The Power of a Nudge

A little nudge can make a big difference. When Sonic sends me a text message informing me that “for today only” grilled cheese sandwiches are on sale for 50 cents each, I’m more likely to make a poor nutritional choice for lunch.  When the grocery store checker asks me if I’d like to make a $1 donation to help fight local hunger, I’m more likely to be philanthropic.  And when my 99-year-old grandma says that I’m getting a little tummy and pokes my belly when I see her at Christmas, I’m more likely to decide to jump back on the exercise bandwagon and forego that bargain grilled cheese from Sonic.

The power of suggestion exerts a mighty influence on us. Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist Richard H. Thaler, whose book Misbehaving was a captivating read about a field I knew nothing about, examined the ways people are steered by others to make smart decisions that they themselves view as smart decisions after making them. As Thaler and his onetime research partner Cass Sunstein said it, their goal was to “influence choices in a way that will make choosers better off, as judged by themselves.” Thaler addressed the power of such persuasion, saying, “People can be nudged to save for retirement, to get more exercise, and to pay their taxes on time, but they can also be nudged to take out a second mortgage on their home and use the money on a spending binge.” In other words, people can be nudged to make good choices or to make poor choices.

Although the work of Thaler and Sunstein focused on the realm of economics, teachers and other adults in an educational setting have the opportunity to employ the power of the nudge in their interactions with students. In fact, a nudge from a teacher might be the kick-start that sends a student on the path to college.

We have reached the time of the year during which schools start asking students and parents to make decisions about their course selections for next year. Teachers often find themselves in the position to recommend classes to their students and offer advice, sometimes in a official capacity (as in a list submitted to counselors of students who should enroll in specific courses—whether at an advanced or remedial level—or a signature of recommendation on a student’s schedule card) and sometimes in a less formal way (such as giving advice to a student who asks your opinion about what class to take).

Sometimes data comes into play when recommendations are made. Teachers mine student data and identify cutoff points to see which students hit the magic number that makes them eligible for honors courses. Data can be dangerous, though, when it’s the only measure we use to measure student potential.

As I see it, test scores and other data are best used to identify potential in students who might not self-identify into rigorous courses or who might otherwise escape notice of those who are recommending. For instance, a student who didn’t grow up speaking English or who doesn’t come from a language-rich household might score lower on a standardized measure that is linguistically based, but that student’s high score on a nonverbal test of thinking skills (such as the nonverbal portion of the COGAT) indicates overall cognitive ability that might be developed over time in language-related areas. In that case, the student’s standardized data might be a flag to a teacher looking to nudge a student to consider taking a more challenging class.

The danger of standardized scores is that they are often used to justify gatekeeping, the practice of only admitting the top students into classes and excluding those who don’t fit a preconceived profile. I hear teachers speak of students as not being “honors (or AP) material.” Gatekeeping thrives on fixed mindsets like this, and doors of possibility remain closed to students. What teachers may not consider when discouraging a student from taking an advanced class is the long-term impact of not taking that class. Closing an academic door early on makes future doors harder to open.

The students who most need the nudge from teachers are the ones who don’t see the possibilities within themselves or who might not believe that honors and AP courses are for kids like them. Teachers should remain on the lookout for indicators of potential in their students and should let students know what they spot. Curiosity, a highly developed sense of humor, persistence, problem solving abilities, leadership skills, critical thinking, and organization are among the traits teachers should point out to students who possess them. Those students might not see those traits in themselves and may have never considered that those traits could indicate potential for success in challenging coursework.

I always notice the mentions of teachers in the award acceptance speeches that occur this time of year. “I’d like to thank my seventh grade teacher, Mrs. So-and-So, who saw in me something I couldn’t see and encouraged me to try out for the school play, launching my acting career.” “If it weren’t for Mr. Such-and-Such in tenth grade, I wouldn’t have believe that I could become a writer.”  Successful adults can often look back and identify that one adult who identified their potential, pointed it out to them, and gave them a nudge in the right direction. A nudge says, “I believe in you.” A nudge can say, “You can do it.” A nudge can say, “Here’s something you do well that will help you succeed.”

A nudge can also say, “This isn’t for you.”

I don’t want to be the adult who makes that decision on behalf of a young person. I don’t want to be the educator who relies on data to such an extent that I fail to see the human behind the numbers. I want to nudge for good rather than evil, for growth rather than discouragement, and for opportunity rather than oppression.

I want to be thanked someday in an award acceptance speech. I know it’s statistically unlikely to happen, but I figure my odds go up each time I nudge another kid to consider a previously-unconsidered possibility.

If I'd Had a Coach

I wear many hats in my job as an instructional specialist. One of them is the hat of the instructional coach. Despite my best efforts to communicate what I do in this role, I find that the job of an instructional coach is frequently misunderstood. There’s a widespread misconception that instructional coaches only work with teachers who are struggling or are doing an unsatisfactory job (AKA “bad” teachers).. Another “alternative fact” is that I report my interactions to others—that I’m some sort of spy for the curriculum department or the building principal. The truth is that most of the time, the work I do is with some of the strongest and most growth-minded teachers in the district. Furthermore, the work I do with any teacher is between me and that teacher; I focus on helping teachers improve in areas where they want to improve, not on getting teachers in trouble.  

When I had a classroom of my own, I didn’t have access to an instructional coach. Most of my professional improvement occurred as a result work I did on my own. Now that I know about instructional coaching and its benefits, however, I can think of so many ways my life as a teacher would have improved if I’d had a coach.

Every teacher knows what it’s like to have “that one class” where all the time-tested disciplinary techniques fail to produce results—the class that seems to last forever, tries your every last bit of patience, and populates your nightmares. If I’d had an instructional coach, I could have reached out for help with my classroom management woes. The coach could have observed my class, documented student behaviors and my attempts to refocus them, and helped me come up with a plan to minimize disruptions so that learning could occur. The coach would have been able to help me pinpoint the root of the problem and what I could do to fix things. The coach could schedule a follow-up visit to take more data to see whether the problem was solved and offer more assistance, if needed.

I’m one of those educators who gets unusually excited about the things I learn at professional development. For instance, after I attended a district-sponsored training about encouraging self-selected reading in English classes, I rushed back to school enthusiastic about implementing reading workshop in my classroom. For several weeks, I bounced ideas off of coworkers, friends, family members, and unsuspecting strangers in the checkout line at Kroger. If I’d had an instructional coach, I could have called on my coach to help me identify how to bring my ideas to life successfully in my classroom. We could have met to brainstorm and troubleshoot, and the coach could have offered useful professional resources to help me realize my vision. Once my reader’s workshop was up and running, the coach would returned to see how things were going and to help me tweak the procedures to continually improve my results.  

In a district with a common curriculum, I sometimes found that there were lessons or units that made better sense to me than others. Despite my best efforts to study the curriculum online, at times I worried I was missing something that would be helpful to me in delivering the highest quality instruction to my students. An instructional coach could have met with me to talk about how to implement the district curriculum with my students. After all, our curriculum provides valuable direction for a teacher but isn’t intended to be a rigid, inflexible script. In our meetings, my coach could have helped me customize the lessons for my teaching style and the unique needs of my students without sacrificing the integrity of the unit design. If I were struggling with a particularly tricky lesson or concept, the coach might offer to model the lesson with my students or co-teach the lesson with me.

Research shows that teachers don’t always have a clear picture of what’s really going on in their classes. I always thought I was doing a pretty good job of putting the workload on the students so that they were doing more talking than I was. I suspect, though, that I did a lot more of the talking—and thinking— than I was aware of. If I’d had a coach, I could have asked the coach to video record one of my classes to help me see what was really going on. After watching my video (as soon as I recovered from the natural awkwardness of seeing and hearing myself), I would have conferenced with the coach to see if I was satisfied with the level of student talk in my classroom and, if not, make a plan to improve it. It’s likely that watching the video would have made me aware of other pressing issues I wanted to work on, and the coach would’ve be happy to help me by offering suggestions, guidance, training, encouragement, and support to reach my self-identified goals.

Our district’s teaming approach presents its own set of challenges. One of them is actually sitting down to plan with a team. WIth busy schedules, time constraints, and ever-increasing demands on teachers, efficient planning is both a challenge and a necessity. In my own past experience, planning sometimes involved thoughtful contemplation of learning goals and the alignment of instruction and assessment, but more often it entailed one of the team members handing everyone else a calendar and doling out responsibilities for getting copies made, tests numbered, and materials distributed. If my team had met with an instructional coach, the coach could have helped us refine our planning practices so that our time spent as a team was productive and instructionally useful. The coach could have worked with us to learn how to unpack curriculum documents, thoughtfully align lessons, deliver instruction with intentionality, and develop a unified vision for our team. Effective planning benefits teachers and results in better learning for all students. I can think of a few planning meetings in my past that would have been much more productive if we had asked an instructional coach to join us.

I’m a little sad that I didn’t have access to an instructional coach to help me be a better teacher when I was in the classroom. Now that I have the opportunity to help other teachers, I hope I can do something to alleviate frustrations and feelings of helplessness and assist teachers in continuing to improve the learning experience for their students. I dwell in the world of teacher success and stand firmly rooted in my belief that teacher success leads to student achievement. If you’ve read this and anything sounds appealing to you, I encourage you to contact a coach or instructional specialist to work with you.  I don’t want you to look back in regret someday that you didn’t.  

Winners and Losers

“We are the champions, my friend.

And we’ll keep on fighting ‘til the end.
We are the champions. We are the champions.

No time for losers

‘Cause we are the champions

Of the world….”

Those lyrics conjure up memories of big-haired seventh graders in tight jeans swaying back and forth and yelling along with Queen’s rock anthem in the cafetorium at the Wilson Middle School social back in the early 80s.

“No time for losers.” That reminds me of a saying often attributed to race car driver Dale Earnhardt, Sr.: “Second place is the first loser.” Nike popularized this as a slogan for their ad campaigns in the 1996 Olympic games. Ricky Bobby switched the phrase up a bit in the film Talladega Nights when he proclaimed, “If you ain’t first, you’re last.”

I think I’m pretty safe in saying that our society’s obsession with winning and losing is not new. We seem to delight in ranking ourselves and others. It’s not enough to call someone a winner; we revel in calling someone else a loser.

In recent weeks, the state has unveiled a controversial new school rating system that assigns letter grades from A to F to public schools. The preliminary scores of some schools with satisfactory ratings on the old system plummeted to Cs, Ds, and Fs under the new one. A whole new crop of “losers” has now surfaced. Teachers, administrators, schools, and districts are horrified, yet politicians seem unfazed (and perhaps even pleased) by the unflattering light shed on many schools and districts.         

We all know what it feels like to lose. Hopefully, we’ve all also experienced the feeling of winning, too. Winning is a motivator, but perpetual winners sometimes become complacent. Losing can motivate, too, but it can also have the opposite effect, leaving the losers to lose hope and quit trying.

Education, as I see it, doesn’t have to be a competition at all. There’s no need to be fixated on creating a hierarchical structure if success for all is what we aim to achieve.

I know that at this point some of you are worried because you fear I’m going to be one of those people who suggests we give everyone a ribbon just for showing up. That’s not the answer. Being a chronic non-athlete, I received many an unearned ribbon or trophy in my childhood, and I know from experience that those victories had little impact on me one way or another. I knew I hadn’t earned those awards, and they meant nothing to me. They just created one more item I had to throw away when I eventually moved out of my parents’ house.

My argument isn’t about eliminating criteria for success and deeming everyone a winner; instead, it’s about promoting excellence and equity with standards-based measures that we hope everyone will achieve.

Isn’t the goal of public education, after all, to create an educated public? I want to believe that everyone--the kid down the block, the woman in the car next to mine at the stoplight, the person in front of me in the voting line, the teenager serving my dinner at Popeye’s, the mechanic fixing my brakes--has succeeded in an educational setting that ensures they can think, reason, read, write, calculate, follow instructions, listen critically, solve problems, analyze, evaluate, and express their ideas clearly.     

What I don’t want is to wonder which of these people were the winners and which were the losers in the game of education. Which ones succeeded beyond expectations, and which fell further and further behind until they and everyone else gave up on them?

I firmly believe that collaboration promotes learning. Most students learn from interactions with others. In the 21st century workplace, collaboration is an essential skill, a skill we have to help students develop with practice over time.  

Competition is the enemy of collaboration. Why should I work together with you if I hope to end up ranked in a higher position than you? If someone has to win by surpassing others, there’s no advantage to collaboration.

In a world where frantic parents badger their child’s elementary school teachers for just a hint about how their little darling is doing in relation to his or her classmates and where parents gain self esteem by broadcasting their kids’ achievements on social media, competition isn’t likely to vanish completely overnight. But I think it would do us all a service to reflect on the consequences--intended and unintended--of competition in our schools. And among our schools.

Teachers can start in their own classrooms. How can you change the climate to one where every success is applauded by the class as a whole? How can you motivate all to succeed by allowing everyone an equal opportunity for success? How can you allow every student to make as much progress as possible during the short time he or she is in your class?

If everyone receives a great education regardless of school, teacher, district, socioeconomic background, or location, doesn’t our entire society win?

Teaching is a Sales Job

Last month I bought a new car and made a new best friend. Or at least that’s what it felt like. Ethan was his name, and he was my buddy just seconds after I walked onto the car lot. Ethan was interested in me. He asked questions and talked about things we had in common. He gave me undivided attention, making me believe I was the most important person in his life. He called. He sent e-mails. He took the time to show me each car and explained the key features of every model. Ethan was patient and happy to answer and re-answer each question I asked. He didn’t make me feel pressured about shopping for a new car; he had my best interests in mind and wanted me to make the decision that was right for me, even if it meant that I had to come back several times to test drive as I narrowed down my final choices.

On the day I bought the car, Ethan seemed as excited as I was. He met me at the front door when I arrived and had my car waiting for me for one last test drive just to make sure it was what I wanted. He brought me water, made sure I was comfortable, and introduced me to his helpful colleagues, who also seemed to want to be my friends. I was so popular. Ethan helped me set up my bluetooth, linked my phone to my car, and showed me how all the buttons and knobs worked before sending me on my way.

For the next few weeks, Ethan kept in close contact.  He called several days later to see how I was doing. At least once a week, he e-mailed me helpful pointers, videos, and website links so I could get to know my vehicle. Ethan was only a call or email away when a question popped up. Last week, I received the email that I knew was coming: it was Ethan’s goodbye. I had owned my car for a month and was now ready to be on my own. Of course, Ethan reassured me he could still be contacted if I had any questions or wanted to refer other people to be his friends, but he would be initiating no more messages.   

The things that made my car-buying experience a positive one are similar to the factors that make a positive educational experience for our students. Teaching, after all, is a sales job. What we have to sell, however, is often a lot harder to sell than what Ethan was peddling, and our customers are a little less eager to buy in.  (It’s also--dare I say it?--more important because you’ll get a lot more mileage from a good education than you will from even the best-made automobile). After all, I walked onto the car lot wanting to purchase a car and fairly certain of what kind I wanted. Students, on the other hand, don’t always enter the classroom convinced that what you’re offering them is something they actually need. That’s why you’re going to have to make a convincing sales pitch, appealing to students’ pathos, ethos, and logos (that’s emotions, sense of moral duty, and logic for those of you who’ve slept since--or who slept through--tenth grade English). Hook their hearts, their morals, and their minds. Even if you’ve taught this same lesson six periods a day for the past 44 years, you have to make the kids think it’s the best, most interesting, and most worthwhile thing you’ve ever seen. I had a teacher once who told me she hated The Once and Future King, the book we were just beginning to read in English class. Guess who decided to side with his teacher and mentally check out of that unit before even giving it a chance. I’ve made it a point to never let the students know I don’t love whatever I have to teach on any given day, and, following suit, the vast majority of my students have attempted to share my enthusiasm. I am certain that the safety features of the new car I bought were not the most exciting topic Ethan could think of to discuss, but he made me think they were something to marvel over.

Good salespeople know the importance of establishing rapport with each customer. That’s why Ethan became my BFF for a month and why teachers need to work doubly hard to make connections with their students, especially with the unruly or recalcitrant ones who do all they can to make themselves difficult to like. Every book I’ve read on classroom management or about working with at-risk populations emphasizes the importance of the relationship piece above all else. Even a simple hello at the door as students enter your room can begin to build that relationship. Make a point to find out something each student is interested in and something each is proud of and have a quick conversation about those things from time to time. Give students your full attention during class time; let them know they are what is most important to you at that moment.

Part of establishing rapport with students involves celebrating successes with students. Just as Ethan made my purchase feel like a partnership and seemed excited for me when I found the car I wanted, teachers should let students know that learning is a team effort. It’s not us versus them. We want them to succeed--maybe more than they do--and we will stick with them as they struggle and cheer them on when they get it right.

One of the questions I asked Ethan during my car shopping was why I should buy the make of car he was selling instead of the one I have owned previously. He was able to rattle off a list of reasons--some practical and some emotional--why his brand was the best. Teachers hoping to sell their subjects to students need to be ready with a compelling “why” for every lesson. And I recommend sharing that “why” even if students don’t ask for it.

Like Ethan and other excellent salespeople, a teacher has to be patient. I came back three times to test drive cars before I made my decision. I asked stupid questions about the GPS, how the “sport mode” worked, the type of fuel I should use, and more. Never once did Ethan act as if answering any of my queries was a burden or a chore. He did not roll his eyes. He did not sigh audibly. He did not tell me, “I have already answered that question.” Ethan created a safe environment for me to be curious, to learn at my own pace, and to ask the things I wanted to know more about without fear of ridicule or judgment. Wouldn’t it be great if all classrooms were similarly conducive spaces for learning?

Ethan offered me ample support and assistance during the car-buying process so that I wouldn’t get stressed out or overwhelmed. He continued to offer support afterward, while I still needed it, and he tapered off the support as he became convinced that I could operate the car on my own. This gradual release model works beautifully with students. Teachers offer the most support when students need it the most and slowly introduce resources and other outside assistance to the students to help them learn to handle their questions and think for themselves. Teachers are always there to swoop in when students need emergency roadside assistance, but the goal should be for the students to learn to drive away on their own. Just as Ethan can’t ride around forever in my passenger seat and answer every question as it pops up, teachers don’t want to have to follow our students to college and continue to check their homework when they become adults. We need to be able to say reassuringly, “I’ve given you all you need to be successful. Now you’re on your own.”

In so many other ways teaching is not like a sales job. We don’t make commissions on what we sell; we sometimes don’t even know whether we actually made the sale at all.  Our rewards and motivations are different. But we can find satisfaction in knowing that what we are selling is one of the most precious things on earth. In ways no material possessions will ever be able to, education has the power to positively transform the lives of our customers, our students.

 

The One-Week WICOR Challenge

One of the best ways to take AVID schoolwide and promote top-quality learning for every student in every classroom is to pay attention to the strategies you’re using to engage your students. By taking my One-Week WICOR Challenge, you can become aware of how frequently and consistently you’re using AVID’s five components of instruction (writing, inquiry, collaboration, organization, and reading) with your students.

How do I take the One-Week WICOR Challenge?

I’m glad you asked. Simply make a chart, one for each prep you teach, with the days of the week and the five parts of WICOR on it (or you can use mine here). As you go through your week, take note of when and how you address each of the five areas.

For instance, if your students read an article, discuss it with a partner, and then write a summary of what they discussed, you’ve just used reading, collaboration, and writing. Write what you did on your chart.

This link will take you to a printable handout listing many aspects of WICOR, just in case you want some clarification of the types of strategies that fall under each category.

What do I do with this once I’m finished?

You don’t have to do anything with it. The AVID police aren’t going to storm your classroom to ask for verification of your WICOR activity. What I’d suggest, however, is that you use the chart as a self-diagnostic to guide you in planning for your class.

Good instruction addresses all areas of WICOR, but some teachers have a hard time including all of them in their lessons. If you notice that you’ve had two days in a row with no student collaboration, perhaps it’s time to work in an activity--big or small--that allows students to talk with a partner or trio. If you discover that students seldom write in your class, consider asking students to write a few sentences to summarize what they’re learning and hand it in as an exit card. When test time rolls around, if you’re not doing it already, think about helping students understand how to study for your course--an act that involves organization of time, materials, and content as well as inquiry.

If you discover that you’re using a balance of  WICOR strategies routinely in your class, pat yourself on the back and know that you’re helping campus efforts to take AVID schoolwide. Your students and your AVID Site Team will thank you!

Whose Team Are You On?

Inquiring Minds Want to Know: Whose Team Are You On?

When I first started teaching, it was me against the kids every day. We were on two separate teams. Sometimes, we drew battle lines over disciplinary issues: would I manage to get them to sit down, shut up, and do their work, or would they take over the classroom and derail learning completely? At other times, we were on opposing academic teams. I set traps, built walls for them to climb, threw obstacles in their way, and bombarded them with tricky questions and daunting challenges to see whether the students could master the content I was trying to teach them. Some of them managed to learn in spite of my efforts to frustrate and thwart them.

I thought I was doing the right thing, that it was the teacher’s job to present challenges for his students. I believed that making my class more rigorous--which I defined as being excruciatingly difficult and exhausting--was the hallmark of my excellence as an instructor. I reveled in my ability to find flaws in student work to justify bestowing a less-than-perfect grade. I told my students things like, “I don’t give 100s on essays because no piece of writing is ever perfect,” and I believed I was being motivational rather than kind of a jerk.

Nowadays, I’m embarrassed by the Me vs. Them mindset I promoted during my early years in the classroom, and I apologize to any former student reading this for the damage I may have unintentionally inflicted on your developing psyche.

In the world of education, we should be on the same team.

We all want the same things, right? Student success. Learning. Growth. Preparedness for the future, whatever that may entail. Those are lofty aspirations, and I think students deserve not to have to play on a team by themselves to reach them. Life certainly provides plenty of obstacles without teachers throwing more into the path. Why wouldn’t I want everyone to succeed? Why would I be delighted that only a few, if any, were able to rise to my high standards?

When I worked on abandoning the adversarial approach, I found that the result was a classroom where inquiry was at the center. I strove to cultivate a curiosity along with my students--to wonder, to ponder, to explore, to examine, to dissect, to question, and to try things out. I stopped being the guy with all the answers and started trying to be the one who guided students to ask questions instead.

My approach became a bit conspiratorial. There was a mission to be accomplished, and we were going to work together to figure out how to do it.  No longer was I the enemy. I was inviting my students to join me as we tried to escape the wiles of others:  John Donne,  William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, the guy who wrote the AP World History textbook, the creators of the AP test, the many ancestors who cobbled together the insanely tricky English language, artists who created works of art without telling us what they mean, and the State Board of Education.  This shift in attitude--from opponent to teammate-- changed the entire tone of my classroom, turning it from a hive of agitated bees to a learning community working together cooperatively to succeed. We developed a true growth mindset.

Often, we even learned for the sake of learning, rather than for a grade.  Here’s an example to clarify this shift:

ADVERSARIAL CRAIG:  We’re about to have a graded discussion over the novel we have finished. I am going to be grading each time you speak. I will rate the quality of each response, and write your score on my chart. You’ll earn points each time you speak. If it’s an insightful response accompanied by a specific quotation and page reference from this 416-page book, you will receive more points than if you offer an answer with no support. If you don’t speak at all, you’ll receive a zero for this major assignment. Any questions? No? Begin! (maniacal laughter like a cartoon villain)

REFORMING CRAIG:  Since we are going to be writing some interpretive essays later over this novel. I thought it would be a good idea for us to talk about our different interpretations of the text. I often find that I understand things better when I talk about them with other people. You came up with some questions about the novel yesterday in groups, and I want to use those questions as the basis for the discussion. You may find that the questions you prepared lead to other questions as you begin to explore the answers. I encourage you to go back into the text whenever possible because that’s the only place where we can get an idea of what the author was thinking, and unsupported opinions are like untested hypotheses in science. They need more investigation. You’re going to want to take notes in your Writer’s Notebook about what people say because you’ll probably find some ideas that will help you when it comes time to write the essay later. Make sure you listen more than you speak and that you make others comfortable sharing their ideas.    

I always try to provide a “why” for anything I’m asking students to do so that they’ll see a tangible benefit to participating in the activity. In the above case, the “why” justifies my not taking a grade on this. We are discussing to learn, and while we are learning, we may not be ready to be assessed. In fact, I think in this instance that assessment would only add pressure to the discussion and would cause students to focus on their own contributions rather than working as a class to wrestle with the ideas in the text.

My reforming view of what a classroom should look like involves the teacher in the role of a coach or mentor. Sometimes, I break from an activity to have a huddle to discuss strategy. We debrief often. We review past performance. And we set future goals.

I wish I could tell you that this was an easy shift to make. Unfortunately, many years of schooling and my natural pickiness and perfectionism (some would blame it on my being a Virgo) have made it hard to unlearn my hard-nosed teaching practices. I have had to be intentional about my team realignment, but noticing the change in my students’ dispositions has helped me in my struggle.

When I work with teachers on AVID’s WICOR strategies, I find that the I, inquiry, is a little different than the other four letters of the acronym. While we might “do” writing, collaboration, organization, and reading, inquiry is more of a philosophy than a strategy. We don’t “do” inquiry; it’s how we do everything.

Abandoning the me vs. them approach helped establish a culture of  inquiry in my classroom. The students and I are on the same team, and we are always questioning ourselves, the thoughts of others, the ideas, and the world around us to make sense of things.

Class should be a pep rally, and we should all look forward to a winning season where we can celebrate our many victories together.

That's the Ticket

Tickets come in many types. There are the ones you don’t want to get from a police officer, the ones you hope you can score for the sold-out concert, the ones you have to sell an organ to afford so you can see Hamilton on Broadway, and the ones you hope will be picked out of the bucket so you can win a nifty raffle prize.  The type of ticket that is perhaps most useful in your life as a teacher, however, is an exit ticket.    

Exit tickets are a great way to formatively assess your students. They’re also easy to use. All you have to do is provide a quick assignment or question for students to complete during the final minutes of class. Their responses are their tickets to leave the room when the bell rings, and you can stand at the door and collect them as students depart. Flipping through the exit tickets helps you know how your class and individual students are doing.

Here are a few examples of the types of things you might ask your students to do on an exit ticket:  

Explain a key concept from the lesson.

List the three branches of the US government, and write one sentence explaining the function of each.

Explain in at least three sentences the effects of alcohol and tobacco use by a mother on the development of a fetus.   

Define a term or concept.

            Define “manifest destiny” in your own words.

Write a one-sentence definition for each of these terms: round character, flat character, static character, dynamic character.

Provide examples to show understanding.

Give an example of when you might need to be able to calculate the area of a quadrilateral in your life outside the classroom.

Thinking about the types of measurement we discussed today, provide an example of something that is best measured in each of these:  millimeters, centimeters, meters, kilometers.       

Give an opinion.

How are you liking the book you are reading? What are you enjoying most and least about it?

Which is more useful: fractions or percentages?  Why?

Make a comparison or contrast.

List ways that plant and animal cells are similar and different. Provide at least three similarities and three differences.  

Which character in the novel are you most like? Discuss at least three similarities.

Fill in a graphic organizer.

Create a Venn diagram to show similarities and differences between mitosis and meiosis.

Use a T-chart to list pros and cons for electing our President using the Electoral College.

Apply the learning.

Escribe dos oraciones en español sobre su familia.

Write three sentences using the same verb as a gerund, a participle, and an infinitive.

How might you use what you learned about primary and secondary colors to design a color scheme for a workplace? Explain your choices.

Solve a problem or work an example.

Copy a compound or complex sentence from the novel you are reading. Underline the nouns once, underline the verbs twice, and circle the adjectives.

Solve this equation on your exit ticket:

2x + ½(x +10) = 15

Evaluate their work.

Look back at your notes on the essay you revised today. How useful were your partner’s suggestions during your writing conference? What changes will you make on the next draft based on what you discussed? What could make your next writing conference more effective?

What did you do to prepare for your test? How, specifically, did you study? After going over your test results, what changes will you make next time to help you be more successful?

Reflect on today’s Socratic Seminar. What did the class do well? What did you do well? What should change next time to make the seminar better for you and for the class?

On a scale from 1-10, how would you rate your success in this class? Why did you give yourself that rating?

Pick out a main idea.

What was the most important thing you learned today?

Sum up the main ideas of today’s lesson in 20 words or fewer.

Draw a picture.  

Sketch a diagram of a plant cell and label as many parts as you can.

Draw a picture that summarizes the chapter you read today in the book. You may label your picture to clarify if your drawing skills are lacking.

Summarize the lesson or the content.

Write a 25-word gist statement about the TED Talk we watched today.

Write three sentences to explain what you learned today to someone who was absent for today’s class.

Choose a word.

Select one word that best describes the Cold War, and explain why you selected that word.

Choose two adjectives that describe the character of Lord Capulet, and use evidence from the play to support each choice.

Write a question. (These are great to incorporate into a follow-up activity later.)

What is one question you have after today’s lesson? If you have no questions, come up with a higher-level question to stimulate further discussion about the topic.  

            Write two questions about this topic that you’d like to discuss in class tomorrow.

Write one question at each of Costa’s Levels of Thinking about today’s lesson.

Ask for a response. (Teacher responds to these and hands them back the next day.)

What is going well for you in this class? What’s not?

What help do you need from me to complete your understanding of this subject?

Set a goal.

What grade do you hope to receive next grading period? What do you need to do to reach that goal?

After reviewing the peer and teacher feedback on your essay/project, what is the most important thing you’d like to focus on for the next one? Why?

Give the teacher feedback.

Write at least three sentences to me about what I can do to make this class a better experience for you.

Glows and Grows:  What is one thing I’m doing well as your teacher and one thing I can improve on?

If you could change one thing about this class, what would it be, and why?

Exit tickets can provide all sorts of useful information for us as teachers to clue us in to what our students know, what they need, and how we can help them. Whether you use old-fashioned pen-and-paper exit tickets or newfangled technology to get your feedback, exit tickets keep students engaged during the final minutes of class and provide meaningful closure to your lesson.

Pausing the Parade

I recently spoke with an AVID elective teacher I know who told me of a common concern she hears from her students. They express frustration because they feel like many of their teachers move so quickly through the curriculum, give them a test, and then move on, leaving them behind, bewildered and confused.

Having taught a fast-paced course with a packed AP-preparatory schedule, I know the pressure their teachers feel about getting the students prepared for the end-of-the-year test in May. It’s a daunting task to teach college-level work to hundreds of students who catch on to the content at different speeds. I also understand the students’ frustration. No one enjoys being confused, and the feeling of being left behind while the parade marches on is a horrifying one.

I remember--to use a completely non-scholastic but seasonally appropriate example--a college trip to New Orleans with two friends around this time of year. Festivities were in full swing on Bourbon Street, and I was sidelined by a nasty stomach bug. Trying all evening to keep my Sprite down, I accompanied my friends for festive fun. At one point in the evening, when I was secretly hoping everyone would suddenly decide to call it a night, we heard a great commotion on the street outside. We ran (well, I kind of shuffled pitifully) outside to see a stream of parade floats passing by. Some of the beautiful parade float passengers called out to my friends, who naturally responded by leaping onto the parade float with the local revelers.I was in no condition for leaping, so I just stood there with my Sprite in my hand and watched in disbelief.  I will never forget the sick feeling of watching my friends ride off into the distance on a float, leaving me all alone and fairly incapacitated in the French Quarter.

I imagine the students in my friend’s class feel something similar when a test is over and the teacher presses on to the next unit of study.

The bright side to my New Orleans anecdote is that about five minutes later my friends reappeared-- festooned with beads--and accompanied me back to the hotel so I could get some sleep. I hope there’s a bright side to the students’ experience, too.

Whether you teach AP classes or on-level students, you undoubtedly have some students who “don’t get” what you’re trying to teach them as quickly as you hope. If you realize after grading a test or assignment that you’ve lost a majority of the students, you owe it to the class to pause the parade for some reteaching. Otherwise, you’re in for trouble down the road. I suggest building some “reteach or enrich” days into your calendar. If you discover that all the kids performed beautifully on the test, this gives you the opportunity to dive more deeply into the topic you’ve just studied or the one you’re about to begin. If you find that a portion of the class mastered the objectives, you can devise an activity to provide them some enrichment while you sit down with the stragglers and help get them back on track. And if the test was a widespread disaster, you can spend some time reteaching the class as a whole and offering them an opportunity to demonstrate their mastery again. Those of you who have a team of colleagues who teach other sections of your course simultaneously might consider shuffling kids around for the day, sending some of them to another room for enrichment activities while you focus on the students from both classes who require reteaching.

When you provide time in class for “going over” the tests the students took, make sure you plan an activity with the goal of improving students’ performance on future tests. Give the students ample time to look at what they’ve done, to analyze any patterns and problems, and to formulate a plan for future success. I suggest allowing the students to collaborate as they debrief their tests; often, a classmate can explain something more successfully than a teacher can. As unthreateningly as possible, encourage students to come to your tutorials to spend some time with you talking about the test, how they studied, and what they can do to improve. When you miss these opportunities, you can probably expect a repeat performance on the next assessment. It’s important that students develop a growth mindset regarding testing. We have to help them break the habit of getting down on themselves or giving up when they encounter a low grade and instead see it as an opportunity to rethink their methods of preparation.

Of course, it would be ideal if all students mastered what we were trying to teach. Having a bunch of failures on a test shouldn’t be a badge of honor proving that we are appropriately rigorous in our lofty expectations for our students.

One way to help this become a reality is to employ formative assessments effectively. Build in ways to check students’ understanding throughout the unit so you’ll have a clear picture of their levels of understanding and your need to reteach the class as a whole or reinforce the learning targets with specific students. Formative assessment also gives students an idea of their own understanding so they won’t be shocked by a low grade they didn’t see coming on test day. Formative assessments can take the form of exit tickets, quick in-class checks for understanding, hand-signal responses, or ungraded self-quizzes. I’ll write more about how to employ formative assessments soon.

As teachers, we often misidentify understanding when we do too much of the work and don’t ask our kids to do enough. We think that because “we” went over the material and the students nodded their heads, they understood. When we ask, “Does everybody understand?”, our students either say nothing or reply in unison agreement. We take that as a sign of success, when in reality we probably didn’t make sure that everyone cast an honest vote.

Next time you plan for instruction, think about ways to ensure that your students stay caught up or have options for how they can catch up if they’re left behind. Don’t hop on the parade float and ride into the distance leaving them feeling alone, vulnerable, and frightened they’ll never be able to join the parade.

Rethinking Planning: Asking the Right Questions

I used to think that planning for instruction meant sitting the team down with a blank calendar and a three-ring binder full of lessons from past years and fitting the old activities onto the new calendar, perhaps replacing some activities we’d grown tired of with new ones. After that, we’d delegate duties (who will write the test? photocopy the handouts? count the supplies? reserve computer labs?) and set a meeting date to plan for the next unit. Perhaps we’d have casual conversations from time to time about an upcoming lesson--sometimes one that was coming up next period!--but overall we didn’t have much curricular team talk after the planning meeting.   

We certainly never discussed why we were teaching what we were teaching and how our students would show understanding of unit objectives. In fact, our learning objectives seldom ventured out of the lowest levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, and there wasn’t an overarching “so what?” to our units.  In English, we taught novels which were ends in themselves (with accompanying character lists, study guides, author background lectures, teacher-provided term lists, and Scantron tests).  The “objective” was to study Of Mice and Men, not to use the novel to teach some concept or skill that had any real-world relevance beyond the walls of the ninth grade English classroom. In the adult world, no one really cares if you can recall the names of the characters in the novel unless you’re on a competitive trivia team.  

I’m not trying to trivialize what we were doing. We had the best of intentions, and our students certainly left our classrooms with more knowledge than they had when they entered. But the world of education has changed since the days when I first started teaching (when Beanie Babies were a new fad, the Spin Doctors were a big thing, and America had not yet become infatuated with Ross, Rachel, Monica, Chandler, Joey, and Phoebe). What I believe about instruction today is that students need to learn how to think, how to connect their learning to the world, and how to perform the kinds of skills that will allow them to adapt to a world that is changing rapidly. The content I teach and the texts my students read are merely vehicles to help students uncover what curriculum gurus Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe call “Enduring Understandings.” My lessons, then, should not be a series of isolated activities but a carefully constructed sequence of experiences leading to a final student product that provides evidence of student understanding.         

With that end in mind, I’ve come up with a list of questions that I would use to plan lessons individually or with a team. The questions work equally well whether I’m a teacher following a district curriculum or crafting one of my own.

Why am I teaching this lesson? What are the goals of this lesson?  

This question presupposes there’s already a unit plan in place that is focused on Essential Questions and Enduring Understandings that are relevant, meaningful, and have a degree of complexity. The unit itself will have Learning Targets that are measured by some kind of CAP (Culminating Assessment Product) that requires students to transfer their learning to a new, preferably real-world context.  Once all of that is in place, it’s important for the teacher to examine each specific lesson to see how it contributes to the overarching goals of the unit. If the teacher doesn’t know the overall purpose of the lesson, the lessons will have less meaning and direction for the students and might feel like (or actually be) a series of isolated activities with no end in mind.

How am I going to make the purpose clear to the students?

No matter how well the teacher knows what’s going on, the lesson lacks relevance if the students are left in the dark about how it fits into the bigger scheme of things. Don’t be afraid to let your students know the why behind the lesson. What skills and knowledge are they gathering, and why will this knowledge be useful down the road?

What are the kids going to be doing?

The teacher has probably mastered the content and skills already. The most important thing is to let the students wrestle with the skills and concepts in a safe environment. The kids should be doing most of the thinking and most of the work. This, however, doesn’t happen by accident. The well-prepared teacher preplans questions, collaborative learning opportunities, and deliberate student-focused experiences to assist students in uncovering the Enduring Understandings of the unit. If the teacher has to tell the students what the EUs are and what they should be thinking about them, that pretty much defeats the purpose. If the answer to the question, “What are the kids going to be doing?” is, “Listening and copying down what I say or what is on the PowerPoint,” I’d wager that the teacher is going to be disappointed at the students’ performance of the CAP at the end of the unit.   

How am I going to pull this off smoothly?

Like planning a party, a well-prepared teacher has thought through every aspect of the class period before the bell rings. How will I manage materials effectively? How will I move from one activity to the next? What problems can I foresee, and can I prevent them? What will students do when/if they finish before others? What will I do for students who will need further challenge or enrichment? How can I provide additional scaffolding for struggling students? What types of  movement and state changes can I incorporate to keep my students alert and engaged? Where can I add some AVID WICOR strategies? What examples and models do I need to provide to help students understand expectations? Where are places in the lesson cycle where I need to pause for some reflection or discussion on how the learning is going and how it can improve? Questions like these embody the real art of instruction, and they are well worth the time teachers invest in examining them during planning.

How will I know whether students get it?

The CAP should not be the first moment when you know whether a student knows what’s going on. And students shouldn’t be surprised to discover at the end of the unit that they didn’t understand what they were supposed to have learned. Informal assessments along the way can help you and the students know what they understand and what they need help with. These can be as simple as a thumbs up/thumbs down signal, an exit card, or a quickwrite. Effective formative assessment is a high-impact strategy that can help the teacher know where the instruction needs to go next. Also, make sure your assessments are congruent with your unit goals. There’s no need to give a picky plot-recall test on A Tale of Two Cities if you’re using the novel with the end goal of examining archetypes. It confuses the students because it muddies (or ignores completely) the stated learning targets.

As you’re planning and preparing for lessons with your team or individually, try out these questions and see what difference they make. Our district has instructional coaches in many content areas. Don’t hesitate to call on us for assistance with planning.  It’s part of our job, and we enjoy helping you and your students see results.

If you want to read more about unit planning, I recommend getting your hands on a copy of The Understanding by Design Guide to Creating High-Quality Units by Wiggins and McTighe. It’ll help you understand the “why” behind the district’s curriculum design process. There are copies floating around your campus.  

I wish you the best as you maximize your planning to foster the most productive student learning possible.