a school-based Professional development Model for...

Overview

G u i d i n G Q u e s t i O n s

A. From our PLC team’s prior experience, what do our students understand about the key concepts from this block of lessons?

B. in our PLC team’s lesson study, what specific evidence do we collect to show us that learning occurred?

C. What are our PLC team’s proven practices that raised cognitive demand on all students and led them towards conceptual understanding ?

d. in my classroom, how will i achieve a high level of use of this deep learning approach for CCss / nGss key concepts and practices?

Observing fOr evidence Of Learninga school-based Professional development Model for science and Mathematics Teaching and Learning

Advancement of students’ understanding of core science concepts

Individual Implementation

of Generalizations

Lesson Observation

Individual Reflection

Lesson Refinement

OEL CYCLE

ONGOING

DAY 1 DAY 2

Science Content Study

Debrief and Generalization

to Practice

Lesson Examination

Advancement of students’

understanding of science/math concepts from NGSS/CCSS

Individual implementation

of Generalizations to develop expertise in

Teaching for Conceptual Change

Lesson Observation


Lesson Refinement

OEL CYCLE

ONGOING

DAY 1 DAY 2

Science/Math Content Study


to Practice

Lesson Examination

A

B

C

D

B

O e L C yC L e

© 2015 Logan Center for education at the institute for systems Biology Please do not duplicate without written permission:

[email protected]

3Observing fOr evidence Of Learning © 2015 Logan center for education at the institute for systems biology

Logan Center for education at the institute for systems Biology

The Institute for Systems Biology is a nonprofit center for biomedical research located in Seattle, Washington. In addition to pioneering advancements in science, ISB believes it has a responsibility to share what it learns, encouraging and educating the next generation of scientists, technologists, engineers and mathematicians. To achieve this end, ISB established the Logan Center for Education, a department composed of professional educators. By way of a portfolio of support – including federal, state and foundation grants, corporate and philanthropic gifts, and contracts with school districts – the Logan Center designs and facilitates professional development experiences for science and math educators from kindergarten through undergraduate levels. Based on current educational research and best practices, the Logan Center strives to address the specific needs and strengths of a school system’s teachers, administrators and context.

The Logan Center’s experience in advancing STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) education originates from the early 1990s when Logan Center staff partnered with Seattle Public Schools to implement a NSF-funded Local Systemic Change program, which was designed to support all teachers in grades K–5 to implement inquiry-based science instructional materials. Similar NSF-funded partnerships were established in the late 1990s to promote systemic change in middle schools in Seattle and neighboring school districts. In each case, the Logan Center led the overall program design and management, highlighted by the inclusion of regional STEM professionals in all programming.

The Local Systemic Change programs served as the foundation for the Observing for Evidence of Learning professional development model developed with funding from NSF and in partnership with middle school science departments from the Seattle, Highline, Bellevue, and Shoreline School Districts, and a state-funded Math and Science Partnership award to the Everett School District. As the model has matured, OEL professional development has further expanded throughout the Puget Sound region with support from The Boeing Company, The Amgen Foundation, Arthur Vining Davis Foundations, The Seattle Foundation, as well as through contracts with school districts. To date, the OEL professional development model has supported teachers in more than 15 school districts in the Puget Sound corridor from Marysville to Tacoma.

The Logan Center gratefully acknowledges the partnerships that contributed to the development of the OEL professional development model:

• Funding support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Department of Education, through the Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction. (This material is based upon work supported by the NSF’s Discovery Research K–12 program under grant number NSF 0455735).

• Research conducted by RMC Research Corporation, Portland, Oregon.

• Expertise provided by scientists at the Institute for Systems Biology and the University of Washington, Seattle Pacific University, and North Seattle Community College.

• The participation and feedback of teachers, science specialists and coaches from Clark County Public Schools in Nevada; and Seattle, Bellevue, Highline, Shoreline, and Everett School Districts in Washington.

Please contact the Logan Center for Education for permission to duplicate: [email protected]

AC K n O W L e d G e M e n t s

4 Observing fOr evidence Of Learning © 2015 Logan center for education at the institute for systems biology

i n s t R u C t i O n A L V i s i O n

OeL instructional Vision The purpose of Observing for Evidence of Learning is enacting learning theory in all the participating teachers’ classrooms.

Research on learning theory has shown that students learn science and develop scientific habits of mind best when they:• Identify their own preconceptions, and examine their ideas with respect to ideas of other students;• Become intellectually engaged with science content at a high level of cognitive demand;• Collect and examine scientific evidence;• Use evidence to formulate a deeper understanding of science concepts; and• Reflect upon how their understanding has changed from their preconceptions.

OeL Pd helps teachers use instructional strategies and materials to consistently engage students in these cognitive activities. The OEL Instructional Vision addresses one of the core challenges of school improvement efforts: lack of common instructional vision. A crucial aspect of OEL PD is that a vision alone will not result in change—indeed the key to OEL PD is partnering the OEL Instructional Vision with the OEL Process, which empowers teachers to effectively carry out this vision in daily instructional practice. OEL PD advances teachers beyond the implementation plateau because teachers are engaged in a personal improvement process that involves (a) identifying issues related to teaching and learning, (b) engaging with these issues to develop new understandings, (c) making changes to instructional practices based on these new understandings, and (d) repeating the process.

Research Basestandards -- Next Generation Science Standards, Common Core State StandardsLesson study -- Lewis, 2002, 2006; Lewis, Perry, & Murata, 2006.Professional Learning communities -- DuFour, 2004; DuFour, DuFour, Eaker, & Many, 2006; Michaels, Shouse, & Schweingruber, 2008; Vescio,Ross, and Adams, 2008.Pedagogical Content Knowledge -- Czerniak, Beltyukova, Struble, Haney, & Lumpe, 2006; Haney & Lumpe, 1995; Loucks-Horsley, Love, Stiles, Mundry, & Hewson, 2010; Marzano, 2003.Transformative Professional development -- Thompson & Zeuli, 1999.Effective science instruction -- Banilower, Cohen, Pasley, & Weiss, 2008.How People Learn -- Bransford et al., 2003.

How People Learn Key Finding 1“students come to the classroom with preconceptions about how the world works. if their initial understanding is not engaged they may fail to grasp the new concepts and information that are taught, or they may learn them for purposes of a test but revert to their preconceptions outside the classroom.”In the classroom, addressing preconceptions occurs at the start of a new unit of study. OEL cycles allow teachers to identify effective strategies for addressing preconceptions that can be generalized to other lessons.

How People Learn Key Finding 2“to develop competence in an area of inquiry, students must (a) have a deep foundation of factual knowledge, (b) understand facts and ideas in the context of a conceptual framework, and (c) organize knowledge in ways that facilitate retrieval and application.”Teachers can use OEL to incorporate instructional strategies that guide students to build on earlier learning and develop a sophisticated and enduring understanding of concepts. Teachers learn to establish a foundation of factual knowledge and provide numerous examples of the same concept.

How People Learn Key Finding 3“A metacognitive approach to instruction can help students learn to control their own learning by defining learning goals and monitoring their progress in achieving them.”In the assessment-centered classroom environment, formative assessments help both the teacher and students monitor progress. OEL helps teachers learn to integrate formative assessment into lessons to reveal changes in treacher and student thinking about challenging concepts. Formative assessment results enable teachers to identify students’ preconceptions, understand where students are in the development process, and design instruction accordingly. Formative assessment results prompt students to reflect on how their understanding has changed and the conditions that best promote their own learning.


i n s t R u C t i O n A L V i s i O n

OeL instructional Vision: sCienCeiF

tH

en

science teachers apply the How People Learn findings,

and use research-based instructional materials and teaching practices to: elicit students’ initial ideas engage students intellectually with important science content provide opportunities for students to confront their ideas with evidence help students formulate new ideas based on that evidence encourage students to reflect upon how their ideas have evolved

and ensure students enact the NGSS Science and Engineering Practices:1. Asking questions (for science) and defining problems (for engineering)2. developing and using models3. Planning and carrying out investigations4. Analyzing and interpreting data5. using mathematics and computational thinking6. Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering)7. engaging in argument from evidence8. Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

students’ understanding of the Next Generation Science Standards will be deeper and their science achievement will increase.

iFt

He

n

Math teachers apply the How People Learn findings,

and use research-based instructional materials and teaching practices to: establish mathematical goals to focus learning

implement tasks that promote reasoning and problem solving use and connect mathematical representations facilitate meaningful mathematical discourse pose purposeful questions build procedural fluency from conceptual understanding support productive struggle in learning mathematics elicit and use evidence of student thinking

and ensure students enact the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Practice:1. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them2. Reason abstractly and quantitatively3. Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others4. Model with mathematics5. use appropriate tools strategically6. Attend to precision7. Look for and make use of structure8. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning

students’ understanding of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematical Content will be deeper and their mathematics achievement will increase.

OeL instructional Vision: MAtHeMAtiCs


P R O C e s s

OeL Cycle The process of Observing for Evidence of Learning enables teachers to transfer a professional development experience into classroom practice. A trained OEL Facilitator guides a school based team of secondary teachers (e.g., whole science or math department) through the OEL Cycle, a 2-day process consisting of 7 phases; a cycle is typically repeated 3 times per academic year for a minimum of 3 years. A particular benefit of the OEL Protocol is that it provides the structure for a rigorous learning cycle for teachers, while being sufficiently flexible to address students’ and teachers’ needs in most any school of varied educational settings and context. The OEL Protocol addresses two of the fundamental challenges of school improvement efforts: sanctioned private practice and lack of process for translating new knowledge into practice. OEL de-privatizes practice by engaging teachers in observing and critiquing each other’s instructional practice and making improvements based on this feedback, and, establishes a clearly defined system teachers can utilize to integrate the common instructional vision into daily instructional practice.

Lesson examination A teacher team meets at school with an OeL Facilitator. the teachers examine student work as related to core curriculum, seeking evidence of students’ conceptions and science learning challenges and then select a block of lessons to refine. (1.5 hours)

Content study teachers consult with a Content expert to improve their personal science content and pedagogical knowledge, and then develop statements, or learning targets, which clearly identify the core science concepts students will learn. the Content expert’s role is to enhance teachers’ confidence and competence for teaching the key science concept. (1.5 hours)

Lesson Refinement towards improving use of the core curriculum, teachers refine the identified block of lessons by integrating instructional strategies that align to the OeL instructional Vision and that support the identified students’ science learning challenges. Lesson Refinement is not purposed with creating new lessons, rather incorporation of instructional strategies such as crafting questions to move students’ thinking to higher levels of cognitive demand or developing scaffolds to help students reason with evidence. (3+ hours)

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Lesson Observation One teacher volunteers to teach the lesson according to the collaboratively developed refinement.Remaining teachers make detailed observations of student learning by listening to the discourse of student groups recording evidence about students’ learning gains and/or persistent points of struggle (focus not on the volunteer teacher). (1.5 hours)

individual Reflection A teacher team meets at school with an OeL Facilitator. the teachers examine student work as related to core curriculum, seeking evidence of students’ conceptions and science learning challenges and then select a block of lessons to refine. (1.5 hours)

debrief -and-Generalization to Practice

teachers identify and synthesize connections between student learning, the lesson design, its instructional strategies, and the OeL instructional Vision. From this, teachers form generalizations about how the effective instructional strategies can be applied to future instructional practice.

(4+ hours)

implementation of OeL Generalizations to develop expertisein teaching for conceptual change

Individual teachers consider and implement effective teaching and learning strategies in their own instructional practice. The OEL Instructional Vision becomes a central element in teachers’ classrooms. (on-going)


P R O C e s s

Advancement of students’

understanding of science/math concepts from NGSS/CCSS

Individual implementation

of Generalizations to develop expertise in

Teaching for Conceptual Change

Lesson Observation


Lesson Refinement

OEL CYCLE

ONGOING

DAY 1 DAY 2

Science/Math Content Study


to Practice

Lesson Examination

A

B

C

D

B

A. From our PLC team’s prior experience, what do our students understand about the key concepts from this block of lessons?

B. in our PLC team’s lesson study, what specific evidence do we collect to show us that learning occurred?

C. What are our PLC team’s proven practices that raised cognitive demand on all students and led them towards conceptual understanding ?

d. in my classroom, how will i achieve a high level of use of this deep learning approach for CCss / nGss key concepts and practices?

O B s e R V i n G F O R e V i d e n C e O F L e A R n i n G G

uid

inG

Qu

es

tiO

ns


e F F i C AC y s t u dy

exhibit A Comparison of OeL schools to a Matched set of nonparticipating schools

OEL Schools

PercentMeeting

Standard

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 201025

30

35

40

45

50

55

60

65

Note: OEL Schools n=21, Comparison Schools n=21, Seattle OEL Schools n=11

Comparison Schools Seattle OEL Schools

41.40

40.97

36.75

38.81

37.18

34.32

45.74

42.78

37.59

47.59

47.12

45.21

51.64

50.26

48.32

55.75

54.95

52.47

62.09

60.95

54.99

Cohort 1 Begins

Cohort 2 Begins

efficacy study 1 -- nsF dRK-12: research design As part of a National Science Foundation DRK-12 grant, RMC Research conducted a scientifically rigorous efficacy study of OEL PD, involving a quasi-experimental anaylsis of school-level science achievement data at grade 8 from Washington’s statewide assessment, Measure of Student Progress (formerly Washington Assessment of Student Learning). Because the school was the unit of change in the efficacy study, at least 85% of the science teachers in a school were targeted to participate three 2-day cycles per year for two to four years. For each of the 21 participating middle schools, RMC Research selected a comparison school closely matched (within 3%) with respect to students served, enrollment, race and ethnicity, students qualified for free or reduced-priced meals, and bilingual students.

student impact: gains in science achievement above state average Exhbit A shows the average percentage of students who met the Grade 8 state standard in the OEL schools and the comparison schools. Although all schools in Washington made gains, the OEL schools demonstrated steady improvement at a rate that exceeded that of the comparison schools and the state. By 2010 and the completion of the DRK 12 study the difference between the OEL schools and the comparison schools was statistically significant at p < 0.05.



student impact: low ses schools closed the achievement gap (18% for grade 8 science)

Exhbit B shows that prior to DRK-12 study, the low socioeconomic status OEL schools (i.e., more than 40% of the students qualified for free or reduced-priced meals) scored well below their matched comparison schools, and both groups scored well below the state average. After the onset of the project the low socioeconomic status OEL schools began to close the gap, outperforming the comparison schools in 2009 and making further gains towards the state average in 2010. Low socioeconomic schools in Seattle increased the percentage of students who met the Grade 8 science standard by nearly 3 times that of the comparison schools and the state average over the 4 year project period. In 2011 (one year after the project ended) the OEL schools continued to outpace the comparison schools.

exhibit B Comparison of Low socioeconomic schools OEL Schools

PercentMeeting

Standard

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 201015

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

55

Note: OEL Schools n=11, Comparison Schools n=11, Seattle OEL Schools n=6

Comparison Schools Seattle OEL Schools State Average

33.25

25.80

22.67

36.40

28.15

21.65

42.90

35.31

27.12

44.60

37.18

32.92

47.90

39.60

34.33

51.10

45.50

42.57

54.50

54.52

49.18

39.40

Cohort 1 Begins

Cohort 2 Begins

18.32

25.07

32.80

40.84

33.80

45.48



AttributionThe study results, the gains in student achievement, are attributed to science teachers’ professional growth made through OEL PD over several years. In every case schools involved in the OEL project showed greater gains in grade 8 student science achievement than the students in their matched comparison school and relative to the state average. Low socioeconomic schools showed greater gains than the high socioeconomic schools, comparison schools, and the state average. Low socioeconomic schools in Seattle increased the percentage of students who met the grade 8 science standard by nearly 3 times that of the comparison schools and the state average over the 4 year project period.

These results are very encouraging, however, the critical reader will want to know the degree to which these findings can be attributed to the OEL model or whether the results stem from some other influence within the participating schools. In this case, OEL was a very large factor that led to the increase in student achievement because of the following characteristics of the research methods.

The OEL model is very well defined in terms of both the process and the purpose for the professional development. As a result, fidelity of implementation of the OEL model could be consistently determined and monitored. The high level of fidelity of OEL implementation indicates that the positive results were not the result of ad-hoc adaptations made by school staff during implementation.

OEL was the only major professional development effort that directly impacted science teachers that was consistently implemented during the project period.

The comparison schools very closely matched the OEL schools with respect to student demographics, school size, grades served, special populations such as English language learners, socioeconomics of the local com-munity as measured by the percentage of students who qualified for free or reduced price lunch, and the type of community served by the school (urban, suburban, or rural). As a result, it was not necessary to use any statistical methods to adjust for uncontrolled differences.

The multiyear performance of the control schools paralleled that of the state average, whereas the OEL schools increased at a greater rate than both the state average and the comparison schools beginning with the onset of the project.

Most uncontrolled factors such as variations in the assessment or changes in state standards impacted the OEL schools and the control schools equally.

The primary threats to validity stems from factors that were uncontrollable and isolated to specific schools or districts during the implementation of the project. For example, one school district experienced a strike and a major curriculum change during the project that proved to be a significant distraction for participating teachers. Another district conducted a mathematics improvement initiative at the same time as the OEL project. This made it very difficult for the science staff to schedule OEL sessions because of a lack of substitute teachers. Other districts experimented with alternative schedules for conducting OEL sessions. Many of these activities are not particularly unusual among schools and districts. As a result, it is safe to assume that similar things occurred in at least some of the comparison schools. The degree to which such factors influenced the results cannot be determined but if anything, these factors would diminish the impact of the OEL model. Consequently, had these factors not occurred or been mitigated somehow, it is reasonably to conclude that the impact of the project on student achievement would have been even greater.


L e s s O n s L e A R n e d

Lessons Learned -- readiness factors to implement OeL Pd:

• school-wide adoption of standards-based instructional materials

• departmental use of standards-based instructional materials for a minimum of one to two years

• A whole science or math department participates ( strongest group size is a minimum of four teachers and a maximum of ten)

• Access to Content experts

Lessons Learned -- stakeholders that participate and contribute to OeL Pd:

• school Leadership such as a principal or assistant principal responsible for overarching OeL Pd planning, logistics, and monitoring

• OeL Facilitator such as a science/math teacher or teacher leader (e.g., teacher on special assignment or coach) responsible for facilitating OeL Pd cycles

• Content expert (e.g., scientist, mathematician, engineer, or health care professional from local industry, research institute or institution of higher education) to guide the Content study component of the OeL Pd process

• teachers (all teachers in science/math department) participate in all three 2-day OeL Pd cycles over the course of an academic year

• For successful OeL Pd implementation, the theory of Action states that each stakeholder engages in a set of specific actions:

a school-based Professional development Model for...

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