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ОглавлениеIntroduction
What would schools look like if educators invested energy and time into thinking about what they do for students who already know the material and content when they walk in the door? Concurrently, what would it look like if educators’ ideas of who these students are were flexible and evolving? What if teachers deliberately and intentionally thought about lessons, units, and activities that could make learning experiences personal for the students who would benefit from extension and challenge by staying engaged and continuing to learn more? We authors believe that teams in such schools would be privileged to work in a culture that valued supporting the needs and talents of every student, where the norm was highly engaging and effective learning. In this book, we aim to offer a framework and resources toward creating such a culture, consistently addressing the needs of students who are of high ability and high potential, thinking flexibly when determining which students fit these criteria, and encouraging collaborative teamwork to meet these goals.
The results of this type of system would be a sight to behold. Imagine walking through various classrooms in a school district where students, particularly those who already know the material, are engaged, enthusiastic, and energetic as they work together with their teachers. A first-grade team develops centers with student choice, writing workshops, and performance assessments based on the achievement levels of the students. Another first-grade teacher uses gradual release of responsibility as students work in strategy groups based on their understanding of the content from the previous day. A third-grade teacher uses digital tools to help students work at their own pace in mathematics. Another elementary teacher works with students to choose their own learning pathways and assessments in mathematics based on their understanding on a pretest. Two sixth-grade teachers have their dividing wall torn down so they can team teach, continually pretest, and then set up stations where students have choices in their learning paths, based on where they are in the learning process. A middle school English teacher who knows her students well uses data to push students further in extending their learning. A middle school team uses student pretest results for student placement in stations that ultimately determine whether they earn entrance tickets to an upcoming assessment. A freshman English teacher employs a system in which students have ten goals to complete in ten days. Each goal requires different cognitive and collaborative skills, and students choose to work on the ten goals in the order of their preference, based on their ability. A high school social studies teacher uses a game where high-achieving students have forty-eight to seventy-two hours to complete a mission, which allows them to learn more about the Roman Empire. A high school science team develops an assignment where students choose their own final assessment tool while the teacher checks their work against certain benchmarks along the way. Teachers in this district are using a great variety of ways to lead students toward clear objectives while allowing already-proficient students to learn in a more personalized manner.
We’ve seen such classrooms and can attest that, if you walked into each of these classrooms and talked to the teachers leading these activities like we have, you would also feel the passion of both the students and the teachers that comes from this type of learning environment. If you talked to the students, you would learn that this type of learning makes time in class go quickly and doesn’t feel like learning. You would also learn that in these environments, learners perform just as well as—if not better than—in traditional classrooms such as those we described previously. Not only that, but students are being challenged, feel a great deal of efficacy, and are highly engaged. Perhaps not surprisingly, these students also stretch themselves further than their teachers might have been able to stretch them. Such a learning culture encourages a mindset that students can grow their intelligence and stretches the limits of what might be traditionally expected of students. And, the beauty of it is that the stretching and growth are internal; students are achieving because they want to. All of these classroom examples we describe are based on real examples we have seen or learned about through our conversations with educators from all over the United States. We describe all of them as examples of personalized learning.
Personalized Learning
A theme that runs through each of the ideas, instructional strategies, and stories in this book is that of personalized learning. Throughout this book, we will seek to define personalized learning and to examine the five elements we have identified that comprise it: (1) knowing your learners, (2) allowing voice and choice, (3) implementing flexibility, (4) using data, and (5) integrating technology. As we will discuss further in chapter 2, students today have grown accustomed to personalization in most aspects of their lives, as advances in technology increasingly adapt to our preferences and needs. It only makes sense that we would adjust our approaches to teaching to similarly reflect personalization of students’ learning to challenge and engage them. When working with students who are of high ability and high potential (and all students for that matter), a key piece to the planning process is the need to allow room for the student to determine his or her own learning plan. This type of thinking and release of responsibility are firmly aligned with the elements of personalized learning. To us, the best platform to incorporate this work and make this vision a reality in your classroom, school, or district is not to go about this work alone but rather to use the well-established Professional Learning Communities at Work™ model.
The PLC Model
As authors, we first learned about professional learning communities (PLCs) when education giants Rick DuFour and Robert Eaker’s book Professional Learning Communities at Work: Best Practices for Enhancing Student Achievement (1998) was published. Thanks to this book and the calculated efforts of educators it has influenced to share best practices, many schools are regularly functioning as PLCs.
According to DuFour, Rebecca DuFour, Eaker, Thomas Many, and Mike Mattos (2016), PLC work is “an ongoing process in which educators work collaboratively in recurring cycles of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve” (p. 10). School leaders start this process by convening the staff and working through collaborative approaches to determine their mission, vision, values, and goals. Experts suggest thinking about the foundation of a PLC as resting on four pillars—the mission, vision, values, and goals (DuFour et al., 2016). When building leaders focus on why they exist, articulate a compelling and understandable sense of direction for the work, identify the specific actions the group will take to achieve the mission and vision, and determine how they will know whether or not students achieve success, the likelihood of success magnifies (DuFour et al., 2016). Following the development of these four key pillars, teams use the three big ideas and the four critical questions of a PLC to make their work come alive.
The Three Big Ideas of a PLC
According to DuFour et al. (2016), the three big ideas of a PLC are:
1. A focus on learning
2. A collaborative culture and collective responsibility
3. A results orientation
These three big ideas do not represent a program, a series of documents, or a project to complete. They represent a way of thinking and doing business in a school. With the first big idea, we ensure that we, as educators, are willing to examine everything to ensure that nothing is misaligned with promoting high levels of learning for all. Big idea number two ensures a collaborative culture exists. This means that all staff members, regardless of assignment, are on a collaborative team that shares norms; common goals driven by timely, user-friendly, and relevant information regarding student learning; common frequent meeting time during the school day; and protocols to guide the work. Members of a team are committed to holding each other accountable. Big idea number three ensures that team members regularly seek out evidence for student learning and use this information to improve the practice of the individual teachers and collaborative teams as they work toward goals, and to respond to the needs of students through intervention and enrichment.
The conduits to much of this work are the four critical questions of a PLC. By examining the four critical questions, teams are doing the necessary work to ensure that they are embedding these three big ideas of a PLC into their practice.
The Four Critical Questions of a PLC
In PLCs, grade-level or same-subject collaborative teams spend considerable time and energy discussing the four critical questions (DuFour et al., 2016).
1. What do we want all students to know and be able to do?
2. How will we know if they learn it?
3. How will we respond when some students do not learn?
4. How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient?
These questions become the focal point and driving force for collaborative time, as members work to ensure that they are constantly discussing and considering them. This ongoing cyclical process utilizes data to inform the team’s work and ultimately ensures all students learn at high levels.
While all four questions and the work of a PLC are important for this book, this fourth question is our focal point. We seek to provide a way for teams to address students who are already proficient when they walk into the classroom or who quickly gain proficiency early on in an instructional unit or lesson. There are a few different ways that you will hear educators refer to this population, including:
■ Students who already know it
■ Students who are already proficient
■ Students who need to have learning extended
■ Question 4 students (or Q4 students)
■ Gifted and talented students
For the purposes of this book, from this point forward, we will refer to this population of students as question 4 students. Note that we do not endorse only considering students identified as gifted as question 4 students; this is not a “gifted book.” This is a question 4 book that addresses high ability and potential, which is flexible and evolves based on what is being taught. We authors have seen it’s possible that one student might be considered a “question 4 student” one week but not necessarily the next. For example, a student who is not under the “gifted and talented” label but shows high potential during a pretest would benefit from the instructional components we advocate in this book.
Teams often report to us that the four questions are addressed in order, one through four, with the last question typically skipped due to time, priorities, or lack of know-how by the collaborative team members. When this happens, question 4 students’ needs are not being met. We contend that in order to truly consider the fourth question, teams need to address how they plan to extend learning for question 4 students much earlier in the process. If teams wait until a formative assessment is administered to make this determination, it is too late, as instruction has already occurred. This conversation needs to take place at the beginning of a unit to ensure that teams take the needs of all students into account.
The Challenge With Responding to Question 4
Because question 4 very specifically uses the word extend, as we begin a discussion about question 4, we feel it is important to define the difference between enrichment and extension. We have seen these terms commonly used interchangeably when discussions emerge about question 4 and what to do for question 4 students.
Enrichment is a term used to describe “the subjects traditionally taught by specials or electives teachers (such as music, art, drama, applied technology, and physical education) and the activities often used to enrich learning (for example, field trips and assemblies)” (AllThingsPLC, 2016). Extension, by comparison, is:
when students are stretched beyond essential grade-level curriculum or levels of proficiency. Extension can be achieved by asking students to demonstrate mastery of essential standards at a level beyond what is deemed grade-level proficient, providing students access to more of the required grade-level curriculum that is deemed nonessential, or providing students access to curriculum above their current grade level. (AllThingsPLC, 2016)
The strategies described in this book reflect extension. We are providing tools for teachers to extend and stretch students’ learning, particularly for question 4 students. From our experience, question 4 is a question that the classroom staff rarely answer. Teachers and educators in general tend to work through questions 1–3 chronologically, stop at question 3, and not move forward to answer question 4. Many teachers and educators focus on the struggling students (who are the subject of question 3) and their deficits and work toward progress on district, state, or national tests. We often hear educators call students who are just below proficient bubble students and spend time and energy moving them to proficiency. This type of work and conversation often trumps the rich conversations that would otherwise take place around question 4.
However, we can’t just ignore question 4 students. It is easy to assume that these learners will be fine and will adapt to whatever is given to them. This isn’t the case. Experts share that students, when not challenged, will (1) get by and try not to bring attention to themselves (and not be intellectually challenged), (2) zone out and find a different activity to engage their brain (such as doodling), or (3) act out with behaviors that draw negative attention to them (Long, 2013).
Many might look at these three items and think that as long as the result isn’t the third option, things will be fine. We are really short-changing students with this mentality, as studies show the great things that are possible when educators intentionally design instruction to respond to these students. Researchers at Vanderbilt University have been working on a fifty-year longitudinal study of students identified as gifted from 1972 to 1997 (Park, Lubinski, & Benbow, 2013). They have been conducting follow-up studies with the former students at various intervals to learn about how gifted education practices have impacted their lives. Gregory Park, David Lubinski, and Camilla P. Benbow (2013) find that the students in their cohorts have gone on to be top scholars, scientists and inventors, and leaders. One key finding from this study shows that pushing gifted learners by allowing grade skipping resulted in a 60 percent higher likelihood that the students would go on to earn doctorates or patents and be more than twice as likely to get a PhD in a STEM field (Park et al., 2013). The researchers also point out that while this does not happen in most schools, even modest interventions have a demonstrable effect (Clynes, 2016).
Park, Lubinski, and Benbow’s (2013) study shows that question 4 students benefit when we determine how to meet their needs and implement the identified interventions. The problem is that school leaders and teachers in some PLCs often skip this question in their team meetings. Consider the following statements. Does this sound familiar?
If we are going to work together and be able to talk about what we are doing instructionally, it stands to reason that we should be on the same page with at least the standards that we will be teaching. From there, it also makes sense that, as long as we are teaching the same curriculum, we should have common assessments. For one, it will help us work smarter by not needing both of us to make separate tests if we are teaching the same content. This leads to a guaranteed viable curriculum. And, as long as we are giving the same tests, let’s see how our kids are doing. This then generates wonderful discussion about what we see in all of our students’ collective work. I could ask you great questions about how you are getting your results and vice versa. Then, let’s take a look at what students struggled the most and have a conversation about how we can get them up to at least minimal proficiency.
For many teams, this is where the process stops. We authors wanted to know why, so we asked participants at a PLC Institute, “Why is it so hard to get to critical question 4 in your collaborative team?” The answers ranged from time to priorities to a lack of resources explaining what to do with question 4. All three of these themes are understandable and predictable in many ways.
Time
In panel discussions at PLC Institutes, Rick and Becky DuFour have shared that a strong team needs a minimum of forty-five to sixty minutes of meeting time per week. The school’s culture must support this need and keep this time sacred. This time goes by quickly, as it takes a great deal of time to have conversations around essential learnings, to develop common assessments, and to analyze data. Teachers report that after doing these items, they don’t have time to talk about anything else. Elementary teachers have shared with us that if they had enough time after completing this process with one subject area, they would move on to the next. If reading is the focus, for example, any “extra” time would go toward conversations about mathematics. Use the reproducible “Collaborative Team Discussion: PLC Critical Questions” (page 16) to reflect on your team’s current reality of time usage surrounding the critical questions and support collaborative conversations and learning in your collaborative team.
Unfortunately, this book will not be able to provide more time to teachers. Although we sure wish that it could, we have yet to work in a school or district where teachers have an amount of planning time that enables them to not have to stay late, work at home, or come back to school later in the evening to get their work done. We know this because we have also done it as teachers and administrators our entire work life. In order to address question 4 without the gift of additional time, we have to make the time during our collaborative meetings, even if it is a short amount. I saw one team make a team norm for the year of spending at least ten minutes per meeting on the needs of question 4 students. This small amount adds up over the course of the year. By sticking to this norm and acting on its growing list of ideas, before this team knew it, it was doing things for these learners that it never had before. In fact, the classroom examples we highlight throughout this book are activities that have occurred as a result of this type of collaborative work. Collaborative teams will need to make the time to include question 4 as part of their ongoing conversations.
Priorities
For many, collaborative teams look at their work with the critical questions as a hierarchical system. Question 1 leads to question 2 leads to question 3 leads to question 4. Question 4 gets assigned the last spot on the priority list for collaborative teams. Similar to this hierarchy, Parry Graham and Bill Ferriter (2008) outline the following seven stages that teams pass through in their development.
1. Filling the time
2. Sharing personal practice
3. Planning, planning, and planning
4. Developing common assessments
5. Analyzing student learning
6. Differentiating follow-up
7. Reflecting on instruction
In our considered opinion, stages six and seven require the dialogue necessary to arrive at critical question 4. If it takes teams time to pass through the prior stages, it is likely that new teams will not get to stages six and seven early in the school year. In our experience, when teams do get to these steps, their conversations are usually more centered on the interventions and not extension or acceleration. This is especially true if the school’s culture does not expect or promote activities around question 4. To avoid this, throughout this book we offer a different way to look at the fourth question, and provide suggestions for how to prioritize it to ensure addressing it does not fall by the wayside. To really develop a plan for question 4 students, teams need to address and discuss question 4 at the same time that conversations begin around question 2, “How will we know if they learn it?” Not only should teams have the traditional conversations about assessments given after instruction, teams would also talk about preassessments prior to instruction.
Resources
Teachers also report that they don’t know what to talk about with regard to question 4. If the resources aren’t at hand and question 4 students are content to work on other things like reading a book or working on other homework assignments during down time, there is not an imminent need to change practice. In fact, we once had a teacher share with us that as long as the gifted students have something to work on, he didn’t need to spend much time thinking about them; they kind of take care of themselves. Even if the student is considered proficient, this is not a scenario we should be proud of; we need to create systems where the needs of all learners are being addressed and commit to overcoming what prevents us from doing so. We don’t want students to “kind of take care of themselves.” We want to push, inspire, and intentionally stretch all students’ learning. The reality is that there aren’t a ton of great resources focused on question 4 students out there to help teams with this struggle. It is our hope that this book provides a wonderful entry point for this work.
Instructional Strategies
While resources on ways to shape school cultures and processes in a way that prioritizes responding to proficient students may be sparse, there are a plethora of individual instructional strategies available from various books, journals, and articles offering advice on how to work with the student who already knows the content. While the following list is not meant to be all-inclusive, it represents the five strategies we feel collaborative teams who are just beginning to work in this area will have immediate success with: (1) curriculum compacting, (2) flexible grouping, (3) product choice, (4) tiered assignments, and (5) multilevel learning stations.
Note that an argument could be made for how each could fit into a different personalized learning element. We will expand on these connections in chapter 3 (page 47). The great news is these are strategies teachers can begin employing in classrooms right away. We provide examples throughout the book showing what this implementation might look like in the classroom.
How to Use This Book
This book is for collaborative teams at all grade levels working in a PLC to better address the fourth critical question—How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient?—through personalized learning to maximize student achievement and engagement. Implementing the five personalized learning elements may require a significant departure from some traditional methods. To that end, chapter 1 will focus on reframing some common beliefs readers may hold about curriculum guides or maps, the teacher’s role in the classroom, and the nature of collaborative conversations. In chapter 2, we will provide a definition of personalized learning and a detailed explanation of how it meets the needs of high-ability and high-potential students. Chapter 3 will focus on five specific instructional strategies that work well for question 4 students. Chapters 4–8 will each examine one of the five elements of personalized learning and how it will serve your team in extending proficient students’ learning and maximizing their achievement and engagement. Chapter 4 will consider how teachers can intentionally take steps to learn about these students and act on what they know. Chapter 5 will look at inviting, respecting, and considering student voice—their perspectives, opinions, and preferences—and offering students choice regarding the ways they engage in learning. Chapter 6 examines implementing flexibility in mindsets, grouping, and space. Chapter 7 considers how using student learning information can help teachers make decisions about learner growth related to an instructional standard. Chapter 8 explores how integrating technology tools and technology-based practices into daily classroom routines can support personalized learning. Finally, chapter 9 outlines specific detailed steps you can take to make PLC critical question 4 and the five elements of personalized learning a regular part of your collaborative team meetings and classroom practices.
Personalized Learning Stories
At the end of each of chapters 4–8, we provide classroom scenarios based on observations and interviews Mark and Blane conducted for this book, inspired by real teachers’ classrooms across the United States in schools that have begun to implement personalized learning approaches. In these stories, we illustrate one elementary and one secondary example of a personalized learning element in action while also highlighting at least one of the five key instructional strategies for addressing question 4 students. These stories not only illustrate how a teacher might practically use personalized approaches to extend the learning for question 4 students but also show how this can realistically occur in a classroom where a teacher is simultaneously responding to all students’ varied needs.
While we will focus on one main element in each classroom story, the reality is that to fully extend learning, all elements play a role, so you will see multiple elements being utilized throughout these stories. In fact, we believe that at least two elements need to be present to extend learning, personalize learning, and design engaging learning activities. The same can be said for the gifted instructional strategies. You may see a blend of various components, and that is OK. The important thing is that you are able to see practical examples of these strategies being implemented. As we authors have worked with educators to implement innovative ideas, one thing we have learned is how beneficial it can be to access specific examples to make the ideas more tangible. That is our intent with these stories, so we are hopeful that readers will be able to make connections between the stories and the work they do in schools.
While some of the examples we provide may seem advanced, be assured that these teachers did not begin teaching in this manner the first day they started. They tried a few activities and ideas, watched how students responded, made some tweaks, expanded some ideas for the next unit, and continually moved forward. That is exactly what we are asking you to do in your teams as well. Not only is it OK to start small, it is also recommended. Before diving in and ultimately trying these ideas in a lesson, an activity, or a unit, we suggest you and your team consider the sample steps to begin your work that we outline in chapter 9 (page 207).
Individual and Collaborative Team Reflections
This book is a hands-on guide and reflection journal you and your team should use while gaining knowledge of personalized learning and how it will help you and your team extend learning for students who have demonstrated competency with the instructional content. As a collaborative team working in a PLC focusing on your own learning, be prepared to engage in thoughtful and meaningful discussion after each chapter. As you read about each element, take time to answer the various questions and participate in the reflection opportunities. At various intervals throughout this book, you will be asked to individually reflect on readings from the text. When you get to these points, you will see the following image.
This will be your cue to stop and reflect on what you just read. At the end of each chapter, you will be asked to look back at what you individually reflected on and have a collaborative team discussion about your findings. For this type of reflection, you will see the following image.
This structure is intentional. The individual reflection allows you to internalize the content and honestly reflect on current practices. Individual reflection also allows for personal creative thinking that is specific to your students and thus most actionable. Additionally, learning is social. So, after you have the opportunity to internalize the content and creatively apply it to your students, the collaborative team discussion occurs in a safe, professional space where you can share your own thinking, receive feedback, and try new approaches with the support of your peers.
With this book, K–12 educators working in collaborative teams can engage in nine collaborative book study meetings. We offer the following sample collaborative team schedule (see table which you may choose to use in addition to your regular norms and ways of operating as a collaborative team.
Table I.1: Sample Collaborative Team Schedule
| Collaborative Meeting | Topic | Items to Complete |
| Premeeting | Addressing critical question 4 of a PLC through personalized learning to extend learning for question 4 students | Prior to first meeting, read the introduction and chapter 1. Complete the reproducible “Individual Reflection: Teaching Approaches” (page 26) while reading. |
| 1 | Review of introduction and chapter 1 | Discuss individual reflections and complete collaborative team discussion. Assign chapter 2. |
| 2 | Review of chapter 2 | Discuss individual reflections and complete collaborative team discussion. Assign chapter 3. |
| 3 | Review of chapter 3 | Discuss individual reflections and complete collaborative team discussion. Assign chapter 4. |
| 4 | Review of chapter 4 | Discuss individual reflections and complete collaborative team discussion. Assign chapter 5. |
| 5 | Review of chapter 5 | Discuss individual reflections and complete collaborative team discussion. Assign chapter 6. |
| 6 | Review of chapter 6 | Discuss individual reflections and complete collaborative team discussion. Assign chapter 7. |
| 7 | Review of chapter 7 | Discuss individual reflections and complete collaborative team discussion. Assign chapter 8. |
| 8 | Review of chapter 8 | Discuss individual reflections and complete collaborative team discussion. |
| 9 and ongoing | Developing plan for implementation | Begin implementation and plan for ongoing use of collaborative time for addressing PLC critical question 4 through personalized learning to extend learning for students who are already proficient. |
Please note that we are not suggesting each topic will take up an entire meeting. We wrote this book to support readers in making individual connections and reflections before meeting with the full team. We encourage you and your team to be thorough and complete this work, but to do so in an efficient manner that does not take away from the other important work you do in your teams. As with all teams, we know time is always a factor.
One Final Thought
We authors hope to spark a movement in all districts, schools, and individual classrooms throughout North America, in which conversations about engagement, extension, building on learner strengths, and pursuing all learners’ interests are standard. When engaging in this work, it will be important to have a common vocabulary with your collaborative team members as you move forward in your own learning. From time to time, you may need to pause and review the foundation for this work. As you reflect on what you know about PLCs and collaborative teams and learn more about personalized learning and strategies for teaching question 4 students in the upcoming chapters, we offer a quick cheat sheet for remembering key concepts connected in this book. Everything in this book centers around the following.
■ One goal:
1. Extending learning for question 4 students to maximize their achievement and engagement
■ Two key philosophies:
1. Professional learning communities
2. Personalized learning
■ The three big ideas of a PLC:
1. A focus on learning
2. A collaborative culture and collective responsibility
3. A results orientation
■ The four critical questions of a PLC:
1. What do we want all students to know and be able to do?
2. How will we know if they learn it?
3. How will we respond when some students do not learn?
4. How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient?
■ The five elements of personalized learning:
1. Knowing your learners
2. Allowing voice and choice
3. Implementing flexibility
4. Using data
5. Integrating technology
■ The five instructional strategies for question 4 students:
1. Curriculum compacting
2. Flexible grouping
3. Product choice
4. Tiered assignments
5. Multilevel learning stations
Being clear on these items will keep you grounded while you work toward addressing critical question 4 of a PLC through personalized learning.
Collaborative Team Discussion: PLC Critical Questions
Without exceeding 100 percent for the four critical questions, what percentage of your team’s time do you spend in each of the following areas (DuFour et al., 2016)?
1. What do we want all students to know and be able to do?
2. How will we know if they learn it?
3. How will we respond when some students do not learn?
4. How will we extend the learning for students who are already proficient? What was your highest number?
What was your lowest number?
What surprised you?
What percentage did you place for question 4?
When They Already Know It © 2018 Solution Tree Press • SolutionTree.com
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