Are We Focusing on What Matters Most in Classrooms?

EduLEADER Newsletter, March 2020

In our leadership practice, we focus on so many variables in classrooms to collect data. We use this data, whether numerical or narrative, to improve classroom performance for the purpose of improving students’ achievement. We ensure that we collect evidence that is concrete. Concrete evidence can be analyzed with teachers, and it functions as the basis for planning for improvement. However, are we collecting the appropriate evidence? Are we focusing on what matters most?

Classroom observations tend to focus mainly on the teacher. It could be because we subconsciously think that the teacher is the center of classroom action; an idea we have acquired from the education system we have been through for decades. Or, it could be because the teacher is the sole performer in the class, and we can’t but pay most attention to him or her. Whatever the reason is, we need to shift our attention from the teacher to the learners. This shift is vital for change. When focusing on the learners, focus should be on the tasks they are carrying out. Students might be pre-occupied with their tasks and with coming up with an outcome. But what kind of task is it? What outcome will it yield to? What level of thinking does it require? How related is it to the curriculum standards? The PISA[1] results in some countries are scary in that they show that students are not functioning well on tasks that require high levels of proficiency. PISA 2018, for example, showed that, 64% of 15-year-old children in Lebanese schools achieved at or below level 2 on reading proficiency[2]. If we are to assume that tasks predict performance, we can assume that those students are not engaged in their classrooms in tasks that require high levels of thinking, and thus, they are unable to perform on tasks that require high levels of thinking.

Another example that shows the need to focus on tasks is when students are engaged in project work. Educators and curricula encourage integrating projects in teaching for the many merits they have on learning. Through projects, students can synthesize a breadth of skills they have been working on to come up with a new composition that is their own. This is how creativity is reached. However, many times the outcome of such work is a superficial product that requires minimal thinking. Simply copying textbook material on a poster board is at times portrayed as project work. At other times, you might see a replica of information in the form of a wooden model that is made by parents or a carpenter in the student’s family portrayed as a project. Students might put together a simple PowerPoint presentation of information collected from Wikipedia and present it as a project.

The same is true to integrating technology into lessons. Technology integration into teaching can transform the class into a highly interactive and engaging one. However, the essential question is, “How effective are the tasks?” They might be interesting and engaging, but do they require high levels of thinking? Or, are they merely activities of matching items or classifying them into groups? Are the tasks related to the curriculum? Again, this is a situation where focus on the task is important.

While focus on the quality of the tasks is crucial, classroom interactions are just as important. The teacher, the content and the students should not each be focused on in isolation of the others, but focus should be on how the three components interact: what interactions take place among students, what are those that take place among students and the teacher, what are the interactions between students and teachers and the content? These interactions tell us a lot about the emotional support that takes place in the classroom, how much students’ perspectives are regarded, and how positive the climate is. In addition, they allow us to know how efficiently time is being used. The interactions can inform us about the tasks; how aligned they are with the standards, the level of thinking they require, and how engaging they are. Moreover, they inform us about the quality of feedback and the type of instruction students receive.

As teachers, we often focus on ourselves rather than on our learners. This is evident in the lesson planning. We see focus on the teachers’ actions more than on the students’. The lessons might be written from the teachers’ perspectives and are phrased in the first person singular. Here, focus should be shifted to the students and what tasks they will be carrying out in class. In classrooms, teachers need to be helped to shift from focusing on their performance to focusing on how their performance affects the students. The reflection sessions that take place after a classroom observation are a great opportunity for this. In these sessions, concrete data collected plays an important role in helping teachers focus on what should be focused on; the learners, their tasks and the classroom interactions.

[1] “PISA is the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment. PISA measures 15-year-olds’ ability to use their reading, mathematics and science knowledge and skills to meet real-life challenges” https://www.oecd.org/pisa/.

[2] Levels of reading proficiency of PISA are 1a, 1b, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6