Open Your Eyes

I remember when I was a student teacher in first grade.  A small table of emerging readers. Pattern books with predictable text.  During guided reading one day one of my students said, "Look, I can read with my eyes closed!"  Well I guess I somehow missed the point then! Unless we can read braille, we most certainly cannot "read with our eyes closed."  With our eyes closed we are not reading at all.

I have angst over assessing with rubrics.  I have angst over performance assessment.  Mostly I have angst over the lack of validity and reliability and the level of bias that creeps into our assessment.

When assessing a teacher candidate or in-service teacher performance, many university supervisors and school administrators are asked to use the rubrics associated with the Danielson Framework for Teaching. The frameworks break down teaching into 22 components and 76 smaller elements.  A rubric exists for each of the components and there is a line in one of the rubrics for each of the 76 smaller elements.

After training most professionals feel they "know" the Framework.  Gee, all of those rubrics... that is a lot of paper.  That takes a lot of time. I have how many people to assess?  How many times? I know good when I see it.  This intern/teacher is good! Distinguished, distinguished, distinguished!

Wait, somewhere I heard...in training, or a meeting... that the intern/teacher doesn't "live" at the distinguished level.  It's just a place that we "visit," therefore we do not give distinguished ratings. More than that, we're going to evaluate the intern/teacher low so they have room to grow! Basic, basic, basic!

When we evaluate an intern/teacher on a framework without actually referencing the rubric and providing evidence to support the rating based on what we have observed and the content of the rubric, aren't we really assessing with our eyes closed?  Are we really assessing at all?

Is there a better way?  How do you use the Danielson Framework for Teaching to evaluate interns/teachers?

So what is differentiation?

So what about differentiation?  What does it mean anyway?  According to Tomlinson & Moon (2013), "the ultimate goal of differentiation is to ensure that each student has the best possible learning experiences in order to maximize academic growth." Sometimes it makes sense to give all students the same instruction.  Sometimes it is more effective to provide students with more than just one prescribed way to learn.

What do I think differentiation is?  It's good teaching!  It's knowing your students and providing for them in the best way you can every day.  It's searching for that strategy, that resource, that connection that will make learning click for a student.  Or spark an interest.  Or provide appropriate challenge. It's the opposite of the scripted ridiculousness that is thrust upon teachers today.

In my first year as a principal I walked into a first grade teacher's classroom and observed her teaching math.  It was the daily math meeting and the teacher was reading questions from a script provided by the textbook company.  Later, I asked her about it.  Do you need that script to teach the math meeting?  She responded that the previous principal required teachers to use the script to teach math.

I can tell you, the people who wrote that textbook probably knew a lot about math.  They were probably experts in their field.  They provided a good outline for teaching and provided a structured approach to the discipline.  But you know what?  Those experts did not know the students in that classroom.  I wonder if any of them were familiar with Amish culture?  Or if they knew about students who grew up in a small farming community?  Did they know more about the dynamics of a first grade classroom than this teacher with more than twenty years of teaching experience?  Did they know how to connect what was being taught in the other subject areas?  You get the point.

A few years later I became the principal in another school in another state.  A teacher asked me if she had to use all of the pages in the student workbooks.  All of the pages?  Workbooks?  Why?  The last principal marked her down in her teacher evaluation because she didn't use all of the pages in the workbook.  The parents paid for it.  You have to use all the pages.

I'm a parent.  You know what?  I want you to use your resources wisely.  Please don't spend my textbook rental or tax dollars on junk.  But please, please, use the time you have with my children wisely.  Make them love learning.  Challenge them to learn something new every day.  Make their learning real.  Use the workbook as a resource to do that because you know what my children need. Don't use it because it is Wednesday, and on Wednesday we do the pages in the workbook, because that is the next lesson in the textbook, and it doesn't matter whether you are ready for this content or if you already know it, on Wednesday we do the workbook pages because your parents paid for this book and we are going to be sure they get every last pennies' worth out of it.  Sigh.

Differentiated instruction is how teachers work to be sure ALL students learn.  Differentiated instruction is what teachers do when students don't learn.  Differentiated instruction is what effective teachers do.  

Reference:
Tomlinson, C. & Moon, T. (2013) Assessment and Student Success in a Differentiated Classroom.  Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

P.S. I use this book as a textbook for my Assessment course.  

Differentiation Doesn't Work?!

Education Week published an article online January 6, 2015 and in print January 7, 2015, with the title Differentiation Doesn't Work by James R. Delisle.  He calls differentiation "a failure, a farce, and the ultimate educational joke."

Mr. Delisle means that ALL children cannot have learning needs met simply by differentiating instruction in a general education setting.  Ok, all together now, "DUH!"  Any time we take an "all or nothing approach" to ANY educational innovation, odds are we are going to fail.

Mr. Delisle states that UNLESS we track students into classes of similar abilities, differentiation does not have a chance to work.  Indeed, we would be moving backward if we continued with differentiated instruction in that manner.

As a former 6th grade teacher, I had the opportunity to teach an ability-grouped mathematics classroom of the lowest 5th and 6th grade students from eight classrooms.  Let me tell you, that while these students were certainly all low achieving math students, that is very close to where the similarities ended.  What did I have?  A class of students who had been passed on to the next grade over and over again without having the knowledge or skills to be successful in the next grade level.  How had whole group instruction worked for those students?  A gap existed at some point, and the students fell farther and farther behind.  To add to that, the class had students with learning disabilities, hearing impairments, cognitive impairments, and behavior problems.  Add suspensions, chronic illnesses, ADHD, absenteeism, and learned helplessness.  That was my classroom.

Teaching classes of students tracked by ability is not easy.

Differentiated instruction is not easy.

The truth?  There is no easy answer because teaching is not easy.  It is not a job for the faint of heart.  It is not a job for the lone ranger.

What to do?  Work together. Classroom teachers, specialized staff, administrators, parents, community members, legislators--everyone.  Do the best we can every day with the resources we have.  Don't give up.  Keep trying.