Real change for student achievement?

[Liane Rice]

Schools hire someone to teach Differentiated Instruction and all sorts of other things, order new textbooks, change their schedules, give more tests, require more paperwork and documentation....and yet students are struggling. We are missing something....I think I know what it is but am curious as to the thoughts of others on this topic. As a staff developer for BOCES it is my job to help teachers better serve their students - what is the message I should be sending? And how do I send it?

[Frank Palatnick]

Liane:

Inculcate the following formula in the training of teachers.

E=mc2 Copyright 2007 Frank Palatnick All rights reserved.

Education equals the facilitation of the minds understanding times collective compassion. C times C equals C squared.

[Jacek Polubiec]

The key is monitoring and focus. Decide on what is necessary and must have and ignore everything that is just nice to have ( I think most paperwork falls into this category). Pick very few things to facilitate and monitor. For example, you can focus on three questions as I successfuly did last year.
1) What groups do I have?
2) What data did I use to group them?
3) How do I meet the needs of these groups?
Paperwork and documentation does not impact anything but time and the frustration level. Focused data driven instruction is what makes difference so why not focus on that and nothing else.
I had brainstorming sessions during which they decided what a good data question was and made a list I shared with the whole school. The only thing I suppied was the idea that a good data question has a potential to cause an immediate change in adult behavior in order to improve student achievement. I am hoping to get more suggestions at my network soon.