Learning Walk, CSCOPE, Solving for X
NOTE: I am very fortunate to work in Guthrie. For the last two years our superintendent and principal have taken teachers on “learning walks” to other schools in the area. This is usually a group of 3-4 teachers and 1 administrator visiting an area campus and conducting a series of walk-throughs in classrooms. We use a document to direct what we look for…things like: instructional arrangement, evidence of Bloom’s level, Marzano strategies, student roles and actions, teacher roles and actions, etc. After the visit, we are encouraged to share our findings with the rest of the staff. Here’s my report, with the names of the school and staff removed for anonymity. It was a good day of learning for me.
I went on a learning walk to “BLANK” Middle School a few weeks ago. I’ve started to email out my summary a few times since then, but couldn’t formulate anything important to share…until yesterday.
Learning Walk
When we first arrived at ”BLANK”, we met with ”BLANK”, the Middle School Principal for a few minutes, learning a little about their school. During that time, we learned that they were 70+% minority, 75+% econ disadvantaged, and not nearly as financially well-off as our district is. While she was giving the overview, she mentioned that they had adopted CSCOPE district wide, due to low performance in some TAKS areas. She mentioned that all of the teachers were expected to follow the CSCOPE scope and sequence and exemplar lessons, with few exceptions. She said that teachers could substitute or add their own lessons and activities if they would communicate their intentions to her ahead of time and had good academic reasons to do so. This caught my attention.
In the last few years, I’ve heard a lot of negative comments about CSCOPE from teachers. While I taught in Irving a few years back, the district had a standardized scope and sequence (not CSCOPE) that teachers didn’t like at all…even though our own teaching staff was paid to write it. I didn’t like it, particularly because I believed it attempted to take teacher creativity and flexibility out of the classroom, and replace it with standardization. With many districts in the Lubbock region moving to CSCOPE, many local teachers have voiced similar concerns.
Back in “BLANK” school district, the middle school principal confirmed that some of her teachers were embracing the change in curriculum while others had been struggling with it. She wanted to be clear that the change was in the best interest of the students. They wanted every classroom to be focused on learning and maximizing time and effort for student success. Even beyond the curriculum changes, they had put a lot of things in place district-wide to build school spirit, strong character, parent involvement and positive relationships.
As we walked through the ”BLANK” classrooms, we saw many positive things and a few things that came up short…just like any school. As we went from class to class, I kept looking for signs of impact, both positive and negative, that the move to CSCOPE had made. Here’s a few observations:
7th Grade Math Class:
Students were working CSCOPE exemplar problems in groups of three on a piece of butcher paper, stretched across their desks that were pulled together. Each student was working their own problem, but asking questions of each other when they needed help. None of the students had a reason to get stuck or give up, since they had partners. The teacher was going from group to group, asking questions of each student, checking for individual understanding. Every few minutes, she picked one of the students to come up to the board and work the problem for the class. Positive environment. Engaged students. Focused on collaboration and learning.
6th Grade Reading:
We walked in right as the bell had rung. Within a few short minutes, the teacher had passed out a new short novel, gave a brief intro, and then started the cassette tape reading of the book. Students were to follow along in their own books. She stopped the recording once to give a little more background information that she forgot to mention earlier. The students had some questions, but she quickly turned the tape recording back on so they could finish the story. While the students were listening, she explained to us that this book was not in the CSCOPE curriculum. She was “doing that story” anyway because she wanted more choice than CSCOPE offered. It didn’t look to me like the students had much choice in their learning. Classroom was focused on compliance and completion.
7th Grade Social Studies:
This class was in the computer lab working on Study Island, a series of self-paced quizzes on a website dealing with Texas history and geography. Of the 18 students in the room, about half were re-testing on a quiz they had failed the day before, and the other half were playing games on Poptropica.com, waiting for everyone else to catch up with their class work. The teacher was at the front of the room, keeping everyone quiet. He told us that Study Island was not part of CSCOPE. He had not been using CSCOPE because it was too fast paced and too rigorous for the time had had with the students. I found quite the opposite conditions in his classroom. Classroom was focused on compliance and completion.
8th Grade LA:
This class was just finishing up as we walked in. The teacher was 81 YEARS OLD and had taught in ”BLANK” school for over 40 years. She was a ball of fire. She had a small class of 8th grade boys, and while we didn’t see her teach a lesson, she was obviously a master teacher. We asked her about CSCOPE and how she had coped with the change. She was positive about it and mentioned the many good novels from years gone by that she had given up teaching, to accommodate the changes. She wasn’t completely sold on the new curriculum, but knew it was “good for the kids.” One of our team asked why she was still teaching after all her years. He asked if she realized that she was “teaching for free” because of the number of years of experience. He asked one the 8th grade boys why they thought she would teach for free. Every day. One boy said it was because she loved kids. The classroom was focused on relationships and passion for continued improvement.
What’s up With CSCOPE?
There were more classrooms we visited, but without exception, the same held true. The classrooms that appeared the strongest to us were the ones using CSCOPE. The weakest were the ones that had strayed away from using CSCOPE and gone their own direction. I was NOT expecting to see this. In fact, I was hoping to see the opposite. Here’s what I have been wrestling with since the learning walk: What impact did CSCOPE have and why did it make the classrooms better? My conclusion is that is has NOTHING to do with CSCOPE and everything to do with the teacher, and his/her ability to successfully adapt to change to make the classroom a better place.
Solving for X
The success of the classrooms had nothing to do with CSCOPE. It could have been anything: Accelerated Reader, Project Based Learning, Technology Integration, a textbook adoption, a particular group of students, or anything. Let me explain.
Here’s my equation: X (R + P + B) = great learning
X could be anything: CSCOPE, TEKS, technology integration, AR, a goat, textbook, worksheets, Promethean boards, cardboard dioramas, etc. Whatever TOOL we use to teach.
R is relationship. Not just relationships to foster compliance or respect, but the kind of relationship where kids feel valued, empowered, engaged and loved.
P is Passion. The kind of passion a teacher has that drives them the extra mile. This passion fosters excitement, experimentation, change and risk.
B is belief that the “X factor” CAN and WILL work. The teacher has to believe that the tool will be better for the students and believe that it can be relevant and useful.
So there it is. The more I think about it and apply the formula to the great teachers I have known, it holds up. It’s not the tool, but the teacher that is deciding factor. Like a salesman that can sell ice to an eskimo, the master teachers find a way to make learning great, regardless of the content area, teaching conditions, home life, state mandates or the student population.
My Experiment:
I am going to choose something (the X factor) to put in my classroom that I would not normally do. Its going to be something that I had previously discounted as not relevant or particularly useful. I am going to see if I can make this tool work, given enough Relationship, Passion and Belief. I’m not going to tell anyone what it is, so that I don’t skew the results (or look like a failure if it doesn’t work). I invite you to try the same, and we’ll compare notes after we tried it for a few weeks.
