Action Research Report
Abstract or Executive
Summary
To be completed at a later date…
Title and Author
Implementing Effective Instructional
Strategies
Introduction
/ Background (Section One)
During the 2011-2012 school year,
Brazosport ISD contracted an outside source to conduct a district audit where
the findings encouraged significant attention to various areas of
curriculum. One finding in particular
stressed that auditors discovered a lack of clear and consistent direction for
classroom instruction in district documents.
District instruction generally consisted of teacher-directed whole group
instruction or individual seatwork.
Auditors observed instruction requiring mostly low levels of cognitive
processes and knowledge dimensions. Few
research-based effective instructional practices were evident. Brazosport ISD is an urban district composed
of nineteen campuses which includes eleven elementary campuses, two middle
school campuses, three middle school campuses, two high schools, and one
alternative campus. BISD also provides
special education programs for pre-school children and a career and technology
education program on the secondary level.
The district ethnic
composition is 38.8% White, 48.99% Hispanic, 8.12% African American, 1.6%
Asian, .05% Pacific Islander, .48% Native American and 1.96% other. Recently Brazosport ISD was rated
Acceptable. The district has 4 exemplary
campuses, 6 recognized, and 9 acceptable in state assessment ratings. In a district of 12,372 students, 9.9% are
special education and 13.1% gifted and talented. There are 47 campus administrators and 55
central office administrators who assisted in this action research
project. The central office administration
includes five instructional coaches, of which I am included. In addition to data collection, instructional
coaches are responsible for training staff members on effective instructional
strategies and supporting the implementation.
Needs
Assessment
Data collected during the district curriculum audit included,
but are not limited to, student groupings, technology in use, cognitive process
and knowledge dimensions, research-based effective instructional strategies,
and effective strategies in the ESL classroom.
While district goals and core beliefs stressed the importance of student
success, higher levels, and more rigor, this is not what was seen in classrooms
by the auditors. As auditors stated in
their findings, “Classrooms consist of low rigor and limited use of effective
practices.” The evidence of teacher use
of effective instructional practices can be described in Figure 1.
Figure 1
|
Instructional
Strategy
|
Percentage
of Classroom
|
|
Specific
learning goals/objectives
|
11
|
|
Corrective
Feedback
|
10
|
|
Reinforcement
of effort; recognition
|
33
|
|
Well-constructed
cooperative learning
|
2
|
|
Cues and
prompts
|
12
|
|
Advance
Organizers
|
4
|
|
Non-Linguistic
representations
|
7
|
|
Kinesthetic
activities to increase student achievement
|
2
|
|
Mental
Pictures (by students)
|
0
|
|
Physical
models of concepts (manipulatives)
|
7
|
|
Summarizing
|
3
|
|
Note-taking
|
6
|
|
Time for
practice, review, application
|
21
|
|
Homework
with a clear purpose
|
0
|
|
Comparing,
classifying, metaphors/analogies
|
3
|
|
Generate
and test hypotheses (students)
|
0
|
|
Clearly
explain hypotheses and conclusions
|
0
|
As the district increases in the number of non-English
speaking students, auditors looked for evidence of effective strategies for use
with English language learners as recommended by the Texas Education
Agency. In these bilingual classrooms,
the most common strategies were modeling of spoken language, direct teaching of
vocabulary, use of various visual aids, and native language support. In 20% of bilingual classrooms, the
strategies of verbal cues, sentence stems, and positive feedback were
evident. Over all, effective strategies
for English language learners were infrequent.
Teacher use of practice, review and application were the most common;
however, this was often in the form of students completing seatwork in the form
of worksheets or other low-level assignments.
Most of the effective instructional strategies were evident in the
classroom less than 10% of the time.
Objective
and Vision of the Action Research Project
After careful review of the data presented to the district
Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment team, it was determined that 100% of
teachers would be trained on Classroom
Instruction That Works (also referred to as CITW), including strategies for differentiating
instruction to meet the needs of English language learners, special education, and
gifted students. When these strategies
are in place 70% of the school day, how is student success impacted?
Literature
Review (Section Two)
Monitoring curriculum del Birmingham Helping St Helping St
The nine effective instructional strategies reflect three
main principles:
- Students come to
class with prior understandings. To
promote student learning, teachers must use this understanding and
experience to build upon.
- Students must be provided the opportunities to apply and retrieve knowledge in real-world contexts.
- Students will learn more effectively when they know how they learn and reflect on their learning.
What are these nine principals? Setting the Ob jective
provides students with an understanding of what is intended to be learned; can
include surveying students, checking for understanding, goal setting, and
activating prior knowledge. Recognizing Effort and Providing Recognition
tracks students effort, praises students for a job well done, and letting them
know why they have done well; provides praise for goal attainment. Cooperative
Learning when used correctly, as opposed to small groups, provides students
with opportunities to interact, socialize, and enhance the learning. Cues, Questions, and Advance Organizers
allows students to retrieve, use, and organize what is already known about a
topic. Non-linguistic representation is too often misjudged as just
picture representation, but can also include kinestic activities, class
demonstrations, mental imagery, graphic organizers, skits, drama, and/or
music. Summarizing and Notetaking will provide students the chance to
synthesize information and organize it in way that captures their understanding
of the materials. Assigning Homework and Providing Practice extends the learning by
providing an opportunity to practice, review, and apply knowledge. Homework and practice should be meaningful and
engaging, intended to reach a proficient skill level. Identifying
Similarities and Differences, even though it is the highest yield it is the
least used strategy, involves students in a mental process to determine how
items are alike and how they are different.
And finally, Generating and Testing Hypotheses involve students in making and
testing hypotheses in four types of scientific designs – experimental,
investigation, problem solving and systems analysis. (Hubbell,
E., personal communication, October 30, 2012)
<Still to be
entered: INSERT LITERATURE REVIEW ON GAINS IN INSTRUCTION AND WHAT EVIDENCE
TO LOOK FOR WHEN MONITORING CLASSROOMS FOR EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTIONAL
STRATEGIES.>
Action
Research Design (Section Three)
Articulate
the Vision
Brazosport ISD’s superintendent created the district
strategic plan with her cabinet members.
Through this plan, the superintendent was able to articulate to her
campus and district administrators the goals for campus staff and faculty in
implementing Classroom Instruction
That Works. Curriculum
coordinators and more importantly curriculum coaches were given the task of
training 100% of campus faculty. This
task was introduced, to the campus principals, in a presentation on the lesson
model 5E, where 8 of the 9 effective instructional strategies were
utilized. Principals recognized these
strategies within the activity and then the vision and goals for Classroom Instruction That Works
was shared. The second edition of Classroom Instruction That Works
was ordered for each campus, principals were informed of the curriculum
coaches’ professional development workshops that would be conducted throughout
the year on their campuses. Finally, the
principals were reminded of the benchmark data on effective instructional strategies
collected the prior year. Additional
articulation of these goals was shared through board meetings, curriculum team
meetings, faculty meetings at individual campuses, and through communication of
the strategies on the district coaching Google site https://sites.google.com/a/brazosportisd.net/instructional-coaching-for-teachers/
.
Manage
the Organization
The first step in assuring that 100% of the district faculty
would be able and prepared to fully implement these strategies in their
classroom, required district and campus administrators understanding the
effective instructional strategies as well.
Through federal funds for professional development, author of Classroom Instruction That Works, 2nd
Edition, Elizabeth Hubbell was able to visit our district. In this two day training, she provided
administrators with all inclusive training in knowing what these strategies
looked like in the classroom, along with theory and research supporting the
strategies. An additional day of
training was provided to gain an understanding and knowledge of collecting data
on these strategies in the classroom through the McRel Power Walkthrough data
collection tool. This tool allows each
campus and district administrator to collect data in the same manner with the
same tool, rather than multiple collection tools across the district. Later on this data is disaggregated in order
to compare to our benchmark data shared earlier in our Needs Assessment. Upon
completion of the CITW training, campus administrators were offered the
opportunity to meet with their campus instructional coach to arrange
professional development for each of their campuses, conducted by the district
instructional coaches. For the 2012-2013
school year, a workshop series of nine sessions would be offered targeting the
need of effective instructional strategies in the classroom. Throughout that school year, instructional
coaches meet together to review the literature and research, gather resources
and ideas, and plan the workshop series topic for the month. Campuses allotted time at least once a month
to have coaches on the campuses to present this staff development session. Timing and offerings varied campus by campus. Sessions were offered in one of multiple
ways:
·
Grade
level planning times
·
During
faculty meetings
·
During
common collaboration time
·
After
school on voluntary basis
The managing of the staff was determined by how the session
was offered. In common grade level
planning times, the sessions were small and at most had 30 minutes to present a
strategy. The downfall to presenting
during grade level planning times was the session was taking time away from the
teachers planning period and had to be repeated 5-8 times a day. When sessions were presented during faculty
meetings, the groups were larger, sometimes 40-50 participants, with staff
members slowly arriving after completing after school duties. Finding time during collaboration time always
proved difficult because campuses have this scheduled in advance. Another negative to collaboration time was
the large groups with only 20-30 minutes.
The least effective way to present the workshop series was when offered
after school on a voluntary basis. The
district initiative and goal was to implement CITW on all campuses with 100% of
teachers being trained. Voluntary
sessions did not align with district goals.
Ultimately, ongoing support was provided to teachers, through
needs-based professional development and through monitoring by
administrators. This was done in the
form of developing a district staff development plan and implementing the McRel
Power Walk Through form.
Manage
Operations
Once training had taken place, campuses and district
administrators began collecting classroom data.
Data collected included grade level, content area, and the effective
instructional strategies evident in the two – four minute walk through. Also included in the power walk throughs is
the level of Bloom’s taxonomy, student grouping, and use of technology by
teachers and students. Indicators of learning
were recorded along with the results of a short student interview, “Can you
tell me what you are learning, today?”
Two areas of conflict were involved with the implementation of Classroom Instruction That Works. First, teachers wanted immediate feedback on
the results of their classroom visit.
However, with the McRel power walk throughs teachers do not receive
feedback individually. All data is
compiled either by district, campus, grade level, or content areas. Through reflective sessions teachers are able
to review data to set goals to address the needs determined by the patterns in
the data. In addition, content leaders at the campus level were invited to
shadow administrators conducting classroom walk throughs to see the process of
data collection. In return, these
leaders were able to communicate to peers that the walk throughs were informal
and not part of formal evaluations. The
second conflict came during training of this district initiative. Teachers shared their concerns about limited
amounts of planning time to plan and prepare lessons that incorporate CITW
strategies. Instructional coaches
stressed time and time again that teachers are most likely already
incorporating these strategies into daily lessons, just not at the appropriate
level or rigor required by state standards.
Through CITW training, these fears and concerns were eased as teachers
began to receive resources and ideas to fully implement effective instructional
strategies into their classrooms. After
understanding and clarification of strategies, teachers knew the possible
impact effective instructional strategies could have on the success of their
students.
Respond
to Community Interest and Needs
Included in the curriculum audit findings was a need to
include strategies for differentiated instruction to meet the needs of English
language learners, special education students, and gifted and talented
students. The office of Curriculum,
Instruction, and Assessment determined that 100% of teachers would be training
in CITW to address this finding.
Evidence of these strategies were collected and analyzed separately from
the regular education classroom to show increased rigor and use of these
strategies in these classrooms. This
data can be seen in Figure 3.
<INSET FIGURE 3 HERE WHEN COMPLETE>
Findings
(Section Four)
To be completed at a later date…
Conclusions
and Recommendations (Section Five)
To be completed at a later date…
References
(Final Section)
Dean, C.B., Hubbell, E., Pitler, H., & Stone, B.J.
(2012). Classroom instruction that works:
Research based strategies for increasing student achievement (6th
ed.) Denver , CO
