Queen Anne's County Public Schools
Centreville Middle School (CMS) in Queen Anne's County has modified and adopted a strategy that collaboratively looks at student work samples called C.L.A.S.S. ( C ollaboratively L ooking A t S tudent work S amples). This high impact strategy involves teachers sitting down together to identify the strengths and needs of a lesson and to determine whether or not an instructional match exists between teacher expectations and student outcomes. State Superintendent Dr. Nancy Grasmick has noted, “an important step in aligning standards with assessment is teacher collaboration in looking at student work” (MASCD Journal , 2002).
C.L.A.S.S. at Centreville Middle School gives teachers time during the school day to identify areas of weakness in instruction and to propose strategies to strengthen them. By reflecting on what students do and learn, teachers can make better-informed decisions regarding teaching strategies and curriculum for improved teaching and learning.
C.L.A.S.S. began as an outgrowth of on-going professional development presented by Marcie Emberger for the Queen Anne's County teacher specialists. Using the various protocols from the Looking at Student Work section of the Maryland School Improvement website ( www.mdk12.org ), two elementary teacher specialists developed a protocol that would best serve their schools. The resulting protocol was a combination of components from the California Protocol and that of Steve Seidel and others at Harvard University's Project Zero.
Centreville Middle School began the year with a focus on unpacking the indicators, determining appropriate assessments, and providing timely feedback under the facilitation of Dr. Ronald Thomas from the Center for Leadership in Education at Towson University. Through the process of unpacking the indicators, teachers developed a better understanding of what students need to know and be able to do in order to master each indicator. C.L.A.S.S. helps teachers objectively reflect on whether their instruction has led students to mastery level of an indicator. Capitalizing on the knowledge of our staff about the middle school curriculum, as well as the experiences of our elementary colleagues, we developed a student work analysis protocol based on research from Wisconsin, California, and Harvard that best fit Centreville Middle School.
In early September, we trained our staff in 90-minute sessions on the CMS protocol for C.L.A.S.S. We divided the staff into two groups: math/science and half of the unified arts team and language arts/social studies and half of the unified arts team. A C.L.A.S.S. team consists of a presenter (the teacher who taught the lesson and brought the student samples), a facilitator (who keeps the team on task, takes notes, and monitors time), and team members (three-four other teachers on their grade level team).
During the orientation, a session of C.L.A.S.S. was modeled, with the reading specialist taking the role of the teacher, the teacher specialist acting as facilitator, and the teachers participating as the team members. We then completed a think-aloud and walked the faculty through the steps of the protocol. We first completed the entire process as a whole group. Then we broke into small groups, as a guided practice, and we monitored and answered questions as our staff completed a C.L.A.S.S. session with student samples related to their content areas. Finally, we came back together as a whole group to debrief how the process worked. During the debriefing, we clarified roles and responsibilities and discussed using C.L.A.S.S. in our school on a regular basis. It was determined that each teacher will be a C.L.A.S.S. presenter twice during this current school year, with the teacher specialist and reading specialist acting as facilitators.
To get the most out of each session, the steps in the protocol need to be followed carefully. The first step in the protocol is “Getting Started,” which takes approximately five to seven minutes. In this step, the presenter (teacher) shares the assignment and the instruction prior to the assignment. The presenter also asks two focus questions. Focus questions are the questions that the team is to consider when looking at the student work. The first focus question at our school is always: Does the student work demonstrate the indicator taught?
The second focus question is teacher generated. It is a question the teacher wants more information about, such as what to do next or why didn't the students meet expectations. The presenter then gives each team member a packet. The packet contains a cover sheet stating the assignment and focus questions and the same three - five student work samples, all from the same class period.
The second step in the protocol is “Clarifying Questions.” For the next three to seven minutes, team members ask non-evaluative questions about the assignment. These questions range from what period did you teach the lesson to what strategies did you use to teach the lesson. We compiled a list of sample questions from Understanding by Design (McTighe and Wiggins, 1999) and the Instructional Consultation Model (Gravios and Rosenfield, 1999).
The next step involves “Analyzing the Student Samples.” This is an uninterrupted ten minutes of reading and taking notes by the team members. Using the focus questions as a guide, team members read the student samples and take notes on the strengths and weaknesses.
The fourth step in the protocol is the “Team Discussion.” During this 15 minutes, the presenter listens and takes notes but does not actively participate in the discussion. The facilitator leads the discussion. It is crucial that the discussion stays focused on student achievement. The discussion is guided by the following key points:
• Was the indicator mastered or is there a need for re-teaching?
• Are there suggestions for other instructional strategies?
• What other ideas can we share for this indicator?
• What should the teacher do next?
The fifth step is the “Presenter Reflection.” During this step, the presenter reflects on the team discussion. Also, during this step, the presenter clarifies questions or concerns that arose during the team discussion. This is a non-threatening interactive dialogue between colleagues as they discuss ways to improve instruction and student achievement.
The final step in the process is the “Debriefing” led by the facilitator. The debriefing step is two-fold. First, the facilitator opens a discussion with the whole team about the effectiveness of the protocol, the timing, and anything the team would do differently during the next session. The second part of the debriefing asks the presenter to share his/her thoughts and feelings on the process and the ways in which it was beneficial.
How Unified Arts Completes Their Unique C.L.A.S.S.
The Unified Arts' team at CMS consists of three physical education teachers, an art teacher, a band teacher, a general music/chorus teacher, a keyboarding teacher, and a Spanish teacher. Many of the assessments completed by students in these classes are performance based, so how can C.L.A.S.S. work for them? It was decided that the protocol would be the same, but they would use visuals, audiotapes, and videotapes of performances as well as written work samples.
So far, the process is working well for this team. Even though the contents of their conversations are different from the rest of the school, the Unified Arts' team has found the collegial dialogues to be very helpful.
From this process, we have learned that there are some academic needs that cross several content areas and grade levels and will be used to guide our professional development. C.L.A.S.S. has opened up a sense of collegiality, with a focus on student achievement that was not there before. Of course, there were always discussions in our school about students, but now conversations are much more focused on student achievement and how to improve upon what we do.
In March we held a C.L.A.S.S. session that involved the whole school. An informational reading and writing task was administered to a random sample of 75 students in grades 6, 7, and 8. The focus of the C.L.A.S.S. session was to determine if our students could effectively choose an appropriate organizer to record informational text and to then use the organizer to write a summary. Another focus of the C.L.A.S.S. session was to look at writing samples across grade levels. Teachers were asked to determine what our students know and are able to do when writing a summary; what the samples show the needs of our students are in writing; and finally, what the implications are for instruction at Centreville Middle School.
The whole faculty C.L.A.S.S. session has had a high impact at CMS. As a result of the discussion at that session, the findings about student achievement will be given to our School Improvement Team. These data will then be used to look at ways to improve student achievement in writing to learn and how we will monitor academic growth.
Through the analysis of student work Centreville Middle School has begun to look more closely at our content indicators. Teachers are beginning to question if we are truly teaching for mastery of those indicators and how we, as a whole faculty, can work together to develop consistent expectations across grade levels to ensure adequate yearly progress for all students.
Elizabeth Hausburg is the teacher specialist and Susan Randow the reading specialist at Centreville Middle School in Queen Anne's County, Maryland. They may be reached at hausbure@qacps.k12.md.us and randows@qacps.k12.md.us