Teachers' Questions & Concerns about Assessment Results

Over the past few months Carolyn Gough, Secondary Language Arts Consultant for our school district, has crunched numbers, drawn conclusions, and shared information with middle school English and reading teachers. When she presents these various assessment results, some schools and teachers are delighted, while other are discouraged.

In her kind and professional manner, Carolyn helps educators recognize the areas for concern and then leads the group in addressing those problems by setting doable goals. Most leave her meetings feeling recommitted, but some well-meaning, hard-working teachers still feel dispirited.

In a recent message to Carolyn, one such teacher wrote: "I know I should take this as a great opportunity, but somehow I feel like I am a bad teacher. Yet, some of those classes had so many students who just didn't give a heck and would not try no matter what."

I doubt there is a teacher who has not felt this way, including Carolyn and me. Because teachers are often discouraged and overwhelmed with all that is expected, I want to share excerpts from my colleague's response to this dedicated veteran educator. Carolyn wrote the following:

I read your message and felt deeply touched by your sincerity and concern. I appreciate your willingness to share your thoughts with me and I want you to know that I completely understand how many factors go into test results. The last thing I want anyone to feel is discouraged about teaching. Teaching is demanding, hard work and I know that you and all teachers are trying to help students in all the ways you know how.

I think there are two fundamental messages I'm trying to communicate with the data I've shared:

1. Looking at data can help us get a general picture of where we are and where students are in the context of the school, district, and state which can help us plan for instruction.
2. As teachers we can and should always be asking ourselves, "What else can I do to improve student learning?" The focus really needs to shift away from whether or not we taught the material, to whether or not the students learned the material. If their scores are hinting that they aren't learning as much as we'd like them to, it's important to ask ourselves how we can help them in their learning. I maintain that there is no perfect teacher. Each one of us can always search for ways to adjust instruction to help students learn.

The hardest part about asking this question is that we have to open ourselves up and feel vulnerable as we search for the best ways to help students learn. But the more teachers reach out to one another and to others for ways to help students learn, the more they realize there is to learn, and the better teachers they become. Whether a 1st year teacher or a veteran, there is ALWAYS something else we can do to improve student learning. I'm hoping that we'll focus our efforts on those things.

As we talked Friday morning, [one of your colleagues] asked, "What else can we do?" I hope that all teachers would ask a similar question about his/her own teaching. Rather than get down about what has happened, look ahead at what else we can do to improve student learning. Some ideas for how we can accomplish this are to ...

• ask for a consulting educator to come and observe you in action and to notice ways you can increase student learning;
• make time to watch another teacher in action;
• ask other teachers how they are teaching a particular part of the core;
• participate in creating a curriculum map that matches the core so that we can understand what the core is truly asking of us and our students;
• be sure you know which standard and objective your lessons are tied to in the core;
• help students know what it is they are supposed to be learning from the core.

One of the things you do so well ... is that you are open to new ideas and are willing to do things differently to affect change. You are one of those veteran teachers who wants students to succeed and cares about their learning. I know that about you because you have always been an active listener who asks excellent questions in discussions. I know you are open because you were willing to send me an e-mail about your thoughts. You have a great attitude ... which is the key to refining instruction and looking closer at all the ways we can help improve student learning.

Oh My! Access: One Teacher's Experience

This year I've been happy to feature a few guest bloggers - Sarita Rich, Roseann Markham and Cynthia Vandermieden - today I am pleased to copy and paste this unsolicited email from Lars Erickson of Oquirrh Hills Middle School. I always appreciate feedback, and it is particularly rewarding when it is POSITIVE.  Thanks, Lars, for granting permission to share your reflections about a recent experience with the MY Access,with other JSD teachers. 

Having just finished my [MYAccess] District Assessment, I was curious to see how my kids did so I took a look at some of the M.A. reports.  Like the District average [Renae] reported, my kids averaged 5.0.  That’s more impressive since I teach the “non-Honors” L.A. students.

I fully expected the scores to go down from previous essay averages due to the restricted time allowed and the editing tools having been removed.  Yet, when I compared the averages from the three persuasive essays the kids have done, I found that they were actually the same as this last assessment, hovering around 5.0.  That might not sound impressive, that perhaps they have not improved, but considering the class time and preparation invested, it blows my socks off.  The first essay used about seven to eight days of class time, the second essay required about five, but this last one was only TWO days of class time and was completely without any teacher-directed pre-writing, M.A. spell-checking or editing help.

With My Access’ help, my students have become “advanced proficient” writers who understand that their efforts in the arduous writing process pay off.  I’ve seen so many lights go on in kids’ eyes today, it’s hard to believe.  I have a handful of essentially non-writers that have decided that they can write and write well.  They have learned valuable writing skills for sure (organization, word choice, mechanics, conventions, etc.), but I think by far the most valuable lesson has been that their sustained effort on a difficult task provides tangible results.  In all the years I’ve taught, I have never seen this lesson learned so well and so obviously.

I credit My Access for giving me the authoritative and immediate feedback tools to help my kids learn this most valuable wisdom. ... The gains I have seen would not have happened without ... My Access.

BEST Instruction: REMEMBER Intended Learning Outcomes!

WoW! That title is a grabber, isn't it? Uh, no! UNLESS the reader remembers what Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs) are! Now most educators depend upon a definition that reads something like this:

ILOs: Statements that describe what students should KNOW, UNDERSTAND, and be able to DO with their knowledge as well as what they FEEL and BELIEVE as a result of their LEARNING EXPERIENCES.

While most teachers focus upon the knowing, understanding, and doing, many forget the feeling and believing. Why? Because the latter part of this definition - that "touchy-feely" part is NOT tested. Understandably so. How can test-makers create a standardized, summative assessment that measures how students feel and what they believe?

After all, in this test-taking day and age, why should we worry about what WON'T be on the CRTs, the UBSCT, the ACT or SAT? As long as we teach the core and prepare the students for the season of testing, are we not doing enough?

The answer is "no." ILOs are a part of the core curriculum, and are expected to be an important part of instruction. With added capitalization, I created my own Wordle  "word cloud" to quote this excerpt from the USOE Langugae Arts Core Curriculum Introduction:

The OVERARCHING INTENT of language arts instruction in grades 7-12 is for students to VALUE, APPRECIATE, and DEMONSTRATE LITERACY through EXPRESSIVE and RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE skills, and to UNDERSTAND and INVESTIGATE the SELF, OTHERS, the CULTURE, and the ENVIRONMENT. The INTENDED LEARNING OUTCOMES (ILOs) describe the GOALS for language arts SKILLS and ATTITUDES. They are an INTEGRAL part of the CORE, and SHOULD BE INCLUDED as part of INSTRUCTION. PROCESS SKILLS in LANGUAGE ARTS domains are CRITICAL to the development of HIGH LEVELS of LITERACY and LEAD to UNDERSTANDING and INTERNALIZING ILOs.

ILOs are sometimes described as the HEART of the Core. While the voice of the above elaboration may be rather formal, some words and phrases create the heart. For example, the verbs value, appreciate, and understand, along with the adjectives expressive and critical, as well as the adverb integral denote passion and importance. The objects of the verbs - self, others, culture, and environment - specify subjects worthy of rigorous study and deep reflection. Skills and attitudes imply physical and emotional characteristics needed to develop high levels of literacy. 

As this is the time of year when goal-setting becomes a priority, it is also a good time to emphasize that ILOs describe the goals for Language Arts and that they should be included in teachers' instruction. But how long has it been since you reviewed the particulars of the core's Intended Learning Outcomes?

Over the next couple of days, let's look at a few of the ILO's descriptors. As we do, note the verbs used and the broad ramifications of those we examine.

Until tomorrow,
Renae