Our research team provided support
to these new professional learning
communities as they launched, and we
encouraged the groups to use assessment
data to identify gaps in student learning
or to judge whether teacher interventions were having the desired effect.
But we found that in many cases,
teachers approached data for the
purpose of proving that students had
learned and that teachers had done their
jobs well. This approach is natural, given
that external evaluators now use high-stakes tests to draw blanket conclusions
about teachers and students, with huge
financial implications. Demonstrating
that a chosen intervention is working or
that a student is approaching grade-level
expectations is important. But although
the proving approach is justifiable, it
limits what teachers learn.
PHOTO BY KEVIN DAVIS
The Proving Approach:
Are They “Getting It”?
When teachers used their time together
to prove that students had learned and
teachers had taught well, teachers
focused on whether students “got it.” If
students who achieved a 4 or higher
were marked as proficient, for example,
these groups focused on whether
learners had scored at least a 4. Teachers
often processed data in terms of percentages correct or incorrect. They spent a
lot of time and focused a lot of attention
on finding, adapting, and creating
assessments that had a good chance of
generating positive results.
Sometimes teachers were so focused
on being able to attain score gains that
they didn’t consider questions like,
What does “got it” mean to each of us?
What kind of understanding did the
students who received 4s have that the
students who received 3s did not have?
What are the students who received a 1,
2, or 3 showing us they need from us?
Teachers bent on proving also leaned
toward considering behavioral or life
factors—such as attendance, motivation,
or home situation—to explain why a
student performed in a particular way,
rather than seeking clues in the student’s
work about what interventions might
move that learner forward.
Our research team observed certain
patterns among proving-focused
teachers. These teachers held on to
predetermined ideas about students’
abilities. For example, teachers assumed
that high-achieving students understood
content even when their work did not
explicitly reveal understanding, and they
took for granted that low-achieving
students did not understand without
exploring such students’ emerging
learning. Provers more often held rigid
ideas about how to express a grasp of
content correctly. They compared
students’ responses to these rigid expectations without being open to alternative
ways of understanding, processing, or
expressing the desired knowledge.
The Improving Approach:
What Are They Thinking?
Despite external pressure to prove that
students had learned, some of the
teacher groups we observed were able to
talk about student work in terms of
improving both teaching and learning,
rather than exclusively taking a proving
approach. Teacher groups that took an
improving stance tried to use students’
work to understand student thinking.
This helped teachers understand what
students’ needed as they planned further
instruction.
These teachers looked for varied
forms of assessments that could reveal
students’ thinking and then thoughtfully
discussed how to interpret the data. For
example, a group of science teachers we
worked with at Cedar Grove Middle
School1 determined that multiple-choice
questions would not give them much
information about their students’
thinking. They decided to include space
on assessments for students to write
about why they chose the answer they
did. Teachers pored over students’ explanations in an attempt to understand
their conceptions and misconceptions
rather than simply placing students in
“got it” or “hasn’t got it” piles.
Improving-focused groups had more
generative conversations about student
work. Teachers’ discussions yielded
questions that teachers wrestled with;
those questions led to additional questions and sometimes to spirited debates
about what teaching and learning should
look like. Teachers sharpened their
thinking about instruction, learning
styles, content expectations, formative
