Empowering Effective Teachers

Countless number of studies have found and affirmed what we know that a quality effective teacher is the single most influential school facet of a student’s learning. Empowering Effective Teachers: Strategies for Implementing Reform is an issue brief released by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation in February 2010. It is the first of three briefs that will be released. The Foundation has funded work and charged the grantees to improve teacher effectiveness. While the Foundation did not stipulate specific strategies, the nine school districts and one charter organization (10 total) have identified common strategies which include:

• Looking at teacher effectiveness through multiple lenses including students’ academic growth, family/student feedback, observation data, and teacher attitudes and beliefs
• Improving the leadership and evaluation skills of instructional leaders to provide feedback to teachers as well as creating better evaluation tools and processes
• Approaching tenure as a milestone event that occurs after a review process as opposed to “time served” automatic occurrence
• Creating career pathways and pay-for-performance. For example, one of the sites spends $30 million dollars a year on stipends for advanced degrees which has limited impact on teacher effectiveness, so those funds are going to be reallocated to criteria linked to student outcomes.
• Recruiting and placing highly effective teachers in specific classrooms

The issue brief provides food for thought of issues, processes, and stakeholder groups to involve when an emphasis is placed on enhancing teacher effectiveness. The Foundation is a strong supporter of education reform and certainly everyone can benefit from the lessons learned and published from the work the Foundation funds. While these ten sites are fortunate to have funding and resources of the Foundation (to the tune of 20-46 million dollars annually), there are numerous school districts around the country that have made teacher effectiveness a focus.

As a case in point, SURN staffer Jenny Hindman consulted with a school district in Wisconsin that engaged in a professional development centered on questions such as What makes an effective teacher effective? and How can we support teacher effectiveness? In that school district, teachers and administrators created a teacher evaluation system built on a foundation of effective teacher research and employee performance appraisal best practices that also met state code for evaluation. Their evaluation system includes tools and processes such as goal setting for student achievement, observation, and stakeholder surveys. During hiring process, the interview questions are distributed across the multiple areas of teacher effectiveness using the Teacher Quality Index (TQI) as a tool. TQI is based on teacher effectiveness literature and interviewing best practices. These are just a few examples of how a school district adjusted its processes to focus on teacher effectiveness. This initiative was supported from the superintendent’s office to the teacher’s actions and all points in between because emphasizing teacher effectiveness was good for student learning.

The issue brief discusses capacity building of school leaders for providing better feedback for evaluation. The School Leadership Institute is currently engaged in a project called the SURN Leadership for Effective Teaching led by Jan Rozzelle, Mike DiPaola, and Margie Mason that provides 28 principals and assistant principals with tools and support to collect classroom-based data during observations and engage teachers in dialogue to provide formative feedback.

“Great teachers approach their craft with humility” (p. 13).

Share your examples of meeting students where they are and supporting their learning by adding a comment.

Dr. Carol Ann Tomlinson shares in an article in this month’s Educational Leadership anecdotes about three students she taught to provide support for why differentiation is a vital way to support student learning.

Dr. Tomlinson found that by watching colleagues teach she became a stronger teacher. However, it was her studying of students whom she taught that taught her more about her professional practice. “Learning has to be about individual learners. And given the chance, those learners will challenge our ‘certainties’ about instruction” (p. 14). Dr. Tomlinson provides three examples of where a teacher may personalize instruction to meet a student’s need. “In each case, starting where the student was resulted in a student with higher aspirations, a teacher with more self-efficacy, and some great memories” (p. 16).

1) Connect with students’ interest (p. 14) Dr. Tomlinson wrote about “Scott” who loved to draw cartoons, but had relatively interest in her English class. His classmates loved his work. Scott figured out that earning a “C” got him lectures from his parents and plenty of time to pursue his passion, but a “D” would result in being grounded. So did enough to get by. When Scott asked Tomlinson if she thought the school would let him use the copier to run off copies of a comic book he wrote, an opportunity arose. As Scott experienced success with the comic books including selling ads to offset costs of commercial printing, he had a strong need to know that Tomlinson capitalized upon and Scott benefited by. She channeled his need to know to the language arts requirements for the year. Scott began interfacing with comic illustrators, made comics using the vocabulary words, his editing skills improved through his work on ads and in the comics, and he would discuss literary elements with his teacher. In class, Tomlinson would use language from his cartoons for students to name parts of speech and study grammatical constructions.

2) Finding the right starting point (p. 15) is about meeting students where they are in order to support their learning. “Golden” was a 15 year old in 7th grade who confided in his teacher (Tomlinson) that he did not know how to read. Tomlinson shares that teaching reading was something that she needed to learn to support her 7th grader as by this time many students are reading to learn as opposed to needing to learn to read. She met him where he was at, a need to know his ABCs. She engaged him in word study and used books on tape to engage him in discussions of elements of literature. Golden had a tailored spelling list. Tomlinson’s work with Golden was her initial foray into differentiating in the classroom to meet learning needs.

3) Giving permission (p. 16) works well with students with a high degree of intrinsic motivation. Geoff was an eighth grader who loved dinosaurs and told Tomlinson that he knew that school would not be a place where he could pursue his passion until he went to the university. Geoff suggested to Tomlinson that each week they meet so that she could share with him what was really important for him to learn that week. He could then work at his own pace to meet her learning goals and then have time for independent study. Tomlinson’s first thought was everything is important, and what she articulated to Geoff reflected a valuing of him. She worked with him. Tomlinson found that talking with Geoff to identify what mattered most and why was a good practice for her in addition to benefitting him. Geoff, true to his word, studied dinosaurs and extinction theories. He presented his findings to the class and teacher who admittedly did not understand much of the content due to the level but, they all understood the incredible undertaking and learning that occurred.

Want to read the article?

Tomlinson, C. A. (2010). One kid at a time. Educational Leadership, 67(5), 12-16.

Consider coming to Dr. Tomlinson’s session at the 2010 National Leadership Academy in Williamsburg on June 22, 2010. Registration is now open.