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Looking at Student Work, Looking at Ourselves
by Barbara Knight and Barbara Linsley, UCLA SMP Faculty
"This is the best professional development I've ever had!"
UCLA SMP has often received this kind of feedback in evaluation forms for Critical Friends Groups (CFGs) Coaches Institutes.
What makes CFGs so powerful? It may be that CFGs provide what many educators have always been searching for - a safe way to deprivatize their practice and take the loneliness out of teaching. The purpose of a CFG is to collaboratively examine student work. Looking at student work together builds professional community and shared norms, increases academic rigor, and provides an immediately applicable, effective way to help teachers change practices to get different results.
CFGs are about doing real work on what matters most to us - our students' learning - in the presence of trusted colleagues whose support and feedback we know will deepen our understanding of what we do and why. Kathleen Cushman, a Senior Associate of the Annenberg Institute, and a writer and editor, puts it this way: "Across the country and abroad, school reformers have recognized the pressing need to place actual student work formally and respectfully at the center of both public and private conversations about school."
When educators learn protocols (i.e., diplomatic processes that make communication safe and productive for looking at student work and discussing professional challenges), they feel empowered to solve their own problems and less "alone" in meeting the diverse needs of their students. CFGs operate in a cycle of reflecting together on direct evidence (student work samples or actual dilemmas described by the educator), drawing meaning and what is essential from the work or dilemma through the sharing of different perspectives, and then applying that meaning to their ongoing work. It is this cycle of hope and renewal that gives CFG participants such energy!
Reflection and substantive dialogue, the framing of clarifying and probing questions, facilitative leadership, collaborative processes, and the creating of shared norms are all part of the skills that educators develop and engage in through these ongoing opportunities to look at student work.
This issue - the first of two EdNews editions devoted to looking at student work - will provide resources, suggested readings, and examples of how protocols are used in different settings to impact student learning. We invite you to share with us your experiences in looking at student work.
For this month’s topic:
"What processes do you use to look at student work at your school?
How and when do you use CFG protocols?"
Let us know some of your experiences with CFG and other techniques for looking and student work. Please click here to add your responses to this month's combined brainpower. We will share some of your ideas in next month’s EdNews.
"The value of looking at student work resides in its potential for bringing students
more consistently and explicitly into deliberations among teachers.
Looking at student work has the potential to expand teachers' opportunity to learn,
to cultivate a professional community that is both willing and able to inquire into practice,
and to focus school-based teacher conversations directly on the improvement of teaching and learning."
by Judith Warren Little, Maryl Gearhart, Marnie Curry, and Judith Kafka,
Phi Delta Kappan, November 2003, Vol. 85, No. 3, p. 229.
UCLA SMP is a National School Reform Faculty-approved Center of Activity for providing CFG New and Experienced Coaches Institutes. Over 650 people have successfully participated in 32 offerings of these institutes by UCLA SMP. In a UCLA SMP study of existing Critical Friends Groups, the most significant changes and impact on teacher instructional practices, resulting from participation in a CFG, focused on these five areas:
-
Pedagogy and Teaching Content
- Student Assessment and Examination
of Student Work - Solutions for Classroom Dilemmas
- Collaboration: Using Ideas from Others
- Classroom Management
This Fall and Winter, UCLA SMP will offer
three institutes (locations TBD):
- Session 1: November 15 - 19, 2004
- Session 2: February 14 - 18, 2005
- Session 3: February 28 - March 4, 2005
For more information, please visit the
Programs section of our web site.
-
Looking at Student Work <www.lasw.org>: This web site features "virtual protocol experiences," in addition to sites on student work, actual student work samples, rubrics, and benchmark research.
- The National School Reform Faculty (NSRF) <www.nsrfharmony.org> "is a professional development initiative that focuses on developing collegial relationships,encouraging reflective practice, and rethinking leadership in restructuring schools -- all in support of increased student achievement." The web site features links to protocols for looking at student work and discussing dilemmas, NSRF conference updates and information, NSRF email list conversations, and newsletter information.
- Blythe, Tina, et al. Looking Together at Student Work. New York: Teachers College Press, 1999.
- DuFour, Richard, and Robert Eaker. Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement. Bloomington, Indiana: National Eduation Service, 1998.
Many of you are already familiar with and receive our sister publication, the Leading & Learning quarterly newsletter. But did you also know that many issues of L&L are available on our website in PDF format, and more back issues of the newsletter are being added?
If that's not enough, we are pleased to announce that, beginning with our Winter 2005 issue, you will have the option of receiving Leading & Learning via email, rather than print. If you would like more information or would like to modify your L&L subscription, please click here.
- "Looking at Student Work, Part 2 "
- "Where Are They Now?"
-
Ask SMP / Ask Your Colleagues: In future editions, we will share our responses to some of your questions (and, sometimes, use those questions as the basis for future Combined Brainpower topics). If you have any questions regarding your teaching practice or other issues at the school site, please click here to Ask SMP. We will include your questions and our answers in future editions.
UCLA SMP EdNews is published monthly. If this newsletter was forwarded to you, and you would like to subscribe for yourself, please click here to contact the EdNews Administrator with either “HTML” (if you prefer to receive HTML emails -- that look like web pages) or “NO HTML” (if you prefer to receive plain text emails) in the subject line. Likewise, if you are already subscribed, but merely wish to change your HTML or plain text preference, please follow the above protocol. You may also contact the Administrator if you would like to unsubscribe from EdNews, with “REMOVE FROM LIST” in the subject line. Any email requests to the EdNews Administrator not pertaining to subscription issues will be ignored.
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A nonprofit school reform initiative of the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies and The Anderson School, the UCLA School Management Program (UCLA SMP) is devoted to the sustainable transformation of public schools into learner-centered organizations where all students can achieve at high levels.
UCLA SMP works with educators, administrators, and community members to create well-managed schools, to enhance teacher effectiveness, and to improve student achievement through professional development leading to personal transformation and community building.
Since the program was launched in 1992, UCLA SMP has worked with over 700 schools in districts throughout California.
UCLA School Management Program
1201 Hershey Hall
Los Angeles, CA 90095-7168
310.825.2488
http://www.smp.gseis.ucla.edu