Scheduling for what Matters

Curriculum driven Schedule
Our students need a broad education that will prepare them for a wide array of future interests.  Time is a finite resource and therefore scheduling is the allotment of resources based on a variety of factors.  Below is a framework of factors such as research based effect sizes, state accountability, important curriculum areas outside of the state accountability system, support systems, and a variety of logistical factors.




Hattie's Effect Size-
These items are research based, can be addressed in a schedule, and are said to have the greatest impact on
student learning.  

• Adapt Schedule for student's prior cognitive ability (HAL and Sped)
• Instructional Quantity
• Create a schedule that allows acceleration
• Schedule programming to consider home factors (Homework like TSP)
• Bilingual programs
• Peer Tutoring program (homeroom)
• Allow adequate teacher in-service education
• Parent involvement
• Schedule to allow remediation and mastery learning (Enrichment and Intervention)

Nebraska State Accountability
Areas of greatest emphasis

• Reading
• Math

Other Areas of Emphasis

• Science
• Writing

Curriculum Outside of the Nebraska Accountability System
Social Studies, Music, Art, PE, Band, and Computers/Media/Technology

Support Curriculum

Character Education, Homeroom, Enrichment and Intervention, Sped and HAL

Logistical Scheduling issues

• Flexibility vs Dictating minutes for each class
• Common Plan Time-Interdisciplinary
• Common Plan Time-Department
• Team composition-3, 4, or 5 teacher teams

The Case for Teaming in the Middle Level

The transition from elementary to middle school can be improved through the use of teams.

A Connected Curriculum
For good reason, the impact on student learning is always a significant component of any discussion in education today.   One of the key components of interdisciplinary teams is the ability to connect learning with real life by not compartmentalizing learning.  Teachers can make significant connections with what is being taught in other subjects.  By reading a book in Language Arts about the Revolutionary War at the same time Social Studies is learning about the Revolutionary War, connections can be made.  Science might incorporate lessons about the medical procedure used at the time or the topography of the land in the colonies or whatever fits the science curriculum.  Math can use examples from the Revolution and story problems that fit with the other subjects.  All of the sudden, the curriculum starts to come to life and the teachers and students can feed off of each other.  This of course is a significant part of teaming, but teaming can also have other positive benefits to a school.  In an elementary school, this can happen as a bi-product of the fact that one teacher has the student for most of the day.  In the middle level, this needs to be coordinated intentionally through teaming.

An opportunity to huddle

On a football team, after each play, the offense huddles up and calls the next play.  Some teams use a no huddle offense so the communication doesn't happen through a huddle but it still happens.  Imagine a football team with no huddle and they didn't call a play at the line of scrimmage.  They'd all just run into each other, some would be going out for passes, the linemen would be blocking down field and other would be in pass protection.  It would be quite a sight to see (Wisconsin fans-no need to bring up last week's Huskers at this point in the blog). Now imagine a group of teachers with one opportunity per month to discuss curriculum and their students.  This team of teachers would be disjointed and unable to really work as a team.  So we give teams an opportunity to "huddle" using common plan time.  Teachers are able to discuss interdisciplinary projects like described above.

Teachers are also able to create and implement plans with individual students.  By solving student problems at the team level, teachers are able to increase instructional quantity, which is the 4th largest influence on achievement according to Hattie's Effect Size.  How are they able to increase quantity of instruction?  By keeping the student in the classroom (and out of the office) and discussing the student during team plan.  Teachers can then discuss the student with the counselor, administrator, parent, etc.

What kind of team?
An argument can be made that the teams should be by department.  This works very well for planning common curriculum among all 5th grade math teachers.  This is essential for the curriculum side of teaching.  However, we don't only teach math, we also teach 5th graders.  Therefore, it is extremely important to have the opportunity to get together with the teachers who teach the same course and it is important to team with others who teach the same students.

Get to know your students
In elementary schools, students are in one class for a large part of the day.  They might leave for PE, Music, Art, etc. In high school, teachers are much more specialized in a subject.  How do we move from one teacher to 8 different teachers in a day without making the student feel that they are left out on an island? Teaming allows teachers to focus on the student.  We are able to transition the student into the future high school model without losing the 9 year old child in the "big school."  We can essentially create a small school within the school.  If you already have a small school, common plan is still important as you are able to discuss the student help them feel as a part of the school.

Teacher Job Satisfaction

School climate matters.  Teachers are in a profession where they see 100-150 people in a day.  However, these people are 9-15 year old.  It leads to a lonely existence.  By being able to have adult conversations, it advances professionalism and helps create an environment where you are not out there all by yourself.

Accountability
A teacher is accountable for a group of students.  The social studies teacher is now connected to the reading,  writing, math, and science results for a student.  The students belong to the teacher.  The teachers work for a common goal when teaming is done right.

Teaming as a Luxury or Necessity?
Teaming is good for teachers and students.  It is not a luxury.  Our students need us in this time of their life more than ever.  Graduation rates are effected more by middle level educators than any other grade level.  Understand that they are not just a cog in the educational factory. They are at a time when they need someone looking out for them.  Someone to be their advocate.  Someone to love them at their most unlovable.  Teaming allows for positive and proactive measures to assist students in this time of need. Teaming allows for a group of adults, not an individual (hope you got a good one) teacher looking out for the child.

Recognizing Positive Behaviors-Catch Them Being Good

Catch Them Being Good

Johnson Crossing is a 5-6 building that has approximately 345 students per grade.  At Johnson Crossing, we teach students positive behaviors and our goal is to reward these behaviors.  We call these behaviors TIGER skills as our mascot is a Tiger.  The guidance counselors and dean of students go to each team teaches the behaviors from our TIGER Matrix.  When we see positive behaviors, we want to recognize kids.  We want to catch the students being good.  When we see behaviors that do not fall into our TIGER skills, we then address them with a replacement behavior.  We are able to talk about what a student should do, not simply tell them to stop doing the bad behavior.  In order to reward positive behaviors, we have developed a TIGER store and Tiger bucks.

TIGER Store and Tiger Bucks

Purpose: Reinforce TIGER skills by recognizing positive behaviors.

Teachers
Each teacher starts with 30 Tiger Bucks.  These Tiger Bucks are to be given to students when students display positive behavior according to the TIGER matrix.  Students will not get a Tiger Buck if they ask for one.  We want to randomly catch students doing the right thing.  It may become common for students to ask for a tiger buck when they see somebody else get one.  A good response to these students is to say “Keep doing the right thing and I’m sure I’ll catch you sometime.”  

Students
Students can trade in Tiger Bucks during their allotted time in the TIGER store. The TIGER Store will be open for 20 minutes for each of the 9 teams.  Each team (of teachers) will sign up for a time during the school day that works for them.  

School Store
The TIGER Store sells a variety of items.  Some examples of items that can be purchased at the TIGER store include items like t-shirts, pencils, notebooks, Johnson Crossing bracelet, wear a hat pass, front of the line pass, eat with the principal certificate, etc.  


School Partnerships
Johnson Crossing must partner with the community to make this store happen. The PTA and staff members have donated money and items. Several items are free such as wear a hat during school. Finally, businesses will partner and either donate money or items for the TIGER store.

Supporting No Zeroes

A "no zeroes" policy makes perfect sense.  A zero will skew your gradebook significantly.  Zeroes are punishment of behavior, not assessment of learning.  Grades are not intended to be the motivator, again they are to describe learning.  So I will not make a case of why to do a no zeroes policy.  Instead, how do we implement a policy like this in the real world.

Practical matter of no zeroes
1. Think of homework as practice.  Our goal is learning, not completion for the sake of completion.  Assessments should be given regularly, be meaningful, be connected to homework, and should give feedback to students.  Practice should not be graded.  Homework is not the assessment.
2. Put programs in place for those students who need extra help.



Changing Homeworks Purpose


Change the way you think about grading, homework, practice, motivation, etc. and everything changes.  Yes, this can be scary.  You may have to look at what classroom activities are really just time fillers and get rid of those activities and practices.

No zeroes policies-common and practical questions:
1. Why will students do the homework if I'm not grading it? (motivation)
2. All students have to do homework.  How could I manage a class if some students did homework and others didn't do the homework? (management)

When homework is used as practice, it helps students learn concepts already taught in class.  Keep the answer book open in the back of the room.  The practice isn't graded anyways.  This sends a message that the homework is for learning, not grading.  Then you can have conversations with students and give better, more natural feedback to students.  Have them turn in work and comment on it.  Walk around the room as they are working on it.  Answer questions, interact with students, check for understanding, and get a feel for who needs to do the homework

But why would a student do the work if it isn't graded?  Because your homework is directly aligned to what will be on your assessments.  You can have many small assessments, authentic assessments, quizzes, and tests in class.  You will be grading that student's work.  You will know that the work was not done by sitting in the hallway looking off the smart kids homework.  When homework is a grading game, count on the fact that many students (even your best) are cheating to get the work done.  This isn't a negative view of "these darn kids today," it's just reality.  If they see the homework as checking something off of a list, then that is the quality of work you will get.

What if one of my students gets it, but the rest of the students needs practice?  If the student completely "gets it" before others do the practice, will doing the same level problem that they already understand over and over going to help that student?  No, but it will kill their motivation to learn.  If you differentiate and give them problems that challenge them, then fine but differentiation is a whole topic on it's own so no point in going there in this post.  So yes, all students have to practice and prepare, but that may not look exactly the same for each kid.


Programs
We went to a no zeroes policy at the Middle School 6 years ago.  At the Middle School, we created the Eagle Success Program known as ESP.  The basics of ESP: if students don't complete homework, they are assigned an ESP.  At the high school level, we use the Grade Recovery Intervention Program.  We do not have a no zeroes policy in the high school but have put GRIP into place so that if teachers have a no zero policy, they have support from the school and school administration.  Students are required to stay after school to complete homework.  GRIP lasts from 3:35-4:15 and take priority over after school sports.  We use common sense and we do not make unreasonable punishments for students.  Our goal with both programs is to get completed work, not punish kids.  For instance, if  a kid has a meeting with their TeamMates (School based mentoring program) mentor, they will meet with their mentor and get the homework done later.  We want to be flexible enough that the purpose is clear, turning in essential homework (homework that for this student must be done so they will be prepared for the assessment) is required.  We have found that time is a bigger motivator than grades could ever be for many students. By the way, the students that are actually motivated by grades are not the students we are talking about with these homework programs anyways.


Results
High School-One student failed one class in the first semester and two students failed three classes in the second semester.

Middle School-One student failed one class in the first semester and no students failed any class in the second semester.

Our failing rates went down by 90% or more.  Of course it is possible that because we are focusing on failing grades, our teachers may feel pressure to pass kids.  However,  our 8th grade students scored highest of all our conference schools on our state's writing assessment.  We also scored very high (well above the state average) on all of our state testing. It appears that the programs we have put into place do in fact support learning and do not lower our high standards.

Living Above the Line

Living Above the Line is an approach to discipline at Arlington Middle School.  It's not just a system, but it's a way of thinking about student behavior.  It's taking a negative, poor decisions by students, and making it into a positive.  How?  By looking at student behavior as an opportunity to teach and therefore student discipline can be seen as an extension of character education.

The key components to "Living Above the Line" approach to student discipline are:
1. 10/90-Ten percent of life is outside of your control and 90% is inside your control (Stephen Covey).  Spend your time and energy where you can actually make an impact.
2.  Consequences-All actions have a consequence, good or bad. The best consequences are natural consequences but logical consequences have their place too.  Certainty over immediacy-something will happen is more important than that it will happen right now.
3.  Respondability-How you respond is more important than the initial action.
4.  See it, own it, solve it, do it-this is the way the student takes accountability for their actions and creates a plan to fix the problem.
5. Give it time-Frustration and anger will go away with time.
6. Educators should be role models of behavior.  Respectful responses are extremely important to any and all situations.

Influencing Change: Vital Behaviors

It's overwhelming to think of how Arlington has gotten to where we are.  I have written several posts on the things we have done that have led to many successes.   It's even more overwhelming to think of where we are going and how to get there. Where do we begin?

My question of where to begin is not a rhetorical question.  I, along with about 30 teachers, a principal, 2 counselors, and several other support staff members will be doing just that this fall.  The Johnson Crossing Academic Center will open for the first time in August and greet over 700 students whether we are ready or not.


In the book, "Influencer: The Power to Change Anything," the authors identify what they call "vital behaviors" (with this in mind, I am not an expert in the change process.  This post is more an exploration of the ideas of this book than a statement). The idea of vital behaviors is that a few behaviors make significant changes.  People who lead change have very specific behaviors in mind that need to be changed.  Instead of spouting generalities of educational jargon such as "best practices" or a "safe environment" specifics are needed. Behaviors are not to be confused with outcomes.

Successful Teachers-Vital Behaviors
The authors found 2 behaviors in teachers that have successful students.

1. Top performing teachers reward positive performance and bottom performing teachers become easily discouraged.

2. Top performing teachers quickly transition from teaching to questioning.  This leads to reteaching when a topic is not understood.

Influencing Change Through Vital Behaviors
To create the biggest change, you must find the behaviors that lead to the greatest change.  It's interesting that these are not unbelievable, overwhelming tasks that would be impossible for the average person to do.  Yet breaking it down to it's smallest component is not always easy when you are looking a big problems from close up.

Where to begin?
What we must do (the generalities): Create a caring environment, have high expectations, develop a collaborative learning environment, value 5th and 6th grade students, and on and on and on.

My starting point: I'm avoiding using "vital behaviors" because vital behaviors are research based.  I'm going a little bit on gut, a little on experience, and a little on research.  So I am just calling this my "starting point" behaviors.

1. Open dialogue - begin by meeting, interviewing, and getting to know each teacher and staff member.   Learn from them and share my beliefs.
2. Model caring behaviors - speak positively of students and parents every chance I get.
3. Speak of high expectations.

These are not unbelievable, overwhelming tasks to complete.  These are my 3 simple behaviors that I can do when facing a daunting challenge.

Where would you begin?
If you could start your own school, what vital behaviors do you find most important to the development of the kind of school you would want to send your child?  So literally, where to begin?  Where would you begin?

Building a Culture without Cracks

Developing a school culture that puts student academic success at the center of all decisions is crucial to a school’s success.  In the middle grades, it is important to develop the whole student.  Great schools don’t allow any student to fall through the cracks. 

1. A strong team or teams-Teams drive much of what we do in the middle school.  The purpose of the team must have student driven decisions. 

2. Kid Centered-When students are at the center of decisions rather than curriculum, everything else falls into place.

3. Never give up attitude-I believe that schools often tell parents and student why we can’t do something.  Instead of telling people what our limitations are as a school, why not explore all options that could help an individual student.

4. Putting Programs in Place-With a never give up attitude, it would be easy to get frustrated if programs aren’t in place to support teachers that never give up.  As an example, if zeroes are not an option, then set up programs to support this belief.

5. Developing a unified approach to student behavior-It is also important that the approach to student behavior fits the kid centered, never give up attitude.