Collaboration and Innovation

By Steve Atwater | Published: January 16, 2012

For the past few years we have been promoting collaboration among teachers as a way to improve student learning.  There is ample research to support the benefit of teachers sharing ideas and also a general agreement that a collective effort is better than an individual one.  It was with interest then, that I read an article this morning on the short comings of collaboration.  The author’s main point is that innovation and creativity are more readily spawned by an individual working alone and that people, including teachers, should consider this.

In the case of education, there is so much that is common to the teaching experience that the working alone route does not make a lot of sense.  I am convinced that we can learn from one another.  What we need to avoid however, is spending time in collaboration for the sake of collaboration.  It is imperative that the collaborative meetings are well facilitated and have just one or two agenda items to keep the conversation crisp.  I understand that the big impact creations or innovations on our culture are often made by an individual working alone.  Improving teaching does not require such a change.  Rather, it needs regular review and refinements.

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Student Input on Teacher Effectiveness

By Steve Atwater | Published: January 8, 2012

One of the exercises that educators are periodically asked to perform is to look back at their schooling and identify their most effective teacher.  I inevitably land on my high school pre-calculus teacher.  She was a demure, petite woman who was, without question, my strictest and most effective teacher.  I know that later, when I struggled through calculus in college, her teaching was one of the reasons I survived that class.  Last week I read about a study where three economists tracked one million children from a large urban district from 4th grade to adulthood.  The purpose of the study was to determine whether teachers evaluated on their impact on students’ test scores (value added approach, VA) had a lasting effect on what happened to the students in ensuing years.  They found that students assigned to higher VA teachers are more successful in many dimensions including how much money they will earn.   Who knew that you could trace your income level back to your 5th grade teacher?

As educators and elected officials struggle to figure out how to redo the way in which teacher compensation is calculated, it is clear that the metric of teacher effectiveness is going to be a significant part of the final solution to this challenge.  Earlier I wrote about the need for a good evaluation system to help determine this.  Perhaps students should play a bigger role in this conversation; no one has a better sense of how effective a teacher is.  We need only think back to our school years to quickly remember teachers that stand out as being better than the rest of the pack.   At age 15 I recognized that my high school math teacher was good. 38 years later I know that she was great.

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Changing Purpose of School

By Steve Atwater | Published: December 27, 2011

I watched an interesting video last week (on YouTube of course) of a keynote presentation by Will Richardson.  Richardson, who writes and speaks about education, is adamant that the purpose of schools today is much different than it was in the past.  That is, he feels that a school’s primary function is no longer to deliver information or content but to instead be centers of learning.  He states that you can get all the content that you need from the web, you don’t need a school for this.  Want to learn geometry?  Personalized lessons are out there for free in cyberland.  He stresses that schools need to shift their purpose from a place where you go to learn content to a place where you go to learn.  And while the difference between the two may at first glance be subtle, it is significant. 

For the past couple of years we’ve invested heavily in technology.  Our schools now have wireless networks, carts of laptops and many classrooms have SmartBoards.  The use of the web to help deliver content is in place, what is not yet happening on a district-wide basis is what Richardson says is the next step for schools- creating learning networks.  That is, using the web to facilitate online learning among students in KPBSD or elsewhere.   He suggests that this shift from the school being the place that delivers content, to a place that facilitates learning must occur or students will drift away from the old fashioned school to a learning environment that is more dynamic and in sync with the electronic social medium where are students spend so much time.  I know that there is a strong desire among some educators to hold on to being the keeper and provider of information.  Doing so however, may ultimately lead to empty classrooms.

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Professional Development

By Steve Atwater | Published: December 18, 2011

A couple of weeks ago I wrote that my recent meetings with teachers consistently revealed a concern that the district administration added too much to the classroom plate this semester.  With this in mind, it is fair to assume that there was a collective exhale on Friday afternoon when the first semester came to a close.  It was a busy 18 weeks of school; I know that everyone is ready for the much deserved two week vacation.  But before the semester ended, we devoted a part of Friday to professional development (PD).  My sense is that offering PD on the last day before this holiday break is probably the worst day of the school year to do so.  With the state allowing us to count ten days of PD as days of attendance,  we need to ensure that we maximize the benefit of these opportunities.

If the goal of professional development is to make deep changes to instruction that will lead to a higher level of student learning, then it is imperative that we are calculated and selective with the use of our PD  time.  A meta-analysis on PD done by MCREL found that if classroom practice is to change, then PD must be grounded in the curriculum that students study, embedded within an aligned system and connected to several elements of instruction (e.g., assessments, curriculum), and extended in time, with time built in for practice, coaching, and follow-ups.  It is imperative that we rethink our practice of holding  half days of PD at the end of a quarter.  I don’t feel that these short shots of PD allow us to truly benefit from this time.

I wish all of the KPBSD community a safe and peaceful break.  Happy New Year!

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School Choice

By Steve Atwater | Published: December 12, 2011

               

For many parents the option of sending their child to a school of choice is one that they value dearly.  There are some in our district however, who are opposed to our schools of choice, claiming that these options distort the distribution of students by concentrating students with involved parents at a few schools.  But the more I visit our schools the less convinced I am that this is the case; I don’t feel that it is fair to state that our schools of choice have the market on parent involvement.

I was at one of our elementary schools on Thursday morning and at first glance it appeared that there was an open house taking place.  A steady stream of parents were coming and going from the building.  When I asked the principal about this, I was told that it is the norm to see parents coming in to volunteer.  We all know that it is critical that parents play an active role in their child’s education.  Let’s not point fingers at school choice; it is not a bad thing.  Instead let’s do what this elementary school is doing, encourage and welcome parental involvement.  The district defines most of what happens at a school.  It does not however, limit a school from creating an identity that might be more frequently associated with a school of choice.

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Teacher Evaluation and Student Performance

By Steve Atwater | Published: December 5, 2011

For the past two months I have been traveling to schools to meet with teachers.  I am there to learn what is going well and what is challenging.  Predictably, and fairly, the focus of the discussion is on what is not going well.  It is clear that the district put a lot of on the teachers’ shoulders this semester.  One of the bright spots to emerge from these discussions however, although in a few instances maligned, is our new teacher evaluation system. I know that most recognize the improvement from our old system that made passing value judgments based on cursory classroom observations.  By contrast the new system is far more comprehensive and includes rich conversations about student learning.  And while the focus on student learning is a seemingly obvious thing to do, it was by and large, secondary from previous evaluation models that mostly focused on technique and classroom management.

Looking ahead, it is likely that the reauthorization of No Child Left Behind will require schools to tie student performance to teacher performance.  If this is the case, then our evaluation system will need a new domain. Anyone who has worked in a school knows that there is not a 1:1 relationship between student performance and teacher performance.  There are simply too many variables outside of the classroom to make this the case.  With that said, we need to expect that student performance will improve.  But it would be a mistake to make this judgment by only using the results of the state tests that are given on three days in April.  It is important that all of us in education help shape this conversation on how to equate student performance with teacher performance.

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Happy Thanksgiving

By Steve Atwater | Published: November 22, 2011

In my last post I wrote about the need for parents to help their young children acquire basic literacy skills before beginning school.  Yesterday, while meeting with a school staff, I learned that for more and more of our students this is not the case.  The teachers at this school told me that there is an increasing need to provide extra help to students who are behind in this area.  And while it is the norm for public schools to do what it takes, it raises the issue of how we can meet the learning needs of all our students when some require a lot of extra help. 

Our reality is that our students do not fit into a tidy package.   The expectation that we will meet the needs of all our students is fair; it is one that all of us at KPBSD embrace.  But this expectation also needs to be tempered by the reality that not all children have a stable, supportive home that helps to make their experience at school relatively smooth.  I don’t write this to whine or make excuses.  I do so to share the reality of our task as a way to preface the need to say thanks to everyone who works so hard for our students.  Happy Thanksgiving.

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Early Literacy and Curriculum Rigor

By Steve Atwater | Published: November 20, 2011

Last week’s education summit in Anchorage explored how to make the Anchorage School District (ASD) a world class district.  Although I only watched about an hour of the second day and read the newspaper accounts of what took place, it is clear that there was a fair amount of attention given to the the need for ASD to have a more rigorous curriculum.  The logic of this is that if you push a little harder, then the students will have greater success.  I suspect that most of the teachers in ASD and here on the Kenai would dispute this logic.  For after all,  each year we have plenty of graduates finding success after high school-for this group the curriculum works.

So why then, do a portion of our students struggle in school and never, like a skiff in the Inlet, get up on step?  Is it about brain power where only the brightest students succeed?  Absolutely not.  This question is of course a complicated one and when you ask educators why this is the case, you will get a variety of answers.  But most will point to what happens with our students before they start school.  Our youngsters who arrive in kindergarten with good literacy skills are the ones who are likely to do fine in school while those who lack in this area will often struggle.  I am sure that there are places that we can refine our curriculum to better prepare students for what is next.  But we also need to ensure that parents are devoting a lot of time to speaking and reading to their children before they start school. There is more to ensuring success for students than teaching algebra in 7th grade.

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Digital learning and keeping it personal

By Steve Atwater | Published: November 14, 2011

When I speak to parent or community groups I usually mention that the district is working hard to incorporate the digital world into our students’ learning.  But twice last week I was told that we need to show more caution with using technology, that an overdependence on this medium will lead to an impersonal school experience.  The gist of what I heard was that student learning should be based on a real-life contextual setting and not a virtual cyber world.   As we continue to more seamlessly utilize digital learning, we need to better define the proper balance of digital and human interaction in our classrooms.

It is clear (to me) that our schools need to embrace technology and all it has to offer.  I know that most of our teachers are doing a great job interspersing snippets of digital information into their instruction.   Because our students, and for that matter, much of our society is so immersed in the digital world it would be a mistake for schools to not exploit this milieu.  I appreciate that some parents are concerned that technology will cause school to become so impersonal that students will lose their ability to learn in a social (face-to-face) environment.  However, if done well, digital information/content will capture time for teachers to have more opportunity for peer discussion and peer teaching (presentations).  These two critical components of learning are good ways to demonstrate higher order thinking skills.

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Declining Enrollment

By Steve Atwater | Published: November 7, 2011

Each year during the first four weeks of October, the state counts the number of students enrolled in our schools.  This number is an important one because it determines our level of state funding.  Unfortunately, the just completed student count shows fewer enrolled students than what we projected. We are thus, in the somewhat awkward predicament of now expecting less revenue than what we show in our budget. While it is obvious that we do not know all the reasons for this enrollment decline, several people have offered reasons why this is so. 

From what I can tell, it is clear that our borough is a maturing community-fewer households have school age children.  But it is also clear that our economy, or lack thereof, is playing a role in the declining numbers. I received a call from one man who said that he knows of 20 people who have left the borough to take jobs in the booming oil industry in North Dakota and Pennsylvania. Our challenge then, is how to continue to offer our students everything they deserve while working with fewer dollars.  It is urgent that we all help craft an economic plan that will turn our economy around.

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