Teaching Tips to Try Newsletter

November 15, 2009

From Linda The Math Coach

Go Beyond the Theory. Apply the Research. Make it work!

MEET THE EXPERTS!

Next up!
“PRINCIPAL” BARUTI KEFELE
December 14th
7:00PM CST
Motivating Black Males to Achieve in School and in Life

This Week’s Theme: RETEACHING GOT YOU TRAPPED?

Break Out Of The Teach -Test - Reteach Cycle

You give a test. 63% of your students fail to demonstrate mastery. What do you
do when students “don’t get it?”
Do you keep going because you have too much to cover before the state
mandated test?
Do you assign yourself and your students to more “time on task” afterschool
tutoring?
Do you stop and reteach?
With the urgency to push students toward proficiency you may find yourself
caught up in the Teach-Test-Reteach cycle.
Come on, 63% of your students have not mastered what you taught. You can’t
leave them hanging. You must reteach! So you plan all kinds of interventions.
After school, in school, Time, staff, and money begin to flow to this reteaching
process. Before you know it, you’re spending so much time reteaching that you
are too worn out to do a proper job of teaching well in the first place.
Are you caught up in this state of helpless reaction? Stop. It’s not working.

Why isn’t it working?

Let’s take a look at it step by step.
Pretest
The cycle may begin with a pretest. Find out what students already know so you
can measure how much they “grow.” The problem with pretesting is that it too
often takes the form of multiple guessing. Unless carefully crafted with
distractors that represent common misconceptions and given to carefully crafted
test takers, this kind of testing is really not very helpful at all.
What do students do on pretests? Some don’t care, don’t read and guess at each
answer because they don’t want to look stupid. Some stress and cheat because
they don’t want to look stupid. Still others stress and take all period because
they don’t want to look stupid. If you don’t believe this, give a pretest to a group
of teachers (who should understand the purpose of pretesting) and watch how
they react.
Teach
After looking at the pretest, you have a clue what students have to know to
demonstrate proficiency on the post test. So you begin teaching. The problem
here is that with the pretest questions in mind, too often instruction turns into
training students to answer specific types of questions. Students never get to
delve deeply into the rigor of making connections and applications within and
among the concepts they should be exploring.
Just as important, what do you do for the students who already know the
material? Do you pair them up with students who don’t so they become mini-me
teachers? Do they sit through the instruction anyway instead of moving on to
more challenging curriculum?
What are your students doing during your instruction? Maybe the ones who
already know it are turning their attention to other areas. Some of the ones who
don’t are following them into those other areas. More of the don’t knows are just
saying to themselves, “This is too hard. I’ll come after school for tutoring.” What
you have left following your instruction is a small compliant group who want to do
better on the post test.
Post Test
So now what about your post test? Are you surprised that 63% failed?
Remember what happened on the pretest? So do your students. You probably
won’t get much better performance. Your reaction? Reteach.
But what does reteach mean? Does this ever really happen? Sometimes, yes.
Most times not in class. You may discover working in small groups or using
manipulatives with students after class turns on light bulbs for students who
failed the first time. Do you ever ask yourself, “Why didn’t I do that in the first
place?”
Well why don’t you?
Are you caught up in a flawed cycle?
Not only is each stage of the cycle flawed, but the sum of the parts = set up for
failure. How can a system that plans for failure succeed? The underlying belief
of this system is that all students will not learn. It informally makes it okay to
teach to the mass, filter out a percentage of the students who can handle this
kind of instruction, and then teach a second time in a different way to the rest.
Consider what Robyn Jackson, noted author has to say about this.
“ We plan our lessons and once we find students unsuccessful, then we
intervene. In essence then, we plan for students to fail. But what if we planned
differently?”
Not only are we setting up a predicted segment of the school population to fail,
we are reinforcing harmful mistaken beliefs that there is a hierarchy of preferred
learning styles. Do we really believe that one style of learning is less “intelligent”
than others? Are students who prefer to learn by handling manipulatives less
“intelligent” than students who prefer to listen to a lecture and take notes? Ever
wonder if some students fall academically behind because they have to wait on
their teacher to get to the “reteach” step of the cycle? You know, the part where
we plan an intervention for what we could have done in the first place with the
original lesson.
What if we planned differently?
PLAN DIFFERENTLY
So what would this look like? We’re going to use a backward design with
formative pre-assessments, checks for understanding, and multiple approaches
to support students along the way. Notice that there is nothing new or fancy in
this new plan. All we are doing is rearranging the order to make better
instructional sense and to maximize the effectiveness of each step in determining
more encouraging results.
Create/Analyze a Post Test.
Start off by creating a test that measures the standards your students must
master. If this test already exists, then analyze it before you do the next step.
What is it that students must know and be able to do? What knowledge must
they recall and apply? How will they have to apply it? What thinking, problem
solving, and computational processes must they use?
Create a Learning Progression.
This is a map that includes a break down (it may look like a graphic organizer or
flow chart) of major knowledge and skills students must have as well as
prerequisite supporting knowledge and subskills. Think about all the obstacles
and misconceptions that students typically encounter with each major skill and
address each of these as a subskill. Sometimes it’s a good idea to just list all of
the knowledge, skills, and subskills in brainstorm fashion, and then organize
these components into a logically progressing map.
Once you have the skills and knowledge mapped out, then decide where and
how you will pre-assess each subskill. Notice, pretesting occurs within and
throughout the context of your unit. It is short, sweet, and not necessarily
recorded. It does not even have to be written. It is formative and used only to
assist your immediate next step instructional decision. Now you decide your
either/or, yes/no, if/then plan of action for each preassesment point. Basically,
you have a stop and teach or go ahead decision at each point in this plan.
Create Stop and Teach Plans
For each decision point of your plan, create a teaching lesson, guided practice,
and independent practice. It’s also a good idea to include enrichment activities
that extend with applications or deeper level thinking about the same concept.
Create Multi-Style Teaching Lessons
Ok, here is where we ditch the “reteach” monkey from our backs and head him
off at the pass. Think about how you would reteach each concept and skill to
students who don’t get it the first time. What strategies and materials would you
use? What hoops would you jump through? Ok get those hoops out and ready
for the first time around! Design your lessons to reflect at least two different
learning styles. As you get good at this, start incorporating three and then four
different styles into each lesson. Experiment with different styles. As you teach,
notice which style grabs the best results from your students. Start adapting that
style more frequently!
Not only should your lesson incorporate multiple learning styles, it should have
predetermined checkpoints along the way. Determine logical stopping points
within each lesson where you will check for understanding and then proceed in
one of two predetermined directions based upon how well students are following
you. You may find that this speeds up the learning process for some students.
They may be ready to go on to the independent practice, leaving you more time
to deal with the others who need more instruction or guided practice with you.
Does this sound like a lot of planning? Will it take too much time and work?
Well… Reteaching and whining take more time. Reteaching and whining are not
fun. Reteaching and whining do not help kids learn.
STOP the endless cycle. Start a plan for success.
(Next week, three examples of a learning progression at three different grade levels)

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