Why?

“People don't buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe.”  Simon Sinek, Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action

My colleague Melanie Hoeksema quoted Simon Sinek this morning while we were meeting to plan our next learning session with principals. Wow. It really struck me. I’m not sure we spend enough time processing the “why” – we tend to just jump into the “what.” And then we wonder why there is pushback.

This followed on the heels of an impromptu conversation about an hour earlier among four of us as to some lingering pockets of resistance to the implementation of the Instructional Framework. Without the “why,” it’s probably easy to just malign the name “Marzano,” or be unable to detach the Instructional Framework from the evaluation process.

So, why the Instructional Framework? Why a three-year plan of implementation? Why spend time unpacking content standards to write learning goals, learning targets, and learning progression scales? Why spend time to intentionally plan and collaborate, focusing on student achievement? The short answer we’ve spouted: researched best practices. And it’s true, but the short answer doesn’t allow us to really process the “why.”

So, let’s move to the long answer. We know that students who have an effective teacher (i.e., high pedagogical competence) will significantly out-achieve students who have a less effective teacher (Nye, Konstantopoulos, & Hedges, 2004). This proves what we intuitively know – effective teachers make a meaningful difference in student learning. Bob Marzano and others have conducted decades of research  to identify what specific characteristics the most effective teachers possess. But even he reminds us that

            research will never be able to identify instructional strategies that

            work with every student in every class. The best research can do is

            tell us which strategies have a good chance (i.e., high probability)

            of working well with students. Individual classroom teachers must

            determine which strategies to employ with the right students at the

            right time. In effect, a good part of effective teaching is an art – hence

            the title, The Art and Science of Teaching.

(Marzano, 2007, p. 5). What the Instructional Framework offers is a sequence of effective classroom pedagogy, and we adopted it as an instructional model with the belief that all teachers can increase their expertise from year to year, which produces gains in student learning from year to year with a powerful cumulative effect (Marzano, 2013).

The first 41 elements of the Instructional Framework are encapsulated with Domain 1 – Classroom Strategies and Behaviors. Within Domain 1 are nine of the ten design questions that comprise the Instructional Framework. Those 41 elements are not an exhaustive list, but do represent the strategies that research shows have the highest effect size (Marzano, 2007). Domain 1 was our focus in year one, 2013-14.

The remaining 19 elements are distributed among Domains 2 (Planning and Preparing), 3 (Reflecting on Teaching), and 4 (Collegiality and Professionalism). Our focus now in year two is integrating Domain 1 with Domains 2 and 4; Domain 2 is where the tenth design question, “what will I do to develop effective lessons organized into a cohesive unit?” lives. Indeed, we have a professional learning goal for 2014-15: To increase our instructional expertise through collaborative, intentional planning to enhance student learning. It is guiding us in all of our learning and work this year.

At the risk of being repetitive, it bears remembering:

            [E]ffective teaching is part art and part science. The science part

            of effective teaching is founded on decades of research that has

            provided guidance for the general categories of behaviors that

            constitute effective teaching and for the specific techniques that

            can be employed within those general categories. The art part of

            teaching is founded on the dual realizations that research cannot

            provide answers for every student in every situation and that the

            same behaviors can be employed in a different order and fashion

            by two different teachers with equally beneficial results.

(Marzano, 2007, p. 191). The Instructional Framework does not require teachers to teach exactly the same way, just like no two students learn in quite the same way. But it does provide a set of proven strategies that teachers can draw upon to help all students learn at high levels.

In this district, we believe in our students, and we believe in our teachers. We believe that full implementation of the Instructional Framework will have a powerful cumulative effect for student learning. And, we believe in our vision: “All learners achieving individual potential.”

J.  Walton

P.S. If you want to hear more from Simon Sinek, check out his TEDTalk at http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action

What A Difference A Delay Makes

Today marks the first district-wide delayed start of the school year. It is part of eighteen hours of professional learning for teachers built into the instructional schedule, and complements twelve hours that were conducted the week before students returned. When I was a classroom teacher, many of my students would ask what we did during the delayed start times. Many of our other stakeholders (parents, community members, board members, etc.) may wonder the same. We owe it to everyone to be as transparent as possible.

All of our professional learning time this year is guided by our district professional learning goal: To increase our instructional expertise through collaborative, intentional planning to enhance student learning. Similar to other professions that demand continued professional education, we recognize that teachers are learners too, and that ongoing professional learning for teachers must be collaborative, intentional, and focused on the ultimate objective of high levels of learning for all students.

Here are just two examples of how the two-hour delay this morning was utilized:

School A focused on two topics – the building blocks of a “guaranteed and viable curriculum,” and SMART goals. In our district, when we use the phrase “guaranteed and viable curriculum” we mean that students have access to the same essential learning no matter who the teacher may be and that it can be taught in the allotted time, as well as that a collaborative team of teachers works to ensure that every student acquires the knowledge and skills the team has agreed are most essential (DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2010). Within that context, collaborative teams looked at content standards to be taught, the “big” curricular ideas, essential questions, assessments, resources, and time frame. In conjunction with that comes the concept of SMART goals – strategic, measurable, attainable, results-oriented, and time-bound. Both topics relate back to the overarching school improvement goals the school has set forth in its school improvement plan.

School B also focused its efforts on school improvement. Specifically, each department in the school contributed goals and objectives to the school improvement plan in June, and this morning was a time to examine how to continue to move forward to meet them. Each department has a proficiency measure and teachers are learning new, collaborative methods in which to use available data to analyze proficiency levels. The action plan for each department is similar: 1) identify the bottom 30% of students in each grade level with specific assessment and data; 2) develop strategies to increase proficiency levels for all students with a focus on those students identified in the bottom 30%; 3) regularly use formative assessments to measure ongoing progress; and 4) use summative assessments to determine whether the measurable objective was met.

The professional learning in both of these schools this morning was tied directly to our district professional learning goal in order to enhance student learning. And these two schools are not exceptions, but rather, the “rule” for the use of this precious collaborative time. Two of our high schools are also experimenting with multiple delayed starts throughout the year in addition to those that are district-wide. With this repurposing of time, instructional staff are gaining approximately sixteen hours of additional collaborative time to intentionally focus on the quality of teaching and learning so that all students achieve at high levels.

Similar to the idea that we would not want to be treated by a doctor or advised by a lawyer who was not immersed in current best practices, we do not want our students in classrooms that are staffed by teachers who are not lifelong learners. By intentionally supporting teachers in collaborative, professional learning such as this morning’s two hour block, we are enhancing student learning for all of our kids and fully living our vision of "all learners achieving individual potential."