On Target

Targeted Learning Objectives

This past week I had several interesting conversations with some of you about Targeted Learning Objectives as part of the pre- and post-conference process.  One of the things that Standard for Success does is provide teachers and administrators with an electronic portfolio of the evaluation process.  When you get a chance, go into SFS and give your portfolio the Squint Test.

To do this, start at the top of the Teacher Effectiveness Rubric and scroll down.  Squint so that you can’t read the words.  Just look for the green and yellow dots.  What you will find is that your portfolio is beginning to fill up, you can quickly identify patterns, and you are likely to find some white space, places where your evaluator will need more evidence.

One of the places without much color is probably right up top in Domain One.  If so, don’t panic.  We are still working on ways to document this domain, but if you do a quick read-through, you will notice that the Student Learning Objectives (including the Targeted Student Learning Objective) will provide a good chunk of the evidence for Domain One. 

Right now might be a great time to think a bit more about TLOs.

Target Practice

Last week’s post about High Utility study techniques included some of the best practices generated by you and fellow HSHS teachers on how to incorporate distributed practice and practice testing into daily, weekly, and unit plans.  If you are struggling to find ways to work with your Targeted students, reading or re-reading that list might help.

The Teacher Effectiveness Rubric also has suggestions built into the Domain Two that may help with your TLO.  Below I list some of the indicators and add a few comments:

•  Effective in 2.1—Daily Objectives: “Lesson builds on student’s prior knowledge of key concepts and skills and makes this connection evident to students.”  Your TLO is all about making sure the targeted students know “key concepts and skills.”  Anytime a daily lesson objective is built on the targeted standard, you are working on the TLO.
• Effective in 2.2—Communicate Knowledge: “Teacher restates and rephrases instruction in multiple ways to increase understanding.”  This is at the heart of a TLO.  You keep trying until the Targeted students “get it.” This concept is repeated in the next indicator as well.
•  Effective in 2.3—Engage Students: “Ways of engaging with content reflect different learning modalities or intelligences” and “Teacher adjusts lesson as needed to accommodate for student prerequisite skills and knowledge so that all students are engaged.”   Targeted students are often those who learn in different ways or are missing some essential background knowledge.  When you vary your teaching strategies and adjust pacing, you are working on your TLO.
• Effective in 2.4—Check for Understanding: “Teacher systematically assesses students’ mastery of the objective by the end of each lesson through formal or informal assessments.”  For TLOs you need to know whether students are developing understanding or not.  Don’t wait for the summative assessment to find out.
• Effective in 2.5—Modify Instruction: “Teacher responds to misunderstandings with effective scaffolding techniques” and “Teacher doesn’t give up, but continues to try to address misunderstanding with different techniques if the first try is not successful.”  This is, of course, what the TLO is asks you to do for the targeted students and it is good practice for all students.
• Effective in 2.6—Higher Level of Understanding: “Teacher helps students to persevere even when faced with difficult tasks.”  When a lesson starts “hitting” on the TER, it often hits at multiple places.  This indicator fits with almost all of the indicators listed above.
• Effective in 2.7-2.9—Classroom Management, Classroom Environment, and High Expectations: These last three competencies repeat a theme that is summarized in 2.9: “The classroom is a safe place to take on challenges and risk failure.”  Your targeted students have likely experienced failure as part of their academic history. When you run a safe and supportive classroom, you are working on the TLO.

The Heart of the Target

To be perfectly honest, the work you do with targeted students is not easy.  These are students who, for a wide variety of reasons, have not been very successful.  With your TLO you are attempting to rock their world.  You are letting them know that failure is not an option.  You are sticking with them until they are successful.  It is not work for the faint of heart. 

The result for you, however, can be rewarding in a variety of ways.  Certainly, it can help you with your evaluation in Domains One and Two.  More importantly, it can change the world—one student at a time.

And that is the real target we are shooting at with the TLO.

Have a great week, Southeastern.  Stay on target and keep fighting the good fight.

Phil

Two interesting views on the topic of Targets:

• From the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer: “Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see."
• From the slightly deranged comedian Mitch Hedberg: “I tried walking into a Target, but I missed.”

High Utility

Last week I wrote about a study published in a recent issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest which included research on ten different study techniques.  Cramming, according to the study, was a “Low Utility” strategy and I asked you to share ideas about possible “High Utility” strategies.  Thanks to all of you who took the time to respond.  Your emails verified that Southeatern teachers are spot on in their thinking and practice when it comes to helping students develop good study skills.

The Research

Two of the methods that have “High Utility” according the researchers are Practice Testing and Distributed Practice.  These study methods are exactly what they sound like.  Practice testing includes formative tests that students create and take, and distributed practice is a schedule of practice on individual skills or concepts spread out over time, as opposed to being grouped in a short period of time—cramming.

Interestingly but not surprisingly, the authors also indicate that most students aren’t going to do this on their own.  Sure, there are few who will take and review thorough notes, create their own questions or flash cards, and distribute practice over time, but most students are just like you and me when we were in high school, or now for that matter.  We tend to procrastinate until we are near a deadline, and then cram to get it done.  The authors of this study call this “procrastination scallop,” the tendency of students to increase study time just before the exam.

If we are honest with ourselves, traditional educational practice often contributes to the cramming phenomena.  We send overt and covert messages about the importance of cramming before exams. We hand out study guides immediately before final exams and unit tests and may tell students to spend the night(s) before exams filling them out and studying them.  We set up schedules for final exams so students don’t have to focus the night before for all topics but can gorge themselves on a few topics at a time.  In fact, we may find ourselves complaining if students don’t cram for the exams.  We do this knowing that last minute studying prepares them only for the test and not for long term application. 

“Better that than nothing” might be our logical rationale.

We can bemoan the fact that students don’t or won’t initiate distributed practice and practice tests; however, there might be another option.  From the research:

It is obvious that many students are not using effective learning techniques but could use more-effective techniques without much effort, so teachers should be encouraged to more consistently (and explicitly) train students to use learning techniques as they are engaged in pursuing various instructional and learning goals.

In other words, since most students most often don’t create practice tests or initiate distributed practice on their own, we should teach them how to do so.  As your recent emails attest, this is not a major change for many of you.  Below is the list you generated of the most successful study techniques used in our school.  These instructional strategies are being used in daily lessons and are teaching students to use distributed practice and practice tests, the two “High Utility” study techniques.

Your Contribution to the Discussion

In no particular order and sometimes combined from two or three of your responses, these are HSE High Utility study techniques recommended in this past week’s emails:

• Build review of notes into weekly lesson plans: This can be done individually, in pairs, in groups, or as a whole class.  From a teacher, “I set aside short weekly review time as part of weekly lessons.  It doesn’t have to take long.”
• Include previous unit material on tests and quizzes throughout the semester and even year. 
• Give frequent formative assessments.  These are short no-risk assessments of new and previous learning.  These may or may not look like traditional tests.  One teacher I know calls this collecting “drive-through data.”  (You don’t go in and sit down to eat.  Just pick it up on the run.)
• Make sure homework is meaningful.  It should be short and tie everything together.  This way it becomes a great study tool.
• “Have students hear it, see it, and write it.”  This can be done in the initial presentation and over extended time to give students different ways of being exposed to the material.  It can also be done with a variety of groupings (individual, pairs, small groups, whole class).
• “Chunk” the material to break it up.  Then review the “chunks” when you review the “whole.”  From the teacher, “Every time you add to the ‘chunk’ you can review the old material.”
• Review important material often and use a variety of modalities.  This strengthens the connections and meets needs of lots of learners.  For example, have students create non-linguistic representations as a way to review material.
• Give practice tests: From several teachers--“I find sample test questions online, especially for AP tests.  Completing as many practice problems as possible prepares students for any type of question they might see.”  Another said, “I always find success when I ask students to do a ‘write your own quiz’ type activity.”
• Repetition:  In class, reread important parts of the text, review notes often, and return to key facts and concepts often.
• Apply information to different contexts and situations.  “When they can transfer the learning, they know it.”
• Create in-class study groups: “Three to a group seems to be ideal.”
• Review previous test questions later in the semester, especially ones the class struggled with on the unit exams.
• Emphasize important vocabulary whenever it is used.  “They have to know the vocabulary that is used on the final exams, and certain terms seem to come up often.”
• Start or end class with practice of previously learned skills.
• Give study guides early in the semester and use them often as part of daily lessons.

Thanks again to all of you who responded.  The reality is that cramming can help a student score slightly better on a final exam or unit test.  After a little time goes by, however, the increased performance from the cram session is lost.  If our goal is long term learning and understanding, we need to think about the messages we send to students about what “studying” really is and how best to prepare for summative assessments.  This list you generated is a great place to look for additions to your instructional toolbox.

It is February!  If we create practice tests and opportunities for distributed practice regularly, if we teach student how to use these “High Utility” study techniques, May could be a very different kind of month for you—and for your students.

Have a great (short) week, HSE.

Phil

Cram Packed

Final exams seem a long way off, but if you’ve been in the business for a bit, you know what happens during second semester.  The months of February and March seem to drag, we hit Spring Break, and the next thing you know it’s finals week. 

There is no question that May gets crazy.  Between ECAs, AP Tests, and Final Exams, May can test our endurance—pun intended.  From a student’s point of view, it can’t feel any better.  Think of the pressure of studying for and preparing for all these exams.  Think of all the cramming that takes place as they try to prepare for the exams.

Then stop and consider that word: Cramming. 

In general terms, cramming means to force or squeeze something into insufficient space.  In education it involves studying a large amount of material in a short period of time.  And it is a horrible way to remember anything useful in the long term.

In fact, recent research reaffirms that cramming before a final exam is ineffective educational practice.  The January edition of Psychological Science in the Public Interest included the results of a thorough investigation of the effectiveness of different study techniques.  The findings are fairly clear cut.  Cramming is considered a “Low Utility” method of studying.  In their words:

Although cramming is better than not studying at all in the short term, given the same amount of time for study, would the students be better off spreading out their study of content?  The answer to the question is a resounding, “yes.”

The authors of this study, five psychologists from four different major universities, completed comprehensive research on the impact of ten different study methods.  Interestingly, they found that many of the methods, ones most of us grew up on and may advocate for our students, are not always effective.

What is effective practice according to this study? 

Next week, I’ll let you know their recommendations.  Between now and then, take a guess.  What do you think are several study techniques that have “High Utility” according to the most recent research?  Obviously, cramming is not one of these.  So what is effective to help students prepare for summative assessments?  Send me your best guesses.  My guess is you will be able to name variations of both of these High Utility study techniques.  Of course, the key is whether or not we can we get students to use them.  The answer to this is also a resounding “yes.”

Hit “reply” and send me your guess about effective studying techniques.  I’ll share results next week.

Hope your week is crammed with kindness, crammed with hope, and crammed with joy.

Phil

The Mirror and the Magnet

Last week I wrote about the art and science of good teaching.  The use of academic feedback is one of those areas in which both are important.  The science is clear that the use of high quality and timely academic feedback significantly improves student learning.  The art is, of course, how feedback is given and used in the classroom.  Giving academic feedback is an art form worth developing.

One of the really interesting aspects of TEDS is that you are presented with scripts of your lessons, and you can actually read through them to see how you respond to students and what kind of feedback you give during lessons.  If you get a chance, try it. In SFS, look at your scripts for these three different kinds of feedback:

Affirmation/Negation:  This is feedback that affirms effort or correctness or indicates the student response is incorrect.  These comments may take more complicated formats, but at their heart is a simple statement that the student response is correct or incorrect.  There is nothing wrong with affirmation or negation, and in fact is the most reasonable response at times.  It is the type of feedback most often used on a day-to-day basis.  Examples of affirmation/negation include statements like these:

• Good
• No 
• That is not correct.
•  Right
• Yes
• Well done

Specific: Going beyond affirmation/negation, specific feedback gives information about why and/or how the student is correct or incorrect.  It is an accurate description of where the student is in relationship to the goal and has slightly more nuance than affirmation/negation.  Examples include:

• You have the first three steps correct, but you made a simple calculation error.
• You gave only a partial answer.
•  All three of your supporting details are helpful.
• You named several of the causal effects
•  Your drawing has good color intensity but lacks proportion.

Actionable: Actionable feedback provides students with information about their next steps.  It is similar to specific feedback but it includes information about how to move forward. If you take the examples listed immediately above, you could turn them from specific to actionable feedback by adding a few words:

• You have the first three steps correct, but you made a simple calculation error.  One way to catch errors like this is to....
• You gave only a partial answer.  Think about explaining it to a novice and try....
• All three of your supporting details are correct, so I suggest you focus on....
• You named several causal effects.  Now apply the same concept to....
• Your drawing has good color intensity, but lacks proportion. You should take comparative measurements and….

Connie Moss and Susan Brookhart use a helpful metaphor for specific and actionable feedback.  They call it, "The mirror and the magnet in the meaningful moment."  The Mirror is the feedback that reflects to the student where he or she is in the learning process.  It is specific detailed information and tailored to the student.  The Magnet draws the student toward the objective of the lesson or unit.  It helps the student take the next step.  In the Meaningful Moment is all about timeliness.  Great feedback given after the summative assessment won't help.  The feedback, to be most effective, must be given in time for the student to make changes.

Our current evaluation system allows us look for the Mirror and Magnet moments in our own lessons.  If you get a chance, read through your scripts and decide if your students would benefit from larger doses of specific and actionable feedback—the mirror and the magnet.

Reflect on it; you might be attracted to the idea. (Sorry.  Couldn’t resist the pun.)

Have a great week, Southeastern.

Phil