MeTA musings

From Rick DuFour's AASA conference slides:

Leaders who push for fewer changes and push for them harder are more likely to have success than leaders who introduce so many changes that people become confused about what matters most (Pfeffer and Sutton, 2006, 174)) 

May it be true with me as well.

Today is a sad day for me and (maybe?) my students, too.  I announced to them that I will not be teaching math next year.  Pending school board approval next week, I will be Director of Instructional Services beginning July 1 in the same school district. "Director of Instructional Services" is a nice title that really says,

Matt - you're now in charge of professional development, the technology budget, curriculum budget, and going to many more meetings. 

I'm sad to leave the classroom and the daily interaction with high school students.  I'm excited to have even more time to help teachers improve their assessment practices and use technology in a more meaningful way.  Sadness, nervousness, excitement are all running through my mind.  From a two dimensional, math nerd sort of perspective, it's like a crazy sine or cosine curve of emotions. 

I don't know yet how the focus of this blog will change.  I hope it will still continue to focus on technology and assessment, but probably with a more of a cross-disciplinary/grade-level focus. 

I had hoped to go back to school someday to finish a Ph.D (Punya Mishra's program looks awfully appealing!), but I don't think I can afford to take administrative classes beginning this fall AND pursue an ed. tech doctorate at the same time. 

To all of my avid subscribers - this is your invitation to remind me in the future what it's like to be in the classroom.  It's a difficult job. You know it.  I know it.  I don't want to ever lose sight of it. 

In April, I will begin serving a two-year term on the advisory committee for the education department at a small liberal arts college here in Iowa.  The commitment is two one-hour meetings per year.  Members include the general public, two students majoring in education, teachers (that's me) and administrators who work in schools that the college places their student teachers. 

"The role of the council is to advise the department on issues related to curriculum, pre-service methods classes, student teaching, and other matters related to the field of education."  

Aside from David Cox's suggestion of bringing up standards-based grading (don't worry, I will!), what else do pre-service education departments need to know from classroom practitioners?  Leave your thoughts in the comments below.  I'll do my best to represent YOU, my faithful blog readers. :)

I wrote about this topic once before.  As I read though Marzano's Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading, I am becoming even more convinced that standards-based grading is merely a tool to improve teaching and learning. 

"Indeed, at the writing of this book, no major study (that we are aware of) has demonstrated that simply grading in a standards-based manner enhances student achievement.  However,...a fairly strong case can be made that student achievement will be positively affected if standards-based reporting is rooted in a clear-cut system of formative assessments." (18)

A grading system that does not allow new evidence of learning to replace the old, standards-based or otherwise, is not giving our students the learning opportunities they need and deserve.  A feedback starved classroom fails to meet the mark, too.   I like the Brookhart and Nitko quote in Marzano's book that nails the definition of formative assessment:

"...formative assessment is a loop: Students and teachers focus on a learning target, evaluate current student work against the target, act to move the work closer to the target and repeat." (10)

From my own experience discussing formative assessment with secondary teaching colleagues, a major hurdle to embracing/using the formative assessment loop in the classroom is grades.  Marzano agrees,

"At the classroom level, any discussion of assessment ultimately ends up in a discussion of grading." (15)

It just so happens that some of us are choosing to use standards-based reporting as a medium for reaching this ideal.  Personally, I can't imagine a grading system in my own secondary math classroom that would philosophically fit other than standards-based reporting.  I'm guessing someone has figured out another way to make their classroom feedback-friendly in the spirit of formative assessment while simultaneously embracing the idea that grades should communicate learning only.  I look forward to reading about it so that I can share with my colleagues.  I find myself preaching standards-based grading too often when I should be evangelizing the formative assessment loop instead.  
 
For regular readers of MeTA musings, is this even possible?

"We also know that teachers are not paid at the level they should be, especially our best teachers. The factory model we currently use supports mediocrity and encourages teachers to be paid for their experience or their level of degree, not for their ability to help kids learn."

A science teacher wandered into my room yesterday after school.  In addition to many hallway and after school conversations with her, I have also passed on several articles related to standards-based grading and formative assessment techniques.  Towards the end of our conversation, she admitted, "I am going to do this."  We walked through her current grading scheme as well as the projects, assessments and assignments she typically uses each semester.  This turned into a brainstorming session on transforming to a new system reporting standards rather than assignments.  One of the hang-ups was reporting responsibility.  She really wants to emphasize and communicate responsibility with her students both on a daily basis (coming to class prepared) and on assignments (turning in an assignment on time), so she is going to create a "responsibility" category and weight in between five and ten percent of the overall grade.  Without this responsibility caveat, standards-based grading just wasn't going to happen for her.

Our conversation has kept me thinking about why standards-based grading makes so much sense. It went something like this:

Teacher: So if I give a student a second chance on a lab report, do I average the grades?

Me: With the new system, a student may not need to redo the entire lab report.  Maybe he/she just needs help with the data analysis section.

Teacher: Okay, so if they redo the data analysis part, do I average those two scores?

Me: You could, but that wouldn't be much different than what you're doing now, right?  What if that student's second draft of the data analysis was the best data analysis you've ever seen?  Shouldn't that student receive the same score as if he/she had done an awesome job the first time? or the next time?  My philosophy is that new evidence of understanding should replace old evidence.

Teacher: That makes sense.  What about a student that turns in a lab report late?  I usually take off points.

Me: That's where your responsibility category comes in.  If that student turned in a really great lab report, then that should be communicated with parents rather than taking off points like you used to do.  This should make conversations with parents and students much easier, right?  A less-than-perfect score is no longer as mysterious.  Was it because it wasn't up to par?  Was it because it was late? A combination of the two?  Explaining that mystery is history!

Teacher: I need some more time to think about this.  Matt, I am going to do this. 

After the conversation, it hit me. It's more about changing the norms and values of the classrooms in my building and less about a particular grading system.  Are our grading and assessment practices clearly communicating student learning?  Is time the variable or is learning?  Evan Abbey summed up the culture piece much more eloquently than I can in a recent comment he made on my blog:

"...The traditional view is of a teacher as gatekeeper, sorting out students, not letting them to a diploma without the proper amount of effort to make it through the gate.

This does 2 things which are undesirable. First, it sets up teachers to be in an adversarial position against students, which often sets students up to feel that they have to be opposed to learning as well as the teacher. And second, it makes failure a terrible, terrible thing. I would argue that failure actually is a critical ingredient in learning (as Edison would attest).

The gardener approach flips that around, where the teacher is on the same side as the student, helping them attain measurable standards of learning, and letting students gauge their growth themselves. The student drives the data collection and assessment, looking at their learning against those standards and determining 1) how much further they have to go, and 2) how they are going to get there. The teacher encourages and facilitates learning.

The way to be a gardener instead of a gatekeeper is to ditch grading, which is teacher-centric, arbitrary, and set up for comparisons against other students for the purpose of ranking (and rejecting). In its place is to use standards-based reporting, where the standard of learning is objective and measurable, and students are not comparing themselves against anyone else but the standard...."

It's less about standards-based grading and more about creating a "gardener" mentality in our schools.  Standards-based grading is merely a framework that makes allowing new evidence of understanding to replace old evidence of understanding much more fluid.  As excited as I was to see a colleague embrace standards-based grading, I was even more elated to see her realize the need to allow new evidence to replace old evidence of learning.  Had we not talked about a standards-based grading system and its contrast with traditional grading practices, I am not sure if this new realization would have taken place.  Richard Elmore (as quoted in Revisiting PLCs at Work) talks about changes in practice as a means for a larger cultural impact:

"Only a change in practice produces a genuine change in norms and values...grab people by their practice and their hearts and minds will follow" (p. 108)

I learned a very important lesson yesterday.  It's not ALL about standards-based reporting, but more about rethinking the way we view assessment as a tool rather than a hindrance for learning.

Note: This post is an excerpt I wrote for a leadership class taken during my graduate work in curriculum and instructional technology at Iowa State University. It is also is in response to Leadership Day 2009. XYZ is a fictitious school district with some, but not all attributes similar to my current school district. The opinions stated below are solely the opinions of the author and not of my employer.


How does instructional technology fit into the mission of XYZ school district? What opportunities do students currently have to use technology that enables them to fulfill this mission statement? What changes need to be made in order for the district to best serve the students and other stakeholders? The purpose of this paper is to layout a plan introducing new policies and practices to promote more effective technology integration in the XYZ school district. The following sections will identify the current state of instructional technology in XYZ; define effective use of technology by instructional staff; suggest a plan of action to be implemented over a finite amount of time; and designate the primary role of relevant stakeholders in order to ensure the sustainability of the changes

Aside from several early adopters, the diffusion of technology at XYZ has been a relatively slow process. In general, the majority of teachers are still at the awareness and how-to knowledge stage of the innovation-decision process (Rogers, 2003, p. 172) due to their ability to simply use Keynote, Power Point, and iMovie or require students to use them for producing projects. Teachers have effectively re-invented their previous projects using student-produced technology artifacts and according to Rogers (2003), this is a generally desirable and normal function (p. 185). Cuban (2001) also supports this idea that teachers typically “maintain rather than alter existing classroom practices” (p. 71) when using technology. What, then, is the solution? The seeds of the solution are contained within the explanation of the problem (Cuban, 2001, p. 136), so let us begin by establishing effective use of instructional technology by instructional staff.

A clear separation has to be made between using computers to prepare for instruction and actually using computers for instruction (Cuban, 2001, p. 126). Effective use of technology will “transform teaching and learning into an engaging and active process connected to real life” (Cuban, 2001, p. 14). This second goal of technology in schools suggested by Cuban is the premise upon which instructional technology should be built upon. It is also important to note that technology is not appropriate for all projects, because it depends on “what the teaching and learning goals are” (Cuban, 2001, p. 70). The use of computers and other technology should be so ubiquitous in the classroom that it is not seen as an add-on but rather as a means to reach a desired outcome. The key thought behind instructional technology use should be,

“am I using this technology tool as a means of automation/communication or as a means of transformation?”

Automation and communication examples include the use of PowerPoint slides to relay information or give immediate feedback to students’ response through multiple-choice skill-based websites. These ideas in isolation are not harmful, but should not be seen as a model to follow as Cuban (2001) suggests in his book. Transformation examples include the use of software and hardware to create an environment focused on the student. This deeper learning in the form of constructivist pedagogy (Fullan, 2007, p. 266) engages the students in their own learning by using data to alter the needs and interests of the individual (Fullan, 2007, p. 180). Finally, this technology transformation involves using contextual clues to help meet educational objectives. For each educational objective that is identified as appropriate to be taught using technology, the educator would have the time and resources available to him or her to teach and re-teach in a way that has deep meaning for the students. There is not a “one size fits all” recipe for doing this, so the need for an extended amount of time and a mentality of “continual learning” to develop such ideas is pertinent. Elmore clearly supports this idea when he states,

“Improvement is more a function of learning to do the right things in the settings where you work” (Fullan, 2007, p. 153).

In summary, instructional technology involves the transformation of teaching into a dynamic process through the use of technology fueled by the needs and interests of the individual student. It is contextual. In the following sections, I will describe the details needed to “flood” the diffusion network of XYZ district with this idea.

The heart of the diffusion process consists of interpersonal network exchanges and social modeling by those individuals who have already adopted an innovation to those individuals who are influential to follow their lead” (Rogers, 2003, p. 35).

As I described in the first section of this paper, the district staff is not at principles-knowledge when it comes to instructional technology. The changes I recommend aim to accelerate the bell or S-shaped curve innovations typically follow (Rogers, 2003, p. 272). While acknowledging that change takes time, the focus will be primarily on the use of interpersonal networks to create a critical mass of instructional technology adopters (Rogers, 2003, p. 300). In the following paragraphs I will describe a multi-year, systematic process of changing the culture of XYZ district to one that favors “change” and finally a “change” towards teachers’ increased and more effective instructional technology usage.

Year one in this action plan will be called the “Year of Culture.” The focus will be on building culture throughout the district and answering the following ongoing conversation questions:

1. How do we feel students best learn?
2. How will we ensure that students are getting the best possible learning experience each and every day?

A new position will be created in the district, “Director of Pedagogy and Culture,” DOPC for short. From the day this person is hired, his/her daily assignment will be to design activities to help the entire staff of approximately 85 educators answer the two questions above. The DOPC should be an identifiable champion, someone “who throws his or her weight behind an innovation, thus overcoming indifference or resistance that the new idea may provoke in an organization” (Rogers, 2003, p. 414). The DOPC will have excellent people skills and be generally homophilous with the rest of the staff. This position, and his/her additional staff as determined on a need-basis, will be funded by virtually eliminating technology budgets. In fact, the DOPC and other district leadership will advocate for primarily planning and communication use of technology in this “Year of Culture” so that educators can focus instead on this change of culture rather than technology integration. The DOPC will focus on the “specific displacement of existing norms, structures and processes” (Rogers, 2003, p. 55) so that old behaviors and beliefs are replaced. All other “add-ons” will be eliminated such as reading in the content area, 6+1 traits of writing, special education team teaching, and literacy initiatives unless mandated by state or federal law. In essence, the district will enact a one year moratorium on doing anything “extra” in order to focus on the “Year of Culture.”

On a district-wide level, the DOPC will formalize the use of case studies and small group discussions to answer the two key questions. The DOPC and his/her staff will continually encourage small group discussions to begin and end by also answering the question, “why are we doing this?” This will create an environment in which the staff begins to agree on

“what is worth achieving…and set in motion the internal processes by which people progressively learn how to do what they need to do in order to achieve what is worthwhile” (Fullan, 2007, p. 230).

Educators themselves will be asked in these small group discussions to answer the two key questions time and time again until shared meaning is established. Constant revisions of the responses to these questions will be made available to all staff until a consensus of no more than five bullets is agreed upon over the course of this first year. Release time will be given to staff identified as opinion leaders by the DOPC in order to keep minds fresh and morale at its peak. In the midst of the small group discussions, case studies of local teachers and their most effective lessons will be shared. Because “teaching decisions often are made on pragmatic trial-and-error grounds with little success for reflection or thinking through the rationale” (Fullan, 2007, p. 24), teachers will be encouraged and allowed to take half day “leaves of renewal” to reflect and plan for upcoming lessons based on their small group discussions. The premise that “meaning fuels motivation” (Fullan, 2007, p. 39) will be constantly on the mind of the DOPC and his/her staff. In summary, the “Year of Culture” will focus on the hiring of a new position whose focus is facilitating activities designed to help the district created a shared meaning answering two questions, “How do we feel students best learn?” and “How will we ensure that students are getting the best possible learning experience each and every day?” These prompts are designed to create a change in the beliefs and understanding of the district staff so that new teaching approaches and an alteration of beliefs are the foundation of this educational change (Fullan, 2007, p. 30).

The events described in the previous section are a pre-requisite for “year two” events. If necessary, the “Year of Culture” may be extended for an additional time period until its objectives have been met. Only after the “Year of Culture” should the “Year of Technology,” year two, begin. The focus of this year is on technology. The first goal of this year will be to re-evaluate year one. What worked? What did not work? John Kotter proclaims that

“The central issue is never strategy or structure…[It] is always about changing the behavior of people” (Fullan, 2007, p. 42).

In other words, unless a change in culture has taken place, the suggestions in this section will be virtually null and void. Without truly understanding the importance of changing the way we educate students, the district will continue to focus on the innovation, technology, rather than on how technology can affect or improve the way we teach students (Fullan, 2007, p. 111).
The small group discussions in this year will now focus on two new questions that are directly related to the first two.

1. How does technology fit in with our view of educating students?
2. How will we ensure that technology will not replace “old ideas” and instead create “new opportunities” for students to learn?

The DOPC’s new responsibilities will include identifying opinion leaders to give additional responsibilities and encouragement. The strategic selection of opinion leaders should include individuals who are not too innovative themselves (Rogers, 2003, p. 318), and have a high degree of interconnectedness with a small group of individuals within the district (Rogers, 2003, p. 327). The goal of the opinion leaders will be to spread the word about instructional technology as a means of teaching students in a more effective way. Through the use of several opinion leaders, the system will be able to avoid this change in culture as being an authority innovation-decision and rather a collective-innovation decision in which the group joins together to begin the process together (Rogers, 2003, p. 403).

The underlying theme of the “Year of Technology” is obviously on technology, but more specifically the use of technology to transform teaching and learning. Individual testimonials will be encouraged to model how technology can become as routine and necessary as a read-aloud, daily oral language or mental math were once seen in an elementary classroom. The purpose of these individual testimonials is to influence teachers’ beliefs and attitudes, keep the idea of culture change in mind, and begin the process of influencing individuals one by one to match technology tools with best practices in pedagogy for their classrooms. Educators should be encouraged to ask opinion leaders through small group discussions “how, under what conditions, and to what degree” should technology be used in the classroom (Cuban, 2001, p. 192). Finally, conversations will continually connect back to the “Year of Culture” by emphasizing,

“It is not about technology; it is about learning” (Cuban, 2001, p. 184).

Because access is not the sole problem (Cuban, 2001, p. 175) and more on-demand technical support is often needed in public education (Cuban, 2001, p. 180), new money the district receives will be split between technical support staff and new technology. New technology purchases will be based on teacher-initiated projects tied specifically to strategies designed to fuel the needs and interests of individual students. Hardware and software will no longer be purchased for the sake of spending the yearly budget on new machines and the usual maintenance, but rather as a solution to implement effective teaching and learning.

Following the “Year of Technology,” the process will not come to a screeching halt. The role of the opinion leaders and DOPC will be to energize others to make good decisions in the future (Fullan, 2007, p. 300). Previous years should be evaluated continuously. The focus will continue to be on changing the beliefs of individuals one by one. Fullan (2007) boldly states,

“When enough people start doing the right thing in the setting in which they work, they end up changing their very context” (p. 302).

Every effort should be made to continue small group discussions and to make the workplace professionally rewarding so that the district will continue to “attract and retain good people” (Fullan, 2007, p. 129). In today’s competitive market for teachers, XYZ has had the advantage of being a desirable district to teach in that is geographically located in Iowa's technology corridor allowing the recruitment of quality staff. This stigma may eventually run out someday so an increased emphasis on recruiting quality staff is needed. In addition, the student as a stakeholder in education should be carefully examined. When students know what is expected of them, receive quick feedback and guidance on improving, their learning will improve (Fullan, 2007, p. 176). This should not be overlooked throughout the process. Last, parents are important stakeholders, too. XYZ educators have traditionally held positive attitudes towards parent involvement in the district and this mentality should continue in order to secure external funding for future technology purchases and increased engagement with their students’ academics.

In conclusion, the XYZ District needs to spend a significant amount of time going through a process of changing the culture of its educators. Educators’ existing beliefs about the way(s) in which students best learn need to be replaced by an abbreviated list of no more than five brief ideas. This process will no doubt take an extended amount of time. I have suggested creating a new position in order to help facilitate this process. Through a year (or more) of small group conversations, it is my hope that the staff will begin to see a “need” for change. These groups may be seen as forms of what Fullan called professional learning communities because the primary goal of the conversations was to extend the district’s commitment to continuous improvement (Fullan, 2007, p. 151). Through these groups and the ensuing culture change, instructional technology as defined early in this paper will be introduced as a means for accomplishing this change. Technology purchases transitioned from budget and maintenance-minded to being based on individual teachers’ instructional needs. I hope to find my place in this recommended change process.

“The role of leadership…concerns ‘those behaviors that enabled others to take up their role in relation to the institution’s main and defined task’” (Fullan, 2007, p. 165).

It is my hope that this plan will enable me to begin the XYZ district’s search for a defined task through a change in culture and in turn enable others to take up their role as well. We all have a stake in the whole (Fullan, 2007, p. 303).




Cuban, L. (2001). Oversold and underused: Computers in the classroom. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.

Fullan, M. (2007). The new meaning of educational change (4th Ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Rogers, E.M. (2003). Diffusion of innovations. (5th ed.).

It's been a great school year. Maybe even the best I've had so far in my half-decade in the profession. In the midst of finishing a graduate degree, changing the way I report student learning and realizing that examining my assessment practice is the beginning of a much bigger revolution, I feel like I've grown quite a bit over the past nine months.

Sharing this newly found knowledge with my colleagues has yielded mixed results. Several are jumping on board with the assessment revolution while others are hesitant to change. Period. I am finding that differing responses to a fill-in-the-blank sentences may be the culprit for our divided philosophies:

"High school is for..."

When high school is for....

• teaching kids responsibility through penalizing them for late and incomplete work, and
  
• preparing them for college via lectures, sixty-minute tests and uncompromisable rules and procedures

...feedback, formative assessment and alternative ways of reporting student learning don't make sense.

Common rebuttals to my suggestions to change late work policies and de-emphasize "points" on daily work can be generalized into one of two categories. The first is the "If I don't penalize students for late work, they won't ever be taught responsibility" camp. My thoughts on late work can be found here. The second is the "If I don't grade it, they won't do it" traditionalists. I elaborate on my thoughts of "points vs. learning" here. If you've taken the time to read those posts, I hope you found a common theme.

When high school is for...

• LEARNING

...feedback, formative assessment and standards-based reporting can be viewed as minor changes to the existing system with the potential to positively impact the way stakeholders view and understand the educational process. As educators, aren't we in the business of helping students "learn"? In lieu of so many state and federal initiatives, perhaps the answer seems to be too simple to grasp.

DuFour, DuFour, Eaker and Karhanek speak of learning as the constant variable in the book Whatever It Takes: How Professional Learning Communities Respond When Kids Don't Learn. Time and support can be regarded as variables when learning takes precedence above things like "responsibility" and "preparing for college."

I really appreciate the three key questions DuFour, et. al suggest for an effective school to focus 100% of their efforts on:

1. Exactly what is it we want all students to learn?
2. How will we know when each student has acquired the essential knowledge and skills?
3. What happens in our school when a student does not learn?

I hope to address each of the three questions in an upcoming post to this blog.

How would your colleagues fill in the blank: School is for..._________?
How have your views changed recently regarding reporting student learning and assessment?

From an article that recently ran in T.H.E. Journal:

"One of the biggest reasons we face resistance is because so many times we give instruments to the teacher with no follow-up or no training...I don't think fear is the right word. Some teachers have been burned by technology in the past. They used it and found it was either not great or incomplete, or whatever, and so they're not interested in trying again."

-Tom Nolan, curriculum support specialist for the Albuquerque Public Schools

I've seen plenty of educators with this mindset. They may have tried out a cool new software application or website once upon a time, but the technology just didn't "work" for them. Maybe the laptops were low on battery power. Maybe the internet was slow or down that day. Maybe the software itself had glitches or didn't work like it was advertised. Perhaps the comfort level just wasn't initially present with the tool to begin with and this lack of confidence spewed over in to the instruction causing students to be turned off. Regardless of the issue, it left a sour taste in his/her mouth. The first impression was so sour to the point of no return.

I've seen another angle to this problem. Marc Prensky's 2005 Edutopia article sums up a four step process to technology integration that leads to this point:

1. Dabbling.
2. Doing old things in old ways.
3. Doing old things in new ways.
4. Doing new things in new ways

When an educator sees technology as simply "play" on the student's end (#1) or not improving their instruction (#s 2 & 3), why would they care about trying out Moodle, a Flip camera or The Geometer's Sketchpad? Their response to "technology integration" is the same as it's been to any other professional development experience: It's more of the same "stuff" I don't need in my classroom.

An academic recently posed a challenging scenario to me. It went something like this:

"Imagine I am a teacher down the hall from you at your building. I think my teaching strategies are pretty good. In fact, I've been teaching for a while and my students seem to be learning a lot, too. Why should I change?"

In light of teachers being burned by technology in the past and seeing it as more of the same, what answer would you give to the "teacher down the hall?"