Study: Explain goals before instruction

BENTONVILLE — Teachers need to communicate to their students the goals and objectives of lessons before they teach them, according to a study by two administrators.

Matthew Henderson and Stephanie Summerford, assistant principals at Jefferson Elementary School and Centerton Gamble Elementary School, respectively, presented their study at last week’s School Board meeting.

Their task over the past few months was to observe and identify the most often used teaching practices. They compared what the teachers are doing to what education researchers Robert Marzano and John Hattie have identified as the best practices.

Marzano, co-founder and chief academic officer of Marzano Research in Colorado, is a speaker, trainer and author of more than 40 books and 300 articles on educationrelated topics, according to his biography online. Hattie directs an educational research institute at the University of Melbourne in Australia.

A list of eight teaching practices Marzano and Hattie agree are the best has “clear focus for instruction” as No. 1, according to a document Henderson and Summerford provided.

Administrators did walkthroughs of first- and second-grade classrooms at Jefferson and Centerton Gamble and identified the top eight teaching practices they observed. Three of the eight from Marzano and Hattie were on their list. “Clear focus for instruction” wasn’t among them.

When administrators looked only at their top-performing first- and second-grade classrooms — those that showed greater growth in standardized math and literacy tests — they found five of the most frequently used practices in those classrooms matched those in the education experts’ top eight. “Presenting goals and objectives” was the eighth-most observed.

“It’s something we know

we can work on as administrators to make sure our teachers know we’ve got to have those goals and objectives,” Henderson told the board.

“As adults we want to know the same thing. We want to know what we’re learning and why we’re learning it,” Summerford said.

“Direct instruction,” “small group work,” “positive

feedback” and “problem solving opportunities” were the practices identified frequently in the top-performing classes that matched Marzano’s and Hattie’s list.

The assistant principals didn’t identify which of the classrooms were the highest performing. Henderson said they weren’t necessarily those led by the more experienced teachers.

Willie Cowgur, board member, asked if the top-performing teachers are sharing their practices with the other teachers.

Teachers want to do the very best job they can and regularly compare notes with each other to see what is working best during weekly professional learning community meetings, Henderson said.

“We do foster those conversations for sure,” he said.

Travis Riggs, board president, asked how much of administrators’ observation of the classrooms is subjective. Henderson acknowledged some subjectivity is involved, though it’s “pretty easy to tell” whether a certain practice is being used or not, he said.

Henderson and Summerford did their research as part of an assistant principal leadership program coordinated by Jeff Wasem, principal of Creekside Middle School, said Debbie Jones, superintendent. It gives them a chance to do some “deepdive” research on topics of interest generated by the board, she said.