normalize learning, not success… the diversity of progress
Learning Target: I can recognize the progress made by individual students and individual teachers toward their goals using different indicators of teaching and learning.
Schools have so many ways to measure progress, ranging from the Regents to teacher evaluations to mid year Quality Reviews. All of these data collection tools seem to affect one group of stakeholders more than another but due to the interrelationships between student, teacher and school achievement, these assessments can take over the morale of the school on a year-round basis and turn an institution of learning into one focused on hitting benchmarks and getting good scores.
Of course data is important (see mini-lesson on the Kindness of Data) but if we only trust the data to tell us who is teaching and who is learning well enough, we miss out on seeing ourselves as partners and celebrating successes that bridge our partners and ourselves to even greater achievement. In any school, everyone comes with their own story and their own set of experiences, even young children. In order to normalize learning, we need to bring those to the forefront and make attempts to see the potential and the steps that each individual can and does take.
When we have the urge to go in there with gusto and make changes, we should ponder the following question:
What are reasonable growth expectations for ourselves, our staff and our students? The moment we take ourselves out of this equation, we separate ourselves from the community, the subtext being we can do all or none of the change. This stunts growth and prevents real change from happening.
What thIS LOOKS LIKE FOR STUDENTS
Facilitating the creation of individual goals by students themselves
C0-creating individual benchmarks of success
Using well rounded formative assessments (allowing teachers and then students themselves to get a more replete picture of strengths and weaknesses)
Developing relationships with students based on trust (to leverage pushing a student out of their comfort zone to try a new learning experience)
Close and continuous observation of students throughout their work process (to keep learning about the student)
What thIS LOOKS LIKE FOR tEACHERS
C0-creating individual benchmarks of success
Facilitating the creation of individual goals by teachers themselves
Opportunities for cross-collaboration with other teachers (teachers find themselves approaching a familiar topic in a new way, providing areas to shine and grow together)
Clear expectations instructional practice with frequent non-evaluative visits with post visit conversations
There’s no way to streamline this personalized approach to learning. The best we can do is be compassionate with ourselves and those with whom we work. It takes a trained eye to recognize the small but necessary steps of progress, in students and teachers as well. Doing so keeps us as teachers and leaders accountable to the role that we play in facilitating opportunities for others to grow. By close observations and conversation we really prioritize a differentiated approach to learning.
A brief anecdote. You are a first year math teacher teaching Algebra. The end of your class terminates with a regents and your job is to prepare your students to pass the exam. Some of your students don’t know long division and read at a second grade reading level. How soon should you know? Who can help you solve these complex problems? How can you hone your differentiation skills to support students in such predicaments?