Finally, a Way to Teach Teachers How to Teach!

Are good teachers born or made?  This question haunted me as I struggled at several points in my early teaching career.  I believed, after wanting to succeed so badly in my teaching career, that because I was having difficulties, I just wasn’t cut out for the classroom. Of course, I discounted the times when I had wonderful successes.  I was unable to reflect back on those times to analyze what I was doing right.  It had been too unconscious, too instinctive because I hadn’t actually learned what constitutes good teaching .  Thankfully, I didn’t give up.  I watched, read, practiced, and learned effective classroom management techniques.  If you have read Freakonomics, you will probably agree with me that one of the most comforting themes in that collection of studies, is the idea that most people who are outstanding in their field do not possess some magical innate ability. These people have simply worked incredibly hard, practicing what works over and over again.

 I recently was assigned to read a NY Times article in my Mimio (interactive whiteboard technology) training class.  Our instructor’s goal: helping us to understand what good teaching looks like.  Having this foundational knowledge would certainly inform our own trainings when helping teachers to integrate technology into their classrooms.  All the best technology on the market isn’t going to improve a classroom with inherently bad teaching. The article featured Doug Lemov ( who happens to hail from my area, Albany, NY) and other educators who have done important research into what it is that teachers do to create well-managed classrooms where kids behave and learn a lot.  While helping to lead Uncommon schools, a Charter school network in New York and Massachusetts, he and his team of teachers came to a simple and powerful conclusion:  “ what looked like natural-born genius was often deliberate technique in disguise”.  Their observations of what techniques the best teachers use has been distilled into what is now called Lemov’s Taxonomy.  This list is also in a just-released book version “Teach Like a Champion: the 49 Techniques that Put Students on the Path to College”.  The taxonomy is accompanied by 700 video clips of teachers demonstrating these effective strategies.  Incidentally, the teachers who were lauded as “most effective” were identified based on higher student test scores.  That criteria, even if limiting, does indicate general classroom success.

Yes, perhaps some gifted teachers figure out these techniques naturally like some people discover their own mental math tricks. Most of us, I suspect, benefit from instruction and mentoring.  If I could have studied Lemov’s Taxonomy in my early days of teaching, I undoubtedly would have wasted less time doubting myself and spent more time perfecting specific techniques.


Take Care,
Nicole

Common Core Math: Skills for life

"Math is everywhere in the world around you" is a foundational principal of the Common Core Mathematics. When you are preparing students for the state tests, remember that the best part of learning is discovery--that surprising joy that comes when one stumbles upon something new. Take this video from GE. There's so much wonder here. And there's so much math: multiplication, percentages, exponents...  
               

(Did you know? Vienna Woods Education is based in Schenectady, NY—where GE started. GE generously supports the School of Humanities and Culture at Schenectady High)

Begin your math lessons by appealing to your students' curiosity, and once you've got them hooked, you'll help them sharpen other skills that will help them on the road to success and independence.

Math has so much practical, real-life value. The introduction to The Finish Line test preparation series for the Common Core Standards provides a great outline of the habits that students need to practice to achieve math proficiency. For example, students need to make sense of problems and not give up in solving them. They should take a step back, see patterns and use models, symbols, and numbers to solve everyday problems. They'll need to create structures to help them perceive the world and build their own.  And they'll have to learn to work carefully and accurately.  These sound like the qualities colleges and employers are looking for in their applicants, and proud parents in their children. Don't they? 

IRA Convention: An inside look at the 9 Tier model of RTI

We just got back from Orlando to the land of verdant lawns and endless rain!  This year’s IRA conference attendance was down probably due to budget cuts in in many states.  Most people who stopped by the Continental Press booth were from the Sunshine State.  Visitors to our booth listened to our presentation of the Common Core Finish Line series and the accompanying brand-new Test Tracks software. They were 

excited about the flexibility of the custom-designed tests.

I also took advantage of some of the big name seminars.  Timothy Shanahan, former IRA president, and University of Illinois professor, spoke on the 9 Tier model of RTI (Response to Intervention).  His research with schools in Illinois produced big results using his model.

Mr. Shanahan has expanded the popular 3 Tier model to include more deliberate  utilization of good teaching techniques to increase student achievement. Quality Tier 1 teaching by the main teacher should be research-based (think the National Reading Panel) using both easy and challenging text.  This seems to be a nod to the 

new rigor of the Common Core.

The next tiers are a departure from the current 3 tier model. He strongly believes that at Tier 2, the classroom teacher, not another staff member, must make intentional changes for students needing remediation.  In this way, the teacher with the most knowledge of the student retains control and remains accountable.  These changes would relate to the class environment and methods to reach the student during the regular time for reading instruction.

At Tier 3, instruction continues to remain with the original teacher but now needs to be aimed at increasing responsiveness and providing instruction in addition to the core teaching within small groups or individually.  This extra teaching may have not been necessary at Tier 2. Changes at Tier 3 are more focused on extra time for remediation , not just adjusting the core instruction.

Tier 4 is a welcome focus on deliberately asking for and believing in parental help.  We have been preaching this for a while!

 

 Tiers 5 and 6 outline extra practice using a separate intervention program but coordinated with the classroom teacher. This level of intervention would require an additional teacher with specialized training.  At Tier 6,  the separate intervention program would increase in intensity.

Tiers 7 and 8 emphasize the importance of developing afterschool and summer school programs in order to provide more time for extra instruction and practice.

Finally, at Tier 9, after all these avenues are exhausted, referral for Special Ed services could be pursued.  When Mr. Shanahan spoke of the profoundly neglected resource of parental involvement at every tier, his heart echoed my own. We need to train parents in the same research-based techniques teachers use and students will make more progress. (Senechal 2006) We are used to asking parents to read to their kids or to monitor homework.  They are able to do more! For example, let’s ask them to model comprehension strategies and prompt use of phonics cues. Parents can become a whole new squadron of fighters sent to the front-lines of reading intervention.

For more information on Shanahan’s RTI research read: Implications of RTI for the Reading Teacher, Timothy Shanahan, Response to Intervention: A Framework for Reading Educators, 2008.