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April 2003
Welcome to Exemplary Initiatives online!
Exemplars is a community of users dedicated to helping schools become successful in standards-based performance assessment and instruction. Our monthly newsletter features short pieces from Exemplars users, as well as brief reflections on current education issues and trends that impact standards, assessment and instruction.
If you would like to contribute, or have comments you would like to share, please get in touch with us at info@exemplars.com. We look forward to hearing from you.
In This Issue:
Research Supports Sane Teaching for the Test
Last year's survey of Exemplars users reported that many who use Exemplars believe teaching strong problem-solving, reasoning and communication skills will benefit their students on high-stakes assessments.
Several recent reports bear out the wisdom of their approach. The most important is a study done by the Chicago School Research Project supported by the Annenberg Foundation. In this study, assignments from samples of third, sixth and eighth grade classrooms were compared according to the intellectual demands they required of students. Student achievement was measured by the improvement of student performance on two standardized tests (the Iowa Test of Basic Skills (ITBS) and the Illinois State Test (IGAP)).
The findings were striking. The analysis took into account the change in test scores from the previous year and controlled for differences in racial composition, gender and socioeconomic status of the students. With regard to the ITBS:
In Chicago classrooms with high-quality assignments, students' record learning gains were 20 percent greater than the national average. In Chicago classrooms where assignment quality reflects less demand, students gained 25 percent less than the national average in reading and 22 percent less in mathematics.
The Illinois test results yielded similar findings, once again holding student demographic factors constant. The study also found that high quality assignments benefit low achieving students slightly more than high achieving students, but, "these results indicate that a diverse array of students benefit from participation in a classroom with high-quality intellectual assignments."
A second study, published by the RAND Corporation adds strong support to the Chicago findings. RAND studied the performance of 1,400 eighth grade students in Southern California and a second national sample of tenth and twelfth grade students (NELS). The RAND study concluded that there is a relationship between hands-on science and student performance on test scores. These results hold for both multiple choice and performance tests. "Our results show that an emphasis on hands-on science can support gains in both types of scores."
...we find a positive relationship between hands-on science and test score(s)...The finding of a relationship with both multiple choice and performance test scores should make this promotion more attractive in those states or districts that intend to continue to rely on multiple choice tests, the use of hands-on science can support efforts to increase scores without the fear that the increased time required for hands-on science will harm student test scores.
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Whole Class Discussion, Using Small Groups and Peer Coaching
Successful Strategies of a Master Teacher
Christine Ortlund, a teacher in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, successfully integrated problem solving and assessment in her multiage fourth and fifth grade classroom using a combination of whole class discussion, small group instruction and peer coaching. Dr. Kevin O'Connor, a principal in another school, interviewed Christine for over 60 hours and observed her classroom for his dissertation study. He has written about Christine's strategies in his dissertation, De-Emphasizing Grade-Level Identities: A Case Study of Mathematics Instruction In An Intermediate Elementary Multiage Classroom. What follows is an account taken from Dr. O'Connor's dissertation describing how the three strategies were effectively implemented.
(For a more complete account click here.)
Snapshot: Reflections on Whole Class Discussion
Christine's concept of whole class activity was not one of a teacher dispensing knowledge to the whole class. Rather, Christine orchestrates discussions among students in the entire class. The types of prompts she reported using in these discussions include:
What's the next step I might take here? What strategies could I list to go back and check my work? What are some different ways I could solve the problem and share those on the board? Was there one strategy that was more confusing for you to use than another? How would you go about solving this one? Make up a story about it.
Christine used discussion to put students in positions where they encountered other perspectives. They hear others thinking, encounter a variety of mathematical representations and multiple strategies. In trying to get fellow classmates to understand their thinking, Christine believed that students could potentially discover their own inconsistencies and errors. In restating their views, students report more accurate and efficient solutions, progressing to better explanations and clarity in thinking.
Snapshot: Using Small Groups
Christine used groups in a variety of dynamic and interesting learning environments, sometimes assigning groups and other times allowing students to select their own. Christine modified the student grouping procedures based on the purposed underlying lessons.
Maybe we'll 'fishbowl', that is, isolate a pair or small group of students. The other students gather around while this group in the center is working and talking about a mathematical problem. We might also do 'Popcorn', an activity in which there are partners or a small group working on a task or discussing a problem. A student audience is observing.
At the beginning of the year we all come in and I say to the kids, 'We all have three jobs, learner, coach and risk taker.' I change their roles or have them identify which role they are playing as they work in groups.
At times, Christine would put certain students together who needed assistance with the development of a particular skill. This type of group was usually a short-term situation. The group stayed together until they were proficient with the skill. She also had longer-term grouping that usually lasted three to five or more class periods. The purpose of these groupings was to help students learn how to work with each other for an extended period, usually on a substantive problem-solving task. Christine often changed the composition of the groups as lessons evolved.
Currently, I have three groups of math for this class: One-Equivalent fractions, abstract thinkers who come up with rules on how to strategize. Two-Fractions as part of the whole. They need practice that is more concrete. Three-Geoboards and beans. Lots of manipulatives. The groups are not based on overall ability, but rather students' understanding of a concept as per assessments. Groupings in fractions will change as the concepts are presented. Grouping for geometry may be completely different. I get the information from short assessments or other activities that we do to determine the groups.
Snapshot: Peer Coaching
An apprenticeship atmosphere was created in Christine's classroom, where students achieving a high level of proficiency in a particular concept were recognized by their peers as sources of help and information.
With this culture established, Christine used the levels of the Exemplars rubric as descriptors for apprenticeship roles. She found students willingly accepted the Novice, Apprentice, Practitioner and Expert roles associated with the rubric. Students at an Apprentice level knew that in time, with continued experience, the Novices with whom they worked would eventually understand. The Apprentices also knew as they learned more about a particular concept, they would become Practitioners and Experts. These descriptors allowed students who did not understand a concept right away, to say, "It's OK, I'm a Novice and know I will get it later." This is just a new approach, and no different than starting anything new.
Labels continually changed for individuals with different learning activities.
If I give everyone an opportunity to be a teacher and a learner, then there's not that stigma that a certain student always knows the answer or is always the learner or a person always knows more. As I keep grouping by different formats, there are always situations in which a child knows something that another one does not.
The Exemplars rubric became a tool that Christine used and adapted to unify her classroom. It enabled her to use consistent language and performance criteria across various aspects of the learning experience in her class including instruction, assessment, observations and commentary including the Everyday Math Program. Her planning and management were further enhanced by the use of the Exemplars assessment tool, which enabled her to assess and recognize the differences in students' mathematical development. Her continual monitoring of student development provided the information needed to constantly nudge students to new challenges and achieve higher levels of problem solving.
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Integrating Standards-Based Education with Everyday Math and Exemplars
Barbara Wood is a teacher on special assignment in the Kent School District in Washington State, where Exemplars is used as a supplement to the Everyday Math Program. Ms. Wood has described the way in which the Kent District has integrated Exemplars with Everyday Math and the Washington state standards.
To help its teachers, Ms. Wood notes the District has aligned Exemplars and its Everyday Math units with the Washington State Essential Academic Learning Requirements (EALRs), the state's education standards. Additionally, teachers receive an Implementation Guide that outlines which Everyday Math units and Exemplars problems to teach each month. Kent teachers can easily cross-reference the Guide with the EALRs and use it for their monthly planning.
In order to access specific Exemplars tasks for various grade levels, Kent has organized Exemplars on its Intranet system by grade and month. According to Wood, now all a teacher has to do is open the Implementation Guide to their grade level, find the corresponding month on the Intranet and click on the exact Exemplars task they need to teach. This method also allows teachers to print out a single copy for themselves or multiple copies for their whole class! Wood explains the Kent School District has made using Exemplars easy and accessible for its teachers and in turn, they are very comfortable using it.
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