Observing Student Behaviors in Walk Through Observations

As a short follow up to my recent post, it is worth sharing the great work of Stephen Barkley.
He blogs at http://blogs.plsweb.com/ and I was lucky enough to hear him at our EARCOS Conference in Lisbon earlier this year.

Steve's a very dynamic presenter, but his message struck a chord in me that caused me to re-think the way we at the American International School of Budapest were conducting our Walk-Through observations for professional growth by principals in addition to the criteria that we're trying to develop to help guide our Peer Observation process.

In short, he shared the following diagram and highlighted a missing piece in our process - and I would think in other schools' processes as well.

 Steve walked us through a simple process which I believe could be repeated in many schools.

1. Examine your mission and/or vision statement for learning, and ask staff to list student behaviors that would exemplify the statements in these documents.

2. List a few, our quick list included actions such as "Students who..."

• respectfully question each other and the teacher
• naturally self-assess
• take academic risks
• pose their own challenging questions about content
• collaborate and come away with deeper understanding
• make predictions
• connect content and construct personal meaning

As he pointed out, a group of educators could quite easily develop a list of 20 student-actions similar to these in about 30 minutes.

3. Put these characteristics into the "look-fors" for any observation tool.

His main point: These student behaviors should be the basis for our observation and follow up discussions. 

If we want to change student achievement, and we want to change it in regards to the criteria that are stated in our mission/vision statements (as opposed to simply our test scores), then we need to be examining the opportunities when we could engage students in this type of learning.

We need to be having discussions about how to increase their frequency.
We need to be talking about whether these opportunities are having an impact on student achievement.

At AISB, our current walk-through model was developed last year and we are looking to evaluate its effectiveness. It does include "Student Behaviors" such as:
- listening
- listening with notes/worksheet
- group work
(and many more)

But a limitation of this is that these student actions are based on general activities without trying to be more specific with the types of learning and thinking that are taking place for the students.  For example, group work can consist of a wide variety of tasks and it is a rather limiting piece of data to say that students are "working in groups."  It gives a snapshot of the classroom activity, but not a good snapshot of what type of thinking students are engaged in.

Are there models out there which have already been developed that look at these types of aspects?
If anyone out there currently utilizes a similar system, what the benefits and potential pitfalls?

Before signing off, there is one other element I love about the way the diagram is depicted. It is neither top-down nor bottom up.
Each of us has a role and can have an influence. But the adoption-flow of this process can start with an individual in the classroom and expand outward to others who wish to be involved, or it can start from the furthest point from student achievement (leadership behaviors) and work its way towards influencing individual student behaviors, and eventual student achievement.

Help Needed ! Classroom Observations and Student Thinking

This post is a bit of a deviation.
My school (www.aisb.hu) is using a walk-through observation process for teacher professional growth.

We have a fairly simple observation form (posted here soon) with one of the six categories measuring "Student Engagement". It is this category of the six that I am hoping to focus upon to be able to better share what I believe needs to happen.

The more often I have post-walk-through conversations with teachers, the more I am seeking to clarify the language that I believe needs to be added to our form (and subsequent discussions). Student engagement is not enough. (See below.)

I am assuming that educators/researchers out there must have written something on this topic, but I'm struggling to come up with additional models.

In the absence of not finding much, and after talking with teachers to help craft the language a bit, I want to share my thinking below in the hopes that others who read this might be able to point me in the direction of similar research with additional / clarifying ideas.

So... help needed !  Point me in the right direction to learn more.

I hope the descriptions below will be clear enough gain insight into what I am thinking. I am hoping to find more research or models that clarify the distinction between Stage 2 and Stage 3.

==============
Classroom Activities and Student Engagement Levels

- What types of activities promote student thinking?

- What types of activities are linked with various forms of assessment?

Actually Chittenden used the word "initiative" not "engagement,." An actor (and his or her audience) can be highly engaged, but he/she is not the author of the language, the decision-maker, the initiator (of thinking / learning) .

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/2008/02/dear_diane_i_dont_want_1.html (in  Deborah Meier's comments after the article)

THREE STAGES OF STUDENT ENGAGEMENT AND ACTIVITIES 

THAT ARE ASSOCIATED WITH THEM

1. Activities That Passively Engage 
The nature of the activity allows students to drift in and out of the lesson
EXAMPLE:  Students listening to a lecture who are subsequently called upon at various points to answer questions.

Possible Assessment Type: Loosely formative for an entire class because the teacher may have a general sense of whether some students can answer some questions. But this method is nearly  impossible to measure the understanding of all students regarding key concepts.

2. Activities That Engage 
The nature of the activity makes it fairly obvious if some/all of the students are on task, but not necessarily showing high levels of initiative (thinking and decision-making)
EXAMPLES: Students looking up answers from text/source; recording information (notes) from the board during a lecture; carrying out the rote directions of a task, such as a lab or reading from a text.  

Possible Assessment type: Usually (but not always) these activities can be used as a formative assessment for all students.  But Stage 2 (Engaged) are different than Stage 3 (Initiative) formative assessments in that they tend to measure effort and completion of a task without being able to legitimately assess the level of each student's understanding.


3. Activities That Engage in Thinking / Decision-making (Initiative)
The nature of the activity requires all (or almost all) students to function on a task that requires them to author language, demonstrate understanding, or make decisions.
EXAMPLES:  Putting examples into categories; coming up with examples and non-examples for concepts; sorting events into a timeline;  taking a quiz or test; deciding whether statements are “always true”, “sometimes true” “never true”;  summarizing in writing;  matching;  listing similarities and differences from given examples; having students ask “one important” question to demonstrate clarity of understanding; deciding and describing most important idea(s); self evaluations, peer evaluations; having students develop/select rubric indicators, criteria or exemplars; authentic assessments that meet the GRASP indicators - keeping in mind that various indicators of GRASP can be demonstrated / assessed  specifically

Possible Assessment type: Usually (but not always) are  good formative assessments, quickly allowing each student (or groups of students) to demonstrate understanding of key concepts so that future instruction can be altered. Some of these can be summative assessments as well. 

================

Assumptions 
1. Lessons cannot operate in Stage 3 at all times.
2. All lessons should have multiple opportunities for students to work in Stage 3, especially in assessing understanding of planned objectives.
3. Teacher use of Stage 3 formative assessments are met with differentiated instruction as needed (pre-planned, if possible).

Should gapminder.org be our primary 'text'?

Having just returned from the ECIS Conference in Lisbon and having the opportunity to hear Hans Rosling, I would like to urge anyone who has not already downloaded/utilized the software at gapminder.org to do so now! It's free.

Hans' message
Hans is a great speaker, and his message of utilizing datasets to help re-construct our mindsets is a fascinating talk.  Summarized, the world is converging. The data dispels the myth of the "developing" and "first" world that still dominates the way we think of (and teach) global issues.  If you want to hear a similar speech he gave to the US State Department as a TED Talk, it's here.


However, it's more than his message that I find innovative.

More than an excellent use of technology
Granted the data compiled and shared at Gapminder is an excellent example of how technology helps us do something that simply could not be done 30 years ago. The charts and graphs can be easily customized and tell a beautiful visual story.  But, that's not the reason that Gapminder excites me.

Something more fundamental
I'd rather address the manner in which data like this is utilized. In the title, I used the word "primary", and all social studies teachers will perk up at the opportunity to utilize primary sources.  Gapminder is certainly not a typical primary source in that sense - telling a story from original materials that have not been interpreted or evaluated.

But my title was more in reference to making Gapminder the primary (as in "first") source for our social studies classrooms. As I was watching the data unfold and considering the classroom implications, my initial (undeveloped) thought was that it would be a convenient way for classrooms to gather data to support what they were learning in particular units. But in that way, Gapminder is only an organized, interactive, (cool !) encyclopedia of data.  We have to find ways to use tools like Gapminder in the classroom for more than a means to justify student research papers.)  Eg. "As can be seen, the GDP of Africa is far less compared to the countries of South Asia.")

The increased attention to 21st Century Skills - interpretation, analysis, problem solving, creativity, collaboration, etc. - requires that we re-consider the way we teach. What better way to get at so many issues than asking students to understand and interpret data to help tell a story?  Our textbooks and other secondary sources can be used to provide context and rationale to the data; but shouldn't we be asking students to construct data/story first?  Eg. "What story is this data telling us?"

Why don't we use data like this naturally in our units?

Perhaps students are not skilled enough at interpretation to come away with grand insights from this type of data? But if we aren't teaching them how to come up with the skills to see data, form their own conclusions, and ask what other evidence they would need to see to help verify their conclusions, then where are they meant to learn these skills?

Perhaps broad questions like that do not lend themselves well to self-contained units of study (WWII, the US Civil War, etc.)? There is truth in this statement. But the data assembled at Gapminder allows us to go so much further than World War II - they allow comparisons of many wars.

"What are the effects of Civil War?"
"Who 'wins' in a war, and how?"
"What are the effects of a revolution?"  
"What data might we wish to see to measure whether a revolution should be considered a success?"

Of course, these types of questions require "uncovering" and will lead to many more questions. (Great!)

So, if I had my wish, it is this. Consider the way in which a tool like Gapminder can facilitate a social studies flipped classroom. Instead of asking students to remember and understand our stories, can we increase the opportunities for students to construct their own story - and THEN see if other  secondary sources confirm, dismiss, reshape, and/or provide context to their thinking. That's how social scientists think, and we need to find ways to allow students to practice that skill.

In that way, Gapminder can really be the ultimate primary source. It's one of those sources that  allows our students to tell their story.

"Tech Integration" R.I.P.

Since Halloween is right around the corner, I've tried to work in the R.I.P. theme into this post.

But before trying to explain that, I want to share a great resource for teachers at Edmodo.com.  With 3.5 million users, I think I'm one of the last ones to join the Edmodo environment. Edmodo is a safe (secure, protected) social network that teachers can create for their classes, and then share resources (threaded discussions, texts, etc.) with students. In addition, it's a tremendous resource for teachers networking with other teachers. There are a host of groups (math, etc.) within Edmodo for teachers to join.

Check it out. It's free.

Now onto my symbolic RIP request...

Having just come out of a two-day workshop on excellence within a 21st Century School, I got to spend a good deal of time with our (American International School of Budapest)  Middle School tech intergrationist, Bill Farren.

Bill won't mind me saying that we are doing a disservice to technology when we continue to refer to "tech integration".  Are we still stuck in a mindset that has us create compelling units and then think of technology as some after-thought that we should add in order to satisfy others that the unit is cutting edge?  When we think of tech integration as some after-thought we missing the more exciting question of how effective are we using technology.

Did our teacher-ancestors speak in terms of white-board integration? Or, ball point pen integration?

21st Century skills are asking students (and schools) to be effective users of technology.  When we start to think of those outcomes (or any outcomes), we only need to ask if technology will help us get there? Often times it will, but lets bury the technology integration label once and for all.

Bill, we'll work on getting some new business cards soon.