This week, we're talking about High-Leverage Practice number 12, systematically designing instruction toward a specific learning goal. Ann, I'm really excited to hear what you have to share because I think you have some skills from your long tenure that some of our newest educators don't have. So, for you, what does this look like in your practice?

Historically, the opportunity existed to craft instructional units that were designed to focus on a handful of learning objectives. I knew what the standards were, and I knew what the general time of year in which mastery of those standards was supposed to happen. And I could construct units that went across the curriculum to try to focus on and then hit them home. With more careful interpretation of standards and fidelity, and curricula.

I increasingly got a number of scripts that said, ‘This is the focus of your instruction, this is the way to do it.’ And research-based- fantastic for my typical learners, it would progress on grade level, it would hit home runs, and they would make progress. But I never ever had a classroom of typical learners. I always had ones for whom that typical arc, they were done in three days when the arc was five, I had learners who, at the end of five days, still had no clue what was going on.

So as a practitioner, what I needed to do was reach back in my historical toolkit and say, ‘this particular approach to learning this particular objective is not effective and successful for this pocket of students, for these reasons.’ And if I accept that my typical delivery is not working, then I need to broaden that umbrella for what other activities and possibilities can I bring to the table to engage the students so they can then master or at least come closer to mastering the particular skill that's targeted in the unit?

So it's a matter of saying this child is an auditory learner. So to continue to tell them things, they're not going to have great success at a very high speed. If I recognize, oh, they just need to touch it, feel it, design it, hold it, then I'll put something in their hands. If they can't figure out a particular rhythm to something, can't figure out times tables, put a stress ball in their hand so they can do times facts to a rhythm. But it's a matter of adapting and adjusting. How can I best give my students opportunities for success?

I appreciate how you're calling out these learning styles, but back before you were even just describing how do you even see the student needing kind of meet that instruction in almost their style, not even that strategic trajectory. You made a comment about knowing really what I would refer to as developmental levels at this grade level, at this part of the year. This is kind of where we would anticipate that learning trajectory to fall.

And I'm thinking, like, right now, the majority of conversations that I hear at the table are talking about they're not making ‘expected progress.’ And it's sort of this ambiguous ‘they're just not meeting the mark.’ But I'm wondering if we really know what that means, like from your tenure, you know these skills and these parts of the year and these subjects or these grade levels. Like, there's a certain kind of anticipations that happen. But now we just run the metrics, and the metric says not making expected progress as opposed to then knowing, like, as a practitioner, do I actually know where that's falling along the calendar, along the grade level?

Well, not meeting expected progress is some standard that has been placed on a timeline that says ‘the student will be able to (fill in the blank).’ If my standard is the student will be able to make change, and there's nothing in the pipeline that says the student has been able to identify coins and their values and has sufficient math skills to add two dimes together or two quarters together, then I can't hit that making change standard because they don't have the requisite skills.

So if my language says they're not making expected progress, they're not making the expected, reaching the expected milestone or standard, I need to back up the bus, so to speak, to say, ‘Why are they not making progress?’ Now, if I continue to assess, they can't make change, they can't make change, they can't make change, they can't make change. But I've not then backed up to backfill the missing academic pieces. My data is never going to show them making progress. And when I'm under the gun for time, one of the drawbacks in education is I have enough time to assess the skill, and that's all I have time to do, assess the skill. Still can't do it. Check. Moving on. But if I don't want to say slow it down, because it really isn't slow down. It's more of backfilling, which says I don't have the underlying foundation to meet this particular standard.

So if I recognize it's not going to take me more than two assessments or two progress checks to say we're not making progress. Why are we not making progress? Well, if I keep presenting the material the same way and I'm not making progress, the student just doesn't understand the presentation of the material however it is that I'm doing it. And I need to accept that my approach is not a successful approach and sort out what I could do differently. Because at the end of the day, very often a child who is struggling to learn something is not going to be able to explain to you why they don't get it. Now, I occasionally have worked with students who are struggling with reading, and I finally get them to say, ‘Tell me exactly what you see on the page.’ And that's when I go, oh man. They are not seeing words. They are not seeing the letters in the right order. They don't recognize where the sentences end to look for context. If I don't have those foundational skills, trying to address reading words is really pretty pointless. So while my metric is a reading metric, I can continue to assess that and continue to see lack of progress, or I can invest my instructional time and say, fill in those gaps. Do something that makes sense.

If I'm working with a little child and we're doing letter identification, and all they are doing is hearing it well, then I need to put something together where they're hearing it and seeing it. And if we still don't see advancement of progress, then I need to do the hearing, seeing it, and then get something tactile going where they're tracing letters on sandpaper or, you know, with the little, little kids, you do the tactile foam type stuff. With my older level kids, again, if my way of teaching it is not sticking, I need to find a different way to present. And if I understand different learning styles, then I can start to match a learning style that's appropriate for the student, with the student. So that it's all about adapting the instruction and filling in whatever learning gaps are there. In the moment, I don't want to say easy because that's not quite the right context, but it's an available trap to fall into that says, ‘my kid just doesn't get it. They're just not figuring it out. I don't know why. They're just not focusing. They're not paying attention. They're always busy.’

 Well, if you continue to present something to me in a way I don't understand and can't figure out, you are going to have difficulty holding my attention. And as an adult, when I'm supposed to be figuring out how to do something, and you are talking and you look like Charlie Brown's teacher to me, I am not paying attention. I am fidgeting. And I am not going to hit whatever mark it is I'm supposed to be hitting as a result of the professional development or the opportunities that are out there.

Students are no different. I gotta find a way that connects with the way they learn and in the end, ultimately engages them. I gotta have a hook. And no, I'm not necessarily gonna find it on the first, second, third, fourth, 50th try, but it's out there. You just gotta keep searching to find it.

So I know you've shared a lot here in sort of that delivery element of how am I delivering the instruction to get that engagement, to find the way that that learning is going to stick with that student. But I want to talk about how do you notice these gaps and you're saying, ‘So fill them in.’ Well, how do you decide which gaps do I fill in first? How is that going to- how am I prioritizing which gaps are going to get me the greatest gain? Or if I just fill in this gap, then it'll probably take care of all the other gaps. How are you actually designing, I'm almost thinking that sequence of skills that are needed to hit that learning goal. Because you've been talking about the goal being kind of like the standard, that learning outcome. We're going to get there, and I can assess and identify where they're at in getting there. And I'm noticing all of these gaps. Well, then, how do I systematically structure filling in each of those gaps, or at least doing so in such a way that I'm going to see those metrics change or those learnings happen?

Virtually every standard that's out there at every level has prerequisite skills. There are things that have to be in place in order for there to be success at a particular standard. And if I don't have those prerequisite skills, if I'm missing one of a half a dozen prerequisite skills, I can probably fake it and meet the standard. But if I'm missing multiple prerequisite skills, I'm not likely to be able to fake it and hit the standard.

So what you wind up doing is saying, okay, we're not hitting the standard. You start to do your detective work. Assess why am I not hitting the standard? And if you can understand the series of prerequisite skills, and a number of places you can find prerequisite skills for particular standards. If I look at a particular standard for a ninth-grade student in English Language Arts, Character Development. I can back up and look at the standards for sixth grade, for fifth grade, for third grade. And that gives me, if they're not consolidated somewhere else, that gives me a list of prerequisite skills going towards that ninth-grade standard. And then you put on your detective hat and you ask questions, you talk to the student, you interact with the student to try to identify what those gaps are.

And it could be it's just a single area of something they missed, didn't understand, didn't stick. Fill that singular gap, and magic happened. You're meeting the standard. But it is an interactive and iterative process. And I get frustrated with ‘the student can't hit this year's metric.’ Well, they were out sick with pneumonia for the month that the prerequisite skill was taught the prior year. So they just, it's a gap in their knowledge base. Fill the gap, meet the metric, move on. But it's taking the time to have the conversation and do the diagnostics to figure out where the gap is.

So, how do you keep the student informed along the way? Because the way you're describing this is like there's kind of a sequence, a kind of direction that we're headed, and I'm going to move in that direction. And as I find missing pieces, we may backtrack and fill those in and keep going. How have you been able to help students track along the way? Or maybe it's just been different in your practice, because for me, I've worked with students who have been in and out of incarceration, or they've been in and out of a variety of places, and like you were saying, it has kind of perpetuated these learning gaps.

And so they just have these strange splinters where they've totally got something and are completely missing something else. I'm doing exactly what you're talking about. Whereas, okay, you've got it. We're going to keep moving. Oh, you don't have it. Let's back that up. Let's see what we can fill in, and let's catch that along the way. But there is kind of a conversation that I'm having with the students that I'm working with, so that it's not just like confusion of like, ‘wait, I thought we were doing this, and now we're doing that.’ Like, how is this all making sense? Like, how do you keep your student along for the journey that is their own learning journey toward that specific goal?

You talk to them, you listen to them, you have a conversation. I mean, there's nothing more frustrating than a student at any level. Every week, you're progress monitoring, you're giving the same assessment, and they are not succeeding every single week. Eventually, they're going, ‘why are we still doing this? I don't understand it. I don't get it. Okay, fine, I concede. I'm stupid. I don't get it. Move on.’ As opposed to having that conversation that says, ‘You are a bright student, I know you've got skill. For some reason, you don't have a skill in this dimension. We need to figure out why.’ And then you talk and you listen. So many people I come across these days are so focused on the dumpster fire that's going on in the moment, you can't take a step back and actually listen to the peace and the calm and the answers that you get in the moment.

So the student who has not made progress for the third time, look at their body language. They're frustrated. They know they didn't meet the standard. So you look at them and say, there is something in this particular task that you just have not figured out. And if we've done it unsuccessfully two or three times, clearly, what we're doing to try to master it isn’t working. And then you talk and say, ‘Well, have you ever done this particular prerequisite skill?’ And when they give you the deer in the headlights look because they don't know how to answer you, because they don't really understand your question, you've got some insight into at least one of the gaps.

But it's a matter of reading their language, reading their body language so that you can fill those gaps, so that they can then do that progress monitoring task and have success. They may not hit the mark, but at least they've hit some of the mark. And then that notion where you say, look, you've got skill, you can do this. We just need to figure out what the glitch is at this moment. And at this point, there is so much technology stuff. Glitch is a language that permeates at almost any student level. You just, you know, you're glitching right now. You've got to figure out what the patch is to make it stop glitching. And then they're like, ‘oh, well, that means I need to do this…’ And now they're starting to think and to process. And then they bring all sorts of information and knowledge to the table that can help you inform your practice and help them get better outcomes.

Yeah, I appreciate how this conversation is so student-driven, and I appreciate that you're a general education teacher by training, having such a student-focused conversation, because so often this High-Leverage Practice is looked at as ‘well, here's how you can define a scope and sequence. Here's how you can make sure that your lesson opener and your lesson closer are connecting the loop between what we did yesterday and what we're doing tomorrow.’ And all of these are like strategic kinds of lesson planning and delivery type of things.

And I love how you have taken this and said yes, yes to all of that, use all of those strategies that are absolutely applicable, but it is really dependent on that student. How they're showing up, what they're showing up with, or what they're not showing up with, and engaging them in that conversation so that they can see their own learning journey. And it's all of your professional practitioner moves that are around their learning, that is what's actually just making it happen with them.

Well, and my total plus with having those deep dive conversations with the students, I can shotgun an approach, trying to figure out what the missing piece is, and spend an incredible amount of time eliminating a lot of things. Or I can have the conversation with a student and use their words to say, I think this might be the top place to go look for that gap. And then it allows me as the practitioner to more strategically target what the likely gaps are.

And we are admittedly so many years past Covid at this point, where one part of my brain says, we are so far past Covid, let's just get moving on. But throughout all of those years, everybody seems to have gaps somewhere. And it's just being that proverbial educational detective to sort out, so where are your gaps? And accepting and understanding, everybody's got them. Some people have gotten better at masking them, at filling in some of the blanks, and others have not had that opportunity out there. So it makes our challenge as practitioners a little bit trickier because we're navigating a lot more different stuff than we used to.

Well, thank you for bringing that student-centered planning perspective into something that tends to be such a broad practice of that, systematic design, and just hitting that learning goal. So thank you for bringing that student front and center into really guiding and leading how we are systematically designing our instruction.

Because I want that student to have success like the rest of them.