Working On the Work

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• Working On the Work

Make It Happen!!
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• Using the WOW Framework to Become a WOW School

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Schools cannot be made great by great teacher
performance. They will only be made great by
great student performance
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Pressure to Improve Student Performance

• Work on Students
• Work on Teachers
• Work on the Work

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The Basic Theme

• Working on the Work The WOW Framework
• The key to school success is to be found in
  identifying or creating engaging schoolwork for
  students

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Schoolwork

• Tasks, activities, and experiences that teachers
  design for students and those that teachers
  encourage students to design for themselves,
  which the teacher assumes will result in
  students learning what it is intended that they
  learn.
• A form of work intended to produce learning.

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Basic Assumptions

• One of the primary tasks of teachers is to
  provide work for students work that students
  engage in and from which students learn that
  which it is intended that they learn.
• A second task of teachers is to lead students to
  do well and successfully the work they undertake.
• Therefore, teachers are leaders and inventors,
  and students are volunteers.
• What students have to volunteer is their
  attention and commitment

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Basic Assumptions

• Differences in commitment and attention produce
  differences in student engagement.
• Differences in the level and type of engagement
  affect directly the effort that students expend
  on school-related tasks.
• Effort affects learning outcomes at least as much
  as does intellectual ability.

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Basic Assumptions

• The level and type of engagement will vary
  depending on the qualities teachers build into
  the work they provide students.
• Therefore, teachers can directly affect student
  learning through the invention of work that has
  those qualities that are most engaging to
  students.

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Great teachers are great leaders.
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The primary function of a leader is to inspire
others to do things they might otherwise not do.
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Competence
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Competent at What?

• The teacher needs to be skilled in providing
  students with schoolwork that will engage them
  and encourage them to direct their efforts in
  productive ways.

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Commitment
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Committed to What?

• The teacher needs to be committed to ensuring
  that the work he or she provides students results
  in their working with the knowledge they are
  expected to acquire in order to be entitled to be
  called well educated. The teacher also needs to
  be committed to providing students with
  instruction and practice in the skills that will
  be continuing value to them as they mature.

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Engaging
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How is it Defined?

• Pleasantness, winning ways, charm, charisma
• To draw into, entangle, attract, hold
• Are you an engaging person or are you able to
  engage your students?

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Heroic teachers do exist, but they cannot be the
stuff of which great schools are made.
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What we need is teachers who know how to create,
as a matter of routine practice, schoolwork that
engages students.
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What we are going to talk about today

• 5 Levels of Engagement
• 12 Standards of the WOW School
• How does this apply to my classroom?
• What does this do for me that I cant already do?
• How do we get started?

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Student Engagement

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Student Engagement

• What does it mean to engage someone?

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Objectives for Session

• To be able to define student engagement and have
  a personal understanding of what engagement is
• To understand the importance of student
  engagement
• To understand the two things that educators use
  to get engagement
• To know be able to identify the five levels of
  student engagement
• To be able to identify the 3 types of classrooms
  based on the difference levels of engagement

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To Engage

• To involve
• To entangle
• To attract
• To come in contact with
• To bind to
• To fix attention on

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To Engage

• To require the use of (as to engage someones
  strength or mind)
• To hold attention
• To engross
• To induce to participate
• To draw out
• To begin and carry on an enterprise

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Definitions of Engaged

• Occupied
• Employed
• Greatly interested
• Earnest
• Involved

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Definitions of Engagement

• Involvement
• Attachment
• Something that is engrossing
• A rendezvous
• A tryst
• An assignation
• An appointment

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What is Student Engagement?

• Students are attentivenot just in attendance
• Students stick with the tasks they have been
  assigned or encouraged to undertakethey are
  persistent. They stick with the task until it is
  completed and completed well.
• Students are committed to the task, activity, or
  assignment.

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What is Student Engagement?

• Students invest energy beyond that needed to
  simply get by.
• Students find some inherent value in what he or
  she is being asked to do.
• Student perform the task because they perceive
  the task to be associated with a near-term end
  that they value.
• Students do the task with enthusiasm and
  diligence.

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What is Student Engagement?

• Engagement is an active process.
• Our goal a educators should be to get as many
  students as possible authentically engaged.
• Student engagement should be a central concern of
  educators.

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Why do we want Student Engagement?

• Read the following statement and be able to tell
  why you agree with it or why you disagree with
  it.

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Why do we want Student Engagement?

• Schools are in the business of ensuring that
  students learn what it is intended that they
  learnthe content, the curriculum. If students
  become engaged in the right stuff, they are
  likely to learn what we want them to learn.
  Engagement precedes learning therefore, we need
  to ensure that students are engaged, and we need
  to develop skills as educators to assess
  engagement.

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How do educators get Student Engagement?

• FIRST
• Educators need to be able to assess IF their
  students are engaged.
• Educators need to be able to assess HOW ACTIVELY
  their students are engaged.
• SECOND (The topic of another session)
• Educators need to invent experiences, tasks,
  activities, assignments that students find
  engaging and that bring them into profound
  interactions(engagement) with content and
  processes.

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Five Levels of Student Engagement

• To see if students are engaged, we need to be
  able to identify the five levels of engagement
• Engagement
• Strategic Compliance
• Ritual Compliance
• Retreatism
• Rebellion

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Engagement

• The task, activity, or work the student is
  assigned or encouraged to undertake is associated
  with a result or outcome that has clear meaning
  and a relatively immediate value to the student.
  These students are committed to work, they
  persist in the work until it is completed well.
  They see value in the work and dont stop when
  difficulties arrives. They experience a sense of
  satisfaction, accomplishment, pride, and even
  delight in their work.

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Strategic Compliance

• The immediate end of the assigned work has little
  or no inherent meaning or direct value to the
  student, but the student associates it with
  extrinsic outcomes and results that are of value
  to him/her. They do what is required because
  they are compliant to authority. They meet
  expectations for work more from obedience than
  from commitment.

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Ritual Compliance

• The student is willing to expend whatever effort
  is needed to avoid negative consequences,
  although he or she sees little meaning in the
  tasks assigned or the consequences of doing those
  tasks. The students do the minimum to get by.
  They are more concerned with just having their
  work accepted than respected. They just want to
  get by.

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Retreatism

• The student is disengaged from the tasks, expends
  no energy in attempting to comply with the
  demands of the tasks, but does not act in ways
  that disrupt others and does not try to
  substitute other activities for the assigned
  task. There are various reasons for the
  retreatuncertain of what is being asked, lack
  the skills to do the task, etc.

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Rebellion

• The student summarily refuses to do the task
  assigned, acts in ways that disrupts others, or
  attempts to substitute tasks and activities to
  which he or she is committed in lieu of those
  assigned or supported by the school or teacher.
  Key words refusal, rebellion, disruption.

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3 Types of Classrooms

• WOW identifies 3 types of classrooms based on the
  level of engagement by students
• The Highly Engaged Classroom
• The Well-Managed Classroom
• The Pathological Classroom

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3 Types of Classrooms

• The Highly Engaged Classroom
• Most students are engaged most of the time.
• All students are engaged some of the time
• Considerable strategic compliance
• Limited retreatism and ritual compliance.
• Little or no rebellion

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3 Types of Classrooms

• The Well Managed Classroom
• Less engagement than highly engaged class
• May appear engaged because students are compliant
• Strategic compliance is the dominant mode of
  engagement
• Has more ritual compliance and retreatism than
  highly engaged class
• Little or no rebellion

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3 Types of Classrooms

• The Pathological Classroom
• May look like the well-managed classroom except
  for the presence of patterned rebellion
• Many students actively reject work
• Many students substitute other activities
• Very little engagement
• Considerable strategic compliance
• High incidence of ritual compliance and
  retreatism

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The WOW SchoolStandards
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• Beliefs shape visions, and visions drive
  missions.
• Beliefs are statements on which one is willing to
  act.
• Visions are not accomplished they are realized.

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From Vision to Reality

• Beliefs serve as the basis for visions
• Visions shape missions and strategic goals.
• Missions set strategic goals
• Strategic goals indicate needed actions.
• Action goals define tasks and specify activity

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Identifying Missions

• Strategies coming together in a set of goals, are
  commonly referred to as a mission.
• Strategic goals are therefore missions that have
  been unbundled.
• Beliefs serve as the basis for visions, visions
  shape missions, missions set strategic goals, and
  strategic goals indicate needed actions.

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The WOW SchoolAVision
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WOW Standards

• Standard 1 Patterns of Engagement
• Standard 2 Student Achievement
• Standard 3 Content and Substance
• Standard 4 Organization of Knowledge
• Standard 5 Product Focus
• Standard 6 Clear and Compelling Product

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WOW Standards

• Standard 7 A Safe Environment
• Standard 8 Affirmation of Performances
• Standard 9 Affiliation
• Standard 10 Novelty and Variety
• Standard 11 Choice
• Standard 12 Authenticity

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Disciplined conversations will help move a school
from words to action.
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Sometimes the obvious answer is not the most
accurate answer.
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Disciplined conversations are needed if
reflective discussions are to increase and
meaningless babble and happy talk are to
decrease.
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IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHERS
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• By exercising control over curriculum content and
  ensuring that the schoolwork provided is
  engaging, the teacher increases the probability
  that each child will learn what he or she needs
  to learn.

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TEACHERS ARE

• Leaders--and like other leaders, they are known
  more for what they can get others to do, rather
  than what they do themselves.
• Inventors--they are called upon to create
  schoolwork that will produce authentic engagement.

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• THE WOW FRAMEWORK
• We assume that the level and types of student
  learning are directly influenced by the effort
  students expend (level of student engagement) on
  tasks that call on them to learn what they are
  expected to learn and to practice the skills they
  are expected to master.

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• The effort students are willing to expend on
  tasks is determined by the level and type of
  engagement the tasks generate. This comes from
  the way the work is designed.

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• The task for the teacher, therefore becomes to
  design work that is responsive to students needs
  and motives, which results in the students
  learning what is intended for them to learn.

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• Excuses
• When thinking of why students cannot or do not do
  assigned tasks, we come up with reasons.
• Too many poor students
• Too many unsupportive parents
• Language barriers
• Economic Status
• While all of these excuses have some validity,
  we still have no control over them.

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What Teachers Cannot Control

• Resources available
• School calendar
• Level of parental involvement
• Socioeconomic Status of Students
• Primary Language
• Learning Readiness

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What Teachers Can Control

• The content of the curriculum that they deliver
  to students
• The qualities and characteristics of tasks
  assigned to students

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Knowing and Teaching the Right Stuff

• Presentation manner of material
• Knowledge and technical ability
• TEKS and TAKS knowledge
• Curriculum maps
• Grade level knowledge and skills

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Focus on Engagement

• Engagement should be our main concern. We should
  spend less time teaching to the test, and more
  time teaching test taking skills. Teaching test
  taking skills emphasizes that what you can show
  is more important than what you know. Where
  schools have problems is when test scores and
  grades become more important than what is
  learned.

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Focus on Engagement

• Teachers need to focus their engagement in the
  classroom. They need to be just as clear about
  what they expect in terms of engagement as they
  need to be with regard to expectations for what
  students will learn. Engagement proceeds
  learning. Assessing engagement is a way of
  preventing deficiencies in learning. Real
  improvements in learning can only occur as
  engagement increases.

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To Ensure Proper Focus Teachers should.

• Estimate level and types of engagement compare
  on a daily basis.
• Conduct student questionnaire\interviews
• Invite principal and colleagues to assess types
  of engagement
• Relate patterns of engagement observed to the
  quality of student work

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Work on the Work

• To insure student engagement teachers must create
  quality learning experiences that are of interest
  to and responsive to student needs.

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Work on the Work

• To increase engagement the teacher must evaluate
  the motivational processes of students. These
  attributes have been derived from research and
  observations regarding the needs students bring
  to classrooms and the values held that come into
  play as they decide whether and how they will
  become engaged.

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These Attributes Are.

• Product focus
• Affiliation
• Clear product standards
• Choice
• Protection from adverse consequences for initial
  failures
• Novelty and variety
• Affirmation
• Authenticity

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1 Product Focus

• One of the more certain ways to increase student
  engagement and persistence with academic work is
  to link this work with some problem, issue,
  product, performance, or exhibition that students
  find compelling.

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2 Affiliation

• Work that is designed to permit, encourage, and
  support opportunities for students to affiliate
  with others is likely to encourage some students
  to engage the work that otherwise they might not
  find engaging.

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3 Clear Product Standards

• Students are more likely to engage and persist
  with work when the standards for the products are
  clear and compelling. Children and young adults
  prefer to operate in a world where they know what
  is expected and where what is expected is
  something they care about or can be brought to
  care about.

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4 Choice

• Choice implies some degree of control over
  events. Individuals who have choice are
  empowered. Empowerment increases the likelihood
  of commitmentengagement.

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5 Protection from Adverse Consequences for
Initial Failure

• The level of engagement of studentsespecially
  students who work more slowly than the
  majorityis clearly affected by the extent to
  which students have opportunities to engage in
  tasks at which they are not proficient without
  fear of embarrassment, punishment, or an
  implication of personal inadequacy.

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6 Novelty and Variety

• Novelty adds freshness and new life to the tired
  and repetitious novelty improves performance
  because it insists that one continue to learn to
  master the new situation. Giving student novel
  things to do and novel ways of doing them is
  simply one more way of increasing the likelihood
  that they will engage the work provided.

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7 Affirmation

• Designing schoolwork in ways that encourage
  significant others such as parents, peers, and
  younger or older students to communicate that
  they too consider the work that students are
  being asked to do and the products associated
  with the work to be important often increases
  student engagement.

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8 Authenticity

• Authenticity refers to a sense of realness about
  experiences. When experiences have a sense of
  realness about themfor example, if they carry
  real consequences, such as getting a one at
  band contest doesthen student engagement is
  likely to increase.

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Points to Ponder

• All of these attributes are not required in every
  lesson, but are a list of possibilities a teacher
  might want to consider when designing lessons.
• Engagement occurs only when the work is designed
  in a way that it appeals to values and needs that
  are real to the students.

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Teachers Thinking as Leaders

• Instead of asking yourself What am I going to
  do? ask yourself What is it that I am trying
  to get others to do? Engagement only occurs when
  tasks assigned respond in some way to the motives
  and values the students bring into the classroom.
  Effective leaders earn attention instead of
  demanding attendance. Teachers that understand
  this are effective leaders.

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Does Effective Change Occur Top Down or Bottom
Up?

• It must occur at the very exact same time. It
  starts with us thinking out our assignments
  better to suit needs of students, while at the
  same time visiting with parents about their
  children. Not telling them about them, asking
  them about them.

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What does this do for me?

• Using the WOW Framework

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The WOW Framework

• Insight and increased control over the work
  designed for students.
• A structure to discipline the design and analysis
  of the work.
• A common language that promotes disciplined
  discussions among teachers and between teachers
  and principals.
• In many ways, it is little more than common sense.

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Resistance

• Academic learning is an elite enterprise.
• Designing schoolwork that is engaging to most
  students most of the time probably cannot be done
  without more time for collegial interaction
• Many see the choice being between improving
  instruction or improving test scores.

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What is society asking for?

• Today, there is a demand for men and women who
  can think, reason, and use their minds well.
• We must provide an elite education for nearly
  every child.

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Can we
Make it Happen?