Book Study: Whatever It Takes - Chapter 1

[Chandler Smith]

Chapter 1:

What happens in our school, when, despite your best efforts in the classroom, a student does not learn?

Follow up question: How are these responses similar or different from the response suggested by the PLC model?

What type (or combination of) school are we (Darwin, Pontius Pilate, Chicago Cub or Henry Higgins)?

What characteristics of do we exhibit?

Follow up questions:
What is our fundamental purpose?
What do we hope to change to become more of a PLC?
What are our strategies for getting better?
By what criteria will we assess our improvement efforts?

After reading chapter 1, I plan to change my professional practice in the following ways:

[eweathers]

In our school, when a student does not learn, we "send" them to another teacher who may be able to reach them in a way that we can not, and/or we go to other teachers and ask for help in reaching that student. PLC schools work together this way. We do not have any written or formal PLC plan that answers the three critical questions. There is the understood GEE/LEAP goal, and I wonder if that is the same as a self made plan. It is hard to answer "our" purpose -- the district's purpose is test scores. My purpose is for students to find their voice -- and communicate that voice effectively. My purpose can/will/does fold into their purpose.
We do have the advantage of knowing our director has high expectations and backs us in reaching them.
There is more of a collective -- we are all on the same page -- feeling at this school than where I came from. There we were all in the same life raft hoping not to sink, but no one had a paddle.
We have grade level meetings and departmental meetings and creating our own curriculum
For now, the criteria is test scores

[ccope]

Form an electives point of view we still recommend that student to go to another teacher who might be able to reach them. With the ideas behind a PLC pushing for teachers to work collaboratively to find out what all students need to learn which is where we lack a firm understanding across all courses of what each student in that year must walk away with in order to succeed in their next year. However we are still going through a trail and error, lets see how this works for our students, behavior that PLC recommends.

While reading much of this chapter I remembered my student teaching days in Virginia where their guidelines (from an art perspective only) are very basic and straight forward While still slowing for a LOT of leeway for teachers to implement various strategies. Utilizing this is something that I would like to do as a way to go above and beyond our goals.

[cbreaux]

Our district goal is definitely test scores. As a math department, our goal is primarily test scores as well. My goal for my students is that they learn how to think critically and become willing to work at a problem to achieve the solution. If I succeed in my goal, students will definitely help the district succeed in theirs. Test scores seem to be everything to the district and much time is lost due to their beyond heavy load of online tests.

When a student does not get something I am teaching, I immediately go to another teacher for suggestions or tutoring for that student. Many times, the student does not want to get extra help from the other teacher. Our math department and grade level meetings also help to determine what kids find interesting. This allows us to better reach those students who sometimes struggle.

[krisyush]

Despite our best efforts in the classroom often if a student "does not learn" he/she is referred to SAT to have a serious meeting with the parents, teachers and Ms. Franklin. I feel that at our school our teachers are more than flexible with dates for assignments, making up quizzes and even making exceptions for missed time due to injury or illness. On the flip side, when all of these efforts still do not work and the student does not earn the required GPA he/she is dismissed from our school for the following year.
We are similar to the PLC model in several ways. Our SAT team identifies avenues of success for students to follow. Many teachers provide remediation in the morning before school or during lunch to help strengthen skills, there are even during school tutoring sessions provided to many of the students via Dr. Zito and LA GEAR UP. Most importantly we create a positive learning enviroment in which there are rewards in place for positive achievements.
We are different than the PLC model in the fact that students are dismissed from our program if they fail to acquire a 2.5 GPA by the end of the academic year or fail to pass the LEAP/ILEAP/GEE.

I believe that our fundamental purpose as a school is to help prepare and motivate students to strive to achieve higher education and a successful career. To continue on our path to becoming more of a PLC we need to focus on LEARNING rather than TESTING, ensure teacher flexibility and continue creating the positive learning environment that our mission statement brags about. We must continue COMMUNICATION from one teacher to another, work collaboratively teacher to teacher and subject to subject, honor results and create a school "community" where students want to be a part of it. We can assess our improvement efforts in the retention rate of our students and the increased motivation to learn (ie... thinking it is "cool" to be smart!).

This chapter has really helped to re-motivate me to continue teaching and focus on the LEARNING of my students while making the opportunity for ALL of my students to be successful, even if that means contacting the scary parent!

[cbreaux]

I like your statement about focusing more on learning and not testing. I completely agree with you on this. This year, we tested some students far too much. Every other week there was a district unit test or performance assessment which the students had to take. Students were not even given time to master a topic before these tests were given. We failed to notice the large amounts of growth by some students because their scores on these unit tests or performance assessments we not up to the school standards. We are missing the point that students are learning, and each student learns at a different pace. All of this testing, which causes some students to get accustomed to failure, does not help students achieve. The testing simply creates a negative vibe in the classroom and hinders learning.

I realize that some testing is necessary, and I am not at all against that, but we have taken this to the extreme. More than 20 days of classroom time were spent on district tests in the math classrooms this year. Just think how much more could have been learned or mastered by our students with an extra month of instructional time.