Baking bread is a matter of following a recipe. I pre-heat my oven stove to 450 degrees and place my Dutch oven on the middle rack. When the oven is heated, I place my properly mixed and raised dough in the Dutch oven and set the timer for 22 minutes when I will remove the lid and continue baking for 7 minutes until the crust is lightly browned and firm to the touch. Voila! A loaf of artisan bread. Until I take my first slice and find that the crumb is under-baked. It is dense and over moist. Why? I used the proper data of my recipe that to create both a good crust and a tasty crumb. What went wrong?
Last week I purchased a new oven thermometer for checking the interior temperature of a loaf of bread while the bread is baking. Yesterday I found that when all my external data adhere to the recipe’s data, the internal data, the temperature of the crumb, had not reached a degree where it will have that structured, soft, tasty, air-pocketed texture that my bread wants. My external data did not fit my internal data.
What did I learn? That sometimes the external data prescribed for the outcomes we want does not match the internal data that tells the real story of the outcomes we will receive.
So what? This concept is readily applied to other endeavors, especially education. In fact, the examination of external data and internal data fits our concerns for closing achievement gaps very well. As with my loaf of artisan bread and its perfect crust, larger picture achievement data may not stand a closer inspection of its underlying data. Or, to reverse the usual generalization about synergy, the sum of the parts may be less than the whole.
Many schools today apply scheduled and on-demand formative assessments of child learning. Locally these are Star Achievement Tests. Children take state assessments once each year to create a crust-like image of academic achievement in reading and math. Compared with state norms (recipes), we deduce the quality of education in a school from these external data. This approximates the crust of my unbaked loaf. Formative data, like Star tests, provide the internal data of a thermometer inserted into the loaf while it bakes. These data examine the underlying knowledge and skill sets and how they are being developed inside the school year, perhaps on a monthly or quarterly basis. These interior data look at each child, not a grade level or a school as whole, and provide a close-up status report. They also look at groups of children with common learning challenges to describe their learning.
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Examination of skill set and content knowledge development at this incremental level informs us of the quality of a child’s ongoing learning. Can he or she respond accurately and properly to frequently asked micro-questioning? Does the child understand or is the child “parroting”? How well is our instructional design preparing each child for enduring learning versus doing daily assignments? How well is our teaching program using the ingredients of daily instruction to build the strongest of learning outcomes for every child? The emphasis of internal data analysis is every child. Where generalized external data may yield one conclusion through averaging data, examined internal data can yield different conclusions about the strength of each child’s learning.
Introspection not only informs us, but it begs the question – Now what? If the internal data is strong, keep on keeping on. If the internal data is weak, instructional design must change? It is the “now what” dilemma that challenges the need to close achievement gaps. How can teacher talent, teaching-learning engagement, and time be used differently to produce an improved outcome?
Of interest is the how well children fit into this instructional design: In PK-3 children learn to read and in grades 4 – 12 they read to learn. The latter is premised on the first and if children have not learned to read well enough, then reading to learn is a chronic problem for child and teacher. Generalized data often indicates that “as a grade level” children are meeting school goals for reading achievement. Introspection of the internal data may find that individuals or groups of children with specific learning challenges are not accurately described by “as a grade level.” What then?
These are “whats” that work.
- Start looking at internal data in Pre-K.
Know the language and vocabulary and numeracy skills of each child entering Pre-K. Children come to school with a wide variance in their Birth to 4 experiences and some of these lead to achievement gaps. Schooling needs to level the field of the academically-based variances. Spend the time and resources of 4K and K screening to create PK academic status report for each child and then use the data of that report to design the child’s PK-3 teaching and learning sequence.
Share the results with parents. Be clear about the language and numeracy goals of K-3 learning, where their child begins in meeting those goals and how teachers will instruct to move their child to a “reading to learn” student by 4th grade. Make the parents part of the instructional program.
For children who begin with a deficit in language (vocabulary, phonics) development, send materials home on a regular basis. Make home visits. Share weekly vocabulary lists. Share phonics drills. Build each student’s temporary or permanent home library. The inexpensive cost of trade books given to parents to use at home is far less than the teacher costs for upper elementary grade tier 2 RTI interventions.
- Intervene now – don’t wait to see if the gap persists.
Provide intensive work on oral vocabulary development in PK and K. Children who enter PK recognizing 500 spoken words have an unbelievable disadvantage compared with children who enter knowing 5,000 spoken words. Overteach spoken vocabulary for those with limited word recognition. Be unrelenting in pushing vocabulary early if you want children to read-to-learn after grade 3.Be identical in overteaching for numeracy proficiency. Require every student to master the goals of every math unit in 4K – grade 3. The introduction of higher math foundational standards in primary education seems impossible for children who demonstrate difficulty with basic numeracy, but they are not impossible when their mastery is the only acceptable outcome. Use frequent assessments to check language and numeracy growth. Celebrate and reinforce frequently. If your school uses an RTI model, attach student learning at Tier 1 and Tier 2. Make the interventions at these tiers work. Reserve Tier 3 for children with needs more severe than incomplete and mistaken learning.Achieving weekly or monthly goals is not enough. Achieving reading and mathematics proficiency by the end of third grade is the only goal.
- Teach to eliminate what is wrong as well as teach what is correct.
Correct misunderstandings and mistakes when they first occur. Repetition does not necessarily lead to perfection, but it does lead to constancy. Don’t let K-3 children repeat what is not correct.
If a child mispronounces a word, correct it. If a child uses a word incorrectly, correct the usage. If a child keeping using the same word, require synonyms. Push correctness hard. If a child misses number sequences, is inaccurate in counting, makes mistakes in reciting math facts – correct every mistake every time.
Once a correction is made, reinforce the correction. This takes time and it takes teacher persistence. Often times, mistakes are rooted in a child’s out-of-school experiences and those influences cause a child to return to those mistakes. Push corrections hard even after a correction has been made.
Looking backwards for children who are challenged with fractions and algebra, we too often find incomplete understanding of basic facts and operations. A quadratic is a nightmare for a child who is not confident in basic math operations.
- Close gaps by grade 3.
Make closed achievement gaps by grade 3 a district goal not just a grade level or school goal. Pile in all of the district resources needed to achieve grade PK-3 learning success for all children and you will find a cost savings in grade 7 – 12 that can be applied to enriching and advancing learning for all secondary students. Do the right work at the right time.
What is wrong with spending more money on the instruction of PK-3 children than is spent on any other grade level if it assures that all children have attained the same quality achievement levels, especially in ELA and math, by the end of grade 3? Not a thing is wrong with that expenditure.
Closing achievement gaps requires the use of internal data. Scheduled and on-demand formative assessment data points teaching at the specific learning needs of each child as well as affirming when children achieve the district’s 4K – grade 3 learning goals. Stick your assessment thermometer inside the body of learning to really understand how well the instructional program is working.