TITLE

A decade or two journey

Review of Qatar Education Challenge: PISA and TIMSS

• Qatar scores in bottom tenth of PISA and TIMSS countries and jurisdictions. Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi generally score higher. (see next slide -- they only took TIMSS)

• Among Qatar students those whose father was born in Qatar score well below students whose father was not born in Qatar.

• Female students scored clearly higher than similar male students.

• Male students with father born in Qatar score very, very low.

TIMSS 2011: Mean = 500: SD = 100: 400 = 16th individual percentile

Math 4th Science 4th Math 8th Science 8th

Qatar 412 394 410 419

Emirates 434 428 456 465

Saudi Arabia 410 429 394 436

Dubai 468 461 478 485

Abu Dhabi 417 411 449 461

Overall Plan

• Establish clear student and system improvement goals.

• Every goal should have three parts -- a clear statement, measurable indicators to track progress, and an implementation plan.

• The following two pages have examples of student and system goals.

• These are followed by one slide for each student and system goal briefly describing what needs to be done to accomplish it and a metric to assess it.

1. Examples of Student Goals• 1. Productive national citizen: understand Q and world history,

protect environment, practice tolerance and civil commitment, participate in national improvement.

• 1.5 Productive international citizen: (same goals)• 2. All students enter kindergarten ready to learn.• 3. All students graduate from secondary school. • 4. By 9th grade all students accomplished in Arabic and in English.

Meet international standards for hs graduation.• 5. Ditto by 12th grade for Math, Science, national and world history – • 6. Be prepared to enter and succeed in college or workforce. • 7. TIMSS and PISA overall scores gain 75 points (3/4s of a standard

deviation) by 2023. Qatar boys increase by 100 points.

2. Examples of Education system goals

• 1. Create opportunity for all to attend very high quality preschool for two years.

• 2. K-12 System adopts/adapts high quality standards, aligns curricula, professional development, and formative and summative assessments with the standards.

• 3. Teacher training and hiring upgraded and focused on instruction aligned with the curricula.

• 4. Schools are physically, emotionally and socially safe for students and teachers. Social capital high.

• 5. Schools and the system improve systematically and regularly over time on goals for students.

• 6. Any new project or innovation must support the current reforms, be aligned with teaching etc. It must add value to the current efforts. No magic bullets!!!

Brief descriptions and metrics for student goals (see slide 5)

• In this section there is a brief description of what needs to be done in design and implementation efforts for each of the student goals.

• Metrics are also included.

1.1 and 1.1.5 Ways to promote Productive citizen of nation and world

• Create early understanding of nation and world – in K-6 as well as later. Emphasize lessons through stories, activities, celebrations.

• Follow through more in middle and high school. Watch Al Jazeera as an homework assignment – report and analyze world events

• Students offered summer activities and later work that helps the country.

• Students given the opportunity to spend a semester in another country while in secondary school.

• Metric: Completion of a quality project and analytic paper focused on national or international citizenship.

1.2 All students given opportunity to be ready to learn

• Evidence of need for preschool and other educational interventions is powerful especially for students who do not get supported academically at home.

• All students should have a 2 year preschool experience -- strong focus on language and self regulation and tolerance for others. Amazing data on long – term effects of preschool in US and other nations.

• Students have well trained preschool staff and teachers. • Program for parents – how to support children’s intellectual

development in early years. • Metrics: percentages of children in 1 and 2 years of preschool.

Achievement on readiness assessment given in kindergarten.

1.3 All students graduate• A simple function for student learning is L=C,T,M -- Learning is a

function of the curriculum/content, the quality of teachers and teaching, and student motivation!!.

• Other slides focus on C and T. Getting students to graduate (if expect to require academic competence) is greatly influenced by motivation.

• Strategies that are designed to promote grit, the use of coaches as mentors, careful monitoring of student progress with interventions when student is slipping, are very important. See Carol Dweck work on Mind Set.

• Develop alternative pathways in some high schools – technology, medical fields, marketing, international business etc. – teach core academic subjects using examples from these areas.

• Metrics: Graduation rates.

1.4 Students competent in Arabic and English

• Strong language training in Arabic in preschool and early grades. Language of instruction. Oral expression, writing, reading fiction and non-fiction, strong working oral vocabulary leading to strong comprehension.

• Use best evidence on phasing in English starting with 2nd, 3rd grade. Emphasize comprehension.

• Give students experience with English speakers – perhaps as part of international trip or attendance of some of the many meetings held by QF in Qatar.

• Integrate use of technology as the tools improve over the next five to ten years. These could be very powerful. See work at MIT offshoot on teaching English to Chinese students.

• Metrics: Oral production and reading diagnostic assessments along the path of school.

1.5 Students competent in Math, Science, History and Literature

• Challenging courses, strong support for students who have problems, smart use of technology to help explain and motivate students all important.

• Make materials relevant – use cultural examples, business related to Qatar examples, read and write about fiction and non-fiction.

• Use balance of didactic and constructivist teaching: use problem based learning; group work: cross-age tutoring; relevant examples and regular papers to write.

• Metrics: Students and teachers tracked using common formative assessments for selecting teachers and students that would need support.

1.6 Student prepared to enter college, workforce

• Student passes a graduation test that sets her on a path to university or a job or a 13th year to prepare for university. Graduate should achieve a level of 475 – 525 or more on PISA -- this is long run goal and should be phased in.

• Alternative pathways should be provided as a choice for student at age 14 or 15.

• Possibility of a service year before college when student graduates – powerful mechanism.

• Metrics: graduation test, PISA, TIMSS, how many in public service.

1.7 Improvement on PISA and TIMSS

• Practice using PISA and TIMSS items. Practice in 3rd and 4th grades and in 7th and 8th grades for TIMSS. Not to exceed a total of 20 hours of practice spread over the entire school year. The format, structure, complexity, and solution strategies should be covered.

• Ditto on PISA for 9th and 10th grade students. • The overall reform ought to be enough but the

students should be comfortable with the nature of the assessments. This should help PISA and TIMSS scores by 10-20 points.

Brief descriptions and metrics for system goals (see slide 6)

• This section very briefly describes the steps that need to be taken to implement the system goals.

• Example metrics are also suggested.

2.1 System reform: Opportunity for quality 2 year preschool

• Phase this in over 4 years. At the end of four years every 3 and 4 year old have a place in a high quality preschool.

• Need to create a quality training program for people to work in the preschools. Intensively train people who now run preschools – train new ones – through university? Local NGO?

• Emphasize quality, safe environment, lots of interesting games, music, fun, language (oral in Arabic), being read to from increasingly complex texts, students given cooperative activities. Rewarded for working hard very important -- rewarded for self control, self regulation – also very important.

• Metrics: Percentage of preschool students, quantity and capability of preschool teachers, etc.

2.2 System reform: Standards based reform

• Adopt/adapt high quality standards -- if existing ones are high quality then review to make sure that they connect together over school years, are evidenced based, use challenging instructional strategies etc.

• Adopt/adapt two general curricula and supporting materials that are aligned with the standards – perhaps one traditional and one more constructivist. Schools can choose among the two approaches.

• ALL teacher training and professional development in instruction and curricular areas aligned with standards.

• Develop formative assessments aligned with standards to help guide and support instruction – develop diagnostic assessments to help guide and support instruction.

• Develop end of year assessments for 3rd, 6th and 9th grades. • Metrics: At end of three years and six years bring in team to assess quality

and implementation. Every year there should be a 20 page report on progress to the SEC.

2.3 System Reform: Human Capital Development

• Develop a clear human capital plan by 4/2014 including a strategy for getting and training and retaining high quality teachers and informed and capable principals.

• Have a very high quality pre-service program in QU; clear and objective criteria and aggressive efforts for hiring high quality teachers from the outside: high quality coaches for first two years of teaching or being a principal: yearly video taping and reviewing of every teachers quality: reward establishment of professional teacher networks; create a fair parity in pay for in country and out of country teachers.

• Use formative assessment to help keep teachers aware of the progress of their students.

• All professional development aligned with curriculum. • Establish metrics for each of the steps in bullet 2.

2.4 Safe schools for students: productive schools for teachers

• Students should want to come to school -- feel psychologically and physically safe. This requires thoughtful attention to students behavior toward other students and to teachers, teachers understanding about how to treat students other teachers.

• Social capital – positive and strong relationships among professionals is very important -- teams, personal support, etc are critical.

• Teacher attendance, student attendance, etc are good metrics.

2.5 Continuous improvement in system and school

• VERY, Very important: The key to improvement is to do it continuously and thoughtfully -- all effective jurisdictions have embodied continuous improvement principles (Finland, Asian countries, effective districts in US and Canada etc. [a better example for Qatar])

• Plan, enact, measure, revise, enact, measure, revise… Feedback loops are critical. Listen to students, teachers, principles -- the need for improvement should be recognized and supported from the bottom.

• Metrics: achievement, graduation, teacher support, school culture.

2.6 System: No more magic bullets

• Settle on standards, curriculum, professional development strategies, assessments. Improve them systematically and thoughtfully. Make them better through listening.

• Incorporate new tools (technology) ONLY when it provides clear added value to the student learning and then make sure it works in your system!!

• NO magic bullets -- get rid of most programs that are on the periphery.