How do we get students to take responsibility for their own learning? How do we build a community of learners?

I'm a slower learner than most of you who are reading this column, but I've had an advantage - I've had ten years of conducting workshops and classes, almost daily, in which I've had the opportunity to develop strategies for getting the learner to take responsibility for his/her own learning. I have had the luxury of a collaborator much of the time so I've been able to learn by observing strategies employed by others.

This newsletter issue, and the next few, will be devoted to specific strategies for teachers and workshop leaders to use in order to generate independent learning. Because I am currently teaching an undergraduate course at St. Lawrence University, I will give examples from that level - however, each of these strategies is applicable at kindergarten as easily as at the college level - and in math, science, ELA, social studies, art, music, physical education or any other discipline.

If you doubt the transference of any of these strategies from the college level examples I will give, simply e-mail me and I will rewrite them to apply to your grade level or discipline, or staff development workshop.

In this article, let's take a look at a class of independent learners. Then, in subsequent articles, we'll discuss the strategies for creating a learner centered environment in which students are responsible for their own learning. As you read this description of my learner centered classroom at St. Lawrence University, note the following characteristics - task, criteria, coaching, scaffolding, monitoring.

1. TASK: Students are focused on a task. The teacher's goal is to be sure the students clearly understand the task, not to spell out how to accomplish the task.

2. CRITERIA: There are clear criteria (often in a rubric) that define, for the students, what is required as they accomplish the assigned task.

3.SCAFFOLDING: The teacher must anticipate the resources and other kinds of support the student will need to accomplish the task and must provide these.

4. COACHING: Sufficient time is built into the process for the teacher to "coach" students as they work. Much of this coaching is accomplished while students work in groups. Usually, most groups will work independently, for awhile, freeing the teacher to work with individuals or other small groups. While "coaching," the teacher is also able to compensate for any scaffolding that was inadequate.

5. MONITORING: The teacher must have strategies for keeping abreast of student progress so that the teacher is able to provide coaching when a student needs it most. Strategies for monitoring include student journal entries, opening and closing class activities which elicit feedback from students, and effective use of teacher time while students work individually or in groups.

If you had entered our St. Lawrence University class, last November, here is what you would have observed. (See if you can identify the use of task, criteria, scaffolding, coaching, and/or monitoring):

At the start of class, four students who had been working as a group for several weeks conducted a ten minute ice breaker. The four students had been assigned the task of conducting an ice breaker that would create a positive environment for the class and would move us forward on relevant course content. Hereıs what they did:

Each of the other 23 students, and I, were given a piece of paper with the name of an animal (sheep, cow, chicken, dog, or cat) written on it. We were asked to close our eyes, make the sound of the animal we were assigned, and locate the other people in the room making a similar sound.

This helped us form our groups for the next part of the ice breaker. We were asked to stay in our newly formed groups of cows, sheep, dogs, etc. We were given sentences from a course text book. The sentences were on one sheet of paper, but each sentence had a word omitted. A list of words was on another sheet of paper and we were asked, in our "animal" groups, to find the word that fit with the appropriate sentence.

It was a terrific "review" activity and set the stage for the rest of the class.

Then another group of four students made a ten minute presentation on an assigned topic (actually, they had a choice from many course topics). They not only presented their information accurately, but they involved the entire class in learning the information rather than standing in front of the room and lecturing. They had been given criteria that required them to select an issue from one of our textbooks, and to actively engage the rest of the class in the learning process.

Then another group of four students made a one hour presentation which was highly inter-active and thoroughly engaged everyone in the class. They had known for four weeks that they would have this assignment. The content on which they focused was chosen by their group from a book provided by me. This assured me the content would be relevant to course curriculum, yet it gave the group options. Offering options is critical to a learner centered approach.

Finally, a fourth group of four students conducted a five minute closure activity which elicited a ten second reflection from each of the other 23 students in the class. The question they posed was "What is one thing you know as a result of this class that you didn't know when you arrived 90 minutes ago?"

This entire closure activity was over in less than five minutes, however, it provided me with terrific insights into what the students felt they had learned. (As my colleague Larry would say "The teacher got to see what "stuck" with the students"). Because the activity was student directed, it was actually taken more seriously by the rest of the class than if I had conducted it.

As you reflect on this one class of 90 minutes which I just described, consider:

1. sixteen students, in groups of four, had direct responsibility for activities ranging from five to 60 minutes.

2. Every student addressed the entire class at least twice, during the ice breaker and during the closure activity. Every student had multiple opportunities to dialogue in group work as well as in front of the entire class.

3. Even the activities that were student run tended to put the rest of the class in charge of their own learning (ie. the criteria encouraged the presenters not to lecture).

4. Students were required to think about what they were learning and how they would learn it.

What were the teaching strategies that led to this self conducted class?

I'll go into this in greater depth in the next article. However, the main strategy was to focus students (in each group) on a task. The teacher's time was spent making sure they understood the task. How the students accomplished their task was up to them, but the teacher was available to coach (facilitate), offer resources, and be sure they were on track and stayed on track.

How does this differ from traditional teaching? The main difference is that in traditional teaching we prescribe each step for a student to take on the route toward accomplishing a task. Often the student doesn't understand why he/she is doing something and is asked to accept that "Someday you'll need this. Someday you'll see the value."

Instead, it is important to focus students on a task they must accomplish and allow them latitude (options) in determining how to accomplish the task. Sometimes they see the value in accomplishing the task, sometimes they undertake the task simply because it is fun or challenging and the learning becomes a by-product.

It is part of our culture not to want to allow children to make mistakes. Yet, we all know that we learn from our mistakes. We can't allow a student to make a mistake if his/her health or safety will be jeopardized, or if the mistake will result in a damaging experience for the ego. But in all other situations, we are probably guilty of interfering too much with learning by not allowing students the opportunity to make mistakes and profit from them.

An example of focusing students on a task, and allowing them to make mistakes so they can learn from them, was evident in a news release from Clarkson University last Fall. The release indicated that Clarkson will no longer suffer business students to sit for two years of lecture on theory before addressing real world problems. According to the article, business students will now be thrust right into the fires of learning in their first semester - they will be required to start up a business even if they have no prior experience.

Obviously this requires a well structured approach by the professor, one which allows the professor to provide a clear definition of the task, a monitoring process to know when students need assistance, and an evaluation instrument that assesses students on the skills and knowledge that should emerge through the course. But it can be done.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If
you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a
message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

Copyright (c) 2000, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

It took a half dozen classes to bring my students at St. Lawrence to the point where they could run an entire class by themselves. If this were a kindergarten class, rather than university level, it might take longer. It can be done with any group of students, any age.

While the goal may be to have a class completely student run, the teacher should view the short term objective as being to get students, in small groups or individually, to be able to supervise their own work for short amounts of time. Hence, a class (of kindergartners or college students) can be given an assignment that is easy to prepare and requires only five minutes of class time (such as an ice breaker, or closure activity, or an activity focused on a small piece of content).

Having an entire class function autonomously, as I described in the last article, is nothing more than combining shorter activities, each conducted by a different group of students. Kindergarten students are capable of accomplishing tasks, independently, if those tasks are clearly defined, simple enough, and if the teacher is available to provide support.

The key to making an activity "learner centered" is that the teacher focuses on helping the student understand the task and the resources available rather than focusing on dictating the steps the student should take to accomplish the task. It is when the student addresses the question "How do I proceed?" that the student is forced to use higher level thinking skills and to move toward independence in learning.

To reach the point where my class at SLU was functioning autonomously, I followed this sequence of events that built toward the objective:

1. A step at a time.

It was not my intent, at the start, to have an entire class conducted by students. Instead, I focused on separate activities and my goal was to design activities which could be conducted by students. Each group of three or four students would have a shot at a particular activity. For example, the ice breaker lends itself to being student run. A closure activity can be conducted by students - in kindergarten as well as at college. Another strategy is to provide students with a description of the content they must learn, offer resources, and ask a group to teach the rest of the class - then offer them planning time with the teacher available to coach.

2. Modeling

Before asking students to conduct an activity, I often model it myself. Therefore, I conduct three or four ice breakers at the start of the semester (and conduct three or four closure activities) before I ask students to create and implement. Each time I model it, I process out the class on what I did, how I did it, and what I wanted to accomplish. I provide a rubric for assessing them on their own implementation.

To encourage the kinds of journal entries I want (another activity that promotes independent learning by focusing on the skill of reflection), I write my own journal entries and distribute them whenever I collect journal entries from the class.

3. Feedback:

Periodically, I ask the class to assess its peers, using a rubric I have provided. My rubric may simply ask the class, on a scale of 1 to 5, to rate a student presentation on whether it was interesting and whether it related well to course content. Sometimes I distribute the rubric and ask the class, by a show of hands, to rate the student presented activity.

Other times, I will ask each student to assess a student run activity, confidentially, on the written rubric I provide. Then I collect these peer assessments, so that I don't embarrass presenters if the ratings are low. The main value of having everyone rate peers is that it focuses them on what the presentation should contain and then this helps them when it is their turn to present.

To be continued....

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If
you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a
message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

Copyright (c) 2000, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

As part of our Targeted grant initiative, to provide professional development in the classroom, I shadowed Dr. Paul Vermette, recently, as he conducted a cooperative activity in a 6th grade social studies class, as the classroom teacher observed. The teacher had informed Dr. Vermette what content to teach and what she (the teacher) wanted to observe.

Here is my narrative of the activity which Dr. Vermette conducted. Dr. Vermette is an acknowledged expert on cooperative learning and multiple intelligences. He is author of the book "MAKING COOPERATIVE LEARNING WORK: Student Teams in K-12 Classrooms," (ISBN: 0-13-206392).

My narrative:

The 6th grade teacher introduced Dr. Vermette to the class by saying "Dr. Vermette is here to help me. I want to see a different way of teaching a lesson."

As an observer, I was impressed that the teacher would indicate to the class that she would be learning. She didn't have to say this. She could have simply introduced Dr. Vermette as a college professor who would conduct a lesson. However, this introduction put the teacher in the position of modeling what it is to be a life long learner.

Dr. Vermette immediately distributed a 3 x 5 card to each student. He announced "As you get older, most of the time you will have to work with others. Think about working with someone else. What are two or three qualities you want from a good partner? Turn to the person next to you and discuss what qualities you would want in a good partner.

"On the 3 x 5 card, write your name and the two or three qualities you feel are most important in a partner." Dr. Vermette collected the 3 x 5 cards.

Dr. Vermette continued, "I don't have to like you, but I need to be able to work with you and to respect you."  He held out his hand toward a student and said, "Shake my hand and repeat after me: "I don't have to like you, but I will work with you and respect you."

Dr. Vermette repeated that statement to another student, whose hand he shook, and then had the second student repeat the statement to him. He repeated this process with a third student. Then he arbitrarily grouped the 3 x 5 cards in piles of four and five, handed each collection of four or five cards to the student whose name appeared on top of the pile, and asked that student to read aloud the four or five names on the cards and to sit with those students. In less than two minutes the entire class of 17 was in three groups of four and one group of five.

Dr. Vermette asked each of the students, within their group of four (or five), to find a partner and to repeat to that partner  "I don¹t have to like you, but I will work with you and I will respect you."

Then he began the lesson:

The teacher had asked Dr. Vermette to help review the students on the following content (taken from questions at the end of a chapter):
 

A. What was the connection between the story of Aeneas and the Trojan War?

B. Why did the Romans overthrow rule by Kings?

C. Why wasn¹t the Roman Republic a government by will of the people?

D. What can we learn from the legend of Horatius at the bridge?

E. What was the outcome of each of the Punic Wars?

Dr. Vermette:

"For this first task, I want you each to have a blank sheet of paper and to do your own work, but you can discuss the task within your group, and help each other.

"I want you to draw a sculpture for an award to Cincinnatus or Horatius. The sculpture should represent something he has accomplished and should include as many people as there are people in your group. You have six minutes."

The students worked diligently on this task. Dr. Vermette, the teacher, and I walked amidst the groups and responded to questions for clarity of the task. After six minutes, Dr. Vermette asked if anyone needed more time, quite a few students indicated they did, and Dr. Vermette allowed another four minutes.

TASK TWO:

Dr. Vermette wrote the words "Plebeian" and "Patrician" on the board, vertically:
 
 

P A T R I C I A N

P L E B I A N

He then said: Pick one or the other of these words. Think of other words that connect with the word you've chosen and begin with one of its letters. The students went right to work. Example

Powerful
Atop
T
Rich
In charge
Commanding
I
A
Not poor

Dr. Vermette had each group share, very briefly, some of its words.

TASK 3:

Dr. Vermette Said: Turn to the time line in your text book, from 753 bc to ad 476. Select three events on the time line and be ready to share what music you would select to play in the background if you were describing that event.

The students set right to work, enjoying the chance to explore their own type of music in relation to the historical events on the time line.

Responses were then shared:

Punic Wars, 106 - Hit Me Baby, One More Time.

Julius Caesar killed, 44 bc - Mission Impossible.

When the students completed this third task, Dr. Vermette turned to me, and I asked the students to share with us one thing they had learned, since they first entered class today, that they hadn¹t known before the class.

I repeated the question several times, and then explained that I would take a volunteer and then continue around the class from that person. I said: If you're not ready, you can pass and we¹ll get your response in a little while.

When I asked who was ready, there was a pause, and then two hands shot up.  One student said, I¹ve learned about the Punic Wars some things I didn't know.

The student to her left said, I've learned about Horatius. Another student said, I know a lot more about Alexander the Great.

I asked him: What did you learn about Alexander the Great? He immediately informed me that Alexander the Great had conquered a number of countries, and then he added two other accurate facts about him.

Two students passed when it was their turn, but they were ready with responses when I turned to them after everyone else had responded. It only took three minutes to elicit a response from all 17 students. Dr. Vermette, I , and the classroom teacher also gave our responses to the same question.

Then I said: I have one more question. I don't have time to take a response from each of you, but I'd like at least a few of you to tell me what you learned about working with people from the tasks Dr. Vermette conducted.

I learned how to cooperate, said one student.

I learned that if you listen, you are showing someone respect, said another.

After three more students responded, Dr. Vermette concluded the lesson by asking each group to stand up and enact the sculpture they had designed on paper. Quickly, the students all stood, created all sorts of amorphous shapes, and demonstrated physically, and as four teams, what they had drawn on paper.

After the students headed for lunch, we walked the teacher down the corridor and asked what she had learned by observing:

She said: I had been using Kagan's Œvoices' and I was impressed that the students used their Œ3' voices, in groups, without being asked. So I learned I don't have to always repeat the instruction "Use your '3' voices." They've internalized it and can transfer it to other situations.

She added: I saw that the kids could really work well in cooperative groups even if  Dr. Vermette didn¹t create and assign the groups exactly as I have done.
She continued: I got a good sense of what the students had learned from our unit work. I know, for instance, I have to spend a little more time on the Punic Wars.

What did Dr. Vermette and I take away from this lesson?

1. It was obvious that this teacher has done a lot of group work (effectively) with her class. This proves that when teachers feel group work can't succeed because of resistance from the students, it may just be that the students need more training, just as the teacher may. If students have not had much group work in previous years, we need to expect it to take awhile before they acclimate to a teacher who uses group work.

2. Once again Dr. Vermette demonstrated (to me, at least) that any content which can be taught through lecture can also be taught through group work - just as effectively and in just as brief a period of time. But we can¹t, realistically, expect to develop the expertise demonstrated by Dr. Vermette with a few trials and errors. It takes years of training and experience.

3. By designing tasks that require (and allow for) a variety of intelligences, we increase the number of students who have the chance to succeed.

This was a class of typical 6th grade students. The day before, Dr. Vermette and I were in another school district. Dr. Vermette used similar group activities to teach biology content to a class of students with serious learning disabilities. Two of the students required professional note takers in order to communicate.

These biology students responded equally as well to Dr. Vermette's group work. Had you observed the class, you would not have known these were special education students and that some can be major discipline problems.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If
you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a
message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

Copyright (c) 2000, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

A number of years ago, as we were about to ask four groups of teachers to view different videos about education reform, Pat Flynn said to me "We'd better create a lens for them."

WOW, has this lesson served me well over the years. - whether working with teachers on staff development, or with students in a classroom setting.

What Pat meant was that rather than simply ask people to view a tape, we should pose a question (or questions) for them to address as they are watching. Within five minutes, Pat and I designed three questions for each group and we told them we would ask them to address these questions following their viewing of the video tapes.

Since that time, I have rarely asked people to view a tape, read a passage, or listen to a lecture without first creating a lens.

I thought of this the other day, as I asked my SLU (St. Lawrence University) class to view an Annenburg Collection tape entitled "A Private Universe."

This is one of Pat's favorite tapes for focusing people on constructivist strategies and I have used it often. However, the last two times I have shown the tape to classes at SLU, the students' journal entries have revealed that few really focused on what I feel are the essential messages of the tape. In each of these situations, the lens I had created was to ask them, before they viewed the tape, to be prepared to share what they learned about student learning styles.

I decided that a better lens was needed this time. Here is what I did:

I put the class in groups of four and showed five minutes of the tape. Then I asked students, in their groups, to respond to the question on a sheet of paper I had handed them at the start of class. Each group had an otherwise blank sheet of paper that said at the top "Briefly describe what you feel is the most important thing a teacher would have gleaned about how students learn, from viewing the first five minutes of this tape."

(A sample of this page is included at the end of this article.)

I allowed two minutes for each group to agree on a response to this question and to record it. Then I asked a spokesperson from each group to share the group's response.

This enabled me to learn what the students were understanding from the tape. By sharing a few of my own observations, I was able to focus them on aspects of the tape they may not have picked up on.

Then I played another five or six minutes from the 15 minute tape, stopped the tape and repeated the process. In the middle of the page I had distributed was the same statement ("Briefly describe what you feel is the most important thing a teacher would have gleaned about how students learn, from viewing the second five minutes of this tape."). Once again I allowed two minutes for each group to agree on a response, then we shared responses.

Now I directed the studentsı attention to a third statement near the bottom of the page: "Briefly describe what the teacher in the video feels she has learned from watching her student respond to the questions posed on the tape." I told the class that when the tape was completed I would ask them to address this final statement.

I am not suggesting that every time you show a tape, you need to structure student learning as I did in this instance. Sometimes it's sufficient to create a lens by suggesting "After you view this tape, I will ask you to identify what you feel is the most significant message of the tape." Or, there may be one simple focused question to ask students to consider as they watch a tape (or read a passage from a book).

The nature of the lens is dictated by how you anticipate students will respond to the tape, reading, or lecture without much guidance.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If
you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a
message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

Copyright (c) 2000, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

Recently, we conducted a carousel in our class at SLU. Students, in groups of three and four, rotated to sheets of newsprint and each group added one, two, or three responses to the questions I had posed. Through this activity, students taught each other as they stood at the newsprint and tried to generate responses from within their group of three or four.

They were forced to think about the course content; I benefited because I received terrific feedback. I will now share excerpts of the student feedback with you. Notice how much they learned.

Keep in mind, as you read this, these are responses from University students on topics they have studied in my class on "Problems in Education." Think of the "Carousel" as a strategy for student learning and/or review

Again, as a group of three or four students, magic marker in hand, approached a sheet of newsprint, they found one of the following questions at the top of the sheet. They had about two minutes to list one, two, or three responses, and then they were asked to go to the next sheet of newsprint and to continue the list begun by previous groups. Here is what I had on each sheet of newsprint after seven groups had added their responses:

Question 1. List as many Constructivist Teaching Strategies as possible.

Responses:

-Icebreakers and Closures.

-Group work.

-Hands on activities.

-Ask questions to make the students think, so he learns for himself.

-Manipulatives.

-Encourage independent thinking/problem solving.

-Ask a question and then pause, allowing the students to think about it first.

-Have students tell what they know about the subject.

-Let students teach each other.

-Student input for planning.

-Students value peer opinion.

-Jigsaw, Carousel.

-Inquire about students' prior knowledge.

-Utilizes the Learning cycle.

-Processing out information.

-Journals/outlines.

-Students teaching students.

Question 2: Why should students be given frequent opportunities to work in groups? What are the benefits?

-We learn to cooperate and to work well with people.

-It Encourages participation - -we become more comfortable with our classmates.

-Allows for creativity.

-Peer modeling.

-Responsibility.

-Relates to the real world.

-We benefit from the knowledge of others; - "Two heads (or more) are better than one!"

-We gain respect for others opinions/ideas.

-More interesting/fun than a lecture.

-More view points; -Many different perspectives.

-Communication skills and Interpersonal skills are improved.

-We get more feedback than a single teacher can provide..

-Collaboration skills/constructive criticism result from group work.

-It motivates - keeps the interest level.

-Allows for a more open minded learning style.

Question 3: How does the teacher benefit from having students write journal entries?

-The teacher receives feedback from students.

-The teacher gets an indication of how much each student is learning.

-It lets the teacher know how the student feels about the class.

-It enables the teacher to understand if the curriculum is successful.

-Gives the teacher advice on what works well and what doesnıt work in class.

-The teacher can see student improvements.

-Helps teacher see each student's contributions to group activities.

-The teacher can obtain new knowledge from students.

Question 4: How does the student benefit from writing journal entries?

-Reflection (personal).

-Feedback from the teacher to the student entries is helpful.

-The student reflects on what you have learned throughout the semester.

-The student sees how his/her perception has changed.

-Classifies ideas, constructive comments to better the class, and shows the teacher your understanding of class activities.

-You can express your opinion and make suggestions.

-It improves creative writing skills.

-It helps students to organize thoughts.

- It enables students to bring up questions.

-It gives the student a timeline of the course.

-A two-way conversation with the teacher, also allows students to express concerns.

-It's a good way to keep notes.

-Helps with actual organization and follow-up.

-A good reference for the teacher.

-Accurate record of class activities.

-Shows personal growth/improvement.

-Means of expressing thoughts/emotions.

-Apply what we have learned in class to other situations.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If
you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a
message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

Copyright (c) 2000, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

I address these comments primarily to the many good administrators who envision themselves instructional leaders:

A teacher whom I hold in the highest esteem sent me an e-mail response to a recent article I wrote on "teaching strategies," and his comments reminded me that "scheduling" may be the major obstacle to school reform. It is the tail wagging the dog.

The limitations caused by the confinement of the school-day schedule seem to prevent good teachers from meeting the needs of all students more than any other single factor. Something must be done about this and can be done about this. My suggestions, in a moment, but first, here is what this outstanding high school teacher e-mailed me two days ago. He was responding to my suggestions on how to encourage students to be independent learners:

I think most of you recognize that these comments could have been written by any of tens of thousands of teachers across the Nation. He went on to say:

As I reflect on these thoughts from a gifted teacher I have this reaction:

Administrators, you will not get systemic education reform, in the near future, unless you heed the observations of this outstanding teacher who is, like many others, devoting his own time and financial resources toward the goals the State has articulated ("Education of all students").

New York State (in fact the Nation) is focused on data driven analysis. Well, here is my data driven analysis: A mounting pile of research indicates that teachers need to team teach, need to collaborate, need to have collegial dialogue and need to model the group work skills and strategies that the private sector keeps screaming it wants to see in graduating high school students.

Yet, almost every good administrator I know (forget the bad ones, give up on them, they are not going to solve the problem) almost every good administrator I know still feels confined, to a major degree - by the 42 minute period schedule. Even if they have a 90 minute block schedule, often they still do not provide adequate time for teacher collaboration. Unfortunately, even though many administrators try to afford teachers common planning/dialogue time, too often the administrator empathizes with the teachers but comes down on the side of "practicality and reality" - ie. "The schedule won't allow it."

Here's my suggestion:

An administrator, as an instructional leader, must view the issue of providing teachers a substantial amount of collaborative, planning time the way negotiators view a critical bargaining stalemate. As negotiators, when the situation becomes critical we sometimes lock ourselves in a room and agree not to come out until a contract agreement is reached. If the situation is drastic enough, the question is switched from "whether" there will be an agreement to "how."

I submit that the need for education reform is critical enough that there is no excuse for continuing to try to solve the problems of our schools with band aid approaches that respect the old paradigms of scheduling, grouping, and academic assistance while claiming we want new paradigm results. Good administrators, like good negotiators, must switch the question from "whether" they can provide teachers with sufficient planning/collaborative time to "how" can we do it?

In every field we recognize certain resources as essential to success. A baseball team can cut back in many areas when financial necessity dictates, but the players have to have gloves, uniforms, bats and balls. These are a given. Similarly, sufficient planning/collaborative time must become a "given" - we cannot meet reasonable goals for educating all children until and unless we successfully address the "scheduling" paradigm.

Administrators must not only recognize the need for a substantial amount of uninterrupted collaborative/reflective time for teachers, per week, but they must lock themselves up with the schedulers until they find a way.

How long will we continue to say to our students "You can reach these seemingly impossible standards if you just set your mind to it," while accepting from ourselves all kinds of reasons (excuses) why we can't provide teachers with the scheduling changes that are absolutely essential if teachers are to utilize the research based teaching strategies which will help students achieve these standards?

How many of you are agreeing with what you are reading, but thinking of all kinds of reasons why, despite your desire to be an instructional leader, the schedule just can't be changed beyond what you have already done?

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If
you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a
message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

Copyright (c) 2000, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.