Rubric and Grading Issues

A discussion that may help.

Hi Tom,

Here in the art department we are in the midst of a lovely process of attempting to revamp how we teach Color & Design. We are proudly marching forward in lockstep on new projects in which we are all doing more or less the same thing at the same time. Because this is CHS, I do need to mention a caveat out here - namely, that our part timer is not currently part of this since shared planning time is not possible. We do plan to bring her into the loving embrace of this process within a semester or two.

Why am I telling you this? Because I'm insecure and need constant reassurance, of course. No, that's really only part of the reason. As the process unfolds we are having to reach consensus on all sorts of issues, which is working out about as well as this whole peaceful transition in yonder Egypt.

The issue of the moment is trying to develop common rubrics. During yesterday's work time (which I sadly missed due to a meeting down in Manchester) the others arrived at a five point rubric. Like lots of other folks in the building (I suspect), they were unaware of the conversion norms that we have theoretically adopted as a school.

I love to crush the naive optimism of newer teachers as much as the next guy but before I do so in this case, I just want to make sure I'm clear on the parameters. Here are the specific issues:

This really is a sad state. Much of the good thinking and good change in education is ruined by the adherence to past ideas. An adherence that does not help students and as you indicate does not help new teachers.

1. Is it true that all 1-5 rubric scales should be converted according to the same conversion numbers throughout the school? I'm pretty sure about this but just wanted to confirm...

This was agreed upon last year. As you may recall some teachers were making the strict mathematical conversion of 4=80, 3=60, etc. and some were making other conversions. The idea of converting what is supposed to be a system that is helpful to and encourages learning is insane and useless but I guess necessary in high school. (You will have to add the commas :)

2. I just looked for that conversion on the assessment page but in my haste I did not see it. Can you send me the actual conversion numbers?

It is not on there because I am embarrassed to have it in such a public space. Here is what the administration agreed upon. I agree that it is imperative that students know what each grade means but I struggle with these conversions. But as a good soldier I use them. 5=100, 4=92, 3=80, 2=65, 1=50.

3. Does the conversion include halve-sies (e.g. 4.5)?

Technically it doesn't but I feel that half scores make the system easier to use for some teachers. It does not help the issue of being clear to students exactly what each grade means but it does help teachers with some flexibility.

4. If one has a rubric with let's say 4 criteria (Composition, Craftsmanship, Problem Solving, Use of Color...) is there a policy for how one deals with the differing scores for each criteria. In other words if a kid got a 4 on three of the criteria and a 1 on the fourth criterion, is there a normative practice of averaging, or perhaps eliminating the high and low, or is it a matter of personal autonomy for us to do as we see fit?

I believe in professional discretion in this area. I use many rubrics with 4 or 5 criteria and it is my job to determine the final score. Marzano and O'Connor codify this thinking in what they call a logic rule. For example: Almost all scores at 4 and no 2s or 1s. In my teaching I set this up before I grade an assignment and it seems to work fairly well. Clearly there is an important line between subjectivity and objectivity but I try to think of like minded people looking at the same evidence. I try to think about what Lyn Vinskus would think of the project, paper or assignment. Would she have major difficulties with the grade that I gave or would she say, "I might disagree slightly but I agree with your reasoning." I go for the later.

5. We are trying to incorporate an element of the reach goals into the rubric - probably under a separate section a la the CRTC (at least for the 'relate, excel, aspire' sections). Do we have a standard conversion as a school? Must we use the conversion of the CRTC or are we to make it up as we go?

There is no standard conversion so I would advise you to be leaders in this regard. I have been impressed by the Crimson Code statements but increasingly frustrated by students who do not live up to them. As I have tried to work with these goals, that are much more realistic and less ethereal than the sacred seven, I have been routinely disappointed. Students are not respectful, not on time, not helpful to other students. We are on the right track but we cannot do it individually we need to do it as a school.

6. 4 equals 92, as I recall. This seems low to me since I rarely go above a 4 (so to me a 96ish seems about right). To another member of my department, 4 seems high since, she argues, the kid is doing a little more than the minimum expected which would be a passing grade of 70. She thinks the 4 should be an 80. I know you hate this part because there is no good answer. I suppose that in a way it is easy since we have a policy. But my guess is that as that policy becomes better known, more people will be vocal in disliking it. Any thoughts on how to navigate these treacherous waters?

Frankly, the conversion to percent grades totally ruins the effect of assigning rubric scores. As you well know the idea of rubric scores is to divest percentage grading from education. The point is to tell students where they are in relation to a goal and then give them chances to attain that goal. Converting to percentages is much more useful when it comes to sorting students. Rubric scores are meant to be criterion referenced whereas percentage scores are most often norm referenced. The two systems do not go together and do not work well together at all.

My advice is to use the policy and then use .5 scores to help with individual score discrepancies.

I originally was a big supporter of rubric style grading. But given my experience over the last few years I would suggest the following grading change for high schools. Eliminate percentage grading. Adopt letter grading that has A, A-, B+, B, B-, C+, C, C-, D+, D, D-, and F. These are known to parents and would not create conversion controversy. What I would do for a school is very clearly define what each of the 12 levels meant. What exactly does a C+ mean? And ideally I would use the foundation that Marzano and Reeves have discussed. They advocate systems where students know that a given score means the same thing in every class.

I'll come find you soon and we can talk more about this.

Tom

Charter Thoughts

The idea of starting a charter school is exciting. I have been in discussions lately about starting one in Concord and I wanted to brainstorm some ideas with all of you.

• Very hard math--but make this math relate to real world endeavors. Focus on probabilty and statistics. Because probability and statistics are what people need in the real world.
• 7-10
• No classrooms--instead a workspace with places for collaboration and places for quiet work.
• 60 % gifted, 40% struggling--These are not hard and fast but I want enough in each group that cliques will not form.
• Students who understand that working together is not giving someone else your hard work. It is learning to work together in the same way that you will work together for the rest of your life.
• Develop leaders.
• Develop a love of learning and a connection with students.
• Morning meeting of adults to discuss data related to student needs. Target students who are in difficulty that very day.
• Director will visit with all students at least one time per week.
• Director will observe each student for 10 minutes on a regular and rotating basis.
• Everyone involved in the school will work on having and creating a growth mindset even in the face of daily setbacks.
• Adults will support each other in weekly 1/2 hour de-breifing sessions. These are not sessions to complain--they are sessions to vent a bit and then work on solutions.
• The school will be an incubator for ideas that everyone has had but has had no place to try.
• There will be work samples throughout the building. The space will look like a museum.
• Students AND adults will clean their workspaces at the end of the day.
• The school will have a leadership council that will make major decisions about learning. This will be similar to the council at Souhegan high school. Teachers and students will be part of the council.
• Students and teachers will understand and come to learn that failure is an essential part of learning. They will learn how to accept failure, make course corrections and do better the next time.
• The school will likely be small enough that we will be able to regularly meet as an entire group. This would be like a corporate meeting. The director would speak about timely issues and a student would speak as well.
• Summative assessments would be primarily student led conferences.
• Appropriate and business use of technology would be encouraged. Texting, picture messaging, video, video editing by students.
• There would be an online student paper that would be published weekly.
• Writing, writing, writing, writing. Students will write 1000 words per day. It doesn't matter what but they will be writing every day. If they are having a meltdown and can't do anything then they will write about that. They will write about academics, they will write about their lives, they will write about whatever they need to write about to get to 1000 words per day at least.
• Tele-presence room. 1 experience per week with someone from the outside world. A paleontologist from Montana one week,
• Teachers students and director will eat together for lunch. (Think Phillps Andover where they all eat in the same space. Sometimes teachers eat with kids sometimes not, but they all eat in the same space.
• Snack time and current events at would happen at a midpoint in the morning. This would be social, with no agenda and would be attended by all. Parents would supply snacks or student groups would make them. There would be announcements by students an other updates.
• T-shirts, sweatshirts, polo shirts, bumper stickers, these things might seem silly but they matter.
• Students would come up with the name for the school, the design logo, and so forth.
• There would be an app for the school.

Having visitors would be essential to this school. In addition to local professionals I will draw upon successful friends to provide a constant lecture series that goes throughout the year.

• Ted Lord--anesthesiologist
• Ron Sandler--environmental ethicist
• Chris Elliott--Owner Ohio Soil Recycling--a bioremediation firm
• Justin Wells--OSR
• Jim Gooch--Trust for Public Lands
• Tucker Richmond--hedge fund manager
• Scott Evans--CIO TIAA-CREFF
• Val Scheutz--veterinary assisstant
• Liz Hogheem--architect
• John McLeod--architecht
• Seth Webb--director of recreation for Killington VT
• Becky Jones--nurse
• John Crumrine--conservationist and dad
• Chris Irwin--Engineer at Honda
• Ryan Macaulay--Owner Epic Sports

Inspired by Gawande

Saving Money in Education by Learning from Health Care[1]

As professional educators we have much to learn from our wealthier more established older professional siblings medicine and business. While business has taught us to more effectively use data in education, medicine has taught us more and is closer match as it shares a similar mission. Like medicine we seek to analyze individuals and plot the best course for them. And like medicine we do not accept the idea that some people just cannot make it. We try hard for all students.

Recently Atul Gawande published a piece in the New Yorker where he begins by talking about Jeffery Brenner. This is a quote from the Gawande's article about the first patient Brenner worked with.

The first person they found for him was a man in his mid-forties whom I’ll call Frank Hendricks. Hendricks had severe congestive heart failure, chronic asthma, uncontrolled diabetes, hypothyroidism, gout, and a history of smoking and alcohol abuse. He weighed five hundred and sixty pounds. In the previous three years, he had spent as much time in hospitals as out. When Brenner met him, he was in intensive care with a tracheotomy and a feeding tube, having developed septic shock from a gall bladder infection.

The traditional model, the one in effect now, for working with a patient like this is for them to occasionally have a 20-30 minute meeting with their doctor and then, when things go haywire they go to the ER. This had been the model for Hendriks and in recent years he had been spending more than half of every year in the hospital. He had no home, he couldn’t work and when he fell down he was so heavy that he had to call 911 to help him get up.

Brenner did some fairly simple things to help Hendricks. He began spending time with him and talking with him about his life. He learned about his interests and what his life had been like in healthier days. Brenner began to work with a small team that included a nurse practitioner and a health coach[2]. They met frequently to discuss Hendricks’s health. The nurse checked in with him at his home on a regular basis and if he missed an appointment someone came to talk with him immediately.

The success has been remarkable. Hendricks has lost weight, has stopped smoking, drinking and doing drugs and has lost more than 100 pounds. Active in his church before his bad health he has returned to that community. A line cook before he now makes healthy meals for himself. His medical problems remain but they are well managed and because of this if he has to go to the hospital he stays for a few days not a few months. The doctors do not have to rebuild him every time he comes in at the point of major crisis.

Of course this kind of care is not easy and it could not be done for everyone. That is the exact point. Not everyone needs this kind of care. Brenner has looked at medicine like a police chief looks at a neighborhood. Where are the areas that need the most attention? Where does the most crime occur? Brenner has looked at what he calls hot spots of care and has identified those patients. Now Brenner and his team have hundreds of these “worst of the worst” (his words) cases. They truly work as a team on their group of patients. Every day they begin with a meeting and they look at who has missed an appointment or who has a concerning medical test. Then they take action right away. Some patients are doing fine and need nothing, others need a visit from a health coach, others need to come in and see a doctor right away. Each patient receives appropriate and timely care when they need it.

Have I hit you over the head with it too obviously? Clearly this all applies to the Concord School District. I am not going to say that what we have done in attempting to educate all children is wrong. Far from it—examples of wonderful caring educators can be found throughout the district. What we have learned in recent years is that it is not the people, it is the system. I am sure that before Dr. Brenner, there were many wonderful people who worked with Mr. Hendricks to care for him and at points keep him alive. But they were working in a system that was built for most people. Most people only need a 20 minute office visit every once in a while. Just as most students do just fine in the model that has been the basic default educational model for decades.

What can we learn from the medical model that can help students learn?

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[1] Inspired by Atul Gawande. All of the ideas are his. I just summarized them and morphed the process for Concord.

[2] Health coaches are an interesting part of Brenners approach. They are not necessarily connected with medicine. Often times they have not gone to college. One mentioned in Gawande’s article worked at Dunkin Donuts. Her experience in customer service is what made her a successful health coach. She was interested in helping people and that is all that was needed.

State Testing in the Land of NCLB

I don't like the fact that state tests have risen to such prominence in our country. I don't think that NCLB testing is producing the problem solvers and critical thinkers that our country needs.

We have to do NECAP testing in NH though so I suggest the following testing approach.

• Two testing days on consecutive days.
• Students taking the test have no other classes on those days. These days would be similar to exam days. The NECAP test is now more important to the school than mid-year exams so that should give us the latitude to do this.
• Testing begins at 9:30. Brain research tells us that this is a better time for 16 year old students than 7:45. Students are encouraged to sleep in and rest for testing. They are not to come early to school and they are not to go to their period 1 class.
• No homework can be assigned to these students during the two day testing window. They should not be doing other school work during this time. Again it is a special time akin to exam week.
• Administrators should clearly explain to all teachers why it is so important to make some changes to the NECAP testing conditions.
  
• Students should be told why the testing conditions have changed. The NECAP exams have become incredibly important and the testing days are going to reflect that. They are being given the days to focus exclusively on NECAP testing. They should use the time to rest and prepare mentally for the tests.

Some students will abuse the different structure of the two day testing period. Teachers will have arguments about loss of class time and class work. But we need to make sure that the school community not only understands the importance of these tests but makes some changes to reflect that importance.

Brain Rules by John Medina

Summary of Brain Rules by John Medina

Compiled by Tom Crumrine

Brain Rules compiles 12 research based facts that we know about the brain. Medina summarizes what we know for sure about how the brain works and puts it into a very accessible format.

For a very good interactive website that goes into much more detail go to:

This website takes into effect all of the brain rules and provides a great way to learn all of the brain rules with great visuals, audio and graphs. There is also a 55 minute podcast available through iTunes. Search for Brain Rules and it will come up as episode 37 of the Brain Science Podcast.

The only advantage of this quick summary is that you can scan it faster than going to the website. If you follow the brain rules you will realize that the way to learn the brain rules is to go through them deeply and slowly. But this summary is just meant to entice you. I hope it will make you want to learn more about how the brain works.

One final challenge. As you go through the 12 Brain Rules some of them may seem obvious. But do we see them implemented in our classrooms? Especially as the grades get higher? If we aren’t seeing them in the classroom—why is that the case?

Let’s get started:

My thoughts are in this font.

Thoughts from Brain Rules are in this font.

At some points I added some red for emphasis.

Here are the 12 Brain Rules.

1. Exercise boosts brain power.
2. The human brain evolved too.
3. Every brain is wired differently.
4. We don't pay attention to boring things.
5. Repeat to remember.
6. Remember to repeat.
7. Sleep well, think well.
8. Stressed brains don't learn the same way.
9. Stimulate more of the senses.
10. Vision trumps all other senses.
11. Male and female brains are different.
12. We are powerful and natural explorers.
    

Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power.

The human brain evolved under conditions of almost constant motion. From this, one might predict that the optimal environment for processing information would include motion. That is exactly what one finds. Indeed, the best business meeting would have everyone walking at about 1.8 miles per hour.

Rule #2: The human brain evolved, too.

• The brain is a survival organ. It is designed to solve problems related to surviving in an unstable outdoor environment and to do so in nearly constant motion (to keep you alive long enough to pass your genes on). We were not the strongest on the planet but we developed the strongest brains, the key to our survival.
• The strongest brains survive, not the strongest bodies. Our ability to solve problems, learn from mistakes, and create alliances with other people helps us survive. We took over the world by learning to cooperate and forming teams with our neighbors.
• Our ability to understand each other is our chief survival tool. Relationships helped us survive in the jungle and are critical to surviving at work and school today.
• If someone does not feel safe with a teacher or boss, he or she may not perform as well. If a student feels misunderstood because the teacher cannot connect with the way the student learns, the student may become isolated.
• There is no greater anti-brain environment than the classroom and cubicle.

Rule #3: Every brain is wired differently.

• What YOU do and learn in life physically changes what your brain looks like – it literally rewires it. We used to think there were just 7 categories of intelligence. But categories of intelligence may number more than 7 billion—roughly the population of the world.
• No two people have the same brain, not even twins. Every student’s brain, every employee’s brain, every customer’s brain is wired differently.
• You can either accede to it or ignore it. The current system of education ignores it by having grade structures based on age. Businesses such as Amazon are catching on to mass customization (the Amazon homepage and the products you see are tailored to your recent purchases).
• Regions of the brain develop at different rates in different people. The brains of school children are just as unevenly developed as their bodies. Our school system ignores the fact that every brain is wired differently. We wrongly assume every brain is the same.
• Most of us have a “Jennifer Aniston” neuron (a neuron lurking in your head that is stimulated only when Jennifer Aniston is in the room).

Rule #4: We don't pay attention to boring things.

• What we pay attention to is profoundly influenced by memory. Our previous experience predicts where we should pay attention. Culture matters too. Whether in school or in business, these differences can greatly effect how an audience perceives a given presentation.
• We pay attention to things like emotions, threats and sex. Regardless of who you are, the brain pays a great deal of attention to these questions: Can I eat it? Will it eat me? Can I mate with it? Will it mate with me? Have I seen it before?
• The brain is not capable of multi-tasking. We can talk and breathe, but when it comes to higher level tasks, we just can’t do it.
• Driving while talking on a cell phone is like driving drunk. The brain is a sequential processor and large fractions of a second are consumed every time the brain switches tasks. This is why cell-phone talkers are a half-second slower to hit the brakes and get in more wrecks.
• Workplaces and schools actually encourage this type of multi-tasking. Walk into any office and you’ll see people sending e-mail, answering their phones, Instant Messaging, and on MySpace—all at the same time. Research shows your error rate goes up 50% and it takes you twice as long to do things.
• When you’re always online you’re always distracted. So the always online organization is the always unproductive organization.

Rule 4 is probably the most applicable to the educational setting and what we can do to improve it.

• The 10 minute rule is really important to be aware of but it DOES not mean that you cannot lecture. What it means is that you need to have something emotional or interesting every 10 minutes. When I give notes on diseases caused by insects I give straightforward notes but also tell the story of my friend Mia who died in Kenya from malaria. This kind of thing brings student attention back because it connects with issues the brain was designed to handle—in this case a threat.
• Given the 10 minute rule it might follow that lecturing all class every class is not the way to go.
• The other important part of rule 4 is about multi-tasking. The research says that the brain cannot do this. Students often argue that they can check on texts and still pay attention to you—no they can’t.
• This is also important for adults in the CSD community. If everyone can give their full attention and focus to meetings I argue that they could be faster and more effective. If everyone at the meeting is using their phone or calculator and not participating in the meeting—that is a problem.

Rule #5: Repeat to remember.

• The human brain can only hold about seven pieces of information for less than 30 seconds! Which means, your brain can only handle a 7-digit phone number. If you want to extend the 30 seconds to a few minutes or even an hour or two, you will need to consistently re-expose yourself to the information. Memories are so volatile that you have to repeat to remember.
• Improve your memory by elaborately encoding it during its initial moments. Many of us have trouble remembering names. If at a party you need help remembering Mary, it helps to repeat internally more information about her. “Mary is wearing a blue dress and my favorite color is blue.” It may seem counterintuitive at first but study after study shows it improves your memory.
• Brain Rules in the classroom. In partnership with the University of Washington and Seattle Pacific University, Medina tested this Brain Rule in real classrooms of 3rd graders. They were asked to repeat their multiplication tables in the afternoons. The classrooms in the study did significantly better than the classrooms that did not have the repetition. If brain scientists get together with teachers and do research, we may be able to eliminate need for homework since learning would take place at school, instead of the home.

Rule 5 indicates the power of practice. Medina believes that sufficient practice during the school day could eliminate the need for homework. But before we spark a homework debate…the point is that students have to do over and over that which we want them to know.

Rule #6: Remember to repeat.

• It takes years to consolidate a memory. Not minutes, hours, or days but years. What you learn in first grade is not completely formed until your sophomore year in high school.
• Medina’s dream school is one that repeats what was learned, not at home, but during the school day, 90-120 minutes after the initial learning occurred. Our schools are currently designed so that most real learning has to occur at home.
• How do you remember better? Repeated exposure to information / in specifically timed intervals / provides the most powerful way to fix memory into the brain.
• Forgetting allows us to prioritize events. But if you want to remember, remember to repeat.

Rule 6 shows the need to cycle back at points in the day. Elementary is well designed to do this. In MS and HS it is more difficult but it can be done. The point is that to form lasting memories we have to follow up on the original learning. Also as seen below if you miss the beginning material you have trouble catching up. We all know this is true but what are we changing to make sure that students succeed?

Rule #7: Sleep well, think well.

• When we’re asleep, the brain is not resting at all. It is almost unbelievably active! It’s possible that the reason we need to sleep is so that we can learn.
• Sleep must be important because we spend 1/3 of our lives doing it! Loss of sleep hurts attention, executive function, working memory, mood, quantitative skills, logical reasoning, and even motor dexterity.
• We still don’t know how much we need! It changes with age, gender, pregnancy, puberty, and so much more.
• Napping is normal. Ever feel tired in the afternoon? That’s because your brain really wants to take a nap. There's a battle raging in your head between two armies. Each army is made of legions of brain cells and biochemicals –- one desperately trying to keep you awake, the other desperately trying to force you to sleep. Around 3 p.m., 12 hours after the midpoint of your sleep, all your brain wants to do is nap.
• Taking a nap might make you more productive. In one study, a 26-minute nap improved NASA pilots’ performance by 34 percent.
• Don’t schedule important meetings at 3 p.m. It just doesn’t make sense.

Rule #8: Stressed brains don't learn the same way.

• Your brain is built to deal with stress that lasts about 30 seconds. The brain is not designed for long term stress when you feel like you have no control. The saber-toothed tiger ate you or you ran away but it was all over in less than a minute. If you have a bad boss, the saber-toothed tiger can be at your door for years, and you begin to deregulate. If you are in a bad marriage, the saber-toothed tiger can be in your bed for years, and the same thing occurs. You can actually watch the brain shrink.
• Stress damages virtually every kind of cognition that exists. It damages memory and executive function. It can hurt your motor skills. When you are stressed out over a long period of time it disrupts your immune response. You get sicker more often. It disrupts your ability to sleep. You get depressed.
• The emotional stability of the home is the single greatest predictor of academic success. If you want your kid to get into Harvard, go home and love your spouse.
• You have one brain. The same brain you have at home is the same brain you have at work or school. The stress you are experiencing at home will affect your performance at work, and vice versa.

Rule #9: Stimulate more of the senses.

• Our senses work together so it is important to stimulate them! Your head crackles with the perceptions of the whole world, sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, energetic as a frat party.
• Smell is unusually effective at evoking memory. If you're tested on the details of a movie while the smell of popcorn is wafted into the air, you'll remember 10-50% more.
• Smell is really important to business. When you walk into Starbucks, the first thing you smell is coffee. They have done a number of things over the years to make sure that’s the case.
• The learning link. Those in multisensory environments always do better than those in unisensory environments. They have more recall with better resolution that lasts longer, evident even 20 years later.

Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses.

• We are incredible at remembering pictures. Hear a piece of information, and three days later you'll remember 10% of it. Add a picture and you'll remember 65%.
• Pictures beat text as well, in part because reading is so inefficient for us. Our brain sees words as lots of tiny pictures, and we have to identify certain features in the letters to be able to read them. That takes time.
• Why is vision such a big deal to us? Perhaps because it's how we've always apprehended major threats, food supplies and reproductive opportunity.
• Toss your PowerPoint presentations. It’s text-based (nearly 40 words per slide), with six hierarchical levels of chapters and subheads—all words. Professionals everywhere need to know about the incredible inefficiency of text-based information and the incredible effects of images. Burn your current PowerPoint presentations and make new ones.

Rule #11: Male and female brains are different.

• What’s different? Mental health professionals have known for years about sex-based differences in the type and severity of psychiatric disorders. Males are more severely afflicted by schizophrenia than females. By more than 2 to 1, women are more likely to get depressed than men, a figure that shows up just after puberty and remains stable for the next 50 years. Males exhibit more antisocial behavior. Females have more anxiety. Most alcoholics and drug addicts are male. Most anorexics are female.
• Men and women handle acute stress differently. When researcher Larry Cahill showed them slasher films, men fired up the amygdale in their brain’s right hemisphere, which is responsible for the gist of an event. Their left was comparatively silent. Women lit up their left amygdale, the one responsible for details. Having a team that simultaneously understood the gist and details of a given stressful situation helped us conquer the world.
• Men and women process certain emotions differently. Emotions are useful. They make the brain pay attention. These differences are a product of complex interactions between nature and nurture.

Rule 12--We are powerful natural explorers.

• The desire to explore never leaves us despite the classrooms and cubicles we are stuffed into. Babies are the model of how we learn—not by passive reaction to the environment but by active testing through observation, hypothesis, experiment, and conclusion. Babies methodically do experiments on objects, for example, to see what they will do.
• Google takes to heart the power of exploration. For 20 percent of their time, employees may go where their mind asks them to go. The proof is in the bottom line: fully 50 percent of new products, including Gmail and Google News, came from “20 percent time.”

Bullying on the bus, the governor's race in Alabama, and Arizona immigration law. These have been tumbling around in my mind all week and I think I have finally been able to pull some thoughts together to say something lucid.

This thought process began on Sunday morning when I woke up early and turned on my DVR recording of SNL. It was a legendarily bad broadcast until Weekend Edition with Seth Meyers. He began by talking about the new Arizona law that required people to show their papers when asked. He riffed for a bit about how the main place you hear, "Show me your papers," is in WWII movies. I read a bit more about the law in some non-comedy news sources and came to the conclusion that the law seems a bit over the top to me. That said it is fair for people to debate what should be done about illegal immigration in our country.

Next I heard about Tim James and his advertisement to become governor of Alabama. He states that in Alabama they speak English so that they should only offer the state driver's license test in English. "If you want to live here, learn it. We're only giving that test in English if I'm governor."

Bringing it home to education and to Concord I have had conversations recently about bullying on school buses in Concord. School officials and bus officials are aware of the issues and are diligently working on all issues. The worry is that a racial/immigrant wrinkle is being added to bus bullying.

My concern is that the with the hot rhetoric that often happens in the news that this could spill over in a negative way to our students who are English language learners. Immigration is going to be coming up big in the news and the burgeoning ELL population in Concord could be an easy attack point for frustrated people. Many of these students have spent years in refugee camps only to finally find solace and comfort here in Concord. It would be terrible for them to again become victims.

I am confident that this will not become a major problem but the strength of the Concord School District is that we do an excellent job of preventing possible problems. I will be incredibly happy if this never becomes a problem. But I also want to make sure that we are aware of the possibility and that we work to keep all of our kids happy and safe.

Instructional Rounds in Education

Elizabeth City, Richard Elmore, Sarah Fiarman and Lee Teital

Summary by Tom Crumrine

The opening of the book:

“Pierce Middle School is stuck. Despite the best efforts of its leadership and teaching staff, Pierce’s results on the statewide test have leveled off, or slightly declined, after two years of more or less steady improvement. Pierce’s staff feels the urgency of the situation. There is no question about their commitment to improved student learning. they feel they are working at the limit of their current knowledge and skill. The school district’s leadership is equally concerned, since they were relying on Pierce to serve as a model for their system-wide improvement strategy. Now it’s not clear what they will do. Maybe it’s just a temporary glitch in the test scores. But maybe it’s something more fundamental. Pierce’s leadership team and the district leadership team huddle in a conference room at the central office trying to figure out what to do next.”

Quotes from Introduction

What are rounds?

Repeatedly, district and school practitioners tell us that one of the greatest barriers to school improvement is the lack of an agreed-upon definition of what high-quality instruction looks like.

The rounds process is and explicit practice that is designed to bring discussions of instruction directly into the process of school improvement. By practice we mean something quite specific. We mean a set of protocols and processes for observing, analyzing, discussing, and understanding instruction that can be used improve student learning at scale.

They talk further about the idea that this comes from the idea of rounds in medicine. Rounds where everyone learns.

Unfortunately, the practice of walkthroughs has become corrupted in many ways by confounding it with the supervision and evaluation of teachers.

This kind of practice is both antithetical to the purposes of instructional rounds and profoundly anti-professional.

The idea behind instructional rounds is that everyone involved is working on their practice, everyone is obliged to be knowledgeable about the common task of instructional improvement, and everyone’s practice should be subject to scrutiny, critique and improvement.

Chapter 1

First Principle: Increases in student learning occur only as a consequence of improvement in the level of content, teachers’ knowledge and skill, and student engagement. (24)

Second Principle: If you change any single element of the instructional core, you have to change the other two to affect student learning. (25)

Third Principle: If you can’t see it in the core, it’s not there. (27)

Does it really happen? It needs to be imbedded in the reality of the school. Presentations don’t do it. Looking at what is actually happen is what needs to be done.

Fourth Principle: The task predicts performance. (30)

It isn’t the curriculum. If students practice memorizing they get good at memorizing. If students practice analysis they get good at analysis. If a player practices free-throws they get good at free throws.

Fifth Principle: The real accountability system is in the tasks that students are asked to do. (31)

This is not that hard to do. We just don’t do it enough. The example that worked fairly well is the work of Feb. 2009 where the high school looked at what kinds of exams they give at mid-year time. Sure there are lots of constraints that go into giving mid-year exams but in general the tests asked more low level questions than high level question. (Following the seventh principle that will come later let’s not jump to an evaluation of this. Let’s talk about what we would like to see in mid-year exams and go from there.) This type of process can be repeated if we decide to make time to do it.

Sixth Principle: We learn to do the work by doing the work, not by telling other people to do the work, not by having done the work at some time in the past, and not by hiring experts who can act as proxies for our knowledge about how to do the work. (33)

There is a lot to learn from outside research. My friend cardiologist Ben Lowenstein regularly reads journal articles after his kids have gone to bed. But he also goes to conferences where he sees people performing best practice work and every single day—every single day—his decisions are examined and questioned by his fellow cardiologists, by nurses, etc. This last part is the cultural part that does not exist in education.

Seventh Principle: Description before analysis, analysis before prediction, prediction before evaluation. (34 and 35)

Their seventh principle outlines a common them in rounds discussions. Do not jump right from observation to evaluation. The community needs to come up with what they even want to observe when they do their rounds. After observation lots of conversation needs to happen about what the group would like to be seeing.