Collectively Responding When Students Do Not Learn · What do we want students to know? 2. How do we know students have learned what we want them to know? 3. What do we do when students

Collectively RespondingWhen Students Do Not Learn

Luis F. Cruz

When educators focus on the four critical questions of a PLC, the third question, What do we do when students don’t learn?, often stumps teachers. Luis F. Cruz showcases methods that schools throughout the country use to reculture and restructure, enabling them to respond when students do not learn.

Participants learn why it is vital that teams reculture and restructure their PLC efforts. They see how Tier 1 interventions are essential to the process. Dr. Cruz exposes participants to structures that allow schools to respond when students do not demonstrate learning.

Luis F. CruzLuis F. Cruz, PhD, consultant and author, is the former principal of Baldwin Park High School, east of Los Angeles, California. He has been a teacher and administrator at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. In 2007, Dr. Cruz led an effort to secure a $250,000 grant for Baldwin Park from the California Academic Partnership Program to promote a more equitable and effective organization.

Dr. Cruz has won the New Teacher of the Year, Teacher of the Year, Administrator of the Year, and other community leadership awards. He and a committee of teacher leaders

at Baldwin Park received California’s prestigious Golden Bell Award from the California School Boards Association for closing the achievement gap between the general student population and students learning English as a second language.

Twitter: @lcruzconsultingSolution Tree Resource:

Collectively Responding When StudentsDo Not LearnLuis F. Cruz, PhD

Solution Tree Associate

[email protected]

Twitter: @lcruzconsulting

Desired Outcomes

To ensure participants leave understanding:• What a PLC is and is not• What effective collaboration should look like

at a school• The actions associated with the four critical

questions and effective collaborative practices• All the necessary steps before collectively

responding when students do not learn

My Formative Assessment Based on Yesterday

First session: 94 attendees, 4.94Second session: 124 attendees, 4.64Notable comments from second session:O “Very engaging”

O “Absolutely loved it. Could not stop thinking and processing as you spoke. It blew my mind, so to speak!”

O “Very helpful that you covered so much content in so little time”

© Cruz 2017. SolutionTree.comDo not duplicate. 1

Other important comments:O “Not the content I expected. I thought it would be

more on “if they still do not learn, what am I supposed to do?”

O “I felt as though the majority of the presentation was on developing PLCs. I was expecting strategies on how to help struggling learners.”

O “The content did not match the title. Please change the title.”

My Formative Assessment Based on Yesterday

Collectively Responding When Students Do Not Learn

A team of teachers must determine who on their team has the strongest evidence of learning and, as a result, that teacher must be provided additional time and support within the professional day to reteach the students who did not learn the agreed-on essential learning target to generate learning.

“We argue that it is an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve.

operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous job-embedded learning for educators.”

—DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, Learning by Doing:A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work (2010)

© Cruz 2017. SolutionTree.comDo not duplicate.2

“We argue that it is an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve.

operate under the assumption that the key to improved learning for students is continuous job-embedded learning for educators.”

—DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, Learning by Doing:A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities at Work (2010)

Professional Learning Communities

Characteristics:• Shared mission or

vision• Goals• Collaboration• Intervention• Collective inquiry• Collective celebration

Collaboration

A process by which members of a team work interdependently to achieve a common goal and ensure that decisions made collectively are carried out independently


Professional Learning Communities

1. What do we want students to know?

2. How do we know students have learned what we want them to know?

3. What do we do when students do not demonstrate learning? (How do we intervene?)

4. How do we enrich and extend learning for students who are already proficient?

(DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, Learning by Doing:A Handbook for Professional Learning Communities, 2010)

How will we know they have learned it?

Determine essential standard or learning target.

• Develop common formative assessment.

• Set CFA proficiency.• Set protocols:

when/how.• Set SMART goal.

Understand standardor target.

Give CFA.

Plan based on CFA results.

How will we respond when learning has not occurred?

Analyze data.

How will we respond when learning has already occurred?

What do we want all students to learn?

Teach.Check for

understanding. Appropriately adjust

(differentiation).

Reteach (individualize, small group, deploy, and so on). Enrich and deepen.

Reassess learning. Produce a product based on standard.

At your school or district, is there a concrete understanding of PLCs as a process whereby educators work collaboratively in ongoing cycles of inquiry and action research to increase learning for students, or is it still “just a grade-level meeting”?

How would teams define collaboration at your site? Are teams clear on the actions aligned with the four

critical questions of a PLC?


The Stages of Collaboration(Graham & Ferriter, “One Step at a Time,”

Journal of Staff Development, 29[3])

1. “What are we supposed to do?”

2. “Let’s share.”

3. “Let’s plan.”

4. “Let’s create common assessments.”

5. “Let’s analyze the common assessments!”

6. “Let’s think outside the box with regard to ensuring learning.”

7. “Let’s learn from one another what helps students learn.”

Based on what you just learned about the seven stages of collaboration, at which stage are teacher teams at your school?

Teacher Team ResponsibilitiesO We must distinguish between: The essential standards The important standards The “nice to know if we have time” standards

O Advice from Ainsworth and Reeves when attempting to identify standards: The essential standards The important standards The “nice to know if we have time” standards


CCSS.Math.Content.3.OA.A.3Use multiplication and division within 100 to solve word problems in situations involving equal groups, arrays, and measurement quantities, e.g., by using drawings and equations with a symbol for the unknown number to represent the problem.

CCSS.Math.Content.7.G.A.2Draw (freehand, with ruler and protractor, and using technology) geometric shapes with given conditions. Focus on constructing triangles from three measures of angles or sides, noticing when the conditions determine a unique triangle, more than one triangle, or no triangle.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.6Evaluate authors' differing points of view on the same historical event or issue by assessing the authors' claims, reasoning, and evidence.

Once the essential standards have been identified, we must then collectively:

O Unpack the standard differentiating between skill and concept.

O Extract several learning targets.

O Identify the academic vocabulary needed for mastery of each learning target.

O Identify the rigor needed for mastery of each learning target via Bloom’s Taxonomy or Webb’s DOK Chart.

Teacher Team Responsibilities


Formative AssessmentFormal and informal processes teachers and students use to gather evidence for the purpose of improving learning (medical check-ups)

Summative AssessmentAssessments that provide evidence of student achievement for the purpose of making a judgment about student competence or program effectiveness (autopsies)

“When done well, [assessment for learning] is one of the most powerful, high-leverage strategies for improving student learning that we know of.”

—Fullan, Leadership and Sustainability:System Thinkers in Action (2005), p. 71


Common Assessment Analysis Protocol

1. Which specific students did not demonstrate mastery on which specific standards? (Respond by the student, by the standard.)

2. Which instructional practices proved to be most effective?

3. Which patterns can we identify from each student’s mistakes?

Common Assessment Analysis Protocol

4. How can we improve this assessment?

5. What interventions are needed to provide failed students additional time and support?

6. How will we extend learning for students who have mastered the standards?

But why common assessments?


Why Common Assessments?

Common formative assessments provide the most powerful stimulus for changing adult practice.

To improve schools, we must change adult practice.

(Richard DuFour)


We learned to measure our success through the BPHS green, yellow, red prism.

BPHS Interventions During the DayGuided Study CoursePurpose: To identify grade 8 students who need more specialized progress monitoring and academic support during their first year of high school to ensure academic success

2009–2010

60 credits

0%

55 credits3%

50 credits10%

45 credits10%

40 credits13%

35 credits 12%

30 credits9%

25 credits7%

20 credits10%

15 credits8%

10 credits9%

5 credits 9%

Credits Earned

30 Credits, 39%

25 Credits, 22%

20 Credits, 15%

15 Credits, 11%

10 Credits, 3% 5 Credits, 3%0 Credits, 2%

Credits Earned

Guided Studies: Is It Working?2010–2011


Douglas ReevesImplementation Gap

“For years researchers and practitioners in education have developed proven methods to close the achievement gap.

“Unfortunately, it is the inability of schools to implement these practices that negatively affects student achievement.”

Muchas Gracias!

To schedule professional developmentat your site, contact Solution Tree

at 800.733.6786.

Luis F. Cruz, [email protected]

@lcruzconsulting


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Simplifying Response to Intervention Workshop© Solution Tree 2014 • solution-tree.com • Reproducible.

REPRODUCIBLE

12© Cruz 2017. SolutionTree.com

Reproducible.

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38 JSD SUMMER 2008 VOL. 29, NO. 3 WWW.NSDC.ORG NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL

Imagine having the opportunityto work at a new middleschool, built around profes-sional learning communityprinciples. From day one,

teachers are organized into profession-al learning teams working to defineessential curriculum, develop com-mon assessments, and analyze studentdata. Similarly, administrators work asa team to support the development ofprofessional learning teams andemphasize a distributed model ofleadership. Several years ago, we hadthe opportunity to work as a teacherand an administrator in this newschool in the Wake County (N.C.)

BY PARRY GRAHAM

AND BILL FERRITER

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PROFESSIONALLEARNINGCOMMUNITIES

ONESTEPAT ATIMEMany professional learning teamspass through these 7 stages

© National Staff Development Council 2008. Reprinted with permission.Do not duplicate.14

NATIONAL STAFF DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL 800-727-7288 VOL. 29, NO. 3 SUMMER 2008 JSD 39

Public School System.With little experience to guide us,

we learned a number of importantlessons. First, professional learningteams represent a powerful mecha-nism for improvements in teachingand learning. Second, developing suc-cessful professional learning teams isdifficult, requiring concerted effortfrom teachers and administrators.And third, while different teamsdevelop at different rates and with dif-ferent personalities, most professionallearning teams pass through similarstages in terms of the nature of theirwork.

Like many, we found that thework of professional learning teamsprogressed from a focus on teachingto a focus on learning. Helping teamsmake that progression, however —and emphasizing effective dialogueand reflection along the way — arekey components in building a profes-sional learning community. Here weoutline these stages of developmentand provide recommendations forsupporting and challenging teams.

STAGE 1:FILLING THE TIME

The first question that noviceteams often ask is: “What exactly arewe supposed to do?” Initial meetingscan be rambling affairs, especially forteams lacking clear guidelines. Asteachers initially explore collabora-tion, meetings can swing from oneextreme to the other: either strugglingto fill time or tackling too many tasksin hour-long meetings. Frustration isinevitable for groups struggling withnew responsibilities.

The best way to help teams movequickly out of this stage is to set clearwork expectations. Defining specifictasks — such as identifying essentialobjectives or creating a commonassessment — lends direction to anambiguous and overwhelmingprocess. Sample agendas, suggestedteam roles, and sets of adaptable

norms are helpful for developingteams. When school leaders fail toprovide basic structures for earlymeetings, collaboration can quicklybecome confusing and seen as a wasteof time by teachers comfortable withisolation.

STAGE 2:SHARING PERSONAL PRACTICES

A common next question is:“What is everyone doing in theirclassrooms?” Teachers may be gen-uinely interested in what other teach-ers are doing, hoping to pick up newideas. Or it may be that talking aboutteaching feels like collaboration.Initially, there is great value in theseconversations because sharing prac-tices makes instruction transparent.More importantly, conversationsabout practices are comfortable, serv-ing as a first step toward establishingpositive patterns of interpersonal dia-logue among team members.

Unfortunately, many groups failto move beyond sharing instructionalpractices to the real work of learningteams: Reflection resulting in teacherlearning and improved instruction.School leaders can promote meaning-ful work by requiring team membersto arrive at collaborative decisionsaround curriculum, assessment, orinstruction. Teams can create sharedminilessons that all teachers will deliv-er, shifting the focus from individualefforts to a collective exploration ofeffective instruction.

STAGE 3:PLANNING, PLANNING,PLANNING

As teachers learn to work together,teams will wonder: “What should webe teaching, and how can we lightenthe load?” Planning — a task thatconsumes all teachers — becomes anideal place for collective efforts.

At this stage, school leaders maysee a self-imposed standardization ofthe curriculum emerge. All teacherswithin a team begin teaching roughlythe same content at roughly the sametime in roughly the same way. Lessexperienced or effective teachers bene-fit from the planning acumen of moresuccessful colleagues. Teams are alsoable to delegate responsibilities.Rather than each teacher individuallyplanning every lesson, different mem-bers take responsibility for sets of les-sons and share their work.

Unfortunately, teamsoften grow comfortablewith shared planning andfail to focus on results.Unless challenged, teamattention remains cen-tered on teaching ratherthan learning. The mosteffective way for schoolleaders to move teams for-ward is to structure effortsto use student achieve-ment data in the planningprocess. School leadersmust ask teams to answerbasic questions about outcomes: “Areyour students learning what you wantthem to learn? How do you know?”

STAGE 4:DEVELOPING COMMONASSESSMENTS

New thinking related to studentoutcomes forces teams to ask: “Whatdoes mastery look like?” This questioncan cause controversy by tapping intoteachers’ deepest philosophies. Shouldthe classroom focus be on basic skillsor on applying knowledge in real-

PARRY GRAHAM is an assistant principal atCedar Fork Elementary School in the WakeCounty Public School System in Raleigh,N.C. You can contact him [email protected].

BILL FERRITER teaches 6th-grade scienceand social studies at Salem Middle Schoolin Apex, N.C. Ferriter writes a regularcolumn for the NSDC newsletter TeachersTeaching Teachers and keeps a blog aboutthe teaching life, The Tempered Radical, atthe Teacher Leaders Network web site,www.teacherleaders.org. You can contacthim at [email protected].

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Unfortunately,many groups failto move beyondsharinginstructionalpractices to thereal work oflearning teams:Reflectionresulting inteacher learningand improvedinstruction.

© National Staff Development Council 2008. Reprinted with permission.Do not duplicate. 15


world situations? Which is moreimportant: being able to get the rightanswer or being able to explain yourwork?

Teams first struggle with thesequestions while developing commonassessments. Shared assessments forceteachers to define exactly what stu-dents should learn and what evidenceis necessary for documenting success.Novice teams may work to avoidcommon assessments, thereby steeringclear of difficult conversations, butcommon assessments are essential ifteams are to shift their focus fromteaching to learning.

Productively wrestling with funda-mental beliefs requires teachers todevelop the interpersonal skills neces-sary for working through contention.Having set individual direction withlittle intervention for years, many

experienced teachers lack the skills forfinding common ground. Whileteams with positive relationshipsthrive on the synergy generated bycomplex conversations, teams strug-gling with personalities need real sup-port. School leaders should considermoderating difficult conversationsand modeling strategies for joint deci-sion making.

Teams may also need additionalskill development in assessment dur-ing this stage. While teachers oftenpossess an intuitive understanding oftheir students, common assessmentsrequire a measure of standardization,both of task and of judgment, to pro-vide reliable comparisons. Investingenergies in simplistic measures of per-formance will only frustrate teamsand stall future work. Time spent on astudy of the core differences betweenassessments of learning and for learn-ing as well as a review of strategies forassessing a wide range of outcomesensures that joint evaluation of stu-dent learning will be embraced bydeveloping teams.

STAGE 5:ANALYZING STUDENT LEARNING

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assessments, the next question is per-haps the most challenging: “Are stu-dents learning what they are supposedto be learning?” It is at this stage thatprofessional learning teams begin toshift their focus from teaching tolearning. This is also the stage whereteacher teams need the most technicaland emotional support.

Technically, teachers often requiresignificant training on data analysisand interpretation. Using data effec-tively is not an intuitive process,remaining an area in which mostteachers lack experience and expertise.School leaders who provide structuresand tools for effective data analysis arerewarded with highly motivated teamsdriven by results. Many successfullearning communities repurpose posi-tions, hiring teachers trained in dataanalysis to assist teams in identifying

trends in student learning.Common assessment data will

reveal varying levels of student successacross classrooms, leading to feelingsof guilt, inadequacy, and defensive-ness. Teachers are put in the delicateposition of publicly facing what theywill inevitably — yet inaccurately —view as individual successes and fail-ures. This intensely personal reaction

is understandable from invested pro-fessionals confronted with hard evi-dence.

When handled properly, analysisof student learning can lead to richconversations about effective instruc-tion. As teachers spot patterns in data,they can work as a unit to respondproductively. On highly functioningteams, collective intelligence providesa never-ending source of solutions foraddressing shared challenges. Gettingteams to this point, however, requiresemotional support and patience.

School leaders are encouraged tocreate safe environments in whichteachers can discuss common assess-ments and to model nonjudgmentalapproaches to data. Separating theperson from the practice is an essen-tial first step for teams examiningresults. School leaders should also

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© National Staff Development Council 2008. Reprinted with permission.Do not duplicate. 17


“walk the walk,” sharing reportsreflecting their own work, such as fac-ulty or parent surveys, in publicforums.

By modeling a data-orientedapproach, school leaders send themessage that data analysis is aboutimproving outcomes, not judgingindividuals.

STAGE 6:DIFFERENTIATING FOLLOW-UP

While teacher teams almost natu-rally move to the next stage of devel-opment — responding instructionallyto student data — school leaders canfacilitate this transition in two impor-tant ways: by asking teams to reflecton the right questions and by givingteams the resources needed to craftappropriate responses.

As teams become adept at analyz-ing student data, school leadersshould no longer be directing team

development, insteadserving as collaborativepartners in ongoing con-versations about teachingand learning. Teams atthis point in the processare typically performingat a high level, taking col-lective responsibility forstudent success ratherthan responding as indi-viduals.

The most effectiveway to further develop ateam at this level is topose questions, both tothe team and to individ-ual members: “Whichinstructional practices arethe most effective across

your team? What concepts do yourstudents struggle with? Are your stu-dents able to apply knowledge tonovel problems?” By posing provoca-tive questions and demonstrating flex-ibility as teams pursue variousapproaches for intervention andenrichment, school leaders encourage

the professional ownership thatdefines accomplished educators.

More importantly, however,school leaders must identify concreteways to support differentiation.Traditionally, this has meant identify-ing professional development oppor-tunities or providing substitutes sothat teachers can plan responses as agroup. Interested teams are oftenengaged in partnerships with sisterschools sharing similar student popu-lations. Funding is provided for after-school tutoring, honoring the talentsof teachers filling once voluntaryroles.

But supporting differentiation alsorequires a commitment to nontradi-tional school structures and processesbeyond the classroom. Effectiveadministrators reallocate positions,focusing resources on struggling stu-dents. Rethinking the role of guidancecounselors, secretaries, teacher assis-tants, media specialists, assistant prin-cipals, and literacy coaches creates apool of human capital that can betapped to address the challengesinvolved in differentiating learning forall students.

Action from those beyond theclassroom is essential to maintaining alearning community’s momentum.While school leaders can begin tomove out of a directive role with indi-vidual teams, their efforts to coordi-nate available resources, support inno-vative approaches to differentiation,and engage faculty members in newwork will determine how successful abuilding will be at meeting the needsof every learner.

STAGE 7:REFLECTING ON INSTRUCTION

Teams performing at a high levelwill eventually ask one final question:“Which practices are most effectivewith our students?” This questionbrings the process of professionallearning team development full circle,connecting learning back to teaching.

Teams at this point are engaged indeep reflection, tackling innovativeprojects such as action research or les-son studies.

At this point, school leadersshould facilitate a team’s ability toexplore the teaching-learning connec-tion. Efforts might include givingteachers the opportunity to observeeach other or providing released timeto complete independent projects.When multiple teams in the schoolare at this level, school leaders mayfacilitate cross-team conversations,creating opportunities for practicesand perspectives to migrate school-wide.

NAVIGATING A CHALLENGINGPATH

While the process of developing aprofessional learning team may feeluniquely personal, we believe certainstages of development are commonacross teams. We hope that by helpingeducators to understand that thesestages exist and by describing both thechallenges and opportunities inherentin each stage, we can improve thechances of success.

The path to building learningcommunities may be difficult, butstudents will benefit from the process.While teachers face significant chal-lenges, so do school leaders commit-ted to supporting substantive teachercollaboration. Those leaders must playmultiple roles — at times, walkingwith the members of a professionallearning team; at times, walking a fewsteps ahead and anticipating the nextturn in the road. �

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Documents

Collectively Responding When Students Do Not Learn · What do we want students to know? 2. How do we know students have learned what we want them to know? 3. What do we do when students