Getting Better as Educators with Teacher Clarity

/ Mobile Matthews

If there were proven things to improve student learning, would you choose to do it? 

In the Fall, I attended a workshop with Jenni Donohoo (Visible Learning Consultant) on Collective Efficacy (more on that in a future blog) and the one thing that has stuck from this workshop is when Jenni stated (paraphrasing) that “we need no further literature or research to determine what is effective in teaching and learning. We know what needs to occur in our classrooms and now we have to implement and get better at it.”

Many of us have read the works of John Hattie and his Visible Learning plus 250+ Influences on Student Achievement chart is a wonderful visual to understand what can have a great impact within our classrooms. I encourage you to click on the link and have a look. I was deeply fascinated by the effects that are likely to have a negative impact on student achievement, which is represented with red dots.

I also want to preface this blog with the understanding that all strategies or ideas we focus on will impact our students, we just have to decipher which influences we want to spend our time and energy on to have the best impact. This is something Hattie speaks to and that I agree with wholeheartedly.

To have an impact, the effect size must be greater than 0.4, as shown below from Hattie’s work.new_research_image

Today’s blog is focusing on teacher clarity because I know it is the window into improving other high-yield strategies or practices that lie in the zone of desired effects. I’ve begun to use more effectively in my coaching cycles with other educators and I’ve witnessed with students.

Hattie defines teacher clarity as “the importance to clearly communicate the intentions of the lessons and the success criteria. Clear learning intentions describe the skills, knowledge, attitudes and values that the student needs to learn. Teachers need to know the goals and success criteria of their lessons, know how well all students in their class are progressing, and know where to go next.” (Visible Learning Glossary)

With that definition in mind, I know that there may be the tendency for educators to say “I’ve done that.” And we have. I have. But I now know that I did not clearly articulate the goals for my students and/or understand the criteria to be able to have my students find themselves in the work. I was doing the heavy lifting, or cognitive load, and they became pieces of wall art for visitors to see that we were “doing” learning goals and success criteria. I was trying to accomplish too much in one lesson. I believe that came from the fact that I felt this urgency to “cover the curriculum”, yet I was far from covering the curriculum with any depth. This I now understand.

For those that know me, you know I pride myself on slowing the learning down to gain depth in understanding for our students and ourselves. We are trying to do too much at the cost of creating larger gaps in our students’ learning. How can we improve our teaching – teacher clarity.

With teacher clarity, we must be transparent with our students as to what they are learning and how they will learn it. We also need our students to be able to articulate where they are within that learning and where they need to go. Hattie and Donohoo follow these three questions when planning for a lesson:

  • Where am I going? (What are the learning intentions?)
  • How am I going? (What are the steps to get there to know I’ve made it?)
  • Where to next? (How do I close the gap between my current level of performance and where I need to get to?)

(At 3:28, Jenni speaks about learning intentions and success criteria)

To put it simply, in a 50 minute period, what is the one thing your students need to understand and what is the criteria for achieving that. At the end of that period, how will you and your students determine where they are and where they need to go? Was the goal achieved? If yes, what’s next? If no, what do I need to do tomorrow to support continued growth? Were you clear in your teaching? You cannot teach a concept and its multiple layers in one lesson and this is where our intentions as educators can get away from us. Simple is better. Clarity is crucial. Isolate the goal and teach to that goal. We also need to reflect on what that one goal is and which goal needs to come before another. It is complicated and messy, but that is where I find the challenge of teaching exciting.

A Story From the Field:

In a grade 2 classroom during a coaching cycle, the educator and I established the criteria for the concept of symmetry. We wanted his students to understand the features or ideas behind what makes something symmetrical. We collaborated prior to the learning by listing the criteria we thought were important at this age developmentally by looking at our curriculum and using the Taking Shape (highly recommend!) resource by Cathy Bruce:

WHAT IS SYMMETRY?

  • Same shape
  • Same size
  • Mirror Image (flip/reflection)
  • Same location
  • Line of symmetry

After we established this criteria, we then worked with the students to generate this list and, not surprisingly, they could articulate what made something symmetrical. We simply added the mathematical vocabulary and added criteria as the lessons progressed.

What became really easy was planning lessons. We knew that our lessons needed to focus on this criteria. We could assess efficiently and effectively as to whether his students understood the concept in a lesson and be highly responsive the next day.  Feedback became a breeze and students could apply what we said in the moment because they understood the goal and the criteria. This small move in teacher clarity led to seeing growth in his students learning and understanding. A brilliant and wonderful experience.

Why Teacher Clarity?

In my mind, and from my experiences, teacher clarity is what we need to fine-tune and enhance. We need to simplify our goals and avoid cramming in the curriculum. Slow down the learning to get depth for our students and plan effectively and precisely – this is what matters. What you will witness in your students is exhilarating and makes teaching and learning more effective and fun;) As Brené Brown states, “clear is kind.”

Resources to Check Out:

Yours in learning,

Laural

 

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