The Railside Revolution: Giving all students the opportunity to show they are smart

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The Railside Revolution Giving all students
the opportunity to show they are smart

• August 5, 2008
• Ruth Tsu
• rtsu6_at_yahoo.com

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Agenda

• Historical perspective on Railside
• Principles of Complex Instruction
• Idea of smartness
• Issues of status during groupwork
• Strategies ?equitable interaction

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Railside High School 1985-86

• 1270 students in grades 8 12, by ethnicity
• 56.7 White
• 20.2 Latino/Latina
• 10 Asian
• 5.5 African-American
• 4.8 Filipino
• 2 American Indian
• 0.7 Pacific Islander

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Railside High School 2005-06

• 1636 students in grades 9 - 12, by ethnicity
• 13.6 White
• 42.7 Latino/Latina
• 25.8 African-American
• 7.9 Asian
• 7.2 Filipino
• 0.6 American Indian
• 2.1 Pacific Islander

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Mathematics courses offered in 1985-86

• 8th grade 8A, 8B, 8C (placement by test
  recommendation of 7th grade teacher)
• Grades 9-12 offerings
• Arithmetic Pre-Algebra
• Math 1-2 Algebra I
• Math 3-4 Geometry
• General Math Algebra II
• Math Analysis

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Mathematics courses offered in 2005-06

• Algebra I
• Sheltered Algebra I
• Geometry and Art
• Geometry
• Algebra II
• Pre-calculus
• A. P. Calculus

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Departmental collaboration

• We had a problem to which none of us had the
  solution, but we were willing to take it on.
• Belief that together we would solve our problem
  with support of the principal and resources from
  outside, as needed and as available.

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Commitment of dept members

• Everyone who was teaching mathematics agreed to
  attend monthly meetings of the department, to
  share knowledge of resources, and to participate.
• Everyone agreed to attend one professional
  learning opportunity each year and to share
  learning with the rest of us.
• We all agreed to implement what we learned and to
  talk about how it went.

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Requests to principal

• The mathematics department wanted to have a say
  in the hiring of new teachers of mathematics.
• Asked that mathematics classes would be taught by
  those qualified or willing to work with the
  department to learn.

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Outside resources

• 86-87 five workshops each on a strand of
  the CA 1985 framework, all involved a
  problem-solving approach and making sense
• 88-89 introduction to Complex Instruction
  through Ruth Cosseys piloting of a unit
• 89-90 Dan Brutlag piloted one of his
  Investigations units in a Math 8 class

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As we learned, our questions evolved

• What if a part of the problem is what and how
  we are teaching and the courses we offer our
  students?
• What might we do differently?

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Our first BIG decision

• To detrack our 8th grade math classes, beginning
  in 1988-89, for three years
• Learning of teachers that year
• - we needed support from each other
• - surprised by what students could do
• - we had so much to learn!

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Cohens definition of groupwork

• Students work together in a group small enough so
  that everyone can participate on a task that has
  been clearly assigned.
• Students are expected to carry out their task
  without direct and immediate supervision of the
  teacher.

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Complex Instruction

• is an approach designed to counter differences in
  social and academic status in mixed-ability
  classrooms.
• has its roots in a sociological analysis of
  central features of classrooms - the nature of
  the task, the roles of students and teachers, and
  the patterns of interaction.
• (Cohen Lotan, 1997)

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Principles of Complex Instruction
Curricular Materials
Instructional Strategies
Status Accountability
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As we talked and worked together, our talk
changed

• focus more on how our students were smart rather
  than on their deficits
• became curious about what led to more student
  interaction
• invited each other into our classrooms
• to look together and talk about what we saw
• . . . . yet!

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The idea of smartness

• Change our focus from
• Who is smart? to
• How is each person smart?
• Every student in your class is an expert in some
  valued intellectual skill. Try and find out what
  these are.
• - Elizabeth Cohen

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Students perceptions

• To a great extent, students develop expectations
  for competence (i.e., their perceptions of
  smarts) for themselves and for others based on
  the teachers public evaluations of classroom
  performance.
• - Rachel Lotan in Teaching Teachers to Build
  Equitable Classrooms

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Being smart

• Many ways to be smart are valued by the teacher
  and the students.
• Students frequently and successfully demonstrate
  their smarts and are recognized publicly for
  their competence and accomplishments.

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Need to examine beliefs about

• smartness
• learning of mathematics
• teaching of mathematics

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Providing opportunities for students to
demonstrate their smartness working in groups

• Must establish a productive and safe learning
  environment where students learn they can trust
  each other as they engage in conceptually
  challenging and intellectually rich learning tasks

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• Must teach students the skills to interact
  respectfully and productively
• Must give them rich enough tasks around which to
  engage, to struggle, to learn
• Must intervene in ways that support their
  interaction and engagement, but also push on
  their understanding of key concepts
• Must be vigilant about issues of status

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The issue of trust

• Between teachers
• Between teachers and students
• Between students
• Between teachers and administrators

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Teaching assignments

• Each teacher would have two preps one
  foundation class, one higher level class
• New teachers would learn to teach the foundation
  class through a system of following

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Recognizing issues of status

• A status issue is seen as non-participation or
  dominance growing from agreed-upon rankings
  within a group with relation to
• perceived academic ability and/or
• attractiveness as a friend/popularity

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Teacher actions to support equitable interaction
in groups

• delegate authority through the use of norms and
  roles
• provide learning tasks that require many
  different intellectual abilities for their
  completion and that promote interaction
• present a multiple-ability orientation to alert
  students to abilities needed

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Students as resources

• Students make the groups work by serving as
  intellectual, academic, and linguistic resources
  for one another and by holding each other
  accountable.

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Teacher interventions to support autonomy of the
group

• observe and document interaction
• intervene to
• - assess understanding of individuals
• - push on students thinking/talking
• - hold individuals groups accountable
• - identify contributions of specific
  students

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Groupwork equity pedagogy

• When teachers and students alike are able to
  recognize and value the diverse intellectual
  contributions of all students in heterogeneous
  classrooms, they show their commitment to close
  the achievement gap and to develop democratic and
  caring classrooms.
• - Lotan (2006)

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Afternoon session

• Experience engaging in a groupworthy task with a
  multiple-ability orientation and interventions
• Debrief
• Make connections with the principles of Complex
  Instruction

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Questions about smartness

• 1) what do you believe it means to be smart?
• 2) do you think others with whom you work share
  the same meaning for that word?
• 3) what do you think your students mean when they
  say someone is smart?

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For more information

• How to Recognize Complex Instruction in the
  Classroom (handout)
• Bibliography of articles and books (handout)
• Contact information (after this week)
• rtsu6_at_yahoo.com
• 503-267-4599