by Pat Martinez-Miller and Jeanie Riddell, UCLA SMP Faculty
Trust that still, small voice that says, ‘This might work and I’ll try it.’
-- Diane Mariechild, author
September often marks the time in schools when the hard work of planning becomes the even harder work of effective implementation. UCLA SMP salutes the schools who have chosen to use the funding attached to federal and state No Child Left Behind programs to implement audacious plans to transform the learning and achievement of their students.
Research-supported “best practices” related to instruction and school leadership appear regularly in education literature. In this article, we explore an integrated “best practice” for turning research into results in classrooms, schools and districts.
Best Practice: Using the Cycle of Inquiry—Littlerock High School, AVUHSD
Using inquiry to support student and professional learning is not new. The KWL (Know, Want to Know, Learned) graphic organizer is commonplace in the classrooms of teachers who strive to access prior student knowledge and help students connect new learning to what they already know. Professionally, Action Research is a well-documented inquiry methodology for extending individual inquiry to collective action and impact.The UCLA SMP Cycle of Inquiry fosters inquiry in the setting of the professional learning community where distributive leadership is enhanced and successful impact on student learning is the measure.
This Cycle of Inquiry begins with a school’s transformational vision for the high achievement of all students. It takes a good look at the current reality in relation to the vision. Attention is paid to finding positive examples where the school’s vision is already being realized. Gaps in achievement are addressed through “growing” the positive.
The Plan for Inquiry is the heart of the work. Here, people take a look at what they know already, identify the questions they have, and propose a hypothesis that they are excited about testing. In this phase, the day-to-day work of students and educators becomes the learning ground. Discoveries are made about transformational growth for students that replace common assumptions that often lead to only incremental growth. The testing of the hypothesis assures that action and thinking are grounded by data. The rest of the cycle links school-wide, small group and individual professional development to the structures of the learning community-- grade-level, department and team meetings.
Because the cycle encourages the sharing of learning across small groups and within the whole school community, a wide variety of opportunities for distributive leadership emerge. As grade and department chairs talk together, distributive leadership is happening. As individuals think together in meetings, distributive leadership is happening. As results are shared and processed school-wide, distributive leadership is happening.
Littlerock High School in the Antelope Valley Union High School District is immersed in a cycle of inquiry that is improving student achievement even as professional learning is in process. The Littlerock vision/mission is at the heart of the inquiry:
The Littlerock High School staff believes that through powerful teaching and varied instructional strategies, education becomes a lifelong learning process. This process empowers all students to meet challenging standards in personal, academic, vocational, social, technical, and communication areas. The Littlerock High School learning community advocates rigorous and relevant instruction in a secure environment that encourages students’ development as responsible and capable individuals and productive members of society.
A clear look at Littlerock’s “current reality” led to the selection of three research-proven skills and their supporting instructional strategies as the arena for professional inquiry and student growth:
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- Identifying Similarities and Differences
- Summarizing and Note Taking
- Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers*
*(Taken from Classroom Instruction that Works – Research-based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement, by Robert Marzano, et al.)
The strategies in question were already evident in the work of proficient students. The professional question became, “What do we need to know and do for these strategies to improve the learning of all students at Littlerock High School?” The Plan for Inquiry identified a better, more consistent understanding of the three strategies as an important professional development step. It confirmed the use of teacher-driven classroom observations as the tool to surface important patterns and trends related to the chosen strategies as they show up in student work so that next steps could be purposeful and measured in a very short period of time.
Department and team planning meetings are now poised to look at student work, to reflect on what students understand and how they demonstrate that understanding, to examine the link between lessons and what students learn, and to base instructional decisions on observable, measurable evidence of student progress that is quickly available.
When NCLB data came out in August, people at Littlerock High School were pleased that their school met both their API and Graduation Rate targets, as well as AYP percent proficient targets in English/Language Arts and Mathematics School-wide, and for their Hispanic/Latino and Socio disadvantaged sub-groups. Littlerock High School is proud of its progress and clear that there is more work to be done. Knowing that the Cycle of Inquiry and tools like teacher-driven classroom observations are in place help them focus their work and measure their progress.
Below are links to books and processes that can provide additional instructional and inquiry-based strategies:
Marzano, Robert, Debra J. Pickering and Jane E. Pollock. Classroom Instruction That Works – Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2001.
For this month's topic:
What best practices has your school or district implemented to
positively impact the learning and achievement of students?
What is the research that supports that best practice?We invite you to share your stories. Please
us your responses to this month's Combined Brainpower. We look forward to sharing your thoughts in future issues of EdNews.
He who every morning plans the transaction of the day and follows out that plan,
carries a thread that will guide him through the maze of the most busy life.
But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the
chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign.
-- Victor Hugo, poet and novelist (1802-1885)
In May of 2006, UCLA SMP received the State Farm Good Neighbor Citizenship K-12 Education grant, intended to complement a grant previously received by UCLA SMP from the California Community Foundation. The State Farm grant will extend UCLA SMP’s work to three elementary schools and high schools in the Baldwin Park Unified School District (BPUSD). The purpose of the grant and SMP's work under it to create a consistent and effective school culture of high student achievement in these elementary schools. This culture will complement the cultures that have been or are being established through our current efforts in the community's feeder (pattern) middle and high schools.
Samona Caldwell (center), State Farm Public Affairs (California Zone), joins Dan Chernow (left), SMP Executive Director, and Christine Dennis (right), Baldwin Park USD Assistant Superintendent of Student Achievement, at an August 2006 professional development retreat with Baldwin Park USD schools.
We are pleased to welcome one new and two returning members of the UCLA SMP family:
Terri Towle served as director of the Danbury Community Center in Danbury, New Hampshire prior to joining SMP. She has successfully authored many grants, including the first 21st Century Community Learning Center grant awarded to a community-based organization in New Hampshire. Over the last five years, Terri has presented at state, regional and national conferences on the topic of afterschool, including the U.S. Department of Education’s 21st Century Community Learning Center Summer Institutes in Los Angeles, Chicago and San Diego. Terri is also an Afterschool Alliance Ambassador, a National Community Education Association Continuous Improvement Process Team Leader, and a Hands-on Science Outreach Trainer. A New Hampshire native, Terri is a graduate of Plymouth State University. She grew up in Claremont and now resides with her family in Danbury, NH.
Debra Laidley has a passionate belief in the importance of educators’ use of structured processes to collaboratively learn from student work in order to enhance teaching and learning. Therefore, UCLA SMP's Critical Friends Groups Coaches Institute is a key focus of her work. She has spent two years as a co-director of the National School Reform Faculty (the national network for Critical Friends), and is a lecturer for the UCLA Principal Leadership Institute.; Most recently, Debbi served for two years as the Secondary Literacy Coordinator for LAUSD Local District 6, where she led a team of eight local district staff and 17 school site literacy coaches in support of teaching to enhance content literacy in middle and high school classrooms. As a result of Debbi’s leadership, the schools instituted and are continuing to maintain a focus on the Reading Apprenticeship approach in support of struggling adolescent readers. Debbi began her work with UCLA SMP while she was lead teacher at Foshay Learning Center (LAUSD), where her focus was on increasing collaboration, ensuring inclusive processes for all stakeholders, and building leadership capacity among teachers and parents. She holds degrees in English and journalism and, since beginning her teaching career in 1978, has taught English, ESL, student leadership, and journalism in grades 7-12. Debbi also holds a master's degree in educational administration from Mount St. Mary's College.
Les Adelson is an adjunct faculty member who has been in education for the past 35 years. Most recently, Les served as the superintendent of schools for the Moreland School District in San Jose, CA. Prior to that, he was the superintendent of the South Pasadena Unified School District. Les has experience as a teacher and administrator in both regular and special education and at both elementary and secondary levels. He has an Ed.D. from the University of La Verne and has been an adjunct faculty member in the School of Education at California State University, Northridge and Santa Clara University. Les works as a consultant focusing on leadership and organizational development.
Critical Friends Groups: Creating the Environment for Implementation
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A nonprofit school reform initiative of the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, 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, building and district administrators, and community members to improve student achievement by fostering well-managed schools where professional development enhances teacher effectiveness, builds community, and results in personal transformation.
Since the program was launched in 1992, UCLA SMP has worked with over 800 schools in districts throughout California.
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