Teachers: Have This Conversation Before You Collaborate 02-08

Teachers: Have This Conversation Before You Collaborate

Getting educators to collaborate around instruction is really hard.

When I was coaching teachers, I had a framework for observation similar to many of the teacher evaluation frameworks that are out there today. It contained phrases like “Designs lessons so that timing supports learning”, which seemed fairly clear and objective.

I often saw things in the classroom worth improving, and the teacher and I would debrief them and brainstorm steps for positive change. Imagine my surprise when I would return a few weeks later and find that very little had changed. I would ask why, and teachers would usually say something like “I liked the suggestion, but it just didn’t really fit my style” or “I just wasn’t sure that would fit my classroom.” Usually that would kick off good conversations about teaching and learning. But occasionally, my mis-understanding of the teacher’s ideal classroom could cause real mistrust, and I’d struggle to get traction in supporting that teacher.

In graduate school, I began to research different styles of teaching.  I found that different styles varied in two really big ways: 1. How does the teacher articulate the purpose of education? and 2. What theories does the teacher hold about how students learn?

When you think about the wide spectrum of possible answers to these two questions, a criteria like “designing lessons so that timing supports learning” becomes much less clear cut. After studying multiple styles of teaching, I began to see that I had biases towards certain styles of pacing and timing in the classroom. My timing bias was towards an almost frenetic urgency, with lots of hands up and a lot of “buzz.” That’s because I usually thought about the purpose of education in terms of mastering content–and there sure was a lot of content to get through!

But what if the teacher I was collaborating with had a different notion? What if she believed that the purpose of education is to develop a young person’s sense of agency and self-mastery? She naturally would have a different interpretation of “timing that supports learning.” I found that teachers tend to approach common teaching tasks in a way that aligns with their sense of purpose and their theories about student learning.

I realized that I had done very little deep thinking about the purpose of education. If you had asked me about purpose in my first year of teaching, I would have said something about closing the achievement gap. But to what end? If it was college completion, that would imply one thing about how I do the work. If it was “citizenship”, might that imply something quite different?

Same goes for my theory of learning. Did I think students should first grapple with big, hairy problems or get lots of practice at basic skills? Did I think students learn best when they get choice over what they learn or is it better for them to feel like part of a collective effort? When you start having these kinds of conversations, you realize that most teachers’ conceptions of their jobs are a crazy maze of beliefs. How are educators supposed to collaborate effectively if they don’t know how their colleagues think about this stuff?

So as you are engaging with other educators and find that you just can’t seem to see eye-to-eye around some aspect of instruction, take a step back and see if you might need to have a conversation about your perspectives on education! If you need some conversation starters, consider these:

1. What do you think is the end-goal of education?
2. What do you hope your students will be doing 8 years after graduating from high school?
3. What are your top three pre-requisites for an effective classroom?
4. Complete this sentence: Students learn best when…

Hopefully this kind of conversation can spur better collaboration on your teams!

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Reality Check: Helping to Manage Student 09-01

Reality Check: Helping to Manage Student 

Most students begin college, the academic year, and new courses motivated and optimistic. Many first-year students expect to do well because they were successful in high school. Some are right, but others will only find similar success if they work much harder than they did in high school. Yet most start out expending the same level of effort. They will talk with their classmates and convince each other that an exam covering three chapters can’t be that hard, so they put off studying and then “look over” the chapters the night before—happily dealing with any and all interruptions and distractions.

It’s not until the day of the test, as they’re confronted by a number of questions they can’t answer, that the anxiety sets in. They will sit staring at the questions and guessing at far too many answers, before turning in the test and then persuading themselves that chances are still pretty good for a B.

A lot of students continue to hold unrealistic expectations throughout the course even in the presence of mounting evidence to the contrary. A student can be going into a cumulative final exam with a solid C, but she believes she is going to ace that final and come out of the course with a high B. That may be possible in a few courses, but it’s a long shot in others and is simply not going to happen in most courses.

Adjusting expectations
Unrealistic expectations present teachers with a conundrum. We want students to believe in themselves. We want them committed to doing well. But we need them to be realistic about what success demands.

So, we tell them what they will need to do. Sometimes we try to get their attention with hyperbole. Most of us no longer offer the “look to your right, look to your left. . .” admonition used when we were students. But many of us do still tell students that they need to invest two hours of study for every one hour in class. Yes, that’s true of some courses, but it is no longer true of most courses. Is it true of your courses? I recommend evidence-based answers, gently noting that unrealistic student expectations are not adjusted by equally invalid faculty declarations.

The most persuasive claims about how much work it takes to do well in the course are those delivered by other students. Teachers can control those messages a bit by sharing advice from former students on the course website, in the syllabus, or by getting permission from some carefully selected former students that students can contact if they’d like to talk with someone who has taken the course.

Beyond telling, most of us also try to make the expectations more realistic with an early assessment in the course—a first test, early paper, or some other kind of graded work. And some of us are a bit tougher on this initial work. We let the lower-than-expected grade convey the message that this is going to be harder than many students anticipated.

When trying to help students adjust their expectations, it’s good to remember how strongly students believe performance is ability based. If they get feedback (which their performance deserves), they are quick to conclude that they can’t do it, so they drop the course and perhaps later leave college. What we have them do immediately after the tough feedback is just as important as that initial expectation-correction activity. Is it another test or paper? Is it an opportunity to redo what they didn’t do well initially? Is it having a policy that removes the lowest score from the final grade calculation? Is it leading a class discussion about the value of high expectations and sharing realistic ideas about how to reach them?

I remember one faculty member telling me that he had students respond to their first disappointing test grade with a goal-setting activity. He’d start with the prompt: “So what’s a realistic amount of grade improvement for your next exam?” After that, each student created a list of what they needed to do and when they needed to do it in order to accomplish that goal. The instructor provided regular reminders and a review of the goal and accompanying activities before the next test. That exam debrief included discussion of who reached their goal and why they did or did not, followed by another round of goal setting.

Setting realistic expectations is an important life skill, and our courses can provide students a chance to learn how.

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