Improving Student Learning

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Improving Student Learning
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What Have You Learned?
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Student Learning
What are three building blocks for improving
schools?
Stop blaming, establish clear aims, agree on
definition of improvement
School takes up what percentage of a persons
first 18 years of life?
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According to Coleman, what is a pupils
achievement strongly related to?
Ed. Background and aspirations of other pupils
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Student Learning
All children are born ________
Motivated
Jenkins says that _________ is destroying the
inborn motivation to learn?
Competition
Name three things that Jenkins says teachers need
to internalize?
Everyone is born motivated, techniques they have
witnessed de-motivates, whatever de-motivates
adults de-motivates children
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Student Learning
List at least three psychological truths listed
by Deming.
Most people, once discouraged stay that way.
Children dont destroy their own motivation,
adults do.
Theres no shortage of good people unless people
create it.
Ranking destroys joy.
The customer defines joy.
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Student Learning
How can an administrator know that his/her school
has improved?
When there are more successes and fewer failures.
One can more nearly predict the future through
what?
Statistics
What are three suggested steps for teachers to
take in order to be successful?
Explain aim of course, quiz students on square
root, and use class run charts and scattergrams
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Student Learning
According to Deming, this term is defined as what
customers say.
Feedback
When the goal is improvement, the teacher
believes what?
Teacher has major responsibility for student
learning.
What can students and teachers plan together by
sharing feedback?
Effective instructional strategies
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What Have You Learned?
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Student Learning
Grade level is a synonym for what?
Average
List the requirements for quality measurement.
State course objectives, develop rubrics for
single and continuous events, assess students
regularly, organize assessment data into
classroom chart, use feedback to make corrections.
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Student Learning
Describe Dr. Demings method for improving
learning.
Provide students with info. they are expected to
know randomly select concepts of the total
amount of info. And quiz on the sq. root use
class run charts and scattergrams use data
(feedback) to make corrections
What is the answer to those who question giving a
quiz to students on concepts not yet taught?
Its a preview of info its not graded its the
hook
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Student Learning
Describe the process (give example) of continuous
improvement model described by Jenkins for
assessing essential information.
Explain to students that the first eight weeks of
each quarter is practice time. The teacher is
the coach and will be doing everything possible
to help them improve. The ninth week is game
week practice is over. During the last week of
the quarter, on a designated day, students bring
all assignments to class. The can revise any
assignment based upon instruction given, up until
the due date. Teacher rolls the dice and what
ever number comes up, thats the assignment
number they are to turn in.
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Continous Improvement How To Do It
Chapters 6 and 7 - Improving Student Learning
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Performance with Rubrics
Whats rubric?
Rubrics are scales of quality and a scale must be
developed. This is a performance based
assessment.
How do teachers know when students are better
writers, better solvers of math problems, better
artists,and better science researchers?
Just add up the rubric scores
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Quality
Can teachers inspect quality into any process?
No, they must build in the quality.
What are the steps for doing this?
1. Provide students with rubrics by which their
work will be evaluated
2. Explain to students that the first eight
weeks of each quarter is practice time. The
teacher is the coach and will be doing everything
possible to help them improve. The ninth week is
game week practice is over.
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Quality
3. Assign the first assignment. Afterwards all
students are to reflect upon possible errors or
trouble spots.
4. The teacher randomly selects five students
(or sq. root of the total students in class) from
each period for a 11 conversation regarding
their assignment. The randomness is done in
class so students know it is probability that
chose them.
5. Based on error analyses and observations from
20 assignments (four periods of five students
each), teachers prepare lessons for
teaching/reteaching.
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Quality
6. Teachers repeat this process at least four
times each quarter. Up to this point, there is
still no grade recorded.
7. During the last week of the quarter, on a
designated day, student bring all assignments to
class. The can revise any assignment based upon
instruction given, up until the due date.
Teacher rolls the dice and what ever number comes
up, thats the assignment number they are to turn
in.
8. The teacher now grades all student
assignments for that portion of the grade for
that class.
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Quality
The goal is to improve instruction, learning, and
the students products (assignments).
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What Have You Learned?
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Examples
Chemistry Mary Kaser - Lourdes High School -
Rochester MN. Refer to Post-Lab Assessment
Rubric in Jenkins book. Mary scans all lab
reports briefly, giving a 1-5 score, but then
randomly selects five students from each period
for the complete 1-20 scoring and item analysis
of errors. At the end of each nine weeks, she
selects one lab report to be gathered from each
student. This is randomly selected from the 8 to
12 lab reports written each quarter.
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Examples
Grade 3 Writing - Tim Sheppard and Nancy Hunter -
Wenatchee, WA All third grade teachers have
agreed to randomly select sample stories by grade
level. The teachers have agreed upon 11
essential skills (see pages 62 and 63.) At
regular intervals the teachers have their
students write on the same topic. The papers are
collected from students and 15 (sq. root of the
third grade classes) are randomly selected.
Each teacher scores five theres no need to
read all papers the 15 scored give all the
necessary information. The teachers say that
their wacky writing provides an avenue for
regular conversation among grade three teachers
regarding their understanding of essential
writing skills and the writing process.
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Examples
Continuous Improvement in the Mathematics
Classroom - by Carolyn Ayers. Students are given
a math problem. The students try to solve it on
their own and Carolyn scores it according to her
rubric and results are graphed. The teaching
comes the following day when her second graders
are placed in groups of four and given the same
problem again, along with a blank transparency.
The students solve the problem again, this time
allowing her to listen to their thinking. Each
group, using their transparency, present their
solution to the remainder of the class. The
ensuing discussion with the whole class and the
teacher is the primary method that Carolyn uses
to assist them in reaching higher levels of
performance.
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Examples
Sixth-grade Science - Debi Molina-Walters -
Antioch, CA The school year begins with students
receiving the rubric for science lab reports (see
handout). Students are then given their first
lab assignment and they record their results.
They self-edit, using the rubric, then they have
their peers edit their lab write up. Finally,
Debi edits the labs so students have a model to
work from the year. This lab is not graded it
is used as the foundation for future learning.
The process continues throughout the year in the
same manner. Experiments are conducted in groups
of four, students write up their lab report, they
self-edit the report, they have the report
peer-edited, and then they save the report.
After four labs, each student selects their two
best lab reports for their portfolio., and then
one of the two to be handed in for Debi to score
on the rubric and record as a grade.
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Examples
Sixth-grade Science - Debi Molina-Walters -
Antioch, CA Significant points Debi is not
scoring all of the lab reports. She is scoring
only 25 of the labs herself. With the extra
time she is listening. Se is listening to the
discussion of each group of four while they are
conducting labs and she is listening to
peer-editing of the lab write-ups. Listening to
students coach each other through the process
gives her the information necessary to further
develop their performance levels.
ITS PERFORMANCE THAT MATTERS THE MOST!
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Improving Learning of Essential Information
True or False - every subject in every grade
level contains essential information?
True
What should students receive during their first
week of class?
The essential information they need to know by
the end of the course.
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Examples
Middle School Science - Some districts have
decided to have 100 facts per grade.
Sixth-graders are responsible for the first 100
facts, seventh-graders are responsible for the
second 100 facts, and eighth-graders are
responsible for all 300 facts. (Students are
given all of the facts in sixth grade.)
Whats the result?
Middle school Science classes are now connected.
Instead of three separate one year programs,
Science is now a three-year program.
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Examples
Continuous Improvement in the History/Science
Classroom by Shelly Carson The first history
course is in the fifth grade and covers earliest
times of the North American Content to the
American Revolution. The second course is in the
eighth grade and covers the United States from
the US Constitution to 1900. The unique twist is
that during the first week of 11th grade,
students are provided essential facts for all
three courses and every quiz, every quarterly
exam, and the final includes items from all three
years. So the teacher randomly selects 16 items
from the 250 essential facts for quizzes.
Whats the result?
History classes are now connected. Instead of
three separate one-year programs, History is now
a three-year program.
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What Have You Learned?
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Questions
Why use the Square Root method?
The square root provides a large enough sample
size to be accurate. The sample size is large
enough if quizzing is done on a regular basis.
Also, the square root works for both large and
smaller numbers.
Why use (or grade) a sample from all the students?
The simple reason for sampling is theres not
enough time to assess students continually on
everything they need to know. Sampling takes the
least amount of classroom time and provides the
most up-to-date information.
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Questions
Why use the method of selection by random
selection?
For mathematicians and scientists, random
selection means accurate because no human biases
are distorting the data. For educators, this
means that students are no longer attempting to
psych-out the instructor to determine what will
be on the exam.
How do teachers select random items?
Specialty dice, a fishbowl with 300 facts on
index cards, random number generators, bingo game
with numbers 1 - 300. www.random.org
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Questions
Do Items and Questions Repeat?
Yes. Every essential fact has an equal chance of
being drawn. The goal is not for students to
know the answers to questions, but to know the
concepts and vocabulary. So teachers should ask
the questions in different ways, I.E., multiple
choice, T or F, fill in the blank, open-ended
questions.
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Questions
How will parents react to students being quizzed
on items that have not yet been taught?
Preparation is needed. First, students need
assurance that the quiz doesnt count for their
grade and that the purpose is to show how they
are learning individually and how they are
learning collectively. They also need to be
continually reminded that they will know the
content at the end of the year. Second, parents
are usually satisfied when they know 1) their
children are not graded on quizzes, 2) a
by-product of this process is that it takes away
cramming (which they know is a waste of time) and
3) each quiz is really a practice for the
end-of-the-year final, which will be graded.
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Questions
How long does this take each week?
Teachers experience in continuous improvement say
that most of the time is spent teaching-either
review of prior content or preview of upcoming
content. So, they dont see this as assessment
time taking away from instruction they see
instruction.
How can teachers get the class data quickly?
In order to expedite the process, and not to
embarrass students, teachers have several ways of
collecting numbers. Generally, students are in
groups. A monitor is assigned to each group to
gather up the number correct from each student in
their small group.
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Results
Steve Denny and Dave Bell of Cincinnatis Woods
High School have summarized their observations
regarding continuous improvement

1. Students have accepted responsibility for the
   learning goal.
2. Students are ready and anxious to help one
   another.
3. Students ideas about how to reach the learning
   goal are plentiful.
4. Students become active teachers of one another.
5. Intervention is much more successful now.
6. Teachers have a clearer picture of where they
   need to intervene.
7. Students have a much more accurate sense of their
   progress.
8. Parents feel good about the progress being made.
9. Aspects of continuous improvement motivate
   students.

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Results
Principal Brian Krob from Tipton, Iowa, Middle
School

1. Controlling ones actions is self-control
2. Doing something without being asked is taking
   initiative
3. Meeting deadlines is being responsible
4. Taking pride in ones self is self-respect
5. Sticking to a purpose or an aim is perseverance

Carolyn Ayres The motivation seems to come
naturally with the process of testing, checking,
learning from mistakes, improving, and being able
to see the visible evidence of growth on the
graphs.
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What Have You Learned?