An ASCD Study Guide for Improving Student Learning One Teacher at a Time, 2nd Edition

Most of the questions contained in this study guide are ones you can think about on your own, but you might consider pairing with a colleague or forming a study group with others who have read (or are reading) Improving Student Learning One Teacher at a Time, 2nd Edition.

Chapter 1. The Big Four

1. Have you ever known (or been) a teacher like Gary, who works hard to improve students' learning but still feels frustrated? What strategies had the teacher (or you) hoped would make a difference?
2. How do you know if you are an effective teacher? What kind of evidence can you gather to show that you are effective?
3. After skimming the descriptions of the Big Four, identify which might be appropriate areas for improvement in your class or school. What kinds of resources would you need to make changes?
4. To what extent do you think you currently use the Big Four?
5. This chapter describes the work of many researchers. Can you think of other studies or research that complements the works cited here? What kinds of insight can you gain by studying curriculum trends over time?
6. If you were to walk around your school today, what activities would you see dominating most classrooms? Are these activities designed to help students retain information and think deeply about the information?
7. What did you learn by reading Gary Nunnally's description of his transformation? Do you have changes you would consider making in your Big Four?

Chapter 2. Curriculum Design From Standards to Units to Daily Lessons

1. Do you think most teachers in your school or district find the curriculum useful? Why or why not?
2. Examine a curriculum document from your school. Does the format lend itself to daily lesson planning?
3. Is your curriculum online and readily accessible to support in-person, remote, and virtual learning? If not, how might you help make that happen?
4. The distinction between declarative and procedural knowledge indicates that some content should be practiced to automaticity and other content would be learned to think deeply. How does this change your documents and planning?
5. How does your curriculum development plan function to keep the content up to date?
6. Belinda Parini wrote that you should begin to work on your curriculum documents. Are you ready?

Chapter 3. Lesson Planning, Delivery, and What the Students Do

1. Describe how you plan lessons. How and where did you learn how to plan lessons and units of study? In school? On the job?
2. Poll a handful of your fellow teachers about how they plan their lessons, and compare their strategies to your own. Does anyone ever "wing it"?
3. As you read about the various researchers discussed in this chapter, did the work of other educational thinkers come to mind? How did their schema influence the way you plan today?
4. Locate one of your daily lessons and apply the GANAG schema. What about your lesson would you change, and what would you keep?
5. Apply the GANAG schema to a three- or four-week unit (or a shorter unit if you are a primary school teacher). What about your unit would you change and what would you keep?
6. Technology has changed how we teach. How does having a good lesson plan routine help you with your remote teaching or virtual classrooms?
7. Jennifer Collins describes what changed for her from university to teaching. What are you ready to change in your lesson planning and delivery habits?

Chapter 4. Assessment Tasks

1. How do you plan for formative assessment in your classes?
2. How might student self-assessment at the beginning and end of every lesson change your students' attention in class?
3. Standards checks or quizzes improve student learning. How frequently do you use quizzes to check understanding? Would you be willing to increase the number of short quizzes?
4. Describe an assessment situation you experienced that was similar to Billy's or Sarah's. What happened with the student products, and how did you redesign the task?
5. Consider thinking skills initiatives in your school. What research supported those approaches to teach and test thinking?
6. Redesign a task using one of the thinking skills. What changes did you make?
7. McKinzie Sanders and Patrick Villareal both made changes in assessment as ways to improve learning. Could their suggestions work for you?

Chapter 5. Feedback and Monitoring Student Progress Aligned to the Standards

1. Discuss a personal or professional goal that you set and achieved. What strategy did you use? Have you ever set a goal that you didn't accomplish? Why did you fall short?
2. Describe your processes for giving your students feedback. How would in-class scoring change the way students receive timely feedback and differentiated instruction in your class?
3. Are your test items aligned to the standards for the unit? How could that make a difference to you and your students?
4. What questions or concerns do you have about restructuring your grade book to score to the standards?
5. If you change your grade book, will that influence how you enter grades for reporting purposes? In what ways might that save you time?
6. Ricky Sinfield asked, "Why the Big Four?" and then answered for himself. In your own words, restate the Big Four and why it makes sense to consider changes to how you approach curriculum design and lesson planning and delivery.

Improving Student Learning One Teacher at a Time, 2nd Edition was written by Jane E. Pollock and Laura J. Tolone. This 136-page, 7" x 10" book (Stock #117013; ISBN-13: 978-1-4166-2969-6) is available from ASCD. Copyright © 2021 by ASCD. To order a copy, visit ASCD's Online Store.