Performance vs Progress

A teacher I use to support some years ago, was trapped in a vehicle with me recently as we ventured to a city 200 miles North of Houston for a Math Conference. The conversation that disrupted the silence was pertaining to her recent release of state assessment scores. She wasn't so excited about the fact that she had set the expectation for the percentage of her students who would pass at 80% and fallen short by 20%.

Searching for the words to cheer this young gazelle up, I had to be strategic in my approach because I care so deeply about students and those who stroke their propensity to learn. What I said could either leave this teacher entering another year of setting unreasonable expectations and falsely striving for perfection or could steer her into purposeful and intentional goal setting with her students.

Goal setting seems to be set on performance. Students record their performance at benchmark moments when summative assessments are taken. But the real conversations and thought are centered around the differences that occur between each performance tracking. And ultimately when a student in May looks back on their performance from August/September, they should see some semblance of growth over the course of their time of learning.

It is down this path that I took this teacher who would be entering her 4th year of teaching. Research says that most teachers make their decision to either leave or jump ship between their 3rd and 5th year in Education. If I were to let a teacher who primarily deals with students with severe gaps in understanding and though aren't defined by their background, are bringing with them to school each day a disparity in terms of experiences- go on thinking it was SMART to set these expectations, I'd be doing her a great disservice.

Our conversation instead centered around sharing with her the importance of her digging into the Progress Measure of her students between 3rd and 4th grade. Often a component that is overlooked when the scores are initially released. Of course without being in front of a computer screen, the conversation didn't go as deep. She was able to physically look at whether or not her students had made any growth. Her vantage point was still very performance based and she went into what was left of her summer frustrated but hopeful.

Two months later we briefly revisited the conversation. This time, I was in my vehicle and she- in her own house. By this time she had been able to sift through and dissagregate her data. She had also gathered some observational data by engaging in conversation with her colleagues. This time she brought with her argument a more subjective stance because she was concerned that the students coming to her from the previous grade level might be entering with significant deficits. This bit of information gave me leverage for my entry way back into a pursuit to encourage this teacher towards goal setting.

I posed the following scenarios for her to ponder:

A. Let's say the students who enter your classroom this year have had 3 years of poor instruction (either by way of high mobility/turnover on their end or on the teacher end). Would you expect that group of students to score 70-80% passing or would you expect 70-80% of your class to pass STAAR?

B. Let's say the students who enter your classroom this year have had 3 previous years of very stable teachers who are veterans with instruction, no mobility and solid in terms of pedagogy. What would you expect your students' level of passing to be?

For the third scenario, I drilled down to specifics...

C. Let's say you are teaching a class the unit on Place value with whole numbers and decimals. If a majority of your students have lacked solid instruction in the unit of place value for 2 or more years, then you're dealing with a Tier 2 issue that needs to be addressed through re-mediation alongside a Tier 1 framework for an entire unit. Can you realistically expect mastery of place value to the hundredths place when your students lack a fundamental understanding of the base ten system?

When a grade level or even a school experiences some level of proficiency within performance over a score such as 90% or higher; or receives various distinctions within a certain subject matter, it shows that there is a solid system in place. Once that has had the chance to weather time, and change. Perhaps teachers & teams are veterans and have stayed in one place for a sustained period of time. But it can also be that students are bringing in a high level of independent knowledge and intrinsic desire for learning.

However, when a school experiences the opposite and for years tends to perform below sufficient performance levels, we automatically blame the Teachers' ability to perform or perhaps the classroom management. It might even get so nasty that we blame the behavior of students and their socio-economic backgrounds. When really, it's a systemic issue. Perhaps that system lacks creditable leadership, suffers from high mobility and staff turnover (inclusive of staff members who lack a strong knowledge base and experience). 

Both of these are realities and yet performance is the constant of this reality. But progress is not dependent on either of these realities. Often progress is stifled in places where students' performance have no bearings on the ability of a teacher to lead learning. But that doesn't have to be the case. Even a student with high levels of performance can be enriched and deepen their knowledge base through a series of rigorous tasks and set their own growth path. 

Similarly, in systems where performance is low, students have the luxury of charting their growth path and moving their abilities far beyond what they thought capable. 

My conversation with this old colleague was based on this premise. That regardless of the system you work within, your belief and practices must be grounded in progress over performance. Performance will come. But in some places performance will not be based on your ability as a teacher to facilitate learning. Perhaps, you realize that no matter how great you are within your current reality, performance is still showing to be constant. What you CAN affect, however, is the progress your students make. That is true no matter what students you serve and in any system you serve them in. Shoot for progress and performance will follow! But performance might not hang on the hinges of your 1 year influence in these students' lives...it might not show up until 3 years down the road. 

Trust, however, that when that body of students out-performs that year, credit is not due to the teachers they currently have; credit is due to the history of strong instruction they've encountered over a period of time within a system that was structured well.  

 

Balanced Leadership

Growing up with two parents who were both very doting on my 4 siblings and myself, there was a thread that I witnessed as I got over. That was their ability to bring two very key components to raising a family.

-Compassion
-Firm Discipline

Too often parents can lean to one side over the other. It's easy to look at a child's irresistibly cute face and as a result overlook the mischief they just got themselves into. Or, it sometimes happens that parents are overly critical and punitive in their approach to a child's behaviors that they lack the compassion children need in their formative years.

Thankfully my parents were able to see through our cute faces and to our devious hearts enough to warn us when we were headed down the wrong path, correct us through punishments and then love on us compassionately during and after the punishment process. This balance of the two components served us well as we grew into adulthood.

Being an Instructional Coach, Specialist and Program Director over the last 5 years has taught me to exercise this same level of balance. How?

Well in my first few years of leadership, serving as a Coordinator over a Charter's Math Program and in that same vein operating as the Instructional Specialist/Coach, naturally it was my pleasure to be at their beckon call ready to do whatever it took to make their job easier. If they needed someone to come help them wipe down desks that were delivered the day before "Meet the Teacher", then I was there with my Clorox wipes.

When I moved into a District Specialist position, I was placed at a campus that had run through it's course of Specialists and possibly grown some residual resentment towards me (rightfully so) due to the high mobility they'd experienced. With teachers apprehensive about whether I would "stick around" or even care enough to sincerely support them, I made it my priority to simply be in their proximity asking the same question every hour, "Is there anything I can do to help you?" Sometimes this meant grabbing additional base ten blocks for them while they were in the middle of their lesson, from the hallway manipulative closets. I was more than happy to do it. Service was my mission.

While servant leadership is the soul of a good leader, it is equally pertinent that a leader be grounded in research based practices and deeply convicted on matters that serve as the basis for their practice. In this case, Education. And more specifically in my case, Mathematics. As a leader responsible for bringing in a viable curriculum, vetting and creating assessments, planning and disseminating professional developments and modeling best practices, it was critical that my theoretical concepts be rooted in research and serve the needs of the teachers and students. I had no room for opinion (this is what I like/think is best) nor the attitude "this is how I used to do it".

It was my professional service to stay abreast to what was moving pedagogy forward and best serving the growing diversity of student needs. When a teacher would approach me about a school of thought or practice they wanted to start/continue, I could NOT in good faith just jump on board with their methodology. I had to vet it through the lens of research, best practice and educational pedagogy. If I was inclined to lean more heavily towards my servant leadership style, I would be jumping on board every question, desire, and request that crossed my path and doing students a grave dis-service. However, if I leaned more heavily towards my studies, I would become this rigid, dictatorial leader whom teachers would grow to abhor.

Balanced leadership raises the whole program, the total teacher, serves the entire child. It combines the willing heart and soul of a person with the sound doctrine needed to practice and serve a group with fidelity and exactness.

Now, when people in my profession approach me with an ideal, although my heart of service is inclined to be there to support them in any way I can...the deeper heart of me calls out and reminds me that in order to best serve the needs of students in a preventative manner, I must vet the inquiry through the lens of research. John VandeWalle has been the guru for Mathematical Pedagogy for years and his desire to 'help teachers help kids' has been my go-to because he not only helps teachers make sense of math but his work is grounded in foundational mathematics education.

As coaches/Specialists, it is educational malpractice to simply serve. We must be the backbone of our craft by seeking to know what our teachers don't know. To researching the mathematical ideals behind our standards and the implementation that best supports student development. Although Pinterest and Teacher pay Teachers are great places for teachers to not "reinvent the wheel", we must be the vetting tool that helps teachers understand the fundamentals first so they know exactly what to "shop" for. Although there are plenty of free (and not so free) digital resources out there that mix gaming with math practice, we must be the beacons that filter what's first developmentally appropriate before we look solely at what's "fun" and engaging. This is balanced leadership at it's best!

Placing Band-aids on Open Wounds

In my junior year of college, under the Physical Therapy major, my schedule was loaded with classes such as Athletic Injuries, Death and Dying, Anatomy and Physiology and the like. In one of my more hands-on classes, I was taught how to treat an open wound.
1. Apply pressure to the wound (to stop any bleeding)
2.  Clean the wound (with some sort of wound cleaner which includes step 3)
3. Apply antibiotic to prevent infection
4. Cover the wound with a bandage
5. Watch the wound for infection

Notice there were some critical steps prior to covering the wound, including the primary need to apply pressure. Our schools (typically our urban ones with years of low performance), I would suggest, are suffering from open wounds. Some of which are personified in hiring practices, high turnover, behavioral issues that hinder the learning environment and untrained or new certified staff. But the greatest problem, I've found, has been the practice of jumping to step 4 in the treatment process (covering the wound). Squeezimg out of qualified staff (for no just reason) to hire newly certified staff under biased pretenses; extreme push-in of specific supports in hopes to quickly raise numerical scores, even manipulation of personnel to quickly cover hot spots are just a few of the bandages that cover these hemmoraging wounds to no avail.

I often ask myself, where is the pressure being applied? Who is cleaning the wound? What antibiotic has been applied? Can we just stop and take a good look at the wound for a second?

Setting: Your typical urban school (more specifically at the primary level).

Apply pressure to the wound.
Allow me to paint a picture, if you will. Walking the halls of said urban school, one might predominantely find kids of the Hispanic and/or African American persuasion marching single file with bubbles and duck tails in a line beside a teacher who may or may not look like those students. You might discover that the majority of the students look various hues of brown and are either dressed in their street attire or perhaps more assuredly in uniform fashion. Depending on the leadership of the school, you may see students who understand and abide by high levels of expectations or from a lack of leadership, you might witness a building on the hinges of chaos.

One thing I've witnessed from an Instructional Specialist standpoint (being a part of the leadership team yet not so involved as to assist in making cultural decisions for the school) is the type of influence a leader can make on a schools' culture. The culture of a school is its "persona, comprised of its set of norms, values and beliefs, rituals and ceremonies, symbols and stories", as defined by Dr. Kent Peterson (professor of Education at University of Wisconsin-Madison).

When a school is full of students with behaviors and dispositions driven by significant cultural influences, it is imperative that those who serve such students are willing to relate to them. Notice, I used the word 'willing' rather than 'naturally capable of'. A schools culture can have nothing and everything to do with whether the students and staff have similar cultural ideologies. Again, this doesn't imply that every staff member of an urban school be of Hispanic or African American orientation either. To build culture therefore norms, one must understand what is, in fact, normal or standard for those with such strong cultural influences. What social behaviors are typical for those with, say, a strong Hispanic-American background? How might the social background of Hispanic or African American students influence their responses under stress, behaviors and interations with peers. Can I set a norm for an African-American student and he/she not know how to identify with that norm because it isn't norm-al for them any other time of day or night? Of course I can. But that norm would need to be adequately defined and modeled in order to "relate" to students.

When a school is inundated with one culture of students and yet another culture of staff, the bridging of those cultures is of immense necessity. My values and beliefs (or culture) must co-exist with the values and beliefs of those I serve, not blend with or manipulate, not override nor trump either...but co-exist. For that balance to occur, again, staff must be willing to level with the students they share the building with 175 days of the year. Administration must recognize and own this gap & invest in the proper training to close this gap. When a principal predominantly hires a staff of a particular background (whether that background is consistent with that of the students or not), he/she doesn't understand the persona of culture nor how to build it. More importantly, when a principal fails to invest in the necessary processes of bridging the cultural gaps between their staff and their students, he/she also fails to build proper culture necessary for the success of their school.

Such an investment can be time consuming when other professional developments loom and press for their importance. Such an investment can seem uncomfortable especially when perhaps the fear of racial tension is at stake. Such an investment can be deemed unnecessary if the leadership is unaware, themselves, of the cultural gap. Being overly optimistic of what the school can achieve or too busy hiring personnel late in the game because high turnover is prevalent can be just a few of the barriers that hinder leaders from placing vested interest in fitly meeting the need of the school culture.

Clean the wound!
My suggestion (as an outsider) is that leaders must be able to step out of the four walls of their offices enough to observe the true culture that occurs everyday under their leadership. Sit in classes, not to observe the teacher nor the learning...but just the culture. How do students interact with staff? From the cafeteria workers to the custodians. How do they observe expectations when they think no one is looking? How do staff speak to and interact with their students when they think no one is around to critique their voice level or emotional words? How do staff members interact with each other during lunch or after school meetings? These observations are relevant data and should be analyzed and discussed. Not with a leaders' leadership team (where biases occur and people get offended or take sides), but with consultants & stakeholders who have no biased opinions.

Apply Antibiotic ointment!
Beyond dodging the temptations of hiding behind desks, scheduling back to back meetings and off-campus appointments a leader would find surveying numerical data advantageous. Of their staff, what ratio are of similar ethnic background of the students to those who are not? From those numbers, what percentage of the staff have remained in the urban school setting for a number of years (say 3-5 or more for schools with high turnover or low performance) versus the percentage that has found some reason to leave and take a position "closer to home"? I bring up this critical piece because in my stint, I've noticed that in schools with high turnover, often the hiring procedures include bargaining to a certain degree. Between all of the money being doled out for loan-repayment programs, teachers with shoddy backgrounds looking for a place to restore their employment and new teachers freshly graduating from Alternative Certification programs, urban schools with low performance seem to be the breeding grounds drawing such crowds. But when you take a closer look at staff, typically the staff that find themselves settled, are those with long histories in other urban schools and/or who match the ethnic background of the students they serve. Burnout for them rarely exists because the day to day behaviors of students aren't overwhelming for them. They tend to have better classroom management because relationship building isn't something taught to them by their teaching programs nor in professional development sessions, its something that comes natural to them. Both their relation to the students is natural and the culture shock for the students is lower thus providing a natural ability for students to engage with their teacher. Again, one cannot embrace this phenomenon by sitting in an office daily. One cannot agree with this line of thinking with a jaded vantage point- perhaps too optimistic thus shutting out reality. Yes, all kids can learn. But the learning environment is predicated on the culture established in the building. And that culture is designed and maintained by the choices primarily, of the leader.

Now, if you've read this far, hopefully you've not assumed I believe that only African-American staff should work in predominantly African-American populated schools. But that I believe a huge responsibility lies on the leader of a school to understand the culture of his/her school so as to prevent both that scenario from happening as well as bridge the cultural gaps that incur when the opposite scenario is true. A suburban grown staff can service a group of urban students with a very diverse and different background (and vice versa), with the proper cultural sensitivity training. Without such investments, however, a leader leaves his/her school open to growing cultural gaps, which turn into staff-student abuse, high staff burn-out  (which leads to turnover) and eventually lowered learning environments coupled with high behavior problems. Ultimately these hemorrhaging wounds try to get bandaged with simple band-aids while the root of the ailment unfortunately goes unnoticed and fails to be scrutinized. Districts, consultants and leadership teams should not expect to see sustainable success in such triage-type areas. Addressing the cultural issues from an honest, hard perspective would be the place to begin. But i'm just an outsider, looking in.

Dilemmas in Instructional Focus: Data, Districts and Defeat

WOW! It's been too long since my last post! Tells you just how busy I am.

But I'm currently on Spring Break so I have a little time on my hands. Despite it being smack-dab in the middle of STAAR-prep season, I have refused to put any energy into "work-related" things such as data crunching, initial instruction, mini-lessons, etc. I won't deny my mind has taken me there a few times and I've fought it off like a wasp. I have occasionally browsed on Pinterest this week (I'll be honest) for some cool stuff to add to my office. Like, I found this great Strip Diagram Anchor chart that would be ideal when convincing newbie teachers to "STEP AWAY FROM KEY WORDS" and teach models for word problems!

So thanks to whomever out there created this! I have seen some other versions, but I like this one most and plan to replace the current one in my office with this one! :)

Other than that, I have been occasionally guilty of tweeting some #MathPhotoADayChallenge pictures. I must admit the nerd in me made me do it! Here are a few of my posts: 

Talk about me if you want. But it's my duty to "keep up" with what's trending. (laughs to myself)

I must admit, I don't dabble too often in the Twitter chats that occur around 8pm each night, but I do appreciate the retweets from my PLN concerning what's relevant in Math, Education and Instruction. One retweet in particular had me brainstorming the other night: 

My heart got super twisted over this statement? Why? Well for a few reasons:

1. Many schools today get super involved over "what the data reads". Data is easily used to prove whether or not student growth is occurring and/or gauging the instruction in the classroom. 

2. Some of the "strengthening" schools must grow roots (solid instruction) before they grow branches (evidence occurs in data). Just because a school is showing high data, doesn't mean great instruction is occurring in the classrooms. 

As a coach who is digging her nails deep into research surrounding interventions, formative assessments (and other initial instruction best practices), coaching teams, modeling practices, desegregating data and leading small groups (just a few of my duties each week); I find myself STILL getting sidetracked when the data drops after a major assessment and it somehow reflects regression rather than progression.

How is this happening when our work in PLC is focused on building common formative assessments, backwards design, embedding/implementing best practices in initial instruction and immediate response to instruction is occurring during our small groups? How? 

How is it that a program that has recently been re-structured, carefully planned and embodies growth-mindset teachers working heavily at the core, somehow continually seems to encounter what seems like failure after failure? 

Here's my only resolve. I will NOT let up on strong Tier 1 instruction. Schools suffering from top-heavy Tiers (where Tier 3 is more like 30% than 5%; Tier 2 is closer to 60% instead of 15% and only 10% of your students are at Tier 1) often produce programs suffering from years of shaky and faulty foundation. This cannot be fixed through interventions any more than a pill be expected to fix a congenital heart failure issue. 

It must be approached delicately, with patience, a long-term plan that has layers and commitment that entails persistent efforts. Systems must be put in place: 

• Sound curriculum & aligned assessments
• PD centered around unpacking TEKs, vertical alignment of teams and assessment writing
• Roll outs of elements of Strong Tier 1 instruction
• Low turn-over so those elements don't fly out the revolving doors each summer
• Growth-mindset teachers implementing those efforts with fidelity
• Consistency in those elements
• Vertical alignment in those efforts

Then, and only then, can Tier 1 instruction be strengthened enough to show significant and sustainable growth in data. One must allow a few years before one can see evidence in data. Until then, however, there will always be highs, lows, inconsistent jumps, and regression. 

I don't just believe that the best schools focus on Tier 1 instruction, but the best leaders (instructional) leaders must keep this their focus. For the moment a leader is pressured (by data, district personnel or defeat) and turns their attention towards intervention, they have turned against the very antidote to their dilemma. 

Additive and Multiplicative Patterns with Geoboards?

So my Math (K-5) District Instructional Officer is nothing short of amazing! Both as a person and as a professional. She awes me each and every time she gets up to present. She's not flashy or overly passionate. She's simply a math geek who loves her craft and does everything in excellence.

I sat in on a training of hers last summer as she introduced to her sea of teachers around the district a website that has no doubt changed my vantage point both as a teacher and a coach/specialist. As a teacher I was "that teacher" that when I learned something new, I was implementing it in my class immediately! I wanted my kids to be 100% engaged and to subtly fall in love with math b/c of my approach in instruction. I no doubt carry that same passion when I turn around trainings and PDs for my teachers. I seek to capture their interest and ignite a fuel in them that sparks their desire to "flip their classrooms". And by flip I don't just mean technology wise, but to take a transformed and reflective attitude into their next lesson. I want them to seek to capture the imaginations and interest of their students through the delivery of their lessons, so that students walk away amazed and more so walk in the next day, eager to see what they will be learning that day...and how!?

So I say all that to say, I was geeked when my younger sister was playing on my iPad and discovered my Geoboard app through www.mathlearningcenter.org. I walked her through some cool things she could do and I went back to minding my business on my phone. A few minutes later, I look over and she has completely transformed the app and begun exploring other things to do with it. She's a music major, vocal genius and musical arts teacher so I'm sure she was exploring the app from that premise. However, I literally drooled (a healthy educational math drool) as I snatched the iPad out of her hands and began to play around with the app from the perspective of the K-5 TEKS that nest in my own mind.

Here's what I discovered. Keep in mind, this is for those of you who teach 5th grade 5.4CD (in the state of TEXAS) and/or use Common Core and teach the Additive/Multiplicative Patterns standards.

Side note: The lesson approach I use in the video is taken from a lesson plan I discovered weeks ago, online. So the idea is not my own. However, the interactive use of the Geoboard as a coordinate grid was my amazing discovery!  

Odd and Even

Just a quick share with you on TEKS 2.7A:

Resources for teaching 2.7A (Odd and Even numbers to 40)-

• Number Frames

• DecaDots or Ten Frames and double sided counters

• Hands On Standards *Make sure to click on Unit 3 (Student pages)

Here's a quick mini lesson video for you...

Enjoy! Hope this helps!

Mental Addition and Subtraction Strategies

Huge "WELCOME BACK" to my 2nd and 3rd grade Math teachers!

This one is just for you!

Just wanted to share some mental strategies our TEKS specify that students should be able to use to assist with solving addition and subtraction of 2 digit numbers (2nd grade) and 3 digit numbers (3rd grade).

It might be advantageous to brief yourself on "Number Talks" to help students be more flexible and fluent with these strategies.

You can find "Number Talks" on YouTube or purchase the book which has a video CD at the back with various examples. I would suggest utilizing them every morning before class for about 10 minutes to build fluency and flexibility with number (sense) among your students!

The following videos help build on this number sense and should be used when teaching grade 2 +/- (2.4B & 2.4C) or grade 3 +/- (3.4A & 3.5A).

COMPENSATION (strategy)

PLACE VALUE (strategy)

MAKING A TEN (strategy)

Enjoy! And leave comments or hit me up on Twitter (@Lady_JAG) or Facebook (Kim O'Neal)!