ISO 9001 and Public Schools - Under continuous fire for low student achievement

[Jen Kirley]

Does your research include actually teaching, being in charge of these kids, in groups and/or one on one? Math, science and social studies? Have you talked with these kids to learn what motivates them to perform? Have you seen the moment when the lesson clicks and watch them ask for more, then shut down immediately when the next teacher comes in the room?

 

[Jen Kirley]

Actually, overemphasis on the kids is also hurting us. When teachers examine each other's work, they often focus on the students' responses to the assignment. My view is that the assignment (the teacher's expectations) is central to accountability, not the student's response.

The same applies to classroom observation. Too often observers focus on the behaviors of the students and their reactions to teaching strategies, all the while ignoring the teacher's behaviors.

I agree that curriculum and instruction form only a part of student development, but they do form the most significant part. What is the biggest difference between a student going to school or staying home? The curriculum and instruction they experience in the classroom.

Behaviors exhibit motivation, which is key to your education process success. By all means, look at the teachers' behaviors too - find the ones who are long past time to move on and get them out.

My best suggestion is to make the curriculum as relevant to their interests as you can. That's a big challenge in large groups, maybe one reason why home schooled students tend to perform better as scholars.

 

[JW9000]

Does your research include actually teaching, being in charge of these kids, in groups and/or one on one? Math, science and social studies? Have you talked with these kids to learn what motivates them to perform? Have you seen the moment when the lesson clicks and watch them ask for more, then shut down immediately when the next teacher comes in the room?

Again, most of my focus is on the teacher. Suppose a student yells, "I'm bored!" To me, the student's statement is not as important as (1) the teacher behaviors that led the student to being bored and (2) the teacher's response. So the focus remains on the teacher and his or her reactions to the classroom environment.

For boredom, we can look at the cognitive rigor of the questions and activities (measurable), the questioning strategies employed by the teacher (measurable), and whether the teacher demonstrates the relevance of the content (measurable), which leads to your next post:

Behaviors exhibit motivation, which is key to your education process success. By all means, look at the teachers' behaviors too - find the ones who are long past time to move on and get them out.

My best suggestion is to make the curriculum as relevant to their interests as you can. That's a big challenge in large groups, maybe one reason why home schooled students tend to perform better as scholars.

I devote considerable attention to relevance. The lesson planning strategy I train teachers to employ includes relevance for every lesson they write. I am currently writing a book on relevance in algebra.

Currently, teachers do not relay the relevance of the material they are teaching (especially in math), and that is one of the measurements I perform. There is a button on our software for "relevance."

When teachers tell me that kids don't appreciate school, my next question would be, "Have you taught them to appreciate school, and by doing what?"

 

[Jen Kirley]

Again, most of my focus is on the teacher. Suppose a student yells, "I'm bored!" To me, the student's statement is not as important as (1) the teacher behaviors that led the student to being bored and (2) the teacher's response. So the focus remains on the teacher and his or her reactions to the classroom environment.

For boredom, we can look at the cognitive rigor of the questions and activities (measurable), the questioning strategies employed by the teacher (measurable), and whether the teacher demonstrates the relevance of the content (measurable), which leads to your next post:



I devote considerable attention to relevance. The lesson planning strategy I train teachers to employ includes relevance for every lesson they write. I am currently writing a book on relevance in algebra.

Currently, teachers do not relay the relevance of the material they are teaching (especially in math), and that is one of the measurements I perform. There is a button on our software for "relevance."

When teachers tell me that kids don't appreciate school, my next question would be, "Have you taught them to appreciate school, and by doing what?"

Now we're getting somewhere.

I found the kids seldom declared they were bored; they had given up on that long ago. A person needs to be more aware of the kids' boredom, and most teachers I observed were not aware - or they didn't care, saying "It's not my job description to entertain them." Or, the teacher is so strung out trying to teach to 20-35 diverse young learners - many of whom had learning disabilities - he/she simply wasn't aware; focused on the process and maintaining classroom discipline. Did Erin Gruwell and Jaime Escalante focus on the process?

Please describe the button on your software for "relevance." What is that about?

Relevance in algebra - now there's a gem.

Some of the most successful programs I have reviewed did not leave it up to the teachers to make the subject relevant. The programs were designed to be relevant. Curricula were project based in subjects that the students had interest in enough to pursue as a job when leaving school. Research, reading, math, history and science lessons were based on fields. In Chugach District there was a lot of study in the commercial fishing field. By pursuing this strategy the students also greatly improved in their test taking - for those who think measuring success means taking tests (not you though, I mean the bureaucrats).

 

[JW9000]

Now we're getting somewhere.

I found the kids seldom declared they were bored; they had given up on that long ago. A person needs to be more aware of the kids' boredom, and most teachers I observed were not aware - or they didn't care, saying "It's not my job description to entertain them." Or, the teacher is so strung out trying to teach to 20-35 diverse young learners - many of whom had learning disabilities - he/she simply wasn't aware; focused on the process and maintaining classroom discipline. Did Erin Gruwell and Jaime Escalante focus on the process?

Please describe the button on your software for "relevance." What is that about?

Relevance in algebra - now there's a gem.

Some of the most successful programs I have reviewed did not leave it up to the teachers to make the subject relevant. The programs were designed to be relevant. Curricula were project based in subjects that the students had interest in enough to pursue as a job when leaving school. Research, reading, math, history and science lessons were based on fields. In Chugach District there was a lot of study in the commercial fishing field. By pursuing this strategy the students also greatly improved in their test taking - for those who think measuring success means taking tests (not you though, I mean the bureaucrats).

The button for relevance just records instances where the teacher taught the relevance, or had students perform activities that taught them the relevance. At the end of a full week, I could describe the number of classroom sessions that featured this component of instruction.

Relevance is more difficult to teach than others. Most teachers don't know the relevance of learning to perform long division of polynomials, so students think it is an academic exercise of no real concern of theirs.

 

[Jen Kirley]

I also find long division of polynomials an academic exercise of no real concern.

So you are sitting there pushing the button when a teacher makes a lesson relevant? Or does the teacher push the button?

 

[JW9000]

I also find long division of polynomials an academic exercise of no real concern.

I have actually used such long division to speed up computations. Also, long division produces a power series where all of the singularities are tied up in the remainder. In regions where the remainder is small, the power series dominates the behavior of the function. So you can perform long division and understand why a function behaves the way it does when plotted. In physics, we often only concern ourselves with distances that are large, such as in astronomy. Often the remainder is very small in such regions of space.

There are tons of higher-order questions that a teacher can generate from such an understanding. Why does one plot cross another at a particular value of x? Without the ability to perform long division, a student can spend an hour answering and never get a feel for functions and their plots.

So we teach long division of polynomials for a good reason, which is not the strongest form of relevance but certainly better than saying "It will be on the test" or "you will need to know this next year," which is typically what I hear.

So how is this tied to this discussion? When teachers learn to teach the relevance, classroom observation should look for this taking place. Feedback is provided to the teaching staff if relevance is absent, so they can formulate new targets.

So you are sitting there pushing the button when a teacher makes a lesson relevant? Or does the teacher push the button?

We do.

Teachers will push the button every time.

 

[Stijloor]

Criminy. I stated earlier that the results of our measurements alone are not designed for schools to take action, but are used to generate discussion as part of the Deming cycle.

I was very clear on this. In fact, I have stated it many times in this discussion.

I came here with the hope of learning more about ISO 9001 and many of the others have been very helpful. But you have turned this discussion into a total waste of time. I feel like I am arguing for the sake of arguing.

So I'm out of here.

I am so glad you did not!

Stijloor.

 

[Jen Kirley]

I have actually used such long division to speed up computations. Also, long division produces a power series where all of the singularities are tied up in the remainder. In regions where the remainder is small, the power series dominates the behavior of the function. So you can perform long division and understand why a function behaves the way it does when plotted. In physics, we often only concern ourselves with distances that are large, such as in astronomy. Often the remainder is very small in such regions of space.

There are tons of higher-order questions that a teacher can generate from such an understanding. Why does one plot cross another at a particular value of x? Without the ability to perform long division, a student can spend an hour answering and never get a feel for functions and their plots.

So we teach long division of polynomials for a good reason, which is not the strongest form of relevance but certainly better than saying "It will be on the test" or "you will need to know this next year," which is typically what I hear.

So how is this tied to this discussion? When teachers learn to teach the relevance, classroom observation should look for this taking place. Feedback is provided to the teaching staff if relevance is absent, so they can formulate new targets.



We do.

Teachers will push the button every time.

What is your expected success rate if this kind of relevance explanation is delivered to middle school or secondary school students? That example works for math people, not us mere mortals. Jaime Escalante could have done it, but only after he lassoed his students' motivation and got them to appreciate how the procedure is actually making their job easier.

Does the teacher push the button based on an explanation like you gave above, or something related to a subject like Nascar or football? In other words, in our diverse classrooms, how is the teacher trained to note when the relevance is understandable to all of the students versus one or even half?

This is tied to the discussion because those of us who like to think of education as a process need to understand that a process needs to be appropriate for the materials, providing the right treatments and using appropriate measurement methods to be gauged effective. The tricky thing is that you're measuring people - notoriously fickle and difficult - and the success of not only the lesson's practicality but the students' motivation to learn it.

I think you would benefit from three years as a teacher's aide in the schools, so you can get one-on-one time with students, be held responsible for outcomes of the methods you are proposing, note their improvement over that period, and try to capture the ones we're losing - they are the reason our schools are performing so poorly. The poor test scores are from students who have been left behind in lessons and the teacher never noticed, or was not able/willing to bridge the gap. Solve that and you'll make yourself famous.

But wait! Some people have already solved it and they're not famous. George W. Bush himself presented the Baldrige Award to Chugach School District, then turned around and pushed for standardized testing under NCLB, holding up as an example of success a school district that improved its scores by encouraging its lowest performers to drop out of school.

I respect your efforts but the renaissance is already underway, just quietly so, district by district. If you want to improve education nationally, check out what's already been developed and proven effective, then make it go viral.

 

[JW9000]

What is your expected success rate if this kind of relevance explanation is delivered to middle school or secondary school students? That example works for math people, not us mere mortals. Jaime Escalante could have done it, but only after he lassoed his students' motivation and got them to appreciate how the procedure is actually making their job easier.

In my state, the lesson is taught in high school.

Does the teacher push the button based on an explanation like you gave above, or something related to a subject like Nascar or football? In other words, in our diverse classrooms, how is the teacher trained to note when the relevance is understandable to all of the students versus one or even half?

You are assuming that all relevance must align to the personal likes and dislikes of the student. I can see nothing in the day-to-day activities of a student that would benefit from polynomial long division, but does that mean it is unimportant? If so, why teach it?

We must be teaching the lesson for a reason, and we need to explain that reason to students. Yes, the closer we attach the lesson to the students' personal lives the better, but it is not a fundamental requirement.

This is tied to the discussion because those of us who like to think of education as a process need to understand that a process needs to be appropriate for the materials, providing the right treatments and using appropriate measurement methods to be gauged effective. The tricky thing is that you're measuring people - notoriously fickle and difficult - and the success of not only the lesson's practicality but the students' motivation to learn it.

I'm not measuring people; I'm measuring behaviors. I'm looking for things to take place, not gauging the worth of the teacher. Big difference.

Suppose a teacher teaches her students that analyzing poetry builds the skills needed in advertising to write ads, and then provides some examples. I have no way of knowing to what degree the relevance struck home with each student. That is the job for the educational psychologist. I focus on the teacher, and in this case the teacher gets credited for teaching the relevance of the lesson.

And I also don't overly focus on that particular lesson. Suppose the teacher botched the relevance by stating something that was incorrect. It doesn't matter to me, because the worth of a teaching method is not lesson-specific. What matters is that the teacher understands the importance of teaching relevance and attempts to do so, not whether the relevance on that particular day is high-quality.

I think you would benefit from three years as a teacher's aide in the schools, so you can get one-on-one time with students, be held responsible for outcomes of the methods you are proposing, note their improvement over that period, and try to capture the ones we're losing - they are the reason our schools are performing so poorly. The poor test scores are from students who have been left behind in lessons and the teacher never noticed, or was not able/willing to bridge the gap. Solve that and you'll make yourself famous.

Again, you cannot overly focus on the student. Students come and go, so a teaching method has to be robust enough that it can be applied day in and day out over a number of years. That doesn't mean the students' characteristics are unimportant, but I don't measure students. That would be the job for an education psychologist.

I respect your efforts but the renaissance is already underway, just quietly so, district by district. If you want to improve education nationally, check out what's already been developed and proven effective, then make it go viral.

Quiet improvement over a limited number of districts is not a renaissance. On a large scale, the situation to me is getting worse, not better. The reaction to standardized testing is one reason.

Looking at what District X is doing to see what we should be doing in District Y usually fails. Why? Because District Y does not have the type of process control that will enable the staff to optimize the method to its own situation. They just insert the method and wait a year for the test scores to come out. When the scores don't show the improvements they were expecting, they quit. And since that method failed, why bother with anything else? "Been there, done that."

It's all about process control. If we need anything to go viral, that is it. I was hoping ISO 9001 would act as a vehicle for making process control go viral, but apparently not.