“Shoot for the moon and if you miss you’ll land amongst the stars.” Having great expectations and high standards are proven to help raise achievement in the classroom. Recognising that our beliefs also shape behaviour is a vital key to success. Do you and your teachers believe all students can succeed? Does the language and feedback given to students reflect high expectations? Are you, hand on heart, giving students ample time and opportunities to master knowledge and skills before presenting or adding the next scaffold? In his book, Creating Cultures of Thinking, Ron Ritchhart discusses the role of expectations and outlines five areas to be aware of as a teacher and leader: Focus on the learning, not the work. Too often, the goal in a classroom seems to be completing the work, getting it finished before the bell, deadline, or next topic starts. Towards the end of the year, it is common to hear teachers celebrating, or lamenting, on how many lessons they have left to complete the teaching of a subject. The challenge in all of this is that just because a student has completed the work, does not mean they have understood or learned it. Go into a classroom and ask your students what they are learning, and they will more than likely tell you about the ‘work’ or ‘activity’ they are doing. But what are they learning? The chief goal in the classroom must be about the learning. For this to happen, students must be able to articulate, firstly, where they are at in the learning journey; secondly, where they are going; and thirdly, what are the steps to get there. Sharing learning progressions is useful in this endeavour. Do they know how to progress in literacy and numeracy? Do they understand the levels of thinking from simple remembering and recall to evaluation, creating and applying? Students must understand the learning process; that learning is about what you don’t know, learning is often challenging and the learning pit is an uncomfortable place to be. They must be made to feel comfortable with making mistakes in a safe nurturing environment. As a teacher and leader, ‘Listen for the learning.’ Ask questions such as, “Tell me what you have done so far.” “What questions do you have?” “What does that tell you?” Avoid questions such as, “What have you done?” or “Are you finished?” Rather, ask, “What have you learned?” Of course the learning may not just be about the content. Learning may include life skills, dispositions, personal awareness and so much more. When focusing on the learning, students must understand that mistakes are opportunities to learn and the word ‘fail’ stands for First Attempt In Learning. Remember to provide feedback to inform learning using clear success criteria. Teach for understanding, not knowledge. Knowledge is the accumulation and storage of facts, procedures and skills whilst understanding is going beyond the information given to “figure it out” and depends on richly
integrated and connected knowledge. Look for evidence of understanding. This may include: Can your students explain it accurately? Can students apply the new information in various contexts? ■■ Are they able to teach it to others? ■■ Do students ask questions to further their understanding? ■■ Can your students accurately answer questions on the information? ■■ Can your students give their interpretation? ■■ Are they able to empathise? ■■ Can they take on another perspective? ■■ ■■
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Do they chat freely and intelligently about the information/skill?
To teach for understanding, Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins strongly advocate for starting with the end in mind. Consider what you want students to know and understand before you start planning. Be clear on the outcome and flexible on the approaches to get there. They suggest designing generative topics with a big idea for students to explore with ways to apply their knowledge and understandings as checkpoints along the learning journey. To do this it is essential to create specific goals for understanding and generate performance tasks that require students to use skills and knowledge. Alongside this a teacher must provide ongoing specific feedback to improve performance. Encourage deep rather than surface learning. It is important for students to apply their knowledge at differing levels of complexity and in authentic contexts. Rather than just focusing on memorisation, students are asked to use the knowledge and skills to problem solve and apply their learning to differing contexts. Deep learning includes students being able to ask further and more complex questions, reason a point of view or show connections between ideas. This may involve using a taxonomy such as Blooms, SOLO or the T3 model by Sonny Magana. Encourage independence over dependence. To truly prepare students for life beyond school, they require self directed skills and independence. The goal is for students to be internally motivated to be reflective of their learning and behaviour, resourceful when they are stuck or don’t know what to do and effective learners who can accept challenge. This requires the teacher to slowly ‘let go’ of the control and empower students to be self managing, self monitoring and self modifying. One great strategy to use is ICT: Independent, Collaborative and Teacher. All students start in the teacher group and once they show they are able to participate, contribute or master the skill or learning they move to the collaboration group. When they can show that they can complete the learning three times in a collaborative group they may then do the task independently. It creates a rite of passage, a goal to become autonomous and
leaves the students who need support with the teacher. Do you remember receiving your pen or sewing machine licence? This works the same way – with teachers explicitly outlining how to become a self-directed learner and encouraging and rewarding progress towards this.
** This article is the first in a series of 8, focusing on the 8 Cultural Forces and Cultures of Thinking.
Develop a Growth rather than Fixed Mindset. Carol Dweck has challenged the underlying beliefs and concepts about learning and intelligence being fixed. She popularised the idea of Growth Mindset, which maintains that when students believe they can get smarter, they understand that effort makes them stronger and as a result, students put in extra time and effort, leading to higher achievement. This requires using the power of ‘yet,’ knowing that if students are finding a task challenging, it does not mean they will never master it; it is just not ‘yet’ mastered and more teaching, learning, and perhaps focus and effort is required. As a teacher, giving specific and measurable feedback, which students can expand upon and use to grow is critical to encouraging growth mindset. This is where the role of dispositions can strengthen progress, as it is the effort, such as being able to persist, think flexibly, manage self or use prior knowledge that is the repeatable behaviour to develop a Growth Mindset. An important distinction, when understanding mindset, is mindset can vary between students, tasks and even days. Reflect on these five areas and how you might address them in your school and classroom – as high achievement always takes place within the framework of high expectation. Ron Ritchhart concludes, “It is our expectations of our students, ourselves and the learning process itself that form the foundation of a great classroom culture.”
Dweck, C. (2006) Mindset – The New Psychology of Success, Random House
References
Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins (2011) Understanding by Design Guide To Creating High-Quality Units, ASCD Ritchart, R. (2015) Creating Cultures of Thinking: the 8 Forces We Must Master To Truly Transform Our Schools, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University About Karen Boyes Winner of the NZ Educator of the Year 2017 & 2014 and the NZ Speaker of the Year award in 2013, Karen is a sought after conference speaker, consultant and educator who continually gets rave reviews from audiences around the world. Her dynamic style and highly informative content – which turns the latest educational research into easy-toimplement strategies and techniques – sets her apart from others in her field. Karen loves coaching teachers and conducting model lessons in the classroom alongside her staff development workshops and webinars. For more information please email karen@spectrumeducation.com To download a complimentary copy of this infographic please go to http://www.spectrumeducation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/1. expectations.pdf Want to know more? To join the webinar series starting 28th February please go to www.spectrumeducation.com/cultures-of-thinking-webinar-series To purchase and download all 8 posters please go to www.spectrumeducation.com/cultures-of-thinking-infographics/
IT’S ABOUT QUALITY . . . TV Media coverage/NZ Herald Extract 5 February 2018: ‘The study by University of Otago, Wellington public health researchers published in the New Zealand Medical Journal found only 20 per cent of playgrounds surveyed had a functioning water fountain.’
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