The Alphabet Soup Project and Beyond: Using the SEC to Improve Instruction in Illinois Carol Diedrichsen, Illinois State Board of Education Penny Billman and Mary Wood, Northern Illinois University CCSSO Education Leaders Conference St. Louis, Missouri September 14, 2007

The Illinois Story The Beginning: Illinois Math Science Partnerships Lee/Ogle Regional Office of Education Alphabet Soup Pilot Engaging Other Schools Current Projects Lessons Learned

Illinois Math and Science Partnerships Part of the needs assessment & evaluation A pre- and post-measure Word-of-mouth around the state

Lee/Ogle ROE Champion for the SEC Used with a district LESSON: Importance of the principal

Alphabet Soup Project Illinois team at CCSSO meeting in Austin, Texas and later at Boulder, CO Why we decided to focus on high schools Pilot Study – Parties not usually in the same discussion Illinois Math Science Partnerships (IMSP) Comprehensive School Reform (CSR) Career and Technical Education (CTE)

256 Project Participants High schools from around the state Project Goals—provide a setting for teachers to –Collect and analyze information about instruction –Discuss teaching options based on data –Provide data for curricular, instructional and assessment refinements The Pilot

Why This Design We knew people had to understand what they are trying to do Heard about importance of leadership Recruited respected and known facilitators

How We Did It Three sessions –Session 1– Completing Surveys—WHAT DO I DO? –Session 2 – Data Analysis----NOW WHAT? –Session 3 – Using the data---SO WHAT? Focused on “I wonder …” statements Directed discussion to find root causes Teams created action plans Reported on implementation of action plans

Research Design Surveys at each session on use of data and impact on school planning Analyzed the action plans Fly-on-the-wall at meetings Six-month follow up with selected teachers and principals Comparison of SEC data to other CSR data

Pilot Findings Curriculum –Not aware of the mile wide, inch deep –Gaps in what not taught –Extras in the curriculum All of the teachers agreed that the SEC helped them think about their curriculum Tweaked what was taught Changes were driven by faculty-team

Changed the focus from What am I teaching? to What are the students receiving? What did they have a chance to learn?

CTE and Non-CTE CTE courses did cover standards, especially in areas such as measurement, data analysis, algebra Differences BETWEEN schools was often larger than differences WITHIN schools, both for content and instructional practices Need to increase sample size before making conclusions

Telling Others Around the State Presentations around Illinois –Connections and NCLB Conferences –Internal Agency Meetings –Regional Meetings Featured at High School Challenge Conference Stirred the pot as part of school improvement technical assistance Introduced with High Schools that Work districts and connections with Career and Tech Education

Surveys of Enacted Curriculum A neutral content grid With cognitive demand The intended curriculum: State content standards— what students should learn The enacted curriculum: What teachers teach The learned curriculum: Student outcomes based on school learning The assessed curriculum: State (and other) assessments— tested learning

Questions for Surveys of Enacted Curriculum Data What are the concepts actually taught in the classrooms? What standards students in different curricular paths at your school cover before graduation? The comparison of district/department emphasis with the state’s standards and performance descriptors? The overall picture of what is taught including how and when the concepts are taught? How work in classrooms could be useful to shape important decisions for schools? How spiraling conceptual learning and identifying consistency or redundancy across grade levels and disciplines can be used to shape important decisions for schools? What standards are students in different curricular paths at your school covering before graduation? And how? How do districts’/departments’ emphases compare with the state’s standards and performance descriptors?

Current Projects Continues as part of current IMSP evaluation Projected for inclusion in new IMSP projects with stronger school recruitment component

Comprehensive School Reform After three years of CSR, where are we? Expanded to K-12 th grade Bellwood, Egyptian, and Cairo Danville One school in Peoria JS Morton –Launched action research project to determine effectiveness of a lesson study approach after participating in the Pilot

United Township High School Part of planning for restructuring Pathways approach based on questions Looking at impact of changes already made

SCHOOLState Descriptors

College Prep AP National Standards

UTHS Approach Stated research questions and SEC set-up so the research questions could be answered (Administrator and faculty) Compared results to student performance on state assessments Identified paths with gaps Summarized major findings for faculty- teams to further drill down on data

Tool to implement rapid, team-based cycles of looking at instruction, making improvements, and assessing the impact of the changes

Lessons Learned How SEC Can Support Teachers Next step after curriculum mapping and instruction mapping Support School Improvement Plans In reading, math, science Support/validate good things teachers are already doing Identify professional development needs

What Teachers Learn Not everyone is on the same page If instruction is not aligned to the Standards, low test scores are inevitable Many times cognition is not thought about. When not planned for, usually does not happen. Gives a framework for discussion for teachers to get a deeper understanding of 16 areas

Next Step for Schools Set aside time to align instruction to Standards Set aside time to monitor progress Fall survey (pre-test), spring survey (post- test) and celebrate changes Principal is key to making this work in the building

Expanding Beyond the Team How do you involve all academic and non- academic staff? –Math teachers with Word Walls How do you involve feeder schools? –Bridge courses

Lessons Learned Researcher’s Perspective WCER is wonderful, fantastic, incredible It’s not about the numbers; it is about the process and dialogue It is important to customize the research and implementation plans

Customize Research and Implementation Design Schools differ in their capacity to engage in academic dialogues Take into account strength of academic leadership, current internal capacity for dialogue (learning community), resources, staff time, etc.

Take into account their history, philosophy, and skeletons in the closets –Where does it fit into their history and experience? –How best to jump start the conversation?

Devil is in the Details Is hands-on the same as applied learning? Need common understanding of terms Teachers needed to drill down into the data to get at root causes and have comprehensive discussions Is part of the conversation to abandon curriculum, if so what?

Data overload and the need to focus on a few things with the largest potential for impact The content results are discussed first, and discussions on instructional practices are harder Schools want to hear about how other schools/districts are using the SEC

State Perspective Building capacity at the state to respond to requests. Grateful to WCER for being so responsive. One tool in a toolkit to foster dialogue about guaranteed and viable curriculum Ongoing recommendation as a tool for those in improvement planning Next steps for SEC in Illinois – perhaps pre- service and teaching standards, use with corrective action

Questions? Carol Diedrichsen Penny Billman