2 months after the district received the bad news of the precipitous drop in test scores and the loss of Excelling AZ LEARNS labels, the district is ready to present its plan to the governing board for improving achievement in the Cave Creek Unified School District #93.You can view the pieces of the plan in the 8/24/2010 governing board packet here. When you boil it down the plan consists of:
- Improve student engagement through differentiated instruction and articulation.
- Improve technology in the classrooms to enhance teaching and learning.
- A marketing brochure called ‘Framework for Excellence’.
- A new strategic plan.
So let’s turn to 1 and 2. Number 2, the technology piece consists of:
~iPods in the Classroom
~Interactive Whiteboards
~Our Teacher Websites
~Blogging (secure)
~Podcasting
~Digital Storytelling
~ePortfolios
~Blended classrooms through Moodle
~Web 2.0 tools such as edu.glogster.com and Wordle.net
They have to be kidding right? iPods, blogging, and podcasting are a strategy to increase achievement? These are fringe activities that may help increase engagement, but they are not a strategy. Teaching ineffective content on a Smartboard does not increase its effectiveness.
So 2, 3, and 4 are pointless, so what about Number 1, differentiated instruction. Surely this strategy will help improve student achievement. It is a big complicated eud-phrase that will dazzle parents/board members and lead our kids to the promised land of testing mastery and student led learning/discovery. Right!
Well, sorry, this is not the case. Differentiated instruction is a fad, is difficult to implement, but above all else it is nonsense.
A Fad
DI (not direct instruction [we wish], we refer here to differentiated instruction ) is the philosophy that “because each learner comes to school with a different set of learning needs, examples of which include differing educational, personal, and communal contexts and varying degrees of academic skill development differentiated instruction advocates that the educator proactively plans a variety of instruction methods so as to best facilitate effective learning experiences which are suited to the various learning needs within the classroom”. Thank you Wikipedia for the concise explanation.
In early 2000, education researchers led by Carol Ann Tomlinson (pictured above, obviously with little classroom experience) came up with this approach, and since the mid-aughts schools have been passing this off as the latest and greatest thing since open classrooms to increase excellence in our schools. What schools are finding is that DI is difficult to implement, has too many meanings, and overwhelms teachers. Of course CCUSD is trying to latch on to at the end life of this fad, and it too will come to the same realizations in about 5 or so years. We guarantee you that those who set us down this path today, will be long gone in 5 years.
Difficult
So every learner has different needs, states the DI philosophy. So it sounds like a good DI teacher will come up with 30 or so lesson plans for each student right. Of course not, but lesson plans must be created to cover at least some of the supposed ‘learning styles’. So when are the CCUSD teachers supposed to do this? Right now our CCUSD teachers are burdened with:
- Providing enrichment activities to help students exceed state standards
- Teaching to the AIMS test
- Implementing the gifted cluster strategy
- Managing ever expanding classroom sizes
- Manage IEPs and ILLPs for those mainstreamed students
- Fill the holes and supplement a curriculum that does not meet even state standards
- Work on their own professional development
In addition to the difficulty to the classroom teacher, even the district itself will find it hard to ‘teacher the teacher’ effective DI strategies. The great DI leader, Carol Ann Tomlinson, said just last year that…
Professional development for differentiation is really critical. It shouldn't ever be thought of as one-shot or a couple of workshops. Learning to differentiate is like learning math or a new language. It takes place step by step over a long period of time--and needs to be tailored to the teacher's readiness, interests, and ways of learning. Follow-up should be a given--and should happen for a long, long time into the future.
Good luck CCUSD with that. Our students don’t have years to wait for professional development to catch up. We need effective strategies that will work now.
Nonsense
Our favorite edu-blogger Ken DeRosa said it best so we will send you his way, but here are the highlights:
- There is no empirical support that DI is effective
- DI turns classrooms in a mess
- DI mostly involves dummying down the curriculum to the lowest performers
Don’t forget that we have pushed ability grouping as an effective solution for CCUSD to not only increase achievement and serve the gifted, but to help with class size issues. Of course this will never happen because of the issue of fairness, but you can rest assured that at the Watch HQ, our children do attend a school that does ability group and it works fantastic (that of course is anecdotal evidence).
So bottom line, none of these items in the district’s Goals for 2010-2011 will be effective for increasing achievement and one could be expensive and disastrous.
Homework assignment for Watch:
ReplyDeletePlease write-out 100 times:
"It is not possible to antagonize and positively influence at the same time."
Ponder these words while writing them down, and if you still do not understand, repeat the assignment.
FYI, Our children are also in ability groups, and they attend CCUSD schools. Stop assuming you know what's going on in our schools just because you can't seem to shake that burdensome grudge that you wear on your sleeve.
Cluster grouping into a heterogeneous classroom is not the same as ability grouping (flexible homogeneous classrooms).
ReplyDeleteIf there is a school in CCUSD that does ability grouping, we are sure that CCUSD gifted parents would love to hear about it so they can send their children to an enviornment that would truly serve their needs. Of course most of those already left for PVUSD and its self-contained gifted classrooms at Sonoran Sky and Desert Cove.
Can you tell us more about this school\classroom\after school activity that does ability grouping? We will happily post a correction/clarification if it exists.
Watch - please explain how homogeneous classrooms can be flexible?
ReplyDeleteAlso, keep in mind that PVUSD has far more resources to spread amongst its campuses than CCUSD. It is like comparing a mom and pop with Walmart.
I am not sure why I continue to be surprised by the blind followship of the District. Just as I would say to the District, when did it become a problem to ask questions??? Asking questions is not the problem, the Districts inability to honestly answer them is the problem.
ReplyDeleteI have to disagree with you about differentiated instruction, Watch. Differentiated instruction is an effective instructional strategy when it comes to student engagement when it is utilized properly.
ReplyDeleteDi allows the student to go beyond demonstrating knowledge and comprehension of academic concepts. It allows the student to apply, analyze, create, and evaluate these concepts using their innate skills and talents instead of simply responding to a series of questions at the end of the chapter or completing a series of problems from a unit.
DI also promotes student engagement in that the student is allowed to use their own innate talents and skills to demonstrate learning instead of being forced to do what the text requires them to do. It not only fosters engagement from the student but also promotes creativity and builds their confidence in that students are allowed to show mastery of academic concepts their way instead of simply completing a series of tasks designated by a textbook.
DI also transcends instruction for all students. It is effective with all student populations - gifted and talented, mainstream, special education, English Language Learners. It also incorporates other instructional strategies such as gifted methods and cooperative learning.
However, DI cannot function alone. It is an instructional strategy, not an academic program. It is a method of delivery, and it should be used interdependently. Questions at the end of the text and problems within a unit should be assigned and completed. Those questions and problems, when effective, assess knowledge and comprehension, However, DI allows the instruction, assessment, and evaluation to go one step beyond by allowing students to demonstrate application, analysis, creation, and evaluation of those key academic concepts from an academic unit, sequence, or chapter. Basically, it allows for students to display higher order thinking skills.
A key part of DI is communication. The student must explain how they used their innate skill and talent to show mastery of key academic concepts. The communication may be oral or written. Written is preferable since it is one of the academic areas on state and national assessments.
The con of DI is that it is very time consuming and can be difficult to assess and evaluate because the assessment is more subjective than objective, which is often the case when dealing with demonstration of learning through creativity and higher order thinking skills. The most effective way to assess and evaluate tasks with DI is to determine whether the student addressed the key concepts accurately and effectively. Another effective method is to have the students within the class to assess the DI activity/project. Not only does this assess and evaluate whether the student who completed the activity/project effectively but also assesses and evaluates whole group learning.
DI is also difficult to use with every unit. A teacher will become overwhelmed with the creative activities and projects they need to grade. That's why teachers need to use a variety of instructional strategies for every unit and not rely on one "magic bullet" (which seems to be the CCUSD method to addressing issues).
Who here criticized anybody for asking questions of the district? I think that asking questions is a good thing personally. You deserve answers about performance issues, especially in the schools that saw scores go down significantly.
ReplyDeleteHowever, Watch has a way of writing stories that try to enrage people, hence antagonistic - i.e. the use of the phrase "they have to be kidding us" and "Good luck CCUSD with that." Actually this article was pretty tame compared to others they have written.
I think that the poster at 12:18 probably feels the way that I do. On the one hand, Watch makes some legitimate points that are worthwhile. However, they tend to take a snarky tone when making them. It leads one to question their motivation. Are they really in this to drive change, or are they in this to drive readership?
Hi 6:10 AM,
ReplyDeleteWe would disagree about the effectiveness of DI.
DI is predicated on the belief that students have different learning styles. You may have noticed that above we said ‘supposed’ learning styles; this is because the fact is that learning styles don’t exist. Of course 50% of the business of education is trying to cater to learning styles, so what we are saying is educational heresy. But don’t believe us, watch this…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIv9rz2NTUk
Money quote from the video:
“Good teaching is good teaching, and good teachers don't need to adjust their teaching to individual learning styles.”
The reality is that most teachers already do a form of DI, mentally classifying the students as ahead, middle, and behind. They try and supplement to those ahead and when they can they try and focus one on one to those behind.
Why not free the teacher from those burdens and let them teach to a group of students all a similar level?
DI will be the latest on the fads that include Everyday Math, CMP, Reader’s Workshop, and 6+1 Writing to permeate our district thanks to the inexperienced leadership and rubber stamping by the governing board.
Of course our overriding point is that nothing we have seen will work to increase achievement or excellence, and the administration needs to go back to the drawing board to come up with something will.
Watch - I am still curious about how homogeneous classrooms would be described as flexible? Or is that simply language that you pulled from elsewhere that you don't understand either?
ReplyDeletewasn't saying the watch doesn't like the questions, but it is crystal clear the District does not. That is a fact.
ReplyDeleteTo say that learning styles don't exist is a fallacy. We all learn by different means. Some have to visualize the problem. Some can understand just by listening. Some need to talk about it. Some need to sketch or create a linear process. Some have to perform a physical act to completely understand.
ReplyDeleteYour comment about "classifying the students as ahead, middle, and behind" is most disturbing. This is tracking and labeling, which research has shown to be detrimental. This approach has caused many students to either gain self-inflated perspectives about their abilities as well as caused students to believe they are "dumb". If that is how you are classifying students in your classroom, then I would be very concerned as an administrator and parent how you are teaching.
This method of "classifying the students as ahead, middle, and behind" is not so much about education than it is about indoctrination. By viewing your class this way, you are not teaching but rather indoctrinating students to "just follow the rules" and convincing them that all will be well and they will be successful if they do so.
Approach DI as this. You're a social studies teacher. You're teaching the unit on World War II. You have the students read the chapter, you engage them in dialogue about key concepts and points about the war, you have them complete the questions at the end of the book, and you give them a test to assess knowledge and comprehension.
Now comes the DI. In your class are Steven Spielberg, Stephen King, Russell Crowe, Todd Macfarlane, Muhammad Ali, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking. You are asking them to use their multiple intelligence to demonstrate higher order thinking by using their innate talents and skills to apply what they have learned about World War II through a more creative display of academic performance.
Steven Spielberg makes SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. (visual) Stephen King writes "Apt Pupil". (verbal) Russell Crowe dresses up as FDR and reenacts the "Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation". (interpersonal, verbal)
Todd Macfarlaine draws a comic book about D-Day and inserts Captain America into story. (visual, spatial) Muhammad Ali shows the class the combat training a soldier underwent in boot camp. (bodily-kinesthetic)
Bill Gates and Stephen Hawking work together to explain how the Allied Forces' plan to invade Europe and use a computer to analyze the potential for success. (mathematical, technical, interpersonal).
Each of these students must accompany their task with oral or written communication explaining how their assignment addresses a key concept from the World War II unit. The class assesses each of the students by determining whether they correctly and accurately addressed the key concept from the unit they included in their assignment.
The teacher assesses whether the student has successfully applied, analyzed, created, and evaluated key concepts through their assignment.
Doesn't that sound more engaging than simply read the chapter - listen to the lecture - do the questions - take the test - move on to the next unit? DI allows every student to have the opportunity to be "above, middle, and behind". It also could make teaching and learning - God forbid that this is said - FUN!!!!
Since you have not answered my question, I have done some research on the edubabble term that you presented "flexible homogeneous ability groups.
ReplyDeleteI am pretty sure now that you did not understand the term when you used it.
Within a heterogeneous environment, flexibility can be used to divide the group into smaller homogeneous clusters.
Your example of a gifted classroom is not an example of a flexible homogeneous ability group. It is an example of a homogeneous ability group, but not a flexible one.
Different strokes for different folks people. Just because Watch prefers their kids separated into more homogeneous classrooms does not mean that it is the only way to go. Nor does it mean that parents prefer it, or it is better for their kids.
At least make an effort to understand the edubabble that you throw out there.
Hi August 27, 2010 6:40 AM,
ReplyDeleteThanks for the cogent reply.
Don't confuse learning styles with engagement. There is nothing wrong with introducing fun, but did you really watch the video?
Additionally check out the recent report from the Association for Psychological Science.
"Learning Styles Challenged: Data Don't Support Popular Learning Theory"
The money quote here...
'No less than 71 different models of learning styles have been proposed over the years. Most have no doubt been created with students’ best interests in mind, and to create more suitable environments for learning. But psychological research has not found that people learn differently, at least not in the ways learning-styles proponents claim. Given the lack of scientific evidence, the authors argue that the currently widespread use of learning-style tests and teaching tools is a wasteful use of limited educational resources.'
No doubt that we feel that CCUSDs pursuit of differentiated instruction will be a a wasteful use of its limited educational resources.
Hi August 27, 2010 6:40 AM,
ReplyDeleteSorry, we forgot to address the issue of fairness that you brought up. No question that parents would complain about ability grouping but the answer is easy.
Most parents who would complain understand the fact that this already happens in sports. Varsity, JV, house leagues, etc. Sports is filled with ability grouping and gasp, direct instruction.
The district needs to do what is best for all students. Parents need to do what is best for their child. If they don't like ability grouping, pick a different school, but ability grouping would be a better solution than DI, especially in the middle where the average child is losing ground because the teacher has to focus primarily on the lower end. Plus with ability grouping there is no years of workshops, PDC, and endless costs teaching new teachers the DI ‘strategy’.
Don't worry, we have no qualms that this will never happen. It would take strong willed leadership to put achievement ahead of conflict avoidance.
8:39 you are picking at nits while avoiding the central argument. Do you think CCUSD's proposals will help?
ReplyDeleteWatch - You are subscribing to the data by psychologists that shows multiple intelligences and learning style do not exist . Where is the education research that shows the ineffectiveness of DI?
ReplyDeleteAlso,, what is your experience with DI? Have you attempted to incorporate it into your teaching? Perhaps you are not a fan because you have not received the proper training or are using improper strategies. Perhaps you would do better with strategies such as Tic-Tac-Toe, grade contracting, or individualized lesson plans, which combine the traditional assignments with a project based task that promotes higher order thinking skills and encourages student choice.
Also, your comparison to grouping at the sports level based upon ability is completely erroneous. Varsity, JV, and freshman levels are more about age and grade level than ability. It only becomes a matter of ability when an underclassman is moved up to the next level. If it was about ability, then why wouldn't an upperclassman who doesn't start or remains on the bench all season move down to the JV or freshman level where they could succeed or fill a need or gap?
Your comments about DI and 6+1 Traits as "fads" come from a place that is based more on opinion or personal experience than research. Both DI and 6+1 Traits are effective when they are used properly. DI is a strategy, not a program of delivery, which is how CCUSD seems to be treating this method. 6+1 Traits Writing should be used as a scoring guide that shows how students can improve their writing, not as a rubric. Basically, 6+1 Traits should be used as a tool for formative assessment, not summative.
The error of CCUSD, like many districts and education institutions, is that they latch onto instructional strategies such as DI or 6+1 Traits Writing and cram it down the throats of the teachers and students to the point where the strategy becomes more detrimental than supportive to the education process. It becomes a "name for the pain". This is what happens when districts and schools proclaim or even mandate that they use DI in the classroom. It is effective, but it's not for everyone, and it cannot be viewed as the answer to all the issues with a school's performance.
CCUSD should conduct a needs assessment when it comes to professional development. They should ask the school community - not only the teachers but also the students and even the community - what instructional strategies would be most effective for them. Do they want DI? Is Core Knowledge a preferred option? Would they prefer a more traditional method?
Then again, a needs assessment would require CCUSD to listen to its constituents, and we all know how well they do that.
http://www.azcentral.com/community/scottsdale/articles/2010/09/06/20100906sr-middleschools0903.html
ReplyDeleteHere is a link to show how the Scottsdale School District engages the public in decisions that impact the community.
Regardless of the side that you are on...this type of decision making would benefit all of us.
It is my understanding that DI is a methodolgy and Core Knowledge is a curricular structure. On paper it doesn't seem that there would need to be a choice between one or another.
ReplyDeleteAt least that is how CK keeps being explained to me. "It's just a structure to the standards and provides curricular alignment". However, the application of it I have observed seems to come with a rigid classroom structure expectation and a timeline wed to the curriculum rather than to student learning/understanding. Perhaps DI and CK are not compatible in that regard.
It's a shame because my children were fortunate enough to be in really well-taught DI classrooms and it was amazing the test scores that came out of those classes when exemplary teachers taught in depth to each individual child's strength.
The secrets of academic success:
ReplyDelete1. Attract and retain experienced, quality instructors that hold high standards of rigor.
2. During professional days, give teachers time to collaborate on exploring good educational methodologies.
3. Resist the urge to join the latest educational fads. The only approach that leads to educational greatness is steps 1 and 2 above. The fads are just distractions.
What happened to the good ol' 3 R's.. Reading, writing and 'rithmatic.. seemed to work back then.. why change what wasn't broken..
ReplyDelete