Asking Questions as a Support for Resolution-Setting

With 2019 just a few days away, thoughts turn to resolutions or goals for the new year. January is a good time to help teachers pause and ponder their professional goals.  Asking questions can support reflection and encourage next steps in pursuing improvement efforts.  The series of questions below supports teachers’ self-initiated resolutions.

“What changes have you made to your practices so far this year?”

This question asks the teacher to mine her memory for successes, recognizing improvements that have already been made.

“How might these changes have affected student learning?”

This question moves the focus from teacher to learners, appropriately calling for evidence.

“How have these changes affected you?”

Asking this question encourages the teacher to consider which practices are sustainable.

“Where do you want students to be by the end of the year?”

This forward-thinking question asks teachers to take past successes and project their outcomes into the future.

“What might you have to do to get your students there?”

Building on the previous question, teachers are asked to brainstorm additional approaches that may be needed.

Make opportunities to meet one-on-one with teachers in January.  When you ask questions that encourage teachers to take stock of where they are and think about their goals, you help them recognize and prepare for success as the new year gets underway.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Offers of wisdom from fictional characters that can inspire students’ New Year’s goal-setting:

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/work_in_progress/2016/12/10_offers_of_wisdom_from_ficti.html?cmp=eml-eb-popweek+12092016&M=57696637&U=

Asking students to self-assess their engagement:

https://studysites.corwin.com/highimpactinstruction/videos/vp2.1.htm

A podcast on mentoring new teachers to have effective guided-reading groups:

http://blog.stenhouse.com/archives/2018/05/10/mentoring-new-teachers-podcast-episode-iii-effective-guided-reading-groups/

Using design thinking in coaching:

https://blog.teachboost.com/design-thinking-approach-to-coaching

Supports for student-led discussions:

https://choiceliteracy.com/article/better-student-led-literature-discussions/

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Another Layer of Knowing

I know two amazing math brains. They can both do calculus, applied mathematics, and whatever else it is that amazing math brains do.  They know their stuff. One of them is an amazing teacher. The other is not.

When one sits down with a student to tutor him through a difficult math problem, he prompts and supports and explains and leads his student into understanding.

When the other sits down with a student to tutor him through a difficult math problem, he demonstrates how to solve the problem. He gets frustrated and can’t understand why the student can’t do it, too, after the clear procedure he has provided.

I know two amazing math brains.  One is a teacher. The other is not.  It is clear that teaching requires more than simply knowing the content. The skills necessary to support a learner along the path to discovery go beyond content knowledge. Pedagogical knowledge supports good teaching.

Similarly, there is more to good coaching than knowing the content. Even being a good teacher, having pedagogical knowledge, is not enough. Another layer of skills is required. These complex relational skills make the difference between successful and unsuccessful coaching. A conceptual simple view of these skills is portrayed in the GIR Coaching Model.

 Through modeling, recommending, questioning, affirming, and praising, a coach supports a teacher’s growth.  Although some contend that content knowledge isn’t a prerequisite to coaching, In the GIR model, knowledge of both content and pedagogy are required all along the way. You supply the content and pedagogical knowledge, and the GIR model supplies a process to guide you.  Stages of the GIR model depend on your expert knowledge. To model, you must know the what and the how of the lesson you’ll be teaching. To recommend, you call on your knowledge of the content and your repertoire of effective teaching strategies. Similarly, content and pedagogical knowledge guide coaches in knowing which questions will lead to effective inquiry or specific insights for the teacher.  Content and pedagogical knowledge are also prerequisite to affirming and praising – we need to know what works in order to notice, name, and encourage it.

When coaching, bring with you all of your expertise in academic content and pedagogy. Let the GIR model guide you in putting it to good use as you support teachers.  The soft skills of coaching are the additional layer of knowing you need as an instructional leader.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Tips on having influence that are just right for coaches:

http://jenniferabrams.com/what-not-to-do-if-you-want-to-be-more-influential/

Concept development using the four-fold strategy:

http://tpsconnect.org/2016/07/06/four-fold-concept-and-vocabulary-building-literacy-activity/

Try using it with primary source documents:

https://via.hypothes.is/http://tpsconnect.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/4-Fold-Strategy.pdf

A guide to Pinterest for educators:

https://rossieronline.usc.edu/pinterest-for-educators/

Free (recorded) webinar on coaching the coaches (no registration):

https://video.edweek.org/detail/video/5821978801001/webinar-coaching-the-coaches-how-districts-can-support-teacher-leaders?autoStart=true&cmp=eml-enl-vid-p6

Using reading response letters in middle grades:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1435

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Sustaining Change through Support Over Time

In recent weeks, I’ve posted about how to sustain changes that lead to improved student learning.  In order to stay the course in educational change, teachers need the opportunity to engage in ongoing, focused, challenging, professional learning.  Teachers’ professional learning can (and should) take many forms, however, sit-and-get is not one of them. Passive professional development experiences tend to result in more frustration than change.  Instead, teachers benefit from the opportunity to think and talk together, to try the new ideas they will be using, and to have time to plan for their revised instruction.

These opportunities can occur during released-time trainings and summer institutes. They can also be job-embedded, supported by instructional coaches and department heads.  Planning periods, PLC time, and faculty meetings can be oriented toward professional learning. 

During the first year after we created our shared vision for literacy instruction, our district kicked off the change process by bringing all administrators and literacy teachers together for a full day prior to the beginning of the school year.  Literacy coaches and other lead teachers met together frequently, and quarterly grade-level trainings focused on our implementation benchmarks. We charted our course together as we discussed what the new practices looked like in our classrooms. Trainings were also held at each building during faculty meetings, led by the coach or another instructional leader.  Collaboration time that focused on achieving our future vision was built into team meetings. In year two, similar experiences occurred, with three districtwide, grade-level, half-day trainings. The plan for year three focused on sustaining change and supporting flexibility.  Districtwide, this included a “Literacy Summit” in the fall, onsite support during calendared collaboration days, and optional lab visits to allow for observation and deep learning.

Active and purposeful professional learning for teachers supports educational change. When teachers work together toward clear goals, they “can find better ways to answer the learning needs of students.”* Effective professional development provides opportunities for collaboration, is focused on student learning, and is sustained over time.

Full Steam Ahead

During the literacy adoption in my district, there was a lot at stake, and I felt the burden of stewardship – for the funds we were spending, but, more importantly, for the students whose lives could be shaped by how these materials would be used.  It was a chance for change, and it seems that it worked.  Visiting classrooms, the difference was visible: powerful, engaging vocabulary instruction; common language so that kids were clear about learning targets, and a focus on meeting the needs of individual learners.  State test scores (all-important to district administrators) also showed significant increases – a needle that is hard to move in a large district.

In your school or district, communication, shared vision, and ongoing support can sustain change that makes a difference in students’ learning. As an instructional coach or team leader, your influence could make the difference. Set your sail on a steady course that is grounded in best practice and responsive to your local needs, and encourage those around you to do the same. Share the research about sustained change and the need to hold steady once a course is charted. You can assure that the latest innovation, if it’s a good one, is given a fair shake. Instead of focusing on the next new thing, teachers can be given the chance to do this thing right, whatever it is.  If we are stubbornly persistent, we will see the differences we are hoping for.

* Lieberman, A. & Wood, D. (2002). The National Writing Project. Educational Leadership, 59(6), 40-43.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

What makes professional development effective:

https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/effective-teacher-professional-development-report

Jim Knight tells principals how they can support coaching:

https://dennissparks.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/6-ways-principals-can-support-instructional-coaching/

The role of identity in learning:

https://www.edutopia.org/video/when-social-brain-misfires

When conferring is an interruption:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2516

And some beautiful images and music for inspiration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrk

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Buoys for Stability to Sustain Change

In order to sustain change, we have to decide what is worth being consistent about. Every classroom has a different combination of learners who have unique needs and experiences.  Every classroom also has its unique collective culture: webs of relationships, ways of doing and caring, and shared experiences. Because of this variation, there are many, many things that must be left to teachers’ judgement.  What, then, is the focus of our change efforts?  What are the things about which we stand firm?

In previous posts, I’ve described a process for creating and maintaining shared vision through ongoing communication.  The things that we stay firm on are rooted in best practice and determined by common consent.  They chart our route to the hoped-for future.  Having common language about that work can be a rudder that provides stability as we move forward.  This common language is important for both teachers and students.  When we call things by the same name, we can be more certain that we are all moving in the same direction.

During the literacy adoption that I’ve described previously, we established common language for the way we were naming comprehension strategies and skills. From grade to grade and classroom to classroom, students and teachers knew what was being talked about. We also committed to being relentlessly consistent about providing a balanced approach to literacy instruction, including small-group instruction, and using a research-based plan for vocabulary instruction.  Having common language about the things we are going to stay true to moves us more quickly to teaching them in more sophisticated ways. 

Teaching in more sophisticated ways means recognizing that effective teachers flexibly meet the needs of their students.  They know what they have committed to and why. They are responsive to what is going on in the classroom but all the while they are headed toward their goals, meandering as needed along the route.  

During our literacy adoption, we wanted to be sure the meandering didn’t take us off course, so we created benchmarks that acted as buoys to guide our journey.  These included “classroom environment benchmarks” that were easy to check off our to-do lists: things like posting strategy charts, having a room set-up that supported small-group instruction, and making sure everyone had created logins for online resources.  We also had instructional benchmarks like “Students actively reading and writing at least 50% of literacy instruction time,” “Majority of teacher questions are open-ended,” and “Opportunities for purposeful student-to-student talk.”  These instructional benchmarks were points of stability on our flexible path. They were checkpoints along our journey to the hoped-for future.

As you lead teachers through the process of change (which is an ongoing part of education), what will you be relentlessly consistent about? What will be the buoys that mark your journey?  Thinking together about these important questions will increase your collective capacity and increase the likelihood that you will sustain change long enough to see the results you are hoping for.

This week, you might want to take a look at: 

Ideas for what mentor texts do – and you might consider expanding these ideas to what mentors do:

https://ccira.blog/2018/09/11/mentor-texts-to-engage-and-empower-our-students/

Coaching heavy:

https://blog.teachboost.com/permission-to-coach-heavy

Writing and inquiry for cultural context in history:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2588

Seeing the world through a child’s eyes. This website has videos, simulations, and information that help you get the picture of what it’s like for children who struggle (personalizable by age and area of need):

https://www.understood.org/en/tools/through-your-childs-eyes

Grouping to increase eye contact increases learning:

https://www.edutopia.org/video/what-social-brain

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Creating Shared Vision: Back to the Future

In a recent post, I discussed the importance of sticking with an innovation for at least three years so that the benefits of the change would be noticeable and enduring.  An understanding of the current reality and ongoing communication are required to create this kind of persistence.  Creating change that lasts also requires shared purpose and vision. 

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?” (goodreads.com, 2018).  We define what we will be busy about, not by being visionaries ourselves as leaders, but by walking with others, so that together we create a picture of what we hope will be.

Envisioning possibilities together energizes action and creates collective commitment for the long haul. We need to know our destination.  Choosing the future doesn’t mean selecting from the paths that are already before us – it means creating that path.

When my district started working on a literacy adoption, representatives from schools and stakeholder groups got together to define hopes and dreams about literacy learning.  We used a process that has become my favorite for visioning work, the Back to the Future protocol.  We started by dreaming big – what would literacy learning look like in our schools in five years? But here’s the trick: We spoke as if it already was. Using the present tense, we said things like, “Students are sitting around the room with books in their hands and they are so engaged that they don’t look up when someone walks into the room.”  On a chart labeled “Future,” we wrote: Students are engaged in independent reading.  We continued our visioning, filling in the Future chart with descriptions of things as they could be, describing them as if they already were.

Then we came back to the present.  On our “Present” chart, we described the existing state of literacy learning. We drew on the data about current proficiency levels and our own experiences in the classroom to describe our current reality.  It was not quite as rosy as the hoped-for future.  Putting a blank chart between our “Present” and our “Future,” we detailed our “Path,” what it would take to get from the realistic present we’d described to the future we pictured.  The details in our plan convinced us that our dreams could be realities.

To create a shared vision, we keep communicating with all the people who care about the change: teachers, administrators, parents, and students. We want everyone to be part of creating the picture of what the future will be like.  So, we talk about hopes and dreams.  We project ourselves into a hoped-for future.  When we imagine ourselves and our students living and acting in that potential future, we gain insights about what it will take to achieve that goal. When we are clear and spend real time in that future place (if only in our minds), we people the place with ideas that can become realities.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

An administrator’s view on why coaches are important:

https://dennissparks.wordpress.com/2018/09/19/using-instructional-coaches-effectively/

A great list of novels in verse:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=406

The social brain is the gateway to learning (and social context vs. online learning):

https://www.edutopia.org/video/what-social-brain

Coaching about when to use open and closed questions:

https://studysites.corwin.com/highimpactinstruction/videos/v6.1.htm

Teaching tips for adding diverse texts for reading and writing:

https://ila.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/trtr.1759?author_access_token=et4KN73P5MzraPnrGcZ6T04keas67K9QMdWULTWMo8N2-YZG8OMSPZ-N9ZTpkuEeUTVa5ZIabqtU8XgQ4Y_bvwfQi5GGPoKbVIWtvvj-_bROb2FAEQsfkQBy5lkLBfP4&

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Making Tracks for Change

In a recent post, I discussed the importance of sticking with an innovation for at least three years so that the benefits of the change will be noticeable and ongoing.  Continuous communication is required to create this kind of persistence.  It’s also important to recognize that change that lasts is built on a deep understanding of our current reality.

Too often, schools completely alter their course rather than making minor corrections that can result in major improvement. Imagine a train leaving town and taking a branch off of the original track. Initially, there are only a few feet between the old track and the new – but the further and further the train is from the branch in the tracks, the more those tracks diverge. This image demonstrates how even small pedagogical changes, if they are maintained, can result in significant improvement.

Rather than making drastic course corrections, appropriate adjustments are suggested through careful data analysis.  We can look at standardized test scores from a variety of perspectives.  What does it tell us about advanced students? About those who are below proficient? What can we learn about traditionally underserved populations?  To get a more complete picture, we should take a look at all kinds of data, not just standardized test scores. Samples of student work provide insight. Observations verify, clarify, or refute data from other sources and give us new questions to ask.  Surveying people who care can give us data about specific practices. Deep data dives help schools understand and develop their own capacity.

When my district was preparing to upgrade our literacy curriculum, we noted the progress students were making in schools that had guided reading groups. Knowing that some schools didn’t have access to books appropriate for guided reading, we put this on our wish list for things to change. Knowing what was working at some schools helped to guide our vision for change.

In education, we are always looking to improve.  We want to do better for all our students. Finding a balance between new ideas that may be successful in the future and expansion of practices that have been successful in the past supports improvement and creates sustainability. When decisions about change are guided by many kinds of data, we are able to identify both areas where change is needed and things that are working that should have ongoing support. Small course changes based on our understanding of our current reality can lead us to the future we’ve envisioned.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Classroom arrangements and the social brain:

https://www.edutopia.org/video/social-classroom

Thought-provoking ideas about what reading is and how we can help students grasp that idea:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2044

Ways to support the development of executive functions:

https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/partnering-with-childs-school/instructional-strategies/at-a-glance-classroom-accommodations-for-executive-functioning-issues

ABC’s of Effective Coaching:

https://twowritingteachers.org/2018/08/02/the-abcs-of-literacy-coaching-reminders-for-the-start-of-a-great-year/

Protocols for student-led discussions:

http://lindsayannlearning.com/student-led-discussion-strategies/

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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Sustaining Change: Just Keep Talking (and Listening)

In a recent post, I talked about the pendulum swing of education and the ongoing search for the holy grail that will solve education’s ills. I cited research that it takes three years for new initiatives to be implemented sufficiently to produce significant, measurable improvement. How can coaches and other instructional leaders encourage the necessary stick-to-it-iveness? When I faced this problem leading a million-dollar literacy adoption, I dug into the research about change – personal, business, and educational, and I mined a few gems that I could apply.  Perhaps the most important tool for creating persistence is communication.

Throughout a change process, communication within and to stakeholder groups is key. “Stakeholder groups” is a clinical term for “everyone who cares.”  This means teachers, parents, administration, and even students.  This means bringing groups of people together to talk, collecting what they talk about, and doing something with it.  Don’t ask for input unless that input will make a difference. Asking and not acting is disingenuous and destroys trust. Be transparent about how the information gathered is being used. Communication doesn’t just mean telling. It means building community – listening, understanding, dialoging.  It is ongoing – important when we begin to consider a change and continuing thereafter.  The bottom line is, you can’t go in with your own agenda, no matter who you are.  A superintendent is doomed to failure if the initiative she proposes isn’t grounded in what the stakeholders say. The same is true for a principal, literacy coach, or department head.  Start with what the people say.

With the literacy initiative I lead, the hardest thing, initially, was convincing people that there wasn’t a pre-set agenda, that decisions really hadn’t already been made.  I said this, and they didn’t believe me. At first, even my actions (survey groups, hold public forums) were seen as hollow. But eventually, my actions showed that the opinions of the collective were important to decisions. The late nights I spent tallying survey results, creating summaries of focal group conversations, and showing how these led to next steps eventually convinced people that what they said mattered. When people know that what they say matters, they buy in for the long haul.

Can you think of a change that would improve instruction in your school or district? Start talking with people about it in systematic ways. Decisions will be stronger because of what is said, and as the process unfolds, folks will be more likely to stay the course.

(More gems for change that sticks will be featured in upcoming posts.)

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Ways to make teaching personal (I especially love the idea of handing a parent a photo to start parent-teacher conferences!):

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=794

Do you ever feel lonely as a coach?  Here are some ideas for combatting that loneliness:

https://blog.teachboost.com/the-loneliness-of-coaching

How to’s for a group essay writing assignment that improves students’ writing:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/group-work-really-works

This review of reading research comes from a psychological, not an instructional, perspective, but offers helpful insights for teaching nonetheless:

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1529100618772271

Science and poetry that celebrates skin tone:

https://www.rethinkingschools.org/articles/celebrating-skin-tone

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Turn Up the Learning

A teacher’s day is full of hundreds of decisions: instructional decisions, like, “How should I phrase the next question?” Logistical questions like, “Do we have time to finish this activity before lunch?” Psychological questions like, “What does this child need to feel safe in my room?”  Questions like these have become so routine that they are subconscious, asked and answered almost without our awareness.  Raising these questions to the level of awareness helps us define and refine our teaching philosophy, our values and purpose, and our teaching craft.  As instructional coaches, helping others define and refine their own responses to such questions is a way to support their ongoing improvement.

One way to bring instructional decisions to the fore is through a pre-modelling conference.  You know that modelling provides a vision for what an observing teacher’s future instruction might look and sound like.  To turn up the learning that modelling provides, elevate the questions that you will be considering as instruction unfolds, and highlight them in the pre-observation conversation.

This week, a 4^th grade teacher, Alice, modelled a lesson on using text evidence to support inferences about characters. In the pre-observation conference, she described how she would begin with a quick thumbs-up self-assessment of students’ confidence with this practice.  She suggested that her observing colleague, Crystal, note not only how many thumbs were down, but also how she adjusted the lesson based on that information.  Alice said she would be asking herself, “Do they need me to go back and review our anchor chart, or are they ready to move forward?”

The next part of the lesson was a read-aloud of a Time for Kids article about a child inventor.  Alice said she would be paying attention to whether students seemed engaged.  If not, she might encourage them to follow along on their copy of the text or on the projected copy on the screen. The setting for the article was a remote village in Africa, very different from her own students’ experiences. Alice knew she would be looking for signs of understanding or confusion as she read. She would be asking herself, “Are they getting this?”

Later in the lesson, students would be working with partners to match character trait cards with evidence from the text. Alice would be listening in on conversations, asking herself if students were able to justify their responses. She realized the cards could possibly be matched in more than one way, and the rationale provided was her window into students’ understanding. She suggested Crystal listen in on the probing questions she asked to assess and support students’ thinking.

Students’ independent practice during this lesson would be to lift their own evidence from the text to justify a list of character traits. Again, Alice cared about the rationale; again, Alice encouraged Crystal to listen in on the questions she was asking.

Wrapping up the lesson, Alice explained that she would ask the self-assessment question about students’ confidence with citing text evidence, just as she had at the beginning of the lesson.  As she monitored students’ responses, Alice would be asking herself whether there had been enough change in students’ responses to justify moving on, or was more practice warranted? Crystal would be noticing this, too, as she watched how the lesson concluded.

When it came time to go to Alice’s room for the observation, Crystal’s observation was supported by the chart she had completed during their pre-observation meeting that looked something like this:

Student Learning Activities	Points to Notice
Thumbs-up self-assessment re: confidence with citing text evidence Real aloud about child inventor Matching traits & evidence with partner Independent practice finding text evidence to support character traits Thumbs-up self-assessment re: confidence with citing text evidence	How many thumbs up?  Move forward or review anchor chart? How does T keep Ss engaged? Are Ss confused? What ?s does T ask? Are Ss talking about their reasoning? What ?s does T ask? Can Ss justify their responses? What ?s does T ask? Do Ss feel more confident?

Crystal was prepared with her own questions to guide the observation as Alice modelled this lesson on citing text evidence.  Her awareness was raised about the questions Alice would be asking herself while teaching.  As the lesson unfolded, both teachers were more aware of their own instructional thought processes.  The pre-modelling conference prepared them for a thought-filled observation and debrief conversation.  It turned up the learning for both of these teachers.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

Ways administrators can support coaches:

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/coaching_teachers/2014/10/10_ways_for_administrators_to_.html

Using technology to meet existing learning goals:

https://digitalpromise.org/2018/08/21/instructional-technology-coaching-can-help-teachers-create-powerful-learning-experiences/

Using drama and role playing for English Learners:

https://www.middleweb.com/38032/try-drama-and-role-play-with-english-learners/

Great non-fiction reads and how to incorporate them throughout the day:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2875

An inquiry into inquiry:

https://ccira.blog/2018/09/04/an-inquiry-into-inquiry/

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Sustaining Change: Stay the Course

For decades, educational reformers have called for improved student achievement. No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds, the nation’s education laws, have established superlative performance as the only acceptable goal.  Burdened by pressures for improbable outcomes, school and district leaders search for the golden fleece, the silver bullet, the guaranteed fix.  Innovations become ends unto themselves and often create diversions from the fundamental purpose of improvement (Fullan, 1989). As you can see from the date on that reference, this problem has been going on for a long, long time.  You have seen it, and so have I – the pendulum swing of education that hopes for ultimate victory.

But there are no quick fixes, just hard work. Whether it is losing weight, learning to surf, or improving student learning, the key, once a practical route has been charted, is to stay the course.  Staying the course is a nautical metaphor well-suited as a prescription for dealing with the winds of educational change. If we change course mid-stream, our progress is undone.  Research suggests that it takes three years for educational changes to take root, to be firmly established and begin to bear fruit.*  Substantive change is not sudden. 

Last year, I worked with a district on a professional development model focused on improved instruction.  Every school in the district used the model all year long, and the district curriculum leader wrote me a letter glowing with praise for all that had been accomplished, describing teachers’ positive perceptions and citing the improvements they’d seen in teaching and learning.  I was surprised and dismayed, then, to find out that this year they had dropped the model to try something new.  Can we please just stick with something long enough to show that it works?

As an instructional coach or leader, your influence could make the difference. Set your sail on a steady course that is grounded in best practice and responsive to your local needs, and encourage those around you to do the same. Share the research below about sustained change. You could be the anchor who makes sure that the latest innovation, if it’s a good one, is given a fair shake. Instead of focusing on the next new thing, teachers can be given the chance to do this thing right, whatever it is.  If we are stubbornly persistent, we will see the differences we are hoping for.

*Brown, R. & Coy-Ogan, L. (1993). The Evolution of Transactional Strategies Instruction in

             one teacher's classroom.   Elementary School Journal, 94 (2), 221-233.

*Comer, J.P. & Haynes, N.M. (1999).  The dynamics of school change: Response to the

article, “Comer’s School Development Program in Prince George County, Maryland: A Theory-Based Evaluation,” by Thomas D. Cook et al. American Educational Research Journal, 36 (3), 599-607.

*Fullan, M. Bennett, B. & Rolheister-Bennett, C. (1989 April). Linking classroom and school

improvement. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Education Research Association, San Francisco, CA. 

*Minnesota Center for Reading Research(2011).  Consortium for Responsible School

Change in Literacy.  Downloaded December 5, 2011 from http://www.cehd.umn.edu/reading/projects/school-change.html

*Pressley, M., El-Dinary, P. B., Gaskins, I., Schuder, T., Bergman, J. L., Almasi, J., & Brown, R.

(1992). Beyond direct explanation: Transactional instruction of reading comprehension strategies. Elementary School Journal, 92, 513-556.

This week, you might want to take a look at:

A coaching Success Story:

http://www.djournal.com/news/after-nettleton-s-reading-scores-rise-state-relocates-its-literacy/article_71fd4c36-beec-517d-a730-4b0c516d4d25.html

Info. on un-standardized assessments:

https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2018/10/11/what-happens-when-state-un-standardize-tests.html

Beyond explicit instruction, what else struggling readers need:

https://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2243

Redos and retakes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=192M61YJJKY

A podcast on creating a creative and spirited math class:

https://soundcloud.com/classinsession2/class-in-session-becoming-the-math-teacher-you-wish-youd-had-september-8-2018

That’s it for this week.  Happy Coaching!

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