JON SAPHIER | MARY ANN HALEY-SPECA | ROBERT GOWER

THE SKILLFUL TEACHER

The Comprehensive Resource for Improving Teaching and Learning

7TH EDITION

 

 

 

The Comprehensive Resource for Improving Teaching and Learning

THE SKILLFUL TEACHER

Research for Better Teaching, Inc. • One Acton Place, Acton, MA 01720 • 978.263.9449 • www.RBTeach.com

7TH EDITION

Jon Saphier

Mary Ann Haley-Speca

Robert Gower

 

 

Copyright © 2018 by Research for Better Teaching, Inc. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval systems, without either the prior written permission from the publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropri- ate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 646-2600, fax (855) 239-3415, or on the web at www.copyright.com.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Saphier, Jon, author. | Haley-Speca, Mary Ann, author. | Gower, Robert, author.

Title: The skillful teacher : the comprehensive resource for improving

teaching and learning / Jon Saphier, Mary Ann Haley-Speca, Robert Gower.

Description: Seventh Edition. | Acton, MA : Research for Better Teaching, Inc., [2018]

| Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017046882 | ISBN 9781886822610 (Paperback : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Teaching. | Learning.

Classification: LCC LB1025.3 .S27 2018 | DDC 371.102–dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017046882

Printed in the United States of America.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Published and distributed by: Research for Better Teaching, Inc. One Acton Place Acton, MA 01720 978-263-9449 voice 978-263-9959 fax info@RBTeach.com www.RBTeach.com

Epub Edition ISBN: 9781886822634; Kindle Edition ISBN: 9781886822641

 

 

Preface v

Acknowledgments vii

Contents Contents iii

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R iii

Contents

Preface v Acknowledgments vii About the Authors ix 1. Skillful Teaching: The Missing Element in School 1 2. The Skillful Teacher Framework 9

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION TO ESSENTIAL BELIEFS 19

3. Schooling 21 4. Cultural Proficiency and Anti-Racism 29

PART TWO: INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT 41

5. Attention 43 6. Momentum 59 7. Space 71 8. Time 81 9. Routines 105 10. Discipline 121

PART THREE: INTRODUCTION TO INSTRUCTION 193

11. Clarity 195 12. Principles of Learning 267 13. Models of Teaching 291

 

 

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E Riv

PART FOUR: INTRODUCTION TO MOTIVATION 313

14. Expectations 315 15. Personal Relationship Building 389 16. Classroom Climate 407

PART FIVE: INTRODUCTION TO CURRICULUM 441

17. Curriculum Design 443 18. Lesson Objectives 461 19. Planning 487 20. Differentiated Instruction 521 21. Assessment 549 22. Overarching Objectives 621 Reference List 633 Subject Index 653

 

 

Preface

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R v

PREFACE

Preface

We wrote this book to assist teachers in their efforts to build greater competence in teaching skills. Our values are obvious. We believe that many things—good cur-riculum, parental involvement, a clean and safe building—are important for good schools. But of all the things that are important to having good schools, nothing is as important as the teacher and what he or she knows, believes, and can do. A teacher’s skill makes a dif- ference in student performance, not only in achievement scores on tests (as important as that might be) but also in students’ sense of fulfillment in school and their feelings of well-being.

Our exploration of teaching is guided by three key concepts: (1) comprehensiveness, (2) reper- toire, and (3) matching. Comprehensiveness refers to our efforts to understand teaching as a whole. Repertoire challenges teachers to develop a variety of strategies and behaviors for deal- ing with teaching situations. Matching directs teachers to think about what behavior to pick from their expanding repertoires in light of the situation, group, or characteristics of individual students. Throughout, we revisit these three ideas again and again. As we define and describe each area of teaching, we take the reader through the range of options we have uncovered for handling it. And then, we address matching for that area.

We propose that the skills of teaching include anything a person does that influences the probability of intended learning. That definition broadens the field for application of skill be- yond classroom management and good delivery of instruction. Teaching skill includes mo- tivating students and teaching them how to translate that motivation into effective effort. It includes analyzing content for possible misconceptions. It includes error analysis and the plan- ning of reteaching for those who didn’t get it the first time around.

In the first chapter, we argue that skillful teaching is the missing element in school reform efforts, and we outline the seven complex knowledge areas we believe are required for skill- ful teaching. The Skillful Teacher addresses one of those complex knowledge areas: generic pedagogy. The second chapter describes The Skillful Teacher Framework, an intuitive structure for organizing this knowledge and capturing future new knowledge. It is a framework that provides educators with a common language and concept system for enabling this complex and critical work in classrooms across the country. The remaining chapters step through each component of The Skillful Teacher Framework. You can read this book sequentially, chapter by chapter, or go straight to a chapter on a particular component of skillful teaching you want to focus on.

 

 

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E Rvi

PREFACE

We hope, through this book, to build a common language and concept system for talking about teaching—not a dictionary of jargon, but a set of important and meaningful concepts about teaching that all educators can begin to use in common. Having language and shared vocabulary to describe what one does creates more conscious awareness of the most subtle aspects of practice, expands one’s lenses for noticing causal relationships, and illuminates opportunities to constructively and creatively adjust and modify practice to achieve our goals. Furthermore, if we can better understand each other—speaking and writing in clear, meaningful terms—then we can expect observation write- ups and evaluations of teaching to be more useful, supervision conferences to be more specific and productive, and staff development programs to be more focused.

We might also expect some of the barriers of isolation and loneliness between teachers to come down. We might expect conversation in teachers’ rooms and other meeting places to be more open, more mutually helpful, and more about instruction. With a common professional knowledge base, discuss- ing problems with each other might seem less an admission of personal inadequacy and more a mat- ter of a professional challenge to tackle with knowledge and skills.

In undergraduate teacher education courses, student teaching, and graduate seminars, this same fo- cus on skills and the development of common technical understandings should find a place. Technical understanding of teaching casts no aspersions on the importance of humanism, child development, or detailed knowledge of age- and grade-specific content, methods, and materials. Student teachers in the primary grades, for example, would do well to know about unifix cubes and how to use them to teach place value. Similarly, student teachers in high school social studies would do well to know about TCI’s “History Alive” units (www.teachtci.com) and the excellent units of the DBQ Project (www.dbqproject.com). But teacher training (and in-service training) already deals with these things. In our development as a profession, it is time to deal with teaching itself.

This 7th edition of The Skillful Teacher has been updated and revised to reflect our knowledge of successful new practices and recent research. Enhanced content for each chapter, such as videos, ad- ditional reference materials, and practice exercises, is available for registered readers on The Skillful Teacher website at www.RBTeach.com/TST7. These resources are indicated throughout the book by icons in the margins. A lightbulb highlights a “truth” about skillful teaching and a check mark sug- gests a skillful practice. Please visit the website regularly, as we will be updating the content with new material of interest to our readers.

We hope you will find this new edition of The Skillful Teacher both instructive and inspiring.

PDF

 

 

Acknowledgments

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R vii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Acknowledgments

A book that attempts to synthesize as much information as this one is obviously indebted to a host of practitioners, researchers, and thought leaders. The reference list at the end of the book reflects the range of authors who have influenced our thinking. First and foremost, we extend our gratitude to the team of Research for Better Teaching, Inc. (RBT) colleagues and consultants, some of whom have dedicated more than half of their ca- reers to studying, teaching, contributing to, and disseminating this body of work and continue with us today (Deb Reed, Alexander Platt, Marcia Booth, Ken Chapman, Ann Stern, Caroline Tripp, Jim Warnock), others who have joined RBT more recently as valued consultants (Jan Burres, Laura Cooper, Renee DeWald, Reena Freedman, Elizabeth Imende, Nancy Love, Sue McGregor, Harriet Scarborough, Ruth Sernak, Kathy Spencer, Aminata Umoja, DeNelle West), and still others who have either retired from RBT or continued to work in the field in other ca- pacities (Greg Ciardi, Maxine Minkoff, Ned Paulsen, Laura Porter, Fran Prolman, Paula Ruth- erford, Mary Sterling, Louise Thompson, and Bruce Wellman).

Over the course of more than 40 years, we and these RBT consultants have had the privilege of working with hundreds of thousands of practitioners who have opened their classrooms to us, shared their practice and their insights, bravely explored and experimented with concepts within The Skillful Teacher Framework, and openly shared their successes and their struggles. We are indebted to each of them for the ways in which they contributed to the growth of this professional knowledge base. And in this edition, in particular, we appreciate the contributions by classroom teachers Danielle Berwick, Meghan Conley, Danielle Conway, and Michael Scal- ise, who were kind enough to share with us some of their classroom routines.

In addition, Dr. Tiffany Pogue of Albany State University provided subtle and valuable sugges- tions for the new chapter on cultural proficiency. We’re very grateful to her.

We thank the many educators in Brookline, Cambridge, Carlisle, Concord, and Newton, Mas- sachusetts, whose participation in our early observational studies contributed to the original conceptual framework for this book. Specifically, Ginny Chalmers, Susan-Jo Russell, Suzanne Stuart, and Risa Whitehead opened their classrooms to us and held many important discus- sions with us about teaching. Peggy McNeill MacMullen was an invaluable part of the early brain trust that developed The Skillful Teacher Framework.

 

 

viii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R

Ann Ballantine brought to the project a rare combination of editing, book production skills, and project management. Her commitment to our mission was responsible for great work above and beyond the call of duty.

Leah Conn’s editing and additions to the exercises and videos associated with each chapter will be prized by those who use these online resources on The Skillful Teacher website.

Suzanne Peterman of Top Dog Design brought new graphics and refined formatting skills to the book design.

Ivy Schutt managed permissions and editing work with diligence and excellence.

Carole Fiorentino was a skilled detective in tracking down hard-to-find references to be sure we were accurate and up to date.

Finally, we especially want to thank our spouses and families for their continuing support and un- derstanding of the often demanding schedules of our work to advance the professionalization of teaching.

 

 

About the Authors

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R ix

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

About the Authors

Jon Saphier founded Research for Better Teaching, Inc. (RBT) in 1979, after 10 years as a teacher, instructional coach, and administrator. RBT is an educational consulting organiza- tion dedicated to improving classroom teaching and school leadership throughout the United States and internationally. He has led large-scale district improvement projects and has forged working alliances among superintendents, teacher union leaders, and school boards in school districts such as Montgomery County, Maryland; Eugene, Oregon; and Brockton, Revere, and Attleboro in Massachusetts. He is an annual guest instructor for The Harvard Graduate School of Education’s Achievement Gap Institute and is a well-known keynote speaker on high- expertise teaching, school leadership, and related education topics. Dr. Saphier is an author of eight books on education, including The Skillful Teacher, now its 7th edition. Other publica- tions include High Expectations Teaching, How to Bring Vision to School Improvement, and John Adams’ Promise. Dr. Saphier holds an Ed.D. from Boston University, M.Ed. from University of Massachusetts, M.S. from London School of Economics, and a B.A. from Amherst College.

Mary Ann Haley-Speca is a founding consultant and former director of training with Re- search for Better Teaching, Inc. (RBT). During her tenure with RBT, Ms. Haley-Speca worked with teachers and administrators in urban, suburban, and rural public school districts and private institutions throughout the world, focusing on the study of instruction, school, and organizational culture; coaching, supervision, and evaluation practices; and professional de- velopment planning. She is the co-author of two other popular RBT publications: Activators and Summarizers. She has served as a classroom teacher, staff developer, and program super- visor in the Hudson and Concord, Massachusetts, public schools. She is currently working as a full-time consultant with RBT on long-term projects in several urban and suburban school districts throughout the United States.

Robert Gower is retired as Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts–Lowell (UML) where he helped develop the doctoral program in Leadership in Schooling and was on the Advisory Board of the Graduate School of Education. He still teaches The Skillful Teacher online course at UML. Bob’s distinguished career includes being an elementary teacher, a prin- cipal, a researcher, a pioneer in the study of teaching, and a standout instructor and mentor for generations of graduate students. In 2007, he received the Faculty Excellence & Service Award and was recognized as a 2007 Honors Fellow by the University of Massachusetts.

 

 

 

1. Skillful Teaching: The Missing Element in School

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 1

SKILLFUL TEACHING | THE MISSING ELEMENT IN SCHOOL REFORM

Skillful Teaching: The Missing Element in School Reform

Since the last edition of The Skillful Teacher, published in 2008, we have witnessed many new initiatives aimed at improving what schools offer children: The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Federal Law, the U.S. Department of Education’s Race to the Top competitive program, the Gates Foundation–funded Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) project, the Common Core curriculum standards, and the passing of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) by Congress.

However, during this period and, in fact, since the 1990s progress narrowing the achievement gap has actually plateaued nationwide and deteriorated mark- edly in urban schools (Reardon, 2013). Why is this the case? Let’s look at each of these school-improvement initiatives:

p NCLB created a nationwide focus on testing with both positive and nega- tive effects. The positive effect was to focus attention on student gain scores, especially for underserved students. The negative effect was to drive teach- ing toward test-centered skill work and away from responsiveness to stu- dents’ interests and creativity, critical thinking, and deep understanding.

p Race to the Top generated intensive development of materials for teacher evaluation and employment regulations that made teacher ratings give weight to student gain scores for a large proportion of the rating. The benefits were rubrics that attempted to capture the range of categories in which teacher performance mattered. The minuses, which in our view far outnumber the pluses, were overreliance on unreliable measures of student gains, superficial and ineffective training of evaluators, reduction of rubrics to checklists, and neglect of the improvement of teaching in favor of the evaluation of teachers.

p The MET project attempted to correlate five observation protocols with measured student gain scores. The highest correlation went not to an observation protocol, but to a highly developed student questionnaire, the Tripod Survey. Student evaluations of teachers were far more accurate than observation instruments. The benefit was to validate student evaluations and highlight the factors they identify (Ferguson et al., 2015).

We hope to build a common language and concept system for talking about teaching—not a dictionary of jargon, but a set of important and meaningful concepts that all educators can begin to use in common.

Skillful Teaching The Missing Element in School Reform

CHAPTER

1

 

 

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R2

SKILLFUL TEACHING | THE MISSING ELEMENT IN SCHOOL REFORM

p The Common Core curriculum standards brought a spotlight onto critical thinking, deep understanding, and students’ capacity to articulate their thinking and support their positions with evidence. This focus has, un- fortunately, been sidetracked by erroneous assumptions that the standards are a national curriculum. Common Core standards are not a curriculum; they are competency targets to shoot for. They originated from the gover- nors of 50 states, not the U.S. Department of Education. The Council of Chief State School Officers decided to contract with experts to write them; there was no federal participation at all. These erroneous assumptions were compounded by fear that the tests derived from the standards would be harder than the current ones states use, because they require more thinking and writing. Thus state scores would go down.

p The enactment of ESSA has given us a breather from the testing mania still abroad in the land, but it has done nothing about the central issue—creat- ing the required conditions to support a highly skilled teaching profession based on sophisticated expertise and deep collaboration.

Although these programs have had some positive effects, they have not led to enough progress in raising the quality of our schools overall because none of them systematically or consistently addressed the most important variable in student achievement: skillful teaching. The valuable work of the last two decades on other aspects of school improvement has not been in vain or off target. It was necessary but insufficient. We needed standards. We needed accountability and a focus on results for students. We needed data systems to track student learn- ing at a fine grain. But these hallmark reforms of the 1990s and 2000s have still not budged student achievement significantly because we left off the third leg of the stool in school reform—standards and accountability for the expertise of our teacher corps in the complex knowledge and skill of good teaching.

THE WORK WE STILL NEED TO DO

Several days each week, we are in classrooms in one of our major cities—New York, Memphis, Washington D.C., San Diego, and others—providing coaching and support to teachers and principals. What we see sometimes exhilarates us and, at other times, breaks our hearts. The best classrooms are uplifting places that deliver skillful teaching and convey belief and hope to all their students about the promise of education and the capacity of each child to achieve at high levels. All our children could learn in such places, but they do not.

There are many outstanding professional teachers at work in our schools, including those serving our most economically disadvantaged children. They

 

 

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 3

SKILLFUL TEACHING | THE MISSING ELEMENT IN SCHOOL REFORM

had to acquire their expertise over many years and usually alone through their own initiative and perseverance. But there are simply not enough of them. The stark fact is that there are larger numbers of underprepared teach- ers. And blaming them for skills they don’t have is unfair. There is a massive gap between the knowledge and skills they bring to the classroom and the knowledge and skills they should and could have with proper training and support. The fundamentals of high-expertise teaching have not been provided to or expected of large portions of our teacher corps.

There are seven kinds of professional knowledge (Figure 1.1) that are central to high-expertise teaching (Saphier, 2017). In addition to Generic Pedagogy (the fo- cus of The Skillful Teacher) and Content-Specific Pedagogy, five other important knowledge bases bear on the success of teaching and learning. Five of them— Content Analysis, Academic Discipline, Individual Differences in Learners, Be- havior of Individuals in Effective Organizations, Effective Communications with Family and Community—are seldom found in teacher preparation programs or other systems that influence teacher capacity.

1. Knowledge of Generic Pedagogy: The Skillful Teacher tackles the vast and complex field of generic pedagogical knowledge. Without solid

Figure 1.1 Seven Knowledge Bases for High-Expertise Teaching

The Skillful Teacher provides a detailed roadmap for anyone seeking to master generic pedagogy.

S T U D E N T L E A R N I N G / S T U D E N T

AC H I E V E M E N T

Generic Pedagogy

The Skillful Teacher

Content-Specific Pedagogical Knowledge Content

Analysis

Academic Discipline

Individual Differences in

Learners

Behavior of Individuals in Effective

Organizations

Effective Communications with Family and

Community

 

 

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R4

SKILLFUL TEACHING | THE MISSING ELEMENT IN SCHOOL REFORM

skills in this area, many people entering teaching, who are experts at their content and are mature individuals transferring from successful careers in other walks of life, quickly fail. We hope The Skillful Teacher can help prevent those unnecessary failures. But it is important to keep in mind how this knowledge base fits with others that are part of a fully functioning professional teacher’s repertoire.

2. Knowledge of Content-Specific Pedagogy: There is a large set of tools for teaching that are specific to each content area. Lee Shulman (1986) described these as pedagogical content knowledge. Content-specific pedagogical knowledge includes knowing what analogies, examples, and visual representations best capture key ideas of the academic discipline; what experiments, equipment, models, and projects best develop student understanding; what prior misconceptions commonly interfere with learn- ing; what real-world, culturally relevant connections need to be made for students learning new academic content; and what texts, stories, and other materials are available that are powerful resources for teaching and learning.

3. Knowledge of Content Analysis: Another level of content-based exper- tise is knowing how to break the content into concepts and sub-concepts, skills, and sub-skills. This is quite different from knowing the content itself. It means that the teacher understands how the concepts and skills are con- nected to one another and how to bring these relationships to the attention of students. Every teacher must understand the network of concepts “that relate to the specific concept to be taught and how that network is con- nected to the content in the year-long curriculum as well as to the curricula of the previous and following years” (West & Staub, 2003, p. 19). Liping Ma (1999) gives clear examples of how this kind of knowledge empowers good lesson and unit planning.

Curriculum materials cannot be relied on to hold these connections, much less make them explicit for students. Curriculum materials are re- sources for teachers to draw on to create the best lessons for their students. Skillful teachers are wary of curricula that prescribe a script that allows only one way of teaching. Such materials are marginally appropriate for para-professionals and provisional teachers who have no pedagogical knowl- edge of their own. But they ensure that a large proportion of students will not learn because their learning style is not matched to that one way of teaching.

4. Knowledge of the Academic Discipline: Teachers must, of course, have knowledge of their academic discipline and of the standards in the discipline that their state has adopted. Most states have raised standards for teachers’ content knowledge and require a college major for secondary teachers in the

 

 

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SKILLFUL TEACHING | THE MISSING ELEMENT IN SCHOOL REFORM

field they will be teaching. This is a necessary, but insufficient, condition for developing successful teachers.

5. Knowledge of Individual Differences in Learners: Teachers must be aware of their students’ cultural, developmental, and learning charac- teristics and how to include those differences in instructional decisions. This is a vast field. Cognitive developmental differences, for example, can cause unrealistic expectations in mathematics of primary students who are still in the Piagetian concrete operations stage or who haven’t yet achieved conservation of number. Quite differently, but equally important, knowledge of a student’s culture can have a profound effect on a teacher’s ability to interpret student behavior or to make culturally relevant connec- tions between academic content and student experience.

6. Knowledge of the Behavior of Individuals in Effective Organizations: This kind of knowledge relates to effective teams, effective meetings, good communication, and problem-solving skills with other adults and the awareness of one’s role as a teacher in building a strong “Adult Professional Culture” among colleagues.

7. Knowledge of How to Communicate Effectively with Families and Community: This knowledge enables teachers to find multiple access channels to communicate to families what they most want to know—that the teacher knows their child and wants the best for him or her. Beyond that is knowledge of how to connect families and their children around homework and how to enlist hard-to-reach families in supporting the edu- cation of their children.

What steps can we each take in our own schools and districts to bring high- expertise teaching skills into the mainstream practice of all teachers? If you are a new or experienced teacher, an administrator, a coach, or a central office ad- ministrator and are concerned about the future of our children, this book is for you, because it explains the what and how of generic pedagogy, a fundamental component of high-expertise teaching. We seek to explain it in all its range and complexity. The Skillful Teacher provides a detailed roadmap for anyone seek- ing to master generic pedagogy.

THE PROFESSIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL REQUIRED

What do teachers need to know and be able to do to bring all our students to high levels of achievement? The ten jobs of teaching, listed in Table 1.1 and explained in separate chapters of this book, represent just a sample of the com-

 

 

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R6

SKILLFUL TEACHING | THE MISSING ELEMENT IN SCHOOL REFORM

Table 1.1 Ten Jobs of Teaching

1. Make sure all students have to explain their thinking frequently in class by talking, writing, or interacting, in some way, in response to the ideas or skills in each lesson.

2. Make sure you have a way of knowing (i.e., some evidence) at the end of the lesson what each of the students has learned or can do relative to the objective.

3. Make sure the students have exemplars of good work to model and that they receive detailed in- formation/feedback, frequently, about how they are doing relative to the learning targets.

4. Make sure the examples, illustrations, and materials used to make new ideas accessible to students are drawn from the best craft knowledge of the field and deepened by strategies from cognitive science like “modeling thinking aloud” and “mental imagery.”

5. Work actively to make it safe for students to make mistakes and learn from them.

6. Work actively to communicate to students your belief that they are able, that ability can be in- creased, and that effective effort, the most significant determinant of achievement, can be learned.

7. Make sure students feel known and valued, and have some ownership and choices in how the business of classroom life proceeds.

8. Make sure the rules and consequences are clearly understood by students and facilitate learn- ing. Respond promptly with the “body language of meaning business” when students are off task (Jones, 2013). Ensure that backup management structures for routines, procedures, and arrange- ments of space and time are clearly understood by the students and facilitate learning.

9. Make sure the learning objective for the lesson/unit is appropriate, clearly thought out, and that the students can say what it is with understanding. Draw on a diagnostic analysis of the gaps in students’ prior knowledge to make sure the objective of the day is the most important one for these students.

10. Make sure each night that student products or other forms of student work are analyzed to focus detailed lesson planning and reteaching for the next day. Align learning experiences logically with objectives, and plan how to stitch those learning experiences together with questions, cues, and directions that guide student cognition and stimulate higher-level thinking for all, not just some, students.

 

 

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 7

SKILLFUL TEACHING | THE MISSING ELEMENT IN SCHOOL REFORM

These are known, validated elements of successful teaching and learning in the classroom.

plex and sophisticated skill sets required for successful teaching. These are not options. They are not choices according to style. They are bottom-line essen- tials needed by every teacher. These are known, validated elements of success- ful teaching and learning in the classroom. They are also not easy to do. They require deep, sophisticated knowledge to carry out well; far more than we ac- knowledge in either our requirements to enter teaching or our support systems for teachers once they are employed. Each job can be accomplished by drawing on known repertoires of skills.

Wonderful schools in the most challenging circumstances can be found all over the country in any year, though there are far too few of them. Their examples, however, never seem to generalize to the schools around them. Typically, they don’t last more than a decade before declining. Why is this? School institu- tions with excellent practice do not have staying power because the knowledge and expertise behind those practices does not carry forward to those who suc- ceed the reformers. It is not built into the personnel systems that produce and support the teachers and leaders who succeed the inspired and dedicated people who make the initial transformations happen. To learn more about how to restructure the personnel system see John Adams’ Promise (Saphier, 2005) and “Growing Lilies in the Desert,” both available on The Skillful Teacher web- site at www.RBTeach.com/TST7.

If we are serious about the promises of democracy and freedom, then we owe every child a chance at a good life through education. It is time to unite around this missing leg of education reform and find a way to build professional knowl- edge into every stage of the teacher and leader development process. This book is designed to make clear and accessible, with detailed examples, the full range and complexity of this knowledge base for

p teachers who want to improve their own practice,

p coaches who want to help teachers solve students’ learning problems,

p administrators who want to be sure they are looking for the most important aspects of good teaching to inform their feedback,

p central office leaders who want to design systems for continuous improvement, and

p policy makers who want resources aimed at the key lever—skillful teaching.

 

 

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R8

SKILLFUL TEACHING | THE MISSING ELEMENT IN SCHOOL REFORM

CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE

Seven Kinds of Professional Knowledge Central to High-Expertise Teaching:

1. Generic Pedagogy (The Skillful Teacher)

2. Content-Specific Pedagogy

3. Content Analysis

4. Academic Discipline

5. Individual Differences in Learners

6. Behavior of Individuals in Effective Organizations

7. Effective Communications with Family and Community

Ten Jobs of Teaching (Table 1.1):

p Represent a sample of the complex and sophisticated skill sets required for successful teaching.

p They are known, validated elements of successful teaching and learning in the classroom.

p They are not easy to do.

p They require deep, sophisticated knowledge to carry out well.

 

 

2. The Skillful Teacher Framework

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 9

THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK

The Skillful Teacher Framework

Skillful Teachers are made, not born.The Skillful Teacher Framework is different from other frameworks. First, it is based on a theory of knowledge grounded in sound epistemology (Polanyi, 1966). Second, it is practical and specific. It uses numerous

classroom examples and plain language, without jargon, to spell out the de- tails of what a skill looks like and sounds like. Third, it is written to assist in classroom problem-solving and asserts that successful teaching is inherently problem-solving and decision-making from repertoires. Fourth, it supports building strong “Adult Professional Culture” based on constant learning and non-defensive examination of practice in relation to student learning. Finally, it is inclusive. Teaching skill is defined to include anything a person does that influences the probability of intended learning.

WHAT IS SKILLFUL TEACHING?

Skillful teachers are made, not born. They have learned the skills they use, and others can look at what they are doing in the classroom and say what is skillful about it. Some skillful teachers do not have the vocabulary or the concepts for describing what they already do. They just “know” what to do and do it effort- lessly and naturally—intuitively, some might say. This effortlessness is an un- conscious, automatic kind of knowing—tacit knowledge, Polanyi calls it. The limitation of this kind of knowing is that it is acquired only by a few (not given at birth, we want to repeat) and unpredictably learned over time, in many dif- ferent ways. These teachers cannot pass this “knowing” on to others because they can’t describe in detail what they do.

Being skillful in teaching is the core theme of this book. As we explain this theme, we want to be clear that we are not “walling out” from our conception of good teaching certain other important things. We value teachers who are sensitive, know how to laugh, and know how to love. Being skillful is not in competition with being a thinking, feeling person. But we are focusing in this book on the skillful part of being a good teacher. There is more to good teach- ing than skill, but there is no good teaching without it.

The Skillful Teacher Framework

CHAPTER

2

 

 

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R10

THE SKILLFUL TEACHER | FRAMEWORK

How do we define a skillful teacher?

1. Skillful teachers are aware of the complexity of their job and work to be conscious and deliberate about what they do. They don’t do what they do just because that is the way it has always been done or because that’s the cultural expectation of how it shall be done. They do what they do because they have thought about it and made choices from a repertoire of options that seem best.

2. Skillful teachers want to control and regulate their teaching to have a posi- tive effect on their students. They monitor what they do, get feedback, and try different things. Skillful teachers are determined that their students will succeed. When that isn’t happening, they examine their practices.

3. Skillful teachers are clear about what is to be learned, what achievement means, and what they are going to do to help their students attain it. If one thing doesn’t work, they make another plan that is also technically clear and well thought out.

4. Skillful teachers are learners—always a student of teaching, as Joyce, Clark, and Peck (1981) said long ago. Skillful teachers constantly reach out to their colleagues with an assertive curiosity that says, “I don’t know it all. No one does or ever will, but I am always growing, adding to my knowledge and skills and effectiveness.” To skillful teachers, that openness and reaching out is an important element of professionalism.

THE ELEMENTS OF THE FRAMEWORK

The tasks of skillful teaching can be grouped according to their function— Management, Instructional Strategies, Motivation, and Curriculum—and their associated areas of performance, as illustrated in Figure 2.1. Altogether, these areas of performance delineate teaching. Teaching is all of them.

p One of the Essential Beliefs is that all students can learn rigorous aca- demic materials at high standards. We believe that the presence of this belief is what drives a teacher to increase their repertoire of teaching skills. Other important beliefs in this foundation include the role of in- terdependence among educators in getting the job done for students, ac- knowledgment of the importance of collegial behavior for strong school culture, the belief that professional knowledge is based on repertoires and matching, and the belief in the need for constant learning. It includes

 

 

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teacher beliefs about the important positive effects that cultural proficiency and anti-racism have on learning in the classroom.

p The Management areas of performance: Attention, Momentum, Space, Time, Routines, and Discipline are the foundation of teaching. If these jobs aren’t being handled, no learning can take place. They contain the prerequisite skills for good teaching.

T E N A C I T Y C O N T I N U U M

F O U N D AT I O N O F E S S E N T I A L B E L I E F S

Attention Momentum Discipline

Clarity

Space RoutinesTime

Principles of Learning Models of Teaching

Expectations

Personal Relationship Building

Classroom Climate

Assessment Differentiated Instruction

Planning Objectives

Curriculum Design

Overarching Objectives

Management

Instructional Strategies

Motivation

Curriculum

KEY CONCEPTS

• Areas of Performance • Repertoire • Matching

Figure 2.1 The Skillful Teacher Framework

 

 

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In successful teaching, comprehensiveness, repertoire, and matching are what count.

p The Instructional Strategies areas of performance: Clarity, Models of Teach- ing, and Principles of Learning deliver the goods. These skills come to life during interactive learning time in the classroom.

p The Motivation areas of performance: Classroom Climate, Personal Rela- tionship Building, and Expectations help students generate the investment and put forth the effort that lead to successful learning.

p The Curriculum areas of performance: Curriculum Design, Objectives, Planning, Differentiated Instruction, Assessment, and Overarching Objec- tives contain skills that provide the blueprints for instruction. They stand behind and above Instructional Strategies, Motivation, and Management.

Management skills support and make possible instruction. Curriculum skills design instruction. Motivational skills empower instruction. Instructional skills deliver the goods. And all the areas of performance depend on the Foundation of Essential Beliefs.

AREAS OF PERFORMANCE, REPERTOIRES, AND MATCHING

A list of important tasks that all teachers need to accomplish regardless of the age, grade level, subject area, or courses they teach is shown in Table 2.1. We have cast the task as a challenging question to answer. Each of these questions is associated with a particular area of performance. We indicate the area of perfor- mance next to each question. Every one of these questions (and related areas of performance) is important unto itself, and there is a chapter in this book dedi- cated to each one. Collectively the questions and areas of performance address virtually all of the decisions, actions, and situations a teacher needs to handle with students in classrooms.

We answer these questions by drawing on the rich knowledge base about teach- ing. This knowledge base is not a set of prescriptions or a list of behaviors known to produce effective learning (though there are a few of these). Rather, it offers options, or repertoires, for dealing with each area. It also asserts that effective teaching lies in choosing appropriately from among the options to match given students, situations, or curricula.

Conceptualizing our knowledge base as repertoires for accomplishing tasks rather than as “effective behaviors” legitimizes professional conversations and healthy debates about choices. In contrast, the “effectiveness” paradigm implies there are singularly effective ways of performing tasks, thus discouraging dis-

Video: Repertoire and Matching

 

 

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agreement and debate—at least if we don’t want to damage friendships with peers. (If there is only one effective way of doing things and we disagree, we can’t both be right.) Thus the repertoire and matching model of professional knowledge is a foundation for strong “Adult Professional Culture” where we need each other to think through difficult matching choices.

Essential Questions Areas of Performance 1. How do I get students to pay attention and stay on task? Attention

2. How do I keep the flow of events moving smoothly and minimize downtime, delays, and distractions?

Momentum

3. How do I get the most out of my space and furniture? Space

4. How do I time events and regulate schedules so that students get the most productive learning time?

Time

5. What procedural routines are important and how do I get maximum mileage out of them?

Routines

6. How do I eliminate disruptions while building responsibility and ownership? Discipline

7. How do I make concepts and skills clear and accessible to students? Clarity

8. How do I design more efficient and effective learning experiences? Principles of Learning

9. How do I create learning experiences that develop the mind as well as the content?

Models of Teaching

10. How do I communicate to students that what we’re doing is important, that they can do it well, and that I won’t give up on them?

Expectations

11. How do I build good personal relationships with students and make them feel truly known and valued?

Personal Relationship Building

12. How do I build a climate of inclusion, risk-taking, and personal efficacy? Classroom Climate

13. What do I need to know about my curriculum? Curriculum Design

14. How should I frame objectives so they precisely guide my planning and are on-target for my students’ learning?

Lesson Objectives

15. How do I plan lessons that will reach all my students? Planning

16. What choices do I have for differentiating learning experiences? Differentiated Instruction

17. How can I use assessment to inform instruction and improve student performance?

Assessment

18. How do my personal passions show up in a “test-driven” world? Overarching Objectives

Table 2.1 The Important Questions of Teaching and Areas of Performance

 

 

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In successful teaching, comprehensiveness, repertoire, and matching are what count: comprehensive awareness of all of the areas of performance involved in running a successful classroom; repertoire so that one has options to work with and draw on when addressing a given aspect of classroom life; and matching: making decisions about which tool will be most effective to use in a given situa- tion. Ultimately, matching is the name of the game.

This is the foundation for successful differentiation. We are conceptualizing our knowledge base as a large set of repertoires to accomplish a range of purposes. Purposes that are different but interactive and that are simultaneously present in the complex human environment that all classrooms are. This position honors the design and problem-solving nature of what teaching is. A similar point is made by Mary Kennedy (2016) in her analysis of the nature of teaching.

To illustrate this, consider a simple management concern: dealing with intru- sions. A teacher is instructing a small group when a student outside of the group (Jimmy) is stuck on an item on a worksheet and approaches the teacher for help. The challenge for the teacher is maintaining the momentum of the instructional group while simultaneously addressing Jimmy’s needs. There are several options for how the teacher can handle this: (1) wave Jimmy off, (2) wave Jimmy in but signal him to be silent until there is an appropriate pause to give help, (3) redirect Jimmy to another student for help, or (4) proactively teach students what to do when the teacher is engaged in an instructional group. No one of these options is inherently better teaching. Each could be an effective and most appropriate response in a particular situation. For instance, if Jimmy doesn’t have the confidence or social skills to approach another student for help, then waving him in may be better than redirecting. But if Jimmy is overly dependent on the teacher, waving him off may be the best choice, especially if the teacher believes Jimmy can do it himself if he tries again. The teacher’s success in han- dling Jimmy will depend on whether she knows the options available for dealing with the situation and can choose the best response by matching the options to the specific situation.

There are many ways of dealing with each of the major areas of teaching identi- fied in our list of questions, and skillful teaching involves continually broad- ening one’s repertoire in each area and picking from it appropriately to match given students, groups, situations, or curricula. The knowledge base about teaching identifies choices available in each of these performance areas, avail- able for anyone to learn, refine, and do skillfully. This book presents options for each performance area, illustrates them with examples, and offers what is known about how to choose which is best for the moment.

 

 

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Figure 2.3 Patterns

T E N A C I T Y C O N T I N U U M

F O U N D AT I O N O F E S S E N T I A L B E L I E F S

Attention Momentum Discipline

Clarity

Space RoutinesTime

Principles of Learning Models

of Teaching

Expectations

Personal Relationship Building

Classroom Climate

Assessment Differentiated Instruction

Planning Objectives

Curriculum Design

Overarching Objectives

Management

Instructional Strategies

Motivation

Curriculum

ABSTRACTIONS

Figure 2.2 Moves

T E N A C I T Y C O N T I N U U M

F O U N D AT I O N O F E S S E N T I A L B E L I E F S

Attention Momentum Discipline

Clarity

Space RoutinesTime

Principles of Learning Models of Teaching

Expectations

Personal Relationship Building

Classroom Climate

Assessment Differentiated Instruction

Planning Objectives

Curriculum Design

Overarching Objectives

Management

Instructional Strategies

Motivation

Curriculum

PATTERNS

T E N A C I T Y C O N T I N U U M

F O U N D AT I O N O F E S S E N T I A L B E L I E F S

Attention Momentum Discipline

Clarity

Space RoutinesTime

Principles of Learning Models of Teaching

Expectations

Personal Relationship Building

Classroom Climate

Assessment Differentiated Instruction

Planning Objectives

Curriculum Design

Overarching Objectives

Management

Instructional Strategies

Motivation

Curriculum

MOVES

Figure 2.4 Abstractions

 

 

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MOVES, PATTERNS, AND ABSTRACTIONS

Because teaching combines these eighteen areas of performance, it is important to recognize how they are related to each other. Some of the areas of perfor- mance have specific skills associated with them. We call these skills moves be- cause they represent a brief action or a remark. Moves are quick, discrete, and observable behaviors. They can be counted if you so desire. Many teaching skills can be explained in terms of moves (Figure 2.2).

Other areas of performance involve teaching skills that are more pattern like (Figure 2.3). They can’t be performed or seen quickly. An example would be implementing a model of teaching. For instance, a teacher skilled in using Taba’s (1962) nine-step inductive model orchestrates a series of events and fol- lows certain principles for reacting to students. The performance unfolds over time according to a certain regular and recognizable pattern. Being able to per- form the pattern is the skill. It’s a cohesive, planned package that is greater than the sum of its discrete parts. Skillful teachers understand moves as stand-alone actions and patterns of moves that make sense only when viewed as purposeful packages.

Some of the important things teachers do skillfully are hard to see at all. These skills include choosing objectives, designing learning experiences, organizing curricula, and assessing student learning. These areas of knowledge and skill are abstractions (Figure 2.4). The connections between actions and decisions become clear only over longer stretches of time or in conversation with a teacher because they are driven by big-picture blueprints (overarching objectives, curriculum maps, etc.). They are practiced before school, during planning, or after school while respond- ing to students’ work. Although not directly observable, they nevertheless shape and account for what is going on in a classroom at almost all times. These areas of performance are found in Curriculum Planning.

CROSSWALKING THE SKILLFUL TEACHER FRAMEWORK

Readers wishing to know the relationship of The Skillful Teacher Framework to widely used teacher evaluation rubrics can download detailed crosswalk documents from The Skillful Teacher website (www.RBTeach.com/TST7). The following crosswalks show which chapters and pages in The Skillful Teacher de- scribe behaviorally the looks-like and sounds-like of various elements in the rubrics:

Three kinds of knowledge— moves, patterns, and abstractions— comprise skillful teaching.

 

 

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p Crosswalk aligned to Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching

p Crosswalk aligned to Kim Marshall’s Teacher Evaluation Rubrics

p Crosswalk aligned to Robert Marzano’s Teacher Evaluation Model

p Crosswalk aligned to the Massachusetts Model System for Teacher Evaluation

p Crosswalk aligned to David Rose’s Universal Design for Learning

THE DETAILS OF THE SKILLFUL TEACHER FRAMEWORK

Part One of The Skillful Teacher explores the Foundation of Essential Beliefs. Part Two addresses the Management areas of performance—those most pressing and immediate needs for many teachers. Part Three address- es Instructional Strategies. Part Four tackles Motivation. Part Five examines Curriculum—the design skills for decisions about what education is for, what shall be taught, and how to know if it has been learned. Thus the chapters move from the specific and discrete to the complex; from those parts of teaching that are moves, to patterns of moves, to decisions about design. Each chapter ad- dresses a different area of performance. We frequently start by describing why the area of performance is important and how it relates to the bigger picture of teaching and learning. Then, we define concepts and categories useful for understanding the area of performance and look at each category to lay out the repertoire of ways teachers handle pertinent situations. We do this with examples as often as possible. Next, we usually examine what is known about matching teacher choices to students, situations, or curricula.

It is not absolutely necessary to read the chapters in order, but there are certain cumulative benefits that make that desirable. Good discipline, for example, builds on a foundation of teacher skills with Attention, Momentum, Expecta- tions, and Personal Relationship Building. A teacher who is struggling with a difficult class can turn to the chapter on discipline, which has references back to specific management, instructional, and motivational areas of performance, and are the first places to check when working with very challenging students.

Even experienced teachers should check their skills against the repertoires available in each area of performance to see if there are ways to add to their range, effectiveness, and ability to match the diverse needs of students in their classrooms.

Video: All areas of performance impact learning

Crosswalk Rubrics

PDF

 

 

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CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE

How Do We Define a Skillful Teacher?

p Skillful teachers are aware of the complexity of their job and work to be conscious and deliberate about what they do.

p Skillful teachers want to control and regulate their teaching to have a positive effect on their students.

p Skillful teachers are clear about what is to be learned, what achievement means, and what they are going to do to help their students attain it.

p Skillful teachers are learners.

The Skillful Teacher Framework Encompasses These Areas of Performance:

1. A Foundation of Essential Beliefs: School, Cultural Proficiency, and Anti-Racism

2. Management: Attention, Momentum, Space, Time, Routines, and Discipline

3. Instructional Strategies: Clarity, Models of Teaching, and Principles of Learning

4. Motivation: Classroom Climate, Personal Relationship Building, and Expectations

5. Curriculum: Curriculum Design, Lesson Objectives, Planning, Differentiated Instruction, Assessment, and Overarching Objectives

 

 

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION TO ESSENTIAL BELIEFS

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Part 1 Introduction to Essential Beliefs

Essential Beliefs Introduction

The Skillful Teacher is a book about how to make the knowledge base of teach- ing more accessible. It is also about teacher learning and is a resource for it. There are certain beliefs about children, about professional learning, and about schools that bear heavily on a teacher’s willingness to learn, and what it is he or she feels impelled to seek to learn. Without these beliefs, teachers are not com- mitted to stretching themselves to acquire the expertise that none of us starts with. Beliefs drive behavior, are often unexamined, and are resistant to change. Without understanding one’s beliefs, it is impossible to understand one’s atti- tude and motivation to learn new skills and approaches to teaching.

Chapter 3: “Schooling” takes on beliefs about the nature of profes- sional teaching knowledge and describes how this view influences the way “Adult Professional Culture” develops. Also in this chapter are es- sential beliefs about the learning environments we create for students, and the impact those environments have on student learning. Finally, we discuss teacher efficacy and how important our own beliefs are about what is possible for us to accomplish, even with students who are discouraged and far behind academically.

Chapter 4: “Cultural Proficiency and Anti-Racism” separates out, for special treatment, our beliefs about the need for culturally proficient instruction in our classrooms and active anti-racism in our stance. In this chapter, we trace the similarities and important differences be- tween cultural proficiency and anti-racism.

In these two chapters, we push back against beliefs that stand in the way of teacher learning. In particular, we push against the beliefs that there is no es- tablished knowledge base on teaching, that improving schools requires noth- ing more than recruiting superior people who know their content, and that teaching knowledge consists of a prescribed set of effective behaviors. These beliefs devalue the complexity of the profession and hobble teacher learning. Unfortunately, they are widespread and articulated frequently from pulpits of high visibility.

Beliefs drive behavior, are often unexamined, and are resistant to change.

 

 

 

3. Schooling

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Essential Beliefs:

Schooling

There are certain beliefs about children, about professional learning, and about schools that bear heavily on a teacher’s willingness to learn, and what it is he or she feels impelled to seek to learn. BELIEFS ABOUT TEACHING KNOWLEDGE AND SKILL

1. Belief: Teaching is intellectually complex, difficult, and demanding work. The knowledge and skills required to teach successfully are on a par with that required for proficient practice in architecture, engineering, or law.

For those who believe that teaching is intellectually complex, difficult, and de- manding and that, like any other true profession, its knowledge is based on repertoires and matching, then the doors of professional dialogue are opened wide. The need to learn with colleagues by examining situation specific ques- tions comes to the fore, as does the need to reach out for new strategies and ways of thinking in the public knowledge base (Saphier, 2005).

Think about why it is so difficult to get teachers to share their good ideas and successful practices openly at faculty meetings and other forums. Teachers who believe in the effectiveness paradigm assume there are right ways and wrong ways of doing things—effective and ineffective (or at least less effective). Sup- pose you share a successful practice that is different from what I do. The tacit inference, based on my effectiveness belief system, is that either you are right or I am. You are either showing me up or trying to tell me how to do it right, which I’m not doing now. But if a school culture has internalized the belief in the complexity of teaching and the view of professional knowledge posed in this book, then I can hear your successful practice as an interesting alternative for my consideration, not a prescription for how to do it instead of the way I employ. Thus one belief essential to fruitful teacher learning and a strong pro- fessional community is about the nature of professional knowledge itself; it is based on repertoires and matching, not effective behaviors.

Teaching is intellectually complex, difficult, and demanding work.

Essential Beliefs Schooling

CHAPTER

3

 

 

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2. Belief: The nature of professional knowledge is defined by areas of performance, repertoires, and matching, not effective behaviors.

Skillful teaching requires informed and continuous decision-making based on an understanding of multiple and interconnected areas of performance, reper- toires, and matching versus learning a prescribed set of behaviors. Consequently, teachers are never finished learning. They must constantly enlarge their reper- toires, stretch their comfort zones, and develop their ability to match particular situations to reach more students with appropriate instruction.

Skillfulness in teaching derives from having large repertoires so that you are equipped to make choices in the major areas of performance that affect stu- dent learning. Once you have the repertoires, skillfulness means making choices thoughtfully based on reason, experience, and knowledge that are appropriate for a given student, situation, or curriculum.

This is the nature of professional knowledge and its use in any profession. In a profession, you have to have knowledge of your clients, your content, and the array of tools particular to your craft in order to act with expertise and get good results. So it is with teaching.

3. Belief: The knowledge bases of a professional teacher are many, diverse, and complex; skillful teaching requires systematic and continual study of these knowledge bases.

The seven knowledge bases, described in Chapter 1, include continuing devel- opment in knowledge about content, generic pedagogy, content-specific peda- gogy, children and their differences, behaviors of individuals in effective organi- zations, and communications with family and community. For purposes of the category system here, pedagogy includes the study of curriculum design and planning. All of these are important areas of teacher knowledge in addition to interactive teaching skill. Teachers must broaden their concept of professional development to include these domains and find ways to build repertoires in them.

4. Belief: The development of skillful teaching requires deep collabora- tion and non-defensive self-examination of practice in relation to student results.

We need each other in this profession. The complexity of the work requires high-functioning teams that design lessons and common formative assessments together, who do error analysis of student work, and who help each other with the design and implementation of reteaching. This kind of deep collaboration

Professional knowledge is based on repertoires and matching, not effective behaviors.

 

 

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requires more than structures and protocols. It requires skillful leadership and the interpersonal skills to build trust, safety, risk-taking, and determination to reach all the children. “All the children belong to us” is the mantra of such teams.

BELIEFS ABOUT THE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT WE CREATE

5. Belief: The total environment of a school has a powerful effect on students’ learning.

Teachers must participate actively with their colleagues to shape the school as a learning environment. They must learn how to play a role in strengthening the institution and see themselves as players beyond the classroom, responsible for the system of the school. For this to happen, interdependence and collegiality need to be built into the fabric of their working relationships. Interdependence requires that they function as both leaders and team players and that they sup- port a balance of autonomy and cohesion in curriculum and teaching practices.

Skillful teachers are leaders who take the initiative to influence colleagues to- ward ideas they value and move the school toward practices they believe will strengthen everyone. They are team players, collaborating with colleagues to improve the school and help individual students, and willing to give up some autonomy for actions implied by common visions and agreements.

The connection between teacher learning and this belief in interdependence and collegiality is that only teachers who have regular interaction with their colleagues through joint work can experience the benefit of their knowledge and the synergy of creating new knowledge with others.

6. Belief: Learning is constructed as learners assimilate new experience with prior knowledge.

Teachers who accept this belief must construct learning experiences where learners are active, applying knowledge, and reflecting on its meaning out loud or in writ- ing. It is their responsibility to create a balance between students’ time receiving new information and practicing skills and their time actively constructing, assimi- lating, and applying that information in real contexts. This implies that teachers learn a variety of models of teaching and take it on themselves to learn how to develop the influence strand of classroom climate described in Chapter 16. It par- ticularly moves them to learn skills for making students’ thinking visible and find ways to activate students’ knowledge in relation to new concepts (see Chapter 11, “Clarity”).

 

 

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It is a teacher’s professional responsibility to design an environment in which each child can succeed.

7. Belief: Learning varies with the degree to which a learner’s needs for inclusion, influence, competence, and confidence are met.

The psychological and cognitive milieu that teachers create has an enormous impact on what and how children learn. It is a teacher’s professional respon- sibility to design an environment in which each child can succeed. Such an environment is characterized by community, mutual support, risk-taking, and higher-level thinking for all. It is also characterized by explicit attention to stu- dents’ social and emotional learning.

Teachers cannot narrow their self-definition to being representatives of aca- demic disciplines only. They must think of themselves as teachers of students as well as teachers of a particular discipline. Influencing student motivation becomes part of their job description, as well as teaching social skills. And they become particularly interested in the skills for getting students to exert effective effort (see Chapter 14, “Expectations”).

BELIEFS ABOUT TEACHER EFFICACY

8. Belief: Children’s learning is primarily determined by their effective ef- fort and use of appropriate strategies. “Intelligence,” or the ability to learn, is not a fixed, inborn trait. All children have the raw material to learn rigor- ous academic material at high standards.

Most Americans believe that intelligence is a fixed, innate trait that is endowed at birth, is unevenly distributed, and determines how well a student can do. This belief in the bell curve of intelligence—that only a few students are smart enough to learn sophisticated academic material at high standards—has huge implications for teaching and learning.

“You can get smart” (Howard, 1990, p. 12). Teachers who have internalized this belief believe it is their responsibility to give their students

p the belief that ability can be grown,

p the confidence that it applies to them,

p the tools to accomplish it, and

p the desire to want to.

 

 

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Effective effort and good strategies are the principal determinants of academic success.

Teachers who believe that almost all of their students can achieve at a high level given the right conditions—that students can increase their ability through ap- plication, focus, and good strategies—are almost driven to rethink their role as a teacher. That new conceptualization would include being a teacher of strate- gies as well as a teacher of an academic discipline. And it would include an implied obligation for the teacher to diversify his or her teaching to match dif- ferent student learning styles. When a student isn’t learning, it would drive the teacher to ask, “How might I approach this differently or alter the conditions?” And it would certainly imply developing the commitment to—and repertoire for—conveying high-expectation messages to students.

Others (Gould, 1996) have documented the history of the bell curve’s limit- ing view of intelligence, with its sad consequences for students. We present this history in Chapter 14, “Expectations,” and we make the case that intel- ligence can indeed be developed and that effective effort and good strategies are the principal determinants of academic success (Howard, 1990; Resnick, 1995; Dweck, 2007). Our point is that a teacher’s belief about the nature of intelligence and its limits (or limitlessness) forms a powerful frame around the motivation to expand his or her teaching repertoires. Anyone serious about professional development must address this belief system to unleash the full energy of adults to expand their capacity to reach all students.

9. Belief: We can get underperforming, low confidence students to be- lieve in themselves. We really can change their attributions so that they outperform their own internalized stereotypes.

This is a belief about teacher efficacy. It means that not only do we believe that all students can learn and that effective effort is the key to academic success, we also believe we can get our students to believe it too and act from that belief. Furthermore, we believe it is our job to do so. Chapter 14, “Expectations,” de- scribes in some detail how we carry out that commitment. These how-to’s are further elaborated on in High Expectations Teaching (Saphier, 2017).

Having completed over seven decades of desegregation since Brown v Board of Education, we are experiencing the de facto resegregation of schools through socioeconomic, racial, and ethnic neighborhood stratification. We are faced with significant achievement gaps for African American, Latino, and other stu- dents of color in our society. Communicating positive expectations and dis- solving persistent negative stereotypes—perhaps, even internalized (Howard & Hammond, 1985)—is especially important. The roots of what students will do are planted firmly in their beliefs about what they can do. What are we, as

 

 

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educators, doing to help students, especially students of color, become believers in themselves as achievers? Avoiding the negative Pygmalion behaviors which we describe in the Expectations chapter will be a good start, but what’s next? A steady stream of authors and researchers are telling us that new curricula and new, tougher standards are not enough.

“First, without a doubt, the indispensable characteristic of successful teachers in low-income-area schools is a positive attitude. It is not enough for a teacher to use the right words. The critical question is, what implicit and explicit mes- sages are students getting from the teacher about their ability to learn?” (Frick, 1987, p. 20). No wonder Hattie (2009) finds that teacher efficacy has the highest effect size of all the behaviors he reviews. The more teachers can press for and attribute success to ability and effort as students go through school (rather than luck or easy work), the more success we will have with all students. “If you have a C average or below, you should spend three hours studying for this test” means, “That’s what it will take to get an A, and you can do it.” This conviction about student capacity makes it incumbent on teachers to teach students how to exert effective effort; many come to school not knowing how to do so. That adds a new dimension to the job of teaching.

Maybe, each school needs a person to shepherd that new job, a person in charge of “exceeding expectations,” someone who shakes us up and goes around pe- riodically reminding us to re-examine what we are expecting and demanding of students in the way of performance. Perhaps, that will be one effect of this chapter on you. In the end, the hope and the promise of this area of performance is that it will elicit better performance from students and give them more equal and fair school experiences.

10. Belief: Racism in our society and a dearth of cultural proficiency in our classrooms exert a downward force on the achievement of students of color that must be met with active countermeasures. To achieve our espoused goal of educating all children to a high level, we need to become culturally proficient and anti-racist.

Due to the importance of this belief in The Skillful Teacher Framework, we ex- plore it in a separate chapter, Chapter 4, “Cultural Proficiency and Anti-Racism.”

 

 

T H E S K I L L F U L T E A C H E R 27

PART ONE | ESSENTIAL BELIEFS | SCHOOLING

CHAPTER QUICK GUIDE

Essential Beliefs About Teaching Knowledge and Skill:

p Teaching is intellectually complex, difficult, and demanding work. The knowledge and skills required to teach successfully are on a par with that required for proficient practice in architec- ture, engineering, or law.

p The nature of professional knowledge is defined by “areas of performance,” “repertoire,” and “matching,” not effective behaviors.

p A professional teacher’s knowledge bases are many, diverse, and complex. Skillful teaching re- quires systematic and continual study of these knowledge bases.

p The development of skillful teaching requires deep collaboration and non-defensive self- examination of practice in relation to student results.

Essential Beliefs About the Learning Environment We Create:

p The total environment of a school has a powerful effect on students’ learning.

p Learning is constructed as learners assimilate new experience with prior knowledge.

p Learning varies with the degree to which a learner’s needs for inclusion, influence, competence, and confidence are met.

Essential Beliefs About Teacher Efficacy: