district
that values professionalism, the teacher makes choices about what the appro-
priate activities and tasks are for their students. The teacher is a designer of
student work. To prescribe what teachers should do in lessons can be insulting
to skilled professionals and deny students the benefit of skillful professional
decisions about the how, when, and how fast of instruction.
We acknowledge that for novice teachers and para-professionals, it may be
appropriate to provide scripts of what good presentations or questioning
would sound like and to prescribe in considerable detail how to set up materials
and get students to engage. But such scripts should be used only as needed
for inexperienced teachers and only until their diagnostic and planning skills
reach professional levels of proficiency. Table 17.5 shows the relationship of
lessons, units, and courses.
Table 17.5 Relationship of Lessons, Units, and Courses
Lesson Unit Course
Duration 1 to 2 class periods Weeks or months Semester or year
Central
Elements
Mastery Objectives Big ideas/Enduring under-
standings
Guiding/Essential ques-
tions
Evidence of learning
Overarching theme
Proficiency targets:
• Exemplars
• Criteria
• Rubric
Measured by Observation
Inspection of student work
Quizzes
Products
Q & A interviews
Projects
Unit tests
Performances
Benchmark performances or
products
Final examinations
Comprehensive orals
Records Checklists
Gradebooks
Anecdotal notes
Running records
Grades tied to rubrics Certification of proficiency
(3 on a 4-point scale)
Credits
Final grade
In a district
that values
professionalism,
the teacher makes
choices about what
the appropriate
activities and
tasks are for their
students.
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INDICATORS OF A WELL-DEVELOPED
AND COHERENT CURRICULUM
Besides the existence of good curriculum documents (blueprints, frameworks,
and guides), one might find the following indicators of a school’s well-developed
curriculum:
pp Book closets and audiovisual repositories where materials consistent with
the curriculum are stored and accessible to teachers.
pp A compilation of assessments that are uniform and used by all teachers of a
given subject or topic.
pp Talk at grade level or department meetings about curriculum implementa-
tion and improvement.
pp State standards and framework documents readily available.
pp Individual classrooms outfitted with a copy of relevant standards and cur-
riculum guides.
pp Banks of exemplars of student work at proficiency for various units and
skills available for teachers.
pp Lesson plan banks of exemplary lessons available.
pp Time built into the professional development schedule for improving the
teaching of specific units or topics in the curriculum.
The common understandings and agreements here about good curriculum
not only enable us to achieve consistency in our teaching, but also to agree on
common maps about what is important to teach. The elements can also be used
as a template for design in a district that is in the process of creating curricula.
In addition, common understanding of exactly what student performance
schools are shooting for and what good performance would look like is a
prerequisite for effective team meetings when grade-level teachers or middle
school and high school teachers who teach the same content meet together.
Teachers can’t collaborate to look at student work and problem-solve about how
to teach certain items better if they’re not teaching to the same standards and in
agreement about the criteria for good performance.
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Our hope is that teachers know what questions to ask about the agreements
their schools and districts have made regarding what to teach and what good
student performance should look like. In addition, this chapter should serve
as a guide for what work needs to be done when teachers serve on curriculum
development committees. And finally, we hope that it is apparent how impor-
tant a clear and consistent set of curriculum agreements is for planning cohe-
sive instruction that can move all students to proficiency.
The next two chapters profile the teacher skills required to move from cur-
riculum to the planning and implementation of good lessons based on that
curriculum.
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
pp The common understandings and agreements between the district office (or academic
department) and its teachers about good curriculum enable consistency in teaching and
agreement about what is important to teach.
Curriculum Agreements Address:
p• Topics to be taught
p• Big ideas
p• Units of study organized around the big ideas
p• Learning expectations (or learning outcomes) for a grade or course
p• Uniform assessments (sometimes called benchmark assessments), especially final as-
sessments, interim assessments, and unit assessments
p• Criteria for proficiency on assessment items
p• End-of-course samples of proficient student work (an exemplar everyone can look at to see
exactly what the district really means by the learning expectation)
p• Pedagogical practices
p• Pacing guides and curriculum maps
p• Lesson plans
p• Time allocations
p• Instructional strategies
p• Materials
p• Resources
pp A good lesson has precision, connections, rigor, consistency, and alignment.
Lesson Implementation Includes:
p• Checking for understanding
p• Unscrambling confusions
p• Explicitness
p• Cognitive connections
To check your knowledge about Curriculum Design, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher
website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.rbteach.com/TST7
18. Lesson Objectives
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | LESSON OBJECTIVES
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Curriculum:
Lesson Objectives
The teacher skill described in this chapter is a thinking skill. It is em-ployed before a lesson takes place, yet it is responsible for how the lesson looks and sounds. It is also a hinge for how much student learning takes
place. The quality of teacher thinking about objectives accounts for much of
what we see (or don’t see) in classrooms.
A clear objective—we use the terms “objective,” “learning outcome,” “learning
target,” “learning intention,” and “mastery objective” interchangeably—serves
as a control tower for a lesson, always in touch with and carefully guiding the
pilot and the passengers from the take-off through the flight path, the approach,
and the landing. We show how that is so and provide guidelines for crafting
good objectives and making them visible to students throughout lessons.
The objective of a lesson is what the students are supposed to learn or get better
at when it is over. When we, as teachers, get crystal clear about what that ob-
jective is, we design a much better lesson. We also check more thoroughly for
understanding because we’re focused on what we want for the students and we
want to know whether they have gotten there or not. In parallel, when students
clearly know what they are supposed to learn or get better at, they learn more.
Here research supports logic: if you know where you’re headed, you’re more
likely to get there. There are two central tasks to lesson objectives. First, is the
need, as a teacher, to get clear about it. This task will bring us to examining the
language of the objective and the crucial determination of whether the objec-
tive is the most appropriate one for the students in front of us today despite
what the curriculum manual or the pacing guide may say. The second task is
getting students to understand what the objective is, which requires far more
than writing it on the board (Brookhart & Moss, 2014).
For decades, we have been in classrooms where the objective is posted on the
board in compliance with a directive (or a strong expectation) from adminis-
trators. However, this alone is not sufficient for the following reasons:
pp The objective may be written in language the students don’t understand.
pp Students may understand the vocabulary, but not put it together for
the meaning of the objective.
When students
clearly know what
they are supposed
to learn or get better
at, they learn more.
Curriculum
Lesson
Objectives
CHAPTER
18
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pp The objective may be read aloud, but never touched again as the teacher
plunges the students into activities, so any connection between what
they do and the objective is lost.
pp The students don’t connect to the objective; it has no relevance or mean-
ing for them.
There’s nothing wrong with posting an objective on the board. It’s just that it’s
a useless act unless we make sure the students understand it and connect what
they are doing in class to accomplishing that objective. Posting the objective
can become empowering if we then get the students involved in self-evaluating
their progress toward the objective at the end of the lesson time.
Try the exercise in
Exhibit 18.1. What
did you notice?
Exhibit 18.1 Actions Related to Objectives-Driven Lessons
Rate the frequency with which you do (or observe) each of
the following practices:
Always Sometimes Never
1. The objective is written on the board.
2. Prior to the lesson, the teacher analyzes the content to identify
the most important items in the objective that should be high-
lighted as the lesson(s) proceeds.
3. Students have taken a pre-assessment.
4. The objective describes what students will know or be able to do
with a specific performance verb.
5. The teacher expands the objective in student-friendly language.
6. The itinerary (agenda) is posted and reviewed with the students.
7. Students can tell a visitor what the objective is.
8. The teacher provides an explanation of why the objective is
worth learning.
9. The criteria for success are apparent and visible.
10. The objective is referred to during the lesson.
11. Teacher and students spend several minutes unpacking the
objective at the beginning to find out what they understand and
don’t understand about the vocabulary used and meaning of the
objective.
12. Students self-evaluate using the criteria for success.
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A CLEAR OBJECTIVE CREATES A CLEAR
IMAGE OF STUDENT PERFORMANCE
A clear objective creates an image—a picture in your mind, a sentence of inner
speech you say to yourself, or a written statement—of what a student will know
or be able to do when the instruction is over. What’s important is that the image
is framed from the students’ point of view. The objective is a clear picture that
the teacher has of desired student performance, which then becomes a clear
picture for the students too.
We would argue that all objectives can be framed as a clear image of student
performance—even objectives pertaining to attitude or appreciation. For ex-
ample, if the focus of a lesson is for students to be able to appreciate why dis-
ruption of the ozone layer should be of concern to us then we can ask our-
selves, “What would we look or listen for to ensure that they had developed
that appreciation?” Second, objectives that are not thought through in this way
typically wind up with coverage, activity, or involvement thinking. All three
are weaker than mastery thinking which we explain in Chapter 19, “Planning.”
Third, mastery thinking improves teaching by leading teachers to do more goal
stating with students, more checking, more feedback according to criteria, bet-
ter record-keeping, and more diagnosis of individual student needs.
Objectives that only say “students will be exposed to” are not acceptable. If you’re
going to “introduce” students to an idea or “expose” them to an experience, do
you expect anything to stick? If you do, you can say what it is and go for it spe-
cifically. If you don’t, why are you exposing them to the idea to begin with? In
our work, we have found that the question, “Was there a clear objective?” can be
answered by “yes,” “no,” or “yes, but fuzzy.” The type of class most likely to look
like a “fuzzy” on objectives is a rambling discussion that touches assigned mate-
rial in an erratic way or covers course material without making relevant connec-
tions between items or linking to other course material. Another “fuzzy” class is
one where there are weak connections between the activity students are doing
and what they are supposed to be learning. A “no objectives” class has some stu-
dents doing busywork, often on worksheets, about material they already know or
have mastered. Calling this “reinforcement” won’t wash. Practice has its place, of
course, but the practice must be strengthening a learning that needs it.
Madeline Hunter, former director of the UCLA Lab elementary school, used
to tell a story that illuminates how fuzzy thinking about objectives can dilute
learning. She finds a kindergarten teacher holding her head amid a room that’s
a mess of paper and glue. There are paper turkeys all around on which children
have been pasting squares of colored tissue paper to make Thanksgiving col-
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lages. Madeline asks what’s been going on. “Well, it was an art experience for
the kids,” is the reply. The exchange then continued:
Madeline: “Why did you go to the trouble of mimeographing the tur-
keys? Why not just give them a piece of paper and the tissue, and let
them be creative, express themselves?”
Teacher: “It really wasn’t that. It was really a lesson in eye-hand coordi-
nation.”
Madeline: “Well, then why didn’t you have them outline the turkey? You
can’t tell whether they stayed within the line or not when they’ve got them
pasted all over the turkey.”
Teacher: “Well, it really wasn’t that. It was a lesson in conservation.”
Madeline: “Conservation!”
Teacher: “Yes. The kids have really been very wasteful of paste. So I was
trying to teach them to put just a tiny piece of paste on.”
Madeline: “Then why didn’t you give them a piece of paste, or a paper
of paste, and see how much of their turkey they could finish before they
ran out of paste? You can’t tell if there’s a cup of paste under some of
these turkeys.”
Teacher: “Oh, for cryin’ out loud, can’t kids just have fun?”
Madeline: “Sure they can have fun. What do your kids like to do?”
Teacher: “The thing they like to do best is just chase out on the school
grounds.”
Madeline: “Why didn’t you take the last half-hour and go around, super-
vise them while they chased, and you wouldn’t have this mess to clean
up.” (Hunter, 1977)
So again, the big question is, “Was there a clear objective?” When you reflect on
the class period, can you infer a clear statement of what students were supposed
to know or be able to do at the end? If you can’t, the students probably can’t either.
And if they can’t, that’s trouble. It doesn’t matter if the objective is on the board, it
matters that the students can tell you what it is and with understanding. We en-
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courage teachers to write lesson objectives on the board; but unless they do some-
thing to ensure that students understand it we might as well save the board space.
STEPS TO DEVELOP A CLEAR AND WORTHWHILE OBJECTIVE
We lay out the steps required for objectives to play a powerful role in student
learning. “Improvement is not doing one thing exceedingly well; it’s doing many
aligned things well” (McAdams, 2006, p. 36). This is no simple matter because
the objective (think “learning target” if that language has been adopted by your
peers) must be appropriate for the students to begin with; certain students may
be ready for it and others not.
Here are the 12 steps we explain in some depth:
1. Identify the most worthwhile objective.
2. Determine whether students have adequate prior knowledge.
3. Compose the objective in mastery language so you get it clear in your
own head.
4. Post the objective.
5. Communicate the objective in student-friendly language as a para-
graph of talk.
6. Check for understanding of the objective and the vocabulary in it.
7. Tell students the steps we’ll go through to meet the objective.
8. Get students to understand why the objective is worth learning.
9. Establish the criteria for success you would take as evidence of mastery.
10. Have students self-evaluate according to the criteria for success.
11. Return to what the objective is at least once during the lesson and again
at the end.
12. Provide for thinking-skill objectives that students might have to learn.
“Improvement is
not doing one thing
exceedingly well; it’s
doing many aligned
things well.”
(McAdams, 2006)
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Step 1. Identify the Most Worthwhile Objective
Identify the most worthwhile objective for these students, at this time, by ana-
lyzing the materials you’ve picked (or that the curriculum presents) for sub-
concepts, relationship of concepts, possible misconceptions, and points of dif-
ficulty. This requires several steps that analyze the content itself from different
angles. Doing so often creates insights that have a substantial positive effect on
the lesson design. Here are the steps:
pp Analyze the content for the most important elements you want your
students to learn−the “must have” takeaways.
pp Look for the relationship (sometimes the hierarchy) of ideas and skills
in the content.
pp Identify the misconceptions or particularly difficult items that may be
obstacles to the intended learning.
pp Get a read on the prior knowledge and skills students need (perhaps
secured by pre-assessment) to be successful in learning the content.
These are all aspects of content analysis that take place before designing the les-
son. It need not take a great deal of time (typically 10 minutes), but it does mean
doing a few of the problems yourself, doing a quick read of the chapter in the
social studies book, or a quick read of the short story they will be discussing.
Get out the lab manual, the science text, or the language exercise and look at it
carefully yourself.
Matching Stated, Lived, and Worthy Objectives
Sometimes the objective that is stated (and written on the board) does not
match the objective in action—that is, the stated objective and the objective-
in-action (lived objective) are not aligned. It could be that neither one ex-
ploits the full potential of what could or should be the objective, meaning a
worthy objective.
We recently visited a freshman world history class with the high school prin-
cipal. Before class, the teacher explained that her objective was for students to
see how Napoleon’s invasions and conquests spawned nationalism as a strong
force in European countries that had previously been socially and politically
fragmented. This was because the people united against a common enemy
(Napoleon) and saw themselves as having common cause. During the first
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Stated Objective Lived Objective Worthy Objective
What’s posted on the board
or written in the lesson plan. It
might even be what the teacher
tells the students the objec-
tive is.
Objectives that are actually being
addressed through the activities the
students are participating in.
Learning targets that would have benefit-
ted the students the most.
Students will understand the
impact of Napoleon’s reign on
Europe.
Students will listen to a presentation
on Napoleon’s three big mistakes
and copy the teacher’s board notes
into their notebooks.
Students will be able to explain what
nationalism is and how it shows up in the
modern world.
OR
Students will be able to explain how
Napoleon’s foreign actions stimulated
nationalism in every country he touched.
OR
Students will be able to explain how
Napoleon’s arrogance led to suffering
and death for millions and also led to his
downfall.
OR
Students will be able to organize main
ideas and subordinate ideas they extract
from text into Cornell note style.
OR
Students will be able to use three conven-
tions in textbooks (sections titles, color
cues, and sidebars) to guide their reading.
Table 18.1 Stated Objectives, Lived Objectives, and Worthy Objectives
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part of the class, the teacher gave a lively lecture about Napoleon’s big military
mistakes and students appeared highly engaged. At the teacher’s direction, stu-
dents were copying into their notebooks the main points she was putting on
the board. At the conclusion of the lecture, students were assigned to triads to
locate information in the text about Napoleon’s big mistakes and make a poster
illustrating those mistakes.
Reflecting later on what actually took place in that class, it was difficult to deter-
mine how the activities of the day matched either the objective she had stated
in our earlier conversation or what she had written on the board which was,
“Students will understand the impact of Napoleon’s reign on Europe.” Because
Napoleon’s reign had many different effects on Europe, it was even unclear from
the board what specific effect she wanted students to “understand.”
Her presentation, the notes students took, and the small-group activity focused
entirely on Napoleon’s big military mistakes. There was no mention of national-
ism in the lecture or the activities. Although the text addresses the whole issue
of Napoleon’s impact on nationalism in several of the countries he invaded, stu-
dents were directed to research his mistakes, thus missing the bigger picture or
more important objective. Later during the class, while students were working
in triads, we questioned individual students about the meaning of nationalism.
Three quarters of them couldn’t explain it.
Given what was in the text and the other learning needs these students revealed,
including not knowing what nationalism was to begin with, a number of other
objectives could have been worthwhile choices (see Table 18.1). Because there
was no checking for understanding going on, the only verifiable objective, if we
are really honest about it, was to get the students to copy her notes off the board
and then search text to make a poster.
Level of Difficulty
Even before J. McVicker Hunt (1961) named it the “challenge of the match,” edu-
cators were striving to make the work given to students not too hard and not too
easy but just hard enough to stretch them toward optimum rate of learning. The
problem of the match makes teachers look at where students are now and ask,
“How big a bite can I give them for the next increment of learning?”
For example, judging the size of the bite for six third graders may lead their
teacher to teach fractional notation and adding of fractions with common de-
nominators in the same lesson. They can grasp that. The students in an eleventh-
grade German history class may not only assimilate the background and content
It’s important to
look at the materials
the students are
working with and
the task they are
working on.
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of Bismarck’s “blood and iron” speech but also, in the same class, explain it in
terms of Bismarck’s character.
If you think this sounds like individualizing, you’re right. It is individualizing
the number of learnings tackled at once and their pace—the size of the bites of
learning—to individuals and groups. There are many other variables that the
term individualizing may include. Most of those variables are about how the
learning shall proceed. Here we are talking about what, and how much, shall be
aimed at for learning, regardless of the how.
What evidence might there be that the size of the bite was a good match for a
group of students? Perhaps there was some initial struggling but then grasping
of new ideas; perhaps moments of silence followed by student questions and
clarification of difficult concepts; perhaps episodes of puzzlement culminating
in “aha!” reactions; perhaps there was diligent note-taking. Negative evidence is
easier to spot: confusion, dismay, frustration, or mute silence for work that’s too
hard (or inadequately presented); boredom as pencil tapping, looking around,
chatting, or sloppiness for work that is too easy. Easy work is far from the only
cause of this litany, but it should be checked out when the behaviors occur.
It is possible, as well, that none of those overt behaviors may be present, yet the
objectives might still be mismatched to the students. In that case, only knowl-
edge of the students’ prior work in relation to the demands the teacher is mak-
ing could help us have a conversation about the appropriateness of the objec-
tives. Classroom observers can only surmise the match between the worthy
objective and the lived objective if they look at the materials the students are
working with and the task the students are working on. For teachers who teach
the same content, discussing these choices with one another at team meetings
with prior student work on the table is a very productive use of time.
Step 2. Determine Whether Students Have
Adequate Prior Knowledge
Pre-assessing the students enables you to find out if there are any prior knowl-
edge gaps you need to fill in before beginning instruction. Reflecting on how the
students did yesterday, however, including looking at the work they produced,
will be better and usually suffice for daily planning. Formal pre-assessment is a
good fit when starting a totally new topic like “ecology,” “immigration,” “memoir.”
Step 3. Compose the Objective in Mastery Language
Make sure you know what student performance (“will be able to do”) you would
take as evidence of mastery. This means being sure the language you use with
Video:
Compose
in Mastery
Language
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yourself (for this is not what you will say to the students) is not an activity, a task
completion statement, or a set of directions. This will yield better planning for
the activities and tasks you choose, the sequence of what the students do, and
how you frame it all for them.
All mastery objectives start with the learner as the subject: “Students will be able
to . . .” or other language to that effect. For example, “Participants will demon-
strate that they can . . .” Then comes the all-important verb. It has to be an action
verb that can be observed—for example, “explain in their own words,” “make a
model that displays . . . ,” “list the evidence that supports. . . ,” “describe the at-
tributes of . . . ,” or “compare and contrast the elements of . . .”
Verbs that are about unobservable processes cannot stand by themselves in
a statement of a mastery objective. Examples of such verbs are understand,
appreciate, witness, and see. You can, of course, use these verbs if you then go on
to say how the students will show that they know or understand.
You know it’s a good objective if you can answer these two questions:
1. What is each student going to walk away with inside his or her head that
wasn’t there before; in other words, something the student understands
and can explain or something he or she can do as a skill?
2. How will I know the students can do this?
Our colleague, Mary Sterling, suggests the following sentence structure for
framing objectives: “Students will demonstrate an understanding of . . . [know]
by . . . [able to do].” Teachers in her courses practice framing their objectives in
this form. Then they ask one another, “Is the ‘able to do’ deep enough and strong
enough to convince you that they know?” In pairs, Sterling asks teachers to ex-
change their statements and single underline the “know” and double-underline
the “able to do” parts.
The language of a good mastery objective:
pp Is specific in terms of curricular knowledge, whether it be declarative
or procedural.
pp Names an active performance (observable behavior) that demonstrates
mastery.
pp Avoids using mental action words that do not inform students about
what they will have to do to demonstrate mastery such as: understand,
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learn, be familiar with, know, recognize that, have a grasp of, see that,
appreciate that, recognize significance of . . .
pp Begins with “Students (or “you” or “I”) will be able to . . . ,” indicating
development of capacity versus completion of an activity.
pp Includes strong clues about assessment.
pp May include a level of performance or be accompanied by criteria for
success.
For ESL students it is also an important practice to communicate a “language
objective”—a process-oriented statement with action verbs—of how stu-
dents will use English in the content (see The Skillful Teacher website at www.
RBTeach.com/TST7 for a description of the why and how of these objectives).
It is easy to lose track of where you’re going if you don’t think or write objectives
in terms of student mastery. A teacher can get tied to materials and activities,
and have students involved and liking their classes, but be achieving uncer-
tain, erratic, and unpredictable results. Student involvement and enjoyment of
school are important goals, but they do not by themselves make for effective
teaching and learning.
Step 4. Post the Objective
Be sure the objective is posted somewhere in the room so that students can
refer to it. The objective can be written on the board, on a poster, in a syllabus
the students have received before, or on an electronic resource.
Step 5. Communicate the Objective in
Student-Friendly Language
This means rehearsing what you will actually say, because for many of us prepar-
ing the extended “student-friendly” expositions of academic objectives is not a
common practice. After a while, it will become natural and require no rehearsal.
Student-friendly language often requires a paragraph of talk. For example, “La-
dies and gentlemen, we’ve been studying the three branches of government and
what they do—legislative, judicial, and executive. Now it turns out that each
of them has a way of stopping the other from doing something if they want to.
It’s like they have brakes they can apply to the other branches in certain situa-
tions. Today, we’ll learn how they do that. It’s called “Checks and Balances” on
Video:
Student-Friendly
Language
Videos:
Unpack the
Objective 1 & 2
PDF
Language
Objectives for
ESL Students
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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each other. So here’s the objective: I can give examples of how each of the three
branches of government exerts checks and balances on the other two.”
Some current writers call these “I can” statements “Learning Targets” (Berger et
al., 2014). “Learning Targets” are formal objectives translated into language the
students can understand and own.
Step 6. Check for Understanding of Objective
This means pausing for a minute or two to be sure the students understand the
words in and the meaning of the objective. We’ve got to ask questions and get
the students to say what they think the objective means. For example, “Someone
tell me what you think the word “checks” means in the objective/learning target
for today.”
See the two videos from the Expeditionary Learning website referenced on The
Skillful Teacher website (www.RBTeach.com/TST7) to see what it looks like
when this kind of “unpacking” takes place. Notice how in both cases the “un-
packing” moves of the teacher reveals terms the students don’t yet understand.
Step 7. Tell Students the Steps to Meet the Learning Target
This usually means posting some sort of Itinerary or Agenda for the day (see
Chapter 11, “Clarity”).
Step 8. Get Students to Understand Why the
Objective or Learning Target Is Worth Learning
This means connecting the objective or learning target to something real, mean-
ingful, or useful in life that the students can understand. You may have done
that previously (for example, when learning about punctuation) and not have to
do it every time you begin work on a new element of correct punctuation. (See
Chapter 11, “Clarity,” for more on “the reason why.”)
Step 9. Establish the Criteria for Success You Would Take as
Evidence of Mastery
Generate the criteria for success in performances or products you would take
as evidence of mastery. This will be a bulleted list of attributes or elements that
will be present in the students’ products or performances. Exhibit 18.2 provides
some examples.
Video:
Criteria for
Success
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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Definition
Criteria for success are the qualities that must be present for performance and products to meet the standards
and be deemed successful. “What are the criteria” means:
• “What should we look for in examining students’ products or performances to know if they
were successful?”
• “What attributes should we use to judge the effectiveness of the product or performance?”
• “What counts?”
A list of criteria (and exemplars) enable students to assess their current performances in light of the target
performance. Criteria for success do not state what the teacher will do. They do not state what the student will
do. Criteria for success name or describe the characteristics of the product or performance, so the subject of
the criteria should be the product or performance.
Examples of some criteria for products:
1. The lab report:
• Lists all the steps for the process of _____.
• Explains your observations.
• Explains your conclusions about the relationship between _____.
• Uses technical terms correctly.
2. Your learning log:
• Summarizes the major events in the chapter.
• Identifies the central conflict and progress toward its resolution.
• Includes your own reflections on the decision that the protagonist is making in her attempt to deal with
and solve her problem.
Examples of some criteria for a performance:
1. Your oral presentation:
• Clearly states your position on the topic.
• Presents the arguments supporting your position.
• Supports all arguments with reasons and evidence.
• Responds to arguments opposing your position.
• Is accompanied by visuals (e.g., charts, overheads, handouts).
• Is loud enough for everyone in the room to hear easily.
• May be spoken with notes but not read.
• Is fluent in delivery and confident in tone (which means you practiced).
2. Your sharing of your independent reading tells:
• The title and author of your book.
• The most interesting part so far.
• At least one vocabulary word that is new or interesting to you.
• A prediction of what will happen next.
Exhibit 18.2 Criteria for Success
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Step 10. Have Students Use Criteria for Success
to Self-Evaluate
This means pausing to do things such as having the students self-evaluate where
they are in their progress toward attaining the objective/learning target, or con-
necting how the next activity they’re doing is aimed to move toward accom-
plishment of the objective/learning target.
Step 11. Return to What the Objective Is at Least
Once During the Lesson and Again at the End
The discipline of returning to the learning target keeps us focused on the out-
come we want. It acts as a deterrent to tangents. But more important, it keeps
the students focused on what they are supposed to learn or get better at. Their
attention is constantly drawn to the meaning of the activities they are doing.
Step 12. Distinguish Between Thinking Skill Objectives and
Mastery Objectives
There is an important distinction between thinking skill objectives and mastery
objectives. They are both, to be sure, a form of mastery. In the latter, the goal is
for students to master knowledge (e.g., be able to explain the causes of the Civil
War) and operational skills (e.g., write with good grammar, solve three-step
word problems, locate points on the globe with latitude and longitude). In the
case of thinking-skill objectives, the goal is for students to master a generic form
of thinking skill, like comparison and contrast, or understanding one’s assump-
tions, or defining the real problem before listing solutions. Put another way, the
goal is for students to learn or get better at a particular mental process and be
able to transfer it to material other than today’s content.
Let’s say that your geography lesson today includes being able to list the attri-
butes of an estuary: (1) fan-shaped land formation, (2) at the mouth of a river,
(3) containing sedimentary deposits, and (4) filled with brackish water. But
more generally, aside from today’s geography lesson, you want your students to
know that many concepts have a set of attributes that define them, and all the
attributes need to be present for the concept to be the concept. You want them
to be able to analyze the attributes of an item. That’s a generic thinking skill. An
example would be to use the attributes of representative democracy to analyze
which of two countries, both of which have elections, are really democracies.
Merely giving assignments whose fulfillment calls for certain thinking skills
is not teaching the thinking skill, just as round robin reading, which calls for
Video:
Return to
Objective
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students to perform reading, is not necessarily teaching them anything about
how to get better at reading (Duffy, Roehler, & Rockliffe, 1986). For exam-
ple, asking students to compare and contrast the motives of the North and
the South at the beginning of the Civil War does not teach students anything
about the act of comparing and contrasting two things if they do not already
know how to do that. Almost everything teachers ask students to do requires
them to think in some way. But only when they are deliberately and explicitly
teaching a particular kind of thinking skill that can be named can we say that
there is a thinking skill objective.
If you want your students to learn thinking skill X, you may repeatedly give
them tasks that call for it, that is, do a task that requires the thinking skill to
complete correctly. But you are not teaching the thinking skill. When teaching
a particular thinking skill is the real objective, we advise naming the thinking
skill, teaching it, coaching it, and arranging for the students to get feedback on
how they’re doing with it—all this in addition to having them practice it. If a
teacher has a thinking-skill objective for students (rather than just an assign-
ment or a task that calls for thinking), the teacher should do the following:
1. Name the skill.
2. Deal explicitly with how to do it (for example, model aloud with the
steps or have students share strategies for doing it).
3. Highlight steps.
4. Give tips and coaching pointers.
5. Have students practice with feedback.
6. Evaluate how the students are doing with the thinking skill.
Unfortunately, we usually see only step 6. That’s not teaching a thinking skill;
that’s testing for it and hoping the students will learn the skill from the test or
the task.
The explicit teaching of thinking skills has a marvelous literature of its own.
Tishman, Perkins, and Jay (1995) describe school structures and practices that
support the explicit teaching of thinking skills. In fact, they are interested in
fostering schools where thinking dispositions such as open mindedness, stra-
tegic spirit, and inquisitiveness are core values of the institution. Similar posi-
tions are taken by Barell (2003) and Costa and Kallick in their excellent book,
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Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind (2008). Teachers and leaders who
want these things for their children have an overarching objective for what a
school should be.
OBJECTIVES ABOUT SOCIAL SKILLS AND ATTITUDES
Objectives need not be solely about cognitive topics. Imagine pairs of students
coaching individuals on a certain bookkeeping procedure, and we infer that
there is an objective about cooperation and helping others in the room.
Deirdre is excluded from the class meeting (first grade) and sitting near (though
facing away from) a pile of blocks. We hear a few remarks and see some body
language from the teacher that leads us to conclude she has an objective in mind
for Deirdre: take responsibility during clean up; you can’t get out of your respon-
sibilities to others by pouting and stalling.
Mr. Caswell wants students to develop a positive attitude toward classical mu-
sic. How would he know if he’d accomplished that? What does he mean when
he says, “I want my students to appreciate Beethoven”? He might mean that he
expects knowledge of the intricacy and subtlety of the design of a Beethoven
symphony to generate respect. Further, he may believe that for some people,
having to listen in a focused way to the symphony as they analyze its parts will
lead to aesthetic enjoyment. All of that may be his concept of “appreciation”;
respect through knowledge and liking through repeated experience. If that is his
concept, it will lead him to do certain activities in class aimed at generating spe-
cific student performances like being able to analyze parts of the symphony and
label a score, describing in words the principles by which Beethoven developed
and restated themes, or identifying the different symphonies.
All of these student performances he can picture because he has thought about
what “appreciation” means. But if he doesn’t translate “appreciation” into some
sort of student performance in his head, then what Mr. Caswell does with stu-
dents in class may be random in its effect. He will not be looking inside their
heads to create anything in a planful way. He will be operating outside their
heads with activities and presentations that may or may not contact anything
inside students. Who can tell? Without that image of the student performance
he’s aiming for, Mr. Caswell may do activities that lead to no performance or to
an opposite student performance.
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DETAILED BEHAVIORAL MASTERY OBJECTIVES
Popham and Baker (1970) and Mager (1962) popularized the writing of detailed
behavioral objectives in which criterion levels for performance were specified
as well as the conditions under which students would perform them—for
example, “Given 10 multistep word problems involving multiplication and di-
vision, students will complete them in a half-hour at 90 percent accuracy.” This
movement, which eventually became the butt of jokes and a target of scorn,
had aimed to sharpen thinking about student outcomes and improve account-
ability for student results.
Particular kinds of content do lend themselves well to very detailed behavioral
objectives, typically operational skills that can be observed at criterion levels
of mastery (mathematical manipulations, decoding in reading, and technical
writing skills, for example), but this same kind of objective may not serve in-
struction so well when one attempts to apply it to an area like cooperation. How
can a teacher meaningfully specify a criterion level for mastery with respect
to cooperation? He could have a student discriminate cooperative from non-
cooperative behavior at a criterion level in stories read or video clips viewed,
but how useful would that be?
Different levels of specificity in language serve best with different types of con-
tent. Thus teachers need to use different kinds of objectives and use the lan-
guage most suited to the content at hand. The use of detailed behavioral objec-
tives for an art curriculum or an oil painting course might well trivialize that
content.
But what about the teacher who uses general language in objectives for material
that would lend itself nicely to detailed behavioral objectives? Here’s an ex-
ample: “Children will add three-digit numbers with medial zeros competently.”
What is “competently?” Here Popham and Baker (1970) would argue that a
criterion level for mastery is essential for sharpening the delivery of skills and
the evaluation of who knows what.
OBJECTIVES AND STATE STANDARDS
The standards movement represents a commitment of educators all over the
country to raising the academic rigor of school curriculum. The impetus for
this movement was alarming national reports in the 1980s and international
comparisons in the 1990s that were not flattering to U.S. student achievement.
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Equally important, the standards movement also became an equity movement
based on the realization that students need a 21st-century education if they are
to succeed, and that can’t mean something radically different in Des Moines than
in Detroit. We need to standardize the skills and concepts we offer in schools to
achieve consistency, and more particularly, equity, by teaching the same skills
and concepts to children of poverty as to children in schools serving affluent
children. If schools expect less and offer fewer higher-level skills to children
of poverty, they will continue to offer them unequal educations and unequal
chances in the race of life. This equity in educational rigor is especially needed
now since the greatest 2014–24 job growth rates projected by the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics will come from jobs that require some postsecondary education
(Figure 18.1). These jobs are expected to make up almost 50% of new jobs.
So how does the standards movement, especially the Common Core, translate
into educational practice? The first level of response has been to create state
standards documents that attempt to promulgate high and uniform learning
expectations for all students in the state. The actual standards in documents
published by the states are general statements about the kinds of competency
students should have in the academic subjects. They are not very specific; they
define the broad areas of knowledge and skill. In New York, for example, Stan-
dard 3: Mathematics—Elementary is, “Students use number sense and numera-
tion to develop an understanding of the multiple uses of numbers in the real
world, the use of numbers to communicate mathematically, and the use of num-
bers in the development of mathematical ideas.”
The meaning of this general statement becomes slightly more focused when
such documents give indicators of what meeting that objective might look like.
For example, students:
pp Use whole numbers and fractions to identify locations, quantify groups
of objects, and measure distances.
pp Use concrete materials to model numbers and number relationships
for whole numbers and common fractions, including decimal frac-
tions.
pp Relate counting to grouping and to place-value.
pp Recognize the order of whole numbers and commonly used fractions
and decimals.
pp Demonstrate the concept of percent through problems related to actual
situations.
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Standards documents then sometimes give sample pieces of evidence to show
that a student is meeting the standard. For example:
pp Count out 15 small cubes and exchange 10 of the cubes for a rod 10
cubes long.
pp Use the number line to show the position of 1/4.
pp Figure the tax on $4.00 knowing that taxes are 7 cents per $1.00.
Some states move down to yet another level of specificity by listing within con-
tent topics exactly what the learning expectations (sometimes called “content
expectations”) are for a grade level. Within the second-grade content expecta-
tions document for the State of Michigan, we find these expectations for work-
ing with unit fractions:
Adapted from Employment Projections Program, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Figure 18.1 Percentage Projected Change in Employment by Typical
Entry-Level Education (2014–24)
Doctoral or
Professional Degree
19%
Master’s Degree
21%
Bachelor’s Degree
12%
Associate’s Degree
13%
Postsecondary
Non-Degree Award
18%
Some College,
No Degree
1%
High School Diploma
or Equivalent
6%
No Formal
Educational Credential
10%
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N.ME.02.18 Recognize, name, and represent commonly used unit fractions
with denominators 12 or less; model 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 by folding strips.
N.ME.02.19 Recognize, name, and write commonly used fractions: 1/2,
1/3, 2/3, 1/4, 2/4, 3/4.
N.ME.02.20 Place 0 and halves, e.g., 1/2, 1 1/2, 2 1/2, on the number line;
relate to a ruler.
N.ME.02.21 For unit fractions from 1/12 to 1/2, understand the inverse
relationship between the size of a unit fraction and the size of the denomi-
nator; compare unit fractions from 1/12 to 1/2.
N.ME.02.22 Recognize that fractions such as 2/2, 3/3 and 4/4 are equal to
the whole (one). Work with unit fractions
So we have “standards,” “indicators,” “sample evidence,” and “learning expecta-
tions,” each derived from the previous one, and each more specific in telling a
reader what students are supposed to know and be able to do (Figure 18.2). But
as readers, we do not know the level of difficulty, the nuances, and the level of
quality expected from a student in these areas until we see the actual student
task that will assess it and a sample of student work that meets the standard.
At this writing, state standards documents are still quite varied in the level of
specificity they provide educators and families in their states. They also differ in
their content. Generating more agreement across states is one of the reasons for
the formation of Project Achieve in 1996.
The Common Core standards indicate shifts in the amount of time spent on
certain types of content in math and literacy and puts a well justified emphasis
on students’ capacity to reason and justify verbally and in writing their explana-
tions. The level of abstraction in the standards, however, is the same as the high-
level statements described above.
Math: 5th grade, standard 8a:
“Understand that, just as with simple events, the probability of a com-
pound event is the fraction of outcomes in the sample space for which the
compound event occurs.”
ELA: 9th grade, standard 1a:
“Introduce precise claim(s), distinguish the claim(s) from alternate or op-
posing claims, and create an organization that establishes clear relation-
ships between the claim(s), counter claim(s), reasons and evidence.”
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There is nothing wrong with these standards at all. But to plan lessons that enable
students to meet them, requires the content analysis from a planning conference
as described on pages 482 through 485. The objectives that a teacher comes up
with for a given lesson serve the purpose of breaking down the general state-
ments of state standards into an appropriate outcome that is measurable for
each student at the end of a particular lesson. In other words, they break down
the large objective in the state standards into the smaller pieces of learning that
their particular students need to master en route to the bigger objective. For
example, the Michigan second-grade content expectation is, “For unit fractions
from 1/12 to 1/2, understand the inverse relationship between the size of a unit
fraction and the size of the denominator; compare unit fractions from 1/12 to
1/2.” No one can create a single lesson that enables students to do that. Today’s
lesson may have as its objective an understanding that students need first in or-
der to comprehend the inverse relationship described in the Michigan content
expectation. Perhaps the prior understanding they need is this: “Students will
be able to explain that the denominator in fractional notation tells us how many
equal pieces the whole is divided into.”
Perhaps more significantly, our own class observations have shown us that
many students don’t yet realize that they can’t compare two fractions unless
the two fractions are describing the same whole. That’s a common misunder-
standing. So today’s objective needs to focus on that, and that understanding
isn’t in the state standards at all. Understanding the developmental sequence of
how students learn mathematical concepts is the focus of the Ongoing Assess-
Teacher
Instructional Time
STANDARD
INDICATOR
List of Learning Expectations Within the Topic
Assessment Item
Sample of Student Performance
That Meets Proficiency
Figure 18.2 Standards and Indicators
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ment Project (OGAP) of the Consortium on Policy Research in Education at
the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (www.ogapmath.
com). Similar concept analysis is often required to pinpoint exactly where to-
day’s objective should lie.
Note that daily lesson objectives derive from a teacher’s ongoing assessment
of what students understand and need to learn next on the route to meeting
standards prescribed for their course. Most lesson objectives should be related
to accomplishing a state standard, but the objective for a given lesson will prob-
ably not be found in the state standards documents. Teachers should always
know what standard a given lesson is related to. That is why some districts require
teachers to write the related standard on the board as well as the daily objective.
That practice is supposed to exert a discipline on teachers to be sure the two are
related. All too often, however, the standard written on the board, accurately cop-
ied from a state standards document, is too abstract to be of much use to anybody
in understanding the fit of today’s lesson either for students, teacher, or a supervi-
sor who visits. It’s a meaningless act of compliance. Teachers need to know the
relation of today’s objective to the standard they are working on all right, but
the most important alignment is that the objective of the day be on target for
the needs of the students.
HOW ADMINISTRATORS AND COACHES CAN SUPPORT
CLEAR LESSON OBJECTIVES
Use a Planning Conference to analyze the content to be taught for the relationship
of the ideas, their hierarchy, sequence, the prior knowledge required to do the tasks
assigned, and the most important and worthwhile “take-aways” for the students.
Example 1: Content Analysis Video
The Planning Conference video shows what this kind of analysis looks and
sounds like. One of us is asking Emelia Jordan about the content of her lesson
on the respiratory system for about 10 minutes, and following the nine guide-
lines listed in Table 18.2. The point is to be disciplined and converse about the
content before going into the actual lesson and its activities.
Things to Note:
pp Don’t start with “What are you going to do?” or “What are the student
activities?” In fact, resist all questions about the lesson, grouping, tim-
ing, and student activities until the discussion of content and objec-
tives is complete.
Video:
Planning
Conference
http://www.ogapmath.com
http://www.ogapmath.com
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Table 18.2 Nine Guidelines for Conducting a Content-Focused Planning Conference
Guidelines Quotes from the video
1. Dive right into the content. “What content will you be focusing on?”
2. Directly examine the actual materials that will be
used to teach the content.
“Is there a chapter in the book that goes with this
content?”
“What materials will you be handing to the students?”
3. Focus on the key concepts that the teacher wants
the students to take away from the lesson.
“What are the most important things that you want them
to understand?”
4. Delve deeply into the meaning of the content, with
particular focus on the key concepts. (It is okay to
admit you do not understand the material here as your
struggle more than likely reflects student struggle and
allows the teacher to get clearer about the content.)
“Can you explain that a little further?”
“What exactly do you mean when you say ‘process’?”
“I’m not sure I understand . . .”
5. Break the concepts down hierarchically. First,
identify what prior knowledge students must have to
be successful in the new task. Then break the current
task down into steps—what must be understood first
in order to understand the complete concept?
“So what would students need to know from prior
experience in order to be ready to move forward?”
“How would you break this concept down into parts?”
“Which part of this concept do you think students need
to understand first?”
6. Have the teacher state the objective (Big Idea) in
kid-friendly language exactly as he/she plans to say it
to the class, and have the teacher explain how he/she
plans to display the objectives.
“How will you present the objectives to the class?”
“Say it out loud now just as if you were talking to the
class.”
“How will you present the information? On the board?
PowerPoint?”
7. Ask the teacher how he/she plans to track student
progress and understanding.
“How will you know if students are understanding or
not?”
“Will you have an assessment?”
8. Summarize. Have the teacher summarize exactly
what he/she wants the students to learn. Summarize
the accomplishments of the conference thus far.
“So if you were to go around and interview the students
at the end of the day, what would you want them to tell
you to show they really understood?”
“So far, I think we have really gotten clear on the con
tent and defined the objectives, which are . . .”
9. Now you are ready to jump into the activities. Make
sure the activities relate directly to the objectives and
that they do not require students to deal with too
many variables.
“OK, so now what are you going to have the students
do?”
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pp Make sure the objectives identified are worthy objectives. Do not allow
objectives to focus on anything but content and make sure that the
selected objective is really worthwhile.
pp Make sure to focus on specific definitions, avoid generalities, and avoid
such language as “stuff ” and “things.”
pp Focus on understanding versus the mechanics of completing a task or
operation.
The following is a list of things the teacher should bring to the meeting:
Basic Level
pp Ask the teacher to bring all the materials that he/she plans to use, in-
cluding books, worksheets, homework, and assessments.
pp Ask the teacher to prepare the objective in kid-friendly language.
More Advanced
pp Ask the teacher to break the concepts up in a hierarchical order.
pp Ask the teacher to bring any examples of prior student work that might
be relevant.
Example 2: Content Analysis Video
Notice which of the guidelines are followed by the peer in the conference (in this
case, Jon Saphier) in the video. The result of this brief content-analysis conversa-
tion is that Ms. Jordan plans a much better lesson, and all the ideas come from
her. She realizes that “respiration” is a system that consists of six sub-processes
and makes a chart that shows how they relate to each other.
Then as she goes through the 3-day lesson sequence, she continually points out
to students where they are in the development of the process. Of course, she
makes a point of highlighting the confusion that comes out in the planning con-
versation, namely that “respiration” is a chemical reaction in the cell, in fact, in
all cells of the body.
Content analysis is a large gap in teacher preparation and professional develop-
ment that has significant negative consequences for learning. Content analysis is
not the same as content knowledge. You can’t know what respiration is without
Video:
Content Analysis
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taking apart the sequence and relationships of the concepts within the respira-
tory system so as to make them clear and accessible to learners.
Example 3: Concept Map Video
Concept maps represent a visible representation of content analysis. In this vid-
eo of a high-functioning grade-level PLC (Professional Learning Community),
check out the concept map these fifth-grade teachers construct and then use to
isolate what they will reteach to their students.
Example 4: Content Analysis Video
This is another example of content analysis. Learning the meaning of fractions
and how to do mathematical operations with them is a benchmark in mathe-
matics. Failure to understand these operations beyond application of rote al-
gorithms becomes a serious obstacle to progress in algebra in eighth grade and
beyond. So it is important for teachers dealing with student understanding of
fractions to understand the hierarchy of concepts that makes up this constella-
tion of understandings.
Also available on The Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7 are
scripts and sample dialogs that illustrate Planning Conferences in a number of
different disciplines.
This chapter has been about the significance of clear thinking about objectives
and how such thinking creates an objective that can serve as the control tower
to lesson planning. In the next chapter, we spell out the dimensions of how such
planning should proceed.
Videos:
Concept Map,
Content Analysis
PDF
Planning
Conferences
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Twelve Steps for Developing a Clear Objective:
1. Identify the most worthwhile objective.
2. Determine whether students have adequate prior knowledge.
3. Compose the objective in mastery language.
4. Post the objective.
5. Communicate the objective in student friendly language.
6. Check for understanding.
7. Tell the students the steps to meet the “Learning Target.”
8. Get the students to understand why the “Learning Target” is worth learning.
9. Establish the criteria for success you would take as evidence of mastery.
10. Have students self-evaluate according to the criteria for success.
11. Return to what the objective is at least once during the lesson and again at the end.
12. Provide for thinking-skill objectives that the students might have to learn.
To check your knowledge about Lesson Objectives, see the exercises on
The Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
19. Planning
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | PLANNING
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 487
Curriculum:
Planning
Good planning skills
for daily lessons
stand behind good
teaching.
Curriculum
Planning
This chapter is about planning lessons, the small daily packages of crafted instruction within units. Well-designed units are still only general blueprints to what a teacher will do tomorrow with the 30
students in front of her. Good planning skills for daily lessons stand behind
good teaching.
To learn about the important teacher knowledge base about unit design, see
the excellent work of Wiggins and McTighe (2005) on backward planning. In-
structional coaches, department chairs, and administrators often find they get
more payback from planning conferences that focus on identifying worthwhile
objectives and doing content analysis (see Chapter 18) with teachers than from
observations with feedback. This will be true when the teacher’s growing edge is
related to clarity and issues of curriculum content.
CURRICULUM UNITS, LESSON, AND
SPONTANEOUS TEACHING SKILLS
The centerpiece of planning is the lesson—the planned time period when stu-
dents engage content through experiences that teachers have designed. A lesson
plan is the detailed implementation scenario that specifies what the teacher does
and what the students are expected to do during a bounded chunk of time de-
voted to a particular mastery objective.
It may take more than one class period to complete a lesson. Therefore, cer-
tain elements of the lesson, like activating student current knowledge, may take
place on Monday, and most of the feedback on student work may be observable
on Tuesday. These two class periods, as a package, may comprise a complete
lesson on, say, the separation of powers in the U.S. government. That lesson, in
turn, is part of a unit on the U.S. Constitution.
The design and overall construction of the unit may be in the district cur-
riculum guide, but the actual plan for individual lessons probably is not (and
should not be) in the curriculum guide. Designing lessons and crafting student
work is the teacher’s job, and curriculum guides and other district materials are
CHAPTER
19
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supposed to be helpful resources for how to do so. Good curriculum specifies
the “what” of teaching, which should include the big ideas and enduring under-
standings students are expected to take away from units of instruction.
Curriculum documents may also specify other agreements about instructional
approaches, like an agreement that students will be writing about their interpre-
tation of mathematical ideas. But it is teachers who plan the “how” of lessons
that need to be designed in advance for each day. Then during lessons, teachers
make spontaneous moves that weren’t planned at all (and couldn’t have been)
but are drawn mindfully from their repertoires of skills like “probing a student’s
thinking” to understand why a student is confused.
FIVE KINDS OF THINKING FOR LESSON PLANNING
What we emphasized in the previous chapter on “Lesson Objectives” was the
primacy of starting with a worthy mastery objective in one’s planning. Having
done that, all five questions in Figure 19.1 are important. The reason these circles
are nested in a concentric way is to show the following relationships. No one can
teach a thinking skill objective without having some content for the students to
apply it to, so a teacher who is teaching to a thinking objective almost always has
a mastery of knowledge or skills objective too. That is why the thinking circle in
the diagram in Figure 19.1 includes the “mastery of knowledge and skills” circle.
But the reverse is not necessarily true. A teacher can be teaching for mastery of
knowledge without necessarily aiming to teach a particular thinking skill.
Similarly, the way in which the other circles in Figure 19.1 are nested shows
the overlapping relationship of different kinds of teacher cognition during plan-
ning. For example, one can think “coverage” without having any activities for the
students to do, but there cannot be activities without having some content the
students are dealing with. To give another example, a teacher can have activities
without any clear notion of what she wants students to learn. But she cannot
have a true mastery objective without having both something for the students to
do (activity) and some content on which to do it. Thus the mastery of knowledge
and skills circle contains the other two.
What do we know about how planning actually takes place in American class-
rooms? There are five kinds of thinking relevant to lesson planning. Each of the
five has an important place in planning, but if any one becomes an exclusive
mindset, the instruction that results can have significant gaps for students. We
now expand on the five kinds of teacher thinking.
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1. Coverage Thinking
One kind of thinking during lesson planning is what content or skill is to be
addressed or “covered” in the lesson (an event in history, French Impressionist
art, converting fractions to decimals, the preterite tense, dribbling a basketball,
the biography of a particular writer, two-part harmonies, and so on). When a
teacher is thinking about coverage, she is thinking in terms of her part in the
lesson. She is going to present, describe, explain, demonstrate, or cover identi-
fied information, events, procedures, or processes. As central as this concern is
to any lesson, there is a danger when our planning stops here or when we think
Figure 19.1 Key Questions in Lesson Planning
THINKING SKILL OBJECTIVES
What thinking skills do I want
students to be able to use?
MASTERY OBJECTIVES
What do I want students to know
or be able to do when the lesson is
over? How will I know if they know
it or can do it?
INVOLVEMENT
How can I get students
really engaged?
ACTIVITIES
What activities could
students do to gain understanding
or to develop these skills?
COVERAGE
What knowledge,
skill, or concept
am I teaching?
M
ea
ns
Ends
Thanks to Deb Reed for pointing out the Means/Ends relationship
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of what we are covering as the objective of the lesson (e.g., “My objective tomor-
row is to cover the material on gas attacks in World War I”).
This outlook will negatively influence the quality of the teaching and consequently
the learning that takes place. A teacher who confuses coverage with an objective
focuses on getting through everything without thinking about student learning.
What becomes important is covering the agenda and presenting the information
within the time frame of the lesson. When the agenda is covered, the lesson is
done. The teacher has taken the information out of her head and put it “out there.”
She is not necessarily doing it in a way that is guided by what is in the students’
heads before she starts. And she doesn’t know if it passed through the nether re-
gions of “out there” into students’ heads when the lesson is over. When planning
is driven by coverage thinking alone, we tend to do minimal—or superficial—
checking for understanding, less intellectual exploration, and less integration with
other learning. Instruction tends toward lecture and recitation.
2. Activity Thinking
Another consideration in designing lessons is thinking about what activities we
want students to do, such as researching information on a website, answering
questions, watching a film, building a model, solving problems, conducting an
experiment, discussing a reading, and so forth. The focus shifts now from what
the teacher will do to how students will participate in the lesson. Once again,
this is a very important aspect of lesson design; what will students do to take
in information, process it, and internalize it? This becomes a liability only if
the focus rests on activities alone—students being busy—without examining
the activities in light of an important learning outcome or weighing decisions
about what activities students will do in terms of how well each activity supports
achievement of an intended lesson objective. Without such a focus, it is possible
that an activity is not teaching what should be taught or that the activity can be
completed without students’ learning anything.
“Write a story,” for example, may be the activity for after lunch in a primary-
grade room. To get the children involved (make the activity more fun, more
attractive, more motivating), the teacher has textured wallpaper pieces they can
use to make covers for their “books” and is going to help them bind their books.
The quality of stories ranges from complete plots with beginnings, middles,
and ends to random pictures with no text at all. While binding each book, the
teacher asks the children about their stories; some make comments, some don’t.
The teacher is focusing on the binding and keeping the flow of students mov-
ing. An observer in the class sees no evidence that there is any particular feature
the teacher is looking for in the stories. She is making an effort to be positive
about some aspect of each child’s work but appears to be looking for nothing in
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particular. The real goal is just that the students produce stories of any quality
and make books to put them in. This is activity thinking in isolation from other
important planning concerns. The teacher might not have intended that, but no
other conclusion is supportable from the observation.
When teachers’ prime planning concern is about activities, they miss opportu-
nities to underline the critical learnings, make connections between learnings
for students, and check and evaluate student learning. A teacher thinking in
terms of activities is concerned more with what students are doing rather than
with what they are learning. Sometimes this confusion shows up in assessment.
Criteria for success might focus more on the visual appeal or mechanics of the
product versus the content substance that indicates achievement of important
learning outcomes.
3. Involvement Thinking
Another important concern in lesson planning is to get all students engaged in
the learning experience. This can be accomplished in many ways: using exam-
ples that are relevant to students (a lesson on the court system for eighth grad-
ers that features a case of police shutting down a party—kids are arrested for
transporting beer even though they did not actually drink it); causing move-
ment, interaction, and exchange of opinion among students; or presenting dis-
crepant events that arouse curiosity. When a teacher plans how information
will be presented or activities are shaped and varied to accommodate a variety
of learning styles, differing levels of background knowledge, or degrees of read-
iness, we see the most complex level of this aspect of planning, and the effects
show up in the classroom. There is strategic consideration about how to present
and have students process information in a variety of modalities, whether stu-
dents should do activities individually, in pairs, in small groups, or as a whole
class; there is often choice and variety available to students. We see evidence of
this kind of thinking when teachers design differentiated learning experiences
for students. The idea is to make the experience inviting and accessible to all
students, provided that all of the concerns and decisions about student engage-
ment are in relation to a particular learning outcome for the lesson.
Here again, if student involvement or engagement becomes the dominant con-
cern without being considered in light of a clear learning objective, things will
look very different. When a teacher says, “My objective tomorrow is to get all
students to react personally and say what they’d do if they invented a horrible
weapon. Would they turn it over to the government?” He is confusing involve-
ment thinking with real learning objectives. There is no learning outcome im-
plied. Success will be measured by whether or not students participated, rather
than by what new learning has occurred or is in evidence.
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Students have to
be engaged with
activities that are
carefully designed
to lead to desired
learnings.
Or consider the following scenario of a teacher talking about a lesson: “My stu-
dents love to do word searches, so I make up one with their spelling words in
it, and they do it for seatwork. They really have fun with them. They really got
into that word search today!” But when we ask how it helped students learn
to spell the words, the answer is, “I’m not sure. I assigned it because I thought
they’d like to do it, and they do.” As it turns out, there is no evidence that word
searches improve students’ ability to spell the words they find. It may improve
their ability to scan complex data fields for visual information. And some may
develop systematic searching strategies for finding the words more efficiently,
but this was not the objective. Students who learn systematic search strategies
are learning it randomly and incidentally, not through any deliberate actions of
the teacher or following the directions given.
Studies of teacher planning (conducted by having teachers think aloud) have
shown that activity thinking and involvement thinking have tended to domi-
nate planning. Planning lessons that are engaging for students is important; it
is a good thing to do. But student engagement is not enough for learning. They
have to be engaged with activities that are carefully designed to lead to desired
learnings.
If we think of a learning experience as a journey students will take, then cover-
age, activity, and involvement thinking are like planning the details of the trip—
the scenic roads, stops along the way, possible alternate routes, what vehicles to
use, how to make it interesting, and so on—without being sure where you’re go-
ing. However, the next two kinds of thinking (determining and articulating the
objectives or student learning outcomes) are of the highest order of importance
in lesson design. To continue the metaphor, the mastery objective identifies the
END of the trip. Hence, it needs to be determined before decisions are made
about the MEANS—what to cover, what activities students will do, and how
things will be designed to maximize student involvement.
4. Mastery Thinking
If the objective is mastery of the spelling words, then the teacher will do some-
thing that should increase the likelihood that the students will spell the words
correctly. Perhaps they will quiz each other in pairs and then make a list of the
words they missed and go through a practice routine of seeing, saying, writing
in the air, and retesting, over a 10-minute period. Then clearly there is a mastery
objective at work for the students.
Perhaps a teacher says, “My objective for tomorrow is for students to be able to
distinguish between rational, amoral, and moral reasons for political decisions
from the list of positions we will generate in class.” If he focuses on student
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learning, there will be lots of checking to see what students know, perceive, or
can do. When the goal is mastery, timetables are flexible, and what’s important
is that students learn well, even if less material is covered.
When teachers plan with a focus on mastery objectives they ask themselves
certain questions: (1) “What exactly do I want students to know and be able to
do when this lesson is over?” (2) “How will I know they have learned it, that is,
what will I take as evidence the objective has been met?” Thus thinking clearly
about objectives also means thinking about formative assessment and how to
gather the data today that will enable us to determine where student learning is
in relation to the targeted objective.
5. Generic Thinking Skills
A fifth kind of thinking about objectives is practiced by teachers who, in ad-
dition to aiming to teach concepts, information, and skills, wish to develop
particular thinking skills in students at the same time. Let’s go back to the word
search. Suppose you want students to learn something about systematic search
as a strategy. That’s the kind of skill we use to look through a collection of nuts
and bolts for a particular size, or scan a map for Maple Street and know at the
beginning only that it’s somewhere on the page.
A teacher who wants students to learn strategies for systematic search would
certainly talk about how different children were going about looking for the
words. Examples would be comparing approaches and strategies, giving names
to the different strategies, listing them on the board, asking students where
else they could use these strategies or what other kinds of tasks would be good
places to try them out (transfer), and so forth. This teacher has a generic think-
ing objective: to develop a thinking skill apart from any particular content
knowledge.
Consider a seventh-grade social studies class working on a chapter about Bed-
ouins of the Arabian desert. There’s a lot of information in the chapter—facts
and concepts galore. But their teacher wants them to learn more than facts. She
wants them to learn about hierarchical relationships—not just relationships in
Bedouin life, but the nature of hierarchical relationships in general, how to find
them and represent them. So she adds something to the assignment, asking
them to identify key terms from the chapter and make a diagram that shows
their relationships to one another. Now something more is required. Figure
19.2 shows two diagrams that students might draw.
Note the different kinds of thinking behind these two diagrams. The first has
terms arranged subordinately according to size. The Murrah is one of many
Video:
Explicit Teaching of
Thinking Skills
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Figure 19.2 Diagrams for Learning About Hierarchical Relationships
Bedouin
|
Tribes
|
The Murrah
|
Clans (25 families)
|
Sheik
|
Clansmen
|
|
Caravan
|
|
House of Hair
|
|
Merchants
|
Bargaining
|
Camels
|
Drought
|
Brackish
|
Harem
|
Festivities
|
Marriage Contract
|
Dowry
The Murrah
|
Tribes
|
|
Clans
|
Clansmen
|
Sheik
|
Transistor Radio
|
Bedouin
|
Camel
|
House of Hair
|
Rainless
|
Festivities
|
Marriage Contract
|
Dowry
|
Caravans
|
Bargain
|
Merchant
|
Drought
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tribes. Each tribe (Murrah included) is composed of clans of about 25 families,
and each clan is headed by a sheik. Each family is organized around a patriarch
and inhabits a “house of hair” (a Bedouin dwelling) with a harem. Then the
relationships shift to category groupings.
The second diagram shows relationships that are random and nonlinear. The
diagram seems to have been created by free association rather than consistent
application of some particular kind of logic.
Now students compare their diagrams in small groups and explain the kind of
relationships their connecting lines represent. They talk to each other about
their thinking and later in a total class discussion will develop, in particular,
what hierarchical or subordinated relationships mean using their examples.
The teacher will use those words (hierarchical, subordinated) because the ob-
jective for this and for the upcoming series of lessons is that they become able
to do that kind of thinking, whether it’s around Bedouins, sports, or computer
programming. The objective here goes beyond mastery of content, though it
includes that. It aims to develop a particular thinking skill.
There are literally dozens of thinking skills that may be targeted and taught
simultaneously with and through academic content. But it takes consciousness
and intentionality to ensure that improving students’ thinking capacity or skills
is the focus of a learning experience. When we bring this lens to lesson design
we ask ourselves, “What thinking skill or processes could I teach or reinforce in
this lesson and how might I engineer activities and assignments so that kind of
thinking will be an instructional focal point?”
TEACHER THINKING AND LESSON PLANNING
We want to make the case that there are pitfalls when coverage, activity, or in-
volvement thinking dominates planning. Since the real goal of coverage think-
ing is to get through material, such teaching is predictably characterized by
more teacher talk, more lecture, and less checking for understanding.
Activity thinking tends to produce classes where students are often busy, some-
times working in groups. There may be good record-keeping systems on stu-
dent completion of tasks and assignments, but activity thinking, when it domi-
nates, tends to produce classes where students are clear on neither what is to
be learned nor the criteria for quality work. Involvement thinking adds higher
energy and more fun, but classes may look essentially the same as those that are
activity based. Table 19.1 describes what lesson objectives sound like for each
Activity thinking
or coverage
thinking is not
good enough if one
never gets as far as
mastery thinking
in preparing for
lessons.
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kind of thinking. A full Taxonomy of Generic Thinking Skills is available on The
Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
In previous chapters, we presented repertoires and argued that all behaviors in
a repertoire can be good if they are an appropriate match to the student, situ-
ation, or curriculum. The repertoire argument needs to be modified, howev-
er, to be valid for the five kinds of thinking about objectives. Activity think-
ing or coverage thinking is not good enough if one never gets as far as mastery
thinking in preparing for lessons. On the other hand, fully developed planners
—teachers who have clear images of what they want students to know and be
able to do—still have to identify content for coverage. They still have to invent or
find activities that could logically lead students to master the intended learnings.
Good planners, in fact, ask the key questions listed in Exhibit 19.1 involved in all
five kinds of thinking, but they start by thoroughly answering the mastery ques-
tion: “What do I want students to know or be able to do? How will I know if they
know it or can do it?” Teachers who are logical, linear, and analytical like to start
with a statement of the mastery objective and proceed deliberately to develop as-
sessment criteria and criterion tasks. Then, they identify activities and materials
that fit in with this objective.
Many of us have “neat” activities or materials we love to use or think will be
highly engaging for students. But this is a dicey place to start the planning pro-
cess, because there is a tendency to warp the objective to fit the activity we love.
There may be a need to give up certain engaging activities we are attached to,
if they do not directly help students learn something they are supposed to be
learning.
Each of us in teaching, in looking back at a class we taught or observed, ought to
be able to infer a clear statement of what students were supposed to be able to do at
the end. And that “something” needs to be connected to the standards of our state
and part of the curriculum our school or district is committed to.
1. What thinking skills do I want students to be able to use? How will I know if they can do it?
2. What do I want students to know or be able to do when the lesson is over?
How will I know if they know it or can do it?
3. How can I get students really engaged?
4. What activities could students do to gain understanding or to develop these skills?
5. What knowledge, skill, or concept am I teaching?
Exhibit 19.1 Key Questions Involved in Lesson Planning
PDF
Taxonomy
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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TWENTY-ONE PLANNING DECISIONS
This is what skillful teachers do beforehand as they are planning their lesson:
1. Check-in with the big ideas of the unit.
2. Articulate the mastery objectives for themselves after digging deeply
into the content.
3. Decide how to communicate objectives to the students.
4. Decide what evidence would demonstrate mastery of this lesson objec-
tive.
5. Analyze evidence about previous student learning (perhaps do an error
analysis of yesterday’s quiz or homework) so they know where to focus.
6. Plan pacing and subgrouping.
Table 19.1 What Objectives Sound Like for Each Kind of Thinking
Thinking Sample Language Used Purpose
1. Generic Thinking: centered on
ways that children function intel-
lectually.
“Analyze relationships between
concepts and diagram them hierar-
chically.”
For students to express or develop
a certain kind of thinking skill.
2. Mastery Thinking: centered on
what children will learn in the way
of new information or skills.
“Be able to describe to each other
the principal causes of World War
I.” “Measure distance using scale
on the map.”
For students to be able to know or
do something specific.
3. Involvement Thinking: centered
on how children will react.
“After giving a dramatic reading of
the story, I’ll solicit their opinions
and get them involved in a discus-
sion.”
For students to be visibly involved−
at least to participate actively and
at best to be excited and have fun.
4. Activity Thinking: centered on
what children will do.
“They’ll look at the video, then
make a map of the South, then
answer the questions at the end of
the chapter.”
For students to finish certain tasks.
5. Coverage Thinking: centered
on what the teacher will do, what
agenda to get through.
“First, I’ll discuss the heat of reac-
tion; then I’ll go over endothermic
reactions, entropy, enthalpy, and
then review valences.”
To mention or get students to men-
tion ideas.
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7. Pick materials, models, examples, stories, and cases to use.
8. Anticipate confusions, especially language and vocabulary meanings,
and identify requisite prior knowledge students might not have.
9. Design and choose learning experiences.
10. Check that learning experiences are logically linked to the intended
learning.
11. Decide how to collect evidence of learning during or concluding this
lesson.
12. Plan how students will make their thinking visible and public.
13. Plan how to get students to summarize.
14. Plan how to get students’ minds in gear at the beginning.
15. Predict how much time will be needed for each task or activity, and plan
other environmental variables (space, management routines) that may
need to be arranged.
16. Plan the effective effort strategies that may be employed or taught.
17. Plan how to diversify for different learning styles.
18. Plan certain key interactive moves like an opening question.
19. Decide who may need assistance or extensions during the lesson and
provide for it.
20. Plan what extensions and challenges will be provided for students who
are ready for them.
21. Plan how and when to explain the homework and its connection to
today’s lesson.
We expand on each of these points and look at planning decisions a teacher could
conceivably make. These steps are important for planning any class regardless of
whether it’s a literature discussion in AP English, second graders circulating at
math learning stations, a seventh-grade earth science lab, or whole-class direct
instruction in the U.S. Constitution.
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Don’t get the idea that if one doesn’t go through all 21 decisions, the planning is
poor. In certain situations, some decisions are not applicable. In primary grade
literacy, for example, in a guided reading group with three first graders on book
“D,” there is no decision about materials. The leveled books are the materials.
Checking for understanding is continuous as children read, and objectives may
be slightly different for each of the three children. A teacher conducting lessons
based in curricula that use inquiry models of teaching might not start by clarify-
ing objectives for students (though they would be developed at some point later).
For example, for the first lesson or two on representative government there is no
“evidence from yesterday” about how much progress students have made toward
mastery (though there might be a pre-assessment to find out what they already
know or think they know about representative government).
The decisions that follow are divided into two sets. The first 13 are basic and
indispensable decisions for any lesson planning. The second set of eight deci-
sions is important too, but these topics are at a finer level of specificity. Good
planning allows quite a bit of flexibility about the order in which a teacher ad-
dresses these issues and, as we have noted, not all of them need to be addressed
for certain lessons. In general, the decisions don’t have to be addressed in a
linear fashion in the order presented. This should reassure nonlinear thinkers
who hate lists and recipes. The first five decisions, however, are so important
for getting focus in one’s teaching and getting student results that we are going
to ask even the creative-random among us to think these through thoroughly
before going on with your planning.
The Thirteen Basic, Indispensable Planning Decisions
1. Check-in with the curriculum, the standards you’re working on, and
particularly the big idea (enduring understanding) that’s on the table to
be sure the lesson you’re planning connects explicitly to it.
2. Dig into the content to examine its nuances and central ideas. Articu-
late the most worthwhile mastery objective of this lesson (or series of
lessons) to yourself fully. Say exactly what the students will know or be
able to do, or do better, at the end of the lesson.
3. Plan how to communicate the objective to the students with unmistak-
able clarity in language they will understand. How are you going to
get them clear about what they’re trying to learn? Will you generate
essential questions and criteria, give exemplars, or share assessments
you will be using?
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4. Decide what evidence you will use as confirmation of student mastery.
They may not meet it tomorrow, but having this end in mind is the ful-
crum of good planning.
5. Give careful attention to the evidence from yesterday (or whenever else
is relevant) about who “has it” and who doesn’t. Also, look carefully at
those who have it so you know when they’re ready for an extension or
deepening activity.
6. In light of the evidence from yesterday’s work (or from your pre-assess-
ment if this is the first lesson in the series), plan the pace and grouping or
subgrouping if appropriate for differentiation of instruction. This includes
the size of the bite (how big an increment of learning) you will aim for in
this lesson. It also includes whether you need to do some preteaching for
some students and some reteaching for some students who didn’t get it
yesterday. It means coming up with extensions and challenges for those
who got it quickly.
7. Pick materials, including exactly what manipulatives, pictures, dia-
grams, pieces of text, equipment, and media will best make the learning
accessible to the students.
8. Anticipate confusions, especially about vocabulary and concepts to be
used, and preteach if necessary. Anticipate misconceptions, and plan
how to surface them and contradict them.
9. Choose student learning experiences, such as the following:
pp Instructional strategies you will use (e.g., demonstration, modeling,
thinking aloud, mini-lecture with graphic organizer). Pay particular
attention to how you can embed reading strategies in your routines
for engaging text.
pp Tasks, exercises, and activities the students will do.
pp Hooks that will engage student interest.
pp The sequence of student tasks and teacher-guided strategies within the
lesson most likely to develop the concept, skill, or understanding.
pp How to preteach essential vocabulary or concepts that some stu-
dents may lack.
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10. Check that doing the task will logically lead to learning the intended
skill or concept.
11. Decide when and how you will gather the evidence of student learning
during or after the lesson.
12. “Plan how students will make their thinking and understanding public”
(West & Staub, 2003, p. 13). See “Making Students’ Thinking Visible”
in Chapter 11, “Clarity.”
13. Select a strategy for getting students cognitively active in summarizing
and assimilating their new learning.
The Eight Implementation Detail Planning Decisions
14. Decide how you will get students’ minds in gear for this lesson at the
beginning, activate their prior knowledge, and find out what they al-
ready know.
15. Arrange the environmental variables (space, routines that may need
to be preplanned or taught) and how much time you predict will be
needed for each task or activity.
16. Choose the effective effort strategies you may explicitly teach or that
you may ask students to use (e.g., student self-evaluation, use of “effec-
tive effort rubric”).
17. Decide specific interactive moves you should make (key steps in di-
rections, key questions to ask, cues to give, connections to past learn-
ing) “to make sure important ideas are being grappled with and will be
highlighted and clarified” (West & Staub, 2003, p. 12).
18. Decide how to diversify for different student learning styles.
19. Decide how much support, cuing, and help students may need while
doing the work, including deployment of other people who may be in
the room.
20. Decide “what extensions or challenges you will provide for students
who are ready for them” (West & Staub, 2003, p. 12).
21. Choose homework and how and when to explain it and what it’s for.
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THE FINER POINTS ABOUT THE BASIC AND
INDISPENSABLE DECISIONS
Although most of these decisions may seem relatively straightforward, some
further discussion and concrete examples may help to clarify the importance of
giving each thoughtful attention during planning.
Decision 1: Check-in with the Curriculum, the Standards,
and the Big Idea
You could do a good lesson on consonant digraphs in second grade and get away
without connecting it to a big idea. The same is true with density in eighth-grade
science or separation of powers in eleventh-grade U.S. history. Most of us who
are veterans have taught our way through the decades without making connec-
tions to big ideas. But our students would have been better off if we had kept big
ideas in mind and made explicit connections for them when appropriate.
The big idea in the second-grade lesson may be a theme we’re pursuing all year
long: “You can get tools for figuring out any word you don’t know, and this year
we’re filling in our tool box so you’ll be able to sound out any word!” Perhaps in
your curriculum, the word is strategies, and the big idea is that “we’re learning
to be strategic readers. As readers, we’re in charge, and we have lots of different
strategies to reach for if we don’t know a word.” So in today’s lesson, digraphs are
explicitly connected to phonic clues, a strategy different from the one the class
worked on yesterday (which was reading the whole sentence and skipping the
unknown word to see if that enabled the children to guess).
Another example is about how the Constitution designs separation of powers
of the three branches of government into the working of our republic. Teaching
how that operates and why (checks and balances) is a standard U.S. history ob-
jective. This learning (and, in fact, most other teaching points, regardless of aca-
demic discipline) becomes more compelling and more interesting to students
if they see it as connected to something that’s bigger and inherently important.
That’s what a big idea or enduring understanding is—something important to
connect the learning to that is motivating. One possibility of a big idea for the
separation of powers might be, “It takes vigilance to preserve the balance of
powers our founding fathers built into the Constitution. Every few decades you
can find an episode in history where an interest group tries to assert its power
by strengthening one of the branches above the others. So far, we’ve managed to
counter those campaigns, but it hasn’t been easy.” A big idea like that stimulates
a strong reason for students to understand the operation of separation of pow-
ers because they’re going to be asked to use it to analyze historical episodes that
A big idea
or enduring
understanding
is something
important to
connect the
learning to that
is motivating.
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could have derailed the U.S. democracy and perhaps analyze current efforts to
swing power to one branch.
Decision 2: Dig into the Content and Articulate the Mastery
Objective for Yourself
Compose the objective in mastery language so you yourself know what student
performance (“will be able to do”) you would take as evidence of mastery. Mas-
tery objectives start with the learner as the subject: “Students will be able to . . .”
followed by an action verb (e.g., make, list, describe) that can be observed (see
Chapter 18, “Lesson Objectives”).
The next step for planning a lesson is thinking deeply about the content to be
learned today. What the students are supposed to be learning is usually listed at
a high level of abstraction in the standards document of the school district (or
state) and the list of learning expectations for the course. But to plan a lesson
that works for the children today, we need to be much more specific than that.
Before we think about assessment, student activities, metacognition, differenti-
ated instruction, designing questions, or student motivation, we must look at
the materials in the curriculum at a finely grained level to find out what the
content is that the students are supposed to learn. Maybe it’s a skill, a concept,
a body of information (facts), or a combination of these. But first, we must
determine exactly what it is supposed to be and express this in concrete and
precise language.
So get the book, the lab manual, the novel, or the problem set that the students
are going to engage today, and examine it in detail. Here are some examples
from different grade levels and subject areas:
Example 1: Elementary Mathematics
First-grade students are asked to fill in blanks in number patterns.
The first one is, “2, 4, ____, 8, ____, ____. What is the rule?”
The second one is, “The rule is to go back four each time: 34, _____, 26, ____,
18, ____, _____ ” There is a number line on the page to help them.
A student who can count by 2s may see that the first example is a pattern of
counting by 2s, and then might just swing into using that memorized pattern to
fill in the blanks. Is that what you, the teacher, want this exercise to be about—
“What do I want
students to know
or be able to do?
How will I know if
they know it or can
do it?”
Video:
Planning
Conference
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applying memorized counting by two patterns? If so, that would be fine. But
perhaps, the learning is supposed to be about number lines and how to use
them as a visual tool for understanding addition. The rule is “add two” with each
increment, and that means jumping two spaces on the number line. Are you
sure your students know how to apply repetitive rules to adding on a number
line? Do they need any instruction or practice before you turn them loose for
independent work? What exactly is the most developmentally appropriate idea
mathematically and the most important learning for the students to get out of
this?
What about the second task on the sheet: a subtraction model. That means go-
ing to the left on the number line, “backward” on the number line, decreasing
in value. But the numbers in the task, though going down in value, go from
left to right on the page, “increasing” direction on the number line, which is
the opposite of how one would go on the number line to carry out subtraction.
Will that be confusing? Do you expect the students to use the number line to
get their answers, counting back four units with each move? Are you using the
terms addition and subtraction yet? What vocabulary is appropriate for where
the students are in their learning? What does a student have to know in order to
do this second example? Should you do the second example at all today?
These are the kinds of questions we need to ask ourselves about the content
before planning other aspects of the lesson. The starting point is looking at the
actual materials to see what the learning objective should be for the students,
given what they know and what the next step for them should be.
Example 2: Seventh-Grade Science
The textbook chapter is full of information about the interaction of ocean waves
and landforms, including the names of many landforms that get created (for
example, spit, headland). There are also terms that pertain to the processes that
ocean movement cause (erosion, deposition), and there are terms related to
these processes (sediment, glacial moraine). So amid all this information, what
is the most important learning that students walk out the door with?
We have to do a close reading of the chapter ourselves to answer that question.
Such a close examination of the text reveals that the main point is that waves
alter land and that affects peoples’ lives. Everything else in the chapter is about
different aspects of the phenomenon: ways that happens, what the landforms
look like, and the names of these different forms. But the main thing is for the
students to understand that the ocean with its waves and currents is constantly
altering the shape of the coastline and that these changes have consequences for
human and animal life. If the activities of the lesson are not designed so every
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student walking out the door could say that in his or her own words, then the
lesson hasn’t been properly planned.
The next step after formulating a clear statement of the mastery objective is to
communicate it to students. This is not a simple package handled by writing
an objectives sentence on the board (though there’s nothing wrong with that).
It’s fine to tell the students what the mastery objective is, but just telling them
doesn’t mean they understand it (or care about it). The essential questions and
enduring understandings that are embedded in good curriculum help with
“Why should I care?” For example, we may be studying the separation of pow-
ers to answer the larger question, “Is the Supreme Court taking over the legisla-
tive function, and is that OK?” When Grant Wiggins said, “Assessment is the
Trojan horse of school reform,” he meant that through assessment, students
(and families and everyone else too) finally “get” what you really wanted them
to learn. Therefore, giving the students the assessment (yes, the test) in advance
gets people really clear about what the learning is supposed to look like.
Communicating what you really want students to know or be able to do in-
cludes explicitly showing them the performance task you expect them to do at
the end of the instruction, ideally with a list of criteria, exemplars of products
that are done well, and rubrics for scoring the exemplars. It may also include
having students develop their own criteria or having them analyze “not yet”
examples, since we all get clearer about what something is by also knowing
what it is not (see Chapter 18, “Lesson Objectives”). In addition, it will include
checking for understanding of the objective and “unpacking” it at the begin-
ning of the lesson as described in Chapter 18. That is to make sure they under-
stand the vocabulary in the objective and the outcome it aims for.
So far, we have advocated planning explicitly how to (1) make a clear statement
of objectives, (2) show the assessment task, (3) give criteria, (4) share exem-
plars, and (5) explain rubrics. Having all these ready up front would be the full-
est way to communicate objectives to students in a no-secrets classroom. You
don’t need all these, of course, when the learning targets are small. If students
are learning the skill of using latitude and longitude to locate a place on the
globe, they don’t need a rubric. But many student products assigned (essays,
lab reports, stories, oral reports) could have all five of these elements available
for students. Math and science problems—that exemplify the skills students
are responsible for—can be given to students in advance along with solutions
worked out just as you want them to be able to do on the assessment.
If you expect the students to explain what powers each branch of government
has and how they check and balance one another, you wouldn’t give them the
whole exemplary essay that answers the question in text. You would tell them
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the aspects of checks and balances you want them to be able to comment on and
not leave them to guess. For example, “Be able to explain how the legislature
uses the confirmation process and the budget process to influence the court;
show an example of how the court tests the constitutionality of legislation and
can overturn it; be sure to explain how influence is exerted in at least one sig-
nificant way between each of the following: legislative on executive, legislative
on judicial, executive on legislative, executive on judicial, judicial on executive,
judicial on legislative.”
Choosing and communicating objectives in primary-grade literacy and numer-
acy looks a little different. If you’re doing guided reading with three first graders
on a book at the “E” level, you are working on a developmental continuum with
each of the three children. Your records identify different skill elements to focus
on with each child. Maisha is ready to work on fluency and reading with more
natural speech rhythm; John is ready to master sound blending with “e” and
“i” words; Darcy is ready to master the voice changes signaled by periods and
commas. Notice we haven’t said “Maisha needs . . .” or “John needs . . .” It’s not
that they’re needy; it’s that they are mastering the skills of reading that are next
for them developmentally. They’re all reading the same book, seated with you at
the same time. As each child reads, you give cues and small pieces of instruction
in line with what skills they’re developing: “Now, Darcy, pay attention to the
comma in the sentence coming up; I bet you’ll be able to make it sound just like
talking!” Note the expression of confidence in her.
Decision 3: Plan How to Communicate the Objective to
the Students with Unmistakable Clarity
Check back to Chapter 18, “Lesson Objectives,” for points on student-friendly
language and check for understanding of the objectives on pages 471 and 472.
Decision 4: Decide What You Will Take as Evidence of
Student Mastery
What’s the test item or performance that, if a student could do it successfully,
you would take as evidence of mastery? It may be as simple as looking over a stu-
dent’s shoulder and seeing her set up a three-step word problem correctly after
reading it. It could be hearing a student explain to you how the executive branch
exerts influence over the judiciary through the appointment process. The point
is this: it is extremely important for us as teachers to get this performance in
mind clearly before we begin a lesson. This performance becomes the anchor
for everything else we do in the planning process. Thus when we get to design-
ing learning experiences, we will ask, Would question X or activity Y likely lead
students to be able to do this performance?
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Having envisioned specifically what performance we want from each student,
we are much more likely to assess the children frequently and use those data as
feedback for them and for ourselves about the effectiveness of the instruction.
Both kinds of feedback are essential to successful teaching, and both have their
origin in the planning of lessons.
Decisions 5 and 6: Analyze Evidence and Plan Pace and
Grouping
When planning a lesson, we should consult data from the students’ performance
yesterday (or whenever we last got data). This information will help us decide
about our pace for the class tomorrow. Obviously, if our students show on the
quiz (or in the learning logs) that they don’t understand what the purpose of the
executive branch of government is, we will not move forward with the judiciary.
More likely though, we discover from the evidence that a few students don’t get
it and the rest do. That’s the way it is with most things taught at any given time.
So now in our planning we have to design something so that the four students,
who are still foggy about the executive branch and its powers, can get clear.
Before generating options for how to handle this situation, consider the attitude
this step represents. We are saying that if four students didn’t show evidence of
understanding what they were doing in today’s class, it is our responsibility to
come up with a plan tonight so they will understand by the end of tomorrow
(or soon). We can’t say, “I taught it; they just didn’t learn it” and move on with
the rest of the class, leaving four students with this gap or move on with the
hope that it will become clear to them through ensuing activities. We have to
plan something to happen for them that will make it clear, and if possible, plan
it for tomorrow. That’s what teachers are for. That is what professional decision-
making and diagnostic expertise are all about. That’s what knowing how to
reach diverse learners is all about. If all the job entailed was being a content
expert and going through the material, then anyone who knows the material
could teach. But if making sure the students learn the material is what the job
is about, then the job requires professional expertise about planning and teach-
ing. That is the position that stands behind these pages on planning skill.
One option is to set up the class in groups for the first 15 minutes debating
whether the executive, particularly the president, has the authority to launch
a punitive military strike against a country that has been proven to sponsor
a terrorist group against the United States. While the groups are debating the
question and coming to a position, you could take aside the four students who
still have confusion about the purpose of the executive and reteach yesterday’s
lesson in a different way, with diagrams and frequent checking for understand-
ing of each of them.
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Another option is to make an appointment with the four students at the begin-
ning of class to see you for supplementary instruction during X block, which
the school has reserved for tutoring and extra help: “Evidence from yesterday’s
quiz shows me you four need another go around from me on the executive
branch. We didn’t get it done yesterday. I’m sure you can master this informa-
tion, but I must have 30 minutes with you all together during an X block. Does
it work better for you today or tomorrow?” Notice the positive attribution state-
ment in this language and the joint assignment of responsibility for the teaching
and learning between teacher and students.
Here is a third option. All year you have been working on a climate of mutual help
and community building in the class. Thus students who have received feedback
that they’re struggling with a concept can ask for help from their peers. Asking
for and giving help has become a valued and praiseworthy behavior in the class
and become scheduled into the rhythms of class routine. So at the beginning of
tomorrow’s class, you say, “Okay, before we start, does anybody want help with
any of yesterday’s material?” Three of the four hands go up: “Who’s willing to
give them a briefing [the term the class has adopted for peer tutoring] at lunch
or some other time today?” Hands go up; the students who ask for help pick
someone, as is the class routine. You thank and praise all who have entered this
process, quickly by name, including the volunteer helpers who weren’t picked.
While this is going on, you walk past Jerome, who didn’t raise his hand for help
but should have, and gently say, “What about you, Jerome?” “I’m goin’ to ask my
Dad tonight,” he replies. How you respond to Jerome depends on the context
variables: whether it’s good Jerome will ask his dad, whether Jerome is an isolate
and you’re trying to build connections between Jerome and others in the class,
and all sorts of other possibilities. The point here is not how to handle Jerome,
but that you have a deliberate plan you decided to implement the night before
to deal with what the evidence told you—that four students don’t get it yet.
There are many options besides these three, and no argument is made that these
three are superior to others. We are making the argument, however, that a
teacher has to come up with something to deal with the situation and that doing
so is part of planning the night before.
Decision 7: Pick Materials
This is the favorite part for many of us. In fact, some us like to start planning
here because we have materials we love to use, materials the students have en-
joyed in the past, and materials we think are engaging and clear. Beware! This
is a habit that can lead to engaging activities that are unconnected to what the
students are supposed to be learning.
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Maybe, you have a great case study you like to use when you study pollution in
earth science. You’ve never seen a better one. And you love to show the movie
A Civil Action to drive the point home about corporate responsibility as a wrap-
up. But does the case study help you make the main point of the unit—that
proactive environmental cleanup has social costs as well as social benefits?
You could use the case to make that point if you had some additional data
to go with it. That is, you may find a place for your favorite materials in this
series of lessons you’re preparing, but start with the mastery objective and the
evidence you would take that students had mastered it. Then go back and see
if your favorite materials still fit or if they can be modified to fit the objective
more precisely.
Decision 8: Anticipate Confusions
When planning lessons, it is enormously helpful if the teacher’s experience base
allows him or her to predict what will be difficult or confusing for students
about upcoming concepts or skills. Teachers use those predictions to develop
something particularly clear or vivid for explaining that concept, warn the stu-
dents in advance that this is particularly hard (thus they should ratchet up their
focus and attention), do something to surface the confusion explicitly and ex-
plicitly contradict it, or tailor materials and the tasks students are asked to do
to address that confusion.
Student confusions are often rooted in their different understandings of the
words and terms used. For example, in the primary grades when students are
given a set of seven tiles and a set of four tiles and asked how many more there
are in the larger set, there is a confusion that prevents them coming up with 3
as the answer. It’s a language confusion. They tend to focus on the word “more,”
identify the bigger set, which has more, and count how many are in it. Thus
they give the answer 7. We have seen teachers design excellent activities for
students that nevertheless don’t do the job, because they didn’t anticipate this
kind of confusion.
One meaning of “how many more” in a mathematical question is “how many
extra in the bigger set if you match up the two sets one to one.” Failure to use
that language—or in some way address the language confusion of the chil-
dren—delays the learning and causes confusion that is evident despite an oth-
erwise excellent design for materials and tasks. Anticipating this confusion
might have led to a different sequence of activities (like saving the introduction
of the subtraction algorithm for later) and different language in the directions
to the students with the task.
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Decisions 9 and 10: Design Learning Experiences That Are
Logically Linked to the Intended Learning
The next aspect of lesson planning is the design of student learning experi-
ences. Schlechty (2000) says that the center of teaching skill is the work we
create for students to do. That is congruent with what Ralph Tyler (1949) said
long ago when he pointed out that learning proceeds from what the students
do, not what we do. But what the students do derives from the tasks we set for
them and the preparation (instruction) we give them for those tasks. A learn-
ing experience is more complex than just designing tasks for students, although
it includes the tasks. It is smaller than a lesson because a lesson can shift gears
and contain several learning experiences. Every time the activity changes, the
learning experience changes. Typically, a good lesson changes activity structure
every now and then so as not to bore students.
A learning experience may be the teacher presenting, a Q&A session, a dem-
onstration, student group work, and all manner of cognitive activities and
formats. In this stage of planning, a teacher may choose a strategy to help
students understand, like developing a graphic organizer of photosynthesis
or doing a think-aloud with an approach to problem-solving in math. And
interspersed with these activities is a sequence of tasks for students: solve
this problem; respond to this inference question; compare notes with your
neighbor; determine the most important variable, defend your choice; make
a table of data; or come up with a topic sentence. The design of the students’
cognitive experience in a lesson is under our control. Clearly, doing that well
has a tremendous influence on children’s opportunity to learn. Thus planning
the minute-to-minute unfolding of those learning experiences in some detail
is a vital component of teaching skill.
Let’s start with student tasks. We select or make them up for students to do,
some during the lesson, and some afterward for homework. The key question
is, “Is the doing of the task likely to lead students to learn the learning?” This is
not a trivial question.
Let’s say that students are asked to trace a map of Africa, fill in the names of
the countries, and color it in. This is part of a unit on Africa. Some outcomes a
teacher might reasonably want in the unit are for students to be able to name
African countries if they are shown an outline of the shape without the name,
identify which countries have coasts and which are inland, estimate the relative
size of African countries in relation to each other, and explain the relationship
between the country’s location and water supply to its climate and growing sea-
son. Any of these might be worthwhile goals, but none of them will be realized
by drawing an attractive map. There is nothing wrong with each student going
Planning the
minute-to-
minute unfolding
of learning
experiences in
some detail is a
vital component
of teaching skill.
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home with an attractive, accurate map of Africa, but additional events and as-
signments must be planned if they are to learn something.
If we want students to be able to name the countries, then we make up a game
where that is required. If we want students to know which countries are inland,
then we have them highlight these countries on the map in a certain way and
memorize a list. If we want them to know the relative sizes of the countries,
then we have them estimate how many cutouts of given countries can fit inside
a to-scale cutout of, say, the United States and construct a table of comparisons
from smallest to largest. If we want them to understand the placement of the
country on the continent in relation to climate and growing season, then we
have them color in the map by topological features and write sentences about
the patterns of crops and closeness to the equator. It should be logically con-
ceivable that the doing of the task assigned to students could (though not nec-
essarily by itself ) lead them to the intended learning. Our point is this: look
carefully at the activities you select for students to do in relation to the mastery
objective and ask yourself if doing that task is connected to the precise learning
you’re aiming for. Fun activities do not ensure worthwhile learning.
Decision 11: Decide How and When to Gather
Evidence of Student Learning
Each lesson should produce data we can use to decide how many students
“have it,” who doesn’t, and who is ready for moving ahead. If we don’t have data
of some kind to look at as we’re getting ready to plan, then there was a hole in
our planning or implementation yesterday.
Decision 12: Decide How Students Will Make
Their Thinking and Understanding Public
The sequence of activities should include a way for students to be talking, writ-
ing, and interacting with each other around the content of the class in such a
way that they can respond to one another and the teacher has access to their
thinking. If we have internalized the principles of “Making Students’ Thinking
Visible” (see Chapter 11, “Clarity”), this will be built into how we structure
student interaction for robust talk.
Decision 13: Plan How to Get Students Cognitively
Active in Summarizing
The “Summarizing” section in Chapter 11, “Clarity,” describes the significance
of this behavior. The planning implication is simply that time needs to be pro-
Look carefully at the
activities you select
for students and
ask yourself if they
are connected to
the precise learning
you’re aiming for.
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vided for it to occur, and the actual mechanism for summarizing may require
some preparation.
THE FINER POINTS ABOUT IMPLEMENTATION DECISIONS
These decisions are slightly less critical than the ones above, but they can often
determine the success of a lesson.
Decision 14: Get the Students’ Minds in Gear
This item means choosing and using an activator (see Chapter 11, “Clarity”). No
lesson hinges on doing or not doing this strategy. It is particularly useful, how-
ever, when starting a new topic like “taxes” or “weather,” because it can surface
many misconceptions we can deal with later.
Decision 15: Decide How Much Time Will Be Needed for
Each Task or Activity
Do a fast-forward time-lapse mental movie in which you imagine the activities
playing out. Will they fit in the time allotted? If necessary, plan other environ-
mental variables (space and routines) so that they will.
Decision 16: Plan the Effective Effort Strategies That May
Come into Play
This is an uncommon element in lesson planning. We have included it because
teaching the students how to exert effective effort is a commitment of ours
personally, and we think it should be in the background all the time, waiting
for opportunities to be included in any lesson (these strategies are profiled in
Chapter 14, “Expectations”). Suffice it to say here that we should scan those
ideas often during lesson planning to see which ones can be included today, es-
pecially strategies like student self-identification of errors and self-correction.
Decision 17: Plan Interactive Moves
This includes planning your questions so as to guide thinking appropriately. A
related question is what mediating we have to do as teachers so the students can
take advantage of the available learning by doing the task. For example, if we
want students to be aware of the proximity of the African country to the equator
and its effect on climate, we could have students draw the equator on the map at
the beginning. Then we might say, “Now as you’re drawing in countries, figure
out how you’ll record in a separate data table how far they are from the equator.
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Later, I’m going to ask you to show some connection between their location
and their crops and growing season. Who wants to predict what we may find?”
These moves cue the students about a line of inquiry that they will be pursuing
about geography, climate, and crops. It also gets a few predictions out for the
students to be thinking about as they’re working on the map: “Mr. Rodriguez,
I think the countries close to the equator will have a lot of desert and grow
crops only close to rivers.” Without some deliberate structuring for students’
cognition while working on the map, they may produce a great map without
any cognition at all related to what you want them to know. Students can trace
and label a perfectly beautiful map while at the same time socializing. Good
planners decide in advance on structuring moves that increase the percentage
of student attention and cognition that is spent on the desired learning.
A number of the Clarity moves (like activating students’ current knowledge or
explicitly telling students the reason for the activity they’re doing) fit here. Of
particular importance is planning the questions to ask so as to guide thinking
along productive paths and stretch the thinking of all students to higher levels.
(For more detail on this, see the document “Questioning Skills” for Chapter 11
on The Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.)
Decision 18: Plan How to Diversify for Different Student
Learning Styles
The simplest and most practical level of diversification is the set of variables
we’ve laid out in Chapter 20, “Differentiated Instruction.” If you have all the
above issues under control, then it is time to see how you can vary perceptual
mode, grouping structure, and so on to match and stretch student learning
preferences. To go deeper into this topic, explore McCarthy (1987b), Gregorc
and Ward (1977), Dunn and Dunn (1978), and Tomlinson (2014).
Another potential decision (we call it 18a) is to plan how and when to check
for understanding. Acknowledging that this is often done on the fly, it may be
helpful to flag a check-in point during planning to make sure we stop and get
some data from all the students about how clear they are. Such a point would be
where we’re shifting gears or subtopics, and failure to understand the previous
topic would ruin a student’s understanding of what you are about to explain
in the next 5 minutes. For example, in automotive class you’ve just finished
explaining the four-stroke cycle of a piston in the internal combustion engine.
You’re about to explain the significance of spark plug timing, that is how close
to top dead center of the compression stroke the plug fires. But if the students
have any confusion about what is happening in the compression stroke and that
the valves are all closed, thus holding in the gas-air mixture, they won’t under-
PDF
Questioning
Skills
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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stand the significance of spark timing at all. You’d better stop here and check
for understanding. Wiliam (2015) calls these questions “hinge” questions. For
an interesting “how to article” on hinge questions see Fletcher-Wood (2013).
Decision 19: Decide How Much Help an Individual Student May
Need and from Whom
This item is related to planning pacing and grouping. If you have aides, para-
professionals, or volunteers in the room, this is where we plan who is deployed
with whom.
Decision 20: Plan Extensions or Challenges for Students Who
Are Ready for Them
Some students will get the instruction quickly and be left sitting on their hands
unless we plan an extension activity that will stretch them. This activity needs
to be one that they can do with help from peers or on their own since we will be
working with those who don’t get it yet at this time.
Decision 21: Plan Homework
In the era of the “flipped classroom,” homework is often watching/listening
to a teacher presentation that would previously have been delivered in class.
Input of information or presentation and demonstration is the purpose. There
should be no argument about how worthwhile this kind of homework is as
long as the presentation or demonstration is clear and the content is on target
for the students.
On the other hand, debate abounds about traditional homework, whether to
give it, and if so, how much. However, we do not derive much wisdom from
the research (Cooper, 2008) because such research has been unable to account
for whether the assignments are worthwhile, that is, whether they have quality
and appropriateness. We described how these features operate in Chapter 12,
“Principles of Learning.” Let’s examine the elements of these two criteria for
being worthwhile:
1. Appropriateness: This is the easier of the two criteria to investigate. It
simply asks that the students have adequate prior knowledge to do the
assignment, and that it is not so easy that it does not advance or deepen
their learning.
2. Quality: If homework causes practice with something that benefits
from practice, like speaking or reading a foreign language, that would
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meet the standard of quality as long as it was effective practice. What
makes practice effective? It should have the following qualities:
pp Massed
pp Smallest unit that has meaning
pp Short bursts
pp Frequent sessions
pp Overlearning
For details on these five elements, see Chapter 12, “Principles of Learning.”
If homework asks students to apply a skill that is at their growing edge, it is
worthwhile. It is not worthwhile if it asks for application of a skill they have
mastered long ago or that is over their heads. Other homework assignments
can apply and deepen skills. They can call for students to manipulate informa-
tion and practice high-level thinking. Here are a few examples:
pp Make a bulleted list of arguing points from two editorials that take op-
posite positions on who should be our next U.S. senator.
pp Draw a graphic organizer of the chapter we discussed in class today in
the science textbook, in such a way that you show the important ideas
and how they relate to each other.
The position we take here is that it is good to assign homework if the home-
work is good—useful for practice and learning and worthwhile in the thinking
it provokes. For example, “Read Chapter 3 in the text” or “read the next short
story in the anthology” as prep for class discussions would be better if there
were something specified for students to read for (e.g., “Decide on the tone the
author adopts and what words or phrases leads you to that conclusion.”) An-
other worthwhile addition to the “read” assignment would be to apply a par-
ticular skill of literate readers that the class has been working on. For example,
“Identify points with the most convincing evidence and be prepared to say why
the evidence is convincing.”
Many ELA teachers, especially in elementary school, require students to read a
certain number of minutes nightly from a trade book that is at their level. The
rationale here is that readers improve by reading. While there is certainly sup-
port for the proposition that more independent reading correlates with reading
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achievement and academic success (Cullinan, 2000), it is quite possible that stu-
dents who choose to read more are those already best at it and those who enjoy
reading most. We would urge consideration of reading level and student interest
in shaping these nightly requirements for reading at home.
So should we assign homework? Only if it’s good homework. Good homework
has the following characteristics:
pp Students understand how it is connected to their learning.
pp It advances the students’ understanding of a concept.
pp It generates fluency with a skill or ability to apply a skill in a more dif-
ficult or different context.
pp It gives students the background information they need for upcoming
in-class work.
But beyond its quality, plan how you’re going to explain to students the connec-
tion between today’s class and tonight’s homework.
PLANNING, CLARITY, AND EXPECTATIONS
Planning is a carefully executed cognitive scenario, really a set of cognitive tasks
in an extended scenario. It is not intuitive or easy, and not to be done hastily, but
clearly it can be learned and coached, though often not developed sufficiently
in teacher preparation. Good planning draws on—and is related to—many of
the concepts developed in Chapters 11, “Clarity,” and 14, “Expectations,” and is
described in Exhibit 19.2.
Much checking for understanding (“Clarity”) is not generally planned in ad-
vance, though it is often wise to identify certain benchmark moments for check-
ing. Successful teacher checking is broad and deep and springs spontaneously
from the teacher’s repertoire during interactive teaching. This chapter is about
the elements that show up during a lesson that do not spring spontaneously
from an acquired repertoire in the way “Attention” and “Momentum” moves do
or checking and unscrambling do.
A virtuoso may make sensitive and skillful moves on the fly during instruction,
but if these moves are not done within a well-designed plan for students, learn-
ing is limited. Consider an analogy to sports. A virtuoso player may dazzle us
with his or her performance in one part of the field, but unless there is a game
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Exhibit 19.2 Relationships Between Planning, Clarity, and Expectations
Planning Decisions
1. Recall big idea
2. Articulate mastery objective for today
3. Plan how to communicate objective
4. Envision evidence you’ll take as a
sign of achievement of objective
mastery
5. Analyze evidence from recent
student work
6. Plan pace and subgrouping
7. Pick materials
8. Anticipate confusions
9. Identify presentation strategy and
student tasks
10. Check match of student task with
objective
11. Plan how and when to gather evi-
dence of student learning
12. Plan how students will make their
thinking public
13. Plan how to get students to
summarize
14. Plan how to get students’ minds in
gear
15. Plan space, time, routines
16. Plan effective effort strategies
17. Plan interactive moves (cues,
questions)
18. Plan how to diversify
19. Plan student assistance
20. Plan extensions and challenges
21. Plan homework: what, why, and con-
nections to today
Clarity Move
Communicating objective
Criteria for success
Anticipating confusions
Explanatory devices
Checking understanding
Making thinking visible
Summarizing
Activating knowledge
Explicitness, questioning
Making connections
Expectations Arena
Grouping and “reteaching loop”
Calling on and responding
to students
Six Attributes of effective effort
Feedback and
grading structures
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plan that is solid and appropriate, the team won’t win despite its talented players.
The teacher in a classroom is like a player-coach. She is on the field interacting
with individual students, making plays, and making a difference. But the teacher
is also responsible for the conditions of the game: the quality of the learning
experiences designed for the students; the careful attention to data about cur-
rent student performance that will underlie teacher choices; the careful plan-
ning of questions, groupings, and the series of tasks for students; the quality and
frequency of feedback that has been engineered for the students that day; and
the structures and systems that build student confidence and promote effective ef-
fort. All of these aspects of students’ experience unfold every day, and the more
design and thought that are behind them, the better the learning will be. A big
part of the skill of successful teachers is knowing how to plan these and other
elements of sound instruction. Planning happens off the field, the night before.
A big part of the
skill of successful
teachers is
knowing how
to plan all of
the elements
of sound
instruction.
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Twenty-One Planning Decisions
1. Check-in with the big ideas of the unit.
2. Dig into the content and articulate the most worthwhile mastery objective.
3. Plan how to communicate objectives to the students.
4. Decide what evidence would demonstrate mastery of this lesson objective.
5. Analyze evidence about previous student learning (perhaps yesterday’s quiz or home-
work) so students know where to focus.
6. Plan pacing and subgrouping.
7. Pick materials, models, examples, stories, and cases to use.
8. Anticipate confusions, especially language and vocabulary meanings, and identify requi-
site prior knowledge students might not have.
9. Design and choose learning experiences.
10. Check that learning experiences are logically linked to the intended learning.
11. Decide how to collect evidence of learning during or concluding this lesson.
12. Plan how students will make their thinking visible and public.
13. Plan how to get students to summarize.
14. Plan how to get students’ minds in gear at the beginning.
15. Predict how much time will be needed for each task or activity and plan other environ-
mental variables (space, routines) that may need to be arranged.
16. Plan the effective effort strategies that may be employed or taught.
17. Plan how to diversify for different learning styles.
18. Plan certain key interactive moves like an opening question.
19. Decide who may need assistance or extensions during the lesson and provide for it.
20. Plan what extensions and challenges will be provided for students who are ready for them.
21. Plan how and when to explain the homework and its connection to today’s lesson.
To check your knowledge about Planning, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher website at
www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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NOTES
20. Differentiated Instruction
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Curriculum
Differentiated
Instruction
Curriculum:
Differentiated Instruction
The main point of this area of performance is to enable you to survey the activities you offer to students so that you can describe them in a new way. This new way may give you a fuller picture than you have had
before of what students are experiencing in your class, or it may give you a pic-
ture of what they are not experiencing, that is, the characteristics your learning
experiences do not have. This information could lead you to make one of the
following statements:
p “That’s fine. It’s okay not to have these features. What I’m doing is really
on target for this curriculum, and those wouldn’t be.”
p “Well, there are some things I’m not doing that would be good to do.
I’d like to do them, but there’s just so much time. I think I’ll put them
on the back burner for now and look into adding them when things
slow up a bit.”
p “Well, there are a few things I hadn’t thought about much before.
They’d be really good, and I’d like to try them now.”
The point is that you should be able to look at your teaching, or that of someone
else, and see more than you have before and then make some decisions based
on your new understanding. You may come away from this chapter newly
aware, or perhaps reminded, of some important things that you can design into
students’ experiences that match the students. In The Differentiated Classroom
(2014), Carol Ann Tomlinson explains “that it’s about choosing the strategy
that will work best for a given learner at a given time” (p. 102). This is what we
mean throughout this book by “matching.”
This area of performance is constructed from the students’ point of view. We ask
first, “What are students experiencing in their environment? What are the at-
tributes of the activity? What is it like from the students’ angle to be doing this?”
Then we ask, “So what? What difference does it make? Of what importance is
what students are experiencing on this particular attribute? What does it mean
about their overall school learning?” This enables us to make choices, because the
shape of the learning experience is, after all, something we control as teachers.
Being effective
with differentiated
instruction is a
developmental
level for teachers
who are already
proficient with
other foundational
skills.
CHAPTER
20
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TYPES OF DIFFERENTIATION
“Differentiation” has many meanings. It can mean students are studying differ-
ent material at the same time. This may be because of student choice (see “ex-
perts” in Chapter 16, “Classroom Climate”). While their topics may be different
(e.g., one student is becoming an expert on elephants, another is becoming an
expert on race cars), the criteria for success for their reports will be the same.
Reteaching or extension groups is another form of differentiation (see the
“Scholar’s Loop” in Chapter 14, “Expectations”). Students are working in groups
on different concepts or skills with the teacher taking charge of one group. Stu-
dents who need support with a concept or skill are in one group and students
who need extension work with new challenges are in another group. Ongoing
formative assessment during instruction produces the information about which
students have which needs. The management of grouping, choice of materials,
and determination of tasks requires a level of planning beyond total group in-
struction that follows a pacing guide. It is, however, the most important focus
for differentiation to bring all students to high standards.
The movement of the last decade for Response to Intervention (RTI) is based on
this value. RTI groups children across classrooms within a grade level to focus
on a particular skill. It takes constant communication between the teachers to
regroup based on data. Married to this communication and assessment pattern
must be the commitment to getting all students to proficiency. This will mean
accelerating some students who are behind. Without this value, RTI could de-
generate into permanent tracking in an elementary school.
Reteaching and extension groups are forms of differentiation that must be pow-
ered by a desire to accelerate the learning of students who are behind, not a
strategy to reduce curriculum demands for “low” performing students. Thus the
belief system that “Smart is something you can get” transforms how teachers
implement differentiated instruction. Differentiation becomes a tool for imple-
menting the growth mindset, not an adjustment for “low” performing students.
Research on the effects of differentiation is weak (Hattie, 2012). Our hypothesis
is this: being effective with differentiated instruction is a developmental level for
teachers who are already proficient with other foundational skills. If the objec-
tives are not appropriate for the students and they don’t understand them to
begin with, differentiated instruction can’t possibly have an effect. Differentia-
tion also fails in the absence of ongoing formative assessment to give a teacher
accurate information about students and their level of mastery. Differentiated
instruction cannot be expected to boost achievement if students do not believe
they can achieve or that it is worth their while to do so.
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So professional development on differentiated instruction should be postponed
until teachers have demonstrated proficiency on the “Big Rocks” of objectives,
assessment, and student motivation. This chapter is of particular use to teach-
ers who want to make instruction more interesting and varied for students. The
variables to follow could be matched to students’ learning style, as many (Dunn
& Dunn, 1978; Gregorc & Ward, 1977; McCarthy, 1987a; Tomlinson, 2014)
have recommended over the years, but even without a focus on matching these
variables can be deliberately manipulated to make learning more active, more
varied, and more interesting.
ANALYZING LEARNING EXPERIENCES
We analyze a student’s learning experience almost as if it were a real, tangible
thing, like a rock. It isn’t tangible, but it is real and has describable attributes as a
rock does. Supervision, for example, is an attribute with three possible values (or
options): independent, facilitated, or directly supervised. Which are students
experiencing right now? They may be closely and directly supervised right now
and independent later in the day. Their learning experience may change based
on this attribute, and when it does it’s a different learning experience.
A learning experience takes place over a time span with a beginning, middle,
and end. It can be quite short—a matter of minutes—or extend to hours. When
it changes on significant attributes, it’s a different learning experience.
This kind of analysis yields a full and accurate picture of what the student is ex-
periencing in a planned activity. We can look at activities over a period of time
and see what patterns and ranges are built into these experiences. Then we can
decide if the range is appropriate. Are we ever giving students a chance to work
cooperatively, for example, or is it always competitive or individualistic? Which
sensory input channels are stimulated? Do we ever use the kinesthetic channel?
What is the balance between concrete and abstract in our teaching? This area
of performance provides a set of questions with which to survey our teaching
periodically and see if we are offering what we want to offer. Finally, this area of
performance gives some sharp-focus lenses to look at matching and adjusting
learning experiences for individual students or groups.
THIRTEEN ATTRIBUTES OF DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION
In the following sections, we describe the attributes of Differentiated Instruc-
tion one by one and lay out the possible forms each may take. You may choose
to profile yourself as you go, noticing which of the options characterize learn-
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ing experiences you offer and then deciding if those choices are broad enough
and appropriately matched to your students.
1. Sources of Information
Definition
You can examine learning experiences to determine whether the information
the students are working with is conventional—from conventional sources such
as a text, a reference book, you, or some other source that gives the information
to them—or constructed—meaning that the students constructed the knowledge
through some process of their own, such as observation, experiment, interview,
deduction, induction, application of logic, discussion, debate, or questioning.
Looking something up is always a conventional source of information. The stu-
dent’s own initiative, objective, and choice of learning experience may be behind
the act of looking up, for instance, design features of an airplane, but the source
of the information is still conventional.
Significance
It is significant to know whether students are ever challenged or put in positions
where they are able to use their own resources as active agents for the generation
of knowledge new to them, as opposed to receiving information that has been
assembled, organized, or digested for them. Neither source of information is
better than the other, but they are clearly different in their effects on the learner.
If teaching uses either source to the exclusion of the other, we are led to ask
whether learners have sufficient balance in their educational program.
2. Resources
Definition
Students may use any one or more of the following resources in the course of
their work:
p A text
p The teacher
p Peers
p Families
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p Interviews with outside people (other than family, teachers, or peers)
p Observation
p Audiovisual material
p Online services or electronic sources
p Reference books
p Their own imaginations or experiences
This attribute is an index to the breadth of resources brought to bear on the stu-
dent’s learning experience and can tally a simple count of how many are used.
Significance
Over the course of a student’s education, we would expect all of the resources
listed to be used. In any one course, grade, or class, you would ask which re-
sources and how broad a range were appropriate and desirable, and compare
that with the reality. In examining an individual student’s educational experi-
ence, you could usefully ask how many of these resources were brought to bear
across different courses and evaluate the fit of the operating range of resources
to the intentions of the program.
3. Personal Relevance
Definition
On this attribute, learning experiences are found to be contrived, simulated, or
real. The degree to which the learning experience relates to aspects of life that
have personal meaning to the students is indexed here. Does it connect to their
real world outside school?
Doing a workbook page containing problems of adding money in the form
$124.35 + 3.50 = ? would be judged as contrived, since calculating the answer
on a workbook page is not connected to the students’ world of experience out-
side school. But if the class has set up a model store selling grocery items (or
anything they might find in a real store), and the students are buying items
using play money (or even real money), then this activity simulates real expe-
riences from the students’ lives. If the class takes a trip to a supermarket and
spends money it has made through some project to buy supplies for a party,
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and they collect, purchase, pay for the items, and get change, then the activity
is judged real: it is integrated, connected, and related directly to the real world.
Contrived in this sense does not have a negative connotation. Much of learn-
ing and knowledge construction is contrived in that it does not simulate or
reproduce the reality outside school, nor could it. It is impractical for almost
all of us to learn about the history of India by visiting historic Indian sites
(though that would be nice). And aspects of historical study necessarily re-
quire reading books and other contrived (versus real) experiences to proceed
effectively with the learning. There is no general value implied in this attribute
that real learning experiences are superior to contrived ones. Students do not
have to leave school on a field trip to enter the realm of real learning experi-
ences either. The act of painting is real no matter where one does it. Painting is
painting and not a simulation of painting, whether or not one does it in school
or in an art studio. The same applies to creative writing or other aesthetic work
of any kind. Having a debate is a real experience between the debaters and not
simulated just because it is not taking place in a court of law or a legislative
chamber. Many experiences in school are inherently real for students. Settling
a dispute with another student over how to share materials is a real experi-
ence in which students play a deliberate role and act as mediators according
to certain designs.
Significance
Many educators believe it is important that as many learning experiences as
possible connect to students’ real world of meaning—their world of experience
outside school. One school of learning theory holds that such learning experi-
ences are more effective, more powerful, and more lasting in effect (Dale, n.d.).
The student, it is said, has a context in which to embed the new information and
because of its relevance to his personal life is more impelled to attend to and
participate in what’s going on. This then guarantees a level of involvement on
the part of the student with the learning experience that will maximize learning.
To people of this persuasion, it is important to know how much realness is char-
acteristic of learning experiences being offered. Early childhood educators and
open classroom educators are especially interested in this attribute of learning
experiences (Bussis, Chittenden, & Amarel, 1976).
Regardless of one’s beliefs about the learning theory of personal relevance, it is a
distinction we can make among learning experiences. It produces data to bring
to an analysis of teaching-in-action in comparison with teaching’s intentions.
We can look at curriculum designs to see where and how often opportunities
for realness exist and how appropriate such experiences might be to the content
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and the learners. We can evaluate the efficiency of a curriculum in terms of the
balance among contrived, simulated, and real experiences that is best for ac-
complishing the objectives of the instruction in the time allowed.
4. Type of Interdependence
Definition
Johnson and Johnson (1987) first set out a three-point typology for learning ex-
periences: cooperative, competitive, and individualized (they don’t use the term
learning experiences; they say goal structures). A learning experience specifies
the type of interdependence existing among students—the way in which stu-
dents will relate to each other and the teacher. One might say they have taken a
specific aspect of the social climate—that aspect related to competition and its
presence, absence, or opposite—and defined it in detail:
When students are working together to find what factors make a differ-
ence in how long a candle burns in a quart jar, they are in a coopera-
tive goal structure. A cooperative goal structure exists when students
perceive that they can obtain their goal if and only if the other students
with whom they are linked can obtain their goal. Since the goal of all the
students is to make a list of factors that influence the time the candle
burns, the goal of all the students has been reached when they generate
a list. A cooperative goal structure requires the coordination of behavior
necessary to achieve their mutual goal. If one student achieves the goal,
all students with whom the student is linked achieve the goal. When stu-
dents are working to see who can build the best list of factors influencing
the time a candle will burn in a quart jar, they are in a competitive goal
structure. A competitive goal structure exists when students perceive
that they can obtain their goal if and only if the other students with whom
they are linked fail to obtain their goal. If one student turns in a better
list than anyone else, all other students have failed to achieve their goal.
Competitive interaction is the striving to achieve one’s goal in a way that
blocks all others from achieving the goal. Finally, if all students are work-
ing independently to master an operation in mathematics, they are in an
individualistic goal structure. An individualistic goal structure exists when
the achievement of the goal by one student is unrelated to the achieve-
ment of the goal by other students; whether or not a student achieves
her goal has no bearing upon whether or not other students achieve their
goals. If one student masters the mathematics principle, it has no bearing
upon whether other students successfully master the mathematics prin-
ciple. Usually there is no student interaction in an individualistic situation
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since each student seeks the outcome that is best for himself regardless
of whether or not other students achieve their goals. (Johnson & Johnson,
1987, p. 7)
Johnson and Johnson have an observation checklist with a series of yes-no
questions for classroom organization, student-student interaction, and teacher-
student interaction. The outcome scores of the checklist are three percentage
figures for the three possible goal structures. There is a recognition that a learn-
ing experience will rarely be exclusively cooperative. From the percentage fig-
ures of Johnson and Johnson’s observation checklist, one could make a state-
ment about the dominant quality of the learning experience along the attribute
of competition.
An important body of research literature has emerged on the effectiveness of
cooperative learning for cognitive as well as affective ends. This is accompanied
by a technical literature on how to do cooperative learning. At least five forms
of cooperative learning are developed and available for teachers to try (Figure
20.1). They are arranged in the order of the demands they place on students for
interaction and communication skills (from least demanding on the left to most
demanding on the right).
If you want to rate yourself on this attribute, you will want to be able to look
at a single learning experience and characterize its dominant quality: coopera-
tive, competitive, or individualistic. For example, in certain science lab courses
we have observed, groups of students worked together sharing apparatus, ideas,
and information as they performed a common experiment. This we considered sig-
nificant cooperation. At the same time, these students were recording experimental
results in individual notebooks the teacher graded separately.
Different groups of students were at different places in the sequential pro-
grammed curriculum. Some were working alone, either because no one else
was at the same place as they or because they wanted to work alone (which the
teacher allowed). Students took tests individually when they felt ready. Individ-
ual pretest feedback was given by the teacher to students and tests were graded
individually. This was significant evidence for calling the learning experience
individualistic. In this lab course, there were no observed instances of students’
comparing test scores in a competitive way, though in interviews teachers cited
cases where that happened. Indeed, even if we had observed students’ compar-
ing scores, it wouldn’t necessarily merit a judgment of competition as a value
of the learning experience on this attribute since what one student earns on the
test has no bearing on the score of any other student. It could be argued that
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Puzzling,
interesting
situation
Explore student
reactions
Formulate study
task with large
group
Form subgroups
taking a subtask
of larger project
Organize, assume
roles, plan
Independent
work, study
Groups analyze
progress and
process
Plan presentation
and display
Evaluation by
class of group’s
contribution
Tournament, tables
with 3 students of
equal ability
representing
different teams.
They play games
using academic
material:
Winner, 6 pts.;
Second, 4 pts.;
Third, 2 pts.
Newsletter
recognizes winning
team (and
first-place scorers)
15-minute written
quizzes students
take alone
Students earn
points for their
team by improving
on their own prior
performances
Winning teams
posted
Divide material
into 5-6 parts for
5-6 students on
a team
Member learn
their parts solo
Teams disband.
Individuals from
different teams
who have the
same item form
an “expert
group” to coach
each other and
prepare presen-
tations for their
teams.
Teams
reassemble for
peer teaching
Individual tests
Talk given to
groups
Social skills
training and
debriefing
Groups decide
how to divide it
up to produce a
single cohesive
product
Groups work
together; do job
Receive group
grade
Team
Games
Tournament
FIVE FORMATS FOR COOPERATIVE LEARNING
Student Teams,
Achievement
Divisions
Jigsaw Johnson and
Johnson
Group
Investigation
Whole Class
Instruction
4-5 students on a heterogeneous team
quiz each other, and do worksheets
Figure 20.1 Formats for Cooperative Learning
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comparing test scores reflects competitive qualities inherent in humans, and the
culture, in the process of testing itself (“Whadjaget?”).
The kind of competition we looked for was one designed into the learning ex-
perience by the teacher or the curriculum—something like a team game, a con-
test for speed or accuracy involving a group of students, or a recitation period
where a student gives right answers in competition with peers. Many competi-
tive forces emanating from students themselves, peers, family, or the culture
and community may affect student behavior. These forces are not examined
here. This attribute looks at aspects of the design of the learning experience that
set up, by virtue of that design, interactions that are competitive, cooperative,
or individualistic in nature. Only students’ behavior of these three types that is
encouraged or arranged by the design of the learning experience will enable us
to make a judgment on this attribute. Competitive, cooperative, or individual-
istic behavior of children that cannot be attributed to the design of the learning
experience that comes from some other source is deemed irrelevant to the judg-
ing of this attribute.
In the case of the science lab course, competition would not be scored as a
significant quality of the learning experience because whatever of it there was
couldn’t be traced to the teacher or the design of the learning experience.
Significance
It is not hard to get a discussion started among educators, families, or even
passersby on the street about the merits or evils of competition. It is a condi-
tion of life we have all experienced and about which we all have formed some
values. This attribute of teaching calls attention to teachers’ ability to control,
in aware and deliberate ways, how competitive, cooperative, or individualistic
the experiences of students are in schools. Educational decision makers bring
different values and different histories to their settings, as has always been the
case. But whatever their decisions about the shape of learning experiences,
these decisions can be informed and deliberate, if made by professionals who
know the full implications of their acts.
This attribute provides tools for surveying your own teaching to see how
much cooperation or competition you are putting into students’ experiences.
It also offers resources for getting the balance you want. Despite the “era of
cooperative learning” (1960s to 1980s) having come and gone, it is striking that
John Hattie’s (2012) meta-analysis of the literature concludes that it is a power-
ful intervention, and gives it an overall effect size of .41!
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Matching
There is matching if the teacher differentiates deliberately among groups or in-
dividuals as to the competitive, cooperative, or individualistic quality of learn-
ing experiences.
5. Degree of Supervision
Definition
Students may be directly supervised by a teacher who checks on what and how
everybody is doing, may be independent and responsible for their own work, or
the teacher may facilitate their work by being available as a resource person and
occasionally intervening with suggestions, recommendations, or stimulating
questions (Dunn & Dunn, 1978). As we reflect on the learning experiences we
design, the number of these three possible conditions present in our teaching—
supervised, facilitated, or independent—can be counted.
Significance
A limited range on this attribute—for example, a teacher who always super-
vises all learning activities—excludes certain kinds of learning in a classroom.
The breadth or narrowness of range on this attribute is something we can look
at for its nurturant effects on students, that is, the effects on them of living in
an environment of that kind. We can then ask if that is what we intend. And
we can, of course, compare this range of supervisory modes and the nurturant
effects attached with the goals of the curriculum.
Matching
Teachers who discriminate among students on how much supervision they re-
quire or can tolerate so as to maximize their performance are matching the
amount and kind of supervision they provide to the characteristics of students.
Jane flourishes if left to work independently much of the time, checking in oc-
casionally for conferences with the teacher. Working under direct supervision
for the bulk of the day unnecessarily limits her learning experiences. But Moira
can’t seem to get herself organized. She’ll have several false starts and then may
socialize away her morning if she is not directly supervised in her work. Her
teacher provides much direct supervision for her and much independence for
Jane. The same kind of distinction can be made for subgroups of the class and
would enable us to conclude “yes” for matching on supervision.
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6. Self-Expression
Definition
Students may or may not be given the opportunity to express something of
themselves in a learning experience. If they are given such an opportunity, the
self-expression may be delivered through drawing, creative writing, perform-
ing, speaking, or building or construction of some sort. Merely to respond or
recite is not to express one’s self as meant here. Expressing oneself means ex-
pressing something that is unique to the individual or expressing some stan-
dard information in a way that encourages students to bring something of
themselves to the expression.
An assignment to diagram mitosis for biology (though different students will
embellish the product to different degrees) is a prescribed product that has the
student express mitosis, not himself or herself. An assignment to represent the
1812 Overture in paint is also prescribed but frees the student to express things
unique to him or her that are stimulated by the music. A recitation question
asking a student to summarize Turner’s frontier thesis does not allow self-ex-
pression as would a question asking a student to say how he would have re-
sponded to the offer of free western land had he been alive a hundred years ago.
Significance
The significance of this attribute relates to the value placed on self-expression
by those responsible for the educational program. Data on the attribute en-
able us to raise the attribute as an important and perhaps overlooked aspect
of learning experiences over which program designers and teachers have con-
trol. And as before, we can compare realities with intentions, where intentions
about self-expression have been considered by program designers and made
explicit.
Matching
We may look to see if the ways in which we encourage expression of the self also
allow differences in ways students can best do that expressing. If matching were
present, one would see not only a range on this attribute but also negotiation
or direct planning of students’ activities where they were asked or permitted to
express themselves in ways different from other students.
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7. Degree of Abstraction
Definition
Learning experiences can be scored as concrete, representational (iconic), or
abstract (Bruner, 1966). Concrete means manipulative—students are touching
or seeing real objects that are integral to the learning experience. Iconic means
representational—a picture, image, or other facsimile of real objects—is em-
bedded in the materials with which the learner is interacting. Abstract means
symbolic words or thoughts are the stuff of which the learning experience is
made without support from facsimiles or concrete objects.
Significance
We can compare the range of levels of abstraction offered to the nature of the
content and make judgments concerning appropriateness. Similar compari-
sons can be made in consideration of the age and learning style of the students.
We might expect to see teachers of young children designing more concrete
experiences than at other grade levels. But it has been acknowledged for several
decades in learning style models that reliance on concrete models and exam-
ples is highly useful for many learners, no matter what the age.
Matching
Because students of the same age are often at different levels with regard to their
ability to process abstract information, we might expect a teacher to discrimi-
nate among students and adjust the level of abstraction of the learning experi-
ences offered to characteristics of individual students. Conrad Toepfer (1981)
and others have applied these insights to the typical middle school curriculum
and found that much of it demands formal operational thinking of students,
a kind of thinking that, according to their statistics, only 12% of American
youngsters are capable of at age 12. Toepfer makes a strong case that teachers
who match the level of thinking to the students’ capacity for abstract thinking,
especially in the plateau period of 12 to 14 years of age, make a huge differ-
ence in school failure rates. He and his colleagues recommend testing students
for their level of thinking (onset of concrete operations, concrete operations,
initial formal operations, established formal operations) and accommodating
instruction to the stage. Intelligence, he points out, is different and uncorre-
lated to stage thinking. Super-bright youngsters go through the same Piagetian
stages of growth and in about the same proportions per given age as students
of average and below-average IQ.
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This attribute of learning experiences bears a hard look if we are to meet the needs
of all students at all ages, stages of development, and learning style orientations.
8. Cognitive Level
Definition
In Chapter 11, “Clarity,” we discussed questioning and Bloom’s (1956) Tax-
onomy (and Anderson and Krathwohl’s [2001] update of that Taxonomy) as
a framework for designing questions requiring different levels of thinking. We
can examine learning experiences to see what cognitive level of performance
they ask of students. We can also look across learning experiences we offer to
identify the range of thinking embedded in them and count the number of levels
for which evidence can be produced.
Significance
Researchers have long investigated the number of higher-level questions teach-
ers ask students in verbal interactions. The research implies that the more higher-
level questions used, the better, and studies have attempted to correlate the pro-
portion of higher-level questions with student achievement (Winne, 1979a).
However, large doses of high cognitive levels may be quite inappropriate for
students who have not worked through lower levels with the same material.
When we considered the Models of Teaching area of performance in Chapter
13, we saw that for certain models (e.g., Taba’s) it is the order in which cognitive
operations are demanded of students that is important, not the raw amount at
any level.
Focusing on the cognitive level embedded in learning experiences offered by a
teacher enables us to collect data on the range offered. Any predominance of one
or two particular levels will prompt us to ask, “Why?” If a teacher or a curricu-
lum has some specific thinking objectives in mind, we can compare intentions
with reality.
Matching
Tailoring or adjusting learning experiences on the same or similar material—so
that the cognitive level demanded is different for different students—is evidence
that we are differentiating cognitive level across students. The danger in such
differentiation is if we deny to low-skill students the opportunity for higher-
level thinking. This pattern appears when one holds low expectations for stu-
dents derived from impressions of their lower innate ability. Thus instruction
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becomes more drill oriented and less interesting for these students, deepening
their cycle of failure and their subsequent rejection of school itself.
The point here is to be aware if we are limiting the involvement of certain stu-
dents with experiences from the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. We can
differentiate learning experiences appropriately for different students in many
ways, including pace. But we should look for ways to offer the full range of
cognitive levels to both high- and low-skill students.
9. Structuring
We have all heard people refer to students who need a high degree of struc-
ture. We have often wondered exactly what is meant by that structure and dis-
covered, not too surprisingly, that people mean different things, such as the
student has to be closely supervised or the task has to be broken down into
small pieces and the student told exactly what to do, when, and how. We find
out how structuring is being handled when we give directions. We would have
called this section “giving directions,” except that giving directions is only one
way that activities get set up. Sometimes students are asked to set procedures,
and sometimes teachers and students negotiate what to do and how. One way
to analyze differences in instruction is to examine how much and where these
different kinds of structuring are occurring: by the teacher (high structure), ne-
gotiation (moderate structure), or students (low structure). Another question
to ask is whether we differentiate among students along this attribute of who
structures activities; that is matching.
When teachers give directions, they often structure (that is, make decisions
and give instructions about) the content to be worked on, the procedures to
follow, the behavior to do (for example, “write,” “discuss,” “compare,” “listen”),
the form of student products, and the point of closure (signaling when it’s
over). Content, behavior, procedures, products, and closure are the five com-
ponents of structuring. Exhibit 20.1 identifies each of these aspects of a learning
experience and the choice points one has for either increasing or decreasing the
degree and kind of structure embedded. Thus the degree of structure in a learning
experience is largely a matter of whether or not decisions are being made and who
is making them.
Content
Content means information or objects dealt with at the item level. Who de-
cided, introduced, or is responsible for the presence of the particular items
students are working with? Making reliable assignments of responsibility here
requires being clear on the unit of analysis. Just how big or small is an item?
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Table 20.1 provides some examples. At the most general level, the teacher is al-
most always responsible for content. In the example where students debate the
pros and cons of busing, the teacher probably (though not necessarily) intro-
duced the subject. The teacher is responsible for the topic—the area being treated
—but clearly that is above the item level. If teachers are responsible for the re-
sponses the students are producing in that they ask factual or leading questions,
then they are responsible for the content. But if the students are bringing in
information not directly tied to the teacher’s questions, items, or objects that
could not be the only reply to the question or the lead-in of the teacher, then the
students are responsible for the content at the item level (though perhaps not
the general topic).
What can be said about a discussion where the teacher starts off being respon-
sible for the content, say, a recitation, and then switches to more open-ended
exploration of the same material, and all within the same discussion: “And now
what would you have done in General Lee’s position? Do you think he did the
right thing? Can you justify your position?” Here the responsibility for content
has shifted from teacher to students, and an important attribute to the learning
experience has changed. We will be interested in knowing what other attributes
of the learning experience have changed.
For individual learning experiences, we can note who is responsible for the con-
tent at the item level. Across learning experiences, we can note which of these
parties are responsible if we survey a number of lessons: teacher, student, or
negotiation.
Exhibit 20.1 Who Decides the Structure?
Adapted from Ann Berlak.
No one Student Teacher
decides decides Negotiation decides
Low Structure High Structure
1. Content
2. Behavior
3. Procedures
4. Products
5. Closure
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Table 20.1 Examples of Who Decides the Content?
Activity Item Responsible
Party
1. Recitation or review of Civil War battles with teacher
leading questioning in chronological order, seeking
identification and sequence.
Pieces of information elicited
from students
Teacher
2. Teacher says, “Read this book and answer the
questions at the back.” The book, the questions Teacher
3. Teacher says, “Pick a book you’d like to read, and
summarize it verbally for me.”
Although the use of time is structured by the teacher
in this item and the behavior and writing are also
structured, the content—what is operated on, written
about—comes from the student.
The book Student
4. Teacher suggests, “Use the blocks to make a model
of the store we visited.”
Although the student controls the shape of the prod-
uct, what the store will look like, the item on which
he is operating—blocks—and the model of a store
were directed by the teacher. If the student were free
to represent the store in any medium he chose (paint,
clay, or something else), then the behavior would have
been attributed to the student as the shape of the
product, but the content would still be the teacher’s
decision about what to represent.
Model of store Teacher
5. Class discussion about the pros and cons of busing
to integrate public schools, with the teacher serving as
facilitator and clarifier, not taking a stand, trying to get
students to show their positions.
Arguments, positions, and
evidence for positions
Students
6. Following a discussion of movies, students form
interest groups to study selected aspects of movie
production: special effects, casting, script writing,
shooting schedules. Students nominate themselves
into groups, and teacher mediates which groups may
form and the membership.
Special effects, casting, shooting
schedules, script writing
Negotiated
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Behavior
To determine who has structured the student behavior within the learning ex-
perience, the question to ask is what verb describes what the student is doing.
Who is responsible for that operation (verb) being the operation: the teacher,
the student, or is it negotiated? The student is reading, writing, summarizing,
responding verbally, building, or painting. Who chose that? These are questions
to ask of individual learning experiences. Then when we look across learning
experiences and note our range on structuring of behavior, we ask how many
of the three possibilities we’ve exercised or none at all. It may be that we have a
behavior in mind for the learning experience but fail to state it. This is of no con-
sequence if the behavior is obvious or understood by the students. For example,
“doing” a page in a workbook is understood to mean, “Follow the directions on
the page,” which almost always calls for a written response in a blank or on a
line. On the other hand, if the behavior is not clear to the students or we didn’t
fully think it out (“What do we do, Mr. Jones?”), then we could conclude “none”
here. For example, “Do the next chapter in your book,” may mean, “Read and
answer the questions at the end,” “Read only,” or “Read for the general idea.” Un-
less some routine has been established for what “reading a chapter” means, we
could conclude this is “none” on structuring behavior.
Procedures
Procedural moves set the details of who and how—for example, dividing a class
into teams for a spelling bee, giving directions for a worksheet exercise, and de-
scribing the procedure in a concept attainment game. Included in this category
are the negotiations, which may go on at some length, when students are given
the opportunity to decide how they want to go about studying a given content
area. Procedures may come from the teacher or from the students, or they may
be negotiated. Which are the following?
p “We are going to divide the class into three groups. John, Gary, and
George will be in group 1.”
p “First we’re going to do worksheets. Then I want you to write down the
items that were difficult, and when you’ve done that, we’ll discuss those
items.”
p “We’re going to go around the circle here, and each of you will tell us
something you read about Hemingway and I’ll write it on the board.”
p “How shall we do this? Shall everybody participate?”
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p “John has suggested that we invite the editor of the newspaper to speak.
Do you agree that this is a good way to begin our study of journalism?”
(Joyce, 1969 ).
It may be that we have some procedures in mind for the learning experience but
fail to state them. In that case, there is no structuring of procedures. If we say,
“Work on your folders, boys and girls,” and within each folder there is a struc-
turing of procedures for each child in the form of a note (“Charlie, do the first
two worksheets and then bring them to me for checking”), then the procedures
are structured by the teacher. But if it is unclear what the procedures are to be
because we have failed to state them or think them out and don’t explicitly ask
students to make decisions about procedures, then one might conclude “none.”
Products
Who determines the form of the tangible products: teacher, student, or both
together (negotiated)?
p Teacher: “I’ll tally votes here on how many thought the Civil War rep-
resented progress versus setbacks.” The tally is the product.
p Student: Any creative or expressive activity (painting, creative writing)
makes a student responsible for the form of the product.
p Negotiated: “How shall we represent the data from our poll?” Students
and teacher negotiate a form, perhaps deciding on bar graphs.
Closure
How will the student know when the learning experience is over? The end
point can be defined in terms of time, quantity of material completed, or a
certain kind of product being produced. Who determines these limits: teacher,
student, or both together?
For certain experiences, closure is inherently determined by the student (exam-
ples are a painting or creative writing—except where the teacher says, “Write
a four-page story”). For others, it is clearly teacher determined (“Do the first
three lines of problems”). But if closure is not inherently or explicitly delegated
to the student, then failure to state it may lead us to conclude “none” on struc-
turing of closure. The key questions are, “Which ways do we have for structur-
ing closure to learning experiences?” and, “Are they used appropriately?”
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Teachers who hand out folders containing pages of new worksheets and expect
students to begin working are evidencing “none” for structuring of procedures
and closure—and they often experience the consequences of that lack of struc-
turing.
Matching
One reason teachers treat students differently with regard to structure is learn-
ing effectiveness (Colarusso & Green, 1973). Jane may be capable of designing
her own procedures for collecting data from her science experiment, whereas
Fred needs the teacher to structure procedures to maximize the benefit he gets
from the experience. A certain group of students may be quite capable of pick-
ing their own reading material, whereas another is not (content).
But another reason might have to do with long-range goals. Some teachers have
as a goal helping students become more independent, self-motivated learners.
This means moving gradually from higher to progressively lower structure.
Such a teacher takes students where they are and provides the degree of struc-
ture necessary for learning to proceed efficiently. If this happens to be high
structure, so be it. Over time, the teacher introduces negotiation of certain at-
tributes, say, procedures and closure, with some students. Over the course of
the year, more and more students become involved in more and more decision-
making about their learning as they show they are ready.
We feel that understanding structuring (and accountability) is the key to under-
standing the erratic record of open classrooms in the 1960s and 1970s. Those
that worked were in control of structuring and matched it to the students in
the class. Those that didn’t offered too little structure to students who were un-
prepared to deal with it. The physical look and arrangement of the room, open
versus traditional, is usually no clue to the level of structure and the degree
of appropriateness for different students. Whole populations of students may
be matched to a level of structure, or structure may be differentiated across
different individuals and groups within the same class. Few American visitors
to British infant schools in the early 1960s perceived the high degree of struc-
ture and accountability built into students’ working routines, despite the open,
child-centered, and apparently effortless flow of constructive activity (Berlak,
Berlak, Bagenstos, & Mikel, 1975).
A robust line of research developed by David Hunt and his associates since
1966 has established the better learning that results when students experience
a degree of imposed structure matched to their level of development. Numer-
ous instruments are available for determining whether a student is suited to a
high- or low-structure treatment (Hunt, 1971; Hunt & Sullivan, 1974; Rich &
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Bush, 1978). The possibilities we have sketched for who does the structuring—
teacher, negotiated, or student—correspond to Hunt’s ratings of high, moder-
ate, and low degrees of imposed structure.
10. Grouping and Interpersonal Complexity
Definitions
Students may work alone, with a single peer, with a group of peers, with the
total class, in a dyad with the teacher, with other adults (the principal, a visi-
tor, a family member), or in a small group with the teacher. Any one or more
of these possible combinations may characterize learning experiences over the
course of a day or week. Each individual learning experience may have its own
grouping. First, one can simply count the number of groupings evidenced to
index a teacher’s range.
Significance
Characterizing the groupings in our teaching allows us to ask about what kinds
of interpersonal complexity are consistent with the objectives of the curricu-
lum. It also allows us to see how much congruence there is between inten-
tions and reality. Notice we have replaced the word grouping with interpersonal
complexity. This is because there is more to say about a group than how many
people are in it.
It is also important to know what kind of interaction they are having with one
another. Six students and a teacher may be answering recitation questions in a
small group; these students have no interaction with each other and only sim-
ple interactions with the teacher as they give direct factual answers. Thus the
interpersonal complexity is low. In that same group, however, the teacher may
invite students to respond to or extend, interpret, or refute other students’ an-
swers. Students may begin speaking directly to one another without the teacher
as intermediary between every student utterance. The teacher may still moder-
ate the discussion and call on people, but the interpersonal complexity is now
moderately complex and no longer simple. If the students are freely interacting
with each other and create their own conversational rules and agendas as they
go, the interpersonal complexity is high.
In a curriculum stressing social objectives—say, cooperation, listening to each
other, or mutual respect—we would expect to see learning experiences with
groups of students, dyads, and other combinations that brought students to-
gether without exclusive teacher direction. Whatever the themes of the cur-
riculum, the types of interpersonal complexity displayed enable us to describe
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an important and real part of the learning environment and ask questions about
the effect of those patterns on students’ learning. Taken from the perspective of
curriculum as planning, interpersonal complexity is a design feature of learning
experiences that a teacher can tailor to the nature of the objectives and the needs
of the learners.
Matching
In studying our teaching, we can determine whether we discriminate among
students in the kind of interpersonal complexity designed or allowed for in
learning experiences (Colarusso & Green, 1973). Mehmet works well in large
groups but tends to act out or be silly in small-group instruction. He does have a
few peers with whom he seems able to work effectively. He allows these students
to help him and can work cooperatively with them when he has to deal with
them only one at a time. So we engineer teacher–Mehmet and peer–Mehmet
learning situations as often as possible (while also working on his difficulties
with being in groups) to maximize his productive learning time in the class.
We have matched the interpersonal complexity in his learning experiences to
observed characteristics of Mehmet.
We observe that this class attends poorly in a large group. So while making at-
tention an objective for them, we make sure they have as many individual and
small-group work situations as possible. That is a decision to match the needs of
this particular class.
Ms. James notices her English class does not handle the high level of interper-
sonal complexity she encourages; they seem alternately to flounder or to attack
each other when discussing the readings. She reduces the interpersonal com-
plexity to moderate and increases her role as mediator. They prove quite capable
of handling high-level literary analysis but require less interpersonal complexity
than last year’s class.
Where teachers show different patterns of grouping and interpersonal complex-
ity for different children, we can note matching on this attribute. How about
the possibility of a mismatch? What would it look like so that we could defend
such a judgment? Probably, the learning experience isn’t going well. A mismatch
means that something is wrong, and when something is wrong, we expect to
see symptoms—usually disruptive behavior or inattention. Students are expe-
riencing difficulty under these conditions, and we must be able to attribute this
difficulty to inappropriate grouping or interpersonal complexity rather than to
other causes (students’ emotional issues, inappropriate work, poor transition).
How might an observer help to distinguish such causes?
Better learning
results when
students
experience a
degree of imposed
structure matched
to their level of
development.
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Repeated observations over a long period of time might enable an observer to
see groupings that were consistently successful for a certain student and others
that were consistently unsuccessful. If the students were frequently placed in
these failure settings, the observer could attribute mismatch to the grouping or
interpersonal complexity. This would put the observer in the position of know-
ing, through repeated observation, something the teacher did not. Although
such a situation is conceivable, a single observation is rarely enough to produce
it. More likely, the observer would be in a position to problem-solve with the
teacher, exploring what the cause of the problem might be.
11. Information Complexity
Definition
“Students who are low in conceptual level (CL) are less capable of processing
information in a complex way and less capable of dealing with information in
a responsible fashion; students higher in CL are more capable of processing
information in a complex way” (Hunt, 1971). It sounds simplistic, but it is not.
The conceptual level of students is not the same as intelligence or ability. Of-
ten two youngsters who are both quite bright are different in conceptual level.
What does it mean to process information in a complex way? We define three
levels of information complexity:
p Level 1—Low Complexity: Information is linear and direct. One
thing leads to another. Qualities of the learning tend to include re-
membering, sequence, performance, concepts, and skills. Learners are
not asked to consider alternatives or make distinctions between points
of view or such things as people’s feelings or orientations. They have
difficulty developing concepts on their own but can learn them recep-
tively without difficulty.
p Level 2—Moderate Complexity: The notion of alternatives appears.
Students are asked to make distinctions and differentiate sources,
points of view, courses of action, and possible explanations. They can
assimilate the idea that there is more than one possible explanation for
a phenomenon. Comparison and contrast enter the picture. Students
can develop their own concepts from data.
p Level 3—High Complexity: Students can consider several alterna-
tives. Their ability to differentiate and distinguish increases and devel-
ops into the ability to see the relationships between different points of
view or different explanations.
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Significance
Clearly, there is a developmental quality to these three levels (e.g., five-year-olds
are usually not ready to describe the relationships of different points of view).
Thus this attribute reminds us to look at students and check if we are challenging
them appropriately with the complexity of their tasks. It further challenges us to
ask if they are ready to move toward the next level. And finally, it prompts us to
differentiate among students within a class and adjust their work appropriately.
Hunt’s (1971) developmental model considers what we have called separately
structuring, grouping/interpersonal complexity, and information complexity all
at once. These are three facets of conceptual level that correlate with one another.
For example, a student who is low in conceptual level (as measured by Hunt’s
paragraph completion test) will function best with a high degree of imposed
structure, simple dynamics in groupings, and low information complexity. Con-
versely, a student high in conceptual level learns best with low structure, more
complex grouping interactions, and more complex information processing. The
research supporting the effectiveness of this matching has been quite striking
and quite consistent. It has proved applicable for adults as well as children and
has been used successfully as a way to form classroom and instructional group-
ings (Gower & Resnick, 1979; Rich & Bush, 1978).
12. Sensory Channels
Definitions
This attribute of learning experiences is about the perceptual modalities and mo-
tor expressions students are called on to use as they engage new information
or ideas and then make a product or express what they know. Sensory input
channels may include one or more of the following: visual, auditory, or tactile/
kinesthetic. Motor expressions that students exercise in the context of the learn-
ing experience may be large motor muscles, small motor, their voice, or nothing
at all. Finally, the design of the learning experience may call for student output
in the form of talk, writing, or performance of an observable skill.
Significance and Matching
Matching students’ optimum input and output channels is often cited as one way
to individualize learning experiences for different students. Dunn and Dunn
(1978) make a strong case for it. To the degree to which this is taking place, we
would expect to see similar or identical objectives being worked on by students
through input and output channels adjusted for their characteristics.
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A count can be made of how many channels are used for input of informa-
tion to students in learning experiences: visual, auditory, and tactile/kinesthetic.
Regarding how students act in learning experiences (student output), the num-
ber of channels from among the following can be counted: talk, writing, or
performance of some kind (such as drawing, building, manipulating, acting
out motorically). Regarding motor use, one can record how many of the fol-
lowing muscle groups are used by students: large motor, small motor, voice, or
passive (no motor).
A tradition of authors from Jensen (2008) to Susan Griss (2013) has clearly
established the advantages of movement in the classroom for attention and
cognition. They are well worth considering.
One might use data about these three attributes of learning experiences to eval-
uate how active the learning was and how that level of physical activity fit goals
for the learning program or for the needs of the students. But more likely, the
greatest significance of these data will be raising our awareness of the range we
can create and the potential for matching that the range will offer.
Simply seeing a variety of perceptual channels operating differentially across
students does not prove matching. To support a “Yes” judgment on matching,
there must be evidence that a particular mode is being used with a particular
student or group of students and that there is not just random variety. Such
evidence might be provided by a teacher remark or a systematic assignment
system for directing certain students to a learning experience with a domi-
nant perceptual mode different from other learning experiences being offered
around the same objective to other students.
13. Scale
Definitions
Sometimes the scale of objects, print, or models used in learning experiences
has been enlarged or reduced. The scale of materials used can be either of these
two, or it can be normal, that is, as normally found. This attribute begins by a
simple count of how many of these three possibilities are present.
Significance
Like all the other attributes, scale is an attribute of a learning experience that
affects the interaction of the learner with the environment, and that environ-
ment is under the control of the curriculum designer and the teacher. It can
be controlled to effect. Examining this attribute of teaching brings it to con-
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sciousness and provokes questions about whether all the opportunities for scale
manipulation in learning experiences have been taken. For example, by minia-
turizing into models, we can bring concepts from the abstract to the iconic level
to good effect for students who don’t function well abstractly. Whole outdoor
physical environments (a stream, a town, a valley) can be captured in paint on
giant sheets of cardboard (3 feet by 4 feet) and unfolded around the periphery of
a classroom to simulate the environment of the stream. By enlarging worksheets
or other standard school tasks onto giant plastic-covered boards or using giant
felt or plastic numbers, a teacher can provide variety to the conduct of otherwise
standard learning experiences.
Matching
When we see the scale of an object adjusted for use with a particular student or
students, we can conclude “Yes” on matching for scale. This can be particularly
important for primary children for whom size of print and number of items on
a page can be confusing.
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Thirteen Attributes of Differentiated Instruction
1. Source of Information conventional constructed
2. Resources text family audiovisual reference
books
teacher interviews online
services
imagination
peers observation electronic
devices
experience
3. Personal Relevance contrived simulated real
4. Type of Interdependence competitive individualized cooperative
5. Supervision supervised facilitated independent matched
6. Self-Expression no yes matched
7. Degree of Abstraction concrete representational abstract
8. Cognitive Level recall analysis synthesis
comprehension application evaluation
9. Structuring none teacher student negotiated
Content
Behavior
Procedures
Products
Closure
10. Grouping and Interpersonal
complexity
low moderate high matching
11. Information Complexity low moderate high matching
12. Sensory Channels
Student input visual tactile/kinesthetic auditory matched
Student motor use large motor small motor voice passive
Student output talk writing performance matched
13. Scale normal miniaturized enlarged matched
To check your knowledge about Differentiated Instruction, see the exercises on The Skillful
Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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NOTES
21. Assessment
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
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Curriculum
Assessment
Curriculum:
Assessment
The primary
purpose of
classroom
assessment is to
increase student
achievement.
CHAPTER
21
Grant Wiggins (1993) once said that assessment was the Trojan horse of school reform. What he meant, we believe, is that if we did assess-ment properly and lined up all the soldiers it would take to do it well,
we would open the gates to the rest of the army of improvement efforts waiting
outside the city. Another way of looking at it is certain changes have unusually
large ripple effects into other practices, and good assessment is one of them.
The view of what good classroom assessment is has undergone radical changes
since the late 20th century. We have shifted from the notion of using tests primar-
ily as mechanisms to sort and grade students to using assessment to accomplish
the following:
1. Inform instruction.
2. Gather data about what students know prior to beginning instruction
(pre-assessment).
3. Continually gather data about how well students are understanding
during instruction (formative assessment).
4. Adjust instruction and reteach, when necessary, in an effort to ensure
that all students can be successful in the end (summative assessment).
We have shifted from designing and administering tests after completing in-
struction to designing assessment tasks before we develop the instructional
plan. We have shifted from having students “guess what will be on the test”
to making criteria for success and assessment of learning public, precise, and
understood by students prior to instruction. While in the past tests had been
something done to students, we now see the need to make students partners
in the assessment process by developing criteria with students, student self-
assessment, student error analysis, student use of feedback, and student goal
setting. We have shifted from an “every teacher for himself ” orientation to
conviction about the importance of common interim schoolwide assessments
developed and used by all teachers who teach the same content. The primary
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purpose of classroom assessment is to increase student achievement rather than
to simply measure it for reporting purposes.
Assessment that is designed to increase student achievement is crafted to ac-
complish three goals:
1. Motivate students to want to do better.
2. Give students useful information they can use to do better.
3. Inform teachers’ reteaching plans so students can do better.
There are other reasons for doing assessment besides helping students learn
more. And some of them are valid. Table 21.1 summarizes 12 purposes of as-
sessment. In this chapter, we focus on numbers 3 through 7: assessment as a
vehicle for increasing student achievement. This means focusing on classroom
assessment as done by teachers on a daily and weekly basis. Thus we begin with
the question, What is it that a teacher needs to know about classroom assess-
ment?
The foundation for productive classroom assessment is teachers of the same
content agreeing on the most important learning standards for the course or se-
mester (Reeves, 2004). This is the starting point for a chain of events that leads
to good assessment. Without it, students don’t receive cohesive schooling be-
cause what they learn will depend on their teachers’ idiosyncratic choices. The
logical next step among these same colleagues is to develop common interim
assessments that can be used to measure student progress and make instruc-
tional adjustments.
Many of our colleagues who have had experience with this in the field, among
them Rick DuFour at Adlai Stevenson High School in Illinois and Jamey Ver-
rilli and Paul Bambrick-Santoyo at North Star Academy in Newark, New Jer-
sey, report that common assessments across teachers who teach the same con-
tent, given quarterly and schoolwide, are a powerful lever for elevating student
achievement if teachers examine the students’ responses closely and do error
analysis to plan reteaching. How these meetings can be structured to maximum
effect has been described thoroughly by Marshall (2006).
With long-term (course, semester, or yearly) learning goals established and
quarterly assessments designed, we have laid the foundation to support ongo-
ing and productive daily and weekly classroom assessment.
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TWELVE COMPONENTS OF GOOD CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT
Prior to planning assessment, of course, the teacher articulates lesson and unit
objectives that are worth learning, shares with students what the objectives are
and why they are worth learning, and clarifies them daily for students in a form
comparable with statements such as, “You (students) will demonstrate that you
are able to . . . by . . . .” This gives students something to aim for and the teachers
a footing for evaluating their learning experiences. These actions set the stage
for assessment planning and implementation.
Table 21.1 Twelve Purposes of Assessment
1. To make summative statements about: How well students have done overall in meeting
course or unit objectives
2. To certify students as: • Competent in a field of knowledge
• Competent in a field of practice
• Eligible for promotion
3. To signal clearly: • Knowledge is important
• The criteria and standards for quality work
4. To make instructional decisions about: • Where to start students with instruction
• Which skills are mastered
• Which skills or subskills to reteach to which
students
5. To give feedback to students about: Students’ strengths, weaknesses, and interests
6. To give feedback to teachers about: • The effectiveness of instruction
• The effectiveness of curriculum
7. To report progress to families and communities Any or all of the above
8. To elevate the curriculum so as to provide meaning-
ful, higher-level thinking tasks for all students
9. To sort, rank, or compare students for: • Honors and rewards
• Admissions into programs with limited enrollment
10. To norm students or groups of students for: • Comparative achievement in relation to national
groups
• Comparative achievement in relation to other
populations
11. For placement in: Courses, grades, or levels
12. To predict success in: A course, school, or a job performance
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R552
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To accomplish the three goals (to motivate students to want to do better, to pro-
vide them useful information and support so they can, and to inform teachers’
reteaching plans), classroom assessment must be composed of multiple compo-
nents carried out in a sequence by students and teachers. Twelve components of
good classroom assessment are enumerated in Exhibit 21.1.
To begin with, all successful assessment requires a clear understanding by both
teachers and students of the learning expectations behind it, the criteria for suc-
cess, and the expected level or standard of performance. Components 1 and 2
address these concerns. Classroom assessment itself starts at component 3, and
each of the remaining components brings students more closely into the game.
Putting It All Together
Figure 21.1 represents the ideal role of assessment in a 24-hour cycle of teach-
ing and learning in any class. The cycle starts on the left with “Assessment and
Teaching.” The intent is to show that these two activities are not separate. A
thorough teacher is always assessing and recording how students are doing with
new learning (and doing so on the fly) while teaching. What does a teacher need
to make all of these components happen? A commitment to do the following:
1. Determine the assessment task
2. Communicate the standards of performance
3. Assess prior knowledge
4. Frequent data collection and record-keeping by the teacher
5. Frequent high-quality feedback to students
6. Student self-assessment
7. Student record-keeping about progress
8. Frequent error analysis by the teacher
9. Error analysis by the students
10. Planning and implementing reteaching
11. Goal setting and action planning by students
12. Reporting systems on student progress including three-way conferences
Exhibit 21.1 Twelve Components of Classroom Assessment
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p Use assessment to inform teaching on a daily basis. This means
teachers need to become expert at data analysis and, most particularly,
item-level error analysis so as to design precise and timely reteaching
for students who didn’t “get it” the first time around.
Figure 21.1 Cycle of Teaching and Learning
T H E 2 4 H O U R C Y C L E O F T E AC H I N G A N D L E A R N I N G
ASSESSMENT
and
TEACHING
(not separate acts)
• Look over student’s
shoulder
• Dipstick
• One-question quiz
• Journal entries
• Examine homework
• Examine classwork
DATA
FEEDBACK
PLANNING
RECORDS
To teacher
for error
analysis
To student
for comparison
to target
Teacher
design of
reteaching
and
Students
self-evaluation,
goal setting,
and planning
Displays, charts
progress reports
that are:
• Visible
• Accessible
• Clear
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R554
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p Use assessment to inform students on what they need to do to improve
their own learning (i.e., feedback systems that generate daily, useful in-
formation).
p Create mechanisms for student self-evaluation and goal setting so as-
sessment practices can promote positive emotional engagement, and
“so students can experience winning streaks” (Stiggins, 2005).
In summary, what teachers need to know most is how to use assessment to
inform teaching and learning on a daily basis and to use assessment as a moti-
vation for students.
Component 1: Determine the Assessment Task
Authenticity is a key idea in the assessment movement because authentic tasks
amalgamate complex performances in the same way real-life problems do. Wig-
gins (1993) says that authentic assessment “conveys the idea that assessments
should engage students in applying knowledge and skills in the same way they
are used in the ‘real world’ outside of school” (as cited in Marzano, Pickering, &
McTighe, 1993, p. 13). He adds:
Assessment is authentic when we directly examine student performances
on worthy intellectual tasks . . . engaging and worthy problems or ques-
tions of importance, in which students must use knowledge to fashion
performances effectively and creatively. The tasks are either replicas of or
analogous to the kinds of problems faced by adult citizens and consum-
ers or professionals in the field. (p. 229)
Thus a worthwhile assessment task has a student applying skills and knowl-
edge in realistic, complex situations, and is integrated as closely as possible with
something the student would have to do in the world outside school. What will
be assessed will not be just subskills like the ability to decode words with short
“a,” balance chemical equations given valences and quantities, or the knowledge
of facts or even comprehension of “the causes of the Civil War” as an isolated
measurement. Rather, what will be assessed is the ability to perform complex
tasks that require higher-order thinking skills and the integration of knowl-
edge. In other words, tasks that are authentic because they are direct models
or simulations of what people have to perform in the real world. In performing
these complex tasks, of course, each of us must draw on our knowledge of sub-
skills and facts, but they are put to use in service of a larger task that is realistic.
Jamentz (1993) offers the following criteria as a checklist for analyzing assess-
ment tasks created for children:
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 555
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• Does the task spark students’ interest and motivation?
• Does the task require students to construct meaning?
• Does the task encourage demonstration of important habits of mind?
• Does the task encourage multiple modes of expression?
• Is the task free from arbitrary constraints?
• Does the task measure progress over time?
• Does the task require collaboration with others?
• Is the task a representative challenge, emphasizing depth rather than
breadth of response?
• Does the task explore and identify hidden strengths?
• Does the task genuinely assess learning and effort rather than native
talent?
• Do the standards for the task cover a wide range of knowledge,
skills, and habits of mind considered important to the subject area
or, if interdisciplinary, those that transcend a single discipline?
• Are the standards for good performance clear to students before
they engage in the task?
• Are the standards for the task appropriately weighted?
• Are the standards for the task in harmony with shared school, dis-
trict, state, or national goals?
• Does the task match the scoring framework?
• Is the task multidimensional, allowing for a single performance to be
strong in some areas and weak in others?
• Is the assessment structured to provide prompt and useful feedback
to the teacher and student?
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R556
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
• Does the task provide built-in opportunities for students to practice,
rehearse, and retake it? (p. 29)
Copyright © 1993 WestEd. All rights reserved. From Charting the Course
Toward Instructionally Sound Assessment, by Kate Jametz.
We think the first three characteristics on the list are particularly important.
The anchor of the process for developing authentic assessments is getting clear
on what we really want students to know or be able to do. Notice that the ana-
lytical criteria set out in “The Rubric in Exemplars” (see Exhibit 21.6) in the
next section pertain to high-level thinking, problem-solving, and communica-
tion skills. This does not mean that lower-level skills like mastering calculation
skills, times tables, and the like are disregarded, but the value (and thus the as-
sessment) is clearly keyed to reasoning strategies the writers believe are impor-
tant to using math in life. These choices of higher-level, problem-solving skills
thus guide the kinds of tasks that will be created.
Authentic assessment tasks are a far more valid measure of educational effec-
tiveness than traditional paper and pencil assessment if we view education as
the preparation of young minds for successful living. And they are more moti-
vating to students. Teachers who design authentic assessments find it a creative
process that benefits from a high level of interaction with peers and often with
students, too. Once they have discussed what they want students to know or
be able to do, teachers then cast around for (or create) tasks that conform to as
many of the criteria as possible.
Having piloted the assessment tasks, a group of teachers developing rubrics
typically sit down with a large collection of student products. They quickly sort
the student work into four piles representing poor, fair, good, and excellent lev-
els of performance by examining the products with little or no discussion or
analysis, and grouping ones that seem at about the same level of performance.
Placing a sample in a category is done by the sense of how the product strikes
the teacher. Then comes the most important part of the process, which car-
ries the most inherent staff development meat for teachers. Going over student
work samples in detail, the teachers describe in writing the characteristics of
each category and thus produce the first draft of their rubric.
It will be important to remember that as we leave the era of the No Child
Left Behind legislation, developing higher-level thinking and problem-solving
abilities is elevated in importance. Thus generating authentic assessments of
complex student performances will remain an important capacity for teachers
to master.
Generating
authentic
assessments
of complex
student
performances
is an important
capacity for
teachers to
master.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 557
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Component 2: Communicating the Standards
of Performance
To give students a concrete image of what the words in the objective mean and
what meeting standards looks like, students need to see, hear, and understand
the standards (or criteria) by which their work will be assessed. Performance
standards and criteria for success should be public, precise, prior, printed, and
presented in models of exemplary work:
p “Public” means there are no secrets: students (and families) know ex-
actly what will be the basis for evaluating the work.
p “Precise” means naming the qualities or characteristics that need to be
present in their work and explaining or describing them in sufficient
detail such that students understand what each means and can deter-
mine whether or not and where each characteristic is present in a given
piece of work.
p “Prior” means sharing this information with students when the assess-
ment task is described at the beginning of the class, course, or unit of
study and before they begin to work toward achievement of an objec-
tive. This enables students to focus on what is important during the
learning experiences and to participate in assessing whether they are
building the foundations for success in the end.
p “Printed” means written down for students to refer to as they partici-
pate in learning experiences and invest effort in an assessment task.
What is written might be a simple bulleted list of what must be addressed in a
lab report or characteristics of an effective oral presentation. For more complex
assessment tasks that assess multiple objectives or will be practiced several to
many times over, criteria might be communicated in a performance task list
or a rubric. A performance task list (Exhibit 21.2) spells out the component
parts of the task and assigns either a “yes” or “not yet” rating scale or a certain
number of overall points that each component is worth, indicating the relative
importance of each component to the final piece of work. A rubric (Table 21.2)
specifies, in matrix form, the qualities or components on which a piece of work
will be assessed and the specific indicators of proficiency—novice, practitioner,
expert, or below standards, meets standards, exceeds standards—that might be
demonstrated in each component of the work. As is true of most everything
else in teaching, these options represent a repertoire of ways for representing
criteria, from simple to more complex, and the option we choose for individual
tasks is a matter of matching the complexity of the format to the nature and
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R558
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
BULLETED LIST: Summarizing a Historical Conflict
Your summary should include three paragraphs, each of which:
• Begins with a claim: names an event that was a contributing cause to the conflict and names the parties
involved and time frame of the event.
• Is supported by evidence: contains 2-3 sentences explaining how/why that event was a contributing factor.
• Concludes with an impact statement that is clearly connected to the conflict: As a result . . .
PERFORMANCE TASK LIST: Delivering a Speech
Speaker ______________ Date ______________
Topic ______________ Run time ______________
PREPARATION/STRUCTURE Possible Points Self Teacher
• Engaging, inspirational topic _______ ________ ________
• Gained attention and interest _______ ________ ________
• Clear introduction of central idea _______ ________ ________
• Indication of subject’s value _______ ________ ________
• Logical outline/order _______ ________ ________
• Vivid, distinct main points _______ ________ ________
• Sufficient support material _______ ________ ________
• Well-structured conclusion _______ ________ ________
DELIVERY AND STYLE
• Voice quality: clarity and audibility _______ ________ ________
• Rate of speech _______ ________ ________
• Use of eye contact _______ ________ ________
• Use of gestures _______ ________ ________
• Relaxation, confidence _______ ________ ________
• Sincerity, investment _______ ________ ________
• Use of visual aids _______ ________ ________
OVERALL
• Held audience interest _______ ________ ________
Exhibit 21.2 Formats for Communicating Criteria for Success:
Bulleted List and Performance Task List
Adapted and reprinted with permission from Gerry Speca, April 2007.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 559
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
4 3 2 1
FORMAT
Title page Contains title, name, date,
course, period, teacher.
Has title and name.
Missing one other.
Has title and name.
Missing two others.
Missing title, name
or more than two
others.
Sequence Logically sequenced:
question, hypothesis, test,
material, procedures, data,
analysis/conclusion. All are
present.
Only one category
missing or out of
sequence.
Two categories
missing or out of
sequence.
More than two
categories missing
or out of sequence.
REPRODUCIBILITY
Hypothesis Clear explanation of
purpose; provides context.
Gives correct
purpose with some
framework.
Declares purpose
that is correct.
Purpose is
incorrect.
Design Clear step-by-step
description of experimen-
tal procedures; labeled
diagrams/drawings of de-
vices used in experiment.
A step-by-step
description miss-
ing one key detail;
diagrams/drawings
included not labeled.
Step-by-step
description missing
not more than two
key details; devices
used are mentioned
but not shown.
Description lacks
more than two key
details; not mention
of devices used to
carry out experi-
ment.
ACCURACY
Units Units are used correctly
and consistently through-
out the report.
Units generally used
correctly in most of
report.
Units used only in
parts of report.
Units rarely used or
generally incorrect.
Data
Manipula-
tion
Calculations are clearly
laid out. Math correct.
Figures display data cor-
rectly; all variables labeled.
Few calculation
errors. Figures
correct; variables
unlabeled.
Calculations
contain errors.
Figures correct; no
labels or legend.
Math not shown.
Figures display data
incorrectly.
CONCLUSION
Framework Restates hypothesis,
supports or refutes it and
explains role of test in
making decision.
Restates hypothesis
and supports or
refutes it.
Supports or refutes
hypothesis without
restating it.
Does not address
hypothesis.
Evidence Uses data powerfully as
evidence.
Uses data to sup-
port statements.
Refers to data in the
body of the report as
support.
Does not use data
to support
arguments.
Logic Conclusion logically
follows from data.
Conclusion is logical
but not thoroughly
defended.
Conclusion is logical
but poorly defended.
Conclusion is incor-
rect.
Context Discusses scientific
implications of experiment.
Cites a use for
the work. Makes
proposals for further
investigations.
Describes work as
useful but supplies
no supporting evi-
dence.
Provides no
statement about
relevance.
Adapted from Access Excellence at The National Health Museum, 2007.
Table 21.2 General Science Lab Rubric
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complexity of the task. A more detailed discussion of how to design rubrics ap-
pears later in this chapter.
“Presented in models of work” means that students see concrete models (pieces
of work) that exemplify the standard of performance and criteria for success
they are expected to achieve. These models—commonly referred to as exem-
plars—should be accompanied by a concrete explanation of how and why the
exemplar meets the standards: “You should be able to do one that has these
qualities!” The qualities are named specifically and pointed out in the exemplar.
Or once standards and criteria have been identified, students examine sample
pieces of work and participate in identifying where, and if, those qualities ap-
pear. If exemplars are unavailable, criteria must either be presented and ex-
plained to students with a check for understanding or the students must help to
generate criteria for proficient work with the particular assignment.
This same thinking applies to communicating images of good work for units
of study, major projects, and year-long goals. At the macro level, students and
families might be given sample products that represent benchmarks of progress
for a whole year in, say, reading and writing. Three samples that the Mather
Elementary School in Boston uses to communicate standards for good work by
the end of particular grade levels are shown in Exhibit 21.3. When standards
and criteria are public, precise, prior, printed, and presented in models of good
work, we are offering students a comprehensive package to support them in
focusing their effort effectively.
The Relation of Rubrics to Exemplars and Criteria
Rubric, or scoring rubric, is the name given to the most detailed and compre-
hensive tool used to communicate criteria for success. Note that it is the criteria
that are the central feature. Rubrics are communication devices for criteria. They
break out different levels of quality to which the criteria have been met by stu-
dent performance. They replace grades with specific information about a student
performance. Usually in matrix form, a rubric identifies categories that define
and describe the important components of the work to be produced. In a well de-
signed rubric, each component is accompanied by a progression of quality indica-
tors (usually four) that contain precise descriptions of what levels of performance
need to be met to demonstrate levels of proficiency (novice to expert) within that
component. Exhibit 21.4 shows an example of a rubric for scoring an essay.
The qualities to be assessed—that is, the components of a good essay—are organi-
zation, sentence structure, usage, mechanics, and format. Each is written down the
left-hand side of the matrix. Each quality (component) has three paragraphs spell-
ing out three different levels of performance. In between are two blank spots for
Video:
Co-Creating Criteria
for Success
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 561
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
Exhibit 21.3 Sample Exemplars for Communicating Standards
Source: Reprinted with permission. Excerpted from Curriculum Exemplars for Writing and Reading.
Mather Elementary School, Boston, Massachusetts, 1994.
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Exhibit 21.3 Sample Exemplars for Communicating Standards (continued)
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 563
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
Exhibit 21.3 Sample Exemplars for Communicating Standards (continued)
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R564
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
scoring a student’s work if it seems to fall between two descriptions. This arrange-
ment yields a five-point scale for each quality. Notice also that some components
are weighted more than others: organization is six times as important as format.
Exhibit 21.4 Rubric for Scoring an Essay
1 2 3 4 5 6
Organization Little or nothing is
written. The essay is
disorganized, inco-
herent, and poorly
developed. The es-
say does not stay on
topic.
The essay is not complete.
It lacks an introduction,
well-developed body, or
conclusion. The coherence
and sequence are
attempted, but not
adequate.
The essay is well or-
ganized. It contains an
introductory, supporting,
and concluding paragraph.
The essay is coherent,
ordered logically, and fully
developed.
X6
Sentence
Structure
The student writes
frequent run-ons or
fragments.
The student makes oc-
casional errors in sentence
structure. Little variety in
sentence length or struc-
ture exists.
The sentences are com-
plete and varied in length
and structure.
X5
Usage The student makes
frequent errors in
word choice and
agreement.
The student makes oc-
casional errors in word
choice and agreement.
The usage is correct. The
word choice is appropriate.
X4
Mechanics The student makes
frequent errors in
spelling, punctuation,
and capitalization.
The student makes oc-
casional errors in spelling,
punctuation, and capital-
ization.
The spelling, capitaliza-
tion, and punctuation are
correct.
X4
Format The format is sloppy.
There are no mar-
gins or indentations.
Handwriting is incon-
sistent.
The handwriting, margins,
and indentation have occa-
sional inconsistencies−no
title or inappropriate title.
The format is correct. The
title is appropriate. The
handwriting, margins, and
indentations are consis-
tent.
X1
Note: The numbers in the right column indicate the weighting scheme.
Adapted from Archbald, D., and Newmann, F. M. Beyond Standardized Tests: Assessing Authentic Academic Achievement in
Secondary School. Reston, Va.: National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1988, p. 11. For more information on
NASSP products and services to promote excellence in middle level and high school leadership, visit www.principals.org.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 565
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After examining this matrix, students and families know what the teacher is
looking for and what the standards for good work are. And they will know
even better if a sample of a well-done essay is provided with notes pointing out
how and where each quality is manifested. There are many print and internet
resources available today for collecting sample rubrics to assess a wide range
of products, performances, content, and skill areas. As is true of all available
resources, we have to be judicious, informed consumers and select the best or
fine-tune those that don’t quite measure up. In other words, we need to look for
exemplars of good rubrics. So what would we look for in selecting a rubric or
what would we strive for in designing our own? Here are some guidelines we
have found to be useful.
The best instructional rubrics accomplish the following:
p Address all relevant content and performance objectives.
p Address different skills as separate criteria and assess them indepen-
dently of one another.
p Include gradations of quality (novice to expert) within each criterion.
p Describe each gradation in specific detail, thus making obvious what
differentiates one level from another.
p Fit on one piece of paper.
p Are easy to understand and use by both teacher and student.
p Are accompanied by examples of student work that exemplify the lev-
els described in the rubric.
p Are always a work in progress.
Rubrics can be used as formative or summative assessment tools. When used as
formative tools, rubrics enable students to self-assess and receive feedback on
which level of proficiency is demonstrated in their work within each criterion
in the moment. The feedback and the quality indicators can be used by students
to determine where to invest their effort in improving the work and achieving
higher levels of quality or proficiency. A rubric used in this way becomes a
feedback mechanism that provides guidance about how to incrementally im-
prove performance. Used as summative tools, rubrics clearly define the target
for students and provide them with specific feedback on why they achieved a
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R566
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Adapted from Penny Knox, Oak Creek Elementary School, Irvine, California.
Exhibit 21.5 Rubric for a Cross-Curricular Sixth Grade Exhibition
GOAL
Student will communicate accumulated knowledge through creative and analytical writing.
EXHIBITION
Using class notes, individual research, literature, and information from audio-visual presentations, students
will write a letter to their family describing a trip to an assigned culture by including information on the fol-
lowing aspects of this culture:
• Art, architecture, literature
• Government
• Inventions and technology
• Social, economic, and political systems
• The daily lives of the common people
• Religion and ethical beliefs
• Importance of geography in the development of this culture
• Why this culture fell or declined
EXPECTATION
Guidelines:
• Correct grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation must be used.
• Letter will be written in class.
• Final copy of the letter will be typed on school computer word processing program.
• Student will use appropriate note-taking skills and be able to organize ideas in proper outline format.
• Student is able to research notes to communicate knowledge creatively, establishing tone, point of
view, and setting.
Model: Student letter is attached.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 567
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
particular score or grade on a piece of work. If they should do that type of work
again, the feedback on the rubric can serve as a resource for goal setting on the
next piece of work.
Exhibit 21.5 is an example, developed by Penny Knox at Oak Creek Elementary
School in Irvine, California, of a cross-curricular sixth grade exhibition and the
rubric that accompanies the project. In this case, the teacher and students use
the rubric for both formative and summative assessment purposes. The project
gets scored four times on each criterion. Three times are labeled “Practice Date”
(formative assessment) and the final (summative) assessment is simply called
“Exhibition.” This reflects a design in which students produce the final product
(write the letter) three times and get detailed feedback each time on the qual-
ity of their work. The teacher can use the data to determine where reteaching
needs to occur for some or all of the students. And the students can use the
feedback to focus their effort on improving specific skills or in developing more
background knowledge prior to the final exhibition. In this school, the chil-
dren take the product home for one of the practice trials and work with their
families to apply the scoring rubric to the child’s product. This is a particularly
effective way to inform and involve families in the education of their children.
Exemplars
The complement to a good rubric is a set of samples of actual student work
that exemplify the different cells of the rubric, accompanied by explanations
of why each sample exemplifies the level of quality claimed for it. Exhibit 21.6
is a rubric found on www.Exemplars.com, a website that publishes collections
of benchmark mathematical tasks, designed by K–12 teachers, with actual stu-
dent work produced for each task. A benchmark task is one that calls for stu-
dents to display a variety of competencies thought to be important. Such tasks
aren’t given every day but are saved for assessing student progress at certain key
junctures. The rubric is used to score student products as Novice, Apprentice,
Practitioner, and Expert. An accompanying narrative explains how and why
the samples exemplify one of the four levels of the rubric.
Video:
Creating Criteria
for Successful
Exemplars
http://www.Exemplars.com
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R568
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
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se
n
th
at
w
ill
n
ot
le
ad
to
a
so
lu
tio
n.
Li
ttl
e
or
n
o
ev
id
en
ce
o
f
en
ga
ge
m
en
t i
n
th
e
ta
sk
is
p
re
se
nt
.
A
rg
um
en
ts
a
re
m
ad
e
w
ith
n
o
m
at
he
m
at
ic
al
ba
si
s.
N
o
co
rr
ec
t r
ea
so
ni
ng
no
r j
us
tif
ic
at
io
n
fo
r
re
as
on
in
g
is
p
re
se
nt
.
N
o
aw
ar
en
es
s
of
au
di
en
ce
o
r p
ur
po
se
is
co
m
m
un
ic
at
ed
.
Li
ttl
e
or
n
o
co
m
m
un
ic
at
io
n
of
a
n
ap
pr
oa
ch
is
e
vi
de
nt
.
E
ve
ry
da
y,
fa
m
ili
ar
la
ng
ua
ge
is
u
se
d
to
co
m
m
un
ic
at
e
id
ea
s.
N
o
co
nn
ec
tio
ns
a
re
m
ad
e.
N
o
at
te
m
pt
is
m
ad
e
to
co
ns
tru
ct
m
at
he
m
at
ic
al
re
pr
es
en
ta
tio
ns
.
A
pp
re
nt
ic
e
A
pa
rti
al
ly
c
or
re
ct
st
ra
te
gy
is
c
ho
se
n,
o
r a
co
rr
ec
t s
tra
te
gy
fo
r o
nl
y
so
lv
in
g
pa
rt
of
th
e
ta
sk
is
c
ho
se
n.
E
vi
de
nc
e
of
d
ra
w
in
g
on
so
m
e
re
le
va
nt
p
re
vi
ou
s
kn
ow
le
dg
e
is
p
re
se
nt
,
sh
ow
in
g
so
m
e
re
le
va
nt
en
ga
ge
m
en
t i
n
th
e
ta
sk
.
A
rg
um
en
ts
a
re
m
ad
e
w
ith
s
om
e
m
at
he
m
at
ic
al
ba
si
s.
S
om
e
co
rr
ec
t r
ea
so
ni
ng
or
ju
st
ifi
ca
tio
n
fo
r
re
as
on
in
g
is
p
re
se
nt
w
ith
tr
ia
l a
nd
e
rr
or
, o
r
un
sy
st
em
at
ic
tr
yi
ng
o
f
se
ve
ra
l c
as
es
.
S
om
e
aw
ar
en
es
s
of
au
di
en
ce
o
r p
ur
po
se
is
co
m
m
un
ic
at
ed
, a
nd
m
ay
ta
ke
p
la
ce
in
th
e
fo
rm
o
f p
ar
ap
hr
as
in
g
of
th
e
ta
sk
.
S
om
e
co
m
m
un
ic
at
io
n
of
an
a
pp
ro
ac
h
is
e
vi
de
nt
th
ro
ug
h
ve
rb
al
/w
rit
te
n
ac
co
un
ts
a
nd
ex
pl
an
at
io
ns
, u
se
o
f
di
ag
ra
m
s
or
o
bj
ec
ts
,
w
rit
in
g,
a
nd
u
si
ng
m
at
he
m
at
ic
al
s
ym
bo
ls
.
S
om
e
fo
rm
al
m
at
h
la
ng
ua
ge
is
u
se
d,
a
nd
ex
am
pl
es
a
re
p
ro
vi
de
d
to
c
om
m
un
ic
at
e
id
ea
s.
S
om
e
at
te
m
pt
to
re
la
te
th
e
ta
sk
to
o
th
er
su
bj
ec
ts
o
r t
o
ow
n
in
te
re
st
s
an
d
ex
pe
rie
nc
es
is
m
ad
e.
A
n
at
te
m
pt
is
m
ad
e
to
co
ns
tru
ct
m
at
he
m
at
ic
al
re
pr
es
en
ta
tio
ns
to
re
co
rd
a
nd
co
m
m
un
ic
at
e
pr
ob
le
m
–
so
lv
in
g.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 569
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
Le
ve
ls
P
ro
bl
em
-S
ol
vi
ng
R
ea
so
ni
ng
a
nd
P
ro
of
C
om
m
un
ic
at
io
n
C
on
ne
ct
io
ns
R
ep
re
se
nt
at
io
n
P
ra
ct
iti
on
er
N
ot
e:
T
he
pr
ac
tit
io
ne
r
m
us
t a
ch
ie
ve
a
co
rr
ec
t
an
sw
er
.
A
co
rr
ec
t s
tra
te
gy
is
ch
os
en
b
as
ed
o
n
th
e
m
at
he
m
at
ic
al
s
itu
at
io
n
in
th
e
ta
sk
.
P
la
nn
in
g
or
m
on
ito
rin
g
of
s
tra
te
gy
is
e
vi
de
nt
.
E
vi
de
nc
e
of
s
ol
id
ify
in
g
pr
io
r k
no
w
le
dg
e
an
d
ap
pl
yi
ng
it
to
th
e
pr
ob
le
m
-s
ol
vi
ng
si
tu
at
io
n
is
p
re
se
nt
.
A
rg
um
en
ts
a
re
co
ns
tru
ct
ed
w
ith
ad
eq
ua
te
m
at
he
m
at
ic
al
ba
si
s.
A
sy
st
em
at
ic
a
pp
ro
ac
h
an
d/
or
ju
st
ifi
ca
tio
n
of
co
rr
ec
t r
ea
so
ni
ng
is
pr
es
en
t.
Th
is
m
ay
le
ad
to
:
1.
C
la
rif
ic
at
io
n
of
th
e
ta
sk
.
2.
E
xp
lo
ra
tio
n
of
m
at
he
m
at
ic
al
ph
en
om
en
on
.
3.
N
ot
in
g
pa
tte
rn
s,
st
ru
ct
ur
es
a
nd
re
gu
la
rit
ie
s.
A
se
ns
e
of
a
ud
ie
nc
e
or
pu
rp
os
e
is
co
m
m
un
ic
at
ed
.
C
om
m
un
ic
at
io
n
of
a
n
ap
pr
oa
ch
is
e
vi
de
nt
th
ro
ug
h
a
m
et
ho
di
ca
l,
or
ga
ni
ze
d,
c
oh
er
en
t,
se
qu
en
ce
d,
a
nd
la
be
le
d
re
sp
on
se
.
Fo
rm
al
m
at
h
la
ng
ua
ge
is
u
se
d
th
ro
ug
ho
ut
th
e
so
lu
tio
n
to
s
ha
re
a
nd
cl
ar
ify
id
ea
s.
M
at
he
m
at
ic
al
co
nn
ec
tio
ns
o
r
ob
se
rv
at
io
ns
a
re
re
co
gn
iz
ed
.
A
pp
ro
pr
ia
te
a
nd
ac
cu
ra
te
m
at
he
m
at
ic
al
re
pr
es
en
ta
tio
ns
a
re
co
ns
tru
ct
ed
a
nd
re
fin
ed
to
s
ol
ve
p
ro
bl
em
s
or
po
rtr
ay
s
ol
ut
io
ns
.
E
xp
er
t
N
ot
e:
T
he
pr
ac
tit
io
ne
r
m
us
t a
ch
ie
ve
a
co
rr
ec
t
an
sw
er
.
A
n
ef
fic
ie
nt
s
tra
te
gy
is
ch
os
en
a
nd
p
ro
gr
es
s
to
w
ar
d
a
so
lu
tio
n
is
ev
al
ua
te
d.
A
dj
us
tm
en
ts
in
s
tra
te
gy
,
if
ne
ce
ss
ar
y,
a
re
m
ad
e
al
on
g
th
e
w
ay
, a
nd
/o
r
al
te
rn
at
iv
e
st
ra
te
gi
es
ar
e
co
ns
id
er
ed
.
E
vi
de
nc
e
of
a
na
ly
zi
ng
th
e
si
tu
at
io
n
in
m
at
he
m
at
ic
al
te
rm
s,
an
d
ex
te
nd
in
g
pr
io
r
kn
ow
le
dg
e
is
p
re
se
nt
.
D
ed
uc
tiv
e
ar
gu
m
en
ts
ar
e
us
ed
to
ju
st
ify
d
ec
i-
si
on
s
an
d
m
ay
re
su
lt
in
m
or
e
fo
rm
al
p
ro
of
s.
E
vi
de
nc
e
is
u
se
d
to
ju
st
ify
a
nd
s
up
po
rt
de
ci
si
on
s
m
ad
e
an
d
co
nc
lu
si
on
s
re
ac
he
d.
Th
is
m
ay
le
ad
to
:
1.
Te
st
in
g
an
d
ac
ce
pt
in
g
or
re
je
ct
in
g
of
a
hy
po
th
es
is
o
r
co
nj
ec
tu
re
.
2.
E
xp
la
na
tio
n
of
ph
en
om
en
on
.
3.
G
en
er
al
iz
in
g
an
d
ex
te
nd
in
g
th
e
so
lu
tio
n
to
o
th
er
c
as
es
.
A
se
ns
e
of
a
ud
ie
nc
e
an
d
pu
rp
os
e
is
co
m
m
un
ic
at
ed
.
C
om
m
un
ic
at
io
n
at
th
e
pr
ac
tit
io
ne
r l
ev
el
is
ac
hi
ev
ed
, a
nd
co
m
m
un
ic
at
io
n
of
ar
gu
m
en
ts
is
s
up
po
rte
d
by
m
at
he
m
at
ic
al
pr
op
er
tie
s
us
ed
.
P
re
ci
se
m
at
h
la
ng
ua
ge
an
d
sy
m
bo
lic
n
ot
at
io
n
ar
e
us
ed
to
c
on
so
lid
at
e
m
at
h
th
in
ki
ng
a
nd
to
co
m
m
un
ic
at
e
id
ea
s.
M
at
he
m
at
ic
al
co
nn
ec
tio
ns
o
r
ob
se
rv
at
io
ns
a
re
u
se
d
to
e
xt
en
d
th
e
so
lu
tio
n.
A
bs
tra
ct
o
r s
ym
bo
lic
m
at
he
m
at
ic
al
re
pr
es
en
ta
tio
ns
a
re
co
ns
tru
ct
ed
to
a
na
ly
ze
re
la
tio
ns
hi
ps
, e
xt
en
d
th
in
ki
ng
, a
nd
c
la
rif
y
or
in
te
rp
re
t p
he
no
m
en
on
.
E
xh
ib
it
21
.6
T
he
R
ub
ri
c
in
E
xe
m
pl
ar
s
(c
on
tin
ue
d)
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R570
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
Behind all the mathematical tasks in the Exemplars collection are analytical
criteria for good performance: problem-solving, reasoning and proof, commu-
nication, connections and representation. These criteria serve as guidelines for
creating good tasks as well as for scoring student work on the tasks.
A fine set of samples in different academic areas compiled by Exemplars (www.
exemplars.com) is available on The Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.
com/TST7. These samples show the kind of thoughtful analysis it takes to apply
a rubric properly. Though these samples are for mathematics content, similar
collections can be assembled for any discipline and any skill or concept within
the discipline. Making those collections of exemplars is, in fact, exactly what we
are advocating that teams of teachers do.
Establishing Scoring Reliability
The last step in constructing good rubrics is establishing reliability across teach-
ers in scoring student work samples. Reliability means that the rubrics are suf-
ficiently clear and the teachers are sufficiently in agreement about the meaning
of the levels of performance that different teachers would score a given work
sample in the same way. This high level of reliability is established when teach-
ers practice scoring students’ work samples together, compare results, reconcile
differences through discussion, and continue to practice until they are “reliable”
in their scoring or until they have fine-tuned the language in the rubric to en-
sure common interpretation of criteria. One writer notes that
The conversation about standards inevitably stumbles over the degree to
which standards should be explicitly stated. Is it enough to say student
work should demonstrate “attention to detail”? Or should we describe
the type and amount of detail we expect? There is little doubt that the lat-
ter provides students and teachers better guidance for planning teaching
and learning, but capturing and agreeing on the former can be a signifi-
cant step. (Jamentz, 1993, p. 38)
If teachers take the time to work through to consensus on what the items in a
rubric really mean and come up with exemplars of each level of performance,
they can be clear with students about intended learnings. Even better, they can
produce more precisely designed learning experiences whose activities are
more likely to enable students to learn what they want. To summarize, the se-
quence for developing a rubric goes like this:
1. Establish criteria for success.
2. Identify and spell out levels of performance.
http://www.exemplars.com/
http://www.exemplars.com/
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 571
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
3. Construct authentic tasks.
4. Select and display exemplars.
5. Establish reliability across teachers in scoring student work.
Well-designed rubrics and clear criteria in advance are essential for communi-
cating the three messages of expectations: “This is important. You can do it. I
won’t give up on you.” Without clear criteria for comparing student work, there
is no way to make feedback full and informative enough for low-performing
students. And without adults who take the time to give this full feedback, along
with help to use it, students too easily can conclude they are incapable. It is not
fair to students who do not have a clear image of what quality looks like to ask
them to guess. They certainly won’t figure it out from being told repetitively
that they are not making the grade.
Collaborative planning time for groups of teachers is required for the process
we have described. In fact, what we are really trying to do is develop a profes-
sional culture in which teacher analysis of student work is expected and valued
(California Assessment Collaborative, in Jamentz, 1993). Principals and de-
partment chairs play a key role in communicating that message through what
they say, model, and facilitate through scheduling, use of meeting time, and
the resources they make available to teachers for this work of building rubrics.
The administrator as a “school culture builder” (Saphier & King, 1985) plays a
crucial role in the development of authentic assessments and in building the
capacity of teachers to use the assessment process to improve instruction.
Involving Students in Establishing Standards
Students can play a big part in developing criteria for the products they are
about to create and, in the process, become clear about the goals and be mo-
tivated to meet them. Involving students in the process of identifying impor-
tant standards of performance can eliminate the student complaint that got
Chris Gustafson (1994) started on her assessment project. A student said to
her after class one day, “I don’t understand why I got this grade.” Chris de-
cided to get her students involved in defining standards at the beginning of a
unit on immigration:
I handed out a list of topics and asked the students to select one. The
next day students who had chosen the same project formed groups that
would write a grading standard by which their projects would be evalu-
ated. I explained that a project completed as described on the project
sheet [which she had provided] would receive a C. Each group was to
Without clear
criteria for
comparing student
work, there is
no way to make
feedback full and
informative enough
for low-performing
students.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R572
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
decide what they would need to add to my criteria in order to receive a B
or an A. As an example, we set a grading standard together for a writing
project. That gave me a chance to discourage responses that were too
ambitious: everyone’s journal did not have to be typed, but more than a
half page of writing on each sheet would be required, and so on.
After writing the journal grading standard as a class, each group decided
what [their particular] projects would have to include to receive a B or an
A. I took all their suggestions and typed one grading standard for each
project. The next day, I handed each person his or her group’s grading
standard sheet. Now, before students even began the project, they knew
how it would be evaluated.
This time, when I took the projects home, each one had a grading stan-
dard attached to it. And what a difference that made: because my stu-
dents didn’t have to guess what to do to get a high grade, they were more
successful; our high standards resulted in better projects; and although
I still made comments, evaluation was easier. Parents could also see ex-
actly how the evaluations had been done. The process was open to all,
and the students had had a part in creating it. (Gustafson, 1994, p. 22–23)
Component 3: Assessing Current Knowledge
Before Instruction
Prior to introducing a new skill, topic, or concept, some type of pre-assessment
can yield data about where students are in relation to where we want them to be.
A ninth-grade life science teacher uses an Anticipation Guide containing true/
false statements about photosynthesis (including some commonly held mis-
conceptions) to determine what students believe to be true based on prior expe-
rience. A third-grade teacher asks students to write “the number that represents
three thousand and forty-two” and to label what each digit stands for, and uses
several more examples like this to gather data about student understanding of
place value. An art teacher asks students to draw a picture that includes some
objects in the foreground, on the horizon, and off in the distance to assess stu-
dents’ level of understanding and skill with perspective drawing. What is com-
mon to all three of these is that they happen prior to instruction and are used
as data sources to inform how the topic will be introduced and pursued and to
determine the need to differentiate some aspects of instruction or form flexible
skill groups along the way. Assessing prior knowledge gives us essential infor-
mation about what background knowledge to teach, to whom, and how long to
spend on it so that our students can learn the intended curriculum. And as the
above examples show, it doesn’t have to take much time.
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 573
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | ASSESSMENT
Component 4: Frequent Data Collection
and Teacher Record-Keeping
Once instruction is underway, there must be ongoing data collection to keep
students on track and support them in investing their effort effectively. It is not
enough to say, “I am always assessing my students” unless you have some daily
data record that shows you actually did so. The data can come from looking
over students’ shoulders as they work: walking around with a class list while
students are learning to use certain commands in a software application or
solving one long division problem, checking off names of students who dem-
onstrate mastery while making notes about types of errors that caused you to
intervene and offer guidance. Data might come from listening to students read
aloud one on one, or from asking a well-planned combination of recall and
comprehension questions of many students during whole-class instruction to
get information about which students not only recognize halves and quarters,
but also know they always have to be comparing the same whole for fractional
equivalents to be valid.
Certain kinds of data collection and error detection can happen very quickly using
whiteboards and posing a series of examples with the same multiple-choice set of
answers to ascertain understanding. You’ve just reviewed the spelling and uses of
“their,” “they’re,” and “there” and want to determine whether or not students got
it. You project a sentence on the wall [“I want to be ________ in the morning.”]
and ask students to write the correct spelling on their whiteboards and show their
response on the count of three. After a series of 10 or so examples, you have noted
where there is still uncertainty and confusion and will use the data to decide what
to review and with whom. Other sources of data about student mastery might
come from analysis of products students have produced in a class or from written
student responses to a one-question quiz: “Based on the discussion so far, what do
you think were the most important causes of the Civil War?”
The main point about collecting assessment data is that it is ongoing and we
must use the information to inform our teaching: to determine who “has it,”
who doesn’t, where students are in relation to the objective, and what reteach-
ing needs to occur with whom.
Record-Keeping
Records can take the form of checklists and profiles, logs, journals, and anec-
dotal records, or portfolios. What is important is that the form of the record be
appropriate for the assessment methodology and a good fit for the content or
skill being assessed.
The main point
about collecting
assessment data
is that it is ongoing
and we must use
the information
to inform our
teaching.
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Teachers who prefer checklists and profiles have traditionally used checklists
in the elementary grades to track student skill acquisition, such as mastering
multiplication tables, mechanical writing skills, or developmental levels of lit-
eracy. The checklist in Exhibit 21.7 represents a record-keeping device in which
a check signals the student’s developmental point on a particular behavior.
Checklists represent the idea that important academic behaviors develop over
time and can be assessed along a continuum from emerging to fully developed.
Although most developmental checklists are found in the areas of reading and
writing, many districts have created them for other areas, including mathemat-
ics and science competencies. Checklists are useful components in assessment
because they summarize in compact form a student’s level of skill acquisition
and allow teachers, students, and families to see on the same form the next
target skill. Teachers who share these checklists with students must be careful
not to overwhelm them. Certain children may interpret a sea of empty check
boxes as a huge and unattainable roster of things to be learned and throw up
their hands up in despair.
Logs, Journals, and Anecdotal Records of student performance are often best
recorded in records of some sort that are easy to create, access, and interpret.
These records may capture observations of anything from student social behav-
ior to comments on their class participation or skill at interpreting books read.
Hill and Ruptic (1994) describe systems that use triple ring binders, folders, file
cards, computers, sticky notes, and mailing labels.
The more repetitive the comments become, the more a teacher may be inclined
to move to a checklist. It is more efficient to write a behavior once and check
off when a student can do it. The more individual or idiosyncratic the com-
ments, however, the more useful an anecdotal record is. Exhibit 21.8 shows two
sheets that allow individual, original entries. The record forms in Exhibit 21.9
are designed as checkoffs for skills displayed but still allow space for anecdotal
comments.
Behind the choice of which record form to use must be clear teacher thinking
about what is being assessed. The design of the recording instrument should
meet the criteria of ease of use, clarity, accessibility, and appropriateness.
On another note, “data walls” have become popular as a form of teacher record-
keeping that makes student results visible and public. In New York City, Kinnari
Patel displays the current levels and recent changes in students’ reading levels
for all the students in grades K–3 on a board in the teachers’ lounge (Figure
21.2). Across the top of the display, the big letters represent the reading level of
the student’s current book. Students’ names are on sticky notes and are placed
Checklists are
useful components
in assessment
because they
summarize in
compact form a
student’s level of
skill acquisition.
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Exhibit 21.7 Assessment Checklist
READING
(Motivational)
• Expresses a desire to own or borrow books
• Recommends books or stories to other people
• Keeps a book close by to be read in spare
moments
• Chooses books at an independent reading
level
• Develops preferences for different genres and
for specific authors and illustrators
(Listening)
• Listens for increasingly longer times to stories
read aloud
• Listens to stories without interrupting and
takes turns in responding
(Conventions of Print)
• Understands more complex punctuation
during story reading (e.g., quotation marks,
period after abbreviation, and so on)
• Continues to build on knowledge of sight
words
Fi
rs
t
N
ot
ic
ed
D
ev
el
op
in
g
In
de
pe
nd
en
t
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Exhibit 21.7 Assessment Checklist (continued)
(Linguistics)
• Uses all cuing systems in a balanced and integrated way when
working out unknown words in a story (e.g., context, picture,
and letter/sounds cues)
• Self-corrects when reading
• Uses a variety of strategies when in difficulty (e.g., reads on to the
end of the sentence, starts sentence again [the rerun strategy],
substitutes a word that makes sense for an unknown word and
reads on, and so on)
• Rereads for additional information, clarification, or pleasure
• Reads familiar material aloud expressively to enhance meaning
Fi
rs
t
N
ot
ic
ed
D
ev
el
op
in
g
In
de
pe
nd
en
t
Adapted from The Cambridge Handbook of Documentation and Assessment: Child Portfolios and Teacher Records in the
Primary Grades. Edited by Lynne Hall, Lynn Stuart, and Brenda Engel. University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, February
1995.
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Exhibit 21.8 Two Examples of Anecdotal Records
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Exhibit 21.8 Two Examples of Anecdotal Records (continued)
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Exhibit 21.9 Two Examples of Check-Off Record Forms
Source: Hill, B. C., & Ruptic, C. Practical Aspects of Authentic Assessment. Norwood, Mass.
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Exhibit 21.9 Two Examples of Check-Off Record Forms (continued)
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in the column under their reading level. Thus, there is a big, visual display of
the spread in each class and a way to compare the spread and levels between
classes at the same grade level.
Whenever a student moves up a level, the teacher moves that student’s sticky
note and writes the previous level’s letter and the date of move-up on the back
of the note. Thus, at any time, an observer can turn over any student’s sticky
note and see how many levels he or she has moved through this year and on
what date each move took place. This is a clear way of identifying which stu-
dents are making progress and which are not.
When a teacher moves a student’s sticky note, it leaves a gap in the column it
came from. The gaps at the end of each day show the principal, Ms. Patel, where
movement has occurred. She then moves up sticky notes to fill in any gaps in
any column so that the next day if any gaps appear, she is informed visually that
a child in a given class has moved up a level in reading. This form of record-
keeping enables different teachers of the same content and grade level to com-
pare notes on how students are doing. It also provokes questions early on about
why certain students are moving slowly or are stuck.
Component 5: Frequent High-Quality Feedback to Students
In chapter 14, “Expectations,” we quoted Bellon, Bellon, and Blank (1991), “Ac-
ademic feedback is more strongly and consistently related to achievement than
any other teaching behavior. This relationship is consistent regardless of grade,
socioeconomic status, race, or school setting” (p. 277). We think this robust
finding, consistent over the 20 years since their statement (Hattie, 2012), has
two parallel explanations:
Figure 21.2 Data Wall
Source: Kinnari Patel, principal, Explore Charter School, Brooklyn, New York
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1. Good feedback gives students the precise cognitive information they
need to improve performance.
2. The fact that a teacher takes the time and trouble to give useful feed-
back is inherently a message of caring and wanting the student to suc-
ceed. And the language a teacher uses while giving feedback can ex-
plicitly embed confidence in the student and encouragement as well.
It sounds like this, “You took apart the first two hard word problems
carefully and accurately. This one has one extra step. I bet if you go at
it with that in mind, you’ll see just what to do.” Since feedback can play
such a positive role in student motivation, we have chosen to put the
detailed text and the how-tos of this vital teaching skill in Chapter 14,
“Expectations.”
The same logic could be applied to “Student Self-Assessment” and “Student
Record-Keeping,” the two sections that follow. We kept them in this chapter,
however, in order to keep the 12-point framework about skillful and compre-
hensive assessment intact.
Component 6: Student Self-Assessment
The act of self-assessment should be an act of learning. Popham (2006) states,
“There are enormous instructional payoffs in making students active, assessment
informed partners in the learning process” (p. 14). This requires that students be
continually self-assessing and reorienting their efforts as a result of examining
their own work, feedback from peers, and feedback from teachers. And it has
implications for both skills and dispositions we need to cultivate in students.
Earlier in this chapter, we described some of the skills and conditions involved
in being “assessment informed.” Students must have a clear understanding of
performance standards and criteria for good work and know how to apply those
standards to work samples (their own or those created by others). They need
to know how to analyze the nature and cause of their errors, search for clues
on how to correct their errors, decide how to reorient their efforts, and chart a
course of action (set goals). They need to receive specific and ongoing feedback
and use the feedback to set goals. We need to teach students how to do error
analysis and also the techniques of goal setting (see Chapter 12, “Principles of
Learning,” for more on goal setting).
If students are to be “active, assessment informed” partners, there are also dis-
positions we need to cultivate. Students need to understand and accept that
when they first start to learn something, they’re probably not very good at it.
Stiggins (2005) says, “. . . while they’re learning, it’s got to be OK not to be
Videos:
Peer Assessment
1, 2, & 3
The act of
self-assessment
should be an
act of learning.
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good at it at first. We don’t want the word ‘failure’ coming into play.” We want
students to see that errors are opportunities for learning, not confirmations of
stupidity; that learning is a process—a steady accumulation of knowledge and
skill over time—not an event; that achievement occurs along a continuum of
incremental progress; that the continuum is not a scale of worthiness or smart-
ness but rather it indicates where they are in the moment in relation to a goal
they are working to achieve; that assessment tells them where they are in the
journey and what they need to do next, not how good they are as students.
We want students to develop an understanding that they aren’t supposed to
understand everything the first time around; that it is perseverance, quality,
and care that lead to achievement; that they have plenty of ability to achieve the
goals we set for them, but consistent effort and effective strategies are necessary
ingredients that make the recipe for success; that good students solicit help
and get lots of feedback on their work and use the feedback to improve their
performance. Well beyond assessment, these represent beliefs that we consider
to be life liberating because they reorient some counterproductive negative as-
sumptions like mistakes are a sign of weakness, good students can do it by
themselves, the faster you learn something the smarter you are, and only a few
who are smart can achieve at high levels (see Chapter16, “Classroom Climate,”
for more on this topic).
Component 7: Student Record-Keeping About Progress
Beyond teaching students how to do error analysis and goal setting, another
way to build student confidence and ownership of learning is through record-
keeping and making their performance and progress visible, accessible, and
clear to them. Rick Stiggins (2005) makes the point that properly done, this
builds “positive emotional engagement” of students with academic work. “It
feels good to succeed,” says Stiggins. “When the human brain experiences suc-
cess, it feels good and we’re wired to want more. The trick is to take advantage
of students’ intrinsic love of self-improvement and give them a scaffold they
can ascend, step by step.” As part of a list of strategies for making assessment
“a vehicle to deepen learning and to reveal to students their developing profi-
ciencies . . . ,” Stiggins and Chappuis (2005) recommend several practices that
illustrate the way in which teaching students the processes of self-assessment
simultaneously reinforces some of the above-mentioned dispositions:
A teacher arranges items on a test according to specific learning tar-
gets and prepares a “test analysis” chart for students, with three boxes:
“my strengths,” “quick review,” and “further study.” After handing back
the corrected test, students identify learning targets they have mastered
and write them in the “my strengths” box. Next, students categorize their
wrong answers as either “simple mistakes” or “further study.” Then stu-
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dents list the simple mistakes in the “quick review” box. Last, students
write the rest of the learning targets represented by wrong answers in the
“further study” box.
Students review a collection of their work over time and reflect on their
growth. “I have become a better reader this quarter. I used to . . . but now
I . . .”
Students use a collection of their self-assessments to summarize their
learning and set goals for future learning: “Here is what I have learned
. . . Here is what I need to work on . . .” (p. 15)
Linda Hunt, teacher at Bonny Eagle High School in Standish, Maine, made visi
ble records of student progress, error analysis, reteaching, and goal setting all an
integral part of her everyday work with students. She tracks class progress on a
test-retest cycle. While individual student scores are not identifiable in the pub-
lic chart, the number of students scoring at each level is. Linda uses the charts
to identify and plan with students what concepts are tripping them up and in-
volves the students in planning where and how reteaching needs to take place.
Reteaching (often using peers) and test retakes are normative practices in her
class; retakes occur only after reteaching and the highest grade a student gets
on a retake replaces any lower grade on the same material. When it comes to
self-assessment, the important thing is that she starts with posting the data and
having students participate in analyzing trouble spots and identifying focus ar-
eas for reteaching.
Linda displays the results of tests and retests on a leaf and branch chart. The top
scoring students do not elect to retake the test. Their scores, if added to a second
chart, would put almost all the scores in the top three ranks. All but one of the
bottom range scores from the first test have been dramatically improved. Anoth-
er chart shows an item analysis of the questions on the first test and enumerates
how many students missed that item. The class has used this chart to identify
concepts they want retaught and to set individual goals.
A third chart records possible actions students are going to take individually. In
their personal notebooks, they pick a strategy to pursue and make a commit-
ment to it. So in Ms. Hunt’s self-assessment mechanisms, we see the juncture of
two arenas from Chapter 14, “Expectations”: “Retakes and Redos” and “Grading
Practices” with the public display of student data on tests, both for the positive
purpose of student motivation. In this class, effective effort is rewarded, and the
assessment practices are used to do so.
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At this point, we return to our beginning premise in Figure 21.1: teaching,
assessment, and learning are intricately intertwined; “a good assessment makes
a good teaching activity, and a good teaching activity makes a good assessment”
(Shavelson, Baxter, & Pine, 1992, p. 22); and high-quality assessment for learning
is an ongoing cycle that involves teachers and students working as partners in the
processes of ongoing data collection, feedback, and error analysis.
Component 8: Frequent Error Analysis by the Teacher
Our most powerful reteaching begins when we analyze the errors of those stu-
dents who did not show mastery and design reteaching based on understand-
ing the student thinking that led to the error. There are five key questions to ask
when doing error analysis. They are worded here for a team of teachers who
are analyzing errors together, though they could just as easily be used by an
individual teacher.
1. What might the students have been thinking to make this error?
2. How can we find out which of our hypotheses is right?
3. What different reteaching strategies could we use to fix this?
4. How will we plan and manage tasks and time in the period to get fif-
teen minutes for reteaching a few times a week?
5. How can the team help?
What follows is an excerpt from a “think aloud” error analysis session between
a pair of colleagues looking at the test item in Exhibit 21.10 and the data on
how 99 students responded to this item. Thirty-nine students had the correct
answer (B) and 60 didn’t. The numerical tally was generated by Kim Marshall,
at the time the principal of the Mather Elementary School in Boston.
Teacher A: “Twenty-seven students incorrectly chose answer C. What
might they have been thinking to pick that one?”
Teacher B: “Perhaps they did not know that they need to zero a linear
object on a ruler when measuring its length. That is quite common in
elementary children. And rulers don’t help, since many rulers place the
first hash marks for measuring one quarter inch inward from the physical
edge of the ruler.”
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Teacher C: “So maybe the problem is the children don’t know they have
to put the beginning of the object at the exact zero point on the ruler and
that zero point might not be the physical left-end point of the ruler.”
Teacher A: “Or maybe they were just careless and didn’t look carefully
enough to notice that the truck in the picture was placed at 3 inches in-
stead of 0.”
Teacher C: “Or maybe some children are making a mixture of both these
two errors.”
Teacher A: “So for reteaching we will need to think about what fixit strat-
egies we could use for tomorrow . . .”
Teacher B: “And they should be quite different depending on which error
the student was making.”
Teacher A: “Let’s work out what to do for the children who don’t know or
don’t remember to zero the object on the ruler. We could make up some
pretend rulers on oak tag where the first hash mark was at different dis-
tances in from the edge. We could cue the kids that they had to zero the
object (say we will have different size blocks for them to measure) and tell
them that it won’t be easy to do because these are ‘trick’ rulers.”
Teacher B: “We could say you have to measure each object with a dif-
ferent one of the trick rulers and have the kids pass the rulers and the
objects around the circle.”
Teacher A: “Maybe put kids in groups of five . . . ”
The scenario continues while these teachers analyze the thinking of children
who answered C and D. (D is the “best” error. Can you tell why?) And the con-
versation moves to how to gather data about who made which types of error
and how to manage the reteaching. This think-aloud could also be a teacher
looking at her own data and thinking by herself. But imagine the power if teach-
ers had regular collaborative opportunities with dialogue like this to examine
data and plan how to reteach a concept! Prior to reteaching, the teacher (or the
team of teachers) will do a little data gathering with the students to see which of
their hypotheses about the cause of the error is true. That can be done in min-
utes by simply asking a few children to think out loud about how they did the
problem. This is also a golden opportunity for the teacher to share with students
how she or he went about error analysis in preparation for teaching students,
and how students can do the same with their own work.
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Component 9: Error Analysis by Students
Teaching students how to do error analysis is a fundamental skill in effective
self-assessment and is one of the most significant ways in which we can make
assessment an act of learning.
Examine the record in Exhibit 21.11 created by Deborah Levitsky for her
eighth-grade team. Weekly quizzes are returned to students the day after the
quiz and students fill in their score. Then students have to identify which prob-
lems they got wrong and do a form of error analysis in the third box down,
as they attempt to analyze the types of errors or confusion their incorrect re-
sponses represent. Exhibit 21.12 contains a record filled in well by a student
after a quiz on adding fractions, followed by an example of a record filled in
poorly.
The negative example in Exhibit 21.12 is negative because the student hasn’t
figured out what is different about the ones he got wrong from the ones he got
right. In the positive example, the student has looked closely at the problems
she got wrong to see what is throwing her off. A fourth box could be added
asking the student what he or she is going to do to learn the item, fill the gap,
or prevent the error in the future.
19. How long is the truck?
A. 5 3/4 inches 27
B. 2 3/4 inches 39
C. 5 1/2 inches 27
D. 2 1/2 inches 6
Use the diagram below to answer question 19.
Mather School student
responses to this
question.
Exhibit 21.10 Fourth Grade Mathematics Question
Adapted from Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System:
Release of Spring 2001 test items.
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Exhibit 21.11 Test Record
Name: Date ______ Date ______ Date ______ Date ______
What was your score, as a fraction?
(e.g., 8/10)
Which problems did you get wrong?
(Give the number for each.)
What caught your eye?
OR
What did you notice?
OR
What concept did you have problems
with?
Plan for improvement
Adapted from Deborah Levitsky, New Leaders for New Schools.
Exhibit 21.12 Student Self-Assessment
Name: Positive Date ______ Name: Negative Date ______
What was your score, as a
fraction? (e.g., 8/10)
7/10 What was your score, as a
fraction? (e.g., 8/10)
7/10
Which problems did you get
wrong? (Give the number for
each.)
#4, 6, 9 Which problems did you
get wrong? (Give the num-
ber for each.)
#4, 6, 9
What caught your eye?
OR
What did you notice?
OR
What concept did you have
problems with?
Getting the common
denominator when the
numbers are big
What caught your eye?
OR
What did you notice?
OR
What concept did you
have problems with?
Adding fractions
Plan for improvement Come for extra help in
G Block
Plan for improvement Work harder
Adapted from Deborah Levitsky, New Leaders for New Schools.
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As the negative example in Exhibit 21.12 suggests, students need to be taught
how to analyze errors effectively and may need side-by-side coaching by their
teacher to really internalize the skill. In fact, whole-class lessons in error analy-
sis are a necessity and are very productive when introducing this kind of self-
assessment mechanism. A class activity can be students doing error analysis in
pairs or in small groups. They help each other identify what went wrong when
something went wrong. Teachers can make instructor answer books available
in class for students to use after they do exercises or tasks. After checking their
responses against the answer books, students have to explain their errors; when
they do so, they can get full credit for the item.
Making error analysis the focus of a whole-class lesson tacitly sanctions errors
as normal and error analysis as a critical vehicle for identifying where we need
to focus future effort to improve performance. Thus student self-assessment
and error analysis are a direct manifestation of the belief that effective effort is
the key to success.
Component 10: Planning and Reteaching
Our exploration of assessment thus far underscores how dramatically the job
description of teachers has changed. It used to be that teachers would teach and
then assess which students learned what was taught. In addition, they would
grade students to differentiate who learned the most. Then, the class would
move on to the next topic.
Now, the purpose of assessment is different. A fully committed teacher sticks
with all the students until they reach proficiency—at least in literacy and mathe
matics—and strives to accelerate the learning of students who enter behind
in academic attainment. This is both a moral and a legal imperative whose
requirements stem from law (No Child Left Behind), moral conscience, our
democracy’s promise of equal opportunity, and economic necessity to compete
successfully in the “flat world” (Friedman, 2005). Therefore, the prime purpose
of assessment is to inform instruction in order to bring all students to profi-
ciency. Thus skills and concepts that students didn’t get the first time around
must be retaught. Thoughtful error analysis sets the stage for meaningful and
productive reteaching with those students.
In an era when teachers are feeling pressure to cover curriculum, keep up with
pacing guides, and prepare for standardized high-stakes tests, reteaching cre-
ates an additional challenge: how to afford the time to reteach and manage
reteaching with one group while those who “got it” are productively engaged in
meaningful work. Here are two examples from secondary teachers:
Making error
analysis the
focus of a whole
class lesson
tacitly sanctions
errors as normal.
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In her eleventh-grade American history class after a 20-minute discussion
of a current Supreme Court case, Ms. G takes aside five students who
showed confusion in yesterday’s quiz. They don’t understand how some
analysts think the Court is tacitly legislating morality. At yesterday after-
noon’s team meeting with the other history teachers, she got the idea of
making an analogy to a family situation where parental rules get interpret-
ed by other care givers. While she is trying this out, the rest of the class is
in groups preparing briefs they would use in arguing before the Court on
the case she and they have spent the first 20 minutes explicating. They
are going to hand in a flowchart of how their arguments flow logically and
indicate what evidence and precedents they would cite.
An earth science teacher describes another scenario:
In my earth science class we have been watching sections of Al Gore’s
movie, An Inconvenient Truth, as part of our study of global warming. I
am also using it as a way to show how powerful visual displays can make
data more real for audiences. I gathered from yesterday’s class discussion
that a few students don’t really understand why two particular graphs are
different ways of representing the same data on temperature change. This
is a problem, because these two graphic forms will come up many times
over the coming year. Everybody needs to be fluent with them. I have
gotten an idea from my science teammates about how to use an anima-
tion feature of PowerPoint to show side by side how the two templates
could be tracking the same data. While I try this with the three students
who are confused, the rest of the class will use a data table from Gore’s
book to construct a graphic display they think would be persuasive. They
can choose from among four forms used in the film or another one if they
can justify it. Pairs will make class presentations in the final 15 minutes of
class.
Although we believe that nothing will be as effective as reteaching another way
by the students’ own teacher (who knows the students, the content of the work,
and what was done before), settings outside regular class hours—extra help
blocks, tutoring centers, Saturday school, and homework help centers—can and
should be created for students to fill in missing ideas or skills from recent classes.
The commitment to reteaching and to making it an integral part of classroom
life is a poignant reminder of where professional knowledge and beliefs inter-
sect. As a professional community, we have to believe that all students are ca-
pable of reaching proficiency and that it is our most important work to continue
to figure out how to make that possible for all students. Only then will we be
tenaciously motivated to invest our creative and collective effort to develop the
The prime purpose
of assessment is to
inform instruction
in order to bring
all students to
proficiency.
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management and instructional skills requisite for in-class reteaching and to
tackle the institutional obstacles (schedules, isolation of teachers, and so on)
that stand in the way of making it feasible. Note that in both previous examples,
the teacher got the idea for a reteaching strategy from colleagues. Helping each
other plan reteaching strategies and useful short activities for the rest of the
class is high-leverage use of common planning time among teachers. It is the
penultimate indicator of a high-functioning professional learning community.
Component 11: Goal Setting and Action
Planning by Students
It’s one thing to set a goal and another to set a goal in such a way that you will
work hard on it and attain it. Both the motivational and the technical planning
aspects of goal setting are explained at length in Chapter 12, “Principles of
Learning.”
Component 12: Reporting Systems
Including Three-Way Conferences
The final component of good classroom assessment is three-way conferences
with students, teachers, and families that are led by the students. The steps
above prior to this one lay the groundwork for student-led conferences, be-
cause they develop a great deal of student involvement through participation
in generating criteria, student self-assessment, error analysis, and goal setting.
As Rick Stiggins says in his excellent book, Student-Involved Assessment for
Learning (2005), “We cannot simply plug in student-led parent conferences in
a traditional teacher centered assessment environment, where students have
little idea what the expectations are or how they are doing with respect to those
targets. . . . We must set students up to succeed at conferences or such confer-
ences are not worth conducting” (p. 350).
Stiggins goes on to describe what it takes to make these conferences produc-
tive. The early steps include tasks described previously: ensuring that learning
expectations are public and clear to everyone and that they are aligned with
assessments and helping students self-assess and build collections of quality
work (portfolios) that represent their progress.
He recommends sending portfolios or parts of portfolios home periodically,
before three-way conferences, to keep families informed of student progress
and invite parent-student conversations. As conference time approaches, have
a conference with each student to review their assembled portfolio of products
and help them become articulate about how these products compare with the
criteria for this kind of work as well as their analysis of what they need to work
Videos:
Student-Led
Conferences
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on next. Role-play a good and a bad student-led conference with the entire class.
Develop criteria for a good one. Make students responsible for inviting partici-
pants and for following up on the invitation so that all are informed. Gregory,
Cameron, and Davies (2001) give a sample of a useful letter to send home ex-
plaining the purpose of these student-led conferences to families. They also give
additional useful guidelines for conducting the conference.
“When the event happens, make sure students welcome all participants, handle
introductions, review the objectives of the meeting, coordinate meeting events,
. . . and summarize results” (Stiggins, 2005, p. 353). Thus preparing students to
lead the conference is not time lost to instruction, but an episode of instruc-
tion itself. Stiggins also recommends soliciting a follow-up written review of
the experience from the family—perhaps a questionnaire—to help them suggest
future learning targets for their child. And he also recommends a debriefing
with the students about the experience by writing about it or having large group
discussions. Chapter 13 on this topic in Stiggins’s book is well worth reading.
It includes tips on how to make these student-led conferences practical in high
schools and middle schools by only doing one quarter of the class each quarter
of the school year, having “substitute” adults available for students without a
parent or guardian to show up, and other creative ideas for managing the logis-
tics and timing of such conferences. Conferences such as these can be powerful
motivators for students to focus on their learning goals.
Another important topic is the form of written reports that go home to families.
Numerical and letter grades do not give much information. They represent non-
specific indicators of their children’s performance against some unknown set of
criteria. Worse, they represent a ranking of their children in a normal distribu-
tion curve; that kind of a grade reports only how well the student has done in
relation to others in the class with no reference to actual learning at all.
Reports to families should be varied to include portfolios, checklists, rubrics,
and anecdotal comments. This kind of information-rich report can build the
support and involvement of families in their children’s education unavailable in
any other way. It is now part of the conventional wisdom that children do better
when their families partner with the school in their children’s education. They
cannot do this without information about what their children are supposed to
be learning and about what quality work should look like. Similarly, feedback
and reporting generated through authentic assessment give families specific in-
formation and cues about what and how to help their children. No system of
letter grades can build this kind of home-school partnership that is now known
to be so important for successful schooling.
It is now part of
the conventional
wisdom that
children do better
when their
families are
positive partners
with the school
in their children’s
education.
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One of the forces, commonly cited as standing in the way of eliminating num-
ber and letter grades, is that colleges demand grades for their admission pro-
cess. High schools can’t abandon class rank and letter grades, it is argued, be-
cause the colleges demand them. Is this really true? Alfie Kohn (1995) reported
over 20 years ago:
I wrote letters to the Dean of Admission at Harvard and Brown and said,
“What would you do if you got an application from a student who went
to a school where there were no grades given at all (much less those un-
believably pernicious additive things like Honor Societies and class rank-
ing), where there was only a sheaf of qualitative assessments of the kid?
Would you consider such an applicant?” And both Harvard and Brown
wrote back and said, “We not only would, we do.” In fact, the guy from
Brown added that such a student would probably be at a relative advan-
tage because we would have a lot more information about that student
than they would with a 3.6 (what the hell does that mean?). Now at state
schools it becomes more problematic, to be sure. At least let’s pull the
plug on this pseudo argument that says, “We have to continue to destroy
kids’ interest in learning because the colleges demand it.” It’s more com-
plicated when you look up close.
Another force to preserve letter and number grades is that they are easily ma-
nipulated into summative figures that can be used to compare the effectiveness
of schools and districts by magazines, newspapers, and political interests. There
is not, at the moment, a great call from families for anecdotal reports or for the
use of rubrics. Many families are satisfied by the simplicity of the letter grad-
ing system because they are used to it, and because it appears to answer their
bottom-line question: “How is my child doing?” Letter grades allow short an-
swers like, “Doing well” (my kid is getting an A), “Fair” (my kid is getting Bs),
“Poor” (my kid is getting Cs or Ds). Those kinds of data also invite quick and
easy responses by families, such as rewards or praise for doing well and pun-
ishments, restrictions, or injunctions to buckle down for not doing well. But
this kind of reporting also excludes them from involvement in their child’s
education in any substantive way. Only through examination of real samples
of their child’s work in comparison to models of what he or she is supposed to
be producing (with specific criteria for what is expected) can they see exactly
how to help.
Side by side with this call for authentic reporting is the reality of family time
in a society with many single-parent and two-job families who want to be able
to digest information about their children’s progress quickly. This factor calls
for reporting systems that do not overwhelm families with mounds of rubrics
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and samples, so teachers should select key products at important benchmarks
to share with families and illustrate the criteria for quality work concisely and
compactly. This effort will be rewarded by more support from families in help-
ing students master what is important. In describing what reports look like that
meet these standards of being informative but time efficient for teachers and for
families, Wiggins (1996) writes:
Over time what matters is whether Johnny can make discernible progress
toward authentic standards, irrespective of the grades teachers are most
comfortable giving. But a single score, like a single grade, is inadequate
feedback. A more helpful report would disaggregate performance into its
many separate elements: Susan is thorough and accurate at laboratory
work, though weak on tests; she is very conscientious and accurate in her
homework problems. Jamie’s lab work is spotty but indicative of under-
standing; he does extremely well on tests; and his homework, when done,
is excellent—but it isn’t always turned in on time, and careless mistakes
are made in it. (p. 142)
He then goes on to present models of such reports that could disaggregate
performances. In the process, he distinguishes three kinds of data they would
provide for each performance element: achievement levels, work quality, and
progress.
Achievement levels refers to exit-level standards of performance. Work
quality refers to the caliber of the products produced, at any level (thus al-
lowing us to make the apt kind of distinction made in diving, figure skating,
and music competition: degree of difficulty vs. quality points). Progress is
measured backwards from exit standards. Progress would thus be charted
along multiyear continuums so that a 3rd grader would know how she was
doing against 5th grade and (sometimes) 12th grade standards, just as we
find in such performance areas as diving, chess, and band. (p.144)
He then provides an excellent example from Victoria, Australia (Exhibit 21.13).
Note that the heavier the shading, the more frequently the student performs at
that level. This format allows families and students to see at a glance the upper
limits of what a student can produce and the range of performance level he or
she usually does produce. Immediately below these shaded bands of levels are
compact statements of the student’s progress relative to the class and overall
quality of care and thoroughness in the work. To the right is a summary of the
types and number of assignments that were given and a profile of strengths and
weaknesses (disaggregating the elements of performance). All of this informa-
tion is laid out on one page and is visually clear.
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Student: John Doe
Level of Performance: Writing: semester (2/93–6/93)
A B C D E F G H I
A B C D E F G H I
A B C D E F G H I
shading is proportional to frequency of scores
Level of Performance: Writing: year (9/92–6/93)
shading is proportional to frequency of scores
Progress in Writing: 4/5 (Good, relative to class)
Quality of Work Products: 3/5 (Satisfactory; slightly below average)
Consistency of Work Product Quality: 2/5 (Well below average of class)
Class Data: Writing
Class Range: Writing 5/93
Class Performance: Writing 5/93
1. criteria scores (average of scores on all five leading criteria):
3.6 (out of 5)
2. most difficult criterion: “revision leading to polished work”:
2.6 (out of 5)
Please refer to exemplar book for samples of student papers for each level of performance and quality of
work, summary of the six genres of writing and five criteria used in scoring, and description of performance.
Work This Quarter
4 stories, poems
6 analytic papers
1 formal research
paper
reflection journal
Writing Profile
Genres of writing
strength: persuasive
weakness: analytic
most progress: description
Critieria scores
strength: vitality of ideas
(3.6)
weakness: mechanics (2.3)
greatest gain:
focus (2.4 ➛ 3.2)
Each criterion is judged
using a 5-point scale:
5 = top score
Score in parentheses =
student’s average score
SOURCE: Honesty and Fairness: Toward Better Grading and Reporting (p 173). In Communicating Student
Learning (1996 ASCD Yearbook). Alexandria, VA: ASCD. Reprinted by permission. The Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development is a worldwide commuity of educators advocating sound policies and
sharing best practices to achieve the success of each learner. To learn more, visit ASCD at www.ascd.org.
Exhibit 21.13 Language Arts Report
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Exhibit 21.13 Language Arts Report (continued)
Adapted from Wiggins, G. “Honesty and Fairness: Toward Better Grading and Reporting.” In T. Guskey (Ed.), 1996 ASCD
Workbook. Alexandria, VA.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1996, pp. 173–174. The Association for
Supervision and Curriculum Development is a worldwide community of educators advocating sound policies and sharing best
practices to achieve the success of each learner. To learn more, visit ASCD at www.ascd.org.
ENGLISH PROFILES IN WRITING
Writing Band A
Uses implements to make marks on paper. Explains the meaning of marks.
Copies “words” from signs in immediate Writing shows understanding of difference
environment. between print and picture.
Writing Band B
Holds pencil/pen using satisfactory grip. Writing shows use of vocabulary of print.
Writes own name. Use of letters and other conventional symbols.
Writing Band F
Narratives contain introduction, complication, A range of vocabulary and grammatical structures.
resolution in logical order.
Complex sentences—principal and subordinate Understanding of the difference between narrative
clauses: use of both active and passive voice. and other forms of writing.
Corrects most spelling, punctuation, grammatical Consults available sources to improve or enhance
errors in editing others’ written work. writing.
Writing Band H
Vocabulary shows awareness of ambiguities and Organization and layout or written text is accurate
shades of meaning. and appropriate for purpose, situation, and audience.
Meaning is expressed precisely. Figurative language, such as metaphor, is used to
Edits and revises own work to enhance effect of convey meaning.
vocabulary, text organization, and layout. Edits and revises others’ writing, improving presentation
and structure without losing meaning or message.
Writing Band I
Writes with ease in both short passages and Uses analogies, symbolism, and irony.
extended writing on most familiar topics.
Extension beyond the conventions of standard Structures a convincing argument in writing.
English writing in a skillful and effective way.
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As a backup to the report form itself is a page that explains the meaning of the
nine bands (levels) of student performance. And there is also a background
booklet for families, developed by the district, that shows by example what
the nine levels mean. It contains performance samples of work at each level,
rubrics, and sample teacher comments on the work samples. Thus Wiggins
develops a set of criteria for good reporting systems well worth attending to:
p Disaggregate performance into its elements (not, for example, calling
“language arts” one global entity).
p Report separately students’ achievement level, work quality, and prog-
ress.
p Are based on clear descriptions of what each level of performance
means, including booklets for families that spell out quality perfor-
mance with examples at different levels.
Creating such reporting systems takes considerable effort and time, especially
for such steps as creating the background booklet with good examples of per-
formance at each level plus teacher comments highlighting the way in which
each paper or sample illustrates the level. Good reporting systems to families,
however, can create their own market. Until people have experienced some-
thing new and useful, they don’t know they want it. The better it is, the more
they come to feel they can’t do without it. Some critics may see this position as
naive, believing more cynically that the majority of people will always cling to
the easier way—the traditional grading system. It is our belief, however, that
families are likely to want the extra data to help their children perform well and
achieve at higher standards. These data will be available only when assessment
and reporting systems spring from authentic roots.
VALIDITY AND RELIABILITY
Now we come to the topics of validity (“Is the assessment assessing what we
really want to measure?”) and reliability (“Would the assessment give the same
result or score if we administered it again to the same subjects?”). For complex
performance assessments, validity is a particularly important issue as teach-
ers design assessment tasks. Any assessment task requires a range of student
behaviors, perhaps reading or listening to directions or gathering information
from sources that require more or less initiative and perseverance, then acting
cognitively on the information, then representing the output of that cognition
in writing, speaking, or other expressive forms. The more complex the assign-
ment is, the more it resembles a chain where any weak link can cause a break.
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Complexity is an asset when assessments are used as opportunities for teaching
and learning. But a “mastery/not yet” benchmark assessment—an assessment
used to signify attainment of some important level of learning for students—
must be sure not to contain confounding variables of student performance that
are off to the side of what we want to measure. For example, assignments con-
taining a great deal of essay writing to assess science knowledge are good as
learning experiences yet may obscure the data on what the student really knows
about, say, using microscopes.
The following questions need to be answered satisfactorily if assessments are to
be technically sound. The questions include checks (where applicable) on crite-
ria, sample size, objectivity, reliability, and validity:
p Are pre- and post-test measures taken? Student behavior should be as-
sessed before instruction begins to see if students already know the ma-
terial or part of the material.
p Is assessment repeated at some future date after the end of instruction
to measure the permanence of the learning?
p Is the sample of items big enough (sufficient questions on each area) so
that chance error doesn’t mask what students really know or can do?
p Is the assessment administered objectively, without bias, distractions, or
confusion to individuals?
p Are assessments scored or judged accurately?
p Is the assessment reliable?
p Is the assessment device appropriate to students with diverse learning
styles, and does it thus represent multiple intelligences? Are assess-
ments culturally responsive?
Methods of Data Gathering on Student Learning
Fleming and Chambers discovered in 1983 that short-answer paper-and-pencil tests
at the fact level dominated assessment in American schools at all levels, K–12. And
Goodlad’s (1984) data revealed that recitation structures—cycles of teacher questions
and student answers, a form of ongoing oral assessment—accounted for over 80% of
all lessons observed. And 80% of the questions in these recitation lessons were at the
fact-and-recall cognitive levels (Cotton, 1988, 2000). It seems from more recent stud-
ies that nothing has changed (Shingles, 2015.)
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Though the preponderance of lower-level questions is a problem, it is not that
there is anything inherently wrong with assessing students’ knowledge of facts,
or in doing so orally; it is surely one kind of data we want to gather from time
to time. Rather, it is the pervasiveness of those limited practices—and the rel-
atively superficial nature of the data they yield—that is troubling. Like every
other area of teaching examined in The Skillful Teacher, there is no one right
or best way to gather data about student learning; there exists a repertoire of
methods for doing so and that is what we explore here. It is the responsibility of
every teacher to develop a wide repertoire of ways to assess student learning be-
cause it enables assessment of various types of learners and learning styles. But
more than that, it enables matching assessment format to the cognitive level of
objectives being assessed, and aligning assessment practices with the demands
of 21st century curricula. These demands include knowing how to use knowl-
edge and skills, thinking globally and critically, applying knowledge to novel
situations, analyzing information, communicating, collaborating, solving prob-
lems, making decisions, using technology as a tool for learning, functioning as
a productive contributor within an organizational setting, and using all of these
skills to understand and address global issues (Saltpeter, 2003). Obviously,
more than paper-and-pencil short-answer tests, essays, and written reports are
needed, though these will remain part of our map.
We are going to describe a number of assessment devices and the kind of learn-
ing for which each is appropriate. Each device has a place, including short-
answer tests, essays, and written reports. But teachers must now have the
capacity to design and use a much wider range of assessment devices because
they will be aiming squarely for the kinds of learning the devices measure.
Figure 21.3 identifies the repertoire of assessment devices and shows their
relationships.
Tests
Short Answer
There is a place for short-answer tests (fill in the blank, true or false, mul-
tiple choice) in educational practice, but it is much smaller than the place
it once held. Though they are not “authentic,” short-answer quizzes where
students respond with right answers—facts on timed tests, a series of recall
questions involving content knowledge, and so on—enable us to gather data
about whether students have basic foundation knowledge or mastery of certain
skills. Short-answer quizzes can be appropriate whenever students need feed-
back on their factual knowledge to identify what to study. Short-answer quizzes
can also be oral, a much-neglected medium. Short-answer oral quizzes can
allow students’ assessment to be individualized, and they can also be given by
There is no one
right or best way
to gather data
about student
learning; there
exists a repertoire
of methods for
doing so.
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Figure 21.3 Assessment Devices for Gathering Data on Student Learning
Tending toward the more and more complex,
multistage, and multidisciplinary
Tests
Short
Answer
Written Oral
Observation of
Performance
Examination of
Student Products
Essay
Written Oral
Hand Word
Written Processed
Problem-
Solving
Interviews
Verbal/Written
Complex Multistage
Problem Embedded
in Real Contexts
Computer
Simulation
Direct
Performance
Work
Samples
Reports
Oral Multimedia
Written
Complex
Projects/
Exhibitions
Portfolios
Rites of
Passage
students to one another. Then benchmark certification quizzes can be given by
the teacher when students declare themselves ready for certification (e.g., ready
for the multiplication fact mastery test on tables). When the characteristics of
good assessment are applied to short-answer quizzes, students know what the
criteria for success are (e.g., completing the pack of math flash cards in 60 sec-
onds, knowledge of all the states and capitals without error). Perhaps they keep
track of their own progress and use the data on each set of results to plan what
and how to study next to reach the criteria.
Essays
An essay test is a highly verbal task, performed orally or in writing, that asks
students to do higher-level thinking using information acquired over a period
of time. The thinking task may ask students to take and defend a point of view,
provide specific evidence, or show relationships of cause and effect between
events or conditions and actions or outcomes. Essays should continue to play
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a significant role in assessment, but paper and pencil essays are only one for-
mat. There are new questions in the literature these days about the reliability
of handwritten essays in an era when many students are accustomed to using
the computer as their primary writing tool. There is speculation and a grow-
ing body of research that being required to handwrite essay responses creates
a handicapping condition that interferes with student expression. Increased
use of keyboard technology may alleviate this problem, but oral presentations
could also be used much more frequently, and student performance could be
assessed on the same criteria of organization, evidence to support claims, sen-
tence structure, and so forth. Samara (2005) presents the following product
guide for oral reports:
• Introduction—speaker introduced; topic described; impetus for proj-
ect explained; expected outcomes discussed.
• Beginning—topic described in general terms; major points outlined;
audience involved.
• Middle—major points supported with details; intermittent summa-
rizations; transition statements link major points; audience involved
with content.
• Summary—major points reviewed; call to action/ask for acceptance
of concepts/beliefs/positions.
• Body language—sustained eye contact with each member of the
audience; formal posture; natural gestures/expressions, clear/well-
paced voice.
• Use of visual aids—to support major points; intermittent use; limited.
(p. 9)
This guide could be used by teachers, students, or both as criteria for giving
feedback to students on their performances. It would also be a formative guide
for students in preparing their oral reports.
Problem-Solving Tasks
Complex problems embedded in real-life situations can be found in many cur-
rent development efforts at national, state, and district levels. Exhibit 21.14 is
an example drawn from the National Assessment of Educational Progress Pilot
Study of Higher-Order Thinking Skills Assessment Techniques in Science and
Mathematics (NAEP, 1987).
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Triathlon: Interpreting Data
Students are required by this paper and pencil task to examine data about five children competing in three
athletic events and decide which of the five children would be the all-around winner. Students must devise
their own approach for computing and interpreting the data and explain why they have selected a particular
“winner.” Students must be careful in their interpretation, because the lower scores are better in the 50-yard
dash, while the converse is true in the frisbee and weight lift.
Student Assessment Sheet
Joe, Sarah, Jose, Zabi, and Kim decided to hold their own Olympics after watching the Olympics on TV.
They needed to decide what events to have at their Olympics. Joe and Jose wanted a weight lift and frisbee
toss event. Sarah, Zabi, and Kim thought running a race would be fun. The children decided to have all three
events. They also decided to make each event of the same importance. They held their Olympics one day
after school. The children’s families were the judges and kept the children’s scores on each of the events.
The children’s scores for each of the events are listed below:
Child’s Name Frisbee Toss Weight Lift 50-Yard Dash
Joe 40 yards 205 pounds 9.5 seconds
Jose 30 yards 170 pounds 8.0 seconds
Kim 45 yards 130 pounds 9.0 seconds
Sarah 28 yards 120 pounds 7.6 seconds
Zabi 48 yards 140 pounds 8.3 seconds
Record
Findings: (A) Who will be the all-around winner?
(B) Explain how you decided who would be the all-around winner. Be sure to show all your work.
Account for Findings:
Account for Findings:
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________
Adapted from Archbald, D., and Newmann, F. M. Beyond Standardized Tests: Assessing Authentic Academic Achievement in
Secondary School. Reston, VA.: National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1988, pp. 15–16. For more information
on NASSP products and services to promote excellence in middle level and high school leadership, visit www.principals.org.
Exhibit 21.14 Problem-Solving Assessment Task
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Tasks like these tend to be engaging to students because of their personal rel-
evance. But they also go beyond traditional word problems. This one demands
that students invent some sort of protocol for converting performances in the
three events to individual scores of some kind. No such protocol or guideline
is given in the problem; the student has to create it. A student might decide to
assign points for first-place finishes, second-place finishes, and so on and then
add up the totals for each competitor (being careful to have most points for
first place and not assigning a score of 1 to first—unless the lowest point total
would be the winner, another piece of sophisticated thinking). At another level,
a student might create a weighting scheme for actual results in the events, re-
gardless of what place someone finished in the event. In either case, explaining
the solution is as important as the actual answer.
This sort of item assesses a range of student capacities. In this case, they need
the ability to read and interpret a table of data, analyze the scores, and interpret
them into rank order for each event, and invent a scoring rule for comparing
overall performance and to explain that rule.
Observation of Performance
Assessment of performances gathers data on students in the act of doing some-
thing—solving a problem, conducting a science experiment, doing a drawing—
and thus avoids the possible mediating effects of language skills called for in
traditional tests. The data are as much about how the student was performing
the operation as about the final results.
Direct Observation
Direct observation of student performance allows teachers to observe exactly
what they want to assess without injecting confounding variables into the pro-
cess as written tests usually do. Suppose you want to know if students under-
stand what variables in science really are. In addition, you want to know if they
can apply that knowledge to designing and carrying out an experiment that
controls the variables and uses consistency and preciseness to reach a conclu-
sion. Then you might design a task like the following. Shavelson, Baxter, and
Pine (1991) cite a task where students have to figure out which of three brands
of paper towels will hold the most water. To do that task, students take samples
from each of the three rolls of paper towel, making sure the samples are the
same size; saturate each with water, making sure they are completely saturated;
then measure how much water each saturated towel holds, either by weighing
or squeezing out the towel and measuring the volume of water squeezed out
(a slightly less reliable method since the towels may be unequal in how much
water they retain). If there is only one scale to do the weighing, the student has
Direct observation
of student
performance allows
teachers to observe
exactly what they
want to assess
without injecting
confounding
variables into the
process as written
tests usually do.
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Paper Towels Score Form
Student ________________________ Observer__________ Score ____
1. Method for getting towel wet
B. Drops D. No MethodA. Container
Put towel in/pour water in/
1 pitcher or 3 beaker/glasses
C. Tray (surface)
Towel on tray/pour water on
Pour water on tray/put towel in
2. Saturation
A. Yes B. No C. Controlled (same amount of water–all towels)
3. Determine Result
A. Weigh towel
B. Squeeze towel/measure water (weight or volume)
C. Measure water in/out
D. Count # drops until saturated
E. Irrelevant measurement (i.e.. time to soak up water, see how far drops spread out, feel thickness)
F. Other
Yes No A little sloppy (+/-)4. Care in saturation and/or measuring
5. Correct result Most Least
Grade Method Saturate Care in CorrectDetermine
Result Measuring Answers
A Yes Yes Yes Yes Both
B Yes Yes Yes No One or Both
C Yes Controlled Yes Yes/No One or Both
D Yes No or Inconsistent Yes/No One or Both
F Inconsistent or No and Irrelevant Yes/No One or Both
Adapted from Shavelson, R. J., Baxter, G. P., and Pine, J. “Performance Assessment in Science.” Applied Measurement
in Education, 1991, 4, p. 353.
Exhibit 21.15 Paper Towels Score Form
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to be sure excess water from the previous weighing is removed before weighing
the second towel.
For such tasks, it is relatively simple to develop a protocol—that is, a form with
places for an observer to record checks or scores—that records how well the
student did on various dimensions of the task (equal size samples, complete-
ness in saturation, care in measuring and weighing, recording of results). An
example of a score form is shown in Exhibit 21.15. “Moreover,” say Shavelson,
Baxter, and Pine (1991), “the scoring scheme should capture the procedure
used and could thereby characterize performance in terms of both processes
and outcomes” (p. 351).
Doing large-scale standardized assessments of large numbers of students on ac-
tivities such as the paper towel task is expensive and time consuming compared
to paper-and-pencil tests. Rooms have to be set up with stations for each task,
and a trained observer has to score individual students as they rotate through
the stations. Despite the cost, Shavelson and Baxter’s own research has made it
clear that such performance assessments yield valid and reliable measurement
results. They also point out, however, that
performance tasks vary on a number of factors, especially knowledge
domain specificity and requirements for students to monitor their own
performance as they proceed on a task. Some are inherently more dif-
ficult than others. More importantly, some students perform well on one
task and others perform well on another task. Consequently, a number
of assessment tasks are needed to generalize, with any degree of con-
fidence, from students’ performance to the science domain of interest.
(p. 358)
This sort of assessment provides such a direct and realistic measure of the
thinking skills students should be learning that it remains valuable for states
to sample populations of their students on an annual basis. This sampling will
give a reliable statistical report card on how well particular districts are doing
in developing the skills and work habits that are valued, even if expense prohib-
its assessing all children by direct observation in the near future.
Individual teachers can use direct observation of performance much more in
assessing their own students, and not only in science. For example, in a math
class how many times does a teacher have to observe a student doing a com-
plicated long division problem successfully to know the child can do long divi-
sion? Maybe twice. And he or she can record mastery on a checklist. Suppose
you have a student who thinks aloud as she does a word problem. How many
such problems do you have to witness the student solving to know that she
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follows orderly steps like these: identifies the real problem, searches to separate
relevant from irrelevant data, and identifies the operation that is called for by
the problem? Probably, not very many.
Computer Simulation
To simplify and make more efficient the observation of student performance,
most performances can be converted into computer simulations in programs
that record all student responses for us to examine later. Some applications give
to students direct content-related feedback on their responses: for example, an
electric circuit application that either brightens or dims a bulb depending on
where students place resistors in a circuit. Others are branching programs that
channel a student to an instructional segment about the concept or skill if the
student has made an error.
Our point is that we want computer-based applications in any content area to
give us as teachers a flow of information about what our students know and
don’t know, can do, or can’t do. And there are many programs that enable that.
Edutopia (www.edutopia.org) keeps an updated list of high-quality sources for
these programs in science, including free sites. Check out Eric Brunsell’s (2014)
blog post “Ten Websites for Science Teachers” at https://www.edutopia.org/
blog/websites-for-science-teachers-eric-brunsell.
If one Googles “free [fill in the subject] teaching resources,” a plethora of options
shows up. Replace “science” with any subject or even topic (e.g., punctuation)
and a similar cornucopia is revealed.
Examination of Student Products
Notebooks
An alternative way to get direct data on student performance is through note-
books in which students record their actions and thinking. Students are asked
to use the notebooks while they conduct hands-on investigations. Shavelson
(Shavelson, Baxter, & Pine, 1991) praises this methodology because it is in-
expensive and “provides an opportunity for students to express themselves in
writing, an important skill in doing science and a way of integrating curricular
areas” (p. 352). Furthermore, trained teachers can score the notebooks rapidly.
The student’s capacity to write clearly becomes a confounding variable if the as-
sessment target is purely related to scientific thinking.
http://www.edutopia.org
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/websites-for-science-teachers-eric-brunsell
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/websites-for-science-teachers-eric-brunsell
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Reports: Oral, Written, and Multimedia
A report is a vehicle for showcasing language and communication skills. Stu-
dents who already have these skills will be able to show them off. Students who
are less proficient in language and the organization of ideas will have less to
showcase. Before producing a report, the student must record and organize in-
formation and then plan how to present it, which means planning the sequence
and deciding on the inferences, conclusions, and hypotheses that will be in it.
Studies of writers show that the writing, drafting, and revision process itself
produces some of the steps above.
Report writing, like other forms of creative writing, is not the orderly process
one might think. “I write what I know to find out what I think,” said Henry
Glassie (1982) in Passing the Time in Ballymenone, an anthropological study
of Irish village life. Thus a teacher who examines and responds to a student’s
report is examining the student’s thinking and communication skills as well as
assessing how much understanding there is of the information studied in prepa
ration for the report. One of the reasons a report is a productive assessment
device is precisely that it orients both teacher and students toward developing
communication skills. A teacher is implicitly stating an objective to improve
research, organization, and communication skills when assigning a report.
A report is supposed to be a way for students to show they have internalized a
body of knowledge and can do something intellectual with it beyond reciting
facts. Thus reports typically ask students to go beyond information and do any
one or several of the following operations: make inferences, give conclusions
supported by appropriately selected evidence, make reasoned and supportable
predictions or hypotheses, give opinions, surface assumptions, and sometimes
make original connections. These thinking operations can be called for and
successfully produced by primary-grade children given appropriate experiences
and guidance. Thus the nature of the report assigned makes the report, as as-
sessment, a potential vehicle for teaching organization and thinking skills. Get-
ting ready to produce the report should therefore be an “episode of learning”
(Wolf, LeMahieu, & Eresh, 1992).
Report writing is not something students are born knowing how to do or learn
to do by being assigned the task. Teachers are obligated to teach students how
to produce reports, and that means breaking down the task into component
parts. The link between assessment and the teaching of report writing is the
model of good performance provided at the beginning and the explicit analysis
of those good products with the students: “What about this good report we are
looking at makes it a good report?”
A report is
supposed to be a
way for students
to show they have
internalized a body
of knowledge and
can do something
intellectual with
it beyond reciting
facts.
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Similarly, if the report is oral or multimedia, videos of former students deliv-
ering good reports or a preserved exemplar of an excellent multimedia report
need to be presented to students and analyzed for their good points. Analysis
means showing exactly where examples of criterion behaviors occur, for exam-
ple: “See how this sentence summarizes the main points of the previous four
paragraphs? That’s what I’m looking for in your reports when I say ‘summary
sentences’ on your criteria sheet. Can anyone find a sentence like that in the sec-
ond section of the paper?” Here is an example for a multimedia report: “Notice
how she uses the music to set a mood at the beginning before saying any words,
but then brings music back with the jazz piece when the mood she wants is dif-
ferent. Be looking for music that fits with your message in a similar way.” The
teacher-student dialogue might go like this:
Teacher: “What did you notice about this student’s use of visual mate-
rial?”
Student: “I noticed that for every main idea there was a different visual—
either a chart or a picture—to go with it.”
Teacher: “Right, and that’s something I’ll be looking for in your reports
too. But the visuals have to be a good fit with the point you’re making.
How were these a good fit?”
Student: “Well, when she had a chart with the words, it wasn’t really a
good fit. It was just having the words printed neatly and using different col-
ors. But when she had the picture of the riot, that was a good fit to show
how violent the reaction to the draft really was!”
Exhibitions
An exhibition is a complex project that displays the student’s capacity to per-
form a set of higher-level thinking skills that the school thinks are important.
The sixth-grade project developed by Penny Knox (Exhibit 21.5), in which stu-
dents write a letter describing a culture, is an exhibition. It takes the students
all year to gather the knowledge and skills required to do it well. All students
are expected to do it, and the criteria for success are clearly spelled out in a
rubric. In addition, they have several trial runs at the final product before they
produce the version that “counts.” In the vision of high school articulated by Ted
Sizer’s Coalition of Essential Schools (http://essentialschools.org), an exhibition
is both a gateway to graduation and a target for the student’s four years of high
school. Each student must present an exhibition, and it must meet minimum
standards if that student is to graduate.
One of the reasons
a report is a
productive
assessment device
is that it precisely
orients both teacher
and students
toward developing
communication
skills.
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An exhibition also serves as a powerful stimulus to faculty dialogue about what
these skills for graduation should be. The list almost always includes higher-
level thinking and communication skills as with the item: “Can state assump-
tions and argue a point of view with clear evidence.” Graduation targets like
these push across departmental boundaries and cause teachers to plan within
their disciplines for how they can teach for them. They also increase interde-
partmental communication and open the door for integration of curriculum.
Thus “graduation by exhibition” becomes a genuine force for bringing a school
together and shaping practices around certain core outcomes it wants for stu-
dents (Saphier & D’Auria, 1993).
When an exhibition is required for graduation, its magnitude and complex-
ity vary from school to school. Sid Smith and his faculty moved English High
School in Boston a significant step forward when they instituted an exhibition
requiring all students to write a two-page position paper on a controversial is-
sue of their choice. “It formed the basis of English High School’s commitment
to decide what its students must know and be able to do to earn their high
school diploma. It was the start of the school’s effort to require all its students
to publicly demonstrate their skills and knowledge” (McDonald, 1993, p. 17).
That an exhibition requirement applies to all students for graduation and that it
is assessed by competency rather than by grades and numbers makes it a lever
for raising standards for all. It also makes schools gauge both the strength of
their belief that all students can achieve to a high level and their determination
to get them there.
If a position paper is a start on the process of developing graduation by exhibi-
tion, the multiple exhibitions collected in a portfolio that are required for grad-
uation from Walden III High School in Racine, Wisconsin, represent maturity.
Archbald and Newman (1988), drawing on the student handbook written by
Tom Feeney, a teacher at the school, summarize the exhibition requirements in
Exhibit 21.16.
Requiring a wide-ranging portfolio of this magnitude takes years of faculty
collaboration on developing the topics, standards, scoring rubrics, and pro-
cedures for students to navigate their way to successful completion. A school
that has thought out graduation requirements this far and expressed them in
terms of performance knows what it stands for. It is also clear that to prepare
students to succeed on these assessments requires substantial integration and
coherence between departments. Such is the promise of the authentic assess-
ment movement.
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Portfolios
A portfolio is a “purposeful collection of student work that tells the story of a stu-
dent’s efforts, progress, or achievement in a given area” (Stiggins & Conklin, 1992,
p. 36). Portfolios provide the database for teachers to continue exploring and re-
fining successful performance directly with students. They also provide a tangible
bank of products over time that ideally reveal how far students have come. Thus
they become a credible record of progress that can provoke “wow!” responses
from families and students alike in a way grades or compliments never could.
The feature that defines a portfolio and differentiates it from a folder or
collection of work is the selection mechanism. Based on the purpose or
purposes, pieces are included to demonstrate progress toward a stated
aim. A portfolio is a subset of all work done; something must be rejected
for it to be constructed. (Mitchell, 1992, p. 107)
What makes portfolios an important tool is that students do a self-assessment
and choose what goes into their portfolio. A crucial role for the teacher is to
pose questions that students use to select items for inclusion. Ruth Mitchell
(1992) supplies one set of questions that might be used in having students re-
flect on a selection:
1. Why did you select this particular piece of writing? (Why does this
piece stand out from the rest of your work?)
2. What do you see as the special strengths of this work?
3. What was especially important to you when you were writing this
piece?
4. What have you learned about writing from your work on this piece?
5. If you could go on working on this piece, what would you do?
6. What kind of writing would you like to do in the future?
7. Now that you have looked at your collection of writing and answered
these questions, can you identify a particular technique or interest
that you would like to try out or investigate in future pieces of writing?
If so, what is it? (p. 110)
What makes
portfolios an
important tool is
that students do
a self-assessment
and choose what
goes into their
portfolio.
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The portfolio. The portfolio, developed during the first semester of the senior year, is intended to be “a reflection and
analysis of the graduating senior’s own life and times.” The following are its requirements:
1. A written autobiography, descriptive, introspective, and analytical. School records and other indicators of participa-
tion may be included.
2. A reflection of work, including an analysis of the significance of the work experiences for the graduating senior’s life. A
resume can be included.
3. Two letters of recommendation (at minimum) from any sources chosen by the student.
4. A reading record including a bibliography, annotated if desired, and two mini-book reports. Reading test scores may be
included.
5. An essay on ethics exhibiting contemplation of the subject and describing the student’s own ethical code.
6. An artistic product or written report on art and an essay on artistic standards for judging quality in a chosen area of art.
7. A written report analyzing mass media: who or what controls mass media, toward what ends, and with what effects.
Evidence of experience with mass media may be included.
8. A written summary and evaluation of the student’s coursework in science/technology, a written description of a scientific
experiment illustrating the application of the scientific method, an analytical essay (with examples) on social consequences
of science and technology, and an essay on the nature and use of computers in modern society.
The Project. Every graduating senior must write a library-research-based paper that analyzes an event, set of events, or theme
in American history. A national comparative approach can be used in the analysis. The student must be prepared to field ques-
tions about the paper in the overview of American history during the presentations, which are given in the second semester of
the senior year.
The Presentations. Each of the above eight components of the portfolio, plus the project, must be presented orally and
in writing to the ROPE committee.
Six additional oral presentations are also required. However, there are no written reports or new products required by the com-
mittee. Supporting documents or other forms of evidence may be used. Assessment of proficiency is based on the demonstra-
tion of knowledge and skills during the presentations in each of the following areas:
Exhibit 21.16 Exhibition Requirements at Walden III High School, Racine, Wisconsin
9. Mathematics knowledge and skills should be demonstrated by a combination of course evaluations, test results, and
worksheets presented before the committee, and by the ability to competently field mathematics questions asked dur-
ing the demonstration.
10. Knowledge of American government should be demonstrated by discussion of the purpose of government; the individu-
al’s relationship to the state; the ideals, functions, and problems of American political institutions; and selected contem-
porary issues and political events. Supporting materials can be used.
11. The personal proficiency demonstration requires the student to think about and organize a presentation about the
requirements of adult living in our society in terms of personal fulfillment, social skills, and practical competencies and
to discuss his or her own strengths and weaknesses in everyday living skills (health, home economics, mechanics, etc.)
and interpersonal relations.
12. Knowledge of geography should be demonstrated in a presentation that covers the basic principles and questions of
the discipline, identification of basic landforms, places, and names and the scientific and social significance of geographi-
cal information.
13. Evidence of the graduating senior’s successful completion of a physical challenge must be presented to the ROPE commit-
tee.
14. A demonstration of competency in English (written and spoken) is provided in virtually all the portfolio and project require-
ments. These, and any additional evidence the graduating senior may wish to present to the committee, fulfill the require-
ments of the presentation in the English competency area.
Adapted from Archbald, D., and Newmann, F. M. Beyond Standardized Tests: Assessing Authentic Academic Achievement in
Secondary School. Reston, VA.: National Association of Secondary School Principals, 1988, pp. 24–25.
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These questions show how portfolios set the stage for goal setting as well as self-
evaluation. The last question is actually asking the student to set a goal.
Portfolios also enable a powerful form of parent involvement. They can be
sent home periodically with students, and families can be asked to read them
thoroughly. Then they are asked to write back (or communicate in some other
way) what they noticed, enjoyed, or were concerned about in their child’s work.
Kathryn Howard uses the form in Exhibit 21.17 to invite families to participate
in portfolios in her eighth-grade writing course.
The concept of involving students in self-evaluation and goal setting makes
portfolios desirable vehicles for student development in any subject area, in-
cluding math and science. Knight (1992) and others show how having students
save their best tests, best labs, and other best pieces that show forms of their
mathematical and scientific knowledge can provoke the kind of self-examination
and goal setting that goes with being an effective student.
Developing a climate of self-examination and reflection does not come without
its costs. One author writes:
Portfolios are messy. They demand intimate and often frighteningly sub-
jective talk with students. Portfolios are work. Teachers who ask students
to read their own progress in the “footprints” of their works have to coax
and bicker with individuals who are used to being assessed [by others].
Halfway through the semester, at least a half dozen recalcitrants will lose
every paper or sketch they have ever owned. More important, teachers
have to struggle to read and make sense of whole works and patterns
of growth. Hence, hard questions arise: “Why bother? What comes out
of portfolio assessment?” The immediate answer lies in integrity and the
validity of the information we gain about how and what students learn.
(Wolf, LeMahieu, & Eresh, 1992)
Judith Warren Little once commented in an audiotaped interview (Sparks,
1993) that the most powerful form of staff development might be to put a group
of teachers in one room with samples of student work. Her point was that in
comparing and debating the merits of actual student performances, teachers
refine their concepts of standards. In addition, teachers inevitably get hooked
into discussions about which learning experiences to use to develop specific
student capacities.
It has been our experience that in these situations, teachers go on to invent
learning experiences together. Through the examination of student work, teach-
ers are drawn into authentic and productive conversations about teaching that
Through the
examination of
student work,
teachers are drawn
into authentic
and productive
conversations
about teaching
that comprise true
collegiality.
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Student ___________________________________
Reader ___________________________________
Date ___________________________________
Please read everything in your child’s writing folder, including drafts and commentary. Each piece is set up in
back-to-front order, from rough draft to final copy. Further, each piece is accompanied by both student and
teacher comments on the piece and writing process. Finally, the folders also include written questionnaires
where students write about their strengths and weaknesses as writers.
When you have read the folders, please talk to your children about their writing. In addition, please take a
few minutes to respond to these questions:
• Which piece of writing in the folder tells you most about your child’s writing?
• What does it tell you?
• What do you see as the strengths in your child’s writing?
• What do you see as needing to be addressed in your child’s growth and development as a writer?
• What suggestions do you have that might aid the class’s growth as writers?
• Other comments and suggestions?
Thank you so much for investing this time in your child’s writing.
Exhibit 21.17 Parent Portfolio Review and Reflection
Adapted with the permission of the Free Press, a division of Simon & Schuster, from Kathryn Howard in Testing for Learning: How
New Approaches to Evaluation Can Improve American Schools, by Ruth Mitchell. Copyright © 1992 by RuthMitchell, p. 112.
comprise true collegiality. Portfolios of student work provide the raw material
in organized form for this kind of collegial sharing, refining, and curriculum
development. Thus it is reasonable to assume that use of student portfolios can
encourage more collaborative work among teachers. It would certainly be a
useful practice in schools that are seeking to develop a collaborative culture.
REFLECTING ON ASSESSMENT
Many prominent thinkers in the assessment movement (Wolf, LeMahieu, &
Eresh, 1992; Zessoules & Gardner, 1991) use the phrase “assessment as a mo-
ment for learning” to convey the point that assessment should be integral to
planning lessons, not end points. Others have made the point that assessment is
an occasion for learning. This is because when students are given a challenging
problem they are able to see relationships and connections that were not obvi-
ous to them before. The learning that takes place is a function of the interac-
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tion between the student(s) and the task or the students and each other. It does
not take place because the teacher is actively mediating the students’ thinking
(Baron, 1989).
Those are the beliefs behind “assessment as a moment for learning,” and they are
reflected in the following statements:
Less noticed is that tests routinely fail to inform learning. The efficient
collection of data about a sample of student performance for an outside
audience has come to dominate over the first audiences and obligations
for assessment: to make students and teachers acute critics of the qual-
ity of work and able discussants of what should count as excellence.
. . . Students infrequently have the opportunity to make use of what they
learn from earlier performances to inform a second try. In essence, rarely
are school assessments the occasion for making public the standards
and strategies for doing good work. Yet all we know regarding the gen-
eration of worthwhile work tells us that it requires incubation, revision,
collaboration, and the public display of and debate about failure, risk,
and excellence.
The implication for the redesign of current testing is that a major portion
of school based assessment should be conceived as an episode in which
students learn how to write or experiment, or do research, using the power
of assessment to push them along the “zigzag path” that Magdeline Lam-
pert cites in her presentations to her students at the University of Michi-
gan. In more specific terms, assessment ought to:
• Be live: that is, conducted in the face and threat and promise of serious
and ongoing work of consequence for the student.
• Take the form of a series of iterative episodes of work followed by time
for personal reflection and the gathering of responses from peers, men-
tors, and judges.
• Allow an individual ways and time for making use of the resulting chorus
of opinion so as to make it possible to decide what in the criticism is apt,
and what misses the mark.
• Permit that individual to plow the fruits of critique and reflection back into
his or her final response [or next try]. (Wolf, LeMahieu, & Eresh, 1992)
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These recommendations imply that teachers must create the time and place
in class for students to critique one another’s work—and not just writing.
They apply as well to dinosaur fact sheets produced by third graders, geom-
etry proofs of tenth graders, and science experiments of fifth graders. This col-
laboration and critique is characteristic of a “portfolio culture, that is, a setting
where there is frequent and public discussion about what makes for good work
and a clear sense that good work takes a long time to emerge.” It thus becomes
incumbent on teachers to create frequent opportunities for these public discus-
sions about good work.
In these discussions, “students have access to the criteria that will be used to
score their work and those criteria are explained, even debated” (Wolf, Le-
Mahieu, & Ereshe, 1992). The point is that they learn about capacities like the
ability to pose an interesting problem. Modern assessment puts the teacher,
not the testing company, in charge because assessment is built systematically
into instruction. Because what is assessed is students’ evolving and improving
process, not just one-time performances, the data collected are about process
and strategy as well as product. Student self-assessment is at the core.
In a tenth-grade geometry class, for example, each student is assigned different
proofs for homework. Twice a week at the beginning of class, students show
their proofs to a partner, who reads the proof and critiques it according to
the criteria of logical order, completeness, and readability. Readability includes
neatness and whether abbreviations and references can be understood. The
teacher periodically models how to do these critiques with proofs at the board;
students change partners each day when they critique each other.
In another classroom, the teacher uses self-evaluation to collect data about
eighth graders’ ability to play different roles in discussion groups (for example,
summarizing, stating issues, breaking tension). She has told the students she
is collecting the self-evaluations to see whether they have increased their abil-
ity to play multiple roles and so that she can identify students who need more
help. Each role has been explained and modeled by the teacher, and students
have practiced them in structured exercises. Now students are asked to partici-
pate supportively in a new group discussion. In their self-evaluation, they are
to record what role or roles they see themselves as having played and the roles
played by every other member of their group. They have succeeded when they
can claim three or more different roles and the majority of their group supports
their claims. One instance of role-appropriate behavior is enough to claim that
role. The teacher meets with students who play fewer than three roles and has
them pick an additional one to try in the next discussion. Students who claim
more roles than their group testifies to are asked to write examples of the un-
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supported roles, which the teacher may accept as evidence. In her grade book,
she keeps a checklist of students who meet the criteria. For comparative pur-
poses she has her own observational records of which roles individuals played
before instruction.
Self-evaluation can also yield added dividends of more student involvement,
more awareness of criteria, and better discrimination of quality. Waters, Mac-
Mullen, and Glade (1992) have students periodically isolate their best work
from the collections in their writing folders. As they explain, “The making of
this collection provides students with an ongoing opportunity to review and an-
alyze their best work, choose what best represents him or her, establish a sense
of progress, [and] establish a base line from which to move ahead.” It also creates
the groundwork for individual teacher-student conferences around the collec-
tion. Such conferences are unmatched opportunities for involving students in
goal setting and helping them generate ownership for their own learning.
TEACHING TEAMS AND ASSESSMENTS
It is rare in teacher training for candidates to study the design of assessment
instruments. Yet we are arguing here that the kind of thinking that goes into the
design and creation of assessment instruments (whatever their form—written
tests, performances, exhibitions, essays, or something else) is the foundation
of good instruction. Put another way, the detailed conceptualization, design of
assessment criteria, and assessment tasks enable teachers to “plan backward”
(Sizer, 1992, p. 102). The design of effective learning experiences flows from
thinking that starts with the students’ point of view and flows from clarity about
what teachers want the students to know and be able to do at the end of the
experience. Thus the clearest articulation of the objective appears in the assess-
ment task and its criteria for success. In fact, the objective is not fully conceptu-
alized until its assessment is defined.
From this perspective, then, expanding the ability to design different kinds of
high-quality assessment tasks is essential to the professional teacher. If teaching
is not a profession but rather a trade that any competent person can do with
a year of basic training, then we can let others make the decisions and do the
design work on assessments. But if we are a profession, we must develop the ca-
pacity to design and continually refine our own assessments based on changing
students and changing curricula.
The objective is not
fully conceptualized
until its assessment
is defined.
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STANDARDS
On observing the proliferation of the use of standardized tests in 1920, the
noted journalist Walter Lippmann (1920) wrote: “We will breed generations of
students and educators who don’t believe that those who begin weak can ever
become strong.” He was right.
Standardized tests are designed to produce normal distributions, not to repre-
sent standards that all students could reach. Normal distributions, by definition,
must always have a lower half, and within the lower half there must always be
a bottom stanine. Lippmann accurately foresaw that the design of standard-
ized testing inevitably led to sorting, and that sorting would produce losers
(bottom-scoring students), who would form permanent low opinions of their
own intellectual capacity. The structure of the assessment system and the view
of unevenly distributed intellectual gifts behind it was inherently incompatible
with success for all and, in fact, damned many to a permanent intellectual
underclass.
Authentic assessment might have given Lippmann heart, for here he would
have seen a form of testing where everyone can be winners. The location and
the look of the finish line—standards clearly laid out for all to see—and pe-
riodic feedback and self-evaluation can allow all students to self-correct and
chart a course to success.
The authentic assessment movement went into seclusion as the press for high
standardized test scores from the No Child Left Behind law washed over the
nation. We have much work to do before No Child Left Behind becomes the
force for equity that some of its authors hoped for. When this equity goal is
back on center screen, so will be the commitment to developing thinking skills
in all our students and the connection to authentic assessment.
Authentic assessment provides the map for children to identify the learning
targets and track their progress toward the standard. They will take advantage
of such a map, however, only if they believe errors are opportunities for learn-
ing as opposed to confirmation of their inadequacy (Dweck, 1991). Authentic
assessment is philosophically aligned with mastery learning because it encour-
ages sustained effort to reach criterion levels of performance. Coupled with
teachers who send high and positive expectations to students, one would now
have designed an environment where the structures of the school are consis-
tent with a belief in all students’ capacity to learn to a high level. If we really
want to prepare all students for the demands of this century, nothing less than
this marriage will do.
The clearest
articulation of the
objective appears in
the assessment task
and its criteria for
success.
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WHAT’S NEXT?
The gap between the assessment practices we advocate here and the practices
found in most schools is about the size of the Grand Canyon, and to close this
chasm takes extensive teacher planning time, usually in grade or department
groups. Our advice is to start slowly as individuals with natural partners (say,
the teachers in a high school who teach biology) and to work simultaneously
with administrators to devote allocated meeting time to instructional topics—
for example, comparing student work samples for quality. Here are some other
useful steps that can be begun immediately:
1. Make a special effort to present students with clear criteria for success
and models of good performance for each important topic and assign-
ment. Take the time to help the students understand exactly what about
the models of good performance makes them good.
2. Get students involved regularly in self-evaluation and peer feedback us-
ing the criteria for good performance.
3. Review which methods of assessment and record-keeping devices you
are using. Stretch for diversifying and expanding the repertoire. Do you
use one-minute interviews or oral presentations as a way of finding out
if students have mastered objectives? Do you use direct observation and
checklists as a way to record student progress where appropriate?
4. Explore the possibilities of exhibitions across grades or for graduation
as ways of bringing it all together for students.
5. Develop and refine portfolios as comprehensive collections of authentic
student performance including self-evaluation.
The liberator for authentic assessment will arrive when teachers and adminis-
trators devote planning time to compare samples of student work and develop
clear exemplars that define what they believe to be the most important student
learnings.
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
The Three Goals of Assessment:
1. Motivate students to want to do better.
2. Give students useful information they can use to do better.
3. Inform teachers’ reteaching plans so students can do better.
The Twelve Purposes of Assessment:
1. Make summative statements
2. Certify students
3. Signal clearly what is important
4. Make instructional decisions
5. Give feedback to students
6. Give feedback to teachers
7. Report progress to families and communities
8. Elevate the curriculum so as to provide meaningful, higher-level thinking tasks for all stu-
dents
9. Sort, rank, or compare students
10. Norm students or groups of students
11. Placement
12. Predict success
Twelve Components of Classroom Assessment:
1. Determine the assessment task
2. Communicate the standards of performance
3. Assess prior knowledge
4. Frequent data collection and record-keeping by the teacher
5. Frequent high-quality feedback to students
6. Student self-assessment
7. Student record-keeping about progress
8. Frequent error analysis by the teacher
9. Error analysis by the students
10. Planning and implementing reteaching
11. Goal setting and action planning by students
12. Reporting systems on student progress including three-way conferences
To check your knowledge about Assessment, see the exercises on The Skillful Teacher
website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
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NOTES
22. Overarching Objectives
PART FIVE | CURRICULUM | OVERARCHING OBJECTIVES
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 621
Curriculum:
Overarching Objectives
CHAPTER
22
Many of you reading The Skillful Teacher came into teaching because you had something in particular you wanted to give to students. You had a passion for it, and you built everything you did around it. You
had an overarching objective.
Maybe what you wanted was that your students would leave you loving books
and believe that books have something of value for them. Maybe you wanted
your students to be critical thinkers who could size up situations with care and
be deliberate in their decisions. Maybe you wanted your students to know what
it is like to walk in someone else’s shoes, to develop empathy for other human
beings. No matter what else you were teaching, that overarching objective was
always in the back of your mind and somehow visible in your choice of teach-
ing as a profession.
Not all teachers have overarching objectives, but those who do stand out from
the crowd. Overarching objectives are those big-picture outcomes for students
that, if a teacher has them, shape core practices and account for much of what
we see that is effective in their classrooms. These are teachers who have asked
themselves, “What do I most want for my students? When they leave me at the
end of the year, what is the most important thing I want them to carry away
from their learning experience?” These overarching objectives may not show
up in unit or lesson plans, but they permeate everything the teacher does. They
show up in interactive behavior and decisions about learning experiences.
Overarching objectives are stated in sentences like these: when my students
leave me at the end of the year,
p They will know how to work effectively in groups.
p They will have the motivation and the skills to be lifelong learners.
p They will be slow to judge and adept at critical thinking.
p They will know how to confront without hostility and resolve conflicts
without rancor.
Curriculum
Overarching
Objectives
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p They will understand the balance of life on the planet and be willing to
do their part to preserve it.
p They will understand and appreciate the differences between people in
the world—differences of color, culture, language, thinking style—and
respond with tolerance and inclusion rather than with prejudice and
exclusion.
This list is meant to exemplify the concept of overarching objectives, not be an
all-inclusive or a recommended list. Although one may value all these state-
ments, it is rare that an individual will be seen in practice to stand for more
than one of them. If you stand for an objective, it permeates your practice and
influences everything you do. It is always in the back of your mind and serves
as a backboard against which you make all your decisions. A person can have
only a few overarching objectives at this level of commitment—usually one and
maybe two or three at most. Otherwise, one becomes simply too diffuse in one’s
efforts and makes little progress on any front.
Individual teachers who have overarching objectives may give lasting gifts to
their students. It would also be possible for teams of teachers or teams within
a larger school to have an overarching objective in common and achieve even
more by virtue of their consistency and congruence with one another. Beyond
that, it would be possible for a whole school to share an overarching objective
and create an environment so supportive and total in its commitment as to be
an incredible engine for change. In such places, the objective becomes a beacon
for structuring arenas throughout the school that go well beyond individual
classroom practices—arenas like the cafeteria, school reward systems, faculty
meeting time, extracurricular activities, or student government. We have writ-
ten elsewhere in detail about the process of creating such a school (Saphier &
D’Auria, 1993). It is not easy or quick, but it can be done. In this chapter, how-
ever, we focus on the classroom dimension of overarching objectives.
How does a teacher go about pursuing an overarching objective in his or her
own classroom? How does it influence interactive teaching, his or her choices
of strategies from the other areas of performance of skillful teaching? How does
it influence the way a teacher treats curriculum if the overarching objective is
unique to that teacher and is not part of the curriculum as written?
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INTERACTIVE TEACHING
The overarching objective becomes an instruction set, a charter, a guidance sys-
tem for which items to pluck from the repertoires of each area of performance.
The overarching objective highlights certain areas of performance themselves.
Because we will run only one overarching objective through an exercise in
which we will highlight only one set of choices, it is our hope that readers,
singly or in groups, will repeat the following exercise for different overarching
objectives that represent their personal commitments.
Example: Suppose a teacher has an overarching objective that students
leave at the end of the year with an appreciation of human differences
so that they not only tolerate differences but embrace them. This teacher
will be particularly active with the Classroom Climate (Chapter 16)
area of performance. Developing community among the students with
acceptance and inclusion (Strand 1) will be particularly important
to this person. This teacher will also want to recognize differences in
learning style among students and have the students themselves un-
derstand how learning styles influence behavior and students’ reaction
to different kinds of tasks (Strand 3). Thus this teacher might explicitly
teach the students about learning style, their own and others, and be
explicit about calling for the students to value and honor the differ-
ences between themselves and their peers.
Models of Teaching (Chapter 13) that bring students together in groups
and teach them how to work well with those different from themselves
will be prized by this teacher. Thus Group Investigation—Johnson,
Johnson, and Holubec’s (1988) version of cooperative learning with
social skills training—and Slavin’s (1990) Student Teams and Aca-
demic Divisions (STAD) will be valued. Certain strategies from Clarity
(Chapter 11) that bring students together with peers will be used often,
because this teacher will see them as an opportunity to bring students
from different backgrounds into joint work situations where they need
and can help one another. This teacher would tend to choose strategies
like “Round the Clock Learning Buddies” and numerous other activa-
tors and summarizers.
Classroom Routines (Chapter 9) might be structured with content that
emphasizes the human differences theme. For example, a daily news
routine may highlight events from around the world where racial or
ethnic differences have been respected or disrespected. Students could
be expected to bring in clippings or articles for posting on a bulletin
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board and later discussion in the class. Routines might be created
for students to get help from one another where peers with different
strengths—art, organization, video editing, writing—were available to
help with projects and assignments.
The Personal Relationship Building (Chapter 15) area of performance
would be important to this teacher. The teacher’s desire to value dif-
ferences would require, as a foundation, that each student felt ac-
knowledged and valued personally by the teacher. This teacher would
rank high on the application of fairness, respect, and active listening
with all students, especially those who might be different—physically
or mentally disabled, learning disabled, or racial minorities.
CURRICULAR CHOICES AND MATERIALS
In addition to choices like those within areas of performance previously men-
tioned, an overarching objective will influence choices of curriculum units and
materials and how the teacher deals with the materials.
A teacher who has respect for human differences as an agenda might be expect-
ed to highlight issues of race in social studies or in literature and deal with them
in a way that forces students to think. For example, characters or episodes in
Huckleberry Finn can be placed on a grid as they come up during the novel and
be discussed in terms of racist or anti-racist behavior (Figure 22.1). One of the
revelations in this exercise is that there is no such thing as “passive anti-racist”
behavior. Being passive in the presence of racism and disapproving without
speaking or acting supports and perpetuates the racism.
These discussions would not replace others but would be woven throughout the
unit on Huckleberry Finn by a teacher who had an overarching objective per-
taining to human differences. Both the racist and anti-racist actors and actions
in this book could be addressed within a context of understanding and disman-
tling racism. The stories and novels a teacher chooses for students is an obvious
place to locate an overarching objective. Whether it be courage, perseverance,
respect for difference, or any other character trait, excellent bibliographies can
be found to aid in the selection of books.
Overarching objectives that pertain to attitudes and habits of mind tend to show
up in specific skill lessons and units. For example, if the overarching objective is
love of learning and the skills to pursue one’s own questions, the teacher is likely
to teach interviewing skills explicitly to children because interviewing is a ma-
jor way to find out what one wants to know. This same teacher is likely to make
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it a high priority that students learn how to use library and internet resources.
These skills are in direct support of the overarching objective and might not
have entered the curriculum at all but for the big picture objective. The larger
point here is that a teacher’s overarching objective may easily have direct im-
plications for the skills that the teacher chooses to emphasize or teach at all.
Five Classroom Realities
Overarching objectives may be understood and classified through a set of
lenses set forth by Gower and Scott (1977). They describe five realities—
social, personal, moral, political, and information processing—present in any
classroom (or, for that matter, any other human interaction) at all times. These
five dimensions could be used to classify overarching objectives teachers may
have for students. Objectives may be primarily social in nature (for example,
students learn to resolve conflicts nonviolently) or moral (respect for human
differences). These objectives can be aimed at personal development (students
become risk-takers) or political outcomes (students become active environ-
mentalists). Finally, these objectives may aim to develop certain thinking skills
or ways of processing information that students use whatever the content
they’re studying (for example, they will be able to restrain the rush to judge
and will exercise critical thinking skills).
Figure 22.1 Forms of Racist and Anti-Racist Behavior
Adapted from Beverly Daniel Tatum and Andrea Ayvazian. Mount Holyoke College, South
Hadley, Massachusetts.
Racist Behavior Anti-Racist Behavior
Active
Passive
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Another way to use these five lenses from Gower and Scott (1977) is to analyze
the classroom realities that teachers create on each of the dimensions from an
inductive point of view. Even without a deliberate overarching objective in any
of these five categories, a certain reality for students in each of the five dimen-
sions is created in every classroom by every teacher. Each has attributes, and
each can be described. Switching gears now from the prescriptive and inten-
tional (overarching objectives) to the descriptive and perhaps unintentional, let
us examine these five realities, which form a hidden but describable curriculum
in every classroom in every school.
1. Social Reality
What is the social reality in a class at any given moment? Social reality has to
do with the way people interact. We can inquire into group dynamics, norms,
roles, expectations, and interpersonal transactions from any one of a number
of points of view. But the point remains that at every moment there is a social
reality present, whether or not we attend to it. It has been constructed or al-
lowed to develop and can be described. Its form may or may not be a deliberate
creation of the teaching. A group of students working together cooperatively
on a group project constitutes a very different social reality with respect to
norms, roles, and interpersonal transactions from the same group working
with a teacher as director.
2. Personal Reality
Every one of us has a personal reality, at any moment, that consists of how we are
feeling and reacting. Our hopes, fears, dreams, and goals, which we carry with us
at all times, are touched to a greater or lesser degree by the events of the moment.
Each student in a classroom, at every moment, has a personal interior state of feel-
ing. That state is complex, changeable, and real. Each individual’s feelings at the
moment are the personal reality for him or her. When we seek to understand or
provide for personal reality in the classroom, we are examining the changeable,
interior, personal world of individuals and their feelings of well-being.
3. Moral Reality
We enter the moral dimension in a classroom when we ask about the concepts of
right and wrong, duty, justice, and obligation, that are embedded in curriculum
materials, teacher behavior, class norms and procedures, and students’ judgments
and choices. Such concepts exist, function, and can be described and analyzed
in any class, whether or not the teacher is aware of and deliberate about them.
Sometimes in more recent curriculum packages, moral considerations are taken
up head-on in learning experiences (Lickona, 1972, 1991; Shaftel & Shaftel, 1967).
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4. Political Reality
The political dimension of reality has to do with power, influence, and control.
When we examine this dimension, we ask questions like, Who has power? How
is influence exerted? On whom, by whom? How are decisions made? Who in-
fluences the course of events and their form? How does one person (the teacher
or a student) get another to behave in a certain way? Who decides what will
be done next? What are the students learning in this class about their role in
relation to power?
5. Information Processing Reality
The information processing reality in schools has to do with academics. How is
information dealt with? How is it presented, acquired, received, manipulated,
and used? The answers are quite different when one contrasts a discovery ori-
entation with an advance organizer orientation, or a Socratic discussion with a
laboratory experience, or programmed instruction with self-directed research.
The nature of each of these five realities can be described for a given class period.
In addition, one could comment over time on how much variance there was
within each of the five dimensions. By variance, we mean the range of ways to
be on one dimension, the number of different realities observable over time
when the classroom is examined through a particular dimension’s lens. The
social reality of a class may remain constant, such as always one large teacher-
directed group; or it may have two social realities: a large teacher-directed
group and a large democratic discussion group with emphasis on interpersonal
transactions. This distinction is not one that would be picked up by the attri-
bute interpersonal complexity of learning experiences. One may see a variety
of social realities over a class day or week or year. If the teacher ceases being a
direct-skill lesson leader and becomes an equal participant and facilitator in a
discussion of, say, states’ rights, the social reality within a small group changes.
Moral reality may be invariant. Community norms and expectations that stu-
dents do their work (the good, duty, obligation) are maintained and enforced
by the teacher without discussion. A different moral reality may be observed
at different times, as when children consider ethical issues as a learning activ-
ity, or when groups are permitted to problem solve with the teacher acting as
a mediator.
Emphasis Within Dimensions
The hidden curriculum can be seen as those social, personal, moral, and
political learnings that accrue to students as a result of the environment in
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which they function, in both the classroom and the broader school at large.
These learnings may be built in unconsciously, or they may be deliberate and
orchestrated by the teacher. Either way, they are happening and in all five
dimensions.
When they are deliberate, we find teachers who can talk explicitly about their
ideas of social curriculum, personal or psychological curriculum, and, less often,
moral curriculum and political curriculum. These people may be so clear as to
have an overarching objective related to that dimension and curriculum to go
with it. This curriculum may evince itself in explicit learning experiences or,
more subtly, in intentional aspects of the learning environment the teacher con-
structs or allows to exist (for reasons he or she attributes to social goals or moral
goals). Emphasis in any dimension usually manifests in awareness, deliberate-
ness, and objectives for that dimension. As we observe teaching and interview
teachers about their teaching, we find that we can identify dimensions that are
being emphasized in the design of the learning environment or in personal in-
teractions with certain students.
We commented before that there is some describable reality on each dimension
at all times, regardless of the teacher’s awareness or deliberateness about what
it is. When a dimension is emphasized, even if it has only one form, it means
that the dimensional reality figures prominently in learning experiences and
one would expect the teacher to be able to say why. For example, some teachers
may provide a high frequency of negotiation and choices by students because
they have a philosophical commitment to developing student ownership and
influence (a commitment from the political dimension). If we observe students
in frequent debate, stating and defending positions on issues with the teacher
as facilitator and clarifier, we would expect the teacher to have something to say
about getting students to be independent thinkers, or critical thinkers, or effec-
tive speakers, or some such goal.
MATCHING DIMENSIONS TO NEEDS
OF CLASSES OR INDIVIDUALS
Although they stop short of forming overarching objectives, many teachers pur-
sue personalized objectives for particular students that are outside the formal
boundaries of their academic agendas. These goals could be from any of the five
dimensions and could show up in individual choices or interactions. They are,
in fact, usually highly personalized moves and reflect a high level of matching.
For many teachers, these moves are quick and spontaneous. Although it often
takes probing to get people to even remember they did them, the moves may
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come from deep and consistent wells. Experienced and well-developed teach-
ers may have many such individual objectives from the five dimensions for
different students.
If a teacher has a social goal for a child, that teacher wants the student to de-
velop or increase some particular interpersonal capacity or insight. “Well, I
stopped and asked Jane how she saw the issue because I wanted her group to
hear her thinking. She’s too shy to offer it on her own and needs an opening.
I want to help raise her status in her group.” This teacher has a social goal for
the student.
If a teacher has a personal goal for a student, that teacher wants the student to
develop some personal capacity or inner strength. “Jimmy, I’d like you to see
if there is any pattern to the ones you got wrong. If there is, how about setting
a goal and checking it out with me before lunch?” This teacher has a personal
objective for Jimmy to learn how to self-analyze and set goals.
If a teacher has a moral goal for a student, that teacher wants the student
to learn something about justice, right, duty, or obligation. Charmaine has
several students sent to her today for help during the 90-minute period. The
teacher has arranged in advance with Charmaine by negotiation that she,
who is skilled at analyzing and setting up word problems, will be willing to
help others in this difficult problem set. This arrangement is not an attempt to
boost Charmaine’s self-esteem. Her self-esteem is already at the point of arro-
gance. The teacher is systematically trying to help Charmaine develop a sense of
responsibility for the success of others. This is an example of a moral objective.
When a teacher has a political goal for a child, that teacher wants that student
to learn something about power or influence. Mrs. James has had Peter read a
chapter on mediation during the class study of the labor movement. She has
asked him to conduct a mock mediation in front of the class in which he explic-
itly models the mediation skills in the chapter. Later, when Peter gets into one
of his frequent high-pitched arguments with a classmate that he usually wins
by bullying, Mrs. James intervenes and says, “Peter, let’s mediate. Coach me
through the steps.” She does this frequently over the first term in an attempt to
teach Peter an alternative way to exert his influence in a dispute.
Notice that in these examples, some of the teachers’ actions were spontaneous,
as in the case of Jane and the goal to increase her status in the group. Others
were deliberate and planned, such as the last example with Peter. What all the
examples share in common, however, is individualized thinking about objec-
tives for the child’s growth. These objectives are in realms that include aca-
demic and thinking skills, but also go beyond into other dimensions.
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In the teaching ranks of our schools, there are thousands of unheralded virtuo-
sos of the five dimensions profiled in this chapter. These people make subtle and
deliberate on-the-fly moves with individual students. These moves are keyed to
social, personal, moral, and political objectives that rarely show up in lesson
plans but are alive as perceptual filters the teachers use to catch teachable mo-
ments with particular students. These teachers are complex thinkers who can
and who do address multiple objectives simultaneously.
Understanding this aspect of sophisticated teaching may give observers a new
lens for inquiring into those quick little comments and moves that teachers
make almost in passing with individual students. This lens can serve as a foun-
dation for interesting questions in conferences as observers help teachers de-
brief and interpret the complex reality of interactive classroom teaching.
For teachers, this chapter may provide a frame for thinking about their stu-
dents, one by one, and for sorting through the multiple ways their teaching can
match the needs of individuals.
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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE
Five Classroom Realities:
1. Social
2. Personal
3. Moral
4. Political
5. Information Processing
An Overarching Objective Reflects Area of Performance Repertoires:
p Classroom Climate
p Models of Teaching
p Clarity
p Routines
p Personal Relatio\nship Building
To check your knowledge about Overarching Objectives, see the exercises on The Skillful
Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.
http://www.RBTeach.com/TST7
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NOTES
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Subject Index
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 653
SUBJECT INDEX
Symbols
4MAT 431
24 Operating Principles 257
A
Abstractions 15, 16
Academic discipline 3, 4, 8
Academic learning time 88, 101
Academic routines 110–111
Academic vocabulary 198, 201, 202, 210
Accountability 2
Accountable Talk 255
Achievement gap 1
Acknowledging moves 52
Acknowledging students 392
Activator 205, 206, 208, 209, 210
Activators (Saphier & Haley) 209
Active participation 286
Activity Thinking 490
ADD 98
ADHD 98
Adult Professional Culture 5, 9, 13
Advanced Organizer Model 296
Advance notice 65
Alerting moves 51
Allocated time 82, 83, 84, 103
Analogies and Metaphors 214
Anchoring Table 244
Anecdotal Records 574, 577, 578
Anticipating confusions
211
Anticipation 66
Anticipation Guide 208
Anti-Racism Continuum 36
Application in Setting 269
Areas of performance 11–13
Arenas for expectations messages 332
Assessment
Exemplars 561–563, 567
Problem-Solving 602
Twelve Purposes of 551, 619
Assessment Devices 600
Attention 55–57
Moves 47
Repertoire 56
Attitude of Positive Expectancy 139
Attitude toward errors 348
Attribution Retraining 379
Attribution Theory 315, 325, 326, 327
Awareness Training Model 301
B
Behavior
Disruptive or inattentive
Causes 123–124
In effective organizations 5, 8
Off-task 151, 152
Behavior Modification 189
Beliefs
Deep collaboration 2, 22, 27
Professional knowledge 3, 7, 10, 13, 21, 22, 27, 34
Racism. See Racism
Seven knowledge bases 22
Teacher efficacy 24
Teaching knowledge and skill 21
The learning environment we create 23
Bell Curve of Innate Ability 322
Bias 34
Big Idea 201
Bloom’s taxonomy 250
Brain research 43
“Brights” 333, 334
Broken Squares Activity 415
Brown vs. Board of Education 25
C
Calling on Students 333
Caring 389, 390, 403, 404, 136
Casual register 236
Challenge, balance 46
Challenging Students 188
Charlie Brown syndrome 205
Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching 17
Checking for Understanding 248, 472
Subject Index
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R654
SUBJECT INDEX
Checklists 457, 574, 575
Check-Off Record Forms 579, 580
Classroom Assessment 551, 552, 619
Classroom Climate 176
Community and mutual support 409
Influence and control 409
Risk-taking and confidence 409
Classroom procedures 111
Classroom Reality
Information Processing Reality 627
Moral Reality 626
Personal Reality 626
Political Reality 627
Social Reality 626
Classroom space
Centers 74
Circle 73
Clusters 74
Perimeter 74
Rows 74
Ten recommendations 77
Twos 73
“U”s 74
Close Confusers 279
Cognitive Behavior Modification 189
Cognitive connections 87, 205, 237, 266, 456
Cognitive Empathy 247
Cognitive Level 534
Coherent Curriculum 458
Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional
Learning (CASEL) 178
Collectivism 117
Common Core 1, 2
Communicating Value 393
Communications
With families and community 5
Community building 412, 416
Compare and Contrast 245
Comprehensiveness 12, 14
Concept Attainment Model 297
Concept Map 485
Concrete-Semiabstract-Abstract Progression 269
Conflict Resolution Skills 417
Consequences 144
Hierarchy of escalating 150
High impact 171
Last resort 175
Medium 156
Small 151
Constructivist Teaching 434
Content 535, 536, 503, 537
Content analysis 3, 4, 8, 482–484
Content-specific pedagogy 3, 4, 8
Contiguity 280
Cooperative Learning 529
Coverage Thinking 489
Criteria for Success 204, 332, 350, 384, 388, 472, 474,
355
Bulleted List 558
Performance Task List 558
Crosswalk 17
Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching 17
David Rose’s Universal Design for Learning 17
Kim Marshall’s Teacher Evaluation Rubrics 17
Massachusetts Model System for Teacher Evaluation
17
Robert Marzano’s Teacher Evaluation Model 17
Cueing
Minimal and Progressive 231
Cultural blindness 32, 39
Cultural competence 33, 39
Cultural destructiveness 32, 39
Cultural improficiency 32
Cultural incapacity 32, 39
Culturally pre-competent 33
Culturally relevant instruction 36
Cultural proficiency 33
Six stages 33
Cumulative Review 280
Curriculum
Agreements of 443–446
Elements of 446
Topics 446
Cycle of Teaching and Learning 553
D
Data collection 573
Data Wall 581
David Rose’s Universal Design for Learning 17
Degree of Abstraction 533
Degree of Guidance 281
Degree of Supervision 531
Demonstrating fairness 400
Designing for Cognitive Impact 269
Designing for Motivational Impact 274
Desisting moves 48–50
Dipsticking 251
Direct Instruction 89
Disruptions
Body language of meaning business 134, 153
Causes 123
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 655
SUBJECT INDEX
Consequences 144
Eliminating 134
Downtime 47
E
Educational Contract 173
Educational Games 231
Effective Effort 6, 24, 25, 26, 27, 324, 379
Attributes of 380
Efficient management systems 99
Effort-Based Ability Theory 322, 325, 388
Emotional State 45
End Without Closure 287
Engaged time 85, 87, 101
Enlisting Moves 52
Error Analysis
By Students 587
By the Teacher 585
Essays 600
Evaluation 355
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) 1, 2
Exhibitions 608–609
Expectations
Four Kinds 317
Expectations, Four Kinds 317
Explanatory Devices 213
Explicitness 238
Extension groups 522
F
Feedback
Areas of effective 321
Feeling Tone 287
Filler moves 62
Follow-up question 341
Foreshadowing 247
Formative Assessment 247, 263, 265, 378, 493, 522, 549,
567
Framing Reteaching 332, 367
Framing the Learning 196
G
Generic pedagogy 3, 5, 8
Generic Thinking Skills 493
Gestures, Demonstrations, and Modeling 215
Get acquainted activities 411
Gifted students 375
Giving assignments and tasks 349
Giving Feedback 350
Giving Help 345
Goal Setting 274
Grades 371
Graphic Organizers 222–225
Greeting 411, 412
Group Dynamics 416
Group Identity 414
Grouping 373, 541
Group Investigation 623
Group Investigation Model 304
Growing Lilies in the Desert, 7
Growth Mindset 315, 322, 330, 331, 388
Guess My Category Activity 288
Guess what’s on the teacher’s mind 177
Guidance
Degree of 281
H
Hidden curriculum 108
Hierarchical relationships 494
Hierarchical relationships diagram 494
High Expectations 323, 330, 332, 378, 388
High Expectations Teaching
10 Arenas of Classroom Life 332
Attitude Toward Errors—Persevere and Return 388
Calling on Students 332, 333, 388
Feedback 320, 321, 332, 333, 350, 351, 353, 354, 355,
364, 380, 383, 384, 388
Giving Help 332, 345, 388
Grades 371, 388
Grouping 332, 373, 376, 388
Positive Framing for Reteaching 366, 388
Redos 388
Responding to Students’ Answers 388
Retakes 370, 371, 388
Tasks and Assignments 332, 349, 388
Tenacity 332, 347, 369, 370, 371, 388
High-expertise teaching
Knowledge 3
High Success Time 88
Home Contact 139
Homework 514
Housekeeping routines 108–109
Humor 392, 126, 397, 403
I
Implicit Bias 34, 37
Incrementalist Theory 322, 325, 388
Indicators 458, 481
Individual differences in learners 3, 5, 8
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R656
SUBJECT INDEX
Individualism 117
Inductive Thinking Model 293, 298, 299, 308
Information Complexity 543
Information processing teaching model 301, 309, 311
Innate ability 322, 324, 326, 327, 329, 330, 331, 365, 379
Inquiry Training Model 299
Instructional time 84, 89, 99, 100
Intelligence 35
Bell curve 24, 25
Interactive Teaching 623
Interactive Whiteboards 226
Interdependence 414
Intrusion, moves for 64
Involvement Thinking 491
Isolation of Critical Attributes 270
Itinerary 200
J
Jigsaw activity 414
John Adams’ Promise 7
K
Kim Marshall’s Teacher Evaluation Rubrics 17
Knowledge bases for high-expertise teaching 3
Knowledge of Results 276
KWL Chart 206
L
Laughter, benefits of 46
Learning strategies 308, 382, 428
Learning Style 430
Lesson Flexibility 65
Life-liberating beliefs 330, 378, 384, 420, 425
Life-limiting beliefs 384, 420, 423, 439
Logical Consequences 189
M
Making Students’ Thinking Visible 246, 248, 255, 259,
261, 266
Massachusetts Model System for Teacher Evaluation 17
Mastery Language 469
Mastery Thinking 492
Matching 12, 235, 337, 531, 532, 533, 534, 540, 542, 544,
546, 628
Mazes 234
Meaning 271
Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project 1
Mental Engagement 237
Mental Imagery 227–229
Microaggressions 34
Mnemonics 281
Modeling 272
Modeling Thinking Aloud 216–219, 219
Models of Discipline 188–189
Moves 15, 16
Myers-Briggs 431
Mysteries exercise 416
N
No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) 1
Nondirective Teaching Model 303
Nonreport 431, 432, 433
Normalizing Errors 422
Notebooks 606
O
Objectives
Communicating 198
Stated, lived, worthy 466, 467
Observation 457, 603
Open and thinking, 276
Operant conditioning 278
Operating Principles 257
Overarching Objectives 621–623
Overlapping moves 61
P
Pacing 93, 100
Paper Towels Score Form 604
Patterns 15, 16
Patterns of Instruction 305
Direct Instruction 306
Lecture 305
Recitation 306
PBIS 189
Peer coaching 309, 310
Perceptual Modes 284
Performance Task List 558
Persistence 320, 333, 397, 398
Personal Influence 189
Personal Relevance 525
Physical Models 220
Physical movement 46
Planning Conference 482–484
Portfolios 610–613
Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports (PBIS) 189
Practice 282
Practice sessions 282
Pre-Assessing 209
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 657
SUBJECT INDEX
Presentation Software 230
Principles for Attention and Engagement 286
Principles of Learning 268
Privacy 75
Problem-Solving Skills 417
Professional Knowledge 5
Progressive Differentiation
Geometry Concepts 296
Provisioning moves 60
Pygmalion in the classroom 26, 315, 334, 335
Q
Questioning skills 265
Questions 13, 233, 239, 240, 250, 253, 265
R
Race to the Top 1
Racism , 26, 29, 34, 36, 37, 18, 39
Readiness to Receive 204
Reality Therapy 189
Realness 402
Recitation 306
Record-Keeping 573
Redos 371
Re-education 156
Reinforcement 277
Reliability 597
Repertoire 12
Report
Language Arts 595
Reporting Systems 591
Reports: Oral, Written, and Multimedia 607
Resistant students. See Challenging students
Resources 524
Respecting students 400
Responses to student answers 276
Response to Intervention (RTI) 522
Responsibility building 414
Responsive Classroom 178
Restorative Discipline 189
Retakes 371
Reteaching 332, 366, 367, 388, 522, 589
Rhythm 93, 100
Risk-Taking 419
Five Beliefs 420
Robert Marzano’s Teacher Evaluation Model 17
Role Plays 231
“Round the Clock Learning Buddies” 623
Routines
Culture 116
Elements of effective 116
Self-assessment 115
Teaching 113
Rubric
Cross Curricular Sixth Grade Exhibition 566
Exemplars 568–569
Science Lab 559
Scoring an Essay 564
Spot Check 200
S
Safety and operational routines 109
Say-Do 283
Scale 545
Second Language Learners 202, 204, 214, 215, 234
Self-Awareness Training 189
Self-Expression 532
Sensory Channels 544
Sequence and Backward Chaining 286
Seven knowledge bases 22
Similarity of Environment 288
Simulations 231
Skillful teacher
Definition 10
Skillful Teacher Framework 11
“Slows” 333, 334, 408
Smart is something you can get 332, 522
Social Contract 139
Social Skills 110, 416, 476
Sort Card activity 210
Sources of Information 524
Speech Patterns 233
Standards 113, 200, 309, 316, 317, 318, 328, 330, 388,
617
Communicating 318
Standards and Expectations 316, 328
State Standards 477
Stereotypes 25
Stereotype threat 35
Stop My Teaching 427
Structure 536
Structuring 535
Student Agreement 172
Student friendly language 471
Student influence 426
Student interests 403
Student ownership 426
Student record-keeping about progress 583
Student self-assessment 582, 588
Student Teams and Academic Divisions (STAD) 623
T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R658
SUBJECT INDEX
Subdividing moves 66
Summarizers 264
Summarizing 74, 89, 100, 116, 217, 225, 179, 262, 263,
264
Summative assessment 453, 549, 565, 567
Synectics Model 301
T
Taboo exercise 137
Taxonomy. See Bloom’s taxonomy
Teacher comments (Writers’ Express) 357–362
Teacher Effectiveness Training (TET) 189
Teacher traits 392
Teaching Teams 616
Technical Principles of Design 279
Tenacity. See Persistence
Ten Jobs of Teaching 6
Test Record 588
Tests 599
The Class 30
The Important Questions of Teaching 13
Therapeutic Models of Discipline 189
The Scholar’s Loop 367
Thinking Skill Objectives 474
Three-way conferences 591
Time allocations in school 82
Time audits 91
Time on Task 85
Time-out 167
Tracking 374, 375, 377
Transfer 272
Type of Interdependence 527
U
Unscrambling confusion 253
V
Vagueness 234, 235
Validity 597
Visual Representations 220
Vividness 289
W
Wait Time 337, 338, 339
White privilege 37
Winning moves 54
“Withitness” 61
Wordsplash 207
Work habits and procedures 109–110
Research for Better Teaching, Inc. • One Acton Place, Acton, MA 01720 • 978.263.9449 • www.RBTeach.com • pubs@RBTeach.com
RBT Professional Development Programs
Research for Better Teaching, Inc. (RBT) offers a portfolio of professional learning opportunities in the areas of teaching, school
leadership, and the effective use of student data. The programs listed below are a sample of the many programs RBT delivers on-
site in schools or districts. Customized professional development experiences, on-site coaching, or consulting in these topics to
meet specific needs may also be requested. For more information about these and other opportunities to partner with RBT, please
visit www.RBTeach.com or email info@RBTeach.com.
SKILLFUL TEACHING
Studying Skillful Teaching: Promoting Motivation, Learning, and Achievement
For teachers, RBT’s foundational program for building their capacity to improve their practices and students’ achievement through
lesson planning, high expectations, formative assessment, and cultural proficiency. Includes development of a common language
related to the knowledge base on teaching and each state’s professional standards.
High Expectations Teaching
For teachers who want to bring the “growth mindset” to life in their daily practice and create an atmosphere where high expecta-
tions are communicated clearly and convincingly to all students, not just some. Puts into action the belief that each and every child
can learn to proficiency and explicitly teaches students how to exert “effective effort.”
Making Student Thinking Visible (online)
For teachers to build their capacity to use strategies for making student thinking visible and to engage students in meaningful
ways across grade levels and content areas by creating a robust talk environment for all students where they are all challenged
and enabled to think deeply, critically, and frequently interact out loud with each other. Features RBT founder and president, Jon
Saphier, with commentary by Lucy West.
SKILLFUL LEADERSHIP
Analyzing Teaching for Student Results (ATSR)
For leaders to learn how to zero in on high-leverage teaching strategies that make a difference in student learning. Includes exam-
ination and use of a common language and concept system, the development of skills for classroom observation, and the capacity
to identify and provide results-oriented reports and feedback that are credible and convincing.
Coaching for Sustainable School Improvement (CSSI)
For instructional coaches to strengthen their coaching skills based on a partnership approach. Features the use of classroom video
in the coaching relationship and incorporates the work of leading coaching expert, Jim Knight.
Taking Action to Improve Ineffective Instruction
For school and district leaders to learn how to diagnose problems, communicate effectively, and draw on a repertoire of interven-
tions to improve the quality of teaching. Samples strategies and approaches from the handbook by Platt and Tripp, Strengthening
Teacher Evaluation: Taking Action to Improve Ineffective Instruction, aka The Skillful Leader III (2014).
SKILLFUL DATA USE
Data Coaching: Unleashing the Power of Collaborative Inquiry
For Data Coaches and school/district leaders of Data Teams to learn how to lead a structured process of collaborative inquiry that
increases professional community, effective uses of data, and student achievement. Based on The Data Coach’s Guide to Improv-
ing Learning for All Students: Unleashing the Power of Collaborative Inquiry (Corwin Press, 2008) by Love, Stiles, Mundry, and
DiRanna.
Coaching High-Impact Teacher Teams
For coaches, teacher leaders, teacher team facilitators, and administrators supervising coaches or teams to learn how to maximize
the power of planning, formative assessment, error analysis and reteaching.
For further details on programs, including schedule, pricing, and registration, send email or call RBT.
Research for Better Teaching, Inc. • One Acton Place, Acton, MA 01720 • 978.263.9449 • www.RBTeach.com • pubs@RBTeach.com
RBT Publications and Products
SKILLFUL TEACHING
The Skillful Teacher: The Comprehensive Resource for Improving Teaching and Learning (7th ed. 2017)
Updates the last edition with powerful new material and 100+ videos illustrating the skills. Designed for both the novice and the
experienced educator, The Skillful Teacher is a unique synthesis of the Knowledge Base on Teaching, with repertoires for matching
teaching strategies to student needs. Designed as a practical guide for practitioners working to broaden their teaching skills, the
book combines theory with practice and focuses on 18 critical areas of classroom performance. A must for instructional coaches
and mentors.
by Jon Saphier, Mary Ann Haley-Speca, & Robert Gower
High Expectations Teaching: How to Persuade Students to Believe and Act on “Smart Is Something You Can Get”
(2017)
For all the productive conversation around “mindsets,” what’s missing are the details of how to convince our discouraged and
underperforming students that “smart is something you can get.” Until now. With the publication of High-Expectations Teaching,
Jon Saphier reveals once and for all evidence that the bell curve of ability is plain wrong—that ability is something that can be
grown significantly if we can first help students to believe in themselves.
by Jon Saphier
Activators: Activity Structures to Engage Students’ Thinking Before Instruction (1993)
This book is a collection of classroom-tested, practical activity structures for getting students’ minds active and engaged prior to
introducing new content or skills.
by Jon Saphier & Mary Ann Haley
Summarizers: Activity Structures to Support Integration and Retention of New Learning (1993)
This book is a collection of classroom-tested, practical activity structures for getting students cognitively active during and after
periods of instruction.
by Jon Saphier & Mary Ann Haley
SKILLFUL LEADERSHIP
Transforming Ineffective Teams: Maximizing Collaboration’s Impact on Learning: The Skillful Leader II (2008)
This important “Skillful Leader” book arms administrators and teacher leaders with step-by-step strategies to confront and
raise the performance of teams and individuals who undermine student learning. The text includes methods of collecting data,
strategies for intervention, and tips for hiring and training. Individual and community profiles, together with legal notes, provide
practical tools for busy leaders.
by Alexander D. Platt, Caroline E. Tripp, Robert G. Fraser, James R. Warnock, & Rachel E. Curtis
Strengthening Teacher Evaluation: Taking Action to Improve Ineffective Teaching (The Skillful Leader III) (2014)
This work serves as a how-to handbook to accompany the bestselling The Skillful Leader: Confronting Mediocre Teaching. Like its
predecessor, the book offers dozens of illustrations, new cases, and sample documents plus legal advice to help evaluators confront
ineffective instruction. It is a cover-to-cover guide for solving thorny teacher performance problems.
by Alexander D. Platt & Caroline E. Tripp
Beyond Mentoring: Putting Instructional Focus on Comprehensive Induction Programs (2011)
This book emphasizes the critical role of instructional practice in the induction support that is given to new and beginning teach-
ers. Using RBT’s model for the comprehensive induction of new teachers, educators are guided through the steps of developing an
induction plan for new teachers and integrating the induction program with the district’s professional learning community.
by Jon Saphier, Susan Freedman, & Barbara Aschheim
Talk Sense: Communicating to Lead and Learn (2007)
Barry Jentz shows how leaders can build the requisite trust and credibility for improving organizational performance. Typically,
leaders “talk tough” to improve performance. When that doesn’t work, they “talk nice” (or vice-versa). By learning to “talk sense,”
leaders can succeed in their efforts to improve performance.
by Barry Jentz
SKILLFUL DATA USE
The Data Coach’s Guide to Improving Learning for All Students: Unleashing the Power of Collaborative Inquiry
(2008)
This resource helps Data-Team facilitators move schools away from unproductive data practices and toward examining data for
systematic and continuous improvement in instruction and learning. The book includes a CD-ROM with slides and reproducibles.
by Nancy Love, Katherine E. Stiles, Susan Mundry, & Kathryn DiRanna
Laminated Guide: Data Literacy for Teachers (2011)
For every teacher, data coach, and inquiry team. In a fold-out 8.5” x 11” laminated form, ready to be inserted in a notebook, the
guide provides a simple framework to help teachers feel comfortable, knowledgeable, and skilled in effectively using a variety of
data, including formative assessments.
by Nancy Love
Laminated Guide: The Skillful Inquiry/Data Team (2012)
For every grade level (elementary) or subject-area (middle and high school) team of teachers, plus school and district adminis-
trators. In a fold-out 8.5” x 11” laminated form, ready to be inserted in a notebook, this guide provides a proven-effective inquiry
process and practical tools to maximize their impact on student achievement.
by Nancy Love
DVD: The Skillful Data Use Series (2012) Volume 1 Collaborative Inquiry: Connecting Data to Results. DVD collection of
introductory instructional videos based on The Data Coach’s Guide and Using Data to Improve Learning for All provides expert
commentary, insights from successful implementations, and views of Data Teams in action.
Posters: Unleashing the Power of Collaborative Inquiry (2009)
Eight full-color, 24” x 36” laminated posters: (1) Using Data 19 Tasks, (2) Building the Bridge, (3) Using Data Diagram, (4) Data
Driven Dialogue, (5) Data Triangle, (6) Logic Model, (7) Verify Causes Tree, (8) Drill Down Deep. Data is power!
OTHER RBT RESOURCES
John Adams’ Promise: How to Have Good Schools for All Our Children, Not Just for Some (2005)
Curriculum reform, structural reform, funding reform, organizational reform—all these 20th-century efforts have failed to make a
significant dent in the achievement gap and the performance of disadvantaged students, especially in cities and poor rural areas.
by Jon Saphier
How to Bring Vision to School Improvement Through Core Outcomes, Commitments and Beliefs (1993)
This practical guide provides a proven step-by-step sequence for generating consensus among parents and staff about a few valued
core outcomes they want for all children. Then it shows how to achieve the concrete outcomes in the areas of school and family life.
by Jon Saphier & John D’Auria
Research for Better Teaching, Inc. • One Acton Place, Acton, MA 01720 • 978.263.9449 • www.RBTeach.com • pubs@RBTeach.com
RBT Publications and Products
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
1. Skillful Teaching: The Missing Element in School
2. The Skillful Teacher Framework
PART ONE: Introduction to Essential Beliefs
3. Schooling
4. Cultural Proficiency and Anti-Racism
PART TWO: Introduction to Management
5. Attention
6. Momentum
7. Space
8. Time
9. Routines
10. Discipline
PART THREE: Introduction to Instruction
11. Clarity
12. Principles of Learning
13. Models of Teaching
PART FOUR: Introduction to Motivation
14. Expectations
15. Personal Relationship Building
16. Classroom Climate
PART FIVE: Introduction to Curriculum
17. Curriculum Design
18. Lesson Objectives
19. Planning
20. Differentiated Instruction
21. Assessment
22. Overarching Objectives
Reference List
Subject Index
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