TAPPING STUDENT EFFORT...INCREASING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Teachers don’t cause student achievement...students cause student achievement. Do you agree? If so, then the teachers’ effort should be spent generating student effort. This is where the efforts of trainers and coaches are focused. Here are five strategies to get you started exploring effort with your students and generating your own ideas:

#1 Have students identify and journal times in their lives when they have been successful.
Have them label each success as being mostly due to ability, effort, degree of difficulty (the task was easy) or luck. Ask them to generate examples for each reason. Have examples from your personal experience to share that identify definitions for the reasons.
My examples:
Ability—I sing in a choir with minimal investment in practice or training
Effort- I was a starting soccer goalie in high school after practicing and sitting the bench for three years.
Degree of difficulty—I got an A in my first college math class (Fundamentals of Mathematics---I had taken calculus in high school).
Luck--- won $60 on the first trip to horse racing…lost $120 on the second

#2 Define the elements of effort for students.

Time—effort takes a commitment of one’s time
Persistence—effort requires continuous action
Practice-guided and independent
Repetition of Success—you can’t quit after the first success

Are the elements present in the effort examples that students identified in #1? Ask student in writing to apply the elements of effort to a current goal.


#3 Teach students the following formula:

Effort x Ability focused on a manageable task = Success

The key is recognizing that effort is a multiplier. It doesn’t add a little to the success. Effort causes the ability to increase. Thus over time, the same effort is rewarded with increased success. The next activity will illustrate.

#4 Take students to a weight training room and have each benchmark their current lifting ability. Have a trainer lay out an 8 week workout plan. If students complete the plan they will concretely see the payoff of effort. A similar trip to the reading lab could allow students to benchmark their current reading fluency. The reading “trainer” can provide an 8 week plan and students can see another example of effort/payoff as their fluency increases.

#5 Differentiating assignments is critical for ALL students to be learning the rewards of effort. Teachers like trainers and coaches help identify a manageable task…challenging enough to require effort and manageable enough so that repeated effort produces a noticeable increase in ability (a step toward success). Look at the band for a great example…Many differing ability levels are present. While creating music together, individuals are practicing at various levels of complexity and difficulty so that ALL can continue to improve. When working on a new topic with your students, consider offering three homework options:
A-for those students who believe that with more practice they will get this
B-for students who are convinced they’ve already mastered the concept (a stretch assignment)
C -for those who are “lost” and need more review and practice with lead up skills or knowledge
For each student, the assignment should require effort and be manageable.


For more information see Tapping Student Effort…Increasing Student Achievement by Steve Barkley.

WHAT SKILLS DO EMPLOYEES NEED?

A recent advertisement in Training Magazine connected with an observation I made while facilitating a two day administrators conference for an urban school district. The ad was titled “When Technical Skills Aren’t Enough:6 Critical Skills Your Employees Need Today.”
ESI International states, “Current business realities such as outsourcing, mergers, and the need to align technology with business goals are placing additional demands on today’s technology workers—and on the training departments responsible for developing their skills.” ESI suggest six skill sets are critical:
1. Business Acumen
2. Communication and Interpersonal Skills
3. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
4. Coaching and Mentoring
5. Managing Change
6. Financial Acumen

In other words, technical skills were insufficient for success. If I replaced the word business and finance in ECI’s list with the words curriculum and assessment, the list of skills will fit for educators as well.

On the second day of the administrators’ conference I was facilitating table group conversations (5-8 administrators) with about 100 in attendance. I had asked that participants individually to answer the following question and then share responses.

“What three changes in teacher behavior would have the greatest positive impact on student achievement?”

As I walked around and watched individuals record their thoughts, I noticed that many had written "raised expectations for students". I interrupted the group and commented that raised expectations wasn’t a behavior… more an attitude or belief. If teachers had higher expectations, how would they behave?

The list they generated contained statements like:

-Build relationships with students
-Know students better
-Encourage and Motivate Learners
-Make Learning Relevant

I then asked the group how much professional development and staff meeting time had recently been dedicated to these behaviors.

Is there a gap between skills teachers need and the focus of professional development? Do principals’ observations of teachers’ needs match district level staff development activities? Are principals dedicating faculty meeting time to the issues identified in observations? Are there “soft skills” that are being overlooked in favor of “technical skills” for teachers?

PLS is currently assisting a school district in designing and implementing an instructional coaching program. Our first set of meetings and trainings are bringing coaches and administrators together to reach consensus around what is NOW observable in teaching and learning and what is the desired outcome or change in teaching and learning that they want their coaching to produce. This agreement is critical to focusing the coaches’ work.

Are teacher communication and relationship skills receiving sufficient focus in your professional development program?

TEACHER COLLABORATION

I recently presented to school administrators at the Millsaps College Principal’s Academy(MS) and The College of William and Mary’s School Leadership Institute (VA). At both sessions, we examined the following belief statement.

Increased teacher collaboration produces increased student achievement.

As principals, how does that belief fit into your approach to school leadership?

As a teacher, how does it fit into your work with your faculty?

My personal experiences as a teacher and school consultant suggest that when teachers collaborate a opportunity can form for teachers to have a three year commitment to students…

· getting to know students before they are assigned to your classroom for instruction (collaboration with the previous year’s teacher in planning for the start of your year)
· collaborating with any teacher who is instructing a student whom you are instructing
· following up with students and their teachers the year after you have instructed them. You can help teachers prepare instruction for the students you know. It is also the ideal way to identify what your students really learned in the year they spent with you.

I asked the administrators in MS and VA to explore the following questions: (What would your response be?)

· Describe the current level of “teaming” among your teachers.
· What would enhanced teaming look like ? What would it accomplish?
· What role do you play in building collaboration and teamwork?

Here are some ideas for your role:

As a principal:
What activities could be added to faculty meetings to build team thinking and collaboration into teachers’ experiences?
Consider having teachers in small groups individually request ideas for a current challenge they are facing. Start the next meeting in the same groups with teachers reporting in on what they did and the results.

As a mentor:
How are you introducing the new teachers to teaming and collaboration?
When the beginning teachers identify areas they wish to improve or explore, match them with other teachers. Consider collecting from experienced staff the list of expertise areas they’d be willing to share.

As a teacher:
How can you invite collaboration?
As the school year begins, request input from teachers who are now working with your students from last year. Ask for their early observations of where students are on track or missing needed skills. If the teacher has given an assessment of skills, compare it to your assessments from the end of last year. Any surprises? If you identify some “lost” learning, ask other teachers about ways to instruct the concept differently this year.

Post your ideas for increasing teacher collaboration to increase student achievement.

QUALITY AND COACHING

I recently had the opportunity to present for the Florida Sterling Council’s 15th Annual Sterling Conference: Maximize Your Return, in Orlando. The Florida Sterling Council, which is located in the Executive Office of the Governor, is a not-for-profit organization that promotes and recognizes the use of a proven management system to drive and sustain best-in-class results.

My session, Quality Teaching in a Culture of Coaching, was attended by participants from education, business, government, and health care industries.

I was amazed at the similarities of issues across the sectors as we explored quality and coaching:

• Everyone saw the connections between the Glasser quality statement and the need for staff to find appreciation, usefulness, hard work, and to feel good at work if we expect the clients they serve to find the same. Glasser said “While quality is difficult to define precisely, it almost always includes caring for each other, is always useful, has always involved hard work on someone’s part and when we are involved with it as either a provider or a receiver, it always feels so good. Because it feels so good, I believe all of us carry in our heads a clear idea of what quality is for ourselves.”1

• Everyone saw the need to WOW! staff from time to time if we wanted staff to WOW! our customers and clients. One powerful example shared by a participant was a surprise Hat Day at work. One staff member battling cancer with chemo treatments had lost her hair and wore a hat. So on Hat Day, everyone on staff surprised her by showing up wearing a hat. While the gesture wowed the ailing staff member, it also united the staff as a team and communicated a “caring culture” for each other. The participant shared that the ripple effects of the day were present for weeks!

• Everyone saw the need for more coaching to create feedback for staff members. Supervisors in all sectors lacked the time to provide sufficient feedback to their staff, and therefore, finding ways for peer coaching - staff coaching staff - was critical. Designing work groups, teams or professional learning communities is a necessity.

In summary, the interaction with this varied group of participants, who had a common focus on quality, reinforced that educator’s efforts to model quality processes in how they work, and to teach quality processes to their students, will have great payoffs for students and for the future corporate and public organizations where our students will work.


1 “Quality, Trust, and Redefining Education” William Glasser, M.D., Education Week, May 13, 1992