Introduction: What Supports Effective Teaching?

This is not a book about the type of leadership that promotes teacher effectiveness or about the school cultures that enhance the development and sharing of effective practice. Although I recognize the critical importance of the organizational contexts in which teachers work, this book has a different but significant goal—namely, to help teachers teach more effectively. It is written for two primary audiences: (1) teachers who have an interest in best practices but who lack access to ongoing and substantive professional development opportunities that enable them to fully understand best practices, experiment with them, or even internalize them; and (2) teachers who cultivate best practices but who are searching for a coherent framework around which to connect them and to think about themselves as professionals.

Much of what is characterized as effective teaching is presented in isolation. For example, it's common to have books or workshops on rubrics, portfolios, authentic assessment, or integrated curriculum. In this book, these isolated innovations are presented as part of a coherent framework that organizes effective learner-centered practices into three questions:

• Through what lenses should we teach?
• How can we diagnose, monitor, and evaluate student learning?
• How can we facilitate and support learning for all students?

To set the context for the book's framework and the three questions that structure it, let's begin with another important question: What results from effective teaching? The most compelling results from effective teaching lie in the insights, work, and performance of students who experience it. Following is an illustration from a 6th grader, stemming from her engagement in an extended unit of study and evidenced in the Dear Reader letter she wrote for her showcase portfolio.

Dear Reader,

My name is Kristen. I am 12 years old, an Agent of Change and an Inventor of the Future. At the beginning of the year, I didn't even know what that meant. If you read my first journal entry, you will see what I mean. I couldn't even think about it.

10/18

"What kind of future will we invent?" Future? … inventing … ? We can't invent the future. We're kids. Nobody listens to kids. Maybe when we grow up, we can do something. We can invent things that will go in the future. Those are things, though. They aren't the future. Can we invent a time? …

You see? I really didn't get it. But now, I not only know what the words mean, I know that they describe what I am. How? Because I've been able to figure out how to make a change that will really help to solve the problem of people getting the information they need in order to be prepared for emergencies.

How could a 6th grader do this? If you asked me this back at the beginning of the year, I would have said it was impossible, or that only adults, or maybe the government could really do anything. But now, I know better. First of all, I didn't do it alone. My whole class decided on the problem and worked together to find out as much as we could about it—about why it was a problem, and what some other related problems were. I want to tell you a little about how we did this so you can understand the pieces in my portfolio.

First, we talked a lot about community and what it meant to be a citizen and how citizens have rights but also responsibilities. That was OK, and I guess it was important, but I really liked when we picked the problem and got to work. That's when I really started to feel like we really might be able to invent the future.

At first, we all had different ideas about problems in the community. We sure found a lot of them! But we had to decide on just one, so we looked at some of the things that all of our problems had in common, and we came to consensus. Next, we asked a lot of questions about the problem that we picked and discovered that the problem that we thought we were going to try to solve (people not being prepared for emergencies) was really a problem that was the result of other problems. That was important, because we could have been spending a lot of time and energy working to fix something that would never really be fixed because there were other problems causing it that we hadn't done anything about, and they would keep making the problem happen, unless we did something about them too. So, basically, we discovered that our problem wasn't alone, it was made up of lots of situations that led up to it and made it the big problem that it was.

Next, we had to figure out which of these other situations would be the best ones to solve or change and what actions we could take that would help most. Those were our leverage points, or entry points. Some were things that we could really do something about, and some were things that needed more thinking or someone besides us to deal with it. It made a lot of sense to spend time on the things that we really could change.

We did research about the problem, not just in books but in newspapers and TV/radio reports, etc., and we also tried to find out what other people had tried to do about it. We interviewed people in the community too, to see what they knew and what they thought about the problem we had chosen. To make sure that our interview would give us the information we needed, we brainstormed what we thought made good questions and came up with a scoring rubric. Everything we learned helped us to narrow down the parts of the problem that we would focus on. Later on, when we had ideas of actions to take, we interviewed people again to see what they thought about them.

We researched ourselves too, and learned about our intelligences and learning styles so that we could use that information to help us pick the best way for us to contribute to a solution. I learned that I am a visual learner and that my preferred intelligences are linguistic, intrapersonal and mathematical in that order (the last one surprised me, until I read that one of the traits was being organized, which I am). That really helped me when it came to planning my own action. I designed a buddy system that matched kids in my school with one or two people each who can't get the kind of information they need in order to prepare for or respond to an emergency.

My buddy system was a really good idea because it dealt with two problems that were feeding the big problem. It helped people in the community, at first the kids, to have a chance to do something good and behave like responsible citizens of the community. I say "at first" because it didn't take long for some parents to want to get involved too, and so the buddy list is now kids and adults. There are even a couple of businesses that want to get involved now. One car dealer in our town wants to be a "transportation buddy" and is assigning cars and salesmen as drivers to go pick up their buddies in case they have to be evacuated—wow!

The other problem that my buddy system helped with was that some people in our community weren't really part of the community, for a lot of reasons. The buddy system helped them by giving them ways to participate in the community again. Our research showed us that people don't really like charity, so with the buddy system, it works both ways. Buddies keep in touch with each other. They figure out together how to make good communication happen, and they decide how they can be buddies to each other. For example, with kids, sometimes the buddies help with homework or listen to problems and help them figure out what to do. They share their own stories about the community or their past and that helps the other buddy get a different point of view. Some of the buddies are babysitting or working in local shops or at day care centers or the hospital. Since we started the buddy system two months ago, it has created really good friendships.

In my portfolio, you will find several pieces that show I am what I say I am—an agent of change and inventor of the future. You can read reflections that I have marked in my journal and you will see the self-assessment that I did of myself as an agent of change. I think the piece that really says the most though is my Action Plan, where I describe the Buddy System. I hope that you enjoy my work and that it helps you think about what kind of future you want to invent.

Kristen's work results from effective teaching. This book explores the underlying framework that resulted in Kristen's letter by addressing each of the three questions mentioned earlier. The first question, "Through what lenses should we teach?" proposes three lenses for determining what we should teach—quality, depth, and coherence. Part 1 of this book includes three chapters, each one devoted to one of these lenses.

The curriculum attributes that define quality and enable students to derive meaning from what they learn are the focus of Chapter 1. They are evident in Kristen's letter and are found in the key concepts, ideas, or questions that frame the curriculum and in the rich set of learning and assessment experiences that engaged Kristen. The question that Kristen pondered ("What kind of future will we invent?") supports every learning opportunity and assessment she engaged in. It is a question that has no definitive answer and one that provided a compelling and relevant "hook" into Kristen's and other students' own experience and knowledge base. Supported by engaging and relevant learning experiences that stimulated inquiry and maintained students' interest, it enabled Kristen to understand new material, as well as herself as a learner, while acquiring and refining various skills. These curriculum attributes are described and illustrated in Chapter 1.

Kristen and other students learn more when they engage with lessons that are anchored in key concepts or big ideas, thematic curriculum units, and explicit opportunities to access what they already know and can do before engaging in new experiences that build on them. Chapter 2 addresses the concept of curriculum coherence and integration by describing the kinds of curriculum structures and components that foster meaningful connections and deep learning, such as the one experienced by Kristen.

Chapter 3 grapples with the concept of depth, which, in the context of Kristen's letter, is evident in the relevant, meaningful, research-based, authentic, and standards-based experiences she had in the process of pondering the future she could invent. The problem solving, decision making, scenario planning, and other experiences that demanded hypothesizing and searching for evidence also illustrate depth. This chapter addresses these questions: What does depth mean? What does it look like? How do we negotiate what feels like a tension between depth and breadth? How do we use standards as a foundation and resource for negotiating what we should teach or abandon?

The question "How can we diagnose, monitor, and evaluate student learning?" is the subject of the three chapters that make up Part 2 of this book. These chapters foster an understanding and use of classroom assessments as tools to measure and improve student learning through ongoing and diversified measures; the identification of clear expectations for student learning; the coconstruction and use of explicit criteria; and the use of classroom portfolios to capture and celebrate students' efforts, achievements, and growth.

Chapter 4 helps readers understand and implement ongoing and diversified classroom assessments. It includes strategies for using diagnostic, formative, and summative tests and tasks to measure students' growth and achievement, such as answering the same question at the beginning and end of a unit. Other examples include the portfolio Kristen compiled and her Dear Reader letter itself. This chapter shows ways of employing formative assessments to monitor and adjust teaching practices, such as the journal that Kristen kept on her experiences and her thinking related to identifying, analyzing, and addressing community problems. It also explains how teachers can use authentic tasks, such as the creation of the buddy system Kristen described, to help students grapple with real and plausible problems.

Chapter 5 discusses how teachers can define, articulate, and translate their expectations in ways that help students understand and attain them, and it provides teachers with tools and strategies for helping students understand and produce quality work. Kristen's reference to her participation in the development of criteria for good interviews is an example of these strategies.

Chapter 6 describes how portfolios can be used to unpack, understand, and communicate student learning. It describes different kinds of and uses of student portfolios, such as the one that Kristen compiled; provides readers with guidelines for initiating the use of portfolios; and helps them use portfolios as communication tools with parents, teachers, and others.

Part 3 of this book addresses the question "How can we facilitate and support learning for all students?" This section includes three chapters that focus on the instructional processes that facilitate and maximize students' learning through the use of scaffolding, questioning, and self-regulatory and strategic learning processes.

Chapter 7 uses the concept of scaffolding to help teachers address the needs and experiences of diverse learners. It describes various strategies for assisting the learning of all students. It includes a review of different instructional techniques and materials such as graphic organizers and various types of modeling, which teachers can use to help students engage with complex material or acquire multifaceted skills. An example of such scaffolding is evident in Kristen's reference to the way in which her teacher guided her through the problem identification process.

Chapter 8 is centered on the use of questions and explores the importance of questioning for lifelong learning. Even though Kristen's letter does not include many of the actual questions her teacher asked her, it would be difficult to imagine 6th graders being able to reach the kinds of insights Kristen demonstrates in the absence of questions that would help them. In the context of the unit she experienced, her teacher probably used a variety of questions, including guiding questions such as "What is a community?" "What are our roles and responsibilities in our community?" "What does it mean to participate in a community?" and "How can we tell the difference between a problem and a symptom?" This chapter describes these and other kinds of questions and their purposes, enabling readers to examine and perhaps expand their questioning repertoire. Readers also learn about the role of questions in promoting critical thinking and about strategies for helping students answer and generate questions.

Chapter 9 focuses on self-regulation and strategic learning as necessary for helping students understand and manage their own learning. Identifying worthy and attainable goals, such as creating a buddy system in case of a community disaster; developing strategies and actions for attaining their goals; reflecting on the meaning of what we have learned, with questions such as "What was the best part of the interviews you conducted?" "What is the most important thing you learned from this unit?" and "How did you decide on the problem you selected?"; and evaluating the work or learning attained are all key to strategic learning. This chapter describes and illustrates several learning-to-learn strategies and helps readers use reflection and metacognition to increase students' self-regulatory mechanisms and become strategic in their thinking and goal-setting behaviors.

Together, the chapters that make up this book promote the structure, processes, and content of effective practices. Although we have much faith in the practices we include, we also realize that there is much about quality teaching and effective learning that we have not addressed. Personal factors such as one's passion for teaching as a craft and for learning as a phenomenon, knowledge of one's subject and of how people learn, genuine interest in students as human beings and as learners, and sheer inspiration play a role as well. Likewise, we cannot deny the importance of the interplay between a teacher and students. The chemistry between them is not always the same. As teachers, not all of our classes operate as true learning communities, despite our best efforts. Finally, other factors, such as whether the administration values and nurtures professional learning, or a school culture that takes learning more or less seriously, also play a role in supporting effective teaching. These and other matters remind us that teaching and learning are, after all, complex human and social processes worthy of study and recognition.

A Brief Comment on the Book's Voice

This book is a collaborative work involving two people who have learned and worked together for 15 years. Joanne was a participant in the second three-year professional development program I (Giselle) launched in New York. She later became a staff developer in our consulting firm and is now its vice president. She was then, and is now, the kind of teacher we would all like to have and an even better learner. Including her own thinking and work in this book is a testimony to her talents and a reminder to all of us that there is no greater privilege for a teacher than to see a student become the teacher.

I began this book two years ago and had to interrupt it three times due to several unanticipated and deep personal losses. I resumed work on the book in the spring of 2008, partly because we all need to end some of the chapters in our lives, but in large part because of Joanne's encouragement and faith in the work we do. She played the role of editor, writer, counselor, therapist, and conscience. The book describes experiences that we each had as teachers and that taught us much about what to do and what not to do. We chose to use the first person to describe them without revealing whose experience it was. This choice is less about wanting the writing to flow smoothly and more about asserting the potential of these anecdotes as sources of inspiration and validation to the experiences that imprint the word teacher in all of us.