ASCD Inservice

Differentiated Results Now

On Sunday, conference-goers heard from a principal with firsthand experience applying differentiated learning in the classroom and seeing the results. Patricia Reynolds told attendees about the improvements her school, Intermediate School 73 in Queens, has seen during the session "Differentiated Results Now."

In 2005 just 46 percent of her students were proficient in English language arts, and 46 percent were proficient in math. Afer implementing a curriculum that focuses on differentiated instruction (DI) and results, in 2008 55 percent of students were proficient in English and an astounding 83 percent were in math. Reynolds put together an action plan that combines DI and results and makes sure her teachers are challenged and ready to push students to improve their performance in the classroom.

Looking at the statistics, it appears that Reynolds's plan is working well. She has devised a series of assessments that keep track of student progress throughout the year and that include pre-assessment quizzes and tests, an interim assessment, and the state test. She uses the data to figure out ways to improve each student's performance.

It's important to have strategies in place to encourage teachers to differentiate and to focus on the results they see in the data, she said. Such strategies include professional development, weekly planning meetings, and workshops. She explained why each strategy is important and how it helps not only her teachers improve, but also her students.

Based on the increase in Reynolds's students' test scores, I'm sure everyone in the audience was paying careful attention so that, when they go home, they can investigate ways to raise theirs as well.

Highlights from Summer Conference Day 2

After viewing tweets and overhearing chatter among attendees in common areas, the second day of Summer Conference appears to be a success. Attendees were excited to see such revered educators as Bob Marzano, Grant Wiggins, Allison Zmuda, and the numerous other presenters on hand. 

As day two comes to a close, please share your experiences from today's sessions.

Remember to check Conference Daily for schedule updates, stories, and other resources. 

ASCD Summer Conference Day 2

Welcome to day two of our Summer Conference! Which sessions were you especially looking forward to today? Share your experiences by commenting here or by visiting our Conference Daily site or our Twitter feed.

A Picture of Summer Conference

Here are some images from Friday’s events here at Summer Conference in Houston. Thousands of educators from across the country and outside the United States attended professional development sessions, shared experiences with colleagues, and learned about new innovations.

 

AMT

What is AMT you ask? Some new government agency? A hip, new rock band so cool that only young, city-dwelling bohemians have heard of it? Nope. According to Judy Hilton, it is a valuable concept that educators need to implement in the classroom if they want their students to truly understand what they are learning.

During her session at Summer Conference, Hilton explained how acquiring basic knowledge skills, making meaning of "big ideas," and transferring knowledge to new situations (AMT) is key for students to learn the game of life. Too often, she said, students just memorize what they are taught and repeat it back to the teachers because that is what they think is expected. That's not education, that's regurgitation.

Teachers must come up with curriculum and the knowledge they want students to acquire, then present ideas and questions to students that they then make meaning of. Finally, educators develop tasks that can tell whether students can transfer what they have learned to real situations. If they can successfully use their knowledge in the real world, then students will be more likely to succeed in that very place.

Do you find the concept of AMT useful? How often do you see students struggle with applying what they have learned to real situations?

 

You can read more about Hilton's presentation in the Conference Daily story "The Game of Life."

The Game of Life

An overwhelming number of elementary level educators attended Judy Hilton’s session "What Do I Teach on Monday? From Unit Design to Daily Instruction" to learn about Understanding by Design (UbD).

Hilton explained that there are three stages to UbD: identify desired results, determine acceptable evidence, and plan learning experiences and instructions. She focused mainly on planning learning experiences and instructions because educators must accomplish that first and then should work backward from there, she said.

If educators plan properly, everything should fall into place: They won’t have to worry much about focusing on specific teaching styles. If they take the time to be prepared every Monday morning, then teachers should reach their students.

Hilton pointed out that it is important for schools to have mission guidelines, but if the guidelines are not put into instruction, then they are little more than nice statements. The mission should come to life and allow students to understand what they are learning.

Acquire, make meaning, and transfer (AMT) is something educators have been failing to do, Hilton said. She stressed how important transferring knowledge to students is and how students should be able to transfer what they have learned to situations in their own lives. If you have students learn something and regurgitate it, but they can’t use that knowledge when they are out of the classroom, they haven’t learned anything, Hilton said.

“Synthesize and evaluate is what they should do,” Hilton said, “but they think we just want them to recall and give us back what we have taught.”

The audience listened intently as she gave tips and explained her philosophy, but one sentence may have summed it all up: “Our job is to teach students to play the game called ‘life,’ not the game called ‘school,’” Hilton said.

You can read more about AMT in this post.

Are You in a State of 'Curriculum Anarchy'?

“I like dramatic language,” said Tim Westerberg at one point during his session, “Distinguishing Between Learning Goals and Activities: Exploring the Critical Difference,” and he wasn’t lying. For two hours Westerberg kept the audience engaged and laughing while exploring serious education issues. He was the teacher you always liked, and the audience was his class. He had them brainstorming together and forcing them to think about the issues plaguing their own classrooms.

Westerberg discussed the necessity for educators to develop learning goals for their students, but he also warned that educators are inclined to forget to personalize the goals for each student. Each unique student must understand the learning goals, such as learn how to revise writing, and learning activities, such as writing a paper, to be successful in school, he said. Students should be able to personalize what they learn and relate it to life, and educators should allow them choices in how they learn. Applying these concepts, he said, will lead to successful learners.

After asking the audience to discuss among themselves the effectiveness of how they set up their objectives, Westerberg brought up the topic of curriculum anarchy. He described it as one teacher in a school teaching and grading on his own scale while another educator teaches the same class doing the complete opposite and working on a different scale, which can hurt students' grades.

Welcome to ASCD's Summer Conference

After arriving in Houston yesterday afternoon and stepping onto a full shuttle heading toward my hotel, I found myself surrounded by educators from around the country all going to ASCD's Summer Conference. It soon became apparent how important the issues being discussed at this year's conference are for people as debates sparked up over differentiated learning, assessment tests, charter schools, and other similar topics during our short ride to the hotel.

So let me take this time to welcome everyone to the conference. I hope that listening to such esteemed presenters as Jay McTighe, Thomas Rye, Carol Ann Tomlinson, and many more will fill you with even more passion for educating the youth of the United States and beyond—and that my ride back to the airport will again be filled with lively debate. 

Make sure to check out Conference Daily, our blog, and Twitter for updates and stories on this year's conference. Feel free to post comments about your experiences on our various publications or e-mail me if you have any stories you wish to share.

Welcome and enjoy this year's Summer Conference!

Clearly Defining the Learning Desired

One of the busiest presenters at this year's Summer Conference will be education consultant Allison Zmuda. Zmuda will conduct three different sessions on various topics that include designing essential questions for the classroom, trouble-shooting student learning challenges, and the foundation of school improvement. 

In this Speaker Spotlight, Zmuda discusses ways to develop and answer essential questions, and getting a game plan together for students with learning difficulties. Click the video below to hear Zmuda's solutions to these everyday challenges. 

Looking Beyond the "Answer"

At this year's ASCD Summer Conference, Understanding by Design cocreator Jay McTighe discusses how to overcome time constraints, and daunting amounts of content, and really engage students in learning beyond simply right and wrong answers.

In this speaker spotlight, McTighe discusses his conference session, "Essential Questions: Doorway to Understanding," which offers advice on how to get students interested in close examination and deep inquiry about what they are learning in school.

Planning for English Language Learners

Adapting teaching to the needs of English language learners (ELL) can be difficult for even veteran teachers. Education experts and ASCD authors Persida and William Himmele will be discussing common mistakes to avoid and ways to plan for a multilingual classroom at this year's Summer Conference.

You can get a preview of what they will be presenting at their "Purposeful Planning for Multilingual Classrooms" session by listening to this speaker spotlight. The Himmele's talk about overcoming language barriers, testing challenges, the worsening achievement gap, and what works best to improve English language learning.

Persida and William Himmele are the authors of the upcoming book "The Language-Rich Classroom: A Research-Based Framework for Teaching English Language Learners."

A New Era for School Reform

The ideas presented by Robert Marzano really gave me pause—I have been mulling them over since his session. They seem to make so much sense and yet seem to be so difficult to implement. Throughout the conference, I've been struck by how many presenters acknowledge the difficulty of effecting change at the classroom, school, or district level.

So when Marzano advocates whittling down the number of standards and benchmarks, for example, I can't help but wonder who ultimately gets to make those decisions. If they are made at the district level, then one district's standards could be substantially different from another district's standards. What are the drawbacks to that?

Beginning the DI Journey

“Differentiation is responsive teaching, rather than one-size-fits-all teaching,” Carol Tomlinson summed up for her audience of educators, representing various levels of experience, who packed the meeting room first thing Saturday morning.

Making a connection to Understanding by Design, Tomlinson agreed that understanding should be the goal, but she said, “that’s when interesting things start to happen.” She emphasized that if you start with content, such as a vocabulary list, some will be frustrated because it’s over their heads; others will be bored because they already know the words. If you strive for understanding, however, you recognize that you need to help those new to the content build their knowledge while helping those familiar with the content stretch to new levels of understanding.

To do this, you need to remember your students are human beings. You need to find ways to connect to them so that you can connect them to what you want them to understand.

How do you connect to your students?

Submitted by Carole Hayward, Director, ASCD Newsletters & Special Publications.

Understanding UbD

Here’s my take on Understanding by Design after attending Grant Wiggins’s beginner’s session: It’s hard!

Wiggins stated that the scenario that is all too prevalent today is “Teach, test, hope for the best.” He then went on to explain the theory behind backward design. You determine your goal—understanding. Then, you devise the assessment for it. Then, you design your lesson or curriculum for that. I was with him there, and it all makes good sense. But it gets hard when you attempt an exercise like the following:

I want them to learn __________ so that, in the long run, they will be able on their own to ____________.

Too often our answers were activities, not goals for understanding. Wiggins agrees that it is hard. He says he also hears quite often: “We don’t have time for this.” He doesn’t argue that point. “You will never have enough time. But with the time you have, how will you bring your students to the level of understanding you want them to have?”

I know I don’t have any ready answers for this question—how would you answer it?

Submitted by Carole Hayward, Director, ASCD Newsletters & Special Publications.

DI, UbD, & WWIS (Oh My!)

My head is spinning a bit, but I’m very pleased I chose the panel discussion as my first session. The authors, Carol Ann Tomlinson (DI), Jay McTighe (UbD), Grant Wiggins (UbD), and Robert Marzano (WWIS)—along with ASCD moderator Ann Cunningham-Morris—guided attendees through an overview of each framework, and then the authors answered specific questions based on their fields of expertise.

Even more important, the authors pointed to the elements that connect their frameworks to one another. In a nutshell, here’s what I learned:

Making Connections at Summer Conference

ASCD’s Summer Conference is underway, and I understand we have our highest number of attendees ever! They have all gathered here in sunny Nashville, Tenn., to spend the next few days learning more about differentiated instruction, Understanding by Design, and What Works in Schools. As a relatively new ASCD staffer, I want to learn more about these three vital research-based strategies. And judging from the packed rooms this morning, I am just one of many who do.

So here I am. Now, which sessions do I attend? The choices are many and diverse. I have decided that I should focus on sessions that are labeled as appropriate for everyone from beginner to advanced practitioner.