Posts filed under ‘Student Outcomes’
Show Me the Reports
Step 1 in any merit-based compensation program is training around the definition of merit. A template for performance measures and evaluation thereof is shown to the people who will be subject to them. Then the forms are filled out and discussion ensues. At some later date, these criteria are used for actual merit pay. Trust comes from knowing the people and the tool. It is not the basis for signoff on a system to be designed later.
With all the talk about teacher effectiveness and compensation, there must be hundreds of teacher effectiveness reports out there, right? Of course, they are based on well-developed records of student outcomes…which don’t really exist yet either, do they? Please tell me I’m wrong. Show me the reports.
Children learn with outward results; however, they also internalize many things that will manifest themselves later. We will never know all that we have taught them, the good, the bad, or the rest. That is why we look at teacher effectiveness with an eye to process and outcomes. Accordingly, multiple measures have been tossed around with regard to teacher performance. Now it is time for the report designers to just put the templates out there and validate them.
Similarly, children take tests to show what they have learned, their ability to analyze and solve problems. Children also demonstrate their habits of learning, their creativity and industriousness, and their civic mindedness. All will contribute to a foundation for lifelong learning. Additional measures that document intellectual and psychosocial development track their successful growth toward adulthood as well as highlighting need for intervention. Schools have built databases that cover some of these elements, but the models are not robust enough to be fully instructive or actionable. Still, it is time to print them and share them.
Absent good data, the debate over student outcomes and teacher effectiveness is being held in moot court. It is time for demonstration projects to reveal themselves and share what they have got, warts and all. Be prepared for flak, but don’t be surprised if you get more than a bit of praise from real reformers. We all need something tangible to turn this discussion into a problem with a solution.
Prior posts…on teacher effectiveness…on basic student data…on psychosocial development
Student Surveys Predict Outcomes
Melinda Gates reported to EducationNation yesterday that students can tell who is a good teacher. Gates Foundation research found that students who felt they had a good teacher demonstrated better outcomes than students who perceived they had weaker instruction. More on this, please.
A high correlation between positive student outcomes and positive student perceptions on the ability of their teachers seems like good news. Now I am anxiously awaiting the next round of related research. In the meantime, I cannot resist the urge to explore some possible reasons for this phenomenon. I wonder if…
- Children who receive effective instruction recognize it and appreciate it, especially when they take a test and realize they have been prepared well.
- Classically strong teachers and motivated students are more likely to be matched within the education system. Less responsive students are turfed to marginalized programs staffed by rookies and other less-empowered educators. The latter case does not enhance engagement, performance, or satisfaction with instruction.
- Kids who like their teachers are more likely to engage in learning.
- Good teachers attend to the whole child, including discussions with them related to their intellectual and psychosocial development. This enables the children to be more self-aware and to recognize adults who have helped them grow. Alternately, students without such support are more likely to perform at a lower level and assign blame for failure on others, including their teachers.
- Children want to learn, and the adults who listen to them and work with them make better teachers.
- Nothing succeeds like success. Each test is a cumulative evaluation of the system. Those who have done well historically will enter new classes ready to learn and do well; those who have lagged in the past will not assimilate well in the future or perform well on assessments. The best teachers combine the ability to sustain growth in some while breaking failure cycles with others.
Thank you, Ms. Gates. So what did the kids say?
No Time for NCLB Lite
Twitter tells us that testing is bad for everyone. I disagree. I love the changes I have seen in my students as they have grown in knowledge and maturity while meeting the challenge of high stakes tests. Yes…urban students with special needs, many with English language fluency issues as well. They can do it. Oh, and, by the way, they are the very children we are not supposed to leave behind.
The digital v. analog paradigm shift is an artifact of history. However, as an analog person, I see a similar conflict between the process people and those with a results orientation. Educators tend to build processes, while education policy has moved in the direction of results. This may be no less intuitive than the shift to a digital world. Why does everyone seem so surprised that teachers might benefit from a lesson in translating their processes into results?
As process people, teachers design ways for students to engage in learning, constantly inventing and reinventing the path to knowledge. They can manage a classroom. They can direct instruction. But, they cannot control the student’s moment of knowing. As students struggle, educators tend to tighten any controls they can. Yet the student’s independent thought is essential to success in applied problem solving. This has become one of the classic conflicts in education.
In the current politicized climate, teachers must learn some new tricks…and apply them persuasively… while being observed by the hanging judge. This external control works no better for adults than it does for children. So how can we step back from this rhetoric without taking our eyes off the ultimate goal for our children? I will hypothesize that we can keep the tests, maintain the benchmarks for English language learners and students with special needs, and achieve the desired results. However, we must make partners of all educators, not sort them by individual results. And we must pay them collectively for results at least in the short run.
Twitter tells us that testing is bad for everyone. I disagree. I love the changes I have seen in my students as they have grown in knowledge and maturity while meeting the challenge of high stakes tests. Yes…urban students with special needs, many with English language fluency issues as well. They can do it. Oh, and, by the way, they are the very children we are not supposed to leave behind.
It is crunch time for NCLB; time for the sprint to the finish. Unfortunately, instead of working together to achieve our collective goal, we are engaging in vicious hunts for scapegoats and building hyperbolic arguments against testing. Suddenly, “the current testing environment” has been redefined as value-added testing in every subject at the beginning and end of every school year. That is not NCLB. However, this device has led many to question testing altogether, sadly removing accountability for the students who are most in need of the benefits of that accountability.
“Teaching to the test” has become the lowest common denominator among educators who have succeeded with achievement tests. It has been highlighted as an argument against testing…because it rewards bad instruction. I would suggest that schools where teaching to the test was needed to improve test scores must have had a pre-existing history of substandard instruction. In fact, teaching to the test may be a necessary evil during the transition to higher level instruction.
Educators with lowered expectations do not attempt to give all students access to the curriculum. As they teach to the test and the bar keeps rising, however, these same teachers are forced to broaden their students’ skill set. It begins with a core set of skills that are always tested. Then, critical thinking skills are deepened. New test content expands the breadth of topics that must be covered. Higher benchmark scores require students to be even bettered prepared. As more and more students achieve success, even skeptical educators find themselves getting closer and closer to teaching the full curriculum.
It has not been a pretty process, but 2014 was not set as a deadline for testing. It set the pace for all teachers to learn how to give all students access to a competitive curriculum. This goal must not be forgotten. It is time to set aside our differences and make it happen.
Data on Social and Emotional Development
Psychosocial development of students creates opportunities, challenges, and goals for educators. Overarching questions can guide inquiry into data requirements and analysis to foster healthy development of school children. Formalizing the plan helps to refine and document aspects of an approach that already resides in less conscious professional practice.
Teachers enter the profession well-versed in educational psychology. However, all would benefit from periodic exploration of the ways in which psychosocial benchmarks affect student learning and inform curriculum and classroom management. Teachers moving to a new grade level or learning to engage students with a different social or intellectual profile seek guidance. Closing the achievement gap among children may create the need for a fresh look at expectations. In a profession that is driven by data, tracking social and emotional progress in students is an important source of information.
The following outlines examples of questions to incorporate into program design as well as grade level and whole school improvement plans.
Program design: As a school/grade level, are we facilitating achievement of normal developmental benchmarks in the children?
- Is each learning milieu age appropriate?
- Are academic challenges consistent with physical, social, and intellectual expectations?
- Do we communicate expectations and model behaviors for children to show age-appropriate skills in problem-solving, decision-making, and communication?
- Are there opportunities for exploration and expression that support healthy self-esteem and relationships?
- How do we accommodate the natural variations among children in each classroom?
- What support services do we provide for children demonstrating unusual social or emotional issues?
Planning and Assessment:
- Formative Assessment: Do our children arrive at school manifesting expected psychosocial behavior?
- Vertical alignment: What are the expectations for the children at the next academic level? What does feedback tell us about our students’ readiness in the recent past?
- Goals: Given formative assessments and vertical alignment needs, what specific outcomes related to psychosocial development do we want to prioritize and measure during the current academic session?
- Ongoing assessment: How can we document psychosocial development systematically?
- End-of-year assessment: Have we met our objectives and prepared our students for success at the next academic level?
Some suggestions for content in professional development are outlined below:
| Whole learning community |
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| Grade level sessions |
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| Vertical alignment sessions | Discussions with adjacent grade level teachers to compare their expectations with actual student manifestations
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| Grade level regroup | Development of goals for the year and tools for measuring results |
In the classroom…
If a school does not have the habit of formally addressing psychosocial development, the data gathering may seem onerous. However, this system simply seeks to document and refine an approach, many aspects of which are already integral to each teacher’s practice, and engage the children in the process.
- Assess psychosocial development at start of year.
- Talk with students about who they are and how they are changing.
- Observe students as they demonstrate benchmark behaviors.
- Keep a developmental portfolio or diary with them/for them (depending on age).
- Reflect on growth at the end of the year.
And finally, expect variations, but also observe outliers and be alert to the need for intervention.
Student Outcomes – The Macro Picture
Student data is useful at many levels. Attendance, grades, and test scores are standard records tracked by guidance staff or registrars. In addition, teachers collect a vast array of evidence to document that students are meeting curricular objectives. Increasingly, however, more extensive data is being gathered by students for daily motivation and for portfolios demonstrating their progress in school. This information often offers a clearer picture of the total student and his or her development intellectually, emotionally, and socially.
At a macro level, students are asked to…
- Attend
- Participate
- Be in charge
- Get results
A few examples of how these basic success factors can be tracked are presented by category below:
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Attend |
Participate |
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Be in Charge |
Get Results |
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A portfolio of student accomplishments and outcomes is necessarily begun by the teacher in the early years of school. However, ownership of this record should be transferred to the child gradually throughout elementary school to facilitate the development of self awareness and self control. By adolescence, the notion of being in charge expands to include responsibility not only for self but for relationships with other people and institutions. Authentic assessments, periodic progress reviews, and student goal setting are integral to that process.
Next step…psychosocial benchmarks
