School Improvement slide

1. School Improvement slide

2. West Virginia Department of Education Mission The West Virginia Department of Education, in conjunction with the Regional Education Service Agencies and the Office of Performance Audits, will create systemic conditions, processes and structures within the West Virginia public school system that result in (1) all students achieving mastery and beyond and (2) closing the achievement gap among sub-groups of the student population.

3. Robert HutchinsThe Conflict in Education in a Democratic Society “Perhaps the greatest idea that America has given the world is education for all. The world is entitled to know whether this idea means that everybody can be educated or simply that everyone must go to school.”

4. What We Know… • An emerging body of research identifies characteristics of high performing school systems. • These school systems have made significant progress in bringing all students to mastery and in closing the achievement gap. • These systems share characteristics described in The West Virginia Framework for High Performing Schools.

5. HIGH PERFORMING SCHOOL SYSTEM SYSTEMIC CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PROCESS CURRICULLUM MANAGEMENT STUDENT/PARENT SUPPORT INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS CULTURE OF COMMON BELIEFS & VALUES Dedicated to “Learning for ALL…Whatever It Takes”

6. Objectives • Provide a rationale for why schools would benefit from using research-based high yield instructional strategies. • Define and identify what research-based high yield instructional strategies look like and how they may be used to increase student achievement. • Explain how designing effective professional development is critical to the implementation of high yield instructional strategies.

7. Why focus on research-based high yield instructional strategies? • High performing school systems want to enhance the quality of instruction of ALL teachers!

8. Why focus on research-based high yield instructional strategies? • High performing school systems understand that the quality of instruction is a more powerful achievement variable than students’ background characteristics.

9. Why focus on research-based high yield instructional strategies? • “Sanders concludes that quality instruction is ‘the single biggest factor influencing gains in achievement, an influence many times greater than poverty or per-pupil expenditures.’ ” George Manathey, quoting William Sanders

10. Why focus on research-based high yield instructional strategies? • High performing school systems understand that the use of research-based high yield instructional strategies improves instruction, learning and achievement.

11. Why focus on research-based high yield instructional strategies? • “We will never channel productive energy into creating the schools we really want unless we give up the magical belief that test preparation is a suitable surrogate for education. It’s time we replace magical thinking with the real thing: research based… instruction.”Jacqueline Grennon Brooks

12. School Improvement Instructional PillarHigh Yield Instructional Strategies Classroom Instruction thatworks By Robert J. Marzano, Debra J. Pickering, and Jane E. Pollock

13. “We need to discover how a student’s unique brain is wired for reading and writing and then use a range of approaches that matches his or her “literacy style.” - Thomas Armstrong

14. What strategies do you use whenyou encounter text you don’t understand? What strategies do STUDENTS use when they encounter text they don’t understand? What about students below grade level?

15. Categories of Instructional Strategies That Affect Student Achievement • Include identifying similarities and differences • Include summarizing and note taking • Include reinforcing effort and providing recognition • Include homework and practice • Include nonlinguistic representations • Include cooperative learning • Include setting objectives and providing feedback • Include generating and testing hypotheses • Include questions, cues, and advance organizers

16. Identifying Similarities and Differences • Presenting students with explicit guidance in identifying similarities and differences enhances students’ understanding of and ability to use knowledge. • Asking students to independently identify similarities and differences enhances students’ understanding of and ability to use knowledge.

17. Identifying Similarities and Differences (continued) • Representing similarities and differences in graphic or symbolic form enhances students’ understanding of ability to use knowledge. • Identification of similarities and differences can be accomplished in a variety of ways. The identification of similarities and differences is a robust activity.

18. Summarizing and Note Taking “Rule-Based” Strategy • Delete trivial material that is unnecessary to understanding. • Delete redundant material. • Substitute super ordinate terms for lists (e.g., flowers” for “daisies, tulips, and roses”). • Select a topic sentence, or invent one if it is missing.

19. Note Taking • Verbatim note taking is, perhaps, the least effective way to take notes. • Notes should be considered a work in progress. • Notes should be used as a study guide for tests. The more notes that are taken, the better!

20. Reinforcing Effort and Providing Recognition If a person is engaged in some activity for reasons of intrinsic motivation and if he begins to receive the external reward, money, for performing the activity, the degree to which he is intrinsically motivated to perform the activity decreases (Deci, 1971, p. 108).

21. Effective Rewards Reward is most effective when it is contingent on the attainment of some standard of performance (Wiersma, 1992, and Cameron and Pierce, 1994).

22. Homework and Practice Homework and practice are ways of extending the school day and providing students with opportunities to refine and extend their knowledge. Teachers can use both of these practices as powerful instructional tools.

23. Homework • The amount of homework assigned to students should be different from elementary to middle school to high school. Rule of thumb: 10 minutes a night per grade level. • Parent involvement in homework should be kept at a minimum. • The purpose of homework should be identified and articulated. • If homework is assigned, students should receive comments on it. • Homework policies should be established.

24. Practice Mastering a skill requires a fair amount of focused practice (Anderson, J.R., 1995; Newell & Rosenbloom, 1981).

25. Nonlinguistic RepresentationsA variety of activities produce nonlinguistic representations • Creating graphic representations • Making physical models • Generating mental pictures • Drawing pictures and pictographs • Engaging in kinesthetic activity

26. Cooperative Learning • Benefits • Positive interdependence • Face-to-face promotes interaction • Individual and group accountability • Interpersonal and small group skills • Group processing • (David Johnson and Roger Johnson, 1999).

27. Setting Objectives and Providing Feedback “Providing students with specific information about their standing in terms of particular objectives increased their achievement by 37 percentile points. The most powerful single modification that enhances achievement is feedback. The simplest prescription for improving education must be “dollops of feedback”. (Hattie, 1992, p. 9)

28. When students know what they are learning, their performance, on average, has been shown to be 27 percentile points higher than students who do not know what they are learning.

29. Generating and Testing Hypotheses • Using a variety of structured tasks to guide students through generating and testing hypotheses • Systems analysis • Problem solving • Historical investigation • Invention • Experimental inquiry • Decision making

30. Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers • Cues and questions should focus on what is important as opposed to what is unusual. • “Higher level” questions produce deeper learning than “lower level” questions. • “Waiting” briefly before accepting responses from students has the effect of increasing the depth of students’ answers (Rowe, 1974).

31. Questions • Questions are effective learning tools when asked before, during and after a learning experience.

32. Cues • Cues are straightforward ways of activating prior knowledge.

33. Advance Organizers • Advance organizers should focus on what is important, as opposed to what is unusual. • “Higher level” advance organizers produce deeper learning than the “lower level” advance organizers.

34. Advance Organizers • Advance organizers are most useful with information that is not well organized. • Different types of advance organizers produce different results.

35. Getting the Full Meaning Students often know how to read, they just don’t use (or know how to use) effective strategies to get the full meaning from the text they read.

36. Implementation of Strategies • Only one or two strategies should be selected for initial implementation • DISCUSSION POINT: Which strategy of the nine you have just studied would be the one you would select for implementation in your district and why?

37. Who should implement? • Implementation of one or two selected strategies could begin with --an entire school --designated grade levels --a particular content area • DISCUSSION POINT: Refer to the strategy you selected from the the previous discussion. In your district, where would you begin implementation of the strategy?

38. How will implementation be supported? • In high performing school systems, quality professional development, support and monitoring systems related to high yield instructional strategies are a priority. • DISCUSSION POINT: As new strategies are implemented, how will your district support and monitor teachers?

40. Primary Source Marzano, R., Pickering, D. and Pollock, J. (2001). Classroom Instruction that Works – Research-based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. Alexandria, VA: Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development.