Here is a little provocation for all readers of this blog who play or would like to play some sort of supervisory or coach role. What would you do?
I have been working off and on for a few years in a high school nearby. As a result of so much work, I have gotten to know many of the teachers and all the supervisors (Dept. Head, Coaches, Principal) pretty well. Indeed, at this point I feel like an extra member of the staff rather than an outsider.
So, there is this one teacher. He is about 30 years old and has been teaching History for 6-7 years at the school. Nice guy, smart; good story-teller. He actually invited me into his class once to give him some feedback on his teaching, which I did. He listened to and accepted my feedback, and he thanked me for it – twice – a few days after our post-observation chat.
To no avail.
I have walked by his classroom 7-8 times per week over many weeks. Because the door is mostly glass, even when closed it is easy to see what is going on. What is going on, every single time, is that he is talking from his Powerpoint. Students are taking notes (or not) without much apparent enthusiasm. I have never once walked by and seen him listening to students or seen small-group or whole-group activities.
At a certain point last year, as this pattern became conscious in mind, I made a point to pass by his door various times per day and linger a bit – just to be sure that my “sampling” was accurate. No change from the pattern.
When I confided my observation to my school contact person what I was noticing, she responded: Yep, that’s him; that’s all he does.
Question #1: What would you advise me specifically to do – if anything – about what I am seeing beyond what I reported to my contact?
Question #2: What should my contact person do – if anything – in light of what I told her and in light of her confirmation of my observation? (She has no supervisory role).
Question #3: What would you do – if anything – as supervisor/coach/peer if you had noticed or heard about this pattern?
Question #4: There is a new History Department Mission Statement that stresses that teachers should make history engaging, and that says students should be “doing” history. Does this change your answers to Questions #1, #2, and/or #3?
Question #5: What do students deserve? Assuming that there is an important misalignment here between departmental goals and his instructional approach, how soon and often in the year, ideally, should someone in a supervisory role act when there is a question like this – before a whole year (or more) goes by?
Note: far more frequent and ongoing informal visits than the norm of 1-2 per year are feasible. My good friend and great educator, Andy Greene, Principal in a Half Hollow Hills NY middle school, does informal visits every day – so does his Asst. Principal, rotating departments between them – because Andy believes so strongly in the need to know his teachers. “It’s just a matter of priorities and blocking off a couple hours per day.” Between the two supervisors, there are 10 or more observations, per teacher, per year. And between them they write brief notes of “commendation, questions, recommendation” at the end of the day to all 7-8 teachers visited.
I look forward to your responses in the Comments!
P. S. Over 40 comments have been posted, making this the most commented-on post I have ever had. And all the comments are thoughtful and thorough – a veritable tutorial in the wisdom of crowd-sourcing educational issues via social media! Thanks to all of you for taking the time to read the post and offer such good comments.
Let me offer a few reflections after the fact:
1. Few people seemed to address the most basic question as a question: is it my place, as an outsider, and as someone who was lurking, to say anything to anybody (beyond my initial comment to my contact person)? I am surprised that more people didn’t say: butt out, Grant; it’s not your place. Which is actually close to my own view. Lurking should not be the basis of any important judgment.
2. The fact that he ignored my feedback, to my mind, was a complete red herring. So, speculation as to why he did and what I might do in the face of it seemed a bit off to me. Why should he act on my feedback? I’m not his colleague or supervisor. Nor are habits easy to change. Nor should we assume that just because I personally have witnessed no change in him that he isn’t interested or trying in some way to change. We would have to know a lot more about what HE is thinking!
3. Only a few people asked a key question: Never mind his behavior or teaching style; what results does he get? Interestingly, that question has no good answer: he teaches a class in which he is the sole assessor and grader. Whatever he tests and grades is it – no external exam or accountability. What, then?
4. I’m surprised that more people weren’t demanding that my contact person do more if she in fact knew this guy’s habits. But there is nothing she can do beyond inform the Supervisor. Which she did, in fact, do. To no avail.
5. I’m surprised that more people didn’t support the student side. A few suggested that their input should be sought in surveys with which I fully agree. More deeply, I deliberately asked: how long should we allow untenable pedagogies to go on? And no one really addressed that question – which for me is a key question in supervision. That was why I added the note at the end about Andy Greene and his AP being in classes every day.
Most people, however, saw this as a problem to be addressed by more coaching and support. But I painted a picture – deliberately – to suggest that this guy is unlikely to change any time soon. Whether or not that is true, my last question is this: when and how do supervisors hold teachers accountable for being out of touch with Mission and best practice? When do we get tough on mere weak unimproving teaching instead of noting only terrible teaching?
I’ll have another such provocation soon.
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62 Responses
I find the the following keeps teachers from change:
1. Fear- if they try something new and it works then that means they need to make changes or that what they are doing isn’t right. Also fear that they won’t look competent or professional because they are new at something.
2. Work- creating something new is work. Possibly having to redo much of what you do is lots of work.
Invite them to try something new with you. Tell them you would like your help planning something. Ask them if they would like to team teach something with you because you are testing it out for another school.
Then do it again. Involve maybe one other teacher so they have a change partner. Change works better when they are a part of a change team.
Small steps, teamwork, habit. Good luck.
Next time I saw this teacher, I would ask him directly how your suggestions were or were not working in his classroom. Then ask him WHY? Ask the questions without judgement. Treat it as an opportunity for you to get feedback from him. Then he’ll talk more openly about his reservations if he knows that he is helping YOU to give better advice. Once you have his honest feedback, you’ll know what the next step needs to be.
I would personally leave everyone else out of it. Just focus on him and his response.
Mr. Wiggins,
I have enjoyed your educational posts over the last few years. Thank you for them. One issue that many do not wish to ‘tackle’ is that of fundamentalist Religious parents and students challenging the public school curriculum. It can be Muslim, Hindu, Christian parents/children. What can be done to handle such “attacks” within our public school environment?
I see it especially in AP World History, World history, Science curriculums.
John Maunu
Pinckney, Michigan
I think this teacher really needs to see things from the point of view of his students. Could he be encouraged to seek student feedback, along with the rest of the department. Perhaps the other teacher could initiate this? Is he able to reflect on the impact of the feedback he was given after observation? Is there an expectation that he makes progress in the next observation? Is there much point in doing so many if there is no culture of self improvement? The advice in coaching this man depends entirely on the culture surrounding him. This is where the next steps can start. The students do deserve some variety, at the very least. Engagement is an ideal that is possible, but perhaps he needs to see this happening before he can replicate. Maybe arrange for everyone to see others teach when something particularly engaging is planned. It may be that he has few ideas. It may also be that he needs to be told what has been observed, so he can be clear on the conclusions being drawn.
I wish we knew more about what the students think. Some may be tuned out and not learning. The response should take into account their satisfaction with the course, if we’re really Student-centered. Focus groups in addition to surveys would be a good idea. Not just for this course but for all.
Well, I hope your request was candid and not a trap that I am falling into. I do work similar to yours and the narrative you shared struck a chord with me. I have found myself perched in your dilemma. The teacher is receptive to your ideas and your visits…and even invites you (for observation) into their classroom, but receptivity ends at head nodding and verbal agreement. What I have done is asked to co-teach which requires co-planning. In the course of the co-planning I stretch the teacher to move beyond the sit and get delivery method to student engagement through a discipline appropriate activity. And then…after co-teaching…I ask to watch the teacher deliver the lesson alone. In high school settings, as you know, this is easy…the same lesson is often repeated throughout the day.
What results have I seen? Well, I can’t say I’ve turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse (I actually live on a hog farm, so I can say that), but I have found that teachers with whom I share this double-dip are more likely to replicate at least this activity in their classroom again. Baby steps, but at least some movement beyond the PP.
Thanks for asking. I enjoyed the opportunity to reflect.
It’s not your job to tell him. The supervisors job is to remind him of mission statement and what makes good teaching. There are thousands of similar cases across all schools, public and private.
Supervisor could say.. I noticed on several visits that your students were mostly listening to you talk from a Ppt. My belief is students learn best when they are cognitively active. How can we move these lessons to include more engaged learning as opposed to compliant learning?
Hello Rob,
I understand your position of having the school supervisor handle the conversation of what makes good teaching, however I would disagree with you based on the following points.
Firstly, The instructor initiated the exchange and sought out feedback from Mr. Wiggins. Perhaps this was based on a combination of the instructor’s viewpoint that Mr. Wiggins is an authoritative figure who is competent and could provide the level of feedback desired, or Mr. Wiggins “on again off again” relationship with the school in which the instructor perceived that Mr. Wiggins was not entrenched in the culture or mindset of that school. Whatever the reason, the instructor trusted Mr. Wiggins enough to ask for feedback.
Secondly, Mr. Wiggins accepted the instructors request and therefore engaged in a type of professional and social contract, albeit unstated, but nonetheless important and present. This social contract emphasized information exchange and reciprocity it ensured a culture of trust, encouragement, accountability, and action. If the other instructor is not accountable and does nothing to achieve more, than Mr. Wiggins has the ethical obligation to address his concerns with that instructor. Dr. Dea has an excellent approach in how to address those concerns.
Regards,
Matt Schneider
What sort of results does he get?
No external exams – so it’s his call. He has good kids; they do well, period.
I would have the whole department examine the Stanford History Education website. There are ove100 of the best “doing history” lessons. If these lessons do not change instruction not much will.
For a while I did very little direct instruction in my disciplines, math and science (physics), largely because I consider myself a lousy lecturer and partly because I wanted the students to get away from seeing me as a source of information but more as a coach/collaborator. Now I do a bit more, but just fine points and summary treatments. I shoot for 10′-15′ tops. I think planning is largely the issue. When pushed to plan, I create more engaging experiences for my students. On days when I don’t have a good plan, I find myself droning away. So coaching in planning rather than the tip of the ice berg that consists of in-class behavior has really helped me. I still have a long way to go.
I, too, have experienced this scenario firsthand and I have also experimented with a variety of approaches. Regrettably, none have proved exceptional enough to claim I have “the answer.” Like in the previous comment, my greatest success has been in co-teaching and co-planning. The only real, long-standing success has come through co-construction of understanding in a “safe” environment. Sometimes our roles prevent this from ever happening and sometimes our personalities, values and practices cause difficulty. But, if I can find that “sweet spot” of working with someone on mutually agreed upon goals that relate to students and not our relationship (ie. student learning, student engagement, student achievement as opposed to “one of us is fixing the other”) then things can be pretty amazing for both me and my colleague. That formula has seemed to become more and more challenging as I have shifted from co-teacher to consultant; to vice principal; to principal and now to coordinator. Each shift in role seemed to position me differently in the eyes of my colleagues and made this co-construction a little harder from the start. As an administrator, the next best thing was visiting classrooms with a shared understanding between me and the teacher that I would be collecting observations in an area of their choosing and sharing them, at which point we would co-construct an understanding of celebrations and next steps. The one thing I know for sure, is response will never be effective or meaningful if there is no relationship beforehand. I also know that I have changed my own practice only when 1) I trusted the person offering feedback 2) I was offered the opportunity and time to change without threat 3) I clearly saw the path for becoming more effective 4) I was “ready” to receive feedback. Thank you for the question. I can honestly say this is a topic of conversation in my role almost every day. I look forward to hearing from others.
I love these questions! I’m new to teaching (former engineer), and I can’t understand why the principals don’t flat out ask the teacher these questions? Everyone in the building, I’m sure, knows about this teacher and his methods, and yet years and years will likely go by and nothing will be said or done. Seems like principals think if we do group PD, somehow that will work? It doesn’t!
Hi there! I believe there needs to be a PD focus on ‘How are we living the aims of #4?’ This takes the focus off the individual teacher and invites the entire team to contribute their ideas.
This will elicit a range of strategies and tools teachers are using to bring history to life. If it is a well facilitated discussion, the facilitator could ask the team, ‘Who finds this challenging?’ and try and explore obstacles. It may be due to a range of issues. As a team, agree to film a short segment of each teacher’s lesson and review these segments together. This is something that graduate teachers do all the time in order to critically reflect and I think it is relevant to even the most experienced teachers. Don’t just film the teachers, film the students while the teachers are talking – that’s where the real feedback is!
The ultimate aim is for the team to be clear on the teaching vision, to be creative with the possibilities and to commit to trialling the strategies in future lessons. The final piece involves critical reflection – what’s working and what isn’t. Those are my 4 C’s!
All the best and thank you for your post!
Kerryn
I’d like to have suggestions for this issue. I am coaching a young, promising teacher that does a lot of this and my comments about it seem to just bounce off. I read a disturbing article in The New Yorker (http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/i-dont-want-to-be-right) that makes the case that even corrections that a person agrees with do not change behavior. But, we know that behavior can change, so what’s the wisdom here?
My first step would be to have a second honest conversation about what I’d seen since the last time we’d spoke. The second would be to engage in some conversation about specific changes he could make in his next unit. Perhaps he needs real examples of how to change his practice. Ideally I would want to have him observe someone that is a strong example of what we were after as a school. There are so many possibilities of learning opportunities for this teacher.
Is it possible to invite the teacher to reflect on his practice? Maybe he likes your input but the next steps require a mindset shift that he doesn’t know how to do? Continuing his old practices keeps control in place, which he might unconsciously need. Maybe you can explore letting go control in the classroom and how he might shift the ownership to the students.
I don’t know what kind of mutual plan time this school provides for its teachers, but if they have shared planning time by department or grade level, I think the next step would be to plan demonstration lessons. Our ELA department did that during our professional learning community plan time and it was the best thing we EVER did! We chose one learning target all our grade levels (6,7,8) needed to improve, then we shared lesson ideas. We followed that up with one of us volunteering to teach a lesson to the rest of us. We followed that up with one of us volunteering to teach the lesson to the class and the rest of us observed during our plan periods if we could, then we followed that up by offering compliments and suggestions for improvement. We did that four or five times during one semester; we didn’t always do the observational teaching, but just the sharing of ideas made us all better teachers. Some unintended consequences were that it united us as a department, established more trust among us, and solidified our vertical curriculum alignment. I highly recommend demonstration lessons!
Pecha Kucha is the first thing that comes to mind. For those not familiar, it’s a presentation style meant to minimize superfluity by limiting presentations to twenty slides, but each slide is shown for only twenty seconds. Ideally, this would encourage/ challenge the teacher to re-think his existing materials, but in baby steps.
Secondly, I’d attempt to play to the teacher’s dedication to his subject matter. He’s working too hard; let the students do the heavy lifting by designing (or borrowing) activities that encourage them to find the answers to his thoughtful and well-designed questions. He could even reuse the Power Points, but encourage students to glean the information in an engaging manner. (This is also where I would encourage the opportunity for co-teaching.)
But, since you have already met with this teacher and, I assume, provided some direction, maybe a more direct follow-up is in order. This teacher may not feel too comfortable letting go of the control he may feel he has over his students while in class, and that’s a quite different (albeit very much related) discussion to be had.
Thanks for the opportunity to exercise some problem-solving skills; this will be an interesting topic to mull over with colleagues.
Your description reminds me a bit of when I was a highly-ranked tennis player in my teens, Grant, and my coach would say “you are,” for example, “dropping your wrist.” And I would nod, and say “Thank you!” and promise to work on it. Then he brought in a film camera (pre video days) and filmed me, then showed it to me and I said, “Hey I am dropping my wrist.” In other words, the teacher seems to have a blind spot in one section of his or her self-perception (see Johari’s Window model for more on this idea). The only way to see and grasp it may be for him to allow himself to be video taped in such a way that seems accurate and fair but aimed at showing what you describe (and see) in your own observations.
If you filter all your questions through the lens of “what is best for his students” than it begs for more intervention. Assumming in your work with the school you are helping them increase meaningful and transferable learning experiences for all students than his approach would often be in conflict with that kind of goal. Your school contacts response (yep, that is him) is frustrating and basically communicates that those students don’t matter enough to be given thoughtful, meaningful and engaging learning opportunities.
I’ve been thinking quite a bit about your questions. I think, that teacher observations often reflect what is fashionable in teaching in a given era. I would rather focus on learning. As the work of Graham Nuthall shows us, it is very hard to determine if and how much students learn in a given lesson. There is no good evidence that lecturing yields results that are inferior to others approaches in teaching. Although there is a standard of what good teaching looks like in this school, this teacher also seems to be on his own. His teaching does not seem to be the result of a team effort. What might be needed here is a well structured weekly co-operation between teachers, where lessonplans are developed, discussed, implemented and evaluated.
Question #1
I would advise the principle to set aside weekly time for professional development allowing for teachers to discuss their teaching and to develop and evaluate forementioned lessonplans.
Question #2
I would ask my contactperson to consider what her standard of good teaching is, and if she is willing to discuss this standard in professional development settings.
Question #3
In the role of peer within the school, I would do everything in my power to assure that what and how I teach is not my responsbility, but the result of a team effort.
Question #4 NO
Question #5
The quality of learning in the school is the foremost responsibility of a school leader. He must do everything in his power to ensure that in his school everybody learns.
He should act immediatly, but not only in regards to this individual teacher, but by establishing a professional development program for the entire school.
First, quite an honor to have the opportunity to reply. I’ve been in the same situation and have a few similar teachers I’m working with now. Here’s my two cents:
First, you didn’t mention that the teacher actually wants to change or has been told/encouraged to change beyond a mission statement (which is different from a mandate). If the teacher does not have change as a goal, then change is unlikely. Whose goal is it for the teacher to change? Yours? His? The administration?
So, let’s say he does have a goal to change and you’ve all set some concrete objectives for what that change might look like or result in. I’d latch on to the new mission statement. If students are to “do” something, they should be active. A video or audio recording of a typical lesson would show they’re not doing much. I have even encouraged teachers to record a class period and determine the percentage of time for “teacher voice” versus “student voice.” It’s objective. It’s just data. There’s no right percentage, but if its 90%+ teacher voice, it’s probably mind-numbingly dull for the kids. Does that fit his goal?
I think UbD has two key attributes that might also be helpful. The first is the idea of Essential Questions. I think, as practitioners, we blow those off too much. But for me, Essential Questions are the true purpose behind our instruction. They’re what got us to be math teachers, or history teachers, or music teachers, or whatever. They ignite our passion and help our kids to understand just WHY they are being exposed to this stuff. It doesn’t sound like this teachers kids understand WHY they’re learning history beyond compliance. If he shaped his instruction around WHY it’s important for kids, there would likely have to be some change.
The other UbD attribute I find especially eye-opening is a good cornerstone assessment, especially a performance task. I’ve been spending quite a lot of time in the past few years helping teachers develop and implement performance tasks where students actually “do” whatever subject it is. Performance tasks in new assessments have been the impetus to look at them, but once teachers implement a good one, the light bulbs start going off! And when those tasks actually requires kids to “do” history–interpret primary source documents, think like a historian, empathize with multiple perspectives, and more–then teachers often find out, “Wow, I was just teaching them stuff, but not how to use that stuff.” It usually happens, not always, as I’m sure you know, but usually.
Finally, I truly don’t believe change happens without 2 things: incentive and accountability. What’s the incentive for the teacher to change? No tests and the kids do well…why change? There has to be a reason for him to buy-in.
Thanks for the opportunity!
Lots of good comments/suggestions. I really liked what Dr. Dea said about co-planning and co-teaching particularly as it invites dialogue and conversation between the two people. One thing I’m learning to do is to slow down and understand what is going on before diving in and giving suggestions. Understanding the multiple perspectives in this context will put you in a better position to “help” him. What do students think and how do they respond to his teaching? What about parents? What does the teacher himself think is going on, working well, needing improvement, etc.? The situation is always more complex than what is visible to our eyes and it behooves us to understand the big picture before jumping directly to assumptions and actions.
Perhaps begin by asking the teacher to define “students doing history” from the mission. He may have a different definition than yours. If not, Ask how his students are “doing history” based on a mutual definition.
You provided quite a bit of detail in your post, but not the details that would help me answer your questions. “He actually invited me into his class once to give him some feedback on his teaching, which I did.” What specific questions did he have for you? What had he noticed that he wanted a second pair of eyes on? Or did he just want you in his room? When you presented your observations what conclusions did he come to? What did he see as his next steps? What types of questions did you ask in the post-observation conference that helped him self-monitor and set up a plan? What resources/supports did he identify?
Questions 4 doesn’t change my answers to 1-3, it answers them (or it should). So a common language exists… but does everyone know what that looks like? What would you expect to see in a classroom where the students were engaged and doing? Once that has been answered I would be able to guide the conversation to help answer 1-3… and not just for him, but for all.
What do students deserve? What do teachers deserve? What do learners deserve? Or – what environment nurtures the learning process?
The answers to all the questions lies in the students. The supervisor needs to create structures so that the teachers are reviewing student work and aligning the work with their goal of having students “do history.” Does the work that students produce provide evidence of “doing history?” If not, what type of student work demonstrates that? I also agree with an earlier comment that described a lesson study. Teachers meet to plan a lesson in which students are “doing history.” Then they all go in and observe what the students are learning. When they debrief, the teachers focus on what the students are learning and what instructional moves assisted or hindered the learning. Then, after making changes in the lesson, another teacher teaches it, with the rest of them watching the teachers.
It sounds as if the teacher has had enough “professional development” and feels as if he is doing what is right for his students. Until he sees student learning in a different way, there will be no change in instructional practice, no matter how many times he is observed, talked to, or supported.
I find myself in similar situations as an instructional coach. The way I try approach teachers is to make things as objective as possible. Use data.
In this instance I would try to collect “time on task” data to measure how many students are actually engaged at any given time. I would as englishcompanion said use video as evidence as well. More than likely, the results would be less than 70% Students are probably zoned out… while they may not be management problems, they are not active learners.
After sharing the data with this teacher- I would encourage him to reflect on the cause of the low engagement and help him set goals to increase that percentage. Then follow up by providing and modeling more effective strategies for him to practice.
Hopefully the new strategies will show a measurable increase in engagement.
My problem with this is that sometimes the learner looks zoned out (not looking at the teacher or powerpoint for example) but could be a learner who listens instead of looks to get his info. Or looks away when he makes an intellectual jump…something you want him to do, but may look like disengagement. And the kid whose eyes are locked on to the power point could just be the kid who has learned that behavior so the teacher doesn’t hassle him. He could be miles away…for many reasons. Is the power point something he already knows, or is it that he just doesn’t find it relevant? Or is he so hungry he’s sleepy? That’s why active “doing” is so important. When student work is collaborative or even cooperative it is so much easier to identify engagement. You can hear and see what students are talking about, writing about, looking for, reflecting on, resisting, questioning, etc.
Your point is well taken. And it applies not merely to me but to all teachers! The longer you ‘teach’ the less you know about what is going on in their minds. On the other hand, I can say that if you really watch kids a lot and you know the signs of boredom, it’s not as hard as you suggest, as long as you have at least 10 minutes or so to watch them. In this specific scenario, of course, I merely lurked briefly so the caution is very germane – and is germane for any quick ‘drive-by’ observation that is very brief. That was part of my provocation. 🙂
Grant: Respectfully, I don’t see this scenario as teaching technique issue, or lack of student interest one, or even a lack of supervision problem. And this lack of teacher dialogue with their students and getting out among their students is more common than not. It’s a lack of personal and professional “fulfillment”–a lack of teaching exuberance. Unfortunately, most teachers don’t know what comes first…the lack of reward from teaching, or their lack of exuberance.
If I were a principal, supervisor or coach, I would not address the lack of teaching technique per se (i.e., the fact the teacher is teaching from a Powerpoint, not coming out among the students, and not dialoguing with students). Instead, I would ask the teacher how he is enjoying his profession, what makes him happy, what rewards he is receiving, how things could be better, how his professional life is interacts with his personal world, and what his personal and professional dreams are, etc.
Professional fulfillment is key to teaching exuberance and success. And teachers are more than just “techniques.” Like doctors who have well-baby clinics for the doctor’s wellness and betterment, I believe teachers need personal and professional fulfillment programs for their wellness and betterment.
I work with history teachers and know this same type. I would ask to visit the dept and have an informal discussion around the question–how are we remodeling our instruction for 21st century learners? Focus the conversation on going beyond knowing to doing. Do a card sort with student centered learning scenarios in a history classroom, organize cards and reflect together. Through this process they will surface valuable ideas and learn from each other you will also learn from them. Have each person commit to trying one (student centered) thing and team up department members to observe each other looking for evidence of student “doing”. This way it’s a peer accountability/collegial situation. Perhaps that might have some effect. Resources like SHEG are fine but really a focus on shifting out of the Sage on the Stage mode is more important.Building in frequent structured student interactions (every 10 minutes or so) in one way to “baby step” this process.
Grant,
Have you read Deborah Ball’s work on the mathematics that teachers of mathematics need to know in order to be able to teach? See http://davidwees.com/content/what-do-mathematics-teachers-need-know for a synopsis of it if you have not.
My theory is this; people teach in ways that are un-engaging and un-interesting because they do not know any other way to do it or they do not know the content area well enough to make sense of it in any other way. Virtually no one who teaches deliberates wants to disengage and bore kids.
In other words, this teacher’s reluctance to follow the feedback he has been given is a matter of what he understands, not what he believes or a matter of resistance.
In the article linked above, substitute history for mathematics and change the examples to match. Which of these areas of knowledge is this teacher possibly lacking?
If I were the supervisor, I would want to dig deeper to find out what this teacher understands about their subject area and how they understand it.
I can say with confidence that this fellow knows a lot of history and believes that his job is to be like a college professor. Note that I said he was a good story-teller, too. He thinks he is doing his job and he thinks that he engages kids as much as is possible by making history more kid-friendly. So, in short, I don’t think your theory works in his case. He doesn’t “see” that he is not engaging them; he “sees” the opposite because they are smart kids in a good school who play the HS student game well. (That is also why I think a fair amount of the advice given in other comments, while thoughtful and well-intentioned, misses the point.)
So having established that he knows history and he understands some alternative ways of teaching history to what he is doing, what does he understand of how children come to understand history?
What are the understandings, misconceptions, missteps, and models for understanding his subject area, and what does this teacher understand of these models of thinking?
That is where he is very weak.
from my colleague Margo Guillot:
Hi, I have the following recommendation: Ask 5-8 teachers doing a good job if you can visit their classrooms for 5-10 minutes while students are working on a task (not during direct instruction). Invite the history teacher and 2 more to go on a learning walk. It may be better if you start the process with 3 other teachers to let everyone see that the process is not evaluative and designed for the people on the walk, not for the “host” teachers. Maybe he is oblivious that he is not in tune with the times. I have seen the process work with really resistant teachers.
If Mr. Grant Wiggins observed my teaching and gave me some advice to strengthen my practice and ensure learning was more effective – I’d be going for the gold!
What worries me more is the reply from your school contact person “Yep, that’s him; that’s all he does.” – That’s sorta NOT OK. It doesn’t even matter if the lesson is the best one you’ve ever seen, if that’s all we ever do – it won’t be the best lesson for very long.
It has to go back to values – why are we here? What is our purpose every day? Is learning happening? What does the school stand for?
Question #1: I’d meet up again and ask if he’d managed to use your advice at all. Maybe there are unknown hurdles?
Question #2: Go back to values – this is not OK. Where is the accountability?
Question #3: Observe, interview/chat, and set goals – for him and department.
Question #4: It says “should’ – have they got a “why” or a “how”? Have they been given practical examples and PD and support to help them realise the “should”?
Who wrote this? The whole department? Is there any ownership of the department teachers?
Are there Curriculum constraints? Are they allowed to mix it up / integrate? bust out of the box?
Question #5: Is effective teaching and learning happening? How do you know?
My favourite all time quote: “Are they learning because of him? or in spite of him?”
If you were pausing outside my door every day – I’d be looking to have my kids ‘show off’ their learning everyday!!
So glad we still care..
Hmmm…had some time to reflect…and have made some assumptions..
Instead of reacting and assuming – possibly should have led with some questions.
Is learning happening?
What is students; perspective?
Are there other issues involved?
Tend to react – instead of pause……
Still learning….
What was your feedback??
Good question! He asked me to look at his use of checks for understanding. I did so, in a very evidence-based way: here were your checks, the number of checks, the verbatim responses and behaviors, and, having noted that all the checks were low-level factual questions or prompts, I suggested some higher-order questions (and suggested, more generally, that the whole thing was too much fact after fact unguided by bigger ideas and EQs. I had also noted, in describing the student responses, that the level of engagement was low. But that was not his primary concern, so i didn’t press it.
I struggle with these scenarios as well. What is the best way to elict change in a teacher when they receive feedback but fail to take any meaningful steps to change? Coaching a teacher to find ways to solve a problem is hard when they don’t believe that there is a problem. It’s difficult to for teachers to believe that they need ito change when there isn’t a decline in student performance. I would advise the teacher to assess student engagement in the course. Survey questions that give student a forum to express their true feelings about the course in a safe environment may bring the issues of boredom and disengagement to light.
One teacher, one colleague, one administrator won’t change this behavior. I am reminded of Richard Elmore’s admonition that instructional practices change not because people think that the ideas are good, that they’re good for kids or that they’re going to prove to be effective over time. Practices in education change because someone has figured out how to displace the default culture with another culture. They adopt them because they’ve discovered that if they don’t adopt them, they can’t function in the organization. So, it will take leadership at the building level to set expectations, along with colleagues to let the teacher know that the behavior is not acceptable. This is a very different professional disposition for teachers, but in what other profession–look to medicine especially–would malpractice be allowed? Malpractice may be too strong of a word, but if the practice is not harming a student, it is very hard to change the behavior.
One of the most influential education reformers likes to have his history told to him in engaging ways. See Bill Gates and his efforts to bring the lectures of David Christian to high school students via DVD. Hard to argue against history teachers who are engaging storytellers in the classroom when the larger culture seems to enjoy the approach.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/09/09/bill-gates-wants-your-kids-to-learn-history-this-way-and-hes-paying-to-get-it-into-schools/
We are starting from the premise that the teacher is in the wrong. I make not judgement about teaching style unless it is not working. How are his test scores? Do his students grow during the course? Are his students continuing to study history after the course (perhaps at the AP level)?
These are the questions that should be asked when judging performance. Too often in education we judge teachers by whether or not they have adopted the latest techniques, not based on if they are getting results. When I was in my first year teaching, my coaches asked to implement specific strategies (such as KWL, think-pair-share). It was because I did implement these strategies that I they signed off on my end of year continuation recommendation. NOT ONCE DID THEY CHECK MY TEST SCORES. That results play so little in evaluation of teachers and appearances of “group work” versus “lecture” play such a large role (as seen in this editorial) might be one reason this teacher is not being open to discussion.
I have known many extremely poor teachers that do group work every day. Watching from outside the classroom without checking results is not a good way to judge performance.
Important observation. I never once stated anything about his results, so we should not conclude that he is a “bad” teacher. That was part of my provocation!
Dear Mr. Wiggins,
That teacher was me when I first started teaching history thirteen years ago. Though I occasionally moved away from the lecture, teacher-centered approach, it wasn’t until I fully embraced the work of Sam Wineburg some five or six years ago that I experienced an epiphany as a history educator. Since then, my teaching has taken a new path and my students exhibit an engagement with the material that is undeniable. Isn’t that the most important thing?
So what to do? Give the teacher Wineburg’s Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts and provide him with some of the research from Carol Dweck, which proves that student learning is far higher when they are doing rather than passively observing. The trend in history education is towards the historical-thinking that Wineburg advocates. Even the AP USH exam has (tried) to embrace this model!
While it’s not directly on point, Larry Cuban has been writing about a history teacher in a high poverty school: http://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2014/09/27/teaching-u-s-history-in-a-failing-school/
I mention this because I’m going to make a similar comment:
This is a timely topic for me. I’m a math teacher who is teaching US History this year for the first time (in public school, anyway). I’m not a new teacher, so I have a clear vision of how I want to teach. I don’t lecture much in math, my kids are often tossed into an interesting problem to work it, I rarely use textbooks, I teach conceptually, etc.
And so far it’s working–Grant’s and Larry’s posts have me committed to start blogging about my experiences.
One of my goals is to give my students every experience of learning about history–from primary sources, to organizing data to find patterns, to reading secondary sources and making sense of it, to yes, the occasional lecture through power point (2 in the first quarter). But the primary history teacher–a very popular guy, a committed and highly regarded teacher–teaches largely through power point lectures/scantrons and the occasional History Channel DVD, with multiple choice tests on scantrons. He does do other activities, but doesn’t require the kids to write–not even on quizzes.
I want to be as clear on this as I possibly can, in light of this conversation and the possibility the teacher may read this , that I’m not criticizing this teacher at all. It’s not how I teach. But do I know my way is better? No. I only know it’s how I want to teach, and if I were forced to do something else, I wouldn’t. And I also think that, were you to talk this teacher, he wouldn’t think he was doing all power points. He might also say that his kids really enjoy this method.
So this informs my answers.
q1: If I did anything, I’d ask him to describe his typical class. Maybe as part of an activity with other teachers. See if he characterizes his class as you do.
q2: Nothing at all.
q3: Nothing unless something like Q4 happens.
q4: I would start by seeing how this teacher (and others) saw their class. Do they see this as straight lecture? If so, then I now have the ability to lay down the law, based on the mission. so I’d come up with an ORDER to do a lesson like this.
q5: If they are good students, it’s quite possible they’d scream like banshees if ordered to “do” history, rather than just get the gist and do what’s expected.
So…what is school? What do we think it should look like; sound like; feel like? Does it differ from teacher to teacher? From student to student? How do we measure effective teaching? How do we measure effective learning? I can see the discussion opening up here. What was your feedback, Grant? What did you ask him? How did he respond? Why do you think he invited you in to his class? What should he change and why? Who decides? And what happens when our opinions differ from those of others? Then who decides?
Grant, I have a few ideas…
Q1/Q3: Can you film him and allow him the chance to observe himself? I always find it confronting when I watch myself on video (good and bad).
Q2: I would keep the contact in the loop with your intentions and the reasons behind your actions.
Q4: Can you directly challenge him and ask him to run a small group class with a particular goal/outcome for the lesson?
Q5: If you have observed a pattern – the students deserve intervention now. It sounds as though they can ‘learn’ in this class, but that it is a little lacking. Time to rock the boat.
I would reflect on the following cartoon, which pretty much represents what I remember of group work as a student, what everyone I have ever known thought of group work, and what my own children now think of group work when it is forced upon them by well-meaning public school teachers: https://fbcdn-sphotos-d-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/945578_567134793325369_997894110_n.jpg
Funny cartoon, but then your and your kids’ experience is not of high-quality group work (of which I have seen numerous examples, in both public and private schools).
I suspect either that such high-quality group work is an exception to the rule, or that what one person thinks of as “high-quality” group work is seen by others as awkward and frustrating at best (see, e.g., http://www.thepowerofintroverts.com/2011/10/17/what-do-you-think-about-group-work/ for how introverts tend to feel about being forced into groups).
Thanks for the provocation; it has prompted me to reflect on similar situations. This is multi-layered so I’ll restrict my comments to Qn 1. I’d advise you to acknowledge that what you have seen and reflected on you have reported to your contact person. Then continue to focus on your work (you did not say what this was) with the school. You are not responsible for this person’s approach to teaching and learning; you may very well play a role in supporting the school to develop an agreed approach to Teaching and Learning which then might influence all staff to consider their current practices and whether and how these support student engagement.
i think it’s simple enough. You’ve built a relationship with this person. Obviously he knows something is wrong with his instruction or he wanted validation for his instruction – why else would he ask you (of all people) to his classroom.
When you have him the feedback he was done with the experience. He can now go on and tell people he had Grant Wiggins visit his classroom and give him feedback. I think it was more about that than the actual process of improving his teaching.
Here’s how I think you should proceed. Telling supervisors or others isn’t going to get the job done. Supervisors are limited once the door is closed. Plus, once the door is closed, unless he has multiple complaints, there won’t be any cause to go deeper into his teaching. And in our culture, what parent would complain about a history teacher lecturing; I’d be less surprised to hear a parent complain about a history teacher not lecturing.
Also, I’m sure admins have more to deal with than riding a teacher for something like this.
However
We all know that this teacher is doing a disservice to his students. They’re not being engaged, challenged, or even questioned. Maybe he doesn’t know another way, or maybe he had a mentor who told him to ignore all this new crap because this is how History has always been taught.
This needs to be put in the hands of a mentor or coach and framed around what students get from his class and what is class could be rather than what it is.
Likely his students like him and that’s good enough for them. And likely he makes the trains run on time so admin focused elsewhere. He needs to feel exposed at some point. Only then will he make a change. It needs to be intrinsically driven or else he’ll just move to another school that won’t show him the lash for what he feels is “just doing his job.”
I’m not there, so what do I know? You certainly know better than anything I can contribute from what I’ve read above. It’s exceedingly difficult to capture all the nuances of your relationship and interactions with the teacher and supervisor from your brief description. That said, take this with a fair bit of salt from someone who isn’t there and doesn’t really know all the actors in the play.
This sort of situation, which I too am often faced with, is the real heavy lifting of the work we do helping teachers. People frequently reply in one of two ways: a soft or hard sell.
The soft sell approach tries to address an issue with an individual by raising it obliquely in the context of a larger group. The teacher rarely (never?) sees himself in the new light these comments are intended to reveal.
The hard sell approach (“You’re teaching history as a series of stories in your lectures and not really having the kids *do* history. Here’s how that should change …) will most likely get the teacher’s back up. It’s hard to for anyone to learn when they feel threatened.
Both approaches start from the same assumption, which I think I’m also reading in the subtext of your blog post: “This teacher isn’t teaching well and the kids aren’t actively engaged in deep learning in his classroom.”
That’s a pretty big assumption.
There’s at least one other alternative. Call it a learning approach, or a learning conversation: “When I visited your class the other day I got the impression you teach history using a series of stories you share while working through your PowerPoint. Given our earlier conversations I would’ve expected you to be using a variety of approaches that have the kids actively doing history so I thought I should share that with you and see how that measures up with how you see things.”
I think I’m writing this a little crudely; I’d probably include something stronger about how I could be wrong, after all, no matter how often I visit I am only getting snap shots of what’s going on in the classroom.
Many folks suggested video recording his class & reviewing it together with him. That could be a strong intervention, but I suspect you’d have to do a lot of relationship and trust building to make that work. He’d have to see you as “working for him” so to speak, and helping him get better at something he wants to improve. Only you know if that’s a viable alternative.
The issue with the school based supervisor may be beyond your purview. Then again, maybe it’s not. If it were me, I think I’d use a similar “learning conversation” approach with her too.
Nothing changes when people get their backs up. And no one really resists change, they resist being made to change. If the idea comes from them it’s more likely to be sticky. If I were you, I suspect that would be the source of my greatest frustration here since it all started with the teacher asking you to help him out. Mind you, maybe that’s an open door for you too.
What do you think?
You raise some great questions. Alas, his request for feedback was much more narrowly focused on his formative assessments, so it’s a bit tricky (hence, my concern about gathering my info as a lurker in the hallway), but your imagined conversation seems just right.
Just curious:
If there were an external assessment that served as an independent check on his instruction–and if his students performed admirably on that assessment–would that change the problem?
My opinion is that it wouldn’t, but it would add another layer of complexity to your provocation. The local department has a mission, and his pedagogy appears (at least from the window) to be misaligned with that mission. But the teacher would have some cause to ask for compelling local evidence that similar results could be achieved through “small-group or whole-group activities.”
I agree, especially in light of the student population (which is bright and motivated): a confounding variable!
After reading through everyone’s comments, which are a breath of fresh air on the net, and trying not to be redundant, the main question that arises in me in response to yours is: Why is he asking for consultation & feedback at all?
I’m going to assume–rightly or not–that this is not his first time being offered such commentary on his work. I imagine past feedback was the same and that he internalized it just as he is *not* doing now.
To clarify before I continue: I am a clinical psychologist by profession, so I tend to focus on process.
My suggestion: Ask why he wanted you to watch and comment, and then highlight the inconsistency if his response includes anything about improving as a teacher. BUT please do it in a “Columbo” fashion.
My hunch? As with most people he is ambivalent about changing/improving. If that is indeed the case, any attempts at direct intervention are doomed to fail. When people are ambivalent, and you try to suggest a reasonable course of action, they respond with an overt willingness to follow your advice, as well as a simultaneous but opposite course of behaviors to maintain the status quo.
How can I/we tell? Because he has no incentive to change, apparently. Otherwise, your contact person would not have labeled him thusly.
This guy has a lot of potential to work with, but it must come from himself, AND he needs to own the (probably buried) feelings of NOT wanting to change as well as the overt desire to improve and demonstrate it.
Hope that makes sense and is not too psychobabblish.
Thanks much for the opportunity to participate n the conversation.
It’s not psychobabble at all! i think it speaks volumes about the likelihood of the failure of school reform in most of its guises. The incentives are simply not there; ambivalence trumps “taking a chance”. Left alone and to our own devices, MOST people do not change. What follows, then, for so-called professional development?
Several years ago, our assistant principal had a few teachers shadow our middle school students for a day. Every teacher reported that they had never sat so much in their life and felt like screaming out of restlessness and frustration at the end of the day. All of your points are correct and especially the first one. Thanks.