An Arranged Marriage

As often as I can I listen to StoryCorps on National Public Radio.  One of the episodes that still comes to mind occasionally has to do with arranged marriages.  A daughter-in-law who did not have an arranged marriage interviews her mother-in-law whose marriage was arranged.  Sulochana Konur tells the story of how two months after meeting her future husband at the age of 15, she was married.  Almost 40 years later, they remain so.

At the end of the interview, Mrs. Konur gives advice to her daughter-in-law.  These aren’t the exact words, but I think this is the point she makes: I didn’t make the choice to marry, but that doesn’t make it easier or harder.  You will also have to find your own way.  As you are married, you have to grow together regardless of how you became married.  I’ll return to this concept later.

Set High Expectations for Academic Success: Rock Solid Teaching

The last competency on the TER is Competency 2.9.  It is interesting because it seems to repeat many other areas in the rubric, especially when you examine only the “Effective” category.  Look at these indicators and note some of the connections to other competencies:

Effective

·         Teacher sets high expectations for students of all levels. Similar to: 2.1—Mastery and understanding of lesson objectives, 2.5—Teacher does not give up, 2.6—Accessible but Rigorous Work

·         Students are invested in their work and value academic success as evidenced by their effort and quality of their work.  Similar to: 2.3—Engagement, 2.6—Student perseverance, 2.7—Students on task, 2.8—Students are invested in the success of their peers

·         The classroom is a safe place to take on challenges or risk failure.  Similar to: 2.8—Safe and positive environment, 2.5—Teacher scaffolds students

·         Teachers expect students to respond to questioning and to generate their own conclusions. Similar to: 2.2—Students ask higher-order questions, 2.4—Teacher checks for understanding, 2.6—Students are required to support arguments,

·         Teacher celebrates and/or recognizes high quality work.  Similar to: 2.6—Teacher highlights student work that meets high expectations, 2.8—Positive classroom environment

Certainly, this overlap of competencies reinforces what I have been saying about how the same lesson can have multiple “hits” on the TER.  Make no mistake about it: An “Effective” lesson is rock solid teaching.   If your lesson is effective, it will show up in this competency and many other places on the rubric. 

The indictors for “Highly Effective,” however, go beyond rock solid.  Take a look at the “Highly Effective” indicators for 2.9:

Highly Effective: For Level 4, much of the Level 3 evidence is observed during the year, as well as some of the following:

·         Students participate in forming academic goals for themselves and analyzing their progress.

·         Student comments and actions demonstrate that they are excited about their work and understand the relevance of their learning.

To reach “Highly Effective” on this competency, students must do much of the work.  They must set academic goals and analyze their own progress.  This is not a new concept.  It has been around for as long as I have been teaching and probably long before that.  In the late 90s and early 00s, the Best Practice folks (Zemmelman, Daniels, and Hyde) were pushing for it, and more recently, Robert Marzano has documented the impact of student involvement in setting and tracking learning goals.

Most students, however, will not be able to do this on their own.  These are skills that must be taught, but it is time well spent.  When I first started as an administrator, I worked with a teacher who took this process to heart.  He developed learning goals for his students who were predominantly at-risk and low achievers, taught them to develop their own academic goals, and had them track their own progress.  He also had students track the correlation between effort and results.  The outcomes of this informal field-test were overwhelmingly positive.  Students became more invested in their learning, they consistently worked harder and performed better, they became aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, and they saw the correlation between effort and results.  It was hard and sometimes frustrating work, but it changed the teacher’s approach to teaching.

My point:  You will “hit” in the “Effective” category on this competency with lots of different activities.  In order to trend up this competency from “Effective” to “Highly Effective,” a teacher must do much more than set goals and tell students what they are.  It will involve teaching students to set their own goals and monitor their own learning.  It means finding ways to get students invested in the learning because it has personal meaning and relevance.

An Arranged Marriage:

That is it, Southeastern.  We have made it through all nine competencies in Domain 2 of the Teacher Effectiveness Rubric.  Yes, this was an arranged marriage, but I think we may learn to love her/him yet!  (I told you I would get back to you on this one.)

Now begins the work of growing together. 

Have a great week.

Phil