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You
are here: The Thoughtful Classroom:
Making Students as Important as Standards
by Harvey Silver, Richard Strong, Matthew Perini, and Greg Tuculescu
The Third Generation of Accountability
When something goes wrong in an organization, one of the first questions we hear is, "Who is accountable?" It may sound like an easy way of assigning blame, but in reality accountability is much less means for scapegoating than it is a way to assess how well a system is working. At its heart, accountability implies reform. Resting within the demand for accountability lies the seed of organizational improvement.Over the past few decades, accountability has become an important word for educators looking to improve practice, make their schools more effective learning organizations, and raise student achievement. But accountability has not been some fixed concept in American education; its message and implications for schools have changed and evolved with each new generation. In fact, we can trace the evolution of three distinct generations of accountability.
When the Age of Accountability in education began some thirty plus years ago, its catchphrase, "All children can learn," was as simple as it was general. Over time, this generality came to be seen and used as something of a loophole in accountability: of course all children can learn, it's just that some can learn calculus and others will flounder in remedial math; some can learn to write a first-rate literary essay while others will remain stuck at the sentence level, doomed to "learning" through a steady diet of parsing exercises. Because this first generation of accountability set no goals for learning, its effects were largely rhetorical. The language of schools changed, but the schools themselves did not.
That's when the second generation of accountability, complete with its armory of standards, was born. In the second generation, states responded to the disparities in what students were learning with core content standards, which, in turn led to dramatic changes in state assessment tests. Suddenly the emphasis was on higher-level thinking, rigorous reading, problem-solving, and writing. Multiple choice all but disappeared, leaving in its wake state tests like Kentucky's Commonwealth Assessment Testing System (CATS) where 80% of its items required open-ended responses. The culmination of this second generation of accountability was the No Child Left Behind Act, that well known piece of legislation requiring all schools to demonstrate "adequate yearly progress" in all sub-groups of student populations.
A good example of the shift from the first to the second generation of accountability is on view in the New York State testing system. One of the first states to implement state-wide assessment, New York relied for years on exams that held different expectations for different students. Students on a college track took an academic exam; the rest of the students took a general exam. Since 2001, however, New York has required all graduating students to pass more rigorous Regents exams in all subject areas. The trend of greater expectations for every school and every student embodied by the second generation of accountability became a nationwide movement, and its mantra reflected this new level of ambition: high levels of learning for all students.
Never before had any nation set such high standards for every student. Curriculum alignment committees, standards-based lesson plans, direct instruction of test-taking skills, more academic programs all sprung up in response – sometimes at the expense of arts and music programs. And while some schools showed initial gains, those gains often came at a high price. Many communities worried that their schools were becoming unrecognizable test-taking factories. Powerful anti-standards advocates like Alfie Kohn rose up in protest. In communities in California, Colorado, and Massachusetts, and other states, some parents even revolted, keeping their children out of school and picketing against high-stakes testing. From the minds and mouths of students came a disturbing but far-too accurate perception: "My school is more interested in my test scores than in me."
At the same time our education system has rallied around a unified set of standards, teachers have come to realize that their classrooms are more heterogeneous than ever. The great diversity of students' needs, interests, and learning styles renders one-size-fits-all approaches not only foolish, but outright damaging to student achievement. Thus, calls for differentiation have become nearly as loud as calls for uniform standards. And so we all stand at the beginning of the third generation of accountability with a new message based on the lessons of the previous generations: Let's make students as important as standards.
The challenge of the third generation of accountability is to realize the dream unique to American Education: raising the levels of achievement for all students while still preserving the unique and precious gifts of each and every individual.
We believe that making this dream a reality requires answers to five important questions:
1. What skills do students need to develop to achieve at high levels?
2. What instructional strategies enable the greatest gains in student performance?
3. How can we address the diversity of our students in a way that is manageable and provides an equal opportunity for all students to achieve?
4. How can we design units of instruction that motivate learners with different learning styles yet still address the skills and core content knowledge students need to succeed?
5. How do schools become professional learning communities that support teachers through the improvement process?The answers to these questions can be found in a new and comprehensive approach to school improvement known as The Thoughtful Classroom.
The Thoughtful Classroom
The Thoughtful Classroom rests on five distinct pillars, or methods for improving teaching, learning, and schools.
Pillar 1—the Hidden Skills of Academic Literacy
When the standards movement really began to take hold during the second generation of accountability, teaching and learning made a shift to better serve the demands of state assessment tests—often at the expense of students' learning needs. However, when teachers and administrators create clear and attainable goals they want students to reach, then state assessments can serve teaching and learning—instead of the other way around.
In an effort to make the demands of standards-based teaching and learning more manageable, Silver Strong & Associates, over a period of five years, conducted a study of assessment tests from 38 states. After analyzing these tests, we came to the conclusion that although these tests assess different kinds of knowledge in many different content areas, all the tests measure the same set of core skills. We call these skills the Hidden Skills of Academic Literacy (see table below).
The Hidden Skills of Academic Literacy
Reading Skills include the abilities to:
Read extensively and make notes on all assigned texts
Keep a glossary that defines new academic terms and review it once a week.
Reflective Skills include the abilities to:
Develop a written plan for any assignment that takes more than an hour
Evaluate work against rubrics and work samples, and then revise it upwards
Thinking Skills include the abilities to:
Create your own questions and analyze and apply models and concepts
Create inferences and hypotheses in all subjects and don't forget to test them.
Writing Skills include the abilities to:
Fashion well-formed explanations so that someone other than your teacher or a friend can understand what you say
Know the three kinds of writing and how to use them: Problem/Solution, Comparison, and Persuasion
What's more, we found that schools that focus instruction around these simple but deep skills provide their teachers with the time and freedom to select content, assign texts, and develop projects that produce new learning for their student while keeping them active and engaged in the learning process.
Pillar 2—Research-Based Strategies
The jury is definitely in: the instructional strategies teachers use make an impact on student achievement. In what is the most comprehensive study of the research behind various teaching strategies and their impact in the classroom, Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock (2001) demonstrate conclusively that teaching strategies have a real and pervasive effect on student learning. Based on this research, we have identified sixteen strategies that, when used systematically by teachers, develop students' skills of academic literacy and increase their ability to master rigorous and challenging content. Some of these strategies include Compare and Contrast, Cooperative Learning, Interactive Lecture, Concept Attainment, and Metaphorical Expression.
But as most teachers know, asking students to compare and contrast capitalism and socialism, for example, or to work cooperatively to solve a particularly rigorous math problem may not result in the kinds of deep learning the research points to. It is in moments like these—when we apply research-based techniques only to experience a roomful of blank faces when what we were expecting was active engagement—that the gap between research and practice seems wider than ever. That is why the Thoughtful Classroom puts such a premium on practice. By relying heavily on our thirty years of work in classrooms with real teachers, we strive to make the research immediately usable. Here, for example, is our "use-it-today" take on the strategy called Compare and Contrast:
S Select two readings, pictures, concepts, or objects for students to examine I Identify criteria for students to use in examining each item. G Guide students through describing each item and then comparing using an organizer. H Have students determine if the items are more alike or different and draw conclusions/make generalizations. T Tie the lesson together by giving students a synthesis task that asks them to apply their learning. Pillar 3—Effective Differentiation
So far, in the first two pillars, we have addressed the challenge set forth in the second generation of accountability: high levels of learning for all students. Through the unity of focused standards and research-based instructional strategies, we create classrooms in which students can meet that challenge. But not all students are the same, so unity is only half of the pie. Pillar three is our way of addressing the greater challenge set up by the third generation of accountability and its promise to make students as important as standards.
In 2000 we published a book based on years of working with schools that were paying close attention to student diversity without sacrificing rigorous learning. The title of that book is So Each May Learn: Integrating Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences, and it describes how schools across the country were integrating the two most powerful model of diversity—learning styles and multiple intelligences—into curriculum, instruction, and assessment.
For example, in working to build an integrated mathematics program, all middle school students in Harrison, NY built mathematics learning profiles using the Math Learning Style Inventory (2004). A math learning profile reveals which learning styles particular students tend to favor and avoid when learning math. An outline of the four math styles appears below:
Mastery math students
Want to …learn practical information and procedures
Like math problems that … are like problems they have solved before and that use set procedures to produce a single solution
Approach problem solving…in a step-by-step manner
May experience difficulty when … math becomes too abstract or when faced with open-ended problems
Learn best when ... instruction is focused on modeling new skills, practicing, and feedback and coaching sessions
Interpersonal math students
Want to … learn math through dialogue, collaboration, and cooperative learning
Like math problems that … focus on real-world applications and on how math helps people
Approach problem solving ... as an open discussion among a community of problem solvers
May experience difficulty when ... instruction focuses on independent seat work or when what they are learning seems to lack real-world application
Learn best when ... their teacher pays attention to their successes and struggles in math
Understanding math students
Want to ...understand why the math they learn works
Like math problems that ... ask them to explain, prove, or take a position
Approach problem solving ... by looking for patterns and identifying hidden questions
May experience difficulty when ... there is a focus on the social environment of the classroom (e.g. on collaboration and cooperative problem solving)
Learn best when ... they are challenged to think and explain their thinking
Self-Expressive math students
Want to ... use their imagination to explore mathematical ideas
Like math problems that ... are non-routine, project-like in nature, and that allow them to think "outside the box"
Approach problem solving ... by visualizing the problem, generating possible solutions, and exploring among the alternatives
May experience difficulty when ... math instruction is focused on drill and practice and rote problem solving
Learn best when ... they are invited to use their imagination and engage in creative problem solving
This information on student learning profiles was shared among teachers, students, and administrators. In addition, middle school math teachers received professional development showing them how to:
· Individualize instruction and reach the most at-risk learners by teaching directly to their learning profiles;
· Build a classroom profile showing the learning tendencies among all students and then select and rotate instructional strategies accordingly; and
· Help students become more self-directed learners and problem solvers by teaching them about their own learning profiles.And the results? When 8th graders took their state tests in math, the number of students who achieved at the highest level jumped from 55 (in their 7th grade year) to 101 (in their 8th grade year), while the number of students achieving at the lowest level dropped from 21 (in their 7th grade year) down to 6 (in their 8th grade year). Addressing diversity, it seems, is not just an interesting addition to classroom time, it is a critical factor in raising student achievement.
Pillar 4—Thoughtful Unit Design
It is no accident that so many educational experts have recognized the importance of the "learning unit" as the most effective vehicle for designing curriculum. By combining the best in research with our thirty years of working with and learning from thousands of teachers, we have developed a simple but deep model for designing thoughtful units. A thoughtful unit is more than a manageable framework for integrating our work in the Hidden Skills of Academic Literacy, effective differentiation, and research-based strategies. It is also a place where students come to learn about themselves while they interact with others and engage with powerful ideas. That's why we call our unit design model a "Home for the Mind." Here is an example of a "Home for the Mind" developed by a 6th grade teacher from Carol County, Kentucky:
How will you introduce the unit?
I organized the unit around the essential question: "What can we learn from ancient civilizations?" For a week we clipped articles from newspapers, magazines and online sources that indicated the problems our civilization faces.
What skills need development?
I found that my students needed a lot of help in notetaking. So I taught them the Cornell Notemaking System and organized their research, applying that system to the problems and civilizations they were investigating.
How will they acquire essential information?
I organized students into Jigsaw teams--each team focused on a different ancient civilization. Their job was to use a variety of sources to investigate how their civilization solved the problems we face today: crime, warfare, lack of faith in government, etc.
How will students reflect on their learning?
I asked students to write a letter to their own (future!) sons and daughters describing why they thought it might be worthwhile to study ancient civilizations.
How will they demonstrate learning?
My assessment fell into parts:One--Their reports and presentations to the class on what they had learned;Two--Each team had to design a test on their civilization made up of five multiple-choice questions, two short-answer questions, and one essay. I used this to design an end-of-unit test that everybody took.
Pillar 5—Professional Learning Communities
In his fifteen years of research into how effective organizations and schools refine practices, unlock collective and personal potential, and sustain change over time, Peter Senge (1990) introduced the concept of the "learning organization."
Learning organizations, or Professional Learning Communities, as they are often called in school settings, insist that no teacher and no administrator is alone when it comes to raising achievement. Professional Learning Communities share a commitment to developing four school-wide or district-wide capacities:
Focus, or developing the capacity to
Create a common vision of what constitutes high-quality learning, instruction, and school leadership
Focus on clear goals that are measurable and affect student and adult learning
Revise procedures, schedules, and means of communication to support goals
Collaboration, or developing the capacity to:
Organize faculty into teams for effective learning
Use collaborative procedures to set goals, develop plans, and assess progress
Differentiate plans to meet the needs of different grade levels, departments, etc.
Reflection, or developing the capacity to:
Find out the current status of goals
Use a variety of tools to interpret and measure progress
Assess not only student achievement but how plans for professional learning are proceeding
Adaptability, or developing the capacity to
Adopt research-based tools for improving instruction, assessment, and decision making
Adapt these tools to fit different situations
Create new tools and procedures to improve instruction, assessment, and decision-making
Although pillar five comes at the end of our model, it is perhaps the most important of the five pillars. Why? Well, without sustainable change through Professional Learning Communities, schools will not have the organizational structure necessary for the other four pillars to stand strong. Pillar five, in essence, supports all the others.
Does the Thoughtful Classroom Work?
Many schools across the nation have committed themselves to the five pillars of the Thoughtful Classroom, and the results have been significant and positive across the board. In McCreary County, Kentucky the district increased its CTB average by 13%. Magnolia Elementary School, in Harford County, MD has seen all of its students meet AYP proficiency goals for 2003-2004 in reading and mathematics. 4th and 8th graders in District 37 in Maine improved their math and reading scores by an average of 15% in one year; in that year the district's elementary students moved from the bottom of the list to the highest performing district in Maine.
But even more than achievement data, the true success of The Thoughtful Classroom program resides in the shifts in thinking that occur when schools make students as important as standards. We are as encouraged by the overwhelming enthusiasm of teachers as we are by jumps in test scores. We draw deeper satisfaction in helping schools become collegial, learning-centered organizations than from this year's or next year's round of test results, no matter how intimately linked those two things may be. Most of all, we gauge success by that inimitable look in students' eyes—the look of engagement, the look of curiosity, the look that no longer says "my school cares more about my test scores than about me," but rather "my school cares deeply about me as a learner and about my success in life."
Bibliography
Marzano, R.J., Pickering, D.J., & Pollock, J.E. (2001). Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Senge, P.M. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday.
Silver, H. F., Strong, R.W., & Perini, M.J. (2000). So Each May Learn: Integrating Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Thoughtful Education Press. (2004). The Math Learning Style Inventory for Secondary Students. Ho-Ho-Kus, NJ: Thoughtful Education Press.
Dr. Harvey Silver has been a teacher and administrator at the elementary, secondary, and graduate levels. He has served as consultant and trainer for ASCD, Rand Corporation, E.T.S., Phi Delta Kappa, and IDEA-Kettering, as well as for a host of state departments of education and thousands of schools and districts worldwide.
Harvey is the author of numerous books for educators, including the best-selling Learning Styles and Strategies and Teaching Styles and Strategies, which are currently being used in the MAT programs of fourteen colleges and universities nationwide, and the internationally-acclaimed So Each May Learn: Integrating Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences. Harvey has also produced staff development video programs for ASCD, Canter & Associates, and Video Journal. He is the creator of a movement toward student alignment in a standards-based world.
Richard Strong, Vice-President of Silver Strong & Associates and Thoughtful Education Press, is a renowned expert on improving literacy. A former teacher, Richard has served as a trainer and consultant for ASCD and numerous other teacher and professional organizations. As cofounder of the Institute for Community and Difference, Richard has been studying democratic teaching practices in public and private schools for over 10 years. Richard has authored several books including Teaching What Matters Most and Questioning Styles & Strategies. Email him at rstrong@thoughtfuled.com.
Matthew J. Perini, (mperini@thoughtfuled.com) Director of Publishing at Thoughtful Education Press, has co-authored several books for educators, including Reading for Academic Success: Powerful Strategies for Struggling Average and Advanced Readers, Grades 7-12, Teaching What Matters Most: Standards and Strategies for Raising Student Achievement, and the best-selling So Each May Learn: Integrating Learning Styles and Multiple Intelligences. He has also written curriculum guides, articles, and research studies on a wide range of topics, including learning styles, multiple intelligences, and effective teaching practices.
Gregory M. Tuculescu, (gtuculescu@thoughtfuled.com) Research Manager and Associate Editor of Thoughtful Education Press, co-authored Reading for Academic Success: Powerful Strategies for Struggling Average and Advanced Readers, Grades 7-12. He has also written articles, research studies, and developed a series of popular web-based assessments for educators.
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©December 2004 New Horizons for Learning
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