Paul Bambrick-Santoyo's book, Driven by Data 2.0: A Practical Guide to Improve Instruction, describes the data meeting structure begun by Uncommon Schools. It involves highly structured plan that starts with unpacking a standard, examining exemplars to revise the what students need to know/do, student work to identify the gap, scripting a reteach, and then practicing it. Ideally this process is completed in under 30 minutes- a rigid time clock is utilized to make sure it does. For the leader of the group, be it a principal or team leader, they need to have prepared for the meeting by having unpacked the standard, gathered both exemplar and typical student work showing a gap, gathered video footage, named the gap in precise language, determined how to reteach the material to address the gap (model or discourse) and why, identified the when to reteach and thought about what that might look like. A half hour meeting might need more than a half hour to prep for, especially if the target subject is not an area of expertise of the leader. Expectations for the leader are huge.
A few years ago I was involved with a program that administered interim assessments every 10 weeks and then spent the nest three weeks going over them to identify data trends and action plans. The assessments utilized a program that collected the data and shared number of correct responses per question. This allegedly allowed staff to examine where students made errors and plan to remediate them. Ideal, right? Unfortunately the implementation was flawed. The responses were too general to provide real guidance on gaps. The assumption was that the staff knew the standards and their components well enough to target error patterns. If only one teacher taught a subject, they were a data team of one- not very effective. It was too loose to provide a path forward and no one was trained to run a data meeting. (Ah, the benefits of hindsight and increased training.)
I have been asked by many an interview team how I use data to inform instruction. I use it daily to determine if my students "got" what I presented. When I provide consultant teacher services I watch the errors my students made and then provide instruction in that area. This book allowed me to see how I might improve that process with formalizing it.
The book comes with a DVD of materials. It includes video clips of components of instruction and data meetings. Some of them are the same as those from Get Better Faster. The book utilizes it's tenet of concise language. It uses the see it, name it, do it strategy that they propose as a way to improve instruction. Very readable but somewhat repetitive. It presents a nice framework that schools could capitalize on to improve instruction.
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Hacking School Discipline
Nathan Maynard and Brad Weinstein wrote Hacking School Discipline: 9 Ways to Create a Culture of Empathy & Responsibility Using Restorative Justice as a part of the Hack Learning Series. These books all describe a group of "hacks" around various educational issues. We may be familiar with the definitions of hack being to cut roughly or gain unauthorized access to data, but a less common definition: to manage or cope, is what the series producers are utilizing.
The books follow a formula for each hack: define the problem, describe the solution, what you can do tomorrow, a blueprint for full implementation, overcoming pushback, and the hack in action (vignette). The nine hacks the book describes are:
I like the three building-wide expectations they set forth:
Two codicils are mentioned toward the end of the book. "If data shows that a certain strategy is not as effective with a certain subset of students, then adjust!" (p. 154) A couple of years ago I worked with a program and they instituted a particular Tier 2 intervention with a couple of students whose behaviors actually increased under the intervention- in frustration, I collected the data and presented to the tier 2 committee 15 weeks into the intervention. It still required a huge push to get something else into place. Early in my career I attended a week long Elements of Instruction workshop whose key components was monitor and adjust. We need to do this for our programs so that we can ensure they are having the impact we want.
"All staff must be consistent and committed to the mission of the MTSS [multitiered system of supports] model and the embedded restorative practices for this to work" (p. 154). I have seen staff sabotage interventions because they so not believe in them. I have seen the results of inconsistent implementation. It is not pretty. A slow roll out with discussion at staff meetings about success and challenges as the process occurs is important. Teachers will buy in when they see success, but poorly articulated or clearly thought out programs will encourage rigidity. Lack of training will result in poorly implemented and ineffective programs. Let the naysayer see positive results with their kids in someone else's classroom. Instead of ignoring their concerns, address them. Restorative Justice programs have been shown to be highly effective if they are properly implemented. Poorly implemented, they often exacerbate problems.
The books follow a formula for each hack: define the problem, describe the solution, what you can do tomorrow, a blueprint for full implementation, overcoming pushback, and the hack in action (vignette). The nine hacks the book describes are:
- create a culture of communication
- restorative circles
- teach acceptance of responsibility
- create, clear consistent expectations
- foster a growth mindset
- teach mindfulness
- cultivate empathy
- build restorative support
- use data to track success, increase attention on important items and modify programs in response to need.
I like the three building-wide expectations they set forth:
- engage in productive work
- maintain a safe and clean environment
- share space effectively (p. 82).
Two codicils are mentioned toward the end of the book. "If data shows that a certain strategy is not as effective with a certain subset of students, then adjust!" (p. 154) A couple of years ago I worked with a program and they instituted a particular Tier 2 intervention with a couple of students whose behaviors actually increased under the intervention- in frustration, I collected the data and presented to the tier 2 committee 15 weeks into the intervention. It still required a huge push to get something else into place. Early in my career I attended a week long Elements of Instruction workshop whose key components was monitor and adjust. We need to do this for our programs so that we can ensure they are having the impact we want.
"All staff must be consistent and committed to the mission of the MTSS [multitiered system of supports] model and the embedded restorative practices for this to work" (p. 154). I have seen staff sabotage interventions because they so not believe in them. I have seen the results of inconsistent implementation. It is not pretty. A slow roll out with discussion at staff meetings about success and challenges as the process occurs is important. Teachers will buy in when they see success, but poorly articulated or clearly thought out programs will encourage rigidity. Lack of training will result in poorly implemented and ineffective programs. Let the naysayer see positive results with their kids in someone else's classroom. Instead of ignoring their concerns, address them. Restorative Justice programs have been shown to be highly effective if they are properly implemented. Poorly implemented, they often exacerbate problems.
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Self-regulations interventions and strategies
Teresa Garland's Self-Regulation Interventions and Strategies: Keeping the Body, Mind, & Emotions on Task in Children with Autism, ADHD, or Sensory Disorders is a book I wish I had when my son was little. He was highly sensitive to smell, very oral- he chewed on everything, did not recognize when he was hungry, tactile defensive around people he did not know or when stressed, did not recognize when he was cold, a picky eater and the list goes on. Amazingly enough, when he was due for a reevaluation for special ed services, I asked for a sensory evaluation and his very helpful (yes, I use that term with sarcasm) OT did not perform one because she did not see it. Everyone else, except the equally helpful PT, looked amazed and the meeting went on. We had to figure it out interventions in the days before the internet explosion of information. This book does a great job of describing examples of challenges and what to do about them. It reviews commercial programs and presents lots of simple at home ideas for helping children.
One important comment that she makes is that many of our kids are developmentally delayed when it comes to sensory integration. That means that for some of our kids time is a component of the answer. However, you cannot wait and hope. Interventions can make children more calm and happy in the here and now. Some interventions involve teaching children the signs that they are becoming overwhelmed and how to take a break to allow them to return to baseline. As they age they do not become overwhelmed so easily, but, in the here and now, they need strategies to not explode. Managing the environment through noise canceling head phones or access to fidgets can truly help our kids successful socialize and participate in activities.
One thing she repeatedly references is that these children often need grounding. Strategies to accomplish this include
The chapter on sensory modulation is broken into sections by sense. She addresses oversensitive, undersensitive and cravings of touch, smell, vision, auditory, vestibular (balance), proprioception (body sense, movement) and interoception (sense of internal states- hunger, pain, temperature,...). I liked the idea of using a metronome to help coordinate movements and work on self-regulation. Much to my irritation, she will make a list and then address things in a different order.
She does provide some case studies and vignettes. These enhance the text. More would have been useful.
One important comment that she makes is that many of our kids are developmentally delayed when it comes to sensory integration. That means that for some of our kids time is a component of the answer. However, you cannot wait and hope. Interventions can make children more calm and happy in the here and now. Some interventions involve teaching children the signs that they are becoming overwhelmed and how to take a break to allow them to return to baseline. As they age they do not become overwhelmed so easily, but, in the here and now, they need strategies to not explode. Managing the environment through noise canceling head phones or access to fidgets can truly help our kids successful socialize and participate in activities.
One thing she repeatedly references is that these children often need grounding. Strategies to accomplish this include
- heavy work- rake leaves, push furniture around, carry a backpack, toss a weighted ball, wear a weighted vest
- massage- formal ones, loofah, Qigong
- yoga- especially the tree pose
- breathing exercises
- deep pressure- weighted blankets, joint pressure, body socks, pressure vest or suits
The chapter on sensory modulation is broken into sections by sense. She addresses oversensitive, undersensitive and cravings of touch, smell, vision, auditory, vestibular (balance), proprioception (body sense, movement) and interoception (sense of internal states- hunger, pain, temperature,...). I liked the idea of using a metronome to help coordinate movements and work on self-regulation. Much to my irritation, she will make a list and then address things in a different order.
She does provide some case studies and vignettes. These enhance the text. More would have been useful.
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Language at the speed of sight
Mark Seidenberg is a reading researcher who wrote Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can't, and What Can Be Done About It. This book came to my awareness through a mention in another text that I have written about: Essentials of Assessing, Preventing and Overcoming Reading Difficulties (see here, here, here and here). He is focused on the idea that many teachers do not know, and consequently implement, the science of reading. This book addresses the concern in a somewhat abstract way. His major theory is that to teach reading, it is essential to teach alphabetics- the phonetic and orthographic code of our language.
Of core importance to learning to read is speech. Students who enter reading with a developmental delay in speech, poor access to standard English (home language is a dialect of English or a completely different language such as Mandarin), or limited vocabulary will struggle with reading. The focus for these children is intensive Standard English exposure to develop vocabulary and an understanding of standard pronunciation to assist with spelling and recognizing written terms by their orthographic code. In my house my mother pronounced the structure that our car was in as a gar'ge. I could not spell or even determine the number of syllables in the word until high school. Bostonians would "pahk a cah." American Black English has "tin" mints, not "thin" ones. These all compete with matching verbal statements to written ones.
Poor readers are a) burdened with the greatest difficulty in decoding and b) struggle with reading context words and c) are poor guessers (p. 130). A recent spurt of research publication as well as older ones explain how poor readers are more likely to use context clues and yet they are worse at it (for some examples see here, here, here, here, and here). Context clues are useful a small amount of the time in determining words. In the sentence, "The baby has a ____." You might know you need a noun (syntactic clue) but is it a nap, bottle, smile or something else? Without the phonetic clues, you are lost. While context is important and the older students must use context to develop both background knowledge and vocabulary, for students just learning to read, it is the lesser of the skills students need to develop. The author points out that "phonological information is an essential element of skilled reading in every language and writing system: impairments in the use of this information are typical of poor readers and dyslexics" (p 126).
He offers an interesting chart on characteristics of dyslexics. All dyslexics will not show exactly the same pattern, but these are characteristic to look for. I modified it slightly.
(p 152)
The primary identifier in dyslexia is poor phonemic skills.
Dyslexia is not the sole reading challenge. As the author points out, "every act of reading is also an act of visual perception, learning, memory, language, and the rest. The goal may be comprehending the text, but the bonus is the tuning and refining of these shared systems, which then tend to correlate" (p 164). Students who struggle to read or who are late readers, do not have the practice and refinement in these other areas and so you see a rippling of impact across many areas in school. He expresses concern over the expansion of the concept of literacy to include digital and other ideas because it dilutes focus on reading print and its consequent benefits. "The emphasis on multiple literacies is that it devalues the importance of reading and teaching reading at a time when they need more attention, not less" (p. 297).
He would like to see a revolution in teacher education. Instead of the art of teaching reading, he would like to see instruction in the science of it. Unfortunately he has seen a reluctance to accept the science as a mainstay of teaching preparation programs. Teaching preservice teachers the science behind child development and linguistics would be a good step in the direction of helping teachers understand the underlying elements of learning.
While many states have enacted legislation about teachers needing to learn and use evidence based practices is the teaching of reading (see EdWeek), there exists a gap between evidence-based and research demonstrated high effectively instruction. Further, the deeply ingrained focus on, at best, embedded phonics instruction is a tough mountain to change.
Of core importance to learning to read is speech. Students who enter reading with a developmental delay in speech, poor access to standard English (home language is a dialect of English or a completely different language such as Mandarin), or limited vocabulary will struggle with reading. The focus for these children is intensive Standard English exposure to develop vocabulary and an understanding of standard pronunciation to assist with spelling and recognizing written terms by their orthographic code. In my house my mother pronounced the structure that our car was in as a gar'ge. I could not spell or even determine the number of syllables in the word until high school. Bostonians would "pahk a cah." American Black English has "tin" mints, not "thin" ones. These all compete with matching verbal statements to written ones.
Poor readers are a) burdened with the greatest difficulty in decoding and b) struggle with reading context words and c) are poor guessers (p. 130). A recent spurt of research publication as well as older ones explain how poor readers are more likely to use context clues and yet they are worse at it (for some examples see here, here, here, here, and here). Context clues are useful a small amount of the time in determining words. In the sentence, "The baby has a ____." You might know you need a noun (syntactic clue) but is it a nap, bottle, smile or something else? Without the phonetic clues, you are lost. While context is important and the older students must use context to develop both background knowledge and vocabulary, for students just learning to read, it is the lesser of the skills students need to develop. The author points out that "phonological information is an essential element of skilled reading in every language and writing system: impairments in the use of this information are typical of poor readers and dyslexics" (p 126).
He offers an interesting chart on characteristics of dyslexics. All dyslexics will not show exactly the same pattern, but these are characteristic to look for. I modified it slightly.
phonology
|
·
Limited impairment on phonemic tasks: deletion,
matching, blending
·
May have other limitations (especially if young)
in letter naming and sounds
|
Reading Aloud
|
·
Slow, dysfluent and error-prone- especially
with irregularly pronounced words
·
Poor at sounding out nonsense words
|
Processing speed
|
·
Slow at naming familiar things (rapid automatized
naming- RAN)
·
Fluency issues
|
Orthography
|
·
Limited knowledge of structure- ex determine
legal from illegal letter strings (ex. jn, px versus jam or pixy)
·
Weak spelling- misspelling, misidentifications
(rain or rane), dysfluency (
|
Working memory
|
·
Deficits in non-word repetition and memory
span tasks
|
Language
|
·
Limited vocabulary and quality
·
Familiarity with a narrower range of sentence
structures and expressions
·
Prosody weaknesses
|
The primary identifier in dyslexia is poor phonemic skills.
Dyslexia is not the sole reading challenge. As the author points out, "every act of reading is also an act of visual perception, learning, memory, language, and the rest. The goal may be comprehending the text, but the bonus is the tuning and refining of these shared systems, which then tend to correlate" (p 164). Students who struggle to read or who are late readers, do not have the practice and refinement in these other areas and so you see a rippling of impact across many areas in school. He expresses concern over the expansion of the concept of literacy to include digital and other ideas because it dilutes focus on reading print and its consequent benefits. "The emphasis on multiple literacies is that it devalues the importance of reading and teaching reading at a time when they need more attention, not less" (p. 297).
He would like to see a revolution in teacher education. Instead of the art of teaching reading, he would like to see instruction in the science of it. Unfortunately he has seen a reluctance to accept the science as a mainstay of teaching preparation programs. Teaching preservice teachers the science behind child development and linguistics would be a good step in the direction of helping teachers understand the underlying elements of learning.
While many states have enacted legislation about teachers needing to learn and use evidence based practices is the teaching of reading (see EdWeek), there exists a gap between evidence-based and research demonstrated high effectively instruction. Further, the deeply ingrained focus on, at best, embedded phonics instruction is a tough mountain to change.
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