friday night in america: a commonsense approach to ... · friday night in america think about it!...

Friday Night in America:A Commonsense Approach

to Improving Student Achievement

Robert Eaker

In-Depth Seminar

Friday Night in America

A Commonsense Approach to Improving Student Achievement

Robert Eaker

The difficulties facing educators as they strive to ensure all students learn should never be minimized.

But approaching the task through the lens of common sense is useful.

A Familiar Analogy

We know a lot about how to teach students to perform at high levels. Educators successfully accomplish this goal more often than we might at first realize.

Let’s examine the following analogy and apply our thinking to the world of a classroom teacher.

Friday Night in America

Think about it! In the fall, every Friday night across America, virtually every high school participates in a football game.

In most communities, these football games are very, very important.

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These games are so important that the school hires a football coach (a teacher)

to effectively teach 10 consecutive units of content (one football game per week for 10 consecutive weeks).

The Coaching Staff: A Collaborative Team

The head coach cannot succeed by working alone, so he or she assembles a collaborative team of skilled professionals—the coaching staff.

Assembling a coaching staff—particularly key leaders such as offensive and defensive coordinators—is a thoughtful and deliberate process, because the stakes are so high!

This example raises interesting questions:

• Do teachers still work primarily in isolation? Why?

• How have we organized collaborative teams in ourschools?

• How do we select team leaders? How specific are wein the position description of team leaders?

• What do we expect of collaborative teams?

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Friday Night Games and Summative Assessments

Each Friday night there is a summative assessment (the game against an opponent) against a set of predetermined, public standards.

The results of these summative assessments are so important that they are made public almost immediately. The results are disaggregated and transparent (rushing yards, passing yards, individual stats).

Creating Lots of Winners and Preparing Them For Success

Successful coaches set high expectations for their players—for their teams.

They never ask, “What is the minimum our players will need to do to demonstrate proficiency?”

Their goal is to ensure that all players perform at highest levels.

Doesn’t it make sense that collaborative teams of teachers would demonstrate the same commitment to high levels of learning for all students?


Collaboratively Developing a Play Book

Simply having high expectations for players is never enough. Successful coaches work with their staffs to study and plan together.

They collaboratively develop a plan to ensure their players perform well.

Collaborative teams of teachers do the same thing—clarifying standards, planning units of instruction, developing formative assessments, and planning for additional time, support, and enrichment.

Focused Practice

Highly effective coaches, like teachers, use instructional strategies to ensure players acquire skills and knowledge (standards) to succeed on the summative assessment.

Of special significance is the use of differentiated instruction.

Good coaches know the only way their players become highly skilled is by intentional, focused, and appropriate practice.


Think about it!

How do students and adults get better at what they are trying to do?

Doesn’t it require informed, focused practice?

Informed practice means: We do not get better by practicing things incorrectly.

Hence, specific, accurate, and timely feedbackis an essential element of focused, informed practice.

Focused Practice and Summative Assessments

Because Friday night summative assessments (the games) are so important, coaches want to ensure that players can do what they will be asked to do.

Therefore, all week the players practice the very things they must do in the game.


Three Crucial Points

First, coaches don’t have their players practicing just anything.

Players practice specific skills for which they will be held accountable.

Second, coaches don’t allow players to repeatedly practice behaviors incorrectly. They stop them, show them what they are doing wrong, and demonstrate how to do it right.

Third, they provide them with specific, timely, and accurate feedback.

(Consider how informed practice—coupled with specific, timely, and accurate feedback—affects homework practices in schools.)

Practice is not enough.

Coaches (effective teachers) know that practice is not enough.

Coaching staffs (collaborative teams) do not wait until the game (the high stakes summative assessment) to discover if players have mastered essential skills to succeed.


Coaching staffs hold scrimmages (formative assessments) prior to the summative assessment on Friday night!

Analyzing Student Learning

Coaching staffs take scrimmaging so seriously, they video tape each scrimmage to collaboratively analyze the performance of each player—skill by skill, play by play.

Highly effective collaborative teams of teachers do exactly the same thing—analyzing the results of formative assessments, student by student,skill by skill.

Focused Additional Time and Support

Coaches recognize that simply identifying individual players’ unlearned skills does nothing to help players improve.

They recognize players need additional time and support that focuses on specific, unlearned skills.


Collaborative teams of teachers recognize the same thing. For students who struggle, they provide additional time and support that focuses on specific, unlearned skills.

Needed: Planned, Focused, Specific Interventions

What do coaches do after analyzing scrimmages and identifying players who need additional time and support?

They collaboratively plan the next practice so that players get additional time and support during practice.

In other words, the support is timely(prior to the summative assessment), systematic(part of a collaboratively developed plan), and directional (not invitational).

The Critical Piece: Timely Interventions

Interventions can literally save a kid’s life!

Consider:


Recognition, Celebration, and Ceremonies

Much has been written about the importance and power of celebration and ceremonies to motivate and shape culture.

Coaching staffs understand this better than any other area of schooling.

Have you ever attended an athletic awards banquet?

Compare how coaches encourage and recognize players who demonstrate improvement with how we recognize students who show improvement in their learning?

The Pep Talk: Motivating and Inspiring

Successful coaching and teaching is more than technique.

Successful leadership must ultimately touch the emotions.

Thus, successful coaches and teachers encourage, motivate, and inspire their charges.

They constantly send the message, “You can do this. Effort will ultimately pay off. You keep getting better. I won’t give up on you.”


Learning for All: Do we really mean it?

One can ask, “Why do coaching staffs intentionally align standards, informed practice, feedback, and formative assessment—while providing specific, additional time and support?”

Perhaps, it is because they really mean it when they say they want all their players to do well on the Friday night summative assessment.

They literally do whatever it takes because they perceive the stakes to be so high!

Monday Morning in Classrooms

Surely we can agree…

Students preparing to high‐stakes summative assessments—especially those focusing on state learning standards—deserve the same collaborative planning and alignment as players in Friday night football games.

So, the challenge is: Do we really mean it when we say our mission is to ensure high levels of learning for all students?

Are these efforts good enough for our own children?


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