Lessons from RAISE* Scale Up: Building the Plane While Flying It

1. Lessons from RAISE* Scale Up: Building the Plane While Flying It *Reading Apprenticeship Improving Secondary Education Cynthia Greenleaf & Ruth Schoenbach Strategic Literacy Initiative December 6, 2013 Literacy Research Association Dallas, TX

2. Learning from RAISE: 2010-2015 Reading Apprenticeship Improving Secondary Education • Scale-Up: • 5 states (CA, IN, MI, PA, UT) • 300 schools, 2800 teachers • 600,000+ high school students • ELA, biology, US history • Support Structures: • State RAISE Coordinators • Monthly site-based team meetings-Teacher Leaders • Teacher Leader meetings • Principals’ online course

3. Strategic Literacy Initiative Mission • The Strategic Literacy Initiative is committed to improving learning outcomes for middle school, high school, and college students by assisting them to become powerful, strategic, and independent readers.

4. Fostering Engaged Academic Literacy for Adolescents • Dispositions for engagement in academic tasks • Curiosity, tolerance for ambiguity, persistence, stamina, confidence • Text-based problem-solving capacities • Discipline-based literacy practices • Resilient learner identities • Code breaker stance “When we ask students to learn something new, we ask them to become someone new” (Feldman, 2004).

5. Transforming the Learning Culture of the Secondary, Subject Area Classroom

6. The Reading Apprenticeship Framework Metacognitive routines make normally invisible reasoning processes visible and available for assessment, modeling, and coaching during reading, problem solving, and inquiry activities.

7. The Reading Apprenticeship Framework • Draws Current LiteracyResearch into a CoherentInstructional Framework • Metacognitive monitoringand control • Abundant supported reading opportunitieswithin academic disciplines • Collaboration and group work

8. The Reading Apprenticeship Framework • Addresses Developmental Needs of Adolescents • Identity and belonging • Self-exploration • Competence • Addresses Motivation • Support • Challenge • Choice

9. The Reading Apprenticeship Framework • Builds Skills & Knowledge • Explicit instruction of comprehension strategies • Reading/writing connections • Language study • Discipline-based literacies • Fosters Dispositions for Academic Learning • Stamina and persistence • Tolerance for ambiguity • Code breaker stance

10. Design Principles in Professional Development: Inquiry-Based PD • Connections to teachers’ experience, disciplinary commitments, and expertise • Practice “making thinking visible” with varied subject area texts and investigations • Collaborative, metacognitive learning experiences embedded in content that models target classroom practices • Opportunities to explore student reading and thinking in the context of content learning • Tap teachers’ disciplinary knowledge

11. Reading Apprenticeship: The Research Base National Science Foundation Study: Integrating Reading Apprenticeship® and Science Instruction in High School Biology This research study tested the impact of Reading Apprenticeship® teacher professional development on teacher knowledge and skills, instructional practices, and on student achievement in science and reading. In cross-sectional data, students in Reading Apprenticeship classrooms performed better on state standardized tests in biology and English language arts and reading comprehension. An analysis of scores by demographic group found statistically significant increases in test scores for white, Latino, and English learner students in the intervention classes.

12. Reading Apprenticeship: The Research Base Institute of Education Sciences Study: Reading Apprenticeship® Professional Development in High School U.S. History

13. Reading Apprenticeship: The Research Base Institute of Education Sciences Study: Reading Apprenticeship® Academic Literacy Course for 9th Grade

14. Instructional Practices: What Makes a Difference for Literacy? • Reading Apprenticeship teachers in the NSF and IES studies provided more: • Reading in class with support; • Collaborative meaning making; • Metacognitive inquiry; • Practice of comprehension strategies and disciplinary thinking; • Mentoring and modeling; • Formative assessment; and • Differentiation to support all learners.

15. Learning from RAISE: 2010-2015 • Scale-Up: • 5 states (CA, IN, MI, PA, UT) • 300 schools, 2800 teachers • 600,000+ high school students • ELA, biology, US history • Support Structures: • State RAISE Coordinators • Monthly site-based team meetings-Teacher Leaders • Teacher Leader meetings • Principals’ online course

16. RAISE Scale Up Support Infrastructure & Activities SLI National Office: Professional Development (PD) tools, materials development and production PD facilitator development, support and coordination Event and fiscal management Evaluation liaison Multi-Sites Coordinator: Liaison between national office and State Coordinators State Coordinator for each state • Annual/bi-annual cross-national retreats • On-the-ground supports for school teams • Design and facilitate Teacher Leaders seminars • Context-sensitive sustainability work • Teacher Leader for each school • Convene monthly on-site team meetings • Attend 3xs/year Teacher Leader day-long seminars

17. RAISE Scale Up Support Infrastructure & Activities • Multi-Sites Coordinator • Liaison between national office and State Coordinators • Monthly meetings with State Coordinator group and each separately • State Coordinator for each state • Attend annual/bi-annual cross-national retreats • On-the-ground supports for school teams • Design and facilitate Teacher Leaders seminars • Context-sensitive sustainability work

18. RAISE Scale Up Support Infrastructure & Activities • Teacher Leaders (one for each school team) • Convene and facilitate monthly on-site team meeting • “Lead from practice” • Communicate with principal/assistant principals re RAISE teams’ work, needs for support, etc. • Participate in 3 state-level Teacher Leader meetings per year • Principals/Assistant Principals • Support teams’ by deepening understanding of Reading Apprenticeship, in addition to other resources (time, etc.)

19. Key Lessons Learned about Scaling Up Inquiry-Based Professional Development • Two-way learning between between local leaders and SLI national office improves program adaptation intelligence • Facilitating nuanced inquiry-based professional development requires iterative practice and apprenticeship • Communications and messaging is crucial and complex

20. RAISE Teacher Voices • In my classroom, students are reading a greater amount of text and are more actively engaged with text. As a classroom teacher, I have also become more cognizant of demands different kinds of text place on our students. As a result, I am offering far more in the way of direct reading instruction and practice. Instead of simply conveying information to my students, they are constructing their own knowledge through reading, critical analysis, and writing. • They are working harder, learning more content, and developing greater literacy skills as a result. What has been fascinating to me is how many students have become more confident.

21. RAISE Student Voices "When I first started this class I was scared. I have discovered that I have the courage to read stuff that I couldn't read. I'm more confident. Also I need to work on spelling.” "When I used to read and I didn't really understand it, I use to completely stop. Now when I don't understand the text, I think.” "My reader identity is getting a lot more knowledge into it and that makes me feel like I am a smart young man who can do what ever I set my mind to and what ever people say will not hurt me because I know I have the knowledge to school them.”

22. Flying planes need well provisioned airports, air traffic controllers, skilled pilots and crews, smooth and well lighted airstrips, connections to other transit, and clear regulations. This is a BIG job www.wested.org/readingapprenticeship Thank you