Evan Interviews Laura Robb

Differentiating reading instruction is frequently communicated amongst educators but often does not occur in many classrooms.  With wide ability ranges and large classrooms, differentiating can be a daunting challenge even for the best teacher.  What are some ways to allow every child to get the extra they may need to propel their learning? Laura is an expert on differentiating and helping teachers learn how to do it in a way that makes sense.  I call it Monday morning strategies.

Evan: Where does a teacher start with DI Reading Instruction? Which structures and concepts are fundamental?

LAURA: Start by building your background knowledge of DI, which includes understanding tiering, assessment, the role of conferring and self-evaluation, writing to improve reading, creating plans for units, and the research that supports DI. Consider forming a study group with colleagues to read and discuss my book as well as the work of Carol Ann Tomlinson, Judith Dodge, and Rick Wormeli. Fortified with theory and examples of practice, you’ll be ready to plan and implement one unit of study. You can plan a unit of study for two to three weeks using picture books. This way you start small and experience the instructional read-aloud, instructional reading at school, teacher-student conferences, to name only a few. The more you self-evaluate and invite student feedback during and after a unit, the smoother the units will run.

Evan: Do very bright students-such as those who’ve been designated as gifted-suffer from low expectations in a class where DI is the norm?

LAURA: Actually, bright students bloom because you are offering them challenging materials that relate to the genre, issue, and theme you’re studying. With one-size-fits-all, these students receive little to no instruction because the work is easy for them and they can complete it independently. They are usually reading materials at their independent reading levels and not moving forward with analyzing, connecting, and synthesizing.

Because a student struggles with reading does not necessarily mean that student is not bright or gifted. The key to differentiation is to match students to instructional texts so they can improve their reading skill. But all students, no matter what their instructional reading levels are, need to think and apply reading and analytical strategies appropriate for their grade level. So, a sixth grader reading at a third grade instructional level uses that material to think and write about texts at the sixth grade level.

Evan: How does writing support DI and improve comprehension?

LAURA: Writing about reading improves students’ comprehension by helping them to compare and contrast within a text or between texts; to clarify hunches and thinking; to make connections, analyze, form hypotheses and prove them; and synthesize ideas across texts. I see writing about reading as an extension of reading and thinking. In my classes, journals are always on students’ desks, poised to receive a reaction, thought, questions, and other feedback.

Evan: Does DI have a role in classes other than reading or language arts?

LAURA: Absolutely! Let me start with a true story. A group of ninth graders reading three to five years below grade level were placed in a special reading class that met five mornings a week. Students read books at their instructional levels and used their texts to do the high level thinking expected of ninth graders. They experienced much success and made one to two years’ progress. However, back in science, English, and social studies, these students had to read grade level or above texts. Animal Farm was one of the English texts. Students became angry and frustrated because they failed or received D’s in other subjects. Though administrators developed this kind of remediation with the best intentions, these students needed to read at their instructional level in all subjects in order to improve. This is one reason why we continue to leave so many students behind.

Multiple texts-texts related to a topic in any subject at diverse reading levels-need to be a part of all instruction. Publishing needs to change to meet the realities of teaching. No more huge textbooks that students can’t read. In their place we need small texts that relate to different aspects of a topic, written at diverse instructional levels. All subjects-not just language arts-need reading resource rooms with books on a wide range of reading levels.

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To succeed in school, compete in the job market, and become a contributing citizen in our democracy and the global economy, our students need to learn in classrooms that develop 21st century skills, called the 4 Cs: Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, and Creativity.

You can motivate and engage teachers to consider what kinds of instruction develop these skills by having them learn during faculty meetings in ways that you want their students to learn. When teachers experience great 21st-century classrooms, innovative types of learning become a part of teachers’ DNA and open conversations about how the 4 Cs will impact learning in their subjects.

Teachers Experience the 4Cs During Faculty Meetings

I recommend that you set aside three faculty meetings for teachers to experience the 4 Cs and connect what they’ve learned to classroom practices. It makes no sense for principals to expect students to collaborate and problem solve and then lead faculty meetings where teachers passively sit and receive information. Instead, start by dividing teachers into groups of four to six and have them choose articles to read about the 4 Cs and 21st century classrooms. In the box below, I’ve listed the URLS of five sources.

First Faculty Meeting

• Organize faculty into groups of four to six, introduce the 4Cs of 21st century learning, and invite teachers to discuss why these are important for the challenges our country and the world face today.
• Have each group choose a spokesperson and share with everyone what their group discussed. Record teachers’ ideas on a whiteboard. Have teachers choose two articles to read.
• Close the meeting by asking them to discuss ways they can integrate Collaboration and Communication into their classes. Groups share and you record their ideas on a whiteboard.

Second Faculty Meeting

• Recap what was discussed at the first meeting by posting the teachers’ ideas you recorded on the whiteboard.
• Have groups read a different article, discuss it focusing on Creativity and Critical Thinking, and how they can integrate these into their lessons. Groups choose a different spokesperson and share their ideas. Record these on a whiteboard.

Third Faculty Meeting

• Recap what teachers discussed at the second meeting by posting the ideas you recorded on the whiteboard.
• Ask teachers to reflect on their experiences, discussions, and reading materials and create a list of learning experiences they can integrate into their lessons.
• Have groups share and record their thinking on a whiteboard.
• Give each group one of the 4Cs and ask members to offer specific ways to build their 21st century skill into lessons. Groups share and discuss.

Accept Where Teachers Are in the Process

You’ll find that even with reading and discussing articles, teachers will absorb some information but not all of the key points. Like their students, their background knowledge and personal experiences will determine the types of suggestions they offer.

Below you’ll find 10 ways that teachers at your school can foster and build 21st century skills into students’ learning experiences. It’s helpful for teachers to discuss these 10 suggestions always through the lens of how each one fits into their subject.

1. Have students sit in groups of four to six. Encourage teachers to abandon rows of desks that only separate and isolate students. For collaboration to take place and for students to have opportunities to choose and discuss materials, they need to sit in groups and work together or separate into partners who report back to the group.
2. Allow students to choose reading materials. Invite your school librarian to meet with English and reading teachers to explain how he or she can help teachers select books that meet the diverse instructional needs of students in their classes. When teachers organize units of study by a genre, such as biography and historical fiction, they can differentiate instruction by having students read books in those genres in a range of reading levels. The school librarian can select high-quality books in the genre and separate them into stacks by reading level. Then, groups of students can browse stacks at their levels and choose books that appeal to them.
3. Initiate student-led literary discussions. Have teachers build on the turn-and-talk strategy that asks students to turn to a classmate and discuss questions about a read-aloud text or an aspect of a lesson. The next step might be having students discuss a text for 5 to 20 minutes with a partner, using questions the students themselves composed.  Then, students can make the transition to small-group discussions.

4. Use inquiry learning. Put the questioning process into students’ hands by asking them to compose interpretive, open-ended questions. (A question is open-ended if it has two or more answers that text evidence supports.) This is a powerful technique because students need to collaborate and communicate to write open-ended questions; they also need a deep knowledge about, and an understanding of, the reading material. Teachers can also show students how to compose guiding questions, which works well when groups read different books in a particular genre or on a specific theme. A guiding question is broad and can’t be answered in one or two sentences. For example, eighth-grade students reading science fiction wrote this guiding question: What warnings does the story give, and what in our society caused these warnings? 

5. Invite students to debrief their discussions by asking: What worked and why? What could have been improved and how? This kind of problem solving requires students to use their creativity and communication skills to determine what went well and how to improve what didn’t.

6. Have students set goals. Groups can set goals after they debrief a student-led discussion along with ideas for reaching those goals. Ask groups to review and discuss their suggestions for improving literary conversations immediately before the next literary conversation occurs.

7. Integrate technology by asking all faculty members or specific departments to read an article on their computers (I use Google Docs). Then, let the communication begin! Teachers write their responses to an article and pose questions so everyone who received the article can read all the responses and questions. The next step might be to use software such as Google Docs with students. For example, teachers can post a short reading selection on Google Docs for students and have them respond to questions in writing. Students can use the articles and all responses for a whole-class discussion. In addition, students can collaborate and write a blog, informational piece, play, and so on and post their work on Google Docs for peers to read and respond to. Google also offers tools for groups to do digital storytelling and for turning data into visuals such as graphs.

8. Have students write about reading. Consider the research by Steve Graham, Karen Harris, and Tanya Santangelo, who make it clear that when students write about books they read their comprehension improves by 24 percentile points. Writing is informal—a way to express on-the-spot reactions, connections, evaluations of information, characters’ decisions, conflicts, themes, and short summaries.

9. Use the jigsaw strategy. If you have several questions you want students to discuss, divide the work among groups. Give each group a question and have them discuss it. Once groups discuss, they choose a spokesperson who explains the ideas discussed to the class. Not only does jigsaw advance all the 4Cs, but it also moves lessons forward.

10. Try chat centers, a spin-off of jigsaw that gets students out of their seats and moving around the room. You can put questions about literary elements, vocabulary, or a text all students have read or listened to on five to seven sheets and post them around the room. Assign each group a chat center, have members discuss the questions, and then present their findings to the class. To communicate clearly and effectively, students have to adjust and clarify their ideas so that their classmates understand their thinking.

Closing Thoughts

Whenever a strategy is new to teachers, step back and provide them with the background knowledge and hands-on experiences that develop the depth of understanding they need to implement that strategy to full advantage for students.

The 10 ways to integrate the 4Cs into daily learning ask students to practice and refine their use of collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity. Encourage teachers to work closely with a colleague, choose a strategy they’d like to implement, share ideas, observe one another’s classes, debrief, and when they’re both comfortable, try another one. I always invite teachers to start small and add new strategies slowly to ensure success and maintain the desire to develop the 4Cs in all students.

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I can recall when I first started my teaching career a heated grading discussion amongst veteran staff in my school. Two professionals were in a hot debate about what to do with a 69.5 when 70 was a passing grade.

Now, I know, and hopefully you do also that such a conversation is not very valuable.

Grading can be subjective. Over the years I have met many who believe their method is the best. Furthermore, I learned that very few staff ever learned about grading in college. Most staff graded based on what they thought was right or based on standard practices in their school. But, what was done was not always fair and often did not measure learning.

There is a lot of research on grading and best practice for grading. We should learn from it and use it. I suggest starting with the work of Rick Wormeli and Doug Reeves to expand your ideas and to help staff take a journey towards using best practice for grading. Rick Wormeli reminds us that grading should preserve hope; using grades as a weapon is not a great motivator for students or adult learners.

Here are some reflection points to start conversation in your school.

What is the purpose of failure when a student cannot recover from it?

What research exists to support a total points method of grading?

Does extra credit belong in your school? I have to comment on this one- My own children brought in many boxes of tissues to classrooms to earn 10 points on a test. If that is the practice of a school, what does the grade mean if bonus points are added for bringing in tissues?

Should retakes be allowed? Well, as Rick Wormeli reminds us, most things we do in life you can do again and you can do them for full credit.

Will students be allowed or required to keep working on an assignment until it is satisfactory?

How much will homework be factored into the final grade? Should it be a part of a final grade?

Or, what is homework?

How much will quizzes, unit tests, and final exams be factored into the final grade? Are the assessments used for grading good assessments?

If a student fails to turn in work on time, does your school have a standard practice?

Here is a great point from Rick Wormeli. If we simply give students a zero and don’t allow them to turn in work after it was due, won’t some students happily take the zero rather than do the work? How does allowing this irresponsible behavior encourage students to act responsibly?

Discussion of mastery learning and use of the average are excellent topics to study as a faculty as part of a plan of using best practice.

Consider this example- I use this in interviews:

I person wants to become a better runner. They go to the track at the local high school and run a mile in 10 minutes. Each day practice occurs and every Friday the mile is run again. Over the course of 8 weeks with diligent practice the person’s mile time goes down 2.5 minutes.

What is the mile time?

Now your quick answer would be 7.5 minutes and that is correct. Now think of this example in a classroom. A bad initial test, intervention(practice opportunities), learning, and then improvement on a culminating assessment demonstrating mastery. Should the initial bad grade be averaged in? Would the mile time of the runner be 7.5 minutes if each week a time was kept and an average was created?

Grading discussions can be challenging. I encourage you to start a dialogue, look at best practice, and honestly reflect on what you do.

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By Laura Robb and Evan Robb

Get your students out of their desks and learning by doing. Organize students into collaborative groups of three to five and encourage meaningful talk. Limit teacher talk to twelve to fifteen minutes in a 45-minute class. Use the rest of your class time for actively engaging students in learning. Gordon Wells said in The Meaning Makers (Heinemann, 1986) that all learning is the guided reinvention of knowledge. The teacher creates situations where students, through discussions, reading, writing, and observing come to understand information.

TAP INTO STUDENTS SOCIAL NATURES TO MAKE LEARNING ACTIVE

Students love to talk. They do it well. And it’s a great way for them to enlarge vocabulary, observe the thinking of peers, and clarify ideas. Here are some ways to involve students in paired and small group discussions.

Turn and Talk. Ask students to turn to their partner and discuss a question, word, project, video, book talk. This is a simple, tried and true way to involve students in meaningful talk. Remember to ask partners to share with the class.

Learning Buddies. Invite students to discuss a short text, a book, video, blog, wiki, or article. Help students set guidelines for their discussions.

Peer Revise and Edit. Organize students into partners or small groups and have them read each other’s drafts. Using a rubric or writing criteria, partners can suggest ways to improve the content, mechanics, and usage.

Study Buddies. Most middle grade and middle school students don’t study because they are unsure how to study. This type of review asks students to think about what they’re read, viewed on line, learned, and their written notes. Set aside one to two class periods and provide pairs with suggestions for studying. Students can:

Create high level questions they believe will be on the test. Show them that words like why, how, evaluate, compare, contrast, lead to questions that have more than one answer. Good questions always have more than one answer and use text details and/or inferences as support for answers.

360 Degree Math Partnerships. Put whiteboards all around your classroom. Have students solve math problems at the board. Stand in the middle of the classroom and observe students. Immediately offer support to students who “don’t get it.” You can also have students work together so that the one who understands can show how to think through the problem to the student who requires help. This gets students doing math during class and allows the teacher to spot problems immediately and offer support.

Organize Cross-Grade Projects. Develop projects with teachers on your team and/or with students in lower grades. Students can work together in different classrooms and in the library. Try some of these suggestions:

• Older students become reading buddies to younger students. Once a week, set aside time for students to read together and discuss their books.
• Older students listen to younger students read their writing and provide feedback on content.
• Peer partners can design and film a video.
• Peer partners can create a website or blog and continually update it.

Let Students Teach Each Other. As a teacher when you have to teach, you immerse yourself in a topic so deeply that you can think, read, speak, and write about it with ease. The same holds true for your students. The pyramid suggests that teaching results in the most retention of a topic. Here are ways that students can teach one another:

• Use Jigsaw. Give pairs or small groups sections of texts to discuss and then teach to the group. Texts can be magazine articles, online pieces, sections from a content textbook or chapters from informational texts and literature.
• Organize Panel Presentations. Have small groups become experts on a topic and plan a panel presentation that teaches the class.
• Develop Teaching Blogs. Organize students into groups and give each group part of a topic to study. For example, for human rights, one group canexplainthis concept according to the United Nations, other countries, and interviews that students conduct; another group can give examples of violations of human rights and how each one was handled; a third group can study human rights from an historical perspective; a fourth group can delve into people who advocated for human rights, what motivated them, and how they changed events. Using a blog, students can teach one another by posting findings and inviting other groups to respond.
• Teach Younger Students. Challenge older students to develop active-learning lessons on making inferences, solving equations, conducting an experiment, etc. To teach these lessons to younger students means older students must have a deep understanding of their topic.
• Peer Book Conferences. Once students have conferred about a book with their teacher, ask them to pair-up and confer about a book with a partner. Partners document peer book conferences and turn their write-ups into the teacher. See form at the end of the newsletter.

INTEGRATE SPEAKING AND LISTENING IN ACTIVE LEARNING ACTIVITIES

The Common Core asks teachers to involve students in speaking and listening activities. Here are some suggestions that work:

• Present monthly book talks and develop standards for presenters and listeners.
• Argue for a claim in a speech in addition to writing essays.
• Write and perform a readers theater script based on a specific text.
• Conduct interviews in front of the class. Interviews can be between characters from a book or to explore a student’s expertise on a topic.
• Write and perform a dramatic monologue. Students’ monologues can be based on an historical figure, a famous scientist or mathematician, or a character from a book.

EMBRACE THE WORKSHOP MODEL

Reading and writing workshops are active learning teaching models. A read aloud and mini-lesson open workshop. Students spend most of class time reading books they choose and writing about topics they choose and care about. The teacher makes the rounds and holds brief conferences with students, leading her to figuring out which students require longer conferences; she also organizes student partnerships so students can confer with and support each another.

PRINCIPAL  THOUGHTS

Laura shares ideas to help make classrooms more engaging, student focused, and dynamic.  Student engagement coupled with purposeful learning can not only increase student learning but it also can make learning more enjoyable for student and teacher.  This blog contains great Monday morning strategies as you the teacher work to increase student engagement in a purposeful strategic way! I hope your principal is an encourager of trying new strategies to increase student engagement! Overly compliant classrooms devoid of conversation, engagement, collaboration and communication need to be part of our past.

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