A Reader Asks... Lesson Framing in Self-Contained Classrooms

A LYS Assistant Superintendent asks the following:

SC,

The training that you provided this past summer was great and our staff has worked all semester implementing the Fundamental 5.  With that implementation, we some have questions.

  

What is the best way to manage “We will” and “I will” statements (Lesson Framing) for grade levels that are self-contained and have several content objectives?

I appreciate any guidance that you may be able to give us.

SC Response

Great question.  I would start with the reminder that the self-contained classroom is inherently unfair for both the teacher and the student.  The teacher is expected to be an expert in all four content areas, plan for all four content areas and deliver, daily, rigorous and engaging instruction in all four content areas.  Yet, Framing the Lesson is where the breakdown occurs?  The better solution is partner pairing, but we can save that concept/practice for a later discussion. 

Start with the understanding that a Lesson Frame frames the big idea or the critical understanding of the lesson.  Which means, especially in elementary classrooms, you don’t frame everything taught during the content time. You frame the most important thing.  So let's say during my Reading/ELA block that my direct teaching addresses reading comprehension, but I will also have a grammar review, centers, individual practice and some pullout groups. Most likely, I will Frame the direct teaching concept. From a practical and observation standpoint, this means that there will be less Lesson Frame / student activity alignment in an elementary classroom than in a secondary classroom. 

Now, the question becomes, "Which content areas should be framed?"  

The answer is (in the self-contained classroom), "The critical content areas." 

Depending on the class and the grade the critical content may be just reading and math. Or the critical content could expand to include reading, writing, math, science and social studies.  But to not frame the critical content is not an option.  On this I cannot be more direct. To not Frame is to not prime the brain to be receptive to the learning and to not set up the brain to retain the content.  Which means to purposefully teach poorly. 

Now, if I have assigned my teachers the nearly impossible task of being self-contained, there are three things that I must do to help my teachers. 

1. I must provide them with a common scope and sequence.  I must give them "the What and the When” of instruction if they are to plan for quality delivery in four different content areas.

2. I must carve out time for my teachers to plan and collaborate together.  And I must make sure that they use the time appropriately and effectively.

3. I must visit classrooms to observe instruction and check the Lesson Frames.  If the Frames are not posted, cue the teacher to get them up.  If the Frames are of poor quality, help the teacher revise them. If the Frames are up and of good quality, give the teacher a “Thumbs up.”

I hope this gets you and your team past this little hiccup.  Let me know if you need any more assistance.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: American Association of School Administrators Conference; National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Rev. Charles Foster Johnson on the New Texas Education Commissioner

The following is a statement from public education advocate, Reverend Charles Foster Johnson:

We wish Mike Morath all the best as he assumes the position of Commissioner of the Texas Education Agency.  We look forward to working closely with him to ensure quality public education for all 5.2 million school children entrusted to our social responsibility, and to oppose any attempt to privatize this essential public trust.

We stand with our highly qualified, well-trained, and thoroughly experienced educators in Texas and trust their judgment on what is best for our schoolchildren.  Education is a sacred servant-calling before God.  We are privileged to submit to the authority and expert testimony of our proven educational leaders.  We exhort our policymakers to do the same.

It is somewhat puzzling that Gov. Abbott would choose as our state educational leader someone from outside the field of public education, who has no formal training as an educator, no classroom experience as an educator, and no direct administrative experience in stewarding and shepherding the education of students.  We hardly believe that such an individual could not be found among the 1,200 active superintendents of our great state alone, not to mention the thousands more Texans who possess sterling educational credentials. Therefore, as we congratulate our new Commissioner, we invite him to join us in full cooperation with our established educational leaders.

We are eager to join Mr. Morath in empowering school teachers and school administrators in our 8,500 community and neighborhood schools, in advocating for the proper funding of those schools, and in opposing any measure to privatize this public and communal trust. To take a center of learning overseen by the public interest and turn it into a center of profit controlled by private entities is a violation of God’s common good.  We have every full expectation that Mr. Morath will join us in the protection of the fundamental provision of universal education for all Texas children by the public and at the public expense.

Reverend Johnson is the Executive Director of Pastors for Texas Children.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Checkpoints and the Un-informed Leader

Sometimes I’m in a district and I witness leadership making a huge mistake. Today was one of those days.

Today, I heard a Superintendent tell his Principals that if their checkpoint scores didn’t improve then their jobs would be at risk.

Definitely a case of backwards thinking.

Checkpoint scores are about providing the following information:

First: Are we on pace?

Second: What works, instructionally?

Third: What doesn’t work, instructionally?

A Distant Fourth: What have students mastered?

Items 1 through 3 require an honest assessment environment and time to adjust practices. These are some of the prerequisites for improved student performance.

Item 4 can be masked by manipulating the assessment environment, which provides invalid data, which impacts adjustments to practice, which impedes student performance.

Trust me, based on his threat, this Superintendent will get better common assessment scores. And he is going to be red faced and tongue-tied as he tries to explain to his Board why his STAAR scores remain flat.  Odds are he will end up blaming his teachers, his principals or the test. 

Again, “Lose the Battle, Win the War.”

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: American Association of School Administrators Conference; National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Top LYS Tweets From the Week of December 6, 2015

If you are not following @LYSNation on Twitter, then you missed the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of December 6, 2015 when they were first posted.  And if you are on Twitter, you might want to check out the Tweeters who made this week’s list.

1. Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better. (By @CoachKWisdom)

2. “The very roots of honesty and virtue lie in good education.” (By @DrRichAllen)

3. Leaders hold themselves accountable. (By @Leadershipfreak)

4. The purpose of education is not to make you smart; it is to make you useful. (By @josephgrenny)

5. "Champions aren't born. They're made." (By @UHouston)

6. The belief that all taxes are wrong is a function of being shortsighted, selfish and greedy. The public funds the public good. (By @LYSNation)

7. Kids who took AP math in high school were 4X more likely to persist in higher education over those that took up to Algebra II only. (By @edwonkkimmy)

8. There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that protects you from being offended by the truth. (By @neiltyson)

9. Going to school, work, or the movies without being shot must be covered somewhere in the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit happiness. (By @TheXclass)

10. 79,000 is a good number. It is also the number of copies of, The Fundamental 5 (Cain & Laird) that have sold! Thank you, LYS Nation!!! (By @LYSNation)

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool)
• Upcoming Presentations: American Association of School Administrators Conference; National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations)

Effective Budgeting

Many principals find the budgeting process to be confusing and overwhelming.  And it can be so if one is completely focused on the little things.

But if one is focused on the big things, budgeting becomes a manageable and useful tool.  So here are the big things to wrap your mind around.

1. Effective budgeting is not about incrementally starving programs. For example: cut Program A by 10%; cut Program B by 20%; cut Program C by 15%. 

Effective budgeting is about fully funding the programs that are critical to the organization accomplishing its mission, and not funding the programs that are not critical to the organization accomplishing its mission.  Which would look like this:  Program A and Program C are critical to the success of the organization, they receive full funding. Program B is not critical to the success of the organization, it gets no funding and is discontinued. 

Some may argue that this way of thinking is inappropriate in a school setting.  Those people would be wrong.  Then there are those would argue that this way of thinking is hard in a school setting. Those people would be right. But if leadership were easy, anyone could do it, and that is not the case.

2. Money represents time, tools, training and staff. The equation looks like this: $ = Time, Tools, Training, Staff

The job of the leader (and budgeter) is to find the optimal mix of time, tools, training and staff that maximizes student results for a given budget amount.

What I have found is that the campus that goes lean in staffing, invests heavily in training and modestly in tools is the most nimble in the short run and remains competitive in the long run.

The campus that is staff heavy and tool heavy (which is easier to get approved by central office) ends up skimping on training which makes for a lumbering school in the short-run that becomes decreasingly competitive in the long-run. 

So to tie this up, when working on your budget, don’t get enamored with head count and programs. Instead...

A. Have fewer people and train them better, continuously.

B. Quit doing the things that don’t make your campus better. Just do the things that do make your campus better.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: American Association of School Administrators Conference; National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Lose the Battle, Win the War

With 3-week checkpoints, if they are administered correctly, the assumption should be that performance will be lacking.  After all we are asking high rigor questions almost immediately after students have been first exposed to the content.  As long as the poor performance is not due to being off pace, everything else can (and generally will) be corrected over the course of the school year. 

There are of course ways to “cheat” at checkpoints.  Most prevalent are to review for the checkpoint, extend time on the checkpoint, or not count the questions that were missed due to pacing setbacks. This gives the illusion of success when the reality is not as rosy.

Our advice to schools is “Lose the Battle. Win the War.” The battle being the checkpoint, the war being the state accountability test.

When we don’t “cheat” the checkpoint, we are able to determine if we are on pace, what is working, and what is not. With this information, we problem solve and adjust, putting us in a better position to meet the requirements of the state accountability tests.

When we “cheat” the checkpoint, we believe that everything is working as it should.  We don’t adjust and then we are sandbagged by the state tests.  So play it honest. Lose the Battle, Win the War. And if you doubt the strategy, it worked for both Sam Houston and George Washington.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: American Association of School Administrators Conference; National Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook