Learning-Focused Connections
Issue 36:  Week of February 16 , 2009
The LEARNING-FOCUSED Connections Newsletter is a weekly link to exemplary practice and ideas that will help you as an educator to increase achievement in your classroom and school. Some weeks there will be a mix of articles in the mailer; other weeks we will follow a theme. We are all working with the same goal in mind, continuous improvement in student achievement.
In This Issue
One Size Does Not Fit All
Self-Selected Reading
Why Is It Important To Create Quality Assignments?
Past Connections Articles
Featured Product
Scaffolding with Technology

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One Size Does Not Fit All
by Bill Blynt

The credo of LEARNING-FOCUSED is 'Adapt, Don't Adopt' strategies. LEARNING-FOCUSED is a model that provides teachers with a framework to plan for a variety of strategies that have proven to be effective in maximizing the achievement level of all students. It is a toolbox containing a variety of tools to be selected by the teacher for use in their classroom. Each tool has a purpose and is not effective in all cases. It is the teacher who must consider the intended learning outcome and the needs of their particular classroom of students when selecting the right tool or tools to use in a given situation. Many teachers have articulated concern that the LEARNING-FOCUSED Model stifles their professional creativity. This is unfounded. The LEARNING-FOCUSED Model provides teachers with an awareness of a variety of tools and encourage teachers to make connections between the appropriate use of the tools and the task/learning outcome desired in their students. Because no strategy is effective in all situations, teachers continue to maintain primary control over the activities and strategies introduced into each classroom lesson.

The LEARNING-FOCUSED Model does encourage schools to provide training to all teachers so that the planning framework accessed by the staff of a building is complete and reflective of current education research on effectiveness. It is absolutely vital that, given the limited amount of time teachers have contact with their students, that the most effective strategies be used on a consistent and pervasive basis. LEARNING-FOCUSED strategies have the most impact when an entire school is utilizing common strategies. This commonality improves the effectiveness of each strategy employed. Teachers can work together to improve their effective use of the strategy while students employ the strategy to master the learning outlined by standards. Learning must remain fun to be effective. Therefore, a variety of strategies must be employed throughout the year. No one strategy is effective in all situations. The strategy to be employed must match the task required of the individual student, be focused on the lesson learning objective and provide a fresh and invigorating classroom challenge for the student. It is the professional responsibility of the teacher to carefully consider the options and make the best decisions.

Learning must be an enjoyable experience for students. This requires teachers to constantly consider what learning strategies to employ in order to make their classroom inviting, invigorating and innovative, yet retain academic rigor. The LEARNING-FOCUSED Model provides teachers with a variety of options to consider when planning their lessons. Both the acquisition and extending thinking lesson plans ask teachers to carefully consider a number of issues when planning a lesson. It is the answers to these questions that determine the lesson design and ultimately the learning tools used to promote understanding. LEARNING-FOCUSED encourages teachers to be creative when making planning decisions, but try to select what will be used from those strategies known to make the biggest impact on learning.

Currently we know more about the learning process than ever before. Significant research, that tells us what works, has been completed, documented and released. We must utilize this knowledge to design better lessons that will challenge our students and provide them the opportunity to master the learning standards of each respective state.

Self-Selected Reading
by Denise Burson

The purpose of Self-Selected Reading is to teach students to take responsibility for selecting appropriate material to read for enjoyment, while adults conference with individual students. Children need to be selecting and reading books on their independent reading level. The teacher has a primary role in motivating the students to read, and ensuring they are reading books that are instructionally appropriate.

Conferencing is the accountability factor in self-selected reading. The students will be more attentive to their books if they know they will be discussing the books with the teacher. During Self-Selected time the teacher usually will conference with approximately 3-5 students daily. The teacher does conference more frequently with the less fluent reader(s).

Ideas to make Self-Selected Reading Work:

  • Focus on comprehension. Questions should be high level and based upon the literary elements.
  • Focus on the student's ability to support comprehension using text or illustrations.
  • Focus on the student's ability to use the reading cueing systems.
  • Have leveled books in baskets to make choosing appropriate books easier for younger children.
  • Give each student a "Friendly Folder" to keep a reading log and one book. When the book is completed and recorded, it can be exchanged for a new book.
  • Have conferences while the students are reading, and write anecdotal records on sticky notes as you listen to the students read and retell the story.
  • Assign a day to each student so you know that you have heard each one read every week.

See the LEARNING-FOCUSED Literacy Collection for more reading strategies and skills.
Why Is It Important To Create Quality Assignments?
by Barbara McSwain

LEARNING-FOCUSED is privileged to work with school districts that are making great gains in achievement with all students across the United States. We know that children of all income levels and ethnic backgrounds can and do learn when they are taught. According to the Education Trust, 2007 research, Standards in Practice™ An Instructional Gap Analysis, "Good instruction requires knowledge of content, pedagogy, and respect for and understanding of the student's background and culture." It is not hoping that they have learned the material. Hope is not a strategy.  It is deliberate, thoroughly planned lessons and assignments based on standards and researched based strategies. 
 
DataWorks Educational Research evaluates student achievement for over 500 California schools each year using multiple measures. For the II/USP schools' external evaluation, DataWorks wanted to go one step further. They decided to look closely at daily student work. They looked at the actual artifacts, not exemplary work but the real assignments and examples that are day-to-day work.  DataWorks faxed a direct request to the school principal: "Collect every single piece of paper that every student does for a solid week. Box it, and ship it to us." 

John Hollingsworth and Silvia Ybarra, Ed.D. at DataWorks Educational Research made a table based on the work that they received. The results revealed that kindergarten and first grade students are being taught at grade level. The researchers "concluded that curriculum slippage begins at second grade, where only 77% of the math material and 80% of the language arts material being presented to the students are on grade level. By the fifth grade, only two percent of the work being given to the students is on grade level." 
 
Hollingsworth and Ybarra calibrated every assignment that the students were being asked to do. "By the fifth grade, the student assignments were mostly second- and third-grade material. An ironic note is that these below grade-level assignments were full of happy faces, good work, 'A+', etc. These students knew the material and needed to have the level of instruction ratcheted up," stated Hollingsworth and Ybarra.
 
Grade Level 1
 
 Grade Level 2
 
  Grade Level 3
 
The tragedy of this decrease in standards aligned classes is that in high poverty schools, children get a lot of A's on assignments. 
 
 
High Poverty A Students v Affluent C Students
 
 
Comparison of Letter Grades and Test Scores
 
There are several questions that teachers must begin to ask themselves to have quality instruction in every classroom. They may want to consider questions such as the following: 1) What is the purpose of this assignment? 2) Is it based on the curriculum standards for my state? 3) What type of thinking/reasoning is required of the students? 4) What type of problem solving must the students do? 5) How will I assess the assignment?  6) Do I need a rubric?
 
Standards in Practice™ An Instructional Gap Analysis states, "Students can do no better than the assignment that they are given It is not the artifact but the type of reasoning, thinking, and problem solving that is required of the student. In order for this type of thinking to occur, we as teachers must remember that this work is ongoing. It is about continuous progress. As this research suggests, we must be willing to "criticize and correct our own work, while at the same time have the ability to work collaboratively with our coworkers in order to improve."  When we collaborate with our team mates, it allows us to have quality conversations regarding researched based strategies that increase achievement through rigorous assignments based on standards.  A LEARNING-FOCUSED unit/lesson plan starts with state standards and immediately asks "what do I want the student to KNOW-UNDERSTAND - and - BE ABLE TO DO (K-U-D)?".
 
Toolbox guides us through the decisions to develop a quality unit/lesson plan. The LEARNING-FOCUSED Strategies Model Notebooks instruct participants in researched based strategies. It is important that we use these as guides when collaborating on unit/lesson plans.

We Want You to Make "Connections"!
 
Subscribers, feel free to share the information, tips and strategies that you receive in LEARNING-FOCUSED Connections with your colleagues. Administrators and coaches, pass them on to the teachers in your school; teachers, share them with your teammates and leadership team. The newsletter can be the basis for discussion in team meetings or provide ideas for further staff development. If individuals in your school/district do not receive LEARNING-FOCUSED Connections, encourage them to visit our website, www.LEARNINGFOCUSED.com, and subscribe through the link on our homepage.
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Past Connections Articles
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