How to Teach Now

Five Keys to Personalized Learning in the Global

Classroom

William Powell & Ochan Kusuma-Powell

 Table of Contents
Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1. Knowing Our Students as Learners

Chapter 2. Knowing Ourselves as Teachers

Chapter 3. Knowing Our Curriculum

Chapter 4. Knowing Our Assessments

Chapter 5. Knowing Our Collegial Relationships

Chapter 6. The Challenge and the Opportunity

References

About the Authors

Related ASCD Resources: Personalized Learning in the Global

Classroom

Study Guide

Copyright

Copyright 2011 by ASCD

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 Dedication

To our parents, who taught us the value of education

and an international perspective
 Acknowledgments

There are many individuals who have contributed to this book, both
knowingly and unknowingly. The single largest group includes the
many students we have taught over the years. We can only hope
that they have learned as much from us as we have from them.

We are specifically grateful to the following individuals, who have

joined us in the exploration of personalized learning in the global
classroom:

In France—Arthur vis Dieperink, who has helped us understand

how our previous experience can help shape our learning
profiles.
At the International School of Kuala Lumpur—Alex Smith,
Ochan’s teaching partner in Grade 8 Humanities, and Sharon
Peters, who is doing fascinating research on applying cognitive
coaching in middle school settings.
At the International School of Brussels—Kevin Bartlett, Kristen
Pelletier, and Michelle Brown, our colleagues in The Next
Frontier Project, which embodies the values and beliefs of
personalized learning in a truly international setting.
At the Jakarta International School—David Suarez, an
outstanding middle school math and science teacher who has
taught us an enormous amount about how to challenge students
appropriately by providing them with choice.
At the Beijing City International School—Nick Bowley, who
taught us what it meant to “move toward the danger” by sharing
his experience as a high school principal at the Amman
Baccalaureate School during the first Gulf War.
Finally, we would like to thank Naomi Aleman, Bill’s long-standing
coaching partner, and Bob Garmston, whose recent research into
learning resilience has been an inspiration to both of us.
Bill Powell and Ochan Kusuma-Powell
Massat, France, 2011
 Introduction

Over the last four decades, we, Ochan and Bill, have taught children
and young adults in the United States, the Middle East, Africa, and
Southeast Asia. We have worked with student populations that were
very diverse in terms of ethnicity, culture, linguistic background,
socioeconomic status, and religious faith. These students also
brought remarkable learning diversity to our classrooms. Some were
in the early stages of learning English. Others had learning
disabilities, remarkable talents, academic gifts, or attention issues.
Many were experiencing profound relocation stress as they moved
from country to country and school to school.

More recently, we have devoted our time to the professional learning

of teachers in international schools around the world. We have had
the pleasure and privilege of working with thousands of teachers in
more than 40 countries. From Tashkent to Tianjin, from Siem Reap
to São Paulo, all of the teachers we have met enriched our institutes
with their unique experiences and backgrounds.

Amazingly, amid all this diversity, a clear pattern has emerged.

Irrespective of nationality, culture, religion, gender, or the type of
school in which they work, all of the most effective teachers we have
met teach with both a local and a global context in mind. They focus
on knowing the individual student and personalizing instruction to
match that student’s needs. At the same time, they teach in a way
that considers the whole diverse community of students and
prepares them for living and working in our modern, complicated
world. We believe this approach is fast becoming what is needed in
schools everywhere.

While international schools have always enrolled students with

different racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds, globalization and
massive immigration trends are making the student populations of
nearly every school increasingly diverse. What was once the
particular challenge of international school teachers now faces us all.
To accommodate the new makeup of classrooms and the
disappearing distances between cultures, teachers need to focus on
each student’s learning needs while simultaneously imparting global
competence—the ability to understand other cultures, to respect and
appreciate differences, and to move gracefully and graciously
between cultures. To see our students succeed, we all must
embrace this paradox of personalizing learning in the global
classroom.

Before we move on to discussing what personalizing entails, let’s

first remember the way classrooms used to be and how many of us
were taught to think about them and about our students.
 The Way We Were: The One-Size-Fits-All Classroom

Bill entered the teaching profession in the mid-1970s, accepting a

job as an English teacher at a high school in a small town north of
New York City. The school was located in a solidly blue-collar
community, and its enrollment was almost entirely homogeneous.
Ninety-nine percent of the students were white, Roman Catholic, and
Italian American. There were two African American students in the
school, but they were segregated in a special education program
and rarely seen. If there were Jewish students, the teachers didn’t
know about them, and there were certainly no Asian or Latino
students. The homogeneity was further exaggerated by the fact that
it was the year of the Farrah Fawcett hairdo, which made virtually all
the female students look alike.

At the start of the school year, the Italian American principal, who
had grown up in the surrounding community, called a faculty meeting
and spoke at length about the subculture of the majority of the
school’s students. The previous year there had been a number of
disciplinary problems, and he was keen not to have them repeated.
He explained that students from the local working-class community
were used to firm rules and absolute limits. He warned that attempts
to negotiate classroom expectations with students would invite
disruptive behavior. These students respected strength, the principal
stressed, and they would respond poorly to anything they interpreted
as weakness or “giving in.”

In many respects, the typical classroom at that school resembled a

factory assembly line. Control was external, the classes were often
repetitious, and many times skills were taught in isolation. Content
coverage prevailed over conceptual understanding. The idea that
children might have different learning styles and different
combinations of intelligence preferences was still a decade or more
in the future. It was a one-size-fits-all learning situation, and if
children didn’t learn, the responsibility was placed squarely on their
shoulders.
 The Way We Are Now: Teaching Unique Learners in the
Global Classroom

Our classrooms and professional perspectives have changed a lot

since the 1970s—and thank goodness for that! Around the world,
seismic demographic shifts have made monocultural enclave
schools, such as the one that Bill began teaching in, increasingly
rare. Today it is common for neighborhood schools in cities like
Boston, Vancouver, London, and Melbourne to have 30 or 40
nationalities represented among their students.

The last 20 years have also changed our understanding of learning

and how the brain works. Educators now recognize that students
bring to the classroom different learning styles, intelligence
preferences, and interests, and the most effective teachers
incorporate these factors into their instructional planning.

To help illustrate the new learning dynamics of the global classroom,

we would like to introduce you to four students. Although each
student’s story is unique, together they represent the types of
challenges facing 21st century teachers, who must work to
understand all the children they teach, the complexity of these
students’ specific cultural backgrounds, and the ways in which they
learn.

Rupa: A Success Last Year

Rupa is a very bright girl, or she used to be, when she was a 4th
grader in Nairobi, Kenya, and earned straight As. But since Rupa’s
family moved to the United States six months ago, her school
achievement has taken a nosedive. Rupa’s parents have visited her
teachers almost every other day and are hiring a private tutor for
math. Rupa’s television and computer privileges have been
suspended indefinitely.
Although Rupa is ethnically Indian, she has never lived in India. She
was born in Africa but doesn’t feel any sense of being Kenyan or
African. Her family is Hindu, but because of her education in a
Roman Catholic school, she knows more about the catechism than
she does the Vedas. Her father and mother retain some ties to their
traditional Indian culture, but Western values and commercialism are
part of their lives now, too.

Rupa’s father owns and runs a successful furniture company, but he

doesn’t believe that he will be able to afford to send Rupa to an
American university. He sees Rupa going to India for university-level
study, even though he is aware of how competitive admission to
Indian universities can be, and even though Rupa doesn’t speak
Hindi. The medium of instruction in the convent school she attended
in the Nairobi suburbs was English, and the language of the
playground was a patois of English, Gujarati, and Kiswahili. The
emphasis in her previous school was on rote memory. Her American
school demands that she engage in critical thinking. Rupa’s teacher
expects her to apply knowledge and demonstrate conceptual
understanding. All this is new to Rupa, and it baffles her.
Ten-year-old Rupa remembers being a success at school last year
and grieves for her past life.

Frank: Culture Shock in the International Baccalaureate

At the conclusion of Frank’s valedictory speech, the entire audience

at his international school in Tanzania is on its feet. Thunderous
applause echoes through the commencement hall, capturing the
enormous pride the school community takes in his accomplishment:
a four-year scholarship to Harvard, where he plans to study as a pre-
med student.

Frank is a local boy—a scholarship student and the son of two

teachers at the Tanzanian government school who would otherwise
have never been able to afford the international school fees. The
centerpiece of Frank’s valedictory speech addresses the culture
shock he experienced when he was first awarded his host-country
scholarship … and first discovered the difference between studying
in a traditional government school and meeting the intellectual
demands of his new school’s International Baccalaureate (IB)
diploma program.
For the first three or four months I was at this school, I didn’t say
a word in class. I was in a state of total confusion and shock. It
was as though I’d landed on a different planet. I didn’t
understand what the teachers wanted. I was used to a school in
which there were right and wrong answers. You were rewarded
for right answers and punished for wrong answers. But here, the
teachers wanted you to think. They expected you to have ideas.
They were interested in your opinions. You were evaluated not
on a basis of right and wrong, but on the basis of how well
thought out your answers were. If you have never been in a
traditional government school, you have no idea of the
magnitude of this change! You have no idea how terrifying it is
to appear before a teacher who expects you to think. Now, I
recognize it as the greatest gift that anyone can ever receive!

May Ling: Multilingual, but Not Making It

Thirteen-year-old May Ling is visibly nervous during the admissions

interview at her new school in Kuala Lumpur. She answers questions
softly, using single words or short phrases. For most of the time, she
scrutinizes her shoes and holds one hand firmly in front of her
mouth. She is easily flustered and, at least once, appears on the
verge of tears.

Although she has been in an English-language school in Macao for

the past five years, the ESL placement-test results included in May
Ling’s admissions portfolio put her at Level One—a beginner. At
home, May Ling’s Chinese mother speaks to her in Cantonese; her
Danish father speaks to her in English.
When May Ling is not so nervous, her social, spoken English seems
competent—fluent, even. However, her written work in both English
and Chinese reveals that she is struggling with abstract expression
in both languages. The fact is that May Ling doesn’t have a strongly
developed mother tongue. She is not just wrestling with the
acquisition of English; she is wrestling with the acquisition of
language.

Matt: A Study in Loneliness

Both the middle school counselor and the learning specialist are
concerned about Matt. He has had several psycho-educational
evaluations and, despite his parents’ persistent denials, his learning
disability is well documented. He is reading three grade levels below
his age group. His handwriting is almost illegible. In a one-to-one
situation, Matt can exhibit surprising flashes of insight, and his critical
thinking skills can be astute and penetrating. However, in his 7th
grade classroom, he is silent and withdrawn.

Matt is an American citizen attending an international school in São

Paulo, Brazil. There are 15 nationalities represented in his
homeroom, and on the playground, Portuguese is heard as
frequently as English. Matt isn’t sure how to go about making friends
across the various cultural divides, and over the past semester, he
has become the target of teasing. A group of children in the 7th
grade have taken to calling Matt “retard.” This name-calling has
extended to graffiti appearing on both Matt’s locker and his loose-
leaf binder. Unfortunately, Matt’s thick prescription glasses and his
poor hand-eye coordination add to the impression of general
awkwardness.
On one occasion, the learning specialist observed Matt in the
cafeteria carrying his tray to a table already occupied by a group of
his classmates. When he arrived at the table, his classmates stared
at him incredulously. Their body language spoke louder than their
unspoken words: Do you really think you’re going to sit with us?
Realizing that he had forgotten a fork and spoon, Matt placed his
tray on the table and went back to the serving line. When he
returned to the table, all of his classmates had disappeared, as had
his tray of food.
 Personalized Learning Basics

What Rupa, Frank, May Ling, and Matt require is a teacher who
expects, recognizes, and appreciates student learning differences
and incorporates these differences into instructional planning. There
is nothing new or “faddish” about personalized learning. In one form
or another, it has been with us since the first cave-dwelling
Magdalenian mother recognized the differing talents of her brood of
children. What is new is educators’ concerted and systematic effort
to identify and use these differences to maximize children’s learning.
Teachers often have three basic yet important questions about
personalized learning. Let’s take them in turn.

What Is the Purpose of Personalized Learning?

Personalized learning is about making the curriculum as attractive

and relevant as possible to the widest possible audience. This is
accomplished by providing multiple access points to a high-quality
curriculum—access points that will entice students with different
readiness levels, interests, cultural backgrounds, intelligence
preferences, and learning styles. Once students connect with the
curriculum, personalized learning aims to keep them engaged,
maximizing their understanding and achievement.

Who Is Personalized Learning For?

It’s for students who are culturally diverse, students who are learning
English as a second or third language, students with special learning
needs, and students with special gifts or talents. In short,
personalized learning is for every student, and it serves all students
well.
What Do Teachers Need to Do to Personalize Learning?

In our experience, to effectively personalize learning, teachers need

to engage in five ongoing inquiries. We must work to know our
students as learners, know ourselves as teachers, know our
curriculum, know our assessments, and know our collegial
relationships.
Knowing our students as learners entails systematically and
deliberately exploring our students’ cultural identities, linguistic
backgrounds, family circumstances, learning styles, intelligence
preferences, readiness levels, interests, and many other individual
learning traits and then using that information to address specific
needs by providing meaningful and appropriately challenging work.

Knowing ourselves as teachers includes probing our own cultural

biases and assumptions, discovering our preferences in learning
style that may have translated into our preferred and dominant
teaching style, and recognizing submerged beliefs and expectations
that we have about children in general or about students specifically
—all of which should help us to more clearly understand and serve
our students.

Knowing our curriculum at a conceptual level means being able

to discriminate between content and transferrable concepts.
Concepts are overarching and applicable to many areas of specific
content, offering flexibility in choosing access points for students with
a variety of cultural backgrounds and learning preferences.
Knowing our assessments encompasses selecting and designing
tools to match the learning objectives we want to measure, offering
students some choice in assessment in order to increase
engagement, and bringing students inside the assessment process
so that they become the end users of assessment data.
Knowing our collegial relationships involves enlisting the help of
other professionals with different experiences, backgrounds, skills,
and perspectives to support us in planning how to best serve the
diverse needs of our students. Education today is a most complex
field. As such, it is absurd and counterproductive for teachers to “go
it alone.” The most enlightened schools are promoting coplanning,
coteaching, and the collective analysis of student work.
Pursuit of advanced knowledge in all five domains of personalized
learning is critical to success. Teachers can fall into focusing on one
or two domains, which will limit the effectiveness of instruction. We
have created Figure A to show how only exploration of all five
domains results in the ability to personalize learning.

Figure A. Relationship Between Teacher Knowledge and Personalized

Learning
Most teachers have some knowledge in all areas, but we have
chosen the extremes of limited focus to make the relationship
between domains clearer. For example, a teacher who knows his
students and himself well but doesn’t know his curriculum is likely to
be trusted and popular, but he may not have the most robust or
meaningful learning outcomes. A teacher who knows her curriculum
but doesn’t know her students may have limited success reaching
students who are not highly motivated or highly capable.

Personalized learning does not mean the teacher creates a separate

lesson plan for every student. It does, however, presume that the
teacher ensures enough flexibility of instruction, activities, and
assessment to enable a diverse group of learners to find a good fit
most of the time (Tomlinson & Allan, 2000). This work requires keen
and empathetic observation and listening; careful monitoring of
student activity and interactions; and continual assessment and
instructional adjustment. Nothing in the classroom can be so rigid
that it cannot be adapted to facilitate greater learning. In other words,
instructional strategies, use of time, use of materials, approach to
content, the grouping of students, and the means of assessment all
need to be flexible. The teacher is the architect of that flexibility.
Everything in the learning environment of the personalized
classroom is purposeful. The teacher identifies precise learning
goals and determines clear indicators of success. The teacher
knows her students as learners, and her planning is thoughtful and
rigorous. She is deliberate about how students are grouped and the
way furniture is arranged. She understands why Jack needs to get
up and move after 10 minutes of seat work and why Zahara benefits
from “think aloud” activities. In the personalized classroom, the
teacher assumes the role of designer—purposefully selecting and
orchestrating the multitude of classroom variables to maximize the
learning of all students.

Perhaps most importantly, the personalized classroom is respectful.

The origin of the word “respect” is the Latin respectus—a
combination of re, meaning “again” or “back,” and specere, meaning
“to look.” Thus, respect literally means “to look again”—to deem
something worthy enough, important enough, to attend to a second
or third time. A respectful classroom dignifies the differences that
students bring with them to the learning experience. While students
have different readiness levels, cultures, languages, interests, and
strengths, respectful pedagogy means that every child is presented
with tasks, activities, and challenges that are equally interesting and
engaging and is provided equal opportunity for the development of
conceptual understanding.
To illustrate the effect personalizing instruction can have, we would
like to share a significant experience that Ochan and her coteacher,
Alex, had with a student named Nicolas.

Nicolas: A Portrait of the Power of Personalized Learning

Nicolas caused his teachers to lose sleep. He entered the general

7th grade humanities class at the English-language International
School of Kuala Lumpur in January after completing a sheltered
immersion ESL program. Ochan and her teaching partner, Alex,
started the class out with a study of Malcolm Bosse’s novel Ordinary
Magic. It’s a story about Jeffrey, an American boy who grows up in
India. When Jeffrey’s parents die suddenly, he has to be repatriated
to the United States. The story explores Jeffrey’s transition from
Indian culture to the culture of America.
Ochan and Alex set the first journal prompt for the novel: “Have you
ever thought about what it might be like to lose a parent? How do
you think you would feel if you were Jeffrey?”
In his journal, Nicolas wrote this response:
Well yes I will not support to lose one of my parents. I would feel
really bad and sad and also lonely.
Ochan and Alex were concerned about the impoverishment of
Nicolas’s writing. He had had 15 minutes to write, and he produced
just 2 sentences, 22 words. In his writing there was virtually no
content, the syntax was very simple, and the vocabulary was
extremely limited.
In the next few days, Ochan and Alex assigned another journal entry,
again based on the novel study. This time the prompt was “Jeffrey is
struggling to define himself. Culturally he is Tamil, but ethnically he is
American. How do you define yourself, and what do you base this
self-definition on?”
Nicolas wrote this response:
I define myself as Mexican because all well most of my family
are Mexican and also I was born in Mexico, my culture is from
Mexico and I speak Spanish that the language of Mexico and
also my passport is Mexican.
Ochan and Alex had a lengthy conversation. If anything, Nicolas’s
second writing sample was even more worrisome than his first. They
could not tell what, if anything, Nicolas was understanding from the
novel. The vocabulary and syntax were very simple, and the content
superficial. Did Nicolas’s poor writing reflect an ESL issue, or
something else—maybe a language disorder or learning disability?
They also worried that it might be a reflection of Nicolas’s intellectual
ability.
At the end of their conversation, Alex suggested to Ochan that since
they had been assigning a great deal of writing, perhaps they should
give the students some other way of demonstrating their
understanding of the novel’s various themes. They agreed that in the
next class session, they would add a visualization activity to the
usual journal entry. Students were told to take any scene from the
book and show what they understood from the book by drawing it.
Figure B is what Nicolas produced.

Figure B. Nicolas’s Scene Illustration

The scene depicted is the death of Jeffrey’s father. His father is in
the bed, and the priest is sitting on the chair. Jeffrey has just run in
from school. As you can see, Nicolas’s drawing captures both motion
and emotion. And it demonstrates a profound understanding of this
poignant scene in the novel. But the drawing was not the only
surprise in store for Ochan and Alex. There was also Nicolas’s
journal entry, written to accompany the drawing and respond to the
prompt, “Discuss some of the issues that Jeffrey faces in his move to
the United States.”
Nicolas wrote the following entry:
Some of the issues that Jeffrey faces in his move to US is that
when he want to make friends and invite them to his house he
don’t know how to make them happy so they can’t get bored.
Because in India when he was with his friends he just looked at
the sunset or kill vipers and swim but in America the kids want
to do more things and listen to hard rock music. Also how to
behave in class and with his friends so he can be there friends.
And also how to play basketball and all the sports his friends
 play because in India he didn’t have that kind of games so he
need to learn them so he can do more friends and get used to
American life.
While there were certainly problems with grammar, spelling, and
syntax, Nicolas’s writing had taken a quantum leap forward in terms
of volume and complexity, and he had identified one of the novel’s
key themes—transition from one culture to another and how this
change affects social relationships. Figure C is Nicolas’s
visualization of some of the important values represented in the
novel.

Figure C. Nicolas’s Depiction of the Novel’s Key Values

Ochan and Alex had a hunch that there was a connection between
Nicolas’s improved writing and his drawing. Over the four weeks of
the novel study, they provided Nicolas with numerous opportunities
to use his artistic talents. It became apparent that Nicolas had
benefitted tremendously from nonverbal, prewriting activities. Ochan
and Alex speculated that the nonverbal brainstorming Nicolas
engaged in while drawing provided him access to the English
vocabulary stored in his long-term memory, which he could then use
in his writing. They believed that Nicolas was basically drawing his
way to thinking and writing. (We have noticed that boys often benefit
greatly from this kind of nonverbal brainstorming.)
At the end of the four-week novel study, feedback from Nicolas
confirmed Ochan and Alex’s hypothesis. All the students were asked
to address three questions:

1. How have you enjoyed this instructional approach?

2. What has gone well for you?
3. What advice do you have for the next novel study?

Here is how Nicolas responded:

1. I found this way of learning interesting because you can get to

define yourself more and because the book can teach you about
a person that change religion and don’t have all his family. Also
it tells that he don’t know if he is from India or from U.S.
2. What has gone well for me in this class is that we needed to do
a lot of drawing. Because I am good at drawing and also it make
me write much but a lot more and I like that. That is good. Also I
have good grades and good notes.
3. My advise that I have for the next one we are going to do is to
read a lot more, write a lot more so that I can get better grades
and also do more work and put more effort.

It was interesting for Ochan and Alex to note the personal

connection that Nicolas had made to the novel in his first response,
in which he highlighted the search for identity that is at the heart of
every middle school child, and the confusion that may result from
relocation. This underscored for both Ochan and Alex the need to be
sensitive when working with students transitioning into a new
classroom.
We followed Nicolas’s progress for many years. On the midyear
writing assessment in grade 8, Nicolas chose to write on the topic of
terrorism. He filled the margins of his paper with small iconic
drawings of terrorists and weapons. The same habit of drawing his
way to thinking and writing continued in high school. The reverse
side of his mock IB examination papers were covered with drawings.
In 2006, Nicolas graduated from the International School of Kuala
Lumpur with the full IB diploma. He was accepted at a prestigious
university in Canada, where he is studying industrial design. Our
hunch is that Nicolas is still drawing his way to thinking, and that
when he is 40 and the CEO of a large company, or the Mexican
ambassador to some country, the first draft of his reports will be full
of small, iconic drawings.
Teachers can learn a great deal from our students, and Nicolas
taught Ochan and Alex many lessons. He taught them how
colleagues reflecting and planning together often have insights that
would not have been available to them individually. He underscored
how important it is to examine assumptions about students and
suspend premature evaluation. He taught them that a personalized
and culturally relevant entry point to the curriculum can mean the
difference between sustained and sustainable achievement and
frustration and failure. In short, Nicolas helped illustrate the power of
personalized learning.
 A Paradigm Shift for the New Global Reality

At the heart of personalized learning is a teacher’s commitment to

teach all of his or her students. Too often in the past, the prevailing
attitude has been that in every class there will be a few unreachable
children—students who are too lazy, too emotionally disturbed, too
ESL, too learning disabled, too inattentive, or too lacking in
intelligence or self-control to learn. Too often teachers have assumed
tacit license from colleagues and administrators to dismiss or
disregard the learning of some students. In the high school where
Bill started his teaching career in the 1970s, responsibility for the
learning of “difficult” students was placed not on the teacher but on
the students.

Embracing All

In her article “Deciding to Teach Them All,” Carol Ann Tomlinson

(2003) writes about the power of a teacher embracing the challenge
of teaching all students in the class—not some or even most, but all.
Tomlinson suggests that when teachers make the decision to teach
each individual child, our perceptual framework undergoes a
fundamental shift. We turn from looking at a student’s “labels” to
searching for that student’s interests and needs. We shift from
focusing on the child’s deficits—what he or she cannot do—to
looking at the child’s strengths. We move away from the question
“How do I remediate this student?” and toward “What do I do to
ensure that this student works at the highest level of thought and
production?”

Individual teachers and entire schools must make this commitment

to equity. It is easy for educators to be drawn into dichotomous
thinking—to pit the pursuit of excellence against the desire for equity.
This often occurs at a subconscious level. We see it when private
schools define themselves as college preparatory and exclude
children with special educational needs. The unspoken assumption
is that children who learn differently will somehow lower the
standards and impede the learning of other, brighter students. How
often have we heard someone say, “We can’t be all things to all
people”? Instead of such restrictive thinking, we need to embrace
what De Bono (1991) calls water logic (as opposed to the either/or
thinking of rock logic); it’s what our Asian colleagues refer to as “the
search for the middle way.”

The creative tension of embracing both excellence and equity is the

defining quality of great schools. Good schools often choose to focus
on one or the other—either excellence or equity. Some, by practicing
selective admissions policies, sacrifice equity. Others embrace a
social-reconstructionist agenda at the expense of critical thinking and
high academic standards. Great schools, however, refuse to
compromise either excellence or equity. The International School of
Brussels (ISB) is a case in point. It accepts over 1,500 children from
more than 40 nationalities, and these students range from extremely
capable learners to those with intensive learning challenges. The
mission of ISB is Everyone included. Everyone challenged.
Everyone successful. 1,500 ways of being intelligent. At graduation,
a student with cerebral palsy who was born in Ireland will walk
across the stage next to a student from the United States who is
destined for Yale.
A starting point for integration of excellence and equity is an
understanding that neither is mutually exclusive. In fact, we would
argue that they are complementary. The startling recognition is that
cultural and learning diversity have enormous potential for enriching
our classrooms. Inclusive education is not only more humane; it is
actually more effective for all students (Florian & Rouse, 1996;
Mittler, 1995; Stainback, Stainback, & Jackson 1992; Udvari-Solner
& Thousand, 1995). Unfortunately, most of the world’s education
systems have been designed to be deliberately exclusive and to
serve needs other than those of students.
Historical Purposes of Education

For the last two centuries, schools have had three primary purposes.
The thinking behind all three of these traditional purposes is now
entirely outdated.
The first purpose was to sort children and young adults into
categories so they would “fit” into a fixed social and economic order.
When Bill was growing up in Britain, the 11 Plus exam was still in
place. The examination was administered annually to all 11-year-old
students, and the results were used to sort children into those who
would continue with an academic education and those who would be
shunted into vocational training. It served, in many cases, to
perpetuate a rigid class structure. Much of education worldwide
continues to fulfill this outdated and antidemocratic function.
The second purpose of schooling was to instill a sense of national
identity and patriotism. In countries as diverse as China, Tanzania,
Malaysia, and the United States, we still see the influence of national
identity in the classroom. Until recently, both Tanzania and Malaysia
had strict regulations that prohibited its citizens from attending
international schools. The idea seemed to be that citizenship and
allegiance to the nation-state would be learned in the classroom.
China continues to have such prohibitions. While such restrictions do
not exist in the United States, a number of states prohibit non-U.S.
citizens from teaching in the public schools. This may be a legacy
from the xenophobia of Joseph McCarthy’s 1950s, but as late as
1979, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the right, if not
the wisdom, of New York State to ban noncitizens from teaching in
public schools. The largest group affected? Teachers of French from
nearby Quebec!
Historically, there has been little international perspective to national
education. More disturbing was the fact that instilling a sense of
national identity was often accomplished by perpetuating prejudices
against and animosity toward other nationalities and cultures. In
other words, students were taught to rally around a flag not to
celebrate their national culture, but to feel more secure when they
felt threatened by someone else’s culture. Such narrow provincialism
is antithetical to the interdependent reality of the modern global
village. The membership of the United Nations now stands at just
under 200 countries. Of those, only about 20 have any real claim to
being “nation-states” in the 19th century sense of containing within
their boundaries people of common descent, language, religion, and
history. Increasingly, nationality is not associated with a single
ethnicity or culture. Over 50 percent of the population of Vancouver
is ethnically Asian. So what does it mean to be Canadian?

The third historical purpose of education was to serve the economic

interest of the nation state. In 1998, when Tony Blair, the prime
minister of Britain, declared that the first three priorities of his
government were “Education, education, and education,” he was not
referring to the education of French or German children. When U.S.
President George W. Bush signed No Child Left Behind (NCLB) into
law, he was not concerned about schools that were failing young
people in Indonesia or Uganda. Education has always had vested
national and economic self-interest firmly in its back pocket. But our
modern, highly interdependent economic world makes such thinking
completely archaic. When the sudden decline in housing values in
the United States causes the stock markets in London, Hong Kong,
and Tokyo to plunge, how can we think of the health of any national
economy in isolation from the world economy?
Schools must make a paradigm change to catch up with the new
global reality. Education must keep pace with our rapidly changing
classrooms and world and give all students the tools for working in a
global context. Climate change, renewable energy, and the other
great challenges of the next generation do not have national borders.
In 1918, before the advent of commercial air travel, the Spanish flu
took less than a month to spread from its first documented
appearance in the United States to the presence of documented
cases in every state of the union. How much faster has been the
recent spread of the H1N1 flu and how inadequate have been the
attempts at evoking national sovereignty as a means of protecting
citizens. Slowly, we are perceiving the necessity of global
interdependence. Slowly, we are understanding the importance of
appreciating and understanding cultures other than our own. These
are the crucial messages of the global classroom. Education
systems, schools, and teachers have an urgent and undeniable
obligation to inculcate “international mindedness” in their students.
Some national education systems are starting to move in the right
direction. In January 2007, the British government released a report
titled 2020 Vision. The centerpiece of this report was a clear vision
that students learn in different ways, and these different learning
proclivities are influenced by culture, gender, societal factors,
learning styles, and biology. The report called on schools and
educators to engage in personalized learning, to focus in a more
structured and systematic way on each child’s learning in order to
enhance progress, achievement, and participation: “In personalized
learning, teachers use their understanding of achievement data and
other information about their pupils to benefit particular groups, for
example, the gifted and talented, by matching teaching and
opportunities for learning more accurately to their needs”
(Department for Education and Skills, 2007, p. 14).
 Questions for Today’s Educators

As teachers and schools push past old thinking and outdated

purposes in an attempt to meet the new demands of a global
classroom and interconnected world, new questions arise:

How does a child’s culture affect how he or she thinks and

learns?
How can a teacher come to know students as learners in a truly
global classroom?
How does a teacher build robust learning relationships with
children from a multitude of cultural backgrounds and with many
learning styles and intelligence preferences?
How does a teacher’s knowledge and perceptions of culture
affect the learning of students?
What should the curriculum for the global classroom include?
What might culturally sensitive assessment look like?
How does a teacher bridge cultural divides when collaborating
with colleagues?

Although much of culture is intangible, it nevertheless provides the

framework for personal identity. We trample upon another person’s
culture—even inadvertently—at our own peril. And when we as
educators ignore the cultural backgrounds of our students or pretend
that these cultural backgrounds do not influence learning in the
classroom, we set ourselves up to be perceived as arrogant and
disrespectful or, worse yet, alienate our students and erode their
sense of membership and belonging in our class community.
Pursuing knowledge in the five key domains of personalized learning
—knowing our students, knowing ourselves, knowing our curriculum,
knowing our assessments, and knowing our collegial relationships—
will yield insights into accommodating cultural and learning diversity
in the classroom. We will discuss each domain in subsequent
chapters of the book, and we have included an Action Advice section
at the end of every chapter to get you started in personalizing
learning in your own classroom. Although there is no question that a
broad repertoire of instructional strategies is an essential component
of effective teaching, this “bigger toolbox” is not enough in and of
itself. We hope this book will help inspire the deep and inclusive
thoughtfulness that underlies all meaningful learning outcomes.
 Chapter 1
Knowing Our Students as Learners

It is easy to dismiss the importance of “knowing your students” as

either a vacuous platitude or a statement of the obvious. However,
the process of coming to know students as learners is often difficult
and challenging, particularly if the students are struggling with
schoolwork. Knowing students means more than merely acquiring
social or administrative information—students’ names and ages,
something about their friendship circles, a bit about their family
backgrounds, a few statistics from their academic record. To
maximize learning, we need to dig deeper than this superficial
acquaintance.
In the past, most teachers did not pursue student information in
either a systematic or particularly rigorous way. Instead of gathering
and analyzing data for the purpose of learning about their students,
they were content to put together a general picture based on tidbits
from essays or student journals, a hint from an example of student
artwork, a guess from an overheard conversation in the corridor, a
comment from a parent or last year’s teacher and so on. In some
cases, teachers did forge personal connections with students, often
when the personality of the student and teacher were compatible or
when they shared a common interest (more often than not, this was
an interest in the subject the teacher was teaching). In other cases,
teachers ended the school year knowing little more about their
students than they had at the year’s start. Overall, coming to know
students was an optional and often arbitrary business.
Today, research and experience in increasingly global classrooms
are revealing the complex interplay of factors that influence a
student’s learning. Educators understand that the business of
coming to know our students as learners is simply too important to
leave to chance—and that the peril of not undertaking this inquiry is
not reaching a learner at all. The story of our friend Arthur is a
reminder of the consequences of ignoring a student’s unique
learning circumstances.

Arthur: Dropping in from Another Planet

Arthur was born in the Dutch West Indies, now Indonesia, and had
just seen his sixth birthday when the Japanese invaded. For the
duration of the war, Arthur, his parents, and his siblings were interred
in a Japanese concentration camp in West Java. While Arthur and
his family survived the ordeal, life in the camp was hard and brutal.
They suffered from chronic hunger, periodic outbreaks of deadly
disease, the cruelty of the guards, and an ever-present atmosphere
of fear and anxiety.
Four years later, following the fall of Japan and the return of the
Dutch to Indonesia, Arthur and his family, together with thousands of
other camp survivors, were repatriated to the Netherlands, where
Arthur was promptly enrolled in a government school.
Given the amount of schooling that he had missed, Arthur was
placed in a class with children three years younger than himself.
There was no question that Arthur’s basic skills in writing, reading,
and math were considerably behind his peers, but the school made
no provision for the intellectual and emotional learning that Arthur
had been engaged in during his time in the camps. The school
authorities and the teacher perceived Arthur through the lens of his
deficits. They focused on the basic academic skills he was lacking—
what he couldn’t do. Perhaps Arthur’s experience was so foreign to
these teachers that they were incapable of empathizing with Arthur.
Or perhaps they believed that any effort to address his past traumas
would only make the present situation worse.
Arthur, who retired as the managing director of a major oil company
and is now in his early eighties, recalls that he was an alienated and
confused adolescent:
Because I was behind in my reading, the teacher treated me as
she would a much younger child. She gave me the same books
as the other younger students. No one seemed to understand or
appreciate my experience. The other children? They were
interested in movies and shopping and clothes. All of which I
didn’t know anything about. They were kind and friendly. I just
couldn’t understand them. There was nothing I could relate to. I
felt as though I had been dropped onto another planet.
Unfortunately, Arthur is not a historical anomaly. He has many more
recent counterparts in schools around the world: children whose
particular personal histories make it difficult for them to thrive within
a paradigm of one-size-fits-all schooling. Bill recalls Christine-Apollo,
the 13-year-old daughter of a Ugandan diplomat stationed in
Tanzania and another war victim.

Christine-Apollo’s New Shoes

The first thing Bill noted during Christine-Apollo’s admissions

interview at the international school in Dar es Salaam was that her
father did all the talking, and most of it had nothing to do with his
daughter. Christine-Apollo presented as extremely shy and
withdrawn. Physically, she appeared much younger than 13. Her
gaze was downcast and she steadfastly refused to make eye
contact. Her facial expression was blank, and her eyes, when she
did raise them from the floor, were vacant. Yet she often moved
suddenly, casting her gaze around the office like a small animal on
the outlook for predators. She was dressed in an ill-fitting, well-worn
uniform from a Ugandan government school—clearly a hand-me-
down. Her father explained that Christine-Apollo didn’t speak English
and that her schooling had been “interrupted.”
As Bill probed deeper, a more complex picture began to emerge.
Christine-Apollo did not speak Kiswahili, which is one of the official
languages of Uganda, either. She communicated only in her tribal
language. She was the daughter of the diplomat’s third wife and had
been brought up in a bush village in Northern Uganda. For the past
four years, Christine-Apollo had been a nomadic refugee in her own
country, moving from village to village, hiding from the horrors and
ravages of the civil war that raged during the years following the fall
of Idi Amin.
At the end of the interview, as Christine-Apollo rose to leave Bill’s
office, she tripped and fell to her knees. Both Bill and her father
jumped to help her to her feet. Christine-Apollo was clearly mortified
by her tumble. Her father apologized to Bill.
“She is not usually so clumsy,” he said. “It’s just that this is one of the
few times she has worn shoes.”
The childhoods of Arthur and Christine-Apollo were obviously
traumatic and illustrate how children’s prior experiences can have a
profound effect upon their learning. But even children who don’t have
such traumas in their past bring to the classroom unique sets of
experiences, traits, and learning preferences that deeply influence
their learning. When we consider the diversity of the children who fill
our classes, it seems foolish to think we could treat them all as a
single entity. Every student presents us with a different learning
puzzle that we must solve in order to give them the best opportunity.
That is the goal of personalized learning—to use what we find out
about our students as a key to unlock their learning potential.
 The Benefits of Knowing Students as Learners

Later in the chapter, we will discuss what, specifically, teachers

ought to learn about their students, but right now we would like to put
forward the benefits teachers will reap from this inquiry. Developing
an in-depth understanding of each learner enables teachers to

1. Create a psychologically safe environment for every learner.

2. Determine each student’s readiness for learning.
3. Identify multiple access points to the curriculum to increase
engagement and success.
4. Develop and demonstrate greater emotional intelligence in the
classroom.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these benefits.

Creating a Psychologically Safe Environment

As Maslow proposed in his hierarchy of human needs, basic wants

must be met before students can turn their attention to learning
(1999). After securing food, water, shelter, and safety from harm,
people seek as their next most important needs affection, belonging,
and esteem. In the process of coming to know students, a caring and
interested teacher can develop rapport and trust not just between
teacher and student but among students. This trust and acceptance
creates a psychologically safe atmosphere in the classroom, which
provides the security students need to experience the intellectual
discomfort of new ideas and adjust their pre-existing mental models
to accommodate new, deep learning. A sense of belonging and
being valued maximizes the chances that students will take such
risks.
Recall Matt from the Introduction, the socially isolated American
student attending an international school in Brazil. There is little
doubt that Matt had learning issues, but these challenges were
exacerbated by his sense of cultural and personal alienation.
According to Matt’s counselor and learning specialist, what turned
things around for Matt was not academic intervention but social
connection. He auditioned for the middle school play. Amazingly, on
stage, Matt’s thick glasses and awkward gait seemed to disappear.
He stepped into character and blew away the director and the rest of
the would-be cast: “Holy smokes! Matt’s a natural. Who would have
guessed that he had such acting talent! He is a completely different
child on stage!”
As word of Matt’s success got around, his teachers began to get a
new and expanded vision of his potential, and their expectations for
him rose. His peers stopped calling him names, and he began
participating more in class discussions. He and his teachers worked
out a plan for improvement, with new goals and strategies. And with
a new community of cast-mate friends, Matt stopped eating his lunch
alone. In short, as Matt’s teacher and classmates discovered and
recognized his strengths—his theatrical talents—his isolation
decreased, and his sense of belonging increased. Such a
psychologically safe environment is critical for meaningful learning.

Determining Each Student’s Readiness

As teachers, we make decisions and judgments daily about the

readiness level of our students. Should we teach Julius Caesar to
our 8th graders? What understandings need to be in place prior to
introducing the concept of division? At what age or grade should we
expect students to be able to produce a five- or six-paragraph
essay? These are questions of group readiness. If teachers are to
meet the learning needs of a global classroom, they will need to
personalize learning, to think of readiness in both group and
individual terms.
In his classic work Thought and Language (1986), the Russian
cognitive psychologist Lev Vygotsky coined the expression “the zone
of proximal development.” The phrase is often used as a synonym
for a child’s intellectual readiness for a given task or for the
understanding of an abstract concept. The zone of proximal
development (ZPD) is a way of looking at readiness, but it is a very
specific kind of readiness: the discrepancy between what the child
can accomplish independently and what the child can achieve with
skillful adult intervention.
Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (1990) also ties readiness to the demands
of the challenge that confronts the learner: “Playing tennis, for
instance, is not enjoyable if two opponents are mismatched. The less
skilful player will feel anxious and the better player will feel bored.
The same is true of every other activity: the piece of music that is too
simple relative to one’s listening skills, will be boring, while music
that is too complex will be frustrating” (p. 50). According to
Csikszentmihalyi, “enjoyment appears at the boundary between
boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with a
person’s capacity to act” (p. 50).
We would suggest that this is the exact location of personalized
learning—on the frontier between boredom and anxiety, which, most
likely, is not the same for all students in a class. If readiness levels in
a class differ, so must the levels of challenge provided (Jensen,
1998; Sousa, 2001; Tomlinson, 2003; Vygotsky, 1978, 1986; Wolfe,
2001).
Teachers often think of learning readiness as dependent on the
knowledge, understanding, and skills that an individual brings to a
new learning situation. However, educators also need to appreciate
that readiness is profoundly influenced by an individual’s prior
learning success or failure, self-esteem, sense of efficacy, cultural
norms, social status within the class or group, life experience,
dispositions and attitudes, and habits of mind. When we know our
students deeply, we are able to consider all these factors and
determine individual readiness with greater accuracy—and then
pitch instruction more precisely to a student’s optimal zone for
learning.
Because readiness is affected by so many factors, it is not a static
condition. Ultimately, student knowledge will let teachers influence
readiness, foster and anticipate it, and truly ready students for
learning.
Frank, our Tanzanian valedictorian who won a scholarship to
Harvard, offers an interesting example of how complex the readiness
principle can be. There can be no question that when he first
transferred to an international school, Frank had the intellectual
wherewithal to understand and learn the content of the curriculum.
He was intellectually ready and able. But at that point, Frank was not
culturally ready. He still did not understand the expectations of the
new school culture. As he grew to understand and embrace those
expectations, his intellectual and cultural readiness merged, and his
learning flourished.

Identifying Multiple Access Points to the Curriculum

Access points are the connections that make the content and
concepts relevant to learners, whether through similar experience, or
an interest, or tapping into their way of thinking. As teachers get to
know each of their students better, effective access points become
more apparent.
Access points are often areas of student strength. In the case of
Nicolas, it was his talent in drawing and his “need” to express himself
in that way. For Nicolas, combining his preferred method of
expression with a story that involved cultural self-discovery proved to
be a powerful invitation to learn.

Developing and Demonstrating Greater Emotional

Intelligence
The effort to come to know students is often accompanied by
increased teacher emotional intelligence. As teachers learn about
their students as individuals, they should enjoy greater flexibility of
thought, greater empathy, greater patience, and more accurate
attribution of responsibility—that critical balance between student
responsibility and teacher responsibility, which so often we get wrong
because we don’t know or haven’t taken into account all the
influences on a student’s learning. When teachers become more
emotionally intelligent, they benefit as much as their students do.
When teachers develop emotional intelligence, they are able to
frame questions about students and suspend negative judgments.
For example, we can put aside the notion that Rupa may be lazy and
instead ask how her previous schooling may be affecting her present
performance.
Emotional intelligence is particularly valuable in the global
classroom, where students’ experiences, expectations, and norms
may be very different from the teacher’s.
 Learning Profiles

To help you meet the challenge of coming to know your students, we

recommend developing student learning profiles to capture five
important dimensions of learning identity: biological traits, cultural
and societal factors, emotional and social influences, academic
performance, and learning preferences. You won’t acquire all of this
information at one time, but as you continue to collect and compile
student data, a meaningful and useful learning profile should
emerge.

Biological Traits

Include child’s gender, age, physical development, physical

disabilities, health, motor skills, coordination, and diagnosed learning
disabilities.
Biological parameters for learning are defined to some degree;
however, they are malleable with appropriate context and support.
For example, it is certainly not uncommon now to see teachers
wearing wireless clip-on microphones that are connected to a
hearing device for a hearing-impaired child. Computer software
makes it possible for students with visual impairments to attend and
participate in the general education classroom. We also know that
children with attention deficit disorder (ADD) or autism spectrum
disorders are educable, and our knowledge of these biological traits
allows us to construct meaningful and worthy learning objectives for
these children. As a wise sailor once said, “While we cannot control
the wind, we can adjust our sails.”
Several years ago we were privileged to observe a very creative
science teacher at Escola Graduada in São Paulo, Brazil, as he
“adjusted his sails.” The teacher was concluding a lab with his 10th
grade students, who were measuring their lung capacity by blowing
into probes and then observing how the strength of each “blow”
could be graphed on a computer screen. However, one student—
Mauricio—was unable to participate in this engaging activity
because, having been born blind, he couldn’t see the graphs. So the
teacher had Mauricio blow into a balloon and then measure the
circumference of the balloon with a piece of string. From this,
Mauricio was able to calculate the volume and infer his lung
capacity. The teacher’s final instructions to Mauricio were, “When
you are finished, you will have to answer exactly the same questions
as the other students.” The methodology was personalized; the
learning outcomes were not.
Knowledge of a child’s biological learning traits can also help a
teacher more accurately interpret classroom behavior. For example,
it is all too easy for us to fall back on the labels of “lazy,” “defiant,” or
“willful,” when, in fact, there may be a biological cause for a student’s
behavior. This information might be gleaned from the child’s medical
history, family history, and developmental progress. We are learning
now that even gender (which in the past some regarded largely as a
sociocultural influence on learning) is a biological trait, in that there
are some distinctive physiological differences in the male and female
brains (King & Gurian, 2006).

Cultural and Societal Factors

Include child’s sense of stability, both now and in past; economic

status; ethnic and racial background; cultural identity; language;
religion; norms and values; and gender expectations.
A number of years ago, Bill was interviewing prospective IB
scholarship students at the International School of Tanganyika in
Tanzania. One student had already completed the first year of the
6th form (equivalent to 11th grade or the first year of the IB diploma
program). Bill was curious as to why the student had “dropped out.”
When he asked about the circumstances, the boy replied that he had
left his previous school because the food there was bad. Bill was
incredulous. Tanzania was a desperately poor African country. At the
time, less than 5 percent of the population was privileged enough to
extend their education to the 6th form, and here was a student who
had turned his back on such a tremendous opportunity because he
didn’t like the food in the school canteen! Later, when Bill mentioned
this “immature and spoiled” student to a Tanzanian colleague, he
was gently reminded that the boy’s previous school had been a
boarding institution in a region of the country devastated by famine.
In all likelihood, the school didn’t have any food to provide for its
students.
Societal influences like famine, war, and economic prosperity or the
lack of it play a significant role in the availability, quality, and nature
of learning. Cultural identity is equally influential, affecting not only
the expectations and values students hold, but also their very
thinking. Richard Nisbett (2003) from the University of Michigan
proposes that students from different cultures actually think and, to
some degree, learn differently. He suggests that people hold the
beliefs they do because of the way they think, and they think the way
they do because of the societies they live in. Nisbett relates the story
of Heejung Kim, a Korean graduate student of psychology at
Stanford University. Kim was exasperated by her professors’
constant demands that she speak up in class. Failure to speak up in
class, her professors told her, might indicate a lack of understanding
on her part. What’s more, by not talking, Kim was limiting classroom
interaction and, therefore, limiting her own learning and the learning
of her classmates.
Kim wasn’t buying it. She felt that she and her fellow Asian and
Asian American students would not benefit from speaking because
their fundamental way of understanding the material was not verbal.
For Kim, this was the essence of the difference between Western
analytic thought and Eastern holistic thought.
Kim tested her theory by having people speak out loud while solving
various complex problems. This had no effect on the Western
European and Caucasian American students. They were just as
successful—or just as unsuccessful—at solving the problems
regardless of whether they were speaking or silent. However,
speaking out loud had a very deleterious effect on the problem-
solving performance of the Asian and Asian American students.
While we are not suggesting that it is unimportant for Asian students
to participate in class discussions, we are suggesting that we who
teach in culturally diverse classrooms are wise to remember the
words of Samuel Huntington (1996) in his book The Clash of
Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order: “In the emerging
world of ethnic conflict and civilization clash, Western belief in the
universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false, it is
immoral, and it is dangerous” (cited in Nisbett, 2003, p. 220).

Emotional and Social Influences

Include family structure, family history, recent change or loss in the

family, attitude, disposition, peer status, and self-esteem.
When Ochan was a child, many of her teachers operated on the
understanding that the classroom was an academic setting in which
emotions had no place. During a time when Ochan’s grandmother
was in a coma and dying, her grades took a nosedive. After Ochan
explained what was going on and confided her fears about her
grandmother, the teacher’s response was to tell Ochan, “Home is
home, and school is school. We are here to learn. Best to leave your
emotions at home.”
We know now that such a notion is impossible. None of us can
separate our cognitive and emotional lives; they are inextricably
bound together (LeDoux, 1996; Pert, 1997). When a child has had
an intense emotional experience, we must expect that experience to
influence the youngster’s ability to attend in school. These
experiences can range from the grief of the departure of a friend (all
too common in our very transient school communities) to the anxiety
of a family member’s illness to the terror of witnessing a violent
altercation between Mom and Dad.
Attitudes and dispositions teachers see in school are the exterior
manifestations of students’ internal emotions. For example, May Ling
appears withdrawn and anxious in the company of her classmates.
How might this apparent insecurity affect her acquisition of
language? Rupa seems to have a great aversion to making
mistakes. She is visibly ashamed when the teacher points out a
spelling or grammatical error. How might Rupa’s obsession with “the
right answer” affect her willingness to take intellectual risks?

Research in social psychology (Aronson, 1999) confirms what most

of us know intuitively—that life tends to be easier for attractive,
wealthy individuals who belong to the dominant culture and race. As
a generalization, this is also true for students in our schools. It is
easier to succeed in school if you are physically able and attractive,
affluent, and a member of the dominant culture or race. In a typical
classroom, even in primary school, students rank themselves and
each other in terms of success as students (academic status) and
perceived attractiveness and popularity (peer status). Elizabeth
Cohen (1998) notes that “low status members [of the class] talk less
than others, [and] when they do speak up, no one takes their ideas
seriously, and other members may not even listen to what they have
to say. Low-status group members have trouble getting their hands
on materials for the group task; they may even be physically
excluded” (p. 19). Consequently, low-status children learn less
effectively and less efficiently than their high-status counterparts.
We saw a vivid example of this phenomenon at the International
School of Tanganyika in the 1980s, when the student body included
a significant number of Zambian children whose fathers worked for
the TAZARA Railroad (the rail line that links Dar es Salaam, Lusaka,
and the Zambian Copper Belt). The “otherness” of these students
was primarily related to their socioeconomic status. The “TAZARA
children” looked different from their Zambian classmates. They
generally wore secondhand uniforms and did not bathe regularly.
They didn’t engage in the same leisure-time activities as the other
children, and their frames of reference were different. It became
clear that the TAZARA children were becoming a “minority” group
within the school and were perceived by their peers to have lower
status. This perception unquestionably inhibited their learning.
Cohen (1998) has suggested that teacher awareness of student
status can be a starting point to making cooperative learning groups
equitable. By assigning group work that requires multiple intellectual
abilities and forming groups so that no one person has all the
capabilities, the teacher creates a learning situation that requires
group interdependence. The teacher can then deliberately search
out opportunities to assign competence to low-status students. As
Cohen puts it, “if the teacher publicly evaluates a low-status student
as being strong on a particular multiple ability, that student will tend
to believe the evaluation, as will the other students who overhear the
evaluation” (p. 21). Cohen also points out that the effective
assignment of competence must have three essential features: (1)
the evaluation must be public, (2) it must be genuine and true, and
(3) the skills or abilities of the low-status student must be made
relevant to the group task. Assigning competence to low-status
students is not just about increasing or enhancing self-esteem. It is
also about modifying the expectations that other students have for
the low-status student. There is, however, a caution. The low-status
student knows what he or she has done, so a false or disingenuous
assignment of competence will do more harm than good.
We have found that a very simple way to assign competence to a
low-status student is through the use of paraphrasing. Paraphrasing
sends three important messages: (1) I understand or am trying to
understand what you’re saying, (2) I value your ideas, and (3) I care
about you as a person. These are messages that every student, but
particularly a low-status student, needs to hear.

Academic Performance
Includes evidence of child’s concrete or abstract thinking skills,
reading skills, attentional focus, past success, oral language
development, written language, proficiency with sequencing,
proficiency with categorization, and proficiency in identifying logical
arguments.
When teachers investigate a child’s academic performance, more
often than not they do so by examining and analyzing a piece of
student work. This effort requires cognitive empathy—trying to get
inside the cognition of the child to see what is being understood and
what is being misunderstood. If we were examining a student’s
solution to a mathematical problem, for example, we might ask
ourselves, “What evidence do we see of conceptual understanding?
What ‘sense’ can we make of the child’s mistakes? Is this a problem
with calculation? Is it a language issue? What hunches do we want
to use to frame questions for further investigation?” Cognitive
empathy is what distinguishes good and great teachers.
Think of May Ling, who was an enigma to her teachers. She was
orally fluent in English yet unable to generate any written expression
that demonstrated depth of thought. One teacher decided to have a
private conversation with May Ling to try to pin down what she
understood from her reading of the social studies text. It soon
became apparent that May Ling had developed social language in
English, Cantonese, and Danish but lacked the academic language
that would allow her to engage in abstract thought. For years, May
Ling had masked her lack of comprehension behind a veneer of
social graciousness.
When teachers talk about a student’s academic performance, we
often use the term “ability.” We talk about the challenges of teaching
to a mixed-ability class or the delight of watching a high-ability
student go beyond our expectations. Given how frequently teachers
use the term “ability,” it was a surprise to us that in Carol Ann
Tomlinson and Jay McTighe’s book Integrating Differentiated
Instruction and Understanding by Design (2006), they avoid the word
almost completely. They even substitute the term “readiness
grouping” for the more familiar “ability grouping.” Why, we wondered,
would two best-selling authors deliberately use a phrase that would
be unfamiliar to many, if not most, of their readership?
We paused to examine our assumptions about the word “ability.” Is
ability synonymous with the student’s present level of academic
performance? Or does ability imply a natural aptitude and talent? Is
there something about one’s ability in a specific subject area
discipline that suggests potential for future success or failure? How
malleable is ability? What is the relationship between ability and
potential? What is the relationship between a teacher’s perception of
ability and how he or she constructs expectations for a given
student? What is the relationship between teachers’ expectations
and student performance?
What an individual identifies as the cause of his or her success or
failure can have a profound influence on future learning. For
example, if a student routinely attributes his failure in mathematics to
sources outside his control (e.g., to the complexity of the subject or a
lack of native intelligence), there is a good chance that he may
develop a “learned helplessness” in mathematics. If he believes the
sources of his difficulty in math are beyond his control, the “smart”
thing to do is to stop wasting any more time on the subject. In this
way, a student can develop what Carol Dweck (2006) refers to as a
“fixed mindset.” Teachers are equally susceptible to this, and the
consequences of our making judgments about student ability can be
dire.
We, like Tomlinson and McTighe, prefer the term “readiness” to
“ability” because readiness suggests malleability. It is something that
can change and be influenced by skilled instruction, and it will vary
considerably depending on circumstance, topic or subject, and a
student’s developmental stage. Ability, by contrast, suggests innate
talents over which neither the child nor the teacher has much
influence. We suspect that teachers are much better able to judge a
student’s readiness for the next learning challenge than they are a
student’s ability to tackle that challenge.
A substantial body of research supports the importance of teachers
knowing the level of student readiness. Longitudinal research
conducted by Hunt and colleagues in the 1960s established two
features of effective personalized learning. First of all, more effective
learning takes places when the amount of task structure by the
teacher matches a student’s level of development (Hunt, 1971). In
other words, students who are functioning at a fairly concrete level
might require very explicit and sequential task instructions, whereas
students who are thinking more abstractly might benefit from task
instructions that are deliberately open-ended and “fuzzy.” Second,
there is a strong relationship between student achievement and a
teacher’s ability to diagnose student skill level and prescribe
appropriate tasks.

In a study of 250 classrooms, Fisher and colleagues (1980) found

when individual students worked at high success levels, the students
overall felt better about themselves and the subject they were
studying and learned more. These authors go on to suggest that a
success rate of about 80 percent is probably optimal for intellectual
growth. This suggests that students who are achieving at a success
rate significantly over 80 percent are probably being
underchallenged. (What does this say about our straight-A
students?) Put another way, student achievement is not likely to
improve when teachers ask students to practice what they already
know and can do reasonably well.
In a five-year research study, Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, and
Whalen (1993) found an important correlation between student
readiness and student motivation. The researchers studied over 200
teenagers, pursuing the question of why some adolescents become
committed to the development of their talents while others become
disengaged and neglect talent development. The findings show a
strong correlation between the complexity of the tasks developed by
the teachers for the students and the individual skill level of a
student. Students who had good skills but were underchallenged
demonstrated low involvement in learning activities and a decrease
in concentration. At the other end of the spectrum, students whose
skills were inadequate for the level of challenge demonstrated low
involvement, low achievement, and declining self-worth. This
mismatch not only failed to stimulate or challenge students but also
undermined both their competence and confidence as learners. The
researchers write: “This situation, which accounted for almost a third
of the observed classroom activities, consisted mostly of reading,
watching films, and listening to lectures” (p. 186). According to these
researchers, teachers who are effective in developing student talents
craft challenges commensurate with student readiness levels.
Typically, teachers personalize learning for student readiness levels
by addressing content, product, and process in four ways:

By varying the degree of dependence or independence of the

learning activity (e.g., task complexity). This can take the form of
the teacher dividing complex tasks into manageable chunks for
students who might otherwise be overwhelmed.
By modifying the task clarity or “fuzziness.” On occasion,
students benefit from deliberately vague instructions. This may
especially be the case when the assignment involves creativity
or imagination.
By varying the degree of structure or open-endedness of the
learning activity. Depending upon the readiness of the students,
a teacher can either provide a graphic organizer (e.g., a Venn
diagram or a T chart) or have the students develop their own
visual organizing structure.
By teaching or reteaching particular skills in small groups as
students need them (Tomlinson & Allan, 2000).

It is clear that teacher adjustments that accommodate student

academic readiness enhance both student achievement and student
attitudes about learning.
Learning Preferences

Include interests, intelligence preferences, learning styles,

production styles, and environmental influences.
Although identifying and sorting student learning preferences may
seem time-consuming, the dividends your students will reap should
more than compensate. Having a student lie on the floor to read his
book rather than sit in a chair, letting a student explore the concept
of life cycles through her passion for beetles, assigning a drawing
rather than a writing project to an artistic student—these small
modifications can make big differences in the learning that takes
place.
Interests. There is a considerable research base to support a strong
correlation between the degree of student interest and levels of
student motivation, achievement, productivity, and perseverance
(Amabile, 1983; Torrance, 1995). Csikszentmihalyi and colleagues
(1993) have found that student interest is as critical to talent
development as the match between task complexity and student
readiness for the task. According to Glasser (1988), students who
are interested in what they are learning are motivated to pursue
learning experiences of ever-increasing complexity and difficulty.
There is also a significant correlation between students’ interest in
the learning content and their willingness to persevere in learning
tasks that are momentarily not interesting.
Another important correlation to emerge from the research on
student interest and choice is that students who are engaged in work
that interested them were overwhelmingly more able to see
connections between their present work in school and their future
academic or career goals. These connections form the foundation of
commitment to future learning and foster self-directedness
(Cziksentmihalyi et al., 1993).
There are two types of student interests useful in planning for
personalized learning. Pre-existing student interests are those
subjects, topics, and pursuits about which an individual student has
an existing curiosity or passion. They may be interests explored at
school (areas of the curriculum, extracurricular activities, or athletics)
or outside interests in which the student readily invests time and
energy. Relevance to the student is obvious and engagement is
immediate. Potential interests are topics, activities, or pursuits that
the student may not have yet discovered or been exposed to, but
that may prove to be ongoing. Potential interests are as powerful as
pre-existing interests, but a teacher needs to mediate their relevance
for the student.
Effective teachers pay attention to both pre-existing and potential
interests. Whenever you can link the classroom curriculum to student
interest, you tap into internalized achievement motivation—where
goals are personal, motivation comes from within, and achievement
is deeply meaningful. Mediating connections between classroom
learning and student interests is one of the most powerful strategies
that teachers can employ toward the goal of creating enthusiastic
lifelong learners.
During a unit on religious knowledge in our IB Theory of Knowledge
class, we asked the students to write about how they personally
came to knowledge through faith. Both Jorgen, a militant atheist from
Sweden, and Samir, a devout Jordanian Muslim of Palestinian
extraction, wrote particularly well-organized, articulate essays. As a
follow-up, we asked the class to undertake a self-analysis of their
arguments for “confirmation bias”—the tendency all of us have to
perceive only that which confirms our pre-existing ideas and
prejudices. A rich and respectful discussion ensued, with Jorgen and
Samir—both fascinated by God but taking polar-opposite positions—
driving the conversation. It was a vivid example of how student
interest can support deep, critical thinking.
Intelligence preferences. General consensus in education today is
that intelligence is not monolithic but made up of many elements.
Educators also view it as malleable, subject to a wide variety of
influences (Nisbett, 2009). Howard Gardner’s (1993) model of
intelligence, identifying eight specific types of intelligence, has been
popular with teachers, but many who find it fascinating intellectually
also find it cumbersome to apply to classroom instruction. Gardner
himself is quick to point out that his theory was never designed for
classroom use.
Teachers may find Robert Sternberg’s (1985) framework of
intelligence preferences easier to use. Sternberg proposes three
intelligence types: analytical, practical, and creative.

Analytical intelligence is the intelligence most often recognized

and rewarded in schools. Students with strengths in this area
learn well with traditional school tasks such as organizing
information, perceiving cause and effect, logical analysis, note
taking, and predicting implications.
Practical intelligence is about relevance. Students with strengths
in this area need to solve problems in a meaningful context.
Their learning is supported when teachers offer connections
with the real world outside the classroom. These students need
to see concepts and skills at work.
Creative intelligence involves approaching ideas and problems
in fresh and sometimes surprising ways. Students with strong
creative intelligence are often divergent thinkers, preferring to
experiment with ideas rather than “work” like everyone else.

All people have and use all three intelligences, but we vary in
particular preferences and in combination of preferences. These
preferences may be shaped by “brain wiring,” culture, gender, and
personal experiences. It makes sense for teachers to support
students as they develop their intelligence strengths while providing
opportunities to expand their nonpreferred areas.
Sternberg’s model has been well substantiated by research studies
of students from primary school through university level. His findings
suggest that students can make significant gains when teachers both
permit them to explore ideas using their preferred intelligences and
teach regularly in all three modes, which deepens student
understanding and enhances retention.
Learning styles. In recent years, educators have seen some
controversy arise over the issue of learning styles. Willingham (2009)
and other critics argue that there doesn’t seem to be much evidence
that children and young adults learn in fundamentally different ways.
In fact, in a September 2009 posting on the Washington Post
website, Willingham called learning styles “bunk.” This is a
remarkable conclusion that flies in the face of what people know
intuitively about learning and what educators have learned from
observing our students in the classroom. In his book Why Don’t
Students Like School? (2009), Daniel Willingham asserts that there
is no neuroscience research that supports the use of learning styles
in schools. This may be true. But there is also no neuroscience
research that establishes the influences of temperament or
personality on learning. However, for hundreds of years, teachers
have known from experience how powerful these influences can be.
There is no question that certain approaches to learning work better
for some children than for others.
No one, to our knowledge, is suggesting that we use a learning style
inventory to pigeonhole children, and no one is suggesting that
children’s learning style proclivities may not change from situation to
situation. The reality, as we see it, is simply that because many
children find learning to be a struggle, teachers are obliged to do
what they can to make it easier. Being aware of learning style
preferences and building them into instructional planning is one way
to do this.
Modality preferences refer to a student’s preferred mode of taking in
information—visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or tactual. Each of us uses
all four modalities when we learn, but in different combinations of
preference. The largest proportion of the population tends to prefer
visual learning; these are students who greatly benefit from a graphic
display of the material to be learned. The next-largest groups are
those who prefer kinesthetic and tactual learning experiences.
(Several of our special education colleagues from schools around
the world have observed that a significant number of boys with
learning disabilities have a preference for kinesthetic learning;
ironically, these are the same students teachers often require to sit
still for long periods of time.) The smallest proportion of the
population tends to prefer auditory learning. That auditory learners
are a minority in our classrooms is significant, given our proclivity as
teachers to fill the classroom with teacher talk.
Each modality preference may present challenges to learning, but
each also offers opportunities for personalizing and ought to be
considered during instructional planning. Figure 1.1 lists some
activities that may be problematic or helpful for each type of learner.

Figure 1.1. Personalizing for Learning Modality Preference

Figure 1.1. Personalizing for Learning Modality Preference (continued)
Environmental preferences are the conditions under which a given
student works best. Does Frank do his best thinking in the morning
or afternoon? Does Rupa become distracted when the classroom is
too warm or too cold? When Matt is struggling to read, does he do
better in a hard, straight-backed chair or when he is lounging on a
soft pillow on the floor?
Grouping preferences refer to a student’s favored interaction—
working alone, with a partner, in a small group, or in a large group.
Production styles. Allied closely with learning styles, production
styles are preferred ways of expressing learning, including through
speech, through written language, and through various visual
modes. For example, an easily managed model of production styles
might ask students to self-select into four different groups: writers,
performers, builders, and artists. The students would then be given a
learning task that corresponds to their preferred mode of expressing
their learning.
Several years ago, Susan Baum and Hank Nichols led a workshop
on differentiated instruction at the International School of Kuala
Lumpur in Malaysia. They asked the entire teaching staff to take a
quick individual inventory of their preferred and nonpreferred
production styles. The teachers were then grouped together in their
least-preferred production style and given the following simulation
task: Design a product that shows the social and economic structure
of a medieval European town, illustrating the relationships between
economic classes and different forms of power and authority. As you
might predict, the products were awkward, unrefined, and lacking
precision. The participants were also noticeably frustrated.
Susan and Hank then regrouped the teachers into their most-
preferred production style and assigned the same learning task. The
new products showed richness and creativity and a depth of
understanding that had been entirely absent in the previous
products. Had these teachers reached a greater understanding of
medieval Europe in the previous half hour? Perhaps, but we suspect
not. We suggest that there is a positive correlation between the
complexity and sophistication of understanding and learning that a
student can demonstrate and the degree to which he or she is
permitted to use a preferred production style. We know that the
anxiety and stress of being compelled to work in one’s least-
preferred production style can actually serve as an obstacle to
cognition. The medium does affect the message.
Another significant learning that emerged from Susan and Hank’s
workshop was that teachers tend to be profoundly suspicious of their
own least-preferred production style. We heard a number of teachers
express concern that it was simply not possible to demonstrate the
depth of understanding in building, for example, that you could in
writing an essay. Another teacher dismissed a visual representation
of knowledge (e.g., a poster) as a “soft option.” However, when
evaluated objectively against a precise and common rubric, each of
these production styles can yield products that are rich in conceptual
understanding. We, as teachers, need to be aware of our own
learning prejudices.

Allowing student choice is a powerful learning tool, but it’s an

approach that can sometimes get out of hand and actually impair
learning. Carolyn Brunner, the director of the International Center for
Learning Styles at SUNY—Buffalo, sets out three nonnegotiables
students must follow if they wish to alter planned activities in order to
use their preferred learning styles: (1) the student’s grades must
either remain the same (if they are already acceptable or good) or
improve; (2) the student’s behavior must remain constructive and
appropriate (if it is already so) or it must improve; and (3) the
student’s use of the preferred learning style must not interfere with
anyone else’s learning (Brunner, 1994).
 Strategies for Gathering Learning-Profile Data

The work of knowing students deeply as individuals and compiling a

learning profile for each one may seem daunting, especially given
the limitations of the classroom day. Specialist teachers in
elementary schools (music, art, PE, etc.) and middle and high school
subject-area teachers often see more than a hundred students each
week. Those teachers can understandably ask, “How it is possible to
come to know all my students as learners?”
While each child is a unique learner, it is often more helpful to think
of each child as a unique combination of common learning attributes.
So, by coming to know one child as a learner, you are actually
coming to know the learning attributes of many children. In other
words, by knowing what works in the classroom for one kinesthetic
learner, you know what works for many kinesthetic learners.
To help you get started with compiling learning profiles for your
students, let’s look at some sources and strategies for gathering
data, framing probing questions about each student as a learner, and
developing hypotheses for how best to personalize instruction.
As teachers, it is natural for us to be concerned about the students in
our classes who are struggling. As a result, we tend to focus on
student deficits (what a student is not yet able to do) as opposed to
student strengths. Creating a student learner profile can provide a
way to shift this focus and “unmask” success. We have developed a
series of questions that teachers might want to ask themselves as
they develop a learner profile. The questions are categorized under
the five dimensions of learner identity.
1. Biological traits

In what ways might the child’s gender be influencing learning in

the classroom?
 Is there anything in the child’s medical records that indicates a
condition that might impact classroom learning?
Does the child have a learning disability?
Has the student been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD?
Has the student been identified as highly capable?

2. Cultural and societal influences

What is the child’s dominant culture (or cultures), and how might
it (they) be influencing learning?
How do you think the child perceives the role of the student?
If you were to ask the child what the word “learning” means, how
do you anticipate the child would respond?
What might be some ways that you could support the child in
coming to better understand the culture of the school?
If the child’s first language is not English, how might this
linguistic diversity enhance achievement in the classroom?

3. Emotional and social influences

What are the socioeconomic circumstances of the child’s family

circumstances? What is the family’s primary language?
What is the student’s prior school history?
Does the student prefer to work alone or in groups?
When have you seen the student take on leadership
responsibilities?
How would you describe the student’s interpersonal skills?
 When is the student most self-directed?

4. Learner preferences

What are the child’s strengths as a learner?

Under what conditions have you seen the child doing his or her
best work?
What are you noticing about the environmental influences on
this student’s learning?
What activities does the child engage in after school or during
recess?
If the child were to design a field trip, what are your hunches as
to where he or she might choose to go?
What have you noticed about the child’s preferred learning
styles or intelligence preferences?
In what ways does this student most prefer to demonstrate
learning?

5. Academic performance

What have you learned from your analysis of this student’s

work, and how will this influence the design of future instruction?

There are a number of ways that teachers can gather data about
their students as learners. Three of the most commonly practiced are
examining past records, interviewing the child and/or parents, and
engaging in structured observation of the child.
Examining Records

On occasion, a teacher will tell us that she will deliberately avoid

looking at previous school records so as to be able to make up her
own mind about a child. While we endorse a healthy skepticism
toward negative or overly critical comments about a student’s
capabilities, previous school records can offer extremely useful
information, particularly if the previous teacher has included insights
about the child as a learner or comments about how and under what
conditions the child learns best. When we review previous school
records, we like to look for both patterns and discrepancies. What
patterns emerge from the child’s grades and the teachers’
comments? Are there significant discrepancies among subjects, or
among school grades and standardized test scores? Is the pattern of
achievement on an expected trajectory, or are there unusual dips or
spikes in the records?

Conducting Parent Interviews/Surveys

Often teachers will view parent/teacher conferences as a time when

the teacher is called upon to report on the child’s achievement. This
may be one purpose of such a conference. We also like to think of it
as an opportunity to learn about the child as a learner. Parents are
often very knowledgeable about their children and have useful
insights to share. We like to come to such conferences with
questions for the parents. Any of the earlier questions about learner
identity can be adapted for use in a parent or student interview.

Engaging in Structured Observation

Our colleague from UCLA, Barbara Keogh (1998), is fond of saying

that a very significant number of the problems and issues that we
teachers perceive with student learning—perhaps even most of them
—disappear when we engage in regular and deliberate observation
of our students. There is something about the act of observation that
changes how we perceive students and, as a result, actually
reshapes our relationships with them. As Yogi Berra once said, “You
can observe a lot just by watching.”

Most teachers have not been trained in clinical or structured

observation; however, the fundamentals are not complex, and the
benefits can be truly remarkable. We suggest breaking down
observation and consequent use of gathered data into six steps:
1. Suspend judgment. Identify existing conclusions regarding the
child, and suspend judgment to enable separation of perception from
observation.
2. Collect data. Decide on recording style; collect data.
3. Frame questions. Look for patterns and connections; develop
questions.
4. Look for co-variation of data. Triangulate the data points as
follows:

Consistency: Does the student always behave in this manner in

other situations and at other times?
Consensus: Do others behave in the same way in the same
situation?
Distinctiveness of action: Is the student the only one to behave
in this manner? (Kelley, 1967)

5. Consider all factors.

Student internal and external influences

Environmental factors, including teacher
Curricular area
6. Develop and test hypotheses.
Ochan learned a very efficient way of using clinical observation from
a 1st grade teacher at the International School of Tanganyika. In this
method, called “sticky note observations,” the teacher records brief
observation notes about specific children on sticky notes and sorts
these notes based on either the dimensions of learner identity or the
actual instructional targets, which may be most useful to the teacher
in getting to know the child as a learner. At the elementary level,
these instructional targets might correspond to learning domains, like
fine motor skills, collaboration in groups, and sight word vocabulary.
At the secondary level, categories might reflect particular learning
objectives or grade-level benchmarks. All the observation notes
should reflect a time of day and should be dated. Over time, the
teacher can look for patterns, monitor progress, and celebrate
successes. Sticky note observations are also extremely useful data
when teachers come to frame questions for either parent or student
interviews.

Structured Reflection

Another way to come to know a student deeply as a learner is to

partner with a coaching colleague and engage in some structured
reflection about that student. We have adapted the following
structured reflection map from the work of Art Costa and Robert
Garmston (2002). In this map, one colleague (the coach)

1. Expresses empathy (not agreement or sympathy), reflects

content, and paraphrases for understanding and clarity.
2. Probes for specificity about the child’s interests and strengths.
Example questions: What type of outside interests does the
student have? Sports? Music? Pets? If the student were to plan
 a field trip, where might it be to? What hunches do you have
about the child’s preferred learning styles? What are you
exploring regarding the child’s intelligence preferences? When
have you seen the child at his or her best? In what medium
does the child engage most intensely?
3. Supports the colleague in his or her analysis of connections and
causal factors. Example questions: What connections are you
seeing between when this child learns best and time of day,
subject areas, specific learning activities, solitary vs. group
work, etc.?
4. Supports the colleague in his or her construction of new
learning. Example questions: Over the course of the year
together in the classroom, what has this child taught you? How
might what you know about this child’s strengths influence your
goals for the child?
5. Assists the colleague in his or her commitment to application.
Example question: As you go into a new situation, how will you
apply your new knowledge?
6. Helps the colleague reflect on the coaching process. Example
questions: How has this conversation supported your thinking?
What has been most useful to you in this conversation?

Following the coaching conversation, it is often helpful to record the

highlights of the discussion in writing. We find the Student Analysis
Instrument shown in Figure 1.2 to be a useful tool for capturing and
summarizing coaching conversations about students for the purpose
of eventual personalization.

Figure 1.2. Student Analysis Instrument

Student Self-Reporting

Students, of course, can tell us much of what we need to know about

them as learners, and asking them to self-report and self-reflect also
supports them in coming to know themselves as learners. This is a
gift for a lifetime. As students begin to understand the influences and
circumstances that bear on their learning, they can take control and
make changes to learn most effectively and efficiently.
David Suarez, a middle school math teacher at Jakarta International
School, personalizes learning for his students by providing them
choice in the levels of challenge they face (Powell & Kusuma-Powell,
2007a). After each unit of study, David asks the students to reflect in
writing on their choice, the stress it caused, and what they may have
learned about themselves as learners.
There are numerous published student interest inventories that a
teacher can use to get a quick “read” on the areas of interest
represented in a classroom. These are particularly useful at the start
of a new school year when a teacher may be faced with the daunting
task of coming to know a relatively large number of new learners.
One of the most student-friendly interest inventories that we know of
is the Interest-A-Lyzer, written by Joseph Renzulli (1997) out of the
University of Connecticut. The Interest-A-Lyzer comes in versions
specifically designed for primary, intermediate (middle school), and
secondary (high school) levels.

Assignments and Activities

Teachers can build data gathering right into assignments and

activities, which not only helps them to know students better but also
helps students to know each other. For some activities that yield
student data, please see the Action Advice section that follows.
 Action Advice: Building a Sense of Belonging

As we discussed earlier in the chapter, students need to have a

sense of membership in the class in order to learn (Maslow, 1999).
Ironically, it is virtually impossible to personalize learning without
fostering this sense of belonging.
We offer here a variety of inclusive activators to build a sense of
classroom membership. Each strategy requires the involvement and
movement of all students—no one can opt out. They set norms for
participation (that everyone is expected to be actively engaged) and
are designed to be icebreakers in that they give explicit permission
for laughter and fun. They also can reveal some useful information
about students.
BINGO. The teacher prepares a bingo sheet with 25 descriptors in
five rows and five columns. The bingo card can focus on anything
that is currently of interest to the students or that you’ve recently
taught. For example, at the beginning of the year, a bingo card might
focus on student interests and include items such as “I love to cook,
water ski, read novels, surf the internet, or play football.” Another
group of descriptors might include, “If I had a job in the film industry, I
would like to be an actor, a costume designer, a script writer, or a set
builder.” Students write the names of other students below the
matching descriptor on the bingo card. A name can only be used
once. When a student completes a row of five, horizontally, vertically
or diagonally, that student stands up and shouts “Bingo!” It is a fun
way of having them get to know each other and for the teacher to
explore some of their common interests.
CORNERS. Develop a series of multiple-choice questions that the
students will answer by getting up and moving to one of the four
corners of the classroom. (Label the corners “A,” “B,” “C,” and “D” to
correspond to the answers to the questions.) An example of a
“corner” question might be
 When I am learning something new and challenging
A. I need to see it.
B. I prefer to hear about it.
C. I need to move around the room.
D. I like a hands-on activity.
GROUNDING. A grounding derives from a Native American ritual
performed when people come together either for the first time or
after a significant absence. The purpose is to build a sense of
inclusion and belonging. Prepare for this activity by writing three or
four questions, one of which must be answered on an emotional
level. To begin the grounding, read the questions one by one, asking
students sitting farthest away from you to respond first. A set of
grounding questions might include

Please tell us your name and nationality.

What languages do you speak?
What is the best thing about your culture?
How do you feel about being here today?

LIKE ME. Create a wide-ranging list of characteristics, and read the

list aloud, asking everyone to stand when they hear a characteristic
that applies to them. For example, you might say,
Please stand if…

You are right-handed.

You collect stamps or coins.
You hate lima beans.
You sing in a choir.
You speak two or more languages.
You have lived in more than one country.
Your favorite subject in school is recess.
 You are a Boy Scout or Girl Scout.
You have snorted spaghetti up your nose. (There should be at
least one humorous item to bring laughter into the room.)

LINEUP. This activity can be used to reveal interesting information

about the students, and it is a good strategy for early in the school
year when students are coming to know each other. Once all the
students have lined up, they can then number off for purposes of
flexible grouping. Here are some examples of criteria.

Distance born from this room. Have students line up in order of

the greatest to the smallest distance between their place of birth
and the classroom. Check with each student to find out where
they were born.
Time in country (state or town). Have students line up in order of
how long they have lived in the country, state, town, or city.
Check student information against the line for accuracy.
Spiciness of chili (or curry or sambal or salsa). Have students
line up in order of how spicy hot they like their chili (or curry or
salsa).
Birthday groups. Have students line up in order of their birthdays
(month and day, not year). Have them try to do this in silence,
using only hand signals. Tell them that the record time for a
group this large is 63 seconds. Once they are in line, you can
check for accuracy (optional but fun).
City of birth. Have students line up alphabetically according to
the city in which they were born. Ask students to tell the class
where they were born. Some very unusual locations often
surface!

SNOWBALL TOSS. Students respond in writing to three or four

prepared questions, similar in nature to the kinds of questions used
in a Grounding. They then crumple up their piece of paper and toss it
into the center of the classroom. Each student retrieves another
“snowball” and tosses it again. After two or three tosses, each
student retrieves a paper “snowball” (hopefully not his own) and
introduces the author to the class. (Disadvantage: In a large class,
this activity can be very time-consuming.)
SONG TITLE METAPHORS. Divide students into small groups of
five or six (no fewer than four) and ask them to identify three song
titles that could serve as a theme song for the class or for any
concept that they have been studying (e.g., photosynthesis, human
conflict, probability). Each group then selects the best song title of
the three and either sings a few bars or mimes the title, with the rest
of the class trying to guess it.
 Chapter 2
Knowing Ourselves as Teachers

The need to know ourselves as teachers is linked closely with the

need to know our students. Time and time again, educational
research tells us that learning takes place in a social context
(Vygotsky, 1986) and that the teacher/student relationship is crucial
to student achievement. The simple fact is that most children learn
more, and more efficiently, when they believe that their teacher cares
about them (Crabtree, 2004). Developing powerful learning
relationships in the classroom takes considerable teacher emotional
intelligence (Powell & Kusuma-Powell, 2010), and the bedrock of
such emotional intelligence is professional self-knowledge.
 Connecting Teacher Self-Knowledge and Student
Learning

Just how important is it for teachers to have professional self-

knowledge? The answer depends on how we see our profession. If
we think of teaching as nothing more than imparting information and
helping to develop psychomotor skills, professional self-knowledge is
probably not that important. In these cases, a teacher can probably
be replaced by a machine. (And, as the great science fiction writer
Arthur C. Clarke is reported to have said, “Any teacher who can be
replaced by a machine, should be.”) But what about those of us who
believe that teaching aims for more complex and less quantifiable
goals—such as helping students learn to learn, take intellectual
risks, manage emotions, develop creativity, think critically and
independently, and assess their own achievement honestly and
accurately? The pursuit of these objectives requires the development
of learning-focused relationships with students, and to do that,
professional self-knowledge is critical.
Each of us brings to the classroom our own individual traits,
preferences, experiences, emotions, perceptions, expectations, and
values—factors that influence how we see students, what we expect
of them, and instructional approaches we take. Professional self-
knowledge is the key to recognizing when these factors negatively
affect how we teach and to modifying our behavior and thinking to
allow students the fullest learning experience.
Knowing ourselves as teachers is even more important in today’s
global classroom. When a group of students, with their variety of
learning styles and preferences (many of them different from our
own), also have different cultural backgrounds and speak different
languages, it’s essential that we understand how we have selected
and constructed our perceptions of them as learners. What lens are
we looking through when we observe Rupa or Frank or May Ling?
How is our cultural identity or socioeconomic class influencing the
way we perceive their needs and behaviors?

Put simply, as teachers we have to see ourselves clearly to see our

students clearly. This is not an area that teacher-training colleges
explore in great depth. Nevertheless, it is a critical aspect of
cultivating emotional intelligence (Goleman, 1995), particularly in the
areas of self-awareness and regulation, social awareness, and
relationship management (Powell & Kusuma-Powell, 2010).
Every teacher who aims to do more than simply impart information
and develop skills understands intuitively that the classroom is a
place of teacher self-discovery. It is impossible to meet with children
and young adults daily, to interact closely with them, and to feel the
emotional weather of the classroom without reflecting on who we are
as teachers and how our sense of professional identity may be
affecting the learning of our students.
Bill learned this lesson during his first teaching experience in a New
York high school. When he walked into his 11th grade Regents
English class one morning, he realized he had done the
unpardonable—forgotten to do his homework. A few of the students
already had their poetry anthologies open to Robert Frost’s sonnet
“Design,” the very poem that Bill had assigned but had not read
himself. He had forgotten to prepare the lesson. Unprintable words
leapt into Bill’s mind.
He was faced with a choice. Should he change the lesson—
postpone the Frost sonnet for a day? There were always vocabulary
exercises that could fill the time. That was an easy option. Or should
he soldier on with the original lesson, doing the best he could? Bill
chose the latter, as the fallback vocabulary exercise smacked of
deceitfulness. In the past, he had been pretty tough with the students
who had not done their homework, and now he had to face his own
music.
Bill told the class that he had forgotten to read the Frost poem and
that he was unprepared to “teach.” What this meant was that they
would need to take the lead in analyzing the sonnet. At first a
number of students thought this was some sort of clever instructional
ploy, but as discussion evolved, the students came to see that Bill
truly hadn’t read the poem, meaning their insights really had to drive
the discussion.
The absence of a teacher expert actually seemed to liberate student
thinking. A tremendously rich conversation emerged, featuring
contributions from several students who seldom participated much in
class. One or two students addressed the theme of the poem by
stating with some passion that recurring patterns in nature were
God’s signature. Others rejected this idea and spoke about how
humankind had imposed such design on nature. At one point, a
young existentialist in the back of the room rose to her feet and
shouted, “Of course leaves fall from the trees in November! But the
fact that you see a pattern doesn’t mean there’s a design to it. Fall’s
not a tree conspiracy! Autumn’s entirely in your head.”
In fact, the lesson was so stimulating and exciting that Bill knew he
had to figure out exactly what had happened. On reflection, he
realized that his lack of preparedness had led the class to approach
the poem’s discussion not as a “guess what the teacher’s thinking”
question-and-answer session but as a shared intellectual
exploration. The experience reminded Bill of the father of gestalt
psychology, Carl Rogers (1961), who abandoned “teaching” in the
classroom in order to focus on “learning” in the classroom—his own
as well as that of his students. Bill was used to thinking of himself as
expert with insight and wisdom to impart to his students. This
experience showed him how he and his students would be better off
if he joined them in a community of learners.
 Knowing Ourselves Culturally

Students are our partners in learning, and this partnership can be

dramatically illustrated in the global classroom, where cultural and
learning diversity offer the potential for rich and dynamic interaction.
Unfortunately, there is also potential for misconceptions, passive or
even active intolerance, and alienation. The key variable is the
teacher.
As mentioned in the Introduction, much about our own culture
remains invisible to us. We have been brought up in it, and every
minute of our lives has reinforced cultural patterns. These
predictable patterns of thought and behavior are the cohesive glue
that binds communities together and fosters a sense of belonging.
We become so familiar with these patterns that they become second
nature to us. The way we dress, what we eat, how we socialize with
our friends and family, the ways we think, and even our values and
beliefs seem normal to us. The unfortunate corollary is that we may
perceive other cultures—other patterns of thought and behavior—as
abnormal or aberrations.
While we may be unaware of many of the cultural norms we carry
with us, they make up an essential part of our identity and are
certainly not invisible to our students. In many classrooms around
the world, culture may be the elephant in the room that no one is
addressing. In order to personalize learning in a global classroom,
the teacher needs to take the lead in exploring how our differing
cultures contribute to how we perceive ourselves and how we learn.
So what does cultural competence look like in a global classroom?
We believe that it is expressed in an attitude of curiosity, exploration,
and respect. We come to know ourselves culturally through
understanding the cultures of others.
Bill recalls teaching an introductory sociology course at the
University of Riyadh in Saudi Arabia. His students were exclusively
Arab and Muslim. One day, he was using a whiteboard to diagram
the structure of nuclear and extended families, beginning with a
child, then tracing back to the child’s mother and father, the two
parents’ mother and father and sisters and brothers, and so on. The
students correctly pointed out that in Islam a man can take up to four
wives. Bill modified the drawing accordingly. He went on to note that
different cultures have different rules for marriage within the
extended family, but in most cultures, individuals cannot marry
partners from within their nuclear family. A Sudanese student raised
his hand and asked about the American rules for marriage to one’s
“milk mother.” When Bill asked for clarification, the student explained
that in Islam it was forbidden to marry one’s wet nurse. Again the
diagram on the whiteboard was modified, and the conversation
continued to evolve.
When teachers actively explore the cultures present in their
classroom with their students, they learn not only about their
students but also about themselves. We do this through a process of
analyzing our cultural perceptions and assumptions. In this case, Bill
was confronted with what, for him, was a culturally strange
phenomenon—the idea of a wet nurse. And yet the Sudanese
student had applied it accurately to the diagram. Bill learned that the
global classroom can be a place of unpredictable connection.
 Knowing Our Perceptions of Childhood

Perceptions are the intersection between ourselves and the external

world. They are how we make sense and meaning of all external
stimuli and information. Given that perceptions define our
experiences, it’s remarkable how little time and effort we put into
exploring how we construct those perceptions. For the most part, we
let them form and operate on our thoughts and actions without
inspection or even conscious awareness.
In an effort to help her students in an IB psychology class to
appreciate the difference between perception and sensation, or the
collection of objective data, Ochan asked Bill to interrupt one of her
classes. He was instructed not to knock on the door, not to greet
Ochan, to wear an expression of impatience and irritation, and to
carry a shopping bag. He would present the shopping bag to Ochan,
but he’d let it fall to the floor rather than hand it to her. Then he was
to turn and walk out the door.
The “delivery” was made as directed, and the students, who knew
that we were married, watched in stunned silence. Then Ochan
asked the class to write down everything they had just seen. There
was an eruption of relieved laughter as the students realized that the
tense scene had been staged. One student commented that he had
been wondering what had made Mr. Powell so angry. Another
assumed that we’d had a fight that morning. Still another had been
wondering how long our marriage would last!
Although individuals often behave as though our perceptions are
reality, perceptions are not the same as objective data. They are the
sense and meaning that we infer, and they are constructed and
based on our ability to predict the development of incoming sensory
stimuli (Blakeslee & Blakeslee, 2008). Perceptions are profoundly
influenced by a person’s past experiences, peer group, culture, and
values and beliefs. Since perceptions are “manufactured,” they are
to some degree malleable. We can exert an influence on how we
construct our perceptions. But the first step is to become aware of
them.
As teachers, our perceptions of childhood determine to a
considerable degree how we actually interact with the children and
young adults in our classes. Most of these core perceptions,
however, are held subconsciously. We must actively investigate what
our base perceptions are and how they may be affecting our
classroom behavior and decision making, and ultimately our
relationships with students.
For this purpose, we have identified five possible lenses through
which childhood can be perceived (Powell & Kusuma-Powell, 2010).
These lenses are broad generalizations, and we acknowledge that
few people see through one lens exclusively. Furthermore, the
manner in which an individual views children and childhood is
profoundly influenced by personal history and culture. Nevertheless,
these lenses can be useful starting points in exploring how we see,
what we expect from, and how we interact with the children in our
classrooms.

The Child as Untamed Beast (The Hobbesian Lens)

Inspired by the 17th century British philosopher Thomas Hobbes,

this lens on childhood emphasizes the socializing function of
education. Schooling is seen as the process of preparing children to
live in a civilized society. From a Hobbesian perspective, human
nature is profoundly influenced by selfishness. As a result, moral
order must be explicitly taught to children. Children are seen as
lacking control and self-discipline. Accordingly, formal education is a
period during which children learn to control their selfish desires.
Education is preparation for constructive membership in civilized
society.
At its most constructive, the untamed beast perception emphasizes
that young children should be taught social and emotional skills such
as anger management, empathy, and service to others. This lens
can also include character education and moral training. We see the
influence of this perspective in many schools that include the goal of
developing young people into ethical world citizens. When schools
teach their students to be more responsible stewards of the
environment, we are seeing the influence of the Hobbesian lens. The
purpose of education is to prepare young people to lead responsible
lives.
However, when taken to an extreme, the Hobbesian perception of
childhood can be oppressive and dehumanizing. Such physical and
psychological cruelty characterized a great deal of education during
the 19th and 20th centuries. Because misbehaving children were
seen as untamed savages, they were not deemed worthy of teacher
respect and were often treated with scorn and contempt. Children
were to be “seen and not heard.” Compliance was the order of the
day, and corporal punishment was routine. Students were primarily
motivated through fear.
At its best, the Hobbesian perception combines an academic
rationalist approach to education, wherein the primary purpose of
schooling is the passing of culture and moral order from one
generation to another, and a social reconstructionist belief system in
which the primary purpose of education is to help develop a more
just, equitable, and humane future for the human family.
We see the positive impact of the Hobbesian lens in schools where
there is an emphasis on community service and a concern for global
issues. We see its pernicious influences in classrooms where
teacher control is paramount and students are motivated by fear and
intimidation.

The Child as Father to the Man (The Rousseauian Lens)

The child seen through this lens differs greatly from the wild beast of
Hobbes. Inspired by the British romantic poet William Wordsworth
and the French philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau, this view of
children casts them as an embodiment of innocence and a
wellspring of natural moral order. Rousseau believed that the
innocence of children was corrupted by a competitive, cruel, and
controlling society. In fact, he perceived this corruption of natural
innocence taking place in the traditional schooling of his age. In
Rousseau’s 1762 treatise on education, Emile, learning (as opposed
to schooling) is presented as a natural and gentle process that taps
into the child’s pre-existing curiosity.
Both Rousseau and Wordsworth believed that adults had much to
learn from children, particularly in the area of creativity and
imagination. We can see in the Rousseauian perception of childhood
the later values of self-actualization and gestalt and humanistic
psychology. The purpose of education from this perspective is the
nurturing of each child’s unique potential. Each child needs to be
encouraged to develop personal integrity, a love of learning,
creativity and sensitivity, and self-fulfillment. Someone with a
Rousseauian perception believes that schools should be child
centered, with an explicit emphasis on student choice, democracy,
and caring.
Teachers who view childhood through this lens are motivated by the
idea that every student is capable of success. They believe that a
trusting atmosphere is essential to a productive classroom and that
student assessment should focus on growth in self-esteem and
learning autonomy. They value student independence and self-
direction and may have been influenced by Abraham Maslow and
Carl Rogers.
One example of a Rousseauian perception of childhood applied to
schooling was the Summerhill School, founded by A. S. Neill (1993)
and described in his book of the same name. Summerhill School
was a truly radical experiment in which there were no adult-
determined rules, punishments, or negative consequences for
antisocial or disruptive behavior. Neill believed compulsion corrupted
and that responsible behavior would emerge naturally from freedom.
The organization of the school, the schedule of classes, and the
actual curriculum were determined by the students themselves. Like
Rousseau, Neill saw children as inherently good and believed that if
provided with freedom of choice, they would gravitate toward
constructive behavior and self-fulfillment.
The Rousseauian perception comes primarily from the West and can
be confusing to members of more traditional societies, such as may
be found in Asia and Africa. Students and their parents from
traditional societies tend more toward a Confucian lens, which we’ll
look at next, so there may be a clash of expectations and values.

The Child as Maintainer of the Common Good (The

Confucian Lens)

While the word “Confucian” has a historical link to China and the Far
East, many of the attributes of the Confucian perception of childhood
can be found in traditional societies throughout the world.
Confucian values include a central focus on the collective welfare of
a family, village, or tribe—as opposed to our more Western focus on
(and at times glorification of) individualism. Confucian collectivism is
seen in the suppression of individual needs and desires to the
furtherance of the goals and aspirations of the larger group. This
might play out as loyalty to one’s family, village, or tribe, or in some
cultures, even to one’s employer. Social cohesion, fidelity, and the
common good are of great importance.
We see these values manifest in how the societies are organized.
Traditional societies are often hierarchical, with the elders occupying
a revered position of respect. The accomplishments of past
generations are greatly honored, and stability and social
cohesiveness are highly valued. Children are not expected to
challenge ideas or think independently, and new ideas and
innovation are not rewarded. To the contrary, children are expected
to accept and respect the teachings of their elders. One of the
greatest compliments that the young can pay to a highly skilled,
elder artisan is to imitate the master. This helps to explain why
plagiarism can be such a confusing concept for students from
traditional societies when they first enter Western-oriented schools.
In Confucian cultures, education is perceived to be the transfer of the
values and traditions from one generation to the next for the purpose
of maintaining the social order. Often the educational system is
highly competitive and focused on standardized examinations.
Success on these examinations frequently relies heavily, if not
exclusively, on rote memory.

Recall Frank—the Tanzanian scholarship student who spoke

eloquently about the enormous challenge he had encountered in his
move from a traditional Tanzanian school to the IB diploma program
at the International School of Tanganyika. The challenge Frank faced
was not related to the rigor or complexity of the curriculum content
but rather to the new school’s expectation that he would think for
himself, challenge ideas, analyze the material, and evaluate theories
and concepts.
Confucian and other traditional societies have historically placed a
greater value on boys than girls. We see this played out in the
gender disparity in literacy rates in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa,
and it makes for a very significant challenge for educators.
In Confucian and other traditional societies, Western logic (syllogistic
thinking—if x, then not y) is often replaced with an Eastern search for
a “middle way.” In The Geography of Thought, Nisbett (2003)
speculates that thousands of years of cultural values and behaviors
have actually affected the way in which Eastern and Western
students think. Recent research with fMRI’s seems to support
Nisbett’s ideas. While Western “rock logic,” as De Bono (1991) calls
it (“either/or” thinking), lends itself to the development of the
experimental sciences, Eastern thinking tends to be more expansive
(as opposed to reductionist), more inclusive of both the foreground
and the background, and more focused on social cohesion and
stability.
For a child brought up in a Confucian or traditional culture, education
can be perceived as a passive activity. The child doesn’t see him- or
herself as the constructor of knowledge, but rather merely a recipient
of it. This can provide Western constructivist teachers with a
challenge, particularly if they believe that active engagement with the
content is a key to effective learning.

The Child as Asset or Liability (The Malthusian Lens)

In the midst of Britain’s 19th century Industrial Revolution, Thomas

Malthus gloomily pointed out that while the supply of food increases
arithmetically, population grows geometrically. He introduced the
concept of the scarcity mentality. Through the Malthusian lens,
children are perceived as either economic assets or liabilities.
Historically, children have been viewed as economic assets in
agricultural economies. We still see the legacy of the Malthusian lens
in Western societies, where our school calendar contains a long
summer vacation. A century or so ago, children were needed to work
in the fields.
In fact, much of the 20th century “industrialized” model of American
education (the influence of Frederick Winslow Taylor and scientific
management) can be seen through a Malthusian lens. A century that
was ushered in by the innovations of Henry Ford’s factory assembly
lines required workers ready for mindless and repetitive factory jobs.
The mid-20th century schoolhouse, with its tedious rote learning,
provided an appropriate training for this life.
The Malthusian lens on childhood plays an enormous role in
classrooms around the world. We feel its influence whenever and
wherever teachers or parents equate student success to external
examination results (and consequent admission to selective
universities and lucrative careers), talk about the purpose of
education being preparation for the world of work, and equate quality
education with national prosperity. Very few schools or teachers
escape this influence.

The Child as Inquirer (The Deweyan Lens)

Around the same time that America was becoming industrialized,

John Dewey (2001) and the progressive movement in education
were challenging traditionally held 19th century views of childhood
and education. Specifically, Dewey questioned whether childhood
and therefore the education of children, should be viewed as
“preparation for life.” He reasoned that when childhood is viewed this
way, it becomes a means to an end and ceases to have intrinsic
value in and of itself. Childhood becomes something that one needs
to pass through and grow out of as soon as possible. We hear this
when young people are admonished not to “act like a child.” When
childhood is thought to be preparation, the child is often not
respected.
Dewey also challenged the idea that education was the transfer of
knowledge from one generation to another. He rejected the idea that
children were simply empty vessels that were to be filled with facts
and knowledge. Dewey argued instead for active engagement in the
learning process so that children could develop relevance and
personal meaning from the content. Much of the current pedagogical
emphasis on the personal construction of knowledge through active
engagement and application prevalent in many schools today traces
its roots to Dewey and the progressive movement.
The global classroom is often a venue for clashes of perception. For
example, a teacher with a Deweyan perception of childhood may
encounter confusion from children raised in more traditional
societies, where education is perceived as the relatively passive
transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next.
These lenses are broad generalizations and do not encompass all
the ways in which childhood might be perceived. Each of these
lenses offers something positive to recommend it. The only danger
would be to embrace one “right” lens to the exclusion of others.
Accordingly, we believe that it is critically important for teachers to
uncover their own perceptions of childhood, as these will almost
certainly color and shape the way in which we interact with students
in the classroom. Figure 2.1 is a questionnaire for helping you
discover which lenses of childhood are predominant in your own
thinking. There is also value in considering how your parents might
have influenced your perceptions of childhood. Are there
connections between the way in which you were raised and the way
in which you manage your classroom?

Figure 2.1. Perception of Childhood Self-Inventory

Directions: Read the following 10 questions and rank the responses

from 1 to 5, with 5 signifying the response you agree with most and 1
signifying the response you agree with least.

1. The most important purpose of education is to

_____a. support the student in learning how to learn.
_____b. nurture the unique potential of each child.
_____c. produce morally upstanding citizens.
_____d. inculcate family values.
_____e. prepare young people for the world of work.
2. A high school graduate should be
_____a. intrinsically motivated.
_____b. an independent thinker.
_____c. respectful and humble.
_____d. self-actualizing.
_____e. self-regulating.
3. Successful students are
_____a. obedient and responsible.
_____b. hard working and ambitious.
_____c. true to themselves.
_____d. altruistic in serving others.
_____e. analytic problem solvers.

4. The most important educational outcome for students is

_____a. personal integrity and self-fulfillment.
_____b. curiosity and intellectual discernment.
_____c. appreciation and application of the wisdom of the past.
_____d. university acceptance and career success.
_____e. a sense of membership and belonging in a supportive
community.
5. The most important pursuit is
_____a. moral character.
_____b. wealth.
_____c. happiness.
_____d. welfare of family and friends.
_____e. learning.
6. The most effective form of discipline for children is
_____a. coercion.
_____b. reasoning.
_____c. peer pressure.
_____d. positive reinforcement.
_____e. gentle guidance.
7. The problem with many schools today is that
_____a. there’s not enough emphasis on character education.
_____b. the curriculum is irrelevant to the real world.
_____c. they perpetuate an undemocratic power structure.
_____d. many teachers aren’t lifelong learners.
_____e. there is an absence of respect in the classroom.
8. Rank the following life goals:
_____a. truth.
_____b. freedom.
_____c. social responsibility.
_____d. success.
_____e. a disciplined life.
9. Rank the following quotations by how much you agree or
disagree with the sentiments:
_____a. “So long as a man enjoys prosperity, he cares not whether
he is beloved.”—Marcus Annaeus Lucan
_____b. “Order without liberty and liberty without order are equally
destructive.”—Theodore Roosevelt
_____c. “I believe the State exists for the development of individual
lives, not individuals for the development of the State.”—Julian
Huxley
_____d. “Be yourself is the worst advice you can give some
people.”—Tom Masson
_____e. “Every society honors its live conformists and its dead
troublemakers.”—Mignon McLaughlin
10. Rank the following statements in order of your agreement:
_____a. Each child is unique, and his or her potential must be
nurtured.
_____b. The primary purpose of early childhood education is to help
the child navigate his or her social environment.
_____c. Attentive listening is the genesis of respectful behavior.
_____d. Success is just a matter of luck. Ask any failure.
_____e. A school should not be preparation for life. It should be life.
Scoring: Record the number (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) you assigned to each
response (A, B, C, D, E) for every question. Total the numbers in
each perception column. The perception with the highest score is
your predominant lens on childhood. The perception with the lowest
score is the lens you use least.
 Knowing Our Expectations and Patterns of Attribution

There is a substantial body of research that indicates a strong

correlation between teacher expectations and student achievement.
Expectancy theory suggests that students will generally attempt to
meet the expectations that we have for them, whatever those
expectations may be. Rosenthal and Jacobson’s well-known 1968
study, Pygmalion in the Classroom, dramatically demonstrated the
effect of teacher expectations on student scholastic achievement.
Teachers in the experimental classrooms were told that they were
receiving a class of “bloomers” who could be expected to make great
intellectual gains in the coming year. In fact, the students’ class
placements had been made at random and not because of any
distinguishing intellectual capability. However, as the year
progressed, students in the experimental groups outperformed their
peers in control classes.
Rosenthal and Jacobson attributed the gains in academic
achievement to teacher expectations. These teachers treated their
students as though they were gifted, and the students responded
accordingly. Out of this research came the concept of “the self-
fulfilling prophecy.” Essentially, the Rosenthal and Jacobson study,
confirmed by later research (Brophy, 1983; Cooper & Tom, 1984;
Good, 1987), suggests that how a student performs in school is
influenced heavily by what teachers believe and think that student is
capable of.
Our own perceptions, past experiences, and cultural norms definitely
affect the way that we think and the things that we believe; it just
makes sense that these factors would also influence what we think
of and expect from students. We must remember that as teachers
we construct expectations, whether consciously or unconsciously.
Often teachers develop expectations in comparison to other students
and allow them to be profoundly influenced by colleagues, both
negatively and positively (Powell & Kusuma-Powell, 2010). In order
to personalize learning, we must build expectations for individual
students that support their learning. When we’re not sure of what
students are capable of—and, generally speaking, we shouldn’t be—
we ought to give them the benefit of the doubt, assuming they can
understand, do, and achieve more. Most importantly, we should
remember that expectations are malleable and subject to revision.
Another way to examine expectations is through the lens of
attribution theory, considering the ways in which we attribute
students’ success or failure to particular causes or courses of action.
Our patterns of attribution influence the messages, both subtle and
explicit, that we send students about their achievement. Hunter and
Barker (1987) identified three ways that both students and teachers
look at success or failure in the classroom: locus, stability, and
control.
Locus refers to where the responsibility for achievement lies. The
locus can be internal to the student, for example, with achievement
attributable to the student’s native intelligence or the amount of time
the student took to study for a test. Or the locus can be external to
the student, attributable, for example, to luck or task difficulty.
Stability is the degree to which it’s assumed that the cause of
success or failure is constant. Effort would be an unstable cause, for
example, whereas natural talent would be relatively stable. Control is
related to an individual’s sense of efficacy, or the influence they
believe they have in shaping future events—their potency and
optimism. Effort is a controllable factor, whereas talent, intelligence,
task difficulty, and luck are most often perceived as beyond influence
or control.

A teacher’s conclusions about why a student is or is not learning

have a profound effect on expectations and can influence that
student’s future learning in significant ways. The influence is even
greater when a student is struggling. We want students to see the
relationship between effort and achievement and to feel they have
some measure of control over their academic success, but our own
perceptions and attributions can interfere. Let’s see how two sets of
expectations and attributions about the same student, Yasmin, might
directly affect her learning outcome.

Yasmin: Two Different Views

Yasmin is a 17-year-old in grade 11. She was born in Egypt but grew
up in a Middle Eastern ghetto of South London. She is failing all
subjects except PE and music. She is often truant, and her teachers
suspect she may be experimenting with drugs. Yasmin’s teachers
know, based on past conversations with the school counseling office
and with their colleagues, that the girl’s family situation is seriously
dysfunctional. Her father left the family when Yasmin was 5 years
old. Her mother, who works as a waitress, is an alcoholic with
chronic anger management issues.
Mrs. Felton, Yasmin’s homeroom and English teacher, has a very
different cultural and socioeconomic background. She is British
middle class, brought up in Ealing in a family both functional and
intact, and is university educated. Mrs. Felton returns each day from
work to a relatively stable, comfortable, and predictable social
environment. It is easy for Mrs. Felton to attribute Yasmin’s rebellion
and academic indolence to her dreadful home life. However, to do so
would be to credit causal factors that are uncontrollable, external,
and also depressingly stable. From that perspective, there is
probably not much that either Yasmin or Mrs. Felton can do about
the home situation, and with that belief, expectations for Yasmin will
remain low. It’s assumed she will make little or no improvement—
and that her teachers are essentially blameless.

There is another way of looking at the situation—one that attributes

Yasmin’s failure to causal factors that are controllable, internal, and
unstable. Suppose Mrs. Felton sees her not as a regrettable statistic
of an inherently unjust society, but as a young woman of intelligence
who is not making very good decisions for herself at the moment.
What if Mrs. Felton decides she needs to find ways to support her in
gaining access to her own inner resources and find opportunities in
the classroom for her to discover her strengths? Suppose she sets
out to help Yasmin develop greater self-confidence in her learning
because she perceives Yasmin as facing more challenges than most
students, thus having a greater need for those inner resources. The
research on resilience in children is clear. One of the most powerful
variables in youngsters who grow up to be healthy, loving adults in
spite of traumatic and abused childhoods is the presence of a single
adult figure who was caring and supportive. In order to be that
person, Mrs. Felton needs to escape from her own cultural confines
and see Yasmin as an individual with possibilities—not as a lost
cause facing a dead end.
 Knowing Our “States of Mind”

In the book Cognitive Coaching (2002), Art Costa and Robert

Garmston identify five “states of mind” that, taken together, influence
not only an individual’s perceptions of the world but personal and
professional identity as well. These states—efficacy, consciousness,
flexibility, craftsmanship, and interdependence—“drive, influence,
motivate and inspire our intellectual capacities, emotional
responsiveness, high performance, and productive human action” (p.
124). While the states of mind are invisible, they can be perceived in
the language we use, the behavior we display, and the decisions we
make.
In Bill’s experience, there is a strong correlation between high
degrees of efficacy, consciousness, flexibility, craftsmanship, and
interdependence and outstanding teaching (Powell, 2003). Teachers
who work at becoming aware of their states of mind can develop
influence over them. For example, when we become conscious that
we are not feeling efficacious, we can make a choice of whether to
become deliberately defensive or to simply ask for help. Teachers
who are aware of these states of mind are better able to build strong
learning relationships with their students.

Let’s take a closer look at each of Costa and Garmston’s states of

mind.

Efficacy

Efficacy is that “can do” attitude that reflects personal empowerment.

It is predicated on an internal locus of responsibility—the individual’s
belief that what he or she does will make a difference in the outcome
of a situation. It is the hallmark of optimism and hope. People with
high degrees of efficacy are resourceful and self-confident. They set
challenging goals and persevere in the face of adversity. In the
1970s, a landmark study by the RAND Corporation (Berman &
McLaughlin, 1977) identified teacher efficacy as the single most
important variable in effecting successful school reform. Neither the
curriculum nor the instructional methodology mattered nearly as
much as the teachers’ belief in themselves. This becomes even
more important in the global classroom, where there is the likelihood
of conflicting cultural expectations and perceptions.
Highly efficacious teachers are able to control performance anxiety
in the classroom and thereby reduce stress and teach more
effectively. They are also more likely to seek feedback from their
students on their performance and therefore to be self-assessing
and self-modifying.
Efficacy, like the other states of mind, is situational. When we find
ourselves in a new or unfamiliar situation, we may feel reduced
efficacy. However, a teacher who is highly self-aware will recognize
this and be able to draw on other states of mind—interdependence,
or sense of belonging to a community, for example—to compensate.
In the employment interviews he conducts, Bill frequently uses
scenarios to assess a candidate’s degree of efficacy. The following
situation often yields interesting insights:
You have recently been hired at a school that prides itself on its
program of professional development. You have registered for
an evening course titled “Neuropsychology of Learning.” Twenty
minutes into the first lecture, you find yourself completely lost.
You don’t understand a thing the professor is saying. What do
you do?
Despite the fact that teachers claim they want students to announce
when they are confused or if something is not understood, when
given this scenario, very few of the teachers Bill interviews actually
say they would raise their hand and say, “I’m not understanding this.”
We hear a lack of efficacy when teachers perceive that the
roadblocks to improved student learning are external to self. We
hear it when teachers say, “The administrator would never go along
with it” or “The schedule won’t permit it” or “The parents will never
support it.” Genuine efficacy is cross-culturally contagious. It
transcends national backgrounds, energizes, and stimulates.

Flexibility

As considered here, flexibility is the ability to perceive situations from

multiple perspectives, to shift between egocentric and allocentric
viewpoints, or from self-centered to other-centered. It is both the
capacity for empathy and the ability to disengage and take the
metaphorical “balcony” view. Recent work in differentiated instruction
(Powell & Kusuma-Powell, 2007c) is pointing to a strong correlation
between effective instruction and the ability that teachers have to
come to understand their students’ individual viewpoints as learners.
Flexible thinkers are able to project themselves into the minds of
other people and anticipate reactions and consequences. This is
particularly important when there are multiple cultures represented in
the classroom and multiple opportunities for misunderstanding. Bill
recalls an example of inflexible thinking in a school at which he
served as principal. The middle school counselor was designing a
new curriculum for a course on personal and social development,
and it included a unit on sex education. Thinking that she might
generate conversations between parents and children on the topic,
she wrote a questionnaire for parents, asking them to provide
information about their first sexual experience. Without discussing
the matter with anyone else, the counselor distributed the survey to a
large group of 7th graders and instructed them to return the surveys
the following day. The students appeared to have greater flexibility of
thought than the counselor, because all but 1 of the 75 surveys
handed out apparently went straight into the trash bin. The only
student who actually delivered the survey to his parents was Bill and
Ochan’s youngest son, and he did so because he found the
questions hilariously funny. (A sense of humor is often an attribute of
flexible thinking.)

Consciousness

Consciousness is awareness of one’s own thoughts, emotions,

viewpoints, and behaviors and the influence that they may have on
others. It involves being aware of how we select and construct our
perceptions, being cognizant of the personal and cultural
experiences we carry into situations, explicitly exploring how
congruent our values and our behaviors are, and “mining” our
experiential insights. Consciousness begins by being attentive to
verbal and nonverbal behavior of self and others.
Math teacher Colette Belzil, who took a course from Ochan and Bill
at the International School of Brussels, provides an example of how
becoming more conscious of behavior can improve relationships. As
part of the course, Ochan and Bill invited participants to explore their
cognitive styles—specifically, whether they had a preference for field
independence (a tendency to want to work alone, with an emphasis
on logical analysis and task completion) or field dependence (a
proclivity for work with others and a sensitivity to relationships and
the needs of others). The participants were provided with an
instrument and asked to reflect on how their cognitive style might
affect others with whom they interacted. Following the course,
Colette had this to say:
I wanted to tell you that we had our parent interviews the week
after our weekend cognitive coaching session. Following some
of our class activities I recognized how my field independence
sometimes made me less approachable for the parents who
need [something] more “warm and fuzzy.” For this set of
interviews I was very conscious of this and did a lot of
paraphrasing, eye contact, pausing, breathing, and a lot of
mirroring. This last one seemed to get the most results. I didn’t
feel that a single parent left not feeling heard. And it wasn’t
 because I wasn’t saying what I felt needed to be said, it was my
body language and my paraphrasing that made them receptive
to my suggestions. I discussed this with a few of the participants
[from our class] … they had observed that I had “listened”
differently during the interviews as well. I was amazed. I also
know it worked because the students have been even more
receptive to me in class so the discussion that inevitably takes
place between parent and child was positive. I guess I am
saying that I may never be a great cognitive coach but the skills
I learned and am practicing are proving to be so useful in many,
many situations. (Personal correspondence, 2009)

Craftsmanship

Craftsmanship in pedagogical technique is always a goal for

teachers, and nurturing craftsmanship in self and others is an explicit
professional responsibility.
One of the challenges of the master craftsman in the global
classroom is to understand and appreciate the diverse frames of
reference of the students in order to frame lessons in a way that will
be relevant. An example of less-than-effective craftsmanship was
when Bill first started teaching the British “O” English course at the
International School of Tanganyika. One of the possible texts for the
course was Graham Greene’s marvelously ironic The Power and the
Glory, a story of a whiskey priest in Mexico during a period of
religious persecution. It was when the class was two chapters into
the novel and not appreciating the irony that Bill discovered that not
only did he not have any Roman Catholics in the class, he didn’t
have any Christians, either! The entire class was made up of
Muslims and Hindus, and none of them had the background
knowledge of Christian iconography necessary to grasp the
subtleties of Greene’s prose.
Craftsmanship in the classroom might include executing a masterful
unit plan or effectively assisting a middle school student to improve
her expository writing skills. Within the larger learning community of
the school, craftsmanship might include adeptly implementing a
targeted program of professional development, thoughtfully coaching
a colleague, or successfully boosting one’s own teaching skills.

Several years ago, Ochan team-taught an elementary class with a

teacher who was a master craftsperson in the area of questioning.
This teacher’s questions were provocative, age-appropriate, open-
ended, and invitational. They had multiple access points and evoked
deep and creative thinking on the part of her students. Ochan
shadowed this teacher for two years, learning from her and
ultimately improving her own questioning technique.

Interdependence

Interdependence is that sense of belonging and connectedness all

humans seek. Interdependent people value collective work and, in
collaborative situations, know when to assert themselves and when
to concede to the judgment of others. Teachers who have a high
sense of interdependence are willing to give and receive help and
support and are able to be simultaneously an autonomous individual
and a member of a collective learning community.
One powerful way to support interdependence is through a
supportive mentorship program. While some mentorship programs
are geared to young and inexperienced teachers, increasingly,
schools with culturally diverse student and teacher populations have
implemented mentorship programs to support teachers new to the
school (some of whom are very experienced) in coming to
understand and appreciate the cultures represented in the school.
Mentorship programs make interdependence explicit in that the
institution gives its members permission to seek and receive collegial
support.
None of the states of mind exists in isolation, and they often interact
in complex ways, depending on the situation we find ourselves in.
For example, an individual with high efficacy but low consciousness
might be perceived as arrogant: a bull in the china shop or a leader
in a great hurry to make large changes but unaware of how those
changes might affect others. On the other hand, a person with high
craftsmanship but low flexibility might be perceived as rigid, resistant
to change, or even a perfectionist.
As we become more aware of the states of mind, we increase our
self-knowledge and enhance our ability to self-modify and ultimately
to build stronger relationships, which are the foundation of learning.
 Becoming Who We Want To Be

Teachers, like everyone else, want be successful. We want our

students—all of our students—to learn. And one of the surest ways
we can do this is by establishing and maintaining effective
relationships with our students. Teachers who honestly and bravely
try to know themselves better as professionals and invite students
and colleagues to assist them as colearners will only benefit from
this self-inspection—because their students will also benefit. Being
interested in and respectful of different cultures in our classrooms,
recognizing our base perceptions of childhood, carefully constructing
our expectations and examining our attributions of success, and
being more aware of our own states of mind in our professional lives
will help us to be successful. By coming to know ourselves, we
determine the kind of teachers we want to be.

Suzanne: An Out-of-Self Experience

A number of years ago, a woman named Suzanne joined the

International School of Tanganyika as a newly hired teacher. She
had a difficult time adjusting to life in Tanzania and to the culture of
the school. She had also never lived outside the United States and
found the international culture of the school bewildering.
Suzanne sought out Ochan and confided to her the trouble she was
experiencing settling into her new life in Africa. In the 30-minute
conversation, Suzanne used the word “hate” 11 times. She hated the
climate. She hated the lack of air conditioning in the classrooms. She
hated the local shops with their empty shelves. She hated the dirt of
the city and the bureaucracy of the government. She hated the
schedule of classes and the absence of familiar resources. At the
conclusion of their conversation, Ochan said, “Wow, you really hate
a lot of things.”
Suzanne didn’t speak to Ochan for almost three weeks. But when
she finally broke her silence, it was not to complain. Suzanne began
by saying that she was really embarrassed about her earlier
behavior. She wanted to thank Ochan for helping her to see how
negative she had become.
We learn about who we are not by experience but by reflection on
our experience. In this case, Suzanne was able to engage in what
we refer to as “echo empathy.” She was able to step into Ochan’s
perception and see herself. The echo empathy liberated Suzanne
from the cell of self-absorption. She had a brief “out-of-self
experience” that allowed her to examine and assess whether she
was becoming who she wanted to be. Suzanne was able to get
distance from her relocation stress. She served at the international
school for six more years, and after she left, she wrote to Ochan to
say that her years at the school were the most professionally
stimulating of her entire career.
 Action Advice: Getting to Know Your Professional Self

Students are often experts in their own learning. They know what
works for them in the classroom and what doesn’t. Teachers can
gain powerful insight about their professional selves by soliciting
feedback from students and reexamining instructional approaches
through students’ eyes. Here are some feedback-gathering
strategies that we recommend.
DAILY FEEDBACK FORM. At the end of class (or unit of learning),
ask students to complete a feedback form. The questions might
include

What was the big learning in the unit of study?

How was the pacing of the lesson(s)?
What specific advice do you have that will enhance your
learning?

EXIT CARDS. Exit cards are simple and quick ways to get a reading
on the level of understanding or misunderstanding that students may
have about the concepts being taught. We recommend asking two
questions: What was one insight that you took away from our work
together today? and What questions about the lesson or content do
you still have?
FEEDBACK ON FEEDBACK. We firmly believe that all teachers
should regularly solicit student feedback on what is supporting their
learning and what is not, and that they should share the information
gathered with all students. We call this “feedback on feedback.”
Feedback on feedback serves several important functions. It
dignifies the comments of the students, it signals that you are taking
their comments seriously, it reinforces that you are willing to act on
student ideas and suggestions, and it fosters the idea that you and
your students are learning partners.
I USED TO THINK/NOW I THINK. This strategy draws on the work
of David Perkins (2009b) and the Making Thinking Visual project at
Harvard University. At the end of a unit of study, ask students to
complete these two sentence stems: “I used to think …” and “Now I
think ….”
PLUSES AND WISHES. This is a quick way to solicit feedback at
the end of a lesson. Draw a T-chart on a whiteboard or piece of chart
paper, labeling one side “Pluses” and the other “Wishes.” Solicit and
record the pluses first—aspects of the lesson that the students
believe helped them learn, things they found particularly interesting
or relevant, and activities that they enjoyed. Then ask for and record
what students “wish” to see or do in tomorrow’s lesson. Teachers
might want to examine the “Pluses” and note how these strategies
are connected to educational learning theory and research. This is
often a very validating experience. In addition, teachers might want
to analyze the “Wishes” to determine what, specifically, the students
have identified that will enhance their learning.
STOP, START, CONTINUE. Occasionally, it may be useful to solicit
from students what they think you should start doing, stop doing, or
continue doing. The comments could relate to classroom
management, organization of lessons, or instructional strategies.
This information—submitted anonymously, in writing—can give you a
clearer picture of how your assumptions about what is effective and
engaging for your students align with their reality.
 Chapter 3
Knowing Our Curriculum

A number of years ago, we were working with the faculty of a large

international school in Southeast Asia that had identified two
schoolwide annual goals: (1) to develop a “standards and
benchmark framework” for its curriculum, and (2) to promote
personalized instruction in every classroom.
It was not long into our session before a teacher raised her hand and
asked if these two goals weren’t diametrically opposed. “Don’t they
contradict each other?” she asked. “For example, defining standards
and benchmarks requires us to identify exactly what knowledge and
skills we expect the average 5th grader to have. To me, that sounds
like standardizing the curriculum and our expectations of children.
But personalized learning asks that we look at each child as a
unique learner. How on earth can we do both at the same time?”
We were grateful for this question, because it opened up a lively and
insightful conversation on the relationship between setting standards
and catering to diverse learning needs. On one level, the questioning
teacher had a point. Setting standards and benchmarks for student
achievement may seem contradictory to the efforts we make to
personalize instruction. However, rather than begin from the position
that they are mutually exclusive, let’s assume that they may be
mutually dependent. Let’s ask what would happen to one without the
presence of the other.
In the absence of a personalized-learning approach, with its concern
for and response to different students’ learning needs, a standards-
based curriculum can translate into a narrow focus on so-called
objective, high-stakes testing. In some instances, these supposedly
objective tests of student achievement have asserted a tyrannical
hold over not just assessment but also classroom instruction. The
emphasis is on quality control and accountability, not on meeting the
needs of the learners—particularly not the needs of diverse learners.
No matter how thoughtful and thought-provoking the curriculum is,
the voice of the student is lost—deemphasized or even dismissed.
On the other hand, imagine what would become of the personalized
classroom if there were no clearly defined learning standards and
benchmarks for student achievement. We would see either the
individualized programmed learning of the 1960s, in which lesson-
plan objectives are individualized out of existence (25 different
programs for 25 different students, with virtually no cooperative
learning or direct instruction from the teacher) or muddled and
disorganized “activities-based” instruction lacking in clear learning
outcomes and objectives. Either way, a curriculum without standards
and benchmarks is a curriculum that loses rigor and credibility.
Rather than success for all, it gives us confusion and mediocrity for
many.
Clear and coherent learning standards need personalization, and
vice versa. High-quality curriculum ensures that what we are focused
on in the classroom is worthy of student time and attention, that the
content is meaningful and relevant, and that our approaches are
intellectually challenging. Personalization ensures that the invitation
to access the high-quality curriculum is extended to all learners.
Benchmarks of student achievement provide clear attainment targets
for teachers; personalized learning provides a multitude of paths for
learners to reach those targets.
 Core Considerations for Curriculum

Although the relationship between standards and personalization (or

differentiation) is mutually supportive, a strong curriculum comes
first. As Tomlinson and Allan (2000) point out, “We need to stress
continually what best-practice curriculum and instruction look like,
and then help teachers learn to differentiate it. Differentiation as a
magic potion loses much, if not most, of its power, if what we
differentiate is mediocre in quality…. Excellent differentiated
classrooms are excellent first and differentiated second” (p. 81).
As you think about what the standards and benchmarks of an
excellent curriculum should be, we ask you to keep two core
considerations uppermost in your mind. Together, they will help you
place curriculum decisions in the widest context possible.

All Knowledge Is Tentative

We need to be prepared to find that whatever we teach as truth to

our students today may be declared false or irrelevant tomorrow.
There was a time when the very best minds believed, among other
things, that Earth was the center of the universe, monarchs ruled by
divine fiat, people with darker skin pigmentation were inherently
inferior, women had prescribed domestic duties, and children with
disabilities were better educated in isolation from their “normal”
peers.
The idea that knowledge is tentative and temporary has several
profound implications for curriculum and instruction. First of all, it
suggests that knowledge is not a goal or end achievement but an
exciting, stimulating, and ongoing process—an intellectual adventure
that generation after generation engages in and builds upon.
Even more important, the tentativeness of knowledge allows us to
give equal time to what we don’t know—those intriguing mysteries
that never fail to pique the curiosity of our students. For example, we
might want to ask students to consider the psychological effects on
our species if we were to discover extraterrestrial, intelligent life
forms. We might want to engage students in a discussion of whether
mathematics was “discovered” or “invented.” Or we might ask where
evolution is going next. Topics like these allow us to discuss our
attitude toward uncertainty, which is a quality that Elliot Eisner (1998)
believes to be woefully unappreciated in most schools.
The tentativeness of knowledge reminds us that we need to
approach our work as teachers with a degree of humility—always a
good idea! An understanding of and appreciation for ambiguity and
uncertainty are especially important to teachers in the West, where
our tradition is to think dichotomously. If something is bad, then it
cannot be good. We often define our terms by reference to what they
are not. (For example, we know Ochan is short because she is not
tall.) The multitude of cultures and perspectives present in the global
classroom invite us to think beyond the limits of our own systems. In
order to genuinely respect other cultures, we need to question our
assumption about what is “normal” or “right.”

There Is Too Much Content to Be Taught

The rate at which human knowledge is expanding is nothing short of

breathtaking. Experts estimate that the sum of information is
doubling in less than a year, and it seems that our content standards
are doing their best to keep pace. In a world where there is more to
teach than there is time to teach it in, it’s vital that educators
prioritize what goes into the curriculum and be willing to make
thoughtful judgments about what’s most important and what needs to
be expunged. Of course, this is easier said than done.
The curriculum in many schools is like Bill’s mother’s attic—many
things go in and few come out, even long after they’ve ceased to be
useful or relevant. When, for example, did you last divide fractions?
And yet, dividing fractions is still part of the curriculum in many, if not
most, schools. The conclusions reached in the ACT National
Curriculum Survey 2005–2006 seem to confirm the idea of the
overgrown curriculum (ACT, 2006). While state-mandated curriculum
standards may help high school teachers focus their coursework, the
university faculty responding to the ACT survey reported a
“significant gap” between what high school teachers teach and what
university professors think entering students need to know. “States
tend to have too many standards attempting to tackle too many
content topics,” a spokesperson for the ACT concluded. “High school
teachers are working very, very hard at following and teaching their
state standards, but college faculty felt it was more important for
students to learn a fewer number of fundamental but essential skills”
(Marklein, 2007, p. D11).
These two core ideas—that (1) students are inquirers in an ongoing
learning process where knowledge is temporary, and (2) students
need to learn transferrable concepts and skills applicable to many
content topics rather than focus on specific information—represent a
profound shift in how educators are coming to think about
curriculum.
 A Curriculum Revolution

Back in the early 1970s, when Bill interviewed for his first English
teaching job in a public high school in the New York City suburbs,
“knowing your curriculum” was synonymous with “knowing your
stuff”—that is to say, synonymous with subject-area mastery. Bill
recalls an hour-long interview during which the principal (who was
remarkably well read) rattled off a list of English and American
authors. Bill was supposed to indicate which of these works he had
read and what he thought of them. The principal asked Bill nothing
about what he thought high school students needed to know about
literature or what the important ideas, key questions, and necessary
skills of the discipline were.
This emphasis on subject mastery rather than on the nature of
curriculum was no anomaly. In 1993, Brooks and Brooks shared their
research on the status quo of curriculum in U.S. schools. (We
suspect that there would have been similar findings in other
countries). They summarized their findings in five major points:

1. Classrooms were dominated by teacher talk. Teachers were

perceived to be the dispensers of knowledge and students the
consumers. Student-initiated questions and student-to-student
interactions were atypical.
2. Most teachers relied heavily on textbooks in lieu of a thoughtful,
clear, and coherent curriculum. Information was often presented
from a single (noncontroversial) perspective.
3. Most classrooms structurally discouraged cooperation and
required students to work in relative isolation.
4. Student thinking was devalued in most classrooms. When
teachers posed questions to students, more often than not, they
were not asking students to think through complex issues, but
rather trying to determine if students knew the “right” answer.
 5. Most schools had curriculum documents predicated on the
notions that there was a “fixed world” that the learner must come
to know. The emphasis was on the students’ ability to
demonstrate mastery of conventionally accepted
understandings—not on the construction of new understandings
or connections.

A revolution in the way educators think about curriculum has taken

place since Bill’s first interviews 30 years ago and since the survey
of American classrooms conducted by Brooks and Brooks. Perhaps
“revolution” is too strong a word to describe the effect the
constructivist movement has had on education; after all, there are
many schools around the world in which traditional, didactic
instruction is still the order of the day. However, where it has been
embraced, constructivism has shifted the emphasis away from the
teacher as master of subject content and dispenser of essential
knowledge. At the center of constructivist thought is the idea that
learning is not a passive absorbing of information—achieved by
teachers’ “coverage of the curriculum”—but rather an active search
on the part of the student for intellectual connections that will
promote the “construction” of personal meaning.
This shift has allowed for the mutually supportive relationship
between standards and personalization, as we’ll see as we look at
four key aspects of integrating personalization with a high-quality
standards-based curriculum: teaching primary concepts, framing
essential questions, knowing what should and should not be
personalized, and using backward instructional design.

Teaching Primary Concepts

Most students attempting to construct understanding find whole-to-

part learning easier and more meaningful than a part-to-whole
approach. Teachers facilitate whole-to-part learning when they
explicitly present the primary concept—what Wiggins and McTighe
(2005) call the “big idea” or the “enduring understanding.” As Brooks
and Brooks (1993) put it, “When concepts are presented as wholes
… students seek to make meaning by breaking wholes into parts
that they can see and understand. Students initiate this process to
make sense of the information; they construct the process and the
understanding rather than having it done for them” (p. 47). A primary
concept is not something that can be simply memorized for a test.
When mastered, it’s something that makes sense to the student, is
connected to prior knowledge, and is applicable to a wide spectrum
of content information. These big ideas are tools for future
understanding—what students need in order to be able to process all
kinds of specific content.
Several years ago, Bill was making a presentation to the parents of
elementary school children on why the math curriculum was
structured around an understanding of primary concepts as opposed
to the memorization of algorithms. At one point in the presentation,
he asked the members of the audience to stand if they currently
used algebra in their daily lives. About a quarter of the audience
stood. Bill’s comment was that those parents who used algebra in
their daily life probably learned it conceptually. Their conceptual
understanding was both enduring and transferable.
Whole-to-part learning places responsibility for identifying those big
ideas on teachers. Sorting “teachable concepts” from “topics to
teach” can be difficult, but there is a critical distinction. Topics to
teach might include green plants, the Industrial Revolution, or ratios
and percentages. The content of each of these topics is
unquestionably important. However, when we teach topics, we do
not connect the content with the reason for learning it. Primary
concepts would encompass these specific topics and point to the
learning goal. For example, instead of teaching the topic of green
plants, we could teach the primary concept of life cycles with the
learning goal of understanding that there are similarities in the
development of all living things. Green plants, butterflies, frogs could
all be topics under this concept. Likewise, instead of teaching the
Industrial Revolution, we could teach the primary concept of human
progress, with the learning goal of understanding that human
advancement has unforeseen consequences. Or, instead of teaching
ratios and percentages, we could teach the big idea of part-to-whole
relationships, with the learning goal being the understanding that
these relationships can be expressed in different ways.
As teachers move from teaching topics to teaching concepts, we
suggest that they “test” the big idea or primary concept for its
worthiness by passing it though four “filter questions,” articulated by
Wiggins and McTighe (2005):

1. Does the concept have enduring value beyond the classroom?

We liken this to the 20-year test: What value will this
understanding have for students in 20 years’ time? If we
struggle to answer this question, it probably means that the
concept we are exploring is not worthy of student time (a
provocative example: quadratic equations!).
2. Does the concept reside at the heart of the discipline? For
English, a concept that might reside at the heart of the discipline
could be that “literature is manufactured”—meaning that novels,
short stories, and poems are crafted by authors who have
specific purposes and are using deliberate strategies and
literary devices in order to achieve those purposes.
3. To what extent does the concept require analysis and deep
critical thought? In order for students to translate isolated and
fragmented information into personally meaningful knowledge,
they must engage in such higher-order thinking. We also need
to ask ourselves what aspects of the concept the students will
have difficulty grasping. What may be counterintuitive? What are
some common misconceptions? For a strategy that involves
students in analysis, please see the description of
“segmentation” in the Action Advice section at the end of this
chapter.
 4. To what extent might the concept engage students? The big
idea does not need to have ready-made student interest. Not all
students arrive at the classroom door interested in the French
Revolution, baroque music, or the conjugation of future tense
verbs. However, skillful teachers can mediate relevance by
framing the primary concepts in deliberately provocative ways
(as problems, questions, or issues). For example, the question
“How do we recognize justice?” not only serves as an essential
question for a number of topics in social studies (e.g., the
American Revolution, colonialism, racial persecution) but also
connects with middle and high school students’ intrinsic
preoccupation with fair treatment.

Primary concepts that have enduring value usually are recognized

as worthy of understanding across cultures, whereas topics may not
seem universally relevant. This yields great opportunity for
personalizing in the global classroom. For example, the American
Revolution may not capture the attention of Arthur or Christine-
Apollo or Frank, but the primary concept “sources of human conflict”
might prove both inviting and meaningful. That is a concept that’s
relevant to everyone and can be accessed through a variety of
content topics—from the American Revolution to World War II to the
civil war in Uganda to genocide in Rwanda and Burundi.
Teaching to primary concepts also opens up many opportunities to
differentiate for process, product, readiness, and learning styles. It is
virtually impossible to personalize the teaching of topics such as
“green plants,” because the actual learning objectives are so vague
as to make the desired results of the lesson nebulous or nonexistent.
Remember that personalized learning is a means to an end; if the
destination is unclear, the journey is at best confused. However, if we
are teaching not the topic “green plants” but the primary concept “life
cycles,” the content can vary broadly (frogs, green plants, moths,
etc.). Students can produce different products to demonstrate their
learning, and these products can reflect their interests, learning
styles, and readiness levels.
The process that the teacher goes through in identifying the primary
concept actually makes explicit to the teacher why the topic is worthy
of student time and attention and, in our experience, liberates
instructional energy and motivation for dynamic classroom
implementation.

Framing Essential Questions

The structure of the curriculum affects its outcome—or, in the words

of Marshal McLuhan, “the medium affects the message” (McLuhan &
Fiore, 1967). If one of the goals of the curriculum is to promote an
inquiry-based approach to learning, it would stand to reason that the
curriculum would be designed around questions as opposed to
knowledge statements, and that these questions would be central to
what we want children to learn—they would frame the primary
concepts we’ve identified. As Wiggins and McTighe (2005) put it,
“Only by framing our teaching around valued questions and worthy
performances can we overcome activity-based and coverage-
oriented instruction, and the resulting rote learning that produces
formulaic answers and surface-level knowledge” (p. 27). In other
words, the curriculum needs to be both thoughtful and thought
provoking. Very few students can resist genuinely thought-provoking
questions.
Since questions are among teachers’ most common instructional
tools, we have a tendency to take them for granted. The truth is,
skillfully crafted questions don’t just happen, and they are rarely the
product of spontaneous classroom discussion. We know that there is
a positive correlation between the depth of critical thought that a
teacher puts into his or her planning and the depth of critical thought
the resultant instruction engenders in students. Not all questions are
created equal, and we need to give time and attention to crafting
questions that generate deep student thought rather than a simple
regurgitation of the content as it was presented.
A very counterproductive questioning practice stems from a
misunderstanding and misuse of Bloom’s taxonomy and other
hierarchies of thinking skills. At the lowest level of most of these
taxonomies are cognitive processes such as recall and rote memory.
At the highest level are processes such as evaluation, synthesis, and
prediction. Bloom attempted to use “degree of difficulty” as the
criteria for distinguishing between levels in his taxonomy. However,
Marzano (2001) points out that the higher levels of Bloom’s
taxonomy are not always more difficult than the lower ones. Sousa
(2001) perceives this distinction as being between difficulty and
complexity. We do well to remember that arduous tasks—tasks that
require more effort or time—are not the same as rigorous tasks,
which are tasks that require more complex thought at high levels of
Bloom’s taxonomy (Dodge, 2005; Kusuma-Powell & Powell, 2000b).
Some teachers mistakenly assume that students with processing
difficulties or learning disabilities, or students who are simply
struggling with basic skills will find questions that rely on recall and
rote memory “easier” and more accessible than questions
demanding higher-order and more complex thinking. However, recall
and rote memory questions usually have a single right answer. You
either know it or you don’t. Questions that embrace higher-order
thinking are often open-ended and have multiple entry points that
students can access at their particular readiness level. For example,
the question “Who discovered America?” requires a single right
answer. You either know it or you don’t. Contrast that with the
multiple ways a student might respond to this question: “If you were
planning a voyage of exploration at the end of the 15th century, what
might be some things you would want to consider?” A student can
choose to address such a question at his or her own level of
readiness—everything from a concrete level (e.g., in terms of food
and water needs) to quite an abstract and sophisticated level (e.g.,
focusing on navigational difficulties, such as the lack of latitudes and
longitudes, or sailor morale on such a long voyage).
The other, even more disturbing misconception held by some
teachers is that students must master the basic skills of reading and
writing before they engage in higher-order thinking. Students who
are struggling with basic skills have just as much—if not more—need
for intellectual stimulation as their more apparently school-successful
classmates.
Ralph Butterfield was the student of Bill’s who taught him a great
deal about questioning. Ralph, an African American senior at the
International School of Tanganyika, was remarkably bright but had a
severe learning disability that made reading and writing
excruciatingly difficult for him. At the conclusion of a class discussion
of W. B. Yeats’s “The Second Coming” (in which Ralph had been a
very active participant, although he could not decode the words),
Ralph asked Bill if the discussion questions he had asked were
designed to “control student thought.” The question disturbed Bill
and caused him to reflect. Were the specific questions he had asked
the students designed to lead them to his interpretation of the poem?
Was he assuming that they would be unable to make their own
meaning out of the poem? In what ways did this expectation affect
student learning? Would it be more effective to ask questions that
were more vague, such as, “What are you noticing in this poem?” or
“What are you more aware of as you continue reading?” or “What
connections are you exploring?”
We believe that the curriculum should be framed around provocative,
open-ended questions. In our experience, the most successful
curriculum questions are ones that we take into the classroom
without knowing the answer ourselves. Putting yourself in the
category of learner is always a powerful way to demonstrate that
constructing understanding is an ongoing process.

What Aspects of the Curriculum Should and Should Not

Be Personalized?
Parents often ask us whether personalization of learning doesn’t
“dumb down” the curriculum. And high school teachers often ask
why they should personalize learning when the external
examinations, such as Advanced Placement (AP) or IB exams,
aren’t personalized. The answers to both of these questions hinge
on which aspects of the curriculum we choose to personalize.
There are some things in every curriculum that are nonnegotiable.
For example, every student who leaves high school should be able
to write a well-organized and coherent essay. Learning to read is
another nonnegotiable. Even with all our advances in technology and
our so-called digitally native children, basic literacy and numeracy
will continue to be the currency of individuals who successfully
navigate the complexities of the 21st century.
Just as learning to write a coherent essay would remain a universal
outcome for all students, we would not jeopardize a student’s
potential success on an external examination. The learning
standards and the instructional goals—what Wiggins and McTighe
(2005) call the “desired results”—should not be personalized. In the
case of an AP or IB course, the desired outcome would be a
successful exam result. This would remain constant for all students.
Every student deserves the richness and stimulation of primary
concepts and essential questions. However, as we have discussed
earlier, the specific content that we use to achieve those enduring
understandings can be personalized. When students come to
explore “life cycles,” they can focus on frogs or trees or human
beings. The skills that we select to focus on can also be
personalized. One of the benchmarks for the Grade 8 Humanities
course Ochan taught was writing a well-organized five-paragraph
essay. She recalls teaching this course to a fairly large class with a
great range of readiness levels. Some students had started the
school year with fairly sophisticated writing and were able to focus
on transitions and framing insightful conclusions. Other students
were still working on constructing a well-organized paragraph. One
student, who had a severe learning disability, was working on a well-
organized sentence. Ochan was able to personalize the skill focus in
accordance with individual needs, but she kept the standard and
benchmark (writing the five-paragraph essay) the same for
everyone. The fact that personalized learning holds the standards
the same for all allows us, as teachers, to put a hand to our heart
and tell parents that personalized learning does not dumb down the
curriculum.
The only exception to this would be when a child is following an
individualized education plan (IEP), in which case it might be
necessary to personalize the standard. However, we suggest that
even if a child has an IEP, the determination of whether a specific
unit should be modified should be made on a case-by-case basis
considering the content, the level of challenge and complexity, and
the child’s strengths and areas of need.
Because we know that the medium in which students work affects
the quality of their demonstrated learning, assessment of student
learning can definitely be personalized. We can invite students to
demonstrate their learning in different ways (see the description of
production styles in Chapter 4), allowing students to use their
strengths and avoid media that might be so anxiety-producing that
students put all their attention into the process of production and little
into the content itself.
While assessment can be personalized, the criteria by which we
evaluate the assessment should not be. We need to hold all students
to the same high standards. For example, it is possible to have
students demonstrate their understanding of the power and authority
structure of feudal Europe by way of an essay, a model, a graphic
design, or a skit. However, the rubric that is used to evaluate each of
these different learning products should be the same, because the
enduring understandings that we are looking for are the same.
Finally, the learning experience itself should be personalized. We
need to design learning activities that will have a personalized
appeal in respect to content, process, product, learning style, student
interest, and readiness level.
In conversations with colleagues, we have come to understand that
part of the conflict between a rich and stimulating curriculum and
personalized learning comes from conflicting ideas that teachers
hold about student success. Many teachers perceive “student
success” as monolithic. In other words, some teachers may be
willing to concede that one size may not fit all in terms of intelligence
preferences or learning styles, but the successful outcome for a unit
of study must look the same for all children. Equality—treating all
children in exactly the same manner—is further reinforced when it
becomes emotionally associated with a misguided sense of fairness.
Our preferred definition of fairness is to provide each child with
whatever that child needs to achieve individual success, and support
measures might include everything from eyeglasses to hearing aids
to extra time on tests to additional scaffolding on assignments to
voice recognition software.
In fact, this standardized vision of student success can actually
prevent teachers from perceiving individual student growth. The
worrying deficit in a child’s achievement can actually blind us to a
child’s accomplishments and strengths. In some cases, particularly
where a student is not meeting grade-level benchmarks, individual
student success literally needs to be unmasked before it can be
celebrated.

Planning Instruction with Backward Design

In The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey (1989)

suggests that to begin with the end in mind is like starting a journey
with a clear understanding of your destination. It means knowing
where you’re going so that you have a better understanding of the
steps you need to take in order to move in the right direction. With
primary concepts and some essential questions identified, you are
well on your way to planning an effective unit of instruction, because
you have the destination in mind.
The method of beginning instruction planning with desired results,
generally known as backward design, comes to us from Wiggins and
McTighe (2005). In their book Understanding by Design, they
present a logical three-step process of lesson and unit planning
based on the idea of beginning with the end in mind:

1. Identify desired results.

2. Determine acceptable evidence of student learning.
3. Plan learning experiences and instruction.

We have discussed how to find and filter for primary concepts, which
should be the first step in planning. This can be a difficult transition
for teachers, because many of us often start planning with a textbook
chapter, old favorite activities, or lesson plans that we have taught
many times before and feel we know well. But without primary ideas
and essential questions, or the destination of learning, instruction
often results in an activity-based learning experience that has little
conceptual substance. This can also be the case when the
integration of subjects (social studies, science, math, and language
arts) is artificially forced.
You may find the second stage of backward design counterintuitive.
For most teachers, once a learning goal or objective has been
identified, the next logical step is to design a learning activity that will
allow us to achieve that outcome. However, it is critical to think of the
assessment piece as an embedded component of the planning
process and not simply as a summative event that occurs at the
conclusion of the unit. We need to ask ourselves how we will know
that students have achieved the desired results. What will we see
our students doing that will indicate that they have mastered certain
skills? What will we hear our students saying that will indicate
understanding? What evidence will we come to accept as valid for
the outcome of our unit of study? By placing the assessment
evidence before the planning of the actual learning experience, we
are obliged to visualize the outcome of the unit, which in turn
increases the likelihood of alignment between learning goal,
assessment, and actual instruction.
Figure 3.1 is a model for unit planning for personalized learning. It
follows the backward design structure and provides a metacognitive
script for teachers. The script suggests questions we might ask
ourselves about the intersection of a high-quality curriculum and the
actual intelligence preferences, learning styles, strengths,
weaknesses, cultural diversity, and content interests of a class of
students. The figure shows a sample of how a teacher might
respond to it. Although the model is presented in a linear format, we
would urge you to use it recursively so as to capture spontaneous
ideas and capitalize on creativity while keeping the overall structure
in mind.

Figure 3.1. Sample Planning for Unit Objectives and Personalized

Learning

Note: The questions provided in the metacognitive script are

suggestions to support teacher planning. This is not intended as an
algorithm, nor should it be followed in a lockstep fashion.
Figure 3.1. Sample Planning for Unit Objectives and Personalized
Learning (continued)
Figure 3.1. Sample Planning for Unit Objectives and Personalized
Learning (continued)
Figure 3.1. Sample Planning for Unit Objectives and Personalized
Learning (continued)
Critics of linear models of lesson planning such as backward design
suggest that these models do not reflect the inherent complexity and
dynamism of the classroom. The argument is that these models
artificially separate outcomes from instructional approaches and so
fragment unit planning into successive steps rather than consider
them as part of a creative gestalt (see John, 2006). To us, this
criticism seems to represent a false dichotomy. There is no
necessary contradiction between a logical step-by-step approach to
lesson preparation and the iterative, simultaneous creativity that is
part and parcel of the real world of unit planning. The former
provides us with structure and accountability; the latter allows us to
cater what we do to the context of our specific classroom and our
specific students. As we see it, backward design is structured to
ensure that learning objectives are clear and that assessment and
instruction are aligned to each of these objectives. This provides for
coherence in unit planning.
The importance of lesson clarity and coherence was underscored in
research undertaken by Seidel, Rimmele, and Prenzel (2005), who
set out to measure clarity and coherence of learning objectives and
to determine whether there were correlations to the development of
student motivation and achievement. Clarity and coherence of
lesson goals were measured by analyzing videos of physics lessons
and rating the criteria on a Likert scale using specific indicators. The
researchers found a strong correlation between clarity and
coherence of lesson goals and (1) student perceptions of
supportiveness of the learning conditions, (2) students’ learning
motivation, (3) types of cognitive learning activities, and (4) the
development of student competence in physics over a one-year
period.
Figure 3.2, adapted from the work of Tomlinson and Allan (2000),
makes explicit some of the connections between high-quality
curriculum and personalized learning in the classroom. We have
grouped these indicators according to the stages of backward
design, as articulated by Wiggins and McTighe (2005). Underneath
each principle, we have included examples of how teachers might
personalize instruction at the same time that they ensure high-quality
curriculum.
Figure 3.2. A Planning Guide Linking the Principles High-Quality
Curriculum and Quality Personalized Learning

Planning Stage 1: Identify Desired Results

___ Curriculum must be based on rich and important ideas and skills
that have enduring value beyond the classroom.

The teacher plans units to address learning that is focused on

important and big ideas that are developmentally appropriate
and will stand the test of time.
The teacher plans how to help each student achieve this
learning by varying scaffolding, support, and materials.

___ Curriculum must help students understand the discipline and

practice it in ways similar to experts or professionals in the discipline.

The teacher employs processes that are at the heart of the

discipline and designs assignments that require students to use
higher-level thinking skills.

___ Curriculum must be relevant and coherent to students,

connecting to their lives and helping them understand both their
world and the discipline being studied.

Learning objectives are aligned with assessment tasks.

Unit planning includes work that demands student investigation,
planning, and evaluation.
Students share their learning products with meaningful
audiences.
The teacher uses a variety of materials at different levels of
complexity to address student readiness levels.
 The teacher gives students a choice of materials, topics,
products, or processes to help them develop personal interests
and connections.

___ The teacher and students must be able to explain what learners
should know, understand, and be able to do as a result of each
learning experience.

The teacher begins instruction for each unit with an explanatory

overview of the material to come.
Learning objectives are clear.
Essential questions provoke curiosity and inquiry from students.

Planning Stage 2: Determine Acceptable Evidence

___ Assessment criteria must be established before the unit is
taught.

The teacher clarifies the performance standards and descriptors

for each learning objective.
Students understand the purpose of assessment.

___ Assessment is an essential component of the learning process.

Assessment is used to analyze student progress toward the

attainment of specific learning objectives.
Assessment is used to enhance opportunities for further
learning.
Students are provided with a variety of ways to demonstrate
their learning.
___ Students must clearly understand the criteria for high-quality
work in activities and products.

Students understand how their learning will be measured.

Rubrics or lists of criteria serve as a guide for student
performance.
Students develop personalized goals within the units of study.
The teacher scaffolds questions to encourage participation from
all students.
The teacher welcomes a variety of processing formats to
encourage students to make connections and meaning with the
material.

Planning Stage 3: Plan Learning Experiences & Instruction

___ Instruction, activities, and products must clearly focus on the key
learning goals of the unit of study.

Students may use different materials at varying levels of

complexity, but all work toward the same learning objectives and
goals.
The teacher uses part-to-whole and whole-to-part instruction to
help students make connections.

___ The classroom environment must be respectful of each student

and the group as a whole.

The teacher uses flexible grouping (e.g., small- and whole-

group) strategies to optimize support for each student and to
ensure the development of interdependence within the class.
The teacher uses a variety of ways to know all students as
individual learners: their individual learning styles and strengths,
 intelligence preferences, educational histories, and biological
traits.
Materials and resources in the class reflect the different cultures
represented.
Students have a choice in the kinds of products they use to
express their learning (e.g., building, drawing, writing,
performing).
Students have options for varied modes of working: individually,
in pairs, in trios, in small groups, and as a whole class.
The teacher ensures that each student is able to contribute to
the work of the whole in a meaningful way.

___ The lesson must interest and engage all students in the class.

Students receive instruction in a variety of ways (e.g., oral,

aural, visual).
The teacher varies the type and pace of instruction to appeal to
different learning styles within the class.
Learning tasks, materials, and products are at different levels of
complexity to match the readiness levels of students in the
class.
In group work, the teacher ensures that each student has an
important role to play and an important contribution to make.

___ Activities, discussions, and products must call on students to

think at high levels and to grapple with complex problems, ideas,
issues, and skills.

The teacher uses mediative questions to provoke student

thinking at high levels.
Source: Adapted from Leadership for Differentiating Schools and
Classrooms (pp. 54–55), by C. A. Tomlinson and S. D. Allan, 2000,
Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
 Taking the Landscape View of Curriculum

Although we have stressed that “knowing our curriculum” means

more than “knowing our subject,” there is no question that teachers
should know the content they are to teach. Jones and Moreland
(2005) describe the perils of implementing a new curriculum when
teachers have limited content knowledge. Their study describes
“learning activities” that had little or no conceptual substance, and
teachers who were unable to give feedback to students beyond
praise-based responses. It is clearly important for an English teacher
to know about the various genres of literature and for a social studies
teacher to understand how the great thinkers of one century
influenced the events of the next.
But general content knowledge can no longer be synonymous with
“knowing the curriculum.” To accommodate the tentative nature of
knowledge, the explosion in information, and the increasing diversity
of our students, we must redefine knowing the curriculum to mean
that in-depth knowledge that allows the teacher to identify the
primary concepts and to distinguish between enduring
understandings (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) and the peripheral
information that may be interesting to know but is not essential to
conceptual understanding. Knowing our curriculum allows us to
make learning whole for all learners—as opposed to something
that’s fragmented, fractured, and episodic (Perkins, 2009a) and
seems unrelated to the lives they lead.
The specific content of an academic discipline, no matter how
interesting or seemingly important, can be likened to the specific
physical features of a landscape—for example, a pond or meadow, a
cluster of oak trees, or the path of a stream. All of these are
important physical features of a specific landscape, but none of
them, in and of themselves, gives us the big picture of the geography
of the region. As teachers, we need to be able to identify the
metaphorical geography of our academic discipline. We need to be
able to construct the big picture—to identify the primary concepts or
enduring understandings that we want our students to take away
from our classroom. We need to be able to synthesize what is truly
important for students to know, to understand, and to be able to do.
We need to be able to articulate these major learning outcomes and
plan learning activities that are aligned to them. We also need to
collect data and evidence that will indicate how successful our
students are in achieving these learning outcomes.
This is not a simple task. It is intellectually demanding. It requires
time and energy. It also requires collaboration with valued
colleagues. But unless we have this deep understanding of what we
teach and why, we will not be able to give students the skills they
need to be a part of the ongoing inquiry that is learning, to apply the
ever-increasing sum of information that technology puts at their
fingertips, and to appreciate and synthesize the differing points of
view they will meet in this globalized century.
 Action Advice: Using Inquiry to Develop Students’
Conceptual Understanding

Teachers help students develop deep understanding of curriculum by

presenting them with primary concepts and asking them to engage in
higher-level thinking about these ideas. The key is to give students
time to process big ideas and make personal connections to them;
these connections are the foundation of personalized learning. Use
the following instructional strategies to support processing, critical
reading, and personal connections to content. Please note that these
activities are effective only when the teacher has first done the work
of knowing the curriculum.
10–2. The 10–2 strategy comes to us from the work of Mary Budd
Rowe (1983), who also gave us “wait time.” Generally speaking, the
optimal length of auditory concentration for adults for semantic or
declarative information is somewhere between 9 and 12 minutes.
Essentially, 10–2 calls for you to chunk direct instruction into
lecturettes of approximately 10 minutes and follow each of these with
2 to 4 minutes of processing time. The processing can be as simple
as asking the students to turn to a neighbor and discuss the key
ideas or how the content relates to them. The 2-Minute Essay and
the 3-Minute Stand-Up Conversation are variations on this
processing activity. Processing time allows students to make
personal connections to content and promotes metacognition about
learning. This supports students in monitoring their understanding
and helps them take control of their own learning (Bransford, Brown,
& Cocking, 2000).
ANNOTATED READING. As individuals read a selected piece of
text, they mark sentences or passages with a check if they already
knew the content of the passage, with a question mark if they have a
question or are unsure of the passage’s meaning, and with an
exclamation mark if the passage represents a new idea or insight.
Follow up by asking paired learning partners to compare their
annotations.
FINAL WORD. Strong readers have learned to make connections to
the text and to question or challenge what they read. “Final word” is
a particularly effective reading and processing strategy that models
what strong reading looks like. Everyone participates in interacting
with text at a deep level.
All members of a mixed readiness group read an assigned piece of
text and highlight or underline what they consider to be the key ideas
and concepts. Once all members of the group have finished reading,
the group members number off, and the process begins with Group
Member #1 sharing a highlighted item, but making no further
comment. Working in round-robin fashion, each group member
comments on or gives a personal response to Group Member #1’s
selection. There is no cross-talk or interrupting. The first round wraps
up with Group Member #1 reflecting on his or her highlighted item
after having the benefit of hearing what everyone else has had to
say about it, thus giving “the final word.” The “final word” often
includes comments on how the insights of others have modified the
original interpretation of the highlighted text. Then, the process
repeats with Group Member #2 and continues until all the group
members have had a chance to share their thoughts, get feedback,
and give their final word.

JIGSAW. A jigsaw activity involves breaking the class into groups

and assigning each group to read a selected piece of text or focus
on a particular aspect of lesson content for the purpose of becoming
“experts” in it. Then regroup the students into new groups, each with
at least one representative of the original expert groups. Working in
a round-robin fashion, each student teaches the rest of the group
about his or her area of expertise. The power of the jigsaw is that it
compels interdependence.
PAIRS READ AND PARAPHRASE (PRAP). In this pairs-based
reading comprehension activity, Partner A reads the first paragraph
of an assigned text out loud. Partner B listens as Partner A reads but
does not follow along in the text. When “A” finishes reading the
paragraph, “B” paraphrases the main idea or key concept of the
paragraph. Then they reverse roles and continue reading, listening,
and commenting until time is called. Paraphrasing is a much
underrated learning strategy. Skillfully done, it requires the learner to
identify key ideas and concepts and synthesize them.
POSTER BRAINSTORM. Distribute chart paper and ask small
groups to brainstorm a list of characteristics of the subject under
discussion (e.g., behaviors that enhance collaboration or similarities
between the Federalist Papers and the New Deal). Remind students
of the rules of brainstorming—that no criticism or rejection of
contributions is permitted, so as to encourage the most flexible and
creative thinking. At the conclusion of the brainstorming period, all
groups post their brainstorming for review and discussion.
A variation on the poster brainstorm is to give each group a different
question to respond to. This is an efficient way to explore multiple
perspectives, with each table group making a brief presentation. Still
another variation is to have the groups fold the chart paper in half.
On the left-hand side of the poster, students explore the topic under
discussion through a verbal brainstorm (using words), and on the
right-hand side, they do so via a nonverbal brainstorm (using
symbols, pictures, or logos). This kind of cross-modal activity,
involving writing, drawing, and speaking, can enhance student
processing.
SAY SOMETHING. Working with a learning partner, students read a
selected piece of text. At the end of each paragraph, each person
“says something”—gives a brief summary, identifies key points, asks
a question, raises an interesting point, or notes a personal
connection.
SCRAMBLED SENTENCES. In this strategy, each member of a
small group of five or six students thinks of a single word related to
the subject under discussion and writes it on an index card. Then,
the group members share their cards and construct a sentence out
of the word that conveys the best explanation of the subject, using
the fewest possible additional words.
SEGMENTATION. This strategy for group analysis and synthesis
can foster deep critical thinking. It’s based on having students
identify big ideas within content and then “segment” the content
according to those concepts, and it has built-in opportunities for
personalization.
Segmentation is more easily illustrated than described. The example
we offer is from an 8th grade humanities class that was reading
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The teacher divided students into
groups and asked them to identify the motivators of the main
characters in the play. Students brainstormed in small groups, then
shared their ideas, which the teacher recorded on a whiteboard. The
motivators they identified included power, fame, ambition, patriotism,
self-knowledge, honor, and greed.
The teacher then asked each group to draw horizontal and vertical
axes on a piece of chart paper and select motivators that they would
plot along each axis. This involved personalization in the sense that
each group needed choose two descriptors they wished to work with
—the ones that had the most resonance for them or that they found
the most interesting. Group A chose honor, which they set up on the
horizontal axis—labeling the left end “low honor” and the right end
“high honor,” and ambition, which they set up on the vertical axis,
labeling the bottom end “low ambition” and the top end “high
ambition.” The teacher then asked each group to come up with
descriptors for each of the quadrants formed by the intersecting axes
(e.g., “How would you describe the combination of low ambition and
low honor? What would that look like?”), select characters from the
play they believed exemplified each of the quadrants, and explain
their choice. Some quadrants were fairly straightforward. For
example, Cassius appeared quite quickly in Group A’s high-
ambition/low-honor quadrant. Other quadrants were more
challenging to populate, with Group A debating whether Caesar
should be placed in the high-ambition/high-honor quadrant.
The teacher also asked the groups to find quotations from the play
that supported their specific quadrant assignments. Finally, groups
were asked to write a synthesis statement about what they had
learned about the motivation of the main characters of the play.
Segmentation is easily adaptable to other subjects, and it has been
used in social studies, science, foreign language, and even math
classes.
SYNECTICS. These are a fun and creative way to get students
engaged in metaphorical thinking by prompting them to see
similarities between two seemingly dissimilar objects or ideas. There
are any number of ways of presenting a synectic, but usually the
comparison includes a key word from the lesson and something from
everyday life. For example, you might ask student groups to make
list of favorite foods, hobbies, or activities they enjoy and then select
one item from the list. Then you would supply a word or concept
related to your instruction and ask them to complete the synectic,
which might look like the following:

Personalized learning is like a tossed salad because …

Critical thinking is a game of tennis because …

Another way of using synectics is to present four or five pictures of

particular objects (e.g., a basket of fruit, a kitchen utensil, a sport)
and ask students to draw the similarities. Note that completing
synectics is extremely difficult if students don’t have a fairly deep
conceptual understanding of the lesson. Thus, synectics can offer
you a useful dipstick assessment of your students’ understanding.
VERBAL GYMNASTICS. This fun activity is something you can use
as a processing strategy or as a warm-up to start the day. The
instructions are for the groups to construct a grammatically correct,
meaningful sentence having something to do with the unit of study
utilizing three given words. You may give the groups words that are
relevant to the unit of study to help students remember and connect
key words and concepts. Alternatively, you may want to give words
that are totally irrelevant to the subject in order to make the activity
more challenging and creative. At one of our teacher workshops, we
gave groups the words assegai (iron-tipped spear), papadum (thin,
crisp Indian flatbread), and zeitgeist (general intellectual, moral, and
cultural climate of an era). One table group constructed the sentence
“No Child Left Behind shattered the American educational zeitgeist
like an assegai going through a papadum.”
 Chapter 4
Knowing Our Assessments

In the 10th grade, Bill faced a major test in American history. The
teacher had stressed how important the test was and how it was
modeled on the kind of tests that students would encounter at
university level. Bill spent hours studying for this test, reviewing
chapters in the textbook and poring over his class notes. Entering
the classroom on the day of the test, he felt fairly well prepared.
However, when Bill received his test paper and began to read the
questions, he was shocked by what he saw. The test focused on
content that he hadn’t studied at all. It was as though it had come out
of a different course altogether. Panic and self-doubt swept through
him.
Bill scored poorly on the test, and the teacher wrote this comment on
the top of the test paper: You must learn to study harder. This test
does not represent what you are capable of.
More than 30 years later, Bill can still remember the lesson he took
away from this experience, and it has little to do with American
history. First, he learned that although his teacher might have seen it
differently, there isn’t necessarily a relationship between trying hard
and doing well. The effort Bill put into studying for this test did not
pay dividends in terms of achievement. There is no causal
relationship between effort and achievement, only a correlation when
the assessment is reasonably predictable—and in the case of Bill’s
history test, the assessment was not at all predictable.
When teachers, however unwittingly, lead students to disassociate
effort and achievement in this way, they do these students a major
disservice. As discussed in Chapter 2, when the controllable aspects
of causality (e.g., effort) are perceived to be connected to
achievement, individual potency and efficacy are enhanced, and the
likelihood of future success is increased (Hunter & Barker, 1987).
Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. When students feel like their
effort doesn’t matter, they tend to stop trying, and this sets them up
for even more academic difficulty.
Bill prepared for that history test expecting a fair assessment of the
content the course had covered: the major ideas and concepts of the
Great Depression and President Roosevelt’s response to it. Instead,
he encountered an idiosyncratic collection of questions—some of
which were tangential, some of which were merely trivial. The test
was clearly a “gotcha assessment” in which the teacher attempted to
uncover what the students didn’t know as opposed to what they had
actually learned. The takeaway for Bill was that school was
sometimes not as much about learning or achievement as it was
about being able to outguess the teacher. This was not only bad
assessment practice, it was malpractice.
Although standards-based curriculum and common assessments
have made such idiosyncratic assessment practices rarer today,
there is still too much about assessment that’s mystifying to both
teachers and students. In 1998, Paul Black and Dylan Wiliam
authored an article about the assessment of student learning in the
United Kingdom titled “Inside the Black Box.” The title is an apt
metaphor for much assessment practice in schools, suggesting
something mysterious and unknown, something removed from our
daily experience, something that happens to us and is therefore
outside both our understanding and our control.
Research from Black and Wiliam (1998), the Assessment Reform
Group in the United Kingdom, and the Assessment Training Institute
in Portland, Oregon (Chappuis, Chappuis, & Stiggins, 2009),
stresses that there is a profound difference in learning results when
teachers strive to bring students “inside the black box”—inside the
assessment process—for the purpose of making the student a
critically important end user of assessment data.
Why is it so important for students to use assessment data?
Because although teachers unquestionably create the conditions for
learning, it’s students who ultimately make the decision as to
whether they will engage with what’s being offered. Just as a
gardener cannot compel flowers to grow and bloom, a teacher
cannot mandate that learning will take place. Individual students
make the decision as to whether they will learn based on the
interplay of numerous factors, including their perception of their
readiness, self-esteem, self-confidence and efficacy, social status in
the classroom, cultural background, interests, intelligence
preferences, and learning styles. Because students are the ultimate
authority in their own learning, they need to be active participants in
the assessment process.
In this chapter, we will connect best-practice assessment with
personalized learning. We will do this by surveying the traditional
purposes of assessment, taking some first steps in understanding
assessment fundamentals, and examining a relatively new paradigm
of assessment, called assessment for learning (AfL), that appears to
complement personalized learning. We will also look at the knotty
and conflicting issues surrounding the grading of student work and
offer some strategies for promoting student self-assessment.
 Changing Perspectives on Assessment

Just as educators’ view of curricula has changed dramatically, our

understanding of assessment is likewise undergoing a tectonic shift.
The educational establishment is not just considering assessment
practices and classroom strategies but reflecting on and reexamining
assessment’s very purpose.
In the Introduction, we talked about ranking and sorting students as
a traditional purpose of education, and testing as a means to this
end. Given the class hierarchies and the stratified job market of the
20th century, it was imperative to have a way of funneling young
people into productive employment. Britain’s old system, in effect
when Bill was growing up in Britain in the 1950s, is a prime example.
At age 11, schoolchildren took the Eleven Plus exam, which
determined if they would continue academic study or be shunted into
vocational training. At age 16, students who had remained in an
academic program were further ranked and sorted for college
admission by the “O” Level exam, which functioned in a manner
similar to the SAT in today’s United States. Students whose scores
put them in the top 10 percent (irrespective of their actual
performance on the examination) received As, the next 20 percent
received Bs, and so on. This ranking and sorting of students into
distinct paths by assessment results persists in highly competitive
educational systems around the world, including those in India,
China, and South Korea.
Another traditional purpose of assessment has been to motivate
students by doling out punishments and rewards. Students who did
well received accolades, were placed on the honor roll, and were
given awards and prizes. Students who didn’t do well were also
recognized, sometimes publicly, with criticism, scorn, and even
ridicule. We can see the Skinnerian hand of operant conditioning at
work. In the traditional perception of assessment, fear was seen as a
powerful motivator of student achievement, and teachers deliberately
set out to create an urgent sense of assessment anxiety. As
Chappuis and colleagues (2004) put it, “We all grew up in
classrooms in which our teachers believed that the way to maximize
learning was to maximize anxiety, and assessment has always been
the great intimidator” (p. 32). We still see the legacy of this
connection between assessment and anxiety when we assign
students a task and their first question is “Will it be graded?” or “Will
it count?”
About 40 years ago, a few educational systems began to focus
attention on criterion-referenced assessment. This represented a
dramatic change in thinking about the purpose of assessment in
schools. In criterion-referenced assessment, a student’s
achievement is not compared against other students, but rather
evaluated against predetermined achievement criteria. For example,
the criteria questions for a well-written paragraph might include

How well organized is the paragraph?

Is there a topic sentence? Supporting sentences? A concluding
sentence?
Does the paragraph have a variety of sentence structures?

The purpose of criterion-referenced assessment is to chart student

growth in regard to valued skills and knowledge. The bell curve is
jettisoned, and in theory, all students who meet the predetermined
criteria for success can get As. The advent of criterion-referenced
assessment truly stands as a milestone in our educational journey to
balance and marry excellence and equity.
Teachers who grew up in norm-referenced systems can find it
difficult to think about assessment as something that’s not primarily
concerned with comparing students against each other, even though
this kind of comparison inevitably works to the detriment of all
students. Students at the bottom of the teacher’s achievement
hierarchy tend to experience lower expectations and achieve less.
Even those students “fortunate” enough to be sorted and ranked at
the top of the heap are not compared against their own potential,
meaning they’re often underchallenged. They may become the
victims of benign neglect, since “they will learn it anyway.”
Another critical advantage of criterion-referenced assessment is that
it allows individual teachers and schools to use data gathered
through the assessment process to help in planning the most
appropriate learning experiences for specific individuals and groups
of students. And so enters the idea that the results of assessment
can and should inform future instruction. Teachers can analyze data
and learn from the assessment results.
For example, let’s imagine that 25 students take the same test in 9th
grade mathematics. The teacher grades the tests and reviews the
results to determine if a pattern is emerging. She sees that on
questions 7, 12, and 15, more than half the students got the wrong
answer, and she concludes that these questions warrant her focused
attention. First, the teacher tries to determine if the questions were
clumsily worded. Was there ambiguity or the possibility for
confusion? She looks at each question and decides that, no, they
were all clearly worded. Yet half the class answered them incorrectly.
This degree of misunderstanding suggests that the problem lies not
with the students but with the teaching those students received
(Guskey, 2002). It is clearly time for some reteaching.
Criterion-referenced assessment of learning has come to play a
central role in the movement toward developing standards-based
curricula. In other words, we determine what we want the students to
learn—what we want them to know, understand, and be able to do
(schoolwide standards). We set benchmarks of grade-level quality,
and then we design assessments that allow us to determine the
degree to which our students have achieved these standards.
Schools around the world are wrestling with this process and are
developing principles of assessment that both link to schoolwide
learning standards and offer students a variety of ways in which they
can demonstrate their achievement.
 First Steps in Knowing Our Assessments

Truly meaningful assessment has two components: quality and

variety (Stiggins, Arter, Chappuis, & Chappuis, 2004). Quality
depends on the purpose, validity, and accuracy of the assessment;
on how results are communicated; and on the degree of student
involvement in the process. Variety in assessment tools provides
balance in our evaluation of student learning. Assessment should be
a photo album of learning, not merely a snapshot.
In order to ensure that the picture of the learner compiled is as
accurate as possible, teachers need to ask some fairly pointed
questions about their assessments. The questions that follow,
inspired by the work of the Assessment Training Institute (Stiggins et
al., 2004), provide a good start.

What Is the Purpose of the Assessment?

Educators generally agree that there are two primary purposes for
assessment: (1) to analyze student progress to determine the status
of learning, and (2) to serve as an essential component of the
learning process in order to promote and enhance further learning.
We describe the first function as assessment of learning and the
second function as assessment for learning. Although it is important
to understand that these two types of assessment are not mutually
exclusive, and there is no need to choose between them, it is useful
to distinguish between their purposes and outcomes. Is the
assessment summative, in that the result will sum up learning
achievement and be used to give students a grade? Or is it
formative, in the sense that the teacher and students will use the
results to shape further instruction and learning?

What Are the Targeted Learning Outcomes?

For assessment results to be useful, we must be very sure about
what these results mean, and that requires that we have a clear
picture of the learning objectives the assessment is measuring.
Learning outcomes usually fall into four general categories:
knowledge (including factual recall), critical thinking (including
analysis, comparison, evaluation), skills (e.g., writing a paragraph,
dribbling a basketball, playing a musical instrument), and the
generation of products (Chappuis et al., 2009).

Is the Type of Assessment Appropriate for the Targeted

Learning Outcome?

The four types of assessment teachers most frequently use are

selected response, extended response, performance tasks, and
personal observation and communication. Each is appropriate for
assessing some learning outcomes, but less appropriate for others.
Selected-response assessments, which include multiple-choice
tests, matching exercises, and true-or-false quizzes, are appropriate
measures for the assessment of knowledge—specifically, factual
recall. They are less effective when used to evaluate reasoning and
very ineffective when used to measure skills or the ability to create a
product. A classic example of a mismatch between assessment and
outcome occurred back in the 1970s in the United States when the
College Board removed the writing sample from the SAT
examination and substituted a multiple-choice test that simply asked
students to recognize standard written English. Recognizing
standard written English (factual knowledge) and generating
coherent and well-organized prose (skill, reasoning, product
generation) are two very different processes.
Extended written-response assessments, such as traditional essay
tests, are appropriate for measuring knowledge and reasoning but
ineffective for evaluating skills or the ability to create a product
(except, of course, when the product is a piece of writing).
Performance tasks are not effective in assessing knowledge in that
they usually have a fairly narrow focus and can rarely cover all the
content. They can be effective in determining student reasoning, and
they can be highly effective in assessing student skills and ability to
create a product. They also appeal to students with a preference for
practical intelligence in that they call upon students to engage in
authentic problem solving.
Personal observation and communication includes interviewing,
questioning, and informal classroom observation conducted by the
teacher. This can be an effective way of assessing students’
knowledge and reasoning (especially during think-aloud activities),
but it is extremely time-consuming and labor intensive. It is very
difficult for a single teacher to observe more than a few students at a
given time.

Is the Design of the Assessment Valid?

The question here is whether or not the assessment actually

measures the desired learning targets. Is the content covered the
content that was taught? Or does the assessment include
extraneous factors that could lead to an inaccurate conclusion about
what a student understands or can do? For example, on a math test,
the direction “explain your answer” leaves unsaid whether the
explanation needs to be in mathematical notation, in words, or in
pictures, diagrams, or drawings. For some teachers, the word
“explain” means “use words,” and they might well dock points from a
student who does not do so, even if the student’s drawing, say,
demonstrates clear conceptual understanding of the problem and
solution. The pictorial explanation of students who think in pictures
may not even be understood by the teacher. In the global classroom,
the lack of verbal explanation may also penalize a student who
understands the math but is still in the process of learning English.

How Will the Assessment Results Be Communicated?

Generally, teachers give two kinds of feedback: evaluative feedback
and descriptive feedback. Evaluative feedback might be a number
score or letter grade (A+, D-) or a few words (“well done” or
“outstanding job”).
Research has shown that, although there is no correlation between
evaluative feedback and enhanced learning (some might argue that
there is actually a negative correlation), there is a powerful and
necessary correlation between descriptive feedback and ongoing
student learning (Sanford, 1995). Descriptive feedback informs
students of what they need to do next in order to improve.
Comments like “You maintained eye contact with your audience
throughout your presentation” and “Your essay had a compelling
introduction but lacked a conclusion” help the recipient understand
the assessment results and put these results to use.

What Role Will Students Play in the Assessment

Process?

Students learn most effectively when they take responsibility for their
own learning. It stands to reason that they need to understand the
assessment process so that ultimately they will be able to engage in
accurate and frequent self-assessment. They need to be brought
within the “black box.” Practices such as sharing learning goals and
criteria and the use of rubrics containing the key criteria that are
being assessed and descriptions of various levels of student
achievement can be valuable tools for this effort.
 Student-Centered Assessment for Learning

There is an anonymous saying that speaks volumes about current

assessment practices in many countries around the world: You don’t
fatten a cow by weighing it.
Although assessment of learning, otherwise known as summative
assessment, can contribute to the overall picture of learning we are
compiling of our students, we must remember that it can only be a
part of that picture. It offers little flexibility for accommodating
different learners and little information for adjusting instruction to fit
individual student needs. As we think about the kind of assessment
that supports personalized learning, we need to start by asking some
very basic questions about what we do in classrooms and why. If our
purpose in the global classroom is to provide the maximum access
for all learners to a high-quality curriculum, a curriculum that puts the
learner center stage as the constructor of meaning, then we need an
assessment framework that does the same. Assessment for learning
is an assessment paradigm that does just that.
Both AfL and personalized learning strive to make student learning
success their central purpose. Both initiatives assert that instruction
and assessment should be seamlessly integrated for the well-being
of the learner. Both are centrally concerned with how students learn
most efficiently, recognizing that students’ emotions and self-
confidence are inseparable from cognition and that motivation plays
a critical role in furthering learner success. Perhaps the most striking
commonality is the emphasis that both personalized learning and
assessment for learning place on recognizing and building on
student strengths in order to further develop learner self-
directedness and self-management.
The Assessment Reform Group in the United Kingdom has played a
key role in bringing the research evidence about assessment for
learning to the attention of the educational community through the
commissioned work of Black and Wiliam, published as “Inside the
Black Box” (1998) and the follow-up Assessment for Learning:
Beyond the Black Box (1999). The Assessment Reform Group
(2002) continues to advance this field and has identified 10
research-based principles of assessment for learning to guide
classroom practice:
Assessment for learning

1. Is part of effective instructional planning.

2. Focuses on how students learn (not just “what” they learn).
3. Is central to classroom practice.
4. Is a key professional skill.
5. Is sensitive and constructive.
6. Fosters motivation.
7. Promotes understanding of goals and criteria.
8. Helps learners know how to improve.
9. Develops the capacity for self-assessment.
10. Recognizes all educational achievement.

Fostering the Growth Mind-set

Principles 5 and 6 of assessment for learning, which call for

assessments that are sensitive and constructive and that foster
student motivation, remind us of the importance of growth mind-sets.
Dweck (2006) suggests that as we grow up, we develop either
“fixed” or “growth” mind-sets. As noted in Chapter 1’s discussion of
student “ability,” individuals with fixed mind-sets attribute their
success or failure to causal factors outside their conscious control.
We hear the voice of the fixed mind-set when we hear people say,
“I’m just no good at math” or “I don’t have the ear for learning a
foreign language.” These “failures” are, in the speakers’ mind,
beyond their power to change. Such learned helplessness is,
unfortunately, all too prevalent in our schools.
Ironically, attributing success to causal factors outside our control
can also be problematic. For example, if I believe my success in
school is the result of my native intelligence, this can result in an
aversion to intellectual risk taking (mistakes are not seen as
opportunities to learn but as evidence that I’m not as clever as I
thought).
Growth mind-sets, on the other hand, attribute success or failure to
causal factors that are within our conscious control (e.g., effort, time
management, planning, practice, etc.). When we develop a growth
mind-set, we also develop learning resilience—so that when we do
fail, we fail forward.
Our colleague Sharon, an experienced middle school teacher, tells a
story about how a casual comment from her high school PE teacher
convinced her not only that she “couldn’t run,” but that any kind of
athletic endeavor was beyond her (something she remains
convinced of to this day). We don’t imagine that Sharon’s teacher
meant to cut short an athletic career or lifestyle, but his untimely and
inappropriate assessment led Sharon to attribute her less-than-
impressive performance on the school track to an innate lack of
ability, a fixed mind-set she has not overcome.
Contrast Sharon’s experience to this story of a 10th grade science
class at the International School of Brussels. In 2009, this class was
declared the European winner of the Project Earth competition for
their work to make their school more environmentally sustainable
through composting and by growing herbs and vegetables for the
school kitchen (see www.projectearth.net for details). What was
unusual about the science class was its composition of mainstream,
general education students and students with cognitive or
developmental disabilities who were usually educated in a self-
contained classroom. Students take the science class, which is
called Environmental Sustainability Through Practical Application, for
either academic credit in science or for CAS (creativity, action,
service) credit as part of the IB diploma program.
The coteachers of the class—one a science specialist and the other
a learning support teacher—worked hard to integrate the diverse
student populations to create a common class identity, part of which
is sharing a common learning goal. We asked one of the teachers,
Michelle Brown, if she had informed Project Earth evaluators that
half the class was composed of students with intensive special
needs. She responded, “No, the organizers were not aware of the
special composition of the class. I wanted the students to enter the
competition as equals, based on the merits of their work.” We were
struck by the growth mind-set (Dweck, 2006) that the teachers had
established within their class; clearly, all the students developed a
belief in themselves as students who were capable of performing
important work. Their teachers’ confidence, demonstrated by
ensuring the class was evaluated by the same criteria as other
groups competing for the award, powerfully confirmed this belief in
their own capacity.

The Power of Student Choice

As the Assessment Reform Group (2002) notes, assessment “should

enable all learners to achieve their best and have their efforts
recognized.” For teachers in the global classroom, this requires
sensitivity to cultural differences. As teachers, we need to be aware
that our own culture and the dominant school culture can permeate
and influence assessment just as they can all aspects of instruction.
One way to personalize assessment for these learners is to allow
some choice in assessment. When assessments are aligned with
primary concepts of the curriculum, content used to demonstrate
those ideas can be personalized. Additionally, teachers can let
students work in a preferred production style to help them best show
their learning. Remember that how a student demonstrates his or her
learning can be as influential on the quality of the product as the
student’s knowledge or skill and that working in a nonpreferred
medium (e.g., requiring shy individuals to perform in front of an
audience) can produce levels of stress that actually interfere with the
demonstration of learning.
For an example of how giving students a choice in assessment can
enhance both engagement and learning, let’s take a look inside
Kyung-Sam’s high school English class.

Han-boks and Jang-gums: A Korean Look at the Danish Prince

Fifteen-year-old Kyung-Sam stands in front of the English class next

to a beautifully designed miniature theater, built of cardboard. His
face glows with confidence and pleasure. Just last week Kyung-Sam
told his teacher that, in Korean, his name means “honor and
achievement.” His present expression reflects both.
It is obvious that Kyung-Sam has spent many hours working on this
project. The scenery is intricately painted. The furniture is perfectly to
scale, as are the figures of the actors and actresses, who are
meticulously dressed in flowing robes. Kyung-Sam has
reconstructed the scene from Hamlet in which Polonius is stabbed to
death in Queen Gertrude’s chamber, but a North American or
European English teacher would be forgiven for not immediately
recognizing the famous scene. The queen’s bed has been replaced
by an e-bool (a low wooden platform covered with a thin mat). The
wall-hung tapestry has been replaced by an oriental screen with
brush paintings of long-legged birds and bamboo forests. Queen
Gertrude wears a red han-bok (the traditional flowing, high-waisted
Korean dress). Instead of a sword, Hamlet wields a jang-gum (a
miniature, straight-bladed saber with a red hilt). Kyung-Sam has
presented the scene as it might have appeared in Korea in the 16th
century.
Despite the fact that Kyung-Sam is an ESL student who is still
receiving specific English language support, he has just completed
an oral presentation on how Hamlet might have been staged in a
Korean context. It was well received by the rest of his class. He also
has prepared a written explanation of his project.

Kyung-Sam’s English teacher helped him to design this creatively

personalized performance assessment. Both teacher and student
acknowledge the effectiveness of the project. “I knew Kyung-Sam
was proud of his Korean cultural heritage, and I thought linking our
literature study to something in which he had expertise would not
only increase his understanding of the play but also provide a boost
for both his motivation and self-esteem. Kyung-Sam is quite a
talented artist. The total project—the model building, the oral
presentation, and the essay—demonstrated that he has really made
a personal connection to the play.”
Kyung-Sam’s comments were equally enthusiastic: “Before the
project, Hamlet was just some reading for school. I had no feeling for
it. Just a lot of acts and scenes, a lot of entrances and exits that had
to be read for homework. But when I thought about the play in
Korea, it joined together into full meaning. I could understand
Hamlet’s problems. I mean, I could understand the whole of it.”
May Ling’s teacher came up with a similar idea. The students were
all expected to use English when making an oral presentation in front
of the class, but each student was free to select the topic they would
present on. May Ling chose to make her presentation on the
Chinese horoscope. In advance, she collected the birth dates of the
middle school teachers and prepared brief descriptions of them
according to the Chinese astrological cycle. To the delight of her
classmates, May Ling presented the principal, Mr. Pershing, as the
dependable and hardworking Earth Ox; the PE teacher, Mrs. Farrell,
as the vivacious and playful Monkey; and the science teacher, Mr.
Straffon, as the strong and a little bit scary Tiger.
The ESL teacher noticed that as May Ling’s presentation went on,
she seemed to become more self-confident and relaxed, and her
language fluency increased accordingly.
Learning to Learn

Bringing students inside the assessment process is one of AfL’s

chief goals. In an outstanding article titled “Helping Students
Understand Assessment,” Jan Chappuis (2005) writes that students
need to be able to answer three basic questions about their learning:

Where am I going? (What, specifically, is the learning target?)

Where am I now? (What can and can’t I do?)
How can I close the gap?

The fundamental point here is to engage students in assessment so

that they are actively involved, understand the process, and
ultimately learn to set and move toward learning goals on their own.
There are a number of ways to promote this kind of engagement:
providing clear learning goals, giving feedback and requiring
revision, and embedding self-assessment.
Providing clear learning goals. Understanding the learning
objectives is critically important for students. They shouldn’t have to
guess or infer what the learning targets are or what high-quality work
that hits those targets looks like. Good ways of providing clarity
include the use of rubrics and allowing students to study models of
both strong and weak work. Teachers can provide students with a
rubric and an anonymous work sample, then ask them to evaluate
the work and be prepared to discuss the criteria applied using the
language in the rubric or scoring guide. Such an activity will assist
students in understanding what high-quality work looks like and will
support them in learning how to self-assess.
For some procedural knowledge, rubric construction can be fairly
straightforward. There are many excellent rubrics, for example, to
guide the assessment of expository writing. However, when we get
into areas of declarative knowledge and critical/creative thinking,
rubrics can be more problematic. Because the descriptors of quality
in the rubric need to be clearly understood by the student and
reasonably easy to measure, teachers will often quantify the
description of quality rather than attempt to qualify it. For example,
the highest level of achievement on a social studies rubric might
demand that students include in their essay at least three reasons
for the Chinese Cultural Revolution, but the rubric may make no
mention of the appropriateness or meaningfulness of the reasons.
We can be faced with the temptation of measuring only that which is
easily measurable.
Our colleague Ron Ritchhart, a researcher with Project Zero at
Harvard University, reacts skeptically to the idea of rubrics as a
panacea. He sees shallow rubrics being used by students as a “paint
by number” approach to classroom “success.” Such rubrics actually
limit student critical and creative thought. He cautions that the value
of a rubric will always be measured by how well it promotes student
growth in learning (personal conversation, 2007).
Giving feedback. Teachers who provide students with regular
descriptive feedback enhance their learning. We’ve already made
the distinction between descriptive feedback and evaluative
feedback, which consists of marks or letter grades or comments
such as “excellent” or “good job.” Such evaluative feedback often
signals to students that the learning associated with a piece of work
is finished. Descriptive feedback gives students insight about current
strengths (success) and how to do better next time (corrective
action). We also know that quality in feedback is vastly more
important than quantity. In the Action Advice section at the end of the
chapter, we recommend providing students with data followed by an
open-ended, mediative question. Research (Sanford, 1995) has
shown that this powerful combination enhances self-directed
learning.
Requiring revision. Teachers need to insist that students revise
their work. Using descriptive feedback to revise and improve a piece
of work involves not only learning academic skills but also learning
how to learn. We need to model how to use feedback in the revision
process and support students in framing questions that will allow
them to make sense out of the feedback they receive. Generally, it is
better to focus on a single aspect or quality at a time; don’t allow
students to bite off more than they can chew. Providing students with
practice assessing and preparing descriptive feedback on an
anonymous, poor-quality piece of work can be a very useful activity.
It can serve to make the standards of quality more explicit and
supports both peer- and self-assessment.
Embedding self-assessment. We believe that the goal of all
assessment should be healthy and accurate self-assessment.
Students, eventually, should not rely upon external sources for
evaluation. Accordingly, teachers at all levels need to embed
frequent self-assessment into their instruction and support students
in regularly collecting evidence of their own progress. We
recommend that teachers use a variety of daily strategies in the
classroom that require students to articulate specifically what they
are learning and the progress they are making (see the Action
Advice section at the end of the chapter). Students can use the
results to set goals focused on closing the gap between where they
are now relative to the desired learning outcome and where they
need to be in order to meet learning standards.
By coming inside the assessment process, the student comes to
know him- or herself better as a learner. The student, not the
teacher, becomes the most important end user of assessment data.
 Grading and Personalized Learning: A Process at War
with Itself

During a teacher workshop we were leading, we asked participants

to brainstorm all the various reasons for grading. We recorded the
teachers’ contributions on a flip chart and stopped at 35—not
because we had exhausted the subject, but because the page was
full and we thought we had made our point. Teachers grade for many
different reasons, some of which may be entirely contradictory, and
some of which may inhibit student learning.

Take, for example, the teacher who wants to use grades as a means
to encourage a struggling student. She perceives that a positive
grade will bolster the young person’s self-confidence and serve as a
boost to his motivation. However, the grade will also go on a high
school transcript that will be used by universities to make selective
admissions decisions. In this case, the encouragement of future
learning and the need for an accurate indication of achievement are
at odds. The fact that we are trying to use grading for so many
different purposes, some of which are mutually exclusive, helps to
account for why so many teachers feel conflicted about the subject
of grading.
Teachers who personalize for diverse learners may have an
additional source of conflict. As Tomlinson and McTighe (2006) note,
the process of grading often leaves
student-centered educators feeling uncomfortable and
compromised …. Their classroom practice honors and attends
to variance in student readiness, interest, and learning profile. In
their classrooms, student variability is viewed not as a problem
but as a natural and positive aspect of working with human
beings. Seemingly in contrast, the report card and its
surrounding mythology looms as a reminder that at the end of
the day, students must be described through a standardized and
 quantitative procedure that seems insensitive to human
difference. (p. 128)
Guskey (2002) points out that grading is not an essential part of the
learning process. Checking on student work and providing high-
quality feedback is essential, but placing a grade or mark on a piece
of work is tangential to the learning process. An important decision
that teachers need to make is what work will be graded and what
work will not be graded. Sometimes, an ungraded piece of work can
provide students with a much deeper and more meaningful learning
experience.
Some elementary schools don’t use grades at all, preferring to use a
continuum of achievement from not yet apparent to emerging to
consistently applied. This approach is much less common in middle
schools and high schools. For a wide variety of reasons, grading in
the secondary school appears to be a process that will be with us for
some time to come. The goal, then, is to minimize the pernicious
outcomes of grading and to make the process as compatible as
possible with personalized learning. When grading, we are wise to
heed the medical profession’s adage of “Do no harm.”
The following principles, informed by the work of Tomlinson and
McTighe (2006), provide a solid guide for grading in the personalized
classroom.

Base Grades on Clearly Defined Performance

Descriptors

Being crystal clear about the learning objectives that we have for
students is the foundation of quality assessment and meaningful
grading. As we have discussed, learning targets can be in the areas
of knowledge, skills, reasoning, and performance tasks. For targets
in each of these domains, we must establish grade descriptors that
operationally define our expectations. Much like high-quality rubrics
that describe criteria for levels of student achievement for particular
assignments, a meaningful grading scale gives descriptions of what
each grade of achievement (e.g., A, B, C) would look like (Tomlinson
& McTighe, 2006).

Base Grades on What You Set Out to Assess

Assessment should reflect intended learning targets. For example,

one of the requirements of the IB diploma program is Theory of
Knowledge, a course that introduces students to ways of knowing
and the structure of knowledge in different disciplines. By the end of
the course, students should be able to analyze knowledge claims
and issues, and relate these to their personal experience. In the
1980s, student learning in the course was assessed through two
student essays. It was our contention (and that of other course
teachers) that students who could write well also did well on the
course assessments, whether or not their analysis of knowledge
issues was productive. The IB has since changed the assessment of
this course to make it a more valid reflection of the course
objectives.

Base Grades on Set Criteria

As we have stated earlier in this chapter, norm-based assessment

and grading suffers from three problems: it doesn’t provide the
student with any useful information about his or her strengths and
deficits; it doesn’t provide the student with ideas or advice on how to
improve; and it promotes unhealthy competition, which can
undermine efforts at cooperative learning, student-to-student
collaboration, and the development of a constructive classroom
community. We second Tomlinson and McTighe (2006) in strongly
recommending that teachers avoid grading “on a curve.”

Resist the Pressure to Grade Everything

There are some assessments that should not be included in the
grading process. These include diagnostic assessments, pre-
assessments, and most of the data-gathering devices used for
formative assessment (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006). The purpose of
formative assessment is to get the most accurate read possible on
the state of student learning so that the teacher can adjust
instruction to better support mastery. It’s about taking an “in process”
measurement at points in the instructional process as students are
practicing skills and engaging in intellectual risk taking. Our
assumption is that student products (e.g., paragraph writing) will
always be better at the end of an instructional cycle than at the
beginning or in the middle of it; therefore, calculating grades based
on summative assessment results—or student work at the end of the
cycle—allows us to report a more accurate description of student
achievement and progress over time.

Avoid Averaging

We agree with Tomlinson and McTighe (2006) when they write, “We
join with other grading experts in challenging the widespread
practice of averaging all of the marks and scores during an entire
marking period to arrive at a numerically based final grade” (p. 132).
The problem with averaging scores is it can lead to misleading
results. If learning is the goal and the student masters the desired
outcome in the fifth or sixth week of the marking period, why would
we penalize the same student for not having mastered it in the
second or third week? Learning is not a race to the finish. When we
average all the scores of a marking period, we turn progress and
achievement in the classroom into a race that only the fastest can
win.
Tomlinson and McTighe (2006) support the use of teacher
professional judgment when it comes to assigned grades. They
suggest that grades should be determined from a variety of sources,
rather than calculated in a strictly quantitative manner, and go on to
suggest that if a school policy requires averaging, it makes more
sense to use the median or mode than the mean as a basis for
grading.
As alternatives to averaging, we recommend that teachers consider
giving priority to

The most recent evidence. Again, student performance at the

end of an instructional cycle is a more accurate reflection of the
learning that has taken place than performance at the
beginning.
The most comprehensive evidence. Not all assignments are
created equally, and we would weight more heavily those
assignments that require greater complexity of thought.
Evidence related to the most important learning goals or
standards. Not all standards are equivalent, and we would
highlight the most significant ones.

Make the Grade Reflect the Student’s Achievement—and

Nothing but the Student’s Achievement

Teachers have a tendency to want to include everything in the

grading process. We see teachers factoring in effort, timely
completion of work, class participation, attitude, attendance, and
behavior. Such inclusiveness makes interpretation problematic. The
grade should reflect achievement in reaching defined standards.
Students and parents should be able to rely on grades for
information about learning.
We also strongly discourage the use of assigning zeroes for missed
or incomplete work. This is often a contentious recommendation, but
when zeroes are factored into the achievement grade, grades are
used for punishment, and the clarity of the message is compromised.
Parents don’t know whether to hire a tutor or “ground” their child.
There are other ways for teachers to respond to assignments that
are not handed in. One way is to assign an “incomplete” and to
communicate to the student and his or her parents that there is
“insufficient evidence” to assign this student a grade.
Developing effective work habits is a critical aspect of personalizing
learning, and this information is some of the most important that
teachers can share with students and parents. Work habits, more
than student academic achievement, are an accurate predictor of the
young person’s success in higher education and the real world of
work.
We recommend that schools report on three distinct aspects of a
student’s schoolwork:

Achievement of the learning goals. Teachers typically use

grades to report achievement.
Progress toward those learning goals. A student may not be
reading at grade level but may have made huge progress
toward that goal. These personal achievements need to be
tracked, reported, and celebrated.
Work habits. These include effort, persistence, and using
feedback for revision. Different schools report on work habits in
different ways. Some invite teachers to comment on work habits
in a narrative that accompanies the report card. Other schools
have actually developed rubrics for the assessment of work
habits. For example, the International School of Bangkok is
developing a so-called HAL assessment (Habits and Attitudes
toward Learning).

Recall the Tanzanian scholarship student, Frank, from the

Introduction. Bright and very hardworking, Frank never had a
problem with his grades. However, his move from a traditional
government school to a Western-style international school caused
him some initial confusion:
I remember early on at IST getting back a Theory of Knowledge
essay on which the teacher had written, “You have a clear
organizational structure, and you summarize the arguments on
both sides of the case succinctly. But where are your own
ideas? What is Frank thinking? Written Expression: A+.
Personal Reasoning: C-.” I had never had a C- before, and it
shocked me. But at least I then knew what the teacher was
expecting.
 Moving Toward Personalized Assessment

In many countries around the world, current assessment practices

serve as a major obstacle to improved pedagogy and learning. In
conversations throughout Asia, we have heard enlightened national
educational leaders rail at the perceived tyranny of the examination
system. Some countries, including Singapore and, more recently,
China, seem to understand that traditional examination systems do
not reward critical or creative thinking. In 2010, China launched the
“Internationalizing Chinese National Education” reform initiative,
focused on breaking away from the rigid, examination-focused
pedagogy of the past and embracing more innovative instructional
practices. The Yuecheng Education Innovation Center (YEIC) in
Beijing is leading the way in this initiative. The most recent PISA
(OECD Program for International Student Achievement, 2009)
results from Shanghai suggest that such innovations may be having
positive results.
Teachers and administrators at the International School of Kuala
Lumpur are an example of educators working collaboratively to make
a schoolwide shift to learner-focused assessment. Figure 4.1 shows
the result of their efforts.

Figure 4.1. A Plan for Learner-Focused Assessment: The International

School of Kuala Lumpur, Essential Agreements on Assessment

Preamble: Student progress toward achieving curriculum standards

is assessed in a variety of ways. A combination of classwork,
common assessment tasks, and unit projects are routinely used to
monitor learning. Teachers use student work to make adjustments to
the pace of instruction, to differentiate learning activities, and to
modify teaching methods in order to promote greater student
achievement. One of the most important purposes of assessment is
to support students on their journey toward realistic and healthy
internal (self) assessment. Our assessment essential agreements
and practices are guided by the following research-based principles:

1. Assessment must be aligned with curricular standards and

benchmarks and shall reflect separate academic and
nonacademic evaluations.
2. Assessment tools (e.g., tests, portfolios) and criteria (e.g.,
rubrics) will be matched to learning tasks and used to improve
learning by both teachers and students.
3. Major assessment tools should be determined before a unit of
study begins and their integration should follow the
Understanding by Design (UbD) process.
4. A balance of assessments should be used and could include
common assessments, contextual performance assessments,
mastery/proficiency, baseline, student self-assessment, and
teacher observation.
5. Students should receive major assessment criteria and models
of work at the start of a unit of study to improve performance
and ensure assessment transparency.
6. Assessment should be collected and analyzed regularly to
inform instruction and refine curriculum and performance
expectations.
7. Results from assessments should be communicated to students
in a timely manner.

Source: International School of Kuala Lumpur, Essential Agreements

on Assessment—Revised October, 2005. Reprinted with permission.

Note that this document stipulates that “nonacademic evaluations”

will be included in assessing for standards and benchmarks. It’s a
key point; some of the most important standards are difficult,
perhaps impossible, to assess objectively or through traditional
academic means. For example, an important learning standard for
schools should be the enthusiasm and joy that children are
developing for the learning process. This is virtually impossible to
measure by an “objective” assessment. So educators are faced with
a choice. We can simply not measure achievement toward the
standard; in which case, more often than not, developing an
enthusiasm and joy for learning will be moved to the column of
desirable but optional standards that may happen by spontaneous
combustion, but won’t be part of the planned curriculum in most
classrooms. There is truth to the old adage that what is measured is
taught.
Alternatively, teachers and administrators can accept the challenge
that some assessment must include a degree of subjectivity. For the
most part, this is a challenge that teachers are ready to embrace
when they understand how to go about it and when they are given
permission to do so. While subjectivity is often associated with a lack
of reliability resulting from either bias or caprice, it doesn’t need to be
so. When teachers use informal assessment, when they gather data
and evidence, when they engage in clinical observation of students,
this subjectivity can be transformed into sound professional
judgment.
Harold Kelley (1967) suggests that many of us have a tendency to
be “naïve scientists” in that a single piece of data is sufficient to
confirm our perceptions, opinions, and prejudices. Kelley
recommends examining three pieces of data—triangulating our data,
in other words. Taking a more comprehensive view transforms
subjectivity into professional judgment, and we would argue that
such professional judgment is a critical and indispensable
component to assessment. Without it, some of our most meaningful
learning standards are lost, the assessment of student achievement
is shallow and one-dimensional, and the teaching profession is
denuded of its professionalism.
Knowing our assessments means understanding all the learning
objectives and standards we wish to track progress toward and
understanding which assessments and practices best reveal how far
students have come and need to go to reach them. It means striving
to personalize and differentiate learning, to capitalize on student
strengths, to utilize descriptive feedback in order to promote student
learning, and ultimately, to make the student a partner in the
assessment process. The combination of personalized learning and
assessment for learning offers teachers a powerful means to
balance excellence and equity in the classroom and maximize
learning for all students.
 Action Advice: Helping Students Learn How to Learn

High-quality assessment promotes further learning and student

reflection on the learning process. Here are a number of strategies
that can help bring students into the assessment process.
DATA PLUS MEDIATIVE QUESTIONS. The most powerful
descriptive feedback is the combination of student assessment data
along with a well-crafted mediative question—one that’s open-ended
and contains positive presuppositions, plural forms, and tentative
language. For example, we might ask, “As you reflect on your
research, what ideas are you exploring regarding the causes of the
Great Depression?” The word exploring here represents tentative
language and invites students to take intellectual risks. Too often,
feedback heralds the end of learning; combining feedback with a
mediative question focuses the student forward, prolonging and
enhancing the learning experience. Carol Sanford (1995) suggests
that this combination has the power to enhance self-directedness.
Here are some examples of feedback featuring data plus mediative
questions:

You chose to write a first-person narrative. Knowing what you do

about how stories can affect the readers, what are your hunches
about what the reader might be feeling at the conclusion of your
piece?
During your six-minute oral presentation, you maintained eye
contact with your audience for about three-and-a-half minutes.
What decisions did you make about when to make eye contact,
and what effect might it have had on the audience?
On your math test, you answered 15 of the 20 problems
correctly. What patterns are you seeing among the problems
you got wrong?
 You have recognized that the results of your science experiment
are inconclusive. As you reflect back on the process, what
aspects of the experiment might have contributed to the
outcome?

FREQUENT SHORT JOURNAL REFLECTIONS. This strategy

involves setting prompts that encourage students to reflect not only
on what they have learned but also on how they have learned it. For
example:

How will you know that you have written a good essay?
What are some effective ways of organizing your class notes?
Write a cookbook recipe for how to make a comparison.
What connections are you making between our unit of study and
your own life?
Given what you know about yourself, what are you going to be
mindful of when you budget your time for homework?
What are some of the attributes of powerful public speakers?

Sometimes it is useful to allow students several minutes of dialogue

with one another to get ideas going about the journal prompt before
they start writing. Other times it is useful to allow them several
minutes of dialogue after they have completed their journal entry so
that they can compare thoughts.
SYNTHESIS STATEMENT. Research suggests that students who
are able to clearly articulate what they are learning outperform those
who cannot (Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001). The synthesis
statement activity is a good way to train students to think explicitly
about their learning. After dividing students into small groups, pass
out index cards and ask every student to complete the sentence
stem I am learning …. After a minute or so, group members share
their sentences and craft a single sentence that reflects the thinking
of the entire group. Groups can share their statements orally or on
posters displayed for a gallery walk. One of the values of sharing
statements of learning is the positive modeling and reconfirmation of
big ideas that students will inevitably hear from one another.
 Chapter 5
Knowing Our Collegial Relationships

One of our most memorable learning experiences on the subject of

relationships happened on a trek through the Malagasy rainforest in
search of the elusive indri, the largest of the Madagascar lemurs. We
started out in the early morning, and by about 10:00 a.m., we had
spotted a troop of the black-and-white lemurs high in the canopy
overhead.
Indris are known for their calls, some of which are truly eerie and can
be heard for miles in the dense undergrowth. Olivier, our guide,
explained that indris actually have five distinct calls. They have two
warning calls: one for the approach of ground predators and another
for aerial predators. They have a communal territorial “song” in which
each member of the troop has a designated part—the duration of
which corresponds to the individual lemur’s age and status. Each
troop of indris also has its own “love song,” which is sung to
neighboring troops of indris to advertise the calling group’s mating
potential. But, Olivier explained, the loveliest and most mournful call
of the indris is the “song of reunification.” Whenever one of the
younger members of the troop becomes lost, the elders join together
in this song to help the youngster find his way home.
We found the songs of the indris humbling. Together, we—Ochan
and Bill—spend much of our professional lives trying to help school
staffs establish collaborative relationships, and here the lemurs, with
their efficient, effective, and well-established system, seemed to be
well ahead of us humans. Indris demonstrate with their songs a
community that is protective, that recognizes each member, that
instills a sense of group belonging. This is the type of environment
our students need in order to learn and thrive, and it’s the type of
environment we teachers need as well. Schools must create a sense
of belonging, support, and psychological safety—trust—in order for
teachers to grow professionally and learn how to meet the demands
of a rapidly changing profession and classroom.
 Opening Our Classroom Doors

Historically, teaching has been a very isolated profession. Back in

the 1970s, when the chairman of the English department introduced
Bill to his first teaching colleagues, he explained that Bill would be
working with a highly educated and very professional group of
teachers who shared a common parking lot! It ended up that the
parking lot was just about all the staff shared—the lot and, in winter,
the heating system. Each day, all members of the faculty trundled off
into their separate rooms and closed the door. If the door had a little
window in it, they covered it with construction paper to complete their
isolation from the rest of the adult world.
A teacher’s classroom was his or her castle, and territoriality was the
rule of the day. Even a principal would hesitate to enter a teacher’s
classroom without tacit permission or prior warning. Peer
observation was unheard of, and peer coaching was still 10 or 15
years in the future. Lesson plans could be commandeered by the
principal but otherwise were not seen by anyone else. Instructional
strategies, like secret recipes, were considered private, intellectual
property and for the most part were not shared. In many schools,
there was an unwritten rule that teaching and learning would not be
spoken about in the faculty lounge. A novice teacher was likely to be
given the most difficult students or the class that no one else wanted
to teach. When a master teacher retired from the profession, she
took her wealth of craft knowledge with her so that each new
generation of teachers had, to some extent, to reinvent the wheel. It
was an inefficient and ineffective system—one that the indri lemurs
would have found puzzling.
As anyone in a profession that values high-quality outcomes will tell
you, the days of flying solo are over. Designing high-quality, thought-
provoking unit plans and then devising ways of personalizing these
plans to meet the needs of a multitude of diverse learners is highly
complex, cognitive labor. It is unreasonable, unfair, and
counterproductive to ask teachers to do this kind of work in isolation.
Every week, we see the publication of more and more research
findings in education, psychology, neuroscience, medicine, and
anthropology that have implications for our classrooms. This barrage
of information serves to both enlighten and confuse our work as
teachers. In addition, we are regularly battered with competing
educational claims. This software package helps to rewire the brains
of dyslexic children. This phonemic approach to reading will raise
standardized test scores by 20 percent. The adoption of this math
scheme will increase children’s conceptual understanding. The sheer
volume of information and misinformation is enough to produce
vertigo in even the most clear-thinking individual.
The diversity in experience, culture, languages, and learning
preferences we now find in our classrooms demands creative
thinking and openness to different perspectives. As we try to absorb
all this information, identify needs, and personalize instruction
accordingly, the support of fellow teachers is essential. We would
have little confidence in a doctor who refused to consult with
colleagues on a diagnosis or treatment. The same standard needs to
be applied to education. We should invite and welcome our
colleagues’ review of our analysis of learning needs and instructional
responses. This exchange is the nature of all true professions, and
it’s the hallmark of professionals.
Fortunately, we are seeing an increasing number of schools
attempting to break down teacher isolation by emphasizing the
importance of adult-to-adult collaboration. We see it in high schools
when teachers sit together to moderate standards on IB internal
assessment work. We see it in the common planning of middle
school learning communities and in the collective assessment of
student work in elementary school. We also see it in the increase in
coteaching situations and the team approach that special educators
and general classroom teachers are developing.
The move away from teacher isolation represents yet another shift in
education that is nothing less than a sea change. As a profession,
we are slowly coming to recognize that our teaching colleagues are
the most valuable educational resource we have, barring none. We
say that we “are coming” to recognize the value of our colleagues
because schools are at different points on their journey toward
professional interdependence, which might be defined as the union
of individual teacher autonomy with a profound sense of professional
community.
In our professional development work with teachers, we visit more
than 20 international schools each year. Within an hour or so of
talking with teachers, we get a very clear sense of the school culture,
and the cultures vary dramatically. Some school cultures are
characterized by conviviality but little collegiality (“Let’s be pleasant
to each other, avoid conflict, and maintain our own turf”). In other,
healthier school cultures, we see trust and generosity, a common
vision and focus on student learning, and a collective emphasis on
professional development. These faculty members are truly a
pleasure to work with. Occasionally, we enter a school with a toxic
culture, where arrogance, insecurity, and competition among adults
make for an atmosphere of fearfulness and suspicion.
Today’s research is finding the vital connections between high-
quality adult relationships and high-quality student learning (Bryk &
Schneider, 2002; Garmston & Wellman, 2009; Louis, Marks, &
Kruse, 1996), which is something educators have known intuitively
for some time. In his classic work Improving Schools from Within,
Roland Barth (1990) asserts that the quality of adult-to-adult
relationships within a school is one of the most accurate barometers
of school quality. It is these adult-to adult relationships that define the
school culture. Barth (2006) writes that when
relationships between administrators and teachers are trusting,
generous, helpful, and cooperative, then the relationships
between teachers and students, between students and
students, and between teachers and parents are likely to be
 trusting, generous, helpful, and cooperative. If, on the other
hand, relationships between administrators and teachers are
fearful, competitive, suspicious, and corrosive, then these
qualities will disseminate throughout the school community. (p.
8)
Michael Fullan (2000) goes so far as to say that “no school
improvement initiative will be successful unless it also improves
relationships within the school.”
 Teaching Collaboratively

The highest-quality teacher-to-teacher professional relationship is

collaboration. But it is a deceptively simple concept. We say
collaboration takes place when members of a learning community
work together as equals (irrespective of positions of authority) toward
a common goal. Collaborative partnerships may be between
students as they work in groups, between students and teachers,
and between teachers as they work to assist students to succeed in
the classroom. Irrespective of the partners’ identities, collaboration is
based upon mutual goals and shared responsibility for participation
and decision making. Collaborators also share accountability for
outcomes (Friend & Cook, 1992; Kusuma-Powell & Powell, 2000a).
However, high-quality professional relationships are made, not born.
Olivier, our guide in the Malagasy rainforest, described to us how the
elder indris explicitly train youngsters in behaviors that are critical to
the collaboration of the entire troop. For many people, however, the
idea that collaboration is a set of skills that must be learned is rather
a novel one. Our unexamined assumption has been that we would
naturally know how to work effectively and efficiently in a partnership
or as a member of a team. Experience has shown that, for the most
part, this is a hit-or-miss proposition. Sometimes, when staff
members have natural gifts in the areas of interpersonal and
intrapersonal intelligence and the chemistry is right among them,
collaboration does seem to come easy. But many people don’t have
these gifts, and most of the time, collaboration isn’t easy. When it’s
not, we tend to externalize blame, attributing the difficulty to
someone else’s arrogance, egotism, autocratic leadership style,
communication problems, defensiveness, rigidity, sarcasm, hidden
agendas, poor listening skills … the list could go on and on.
In terms of developing a culture of collaboration, explicit training for
teachers is vital. The Adaptive School, by Bob Garmston and Bruce
Wellman (2009), offers one of the most effective models of
collaboration that we know of. The authors identify seven norms of
collaborative work. Norms are behaviors that have become habits—
in this case, positive habits that, when carefully employed, will create
opportunities for groups to undertake their work in an atmosphere of
relaxed alertness (Caine & Caine, 1991, 1997). Relaxed alertness is
the state that permits individuals and groups to experience low threat
and high challenge simultaneously. Research has shown that threat
and fatigue inhibit brain functioning (LeDoux, 1996), whereas
challenge, accompanied by safety (but not comfort) and a sense of
personal or group efficacy, leads to peak performance (Caine &
Caine, 1997; Jensen, 1998). Let’s look briefly at each of the seven
norms.

Pausing. The goal of pausing is to slow down the number of “frames

per second” of a conversation or discussion. It provides for precious
wait time, which has been shown in classrooms to dramatically
improve student critical thinking. Pausing creates a relaxed yet
purposeful atmosphere by giving tacit permission for participants to
think. We do not need to come to the conversation or meeting with
all our thoughts and ideas ready-made and well rehearsed. Pausing
greatly enhances the quality of both inquiry and advocacy and
results in better decision making.
Steven Covey (1989) suggests that in animals there is no gap
between the stimulus and the response. When Pavlov rang his bell,
the dogs salivated. However, in humans there can be a space
between the stimulus and the response. We think of this space as
the arena of consciousness in which we can access, consider, and
choose from a menu of response behaviors. Pausing signals to
others that their ideas and comments are worthy of deep thought. It
can also serve as a powerful preventative to personal conflict when
used to break a rapid and escalating cycle of interchange.
Paraphrasing. To paraphrase is to translate into one’s own words
what another person has said or written, maintaining the originator’s
intention and the integrity of expression. Paraphrasing is the same
as summarizing, which was identified by Marzano and colleagues
(2001) in Classroom Instruction That Works as one of the nine
research-based strategies that have a powerful effect on student
learning. It requires the individual to listen carefully, to attend to both
the verbal and nonverbal behavior of the speaker, and to distill the
essence of what has been said. When teachers collaborate,
paraphrasing helps team members understand each other as they
analyze and evaluate data and formulate decisions. Paraphrasing
can also serve to deepen thinking. “The paraphrase is possibly the
most powerful of all nonjudgmental verbal responses because it
communicates that ‘I am trying to understand you’ and that says ‘I
value you’” (Costa & Garmston, 2002, p. 49).
In schools where the teaching faculty represent diverse cultures, the
opportunities for misunderstanding are many. Paraphrasing serves
to reduce miscommunication and the possibility of personalized
conflict.
Putting inquiry at the center. Both inquiry and advocacy are
necessary components of collaborative work, yet they have very
different functions. The purpose of inquiry is to create greater
collective understanding. The purpose of advocacy is to make
decisions. It is often very helpful for collaborative groups to explicitly
identify which process they are engaged in, for the purpose of
avoiding misunderstanding and frustrated participants. A common
mistake of work teams is to bring to premature closure the problem
identification stage (inquiry for understanding) of the discussion and
rush into possible solutions (advocacy for specific remedies). While
meeting time is always in short supply, a rush to advocacy can often
lead to decisions that need to be remade a few weeks or months
later. Maintaining a balance between advocacy and inquiry
inculcates the ethos of a professional learning community.
Probing for clarity or specificity. Probing seeks to clarify
something that is not yet fully understood. More information may be
required, or a phrase may need more specific definition. Clarifying
questions can increase the precision of a group’s thinking and can
contribute to trust building. It is often useful to precede a probing
question with a paraphrase. When we probe for clarity, we also send
these important messages: “I am listening. I care about what you are
saying. I am trying to understand.”
Putting ideas on the table. It takes self-confidence and a degree of
courage to offer an idea for a group’s consideration. It is vital that
collaborative groups nurture both qualities. Ideas, particularly those
driven by data, are at the heart of meaningful inquiry. Groups must
be comfortable in processing information by analyzing, comparing,
predicting, applying, and drawing causal relationships. Skillful
facilitators will recognize when participants put forward ideas and will
explicitly value the contribution.
Paying attention to self and others. Collaborative work is
facilitated when each team member is explicitly conscious of self and
others—not only aware of what he or she is saying, but also of how it
is said and how others are responding to it. “Understanding how we
create different perceptions allows us to accept others’ points of view
as simply different, not necessarily wrong. We come to understand
that we should be curious about other people’s impressions and
understandings—not judgmental” (Costa & Garmston, 2002, p. 59).
As Goleman, Boyatzis, and McKee (2002) have described, social
awareness is the key to the healthy and constructive management of
relationships.
Presuming positive presuppositions. Of all the seven norms, this
one may be the most important, because it provides an essential
foundation of trust. Simply put, this is the assumption that the other
members of the group or team are acting out of positive and
constructive intentions. However much we might disagree with their
ideas or methods, they are making the best decisions they can with
the knowledge they have available. Presuming positive
presuppositions is not a passive state; it’s something that has to be
actively integrated into a faculty’s work together. It permits the
creation of such sophisticated concepts as “a loyal opposition,” and it
allows one member of the group to play devil’s advocate. It builds
trust, promotes healthy cognitive disagreement, and reduces the
likelihood of misunderstanding. It is also one of the most powerful
antidotes to destructive, personalized conflict.

Coteaching

Coteaching offers enormous promise for improving learning for all

students, but particularly for those students for whom school learning
is a struggle. When two or more teachers plan together, execute
instruction together, and then reflect on the experience together, we
see dramatic improvements in student learning and significantly
increased teacher professional fulfillment.
Teachers who share responsibility and accountability find that
genuine learning partnerships emerge—among adults and among
teachers and students (Kusuma-Powell, Al-Daqqa, & Drummond,
2004). In these partnerships, coteachers complement each other’s
strengths and compensate for each other’s weaknesses, and they
exchange and explore new insights and perceptions about students
and learning. Figure 5.1 is a rubric that suggests some of the
possible relationships between dimensions of coteaching and levels
of collaboration.

Figure 5.1. Rubric for a Collaborative Coteaching Relationship

Figure 5.1. Rubric for a Collaborative Coteaching Relationship
(continued)
Figure 5.1. Rubric for a Collaborative Coteaching Relationship
(continued)
Let’s examine how, specifically, coteaching and structured reflection
can enhance student learning and teacher self-knowledge. For the
past decade, we have cotaught both students in classrooms and
teachers in professional development workshops. One of the crucial
issues in all such learning situations is the pacing of the lesson or
workshop. Pacing has to do with estimating how much time to
allocate to a specific learning experience. It is a complex process
that requires the teacher to understand the complexity of the concept
to be addressed, know something of the readiness levels of the
learners, anticipate the degree of engagement the activity will
generate, and estimate the attention span of the learners.
Over the years, we noticed that we had different approaches to
pacing when we coplanned our workshops. Bill’s tendency was to
prepare a workshop script that contained more content than the
participants could possibly process. A pattern emerged in workshops
where Ochan would suggest that the participants needed additional
processing time, and we would make an in-the-moment decision to
jettison some of the content we’d intended to cover. This pattern was
intriguing and led us to some structured reflection.
Together with a coaching colleague, we went through a cognitive
coaching conversation in which we examined and analyzed the
tension between having sufficiently rich content and providing
adequate processing time. Both were necessary, but balance was
critical. During the conversation, Bill questioned his need to
overplan. He recognized that he was anxious about running out of
material. As he reflected on this, he also realized that this anxiety
was leading him to focus on the presentation of the content, perhaps
at the expense of the participants’ learning. Bill took away from the
structured reflection a deeper understanding and appreciation of the
mutual responsibilities in the teaching and learning situation. He
came to a much clearer understanding that the purpose of
professional development workshops (of any classroom situation, in
fact) was not for him to teach but for participants to learn. Anything
that interfered with that learning (including the needs of the teacher)
had to be put aside.
Coteaching is our vision for future high-quality schools, but schools
often balk at the idea of paying two (or more) teachers to teach in
one classroom. There are creative ways around this obstacle. In
some situations, the increased cost can be offset by larger class
sizes. At the International School of Kuala Lumpur, Grade 8
Humanities is team-taught by three teachers who plan, teach, and
assess together. (All three teachers have a solid grounding in the
humanities content area. In addition, one has a background in ESL
and another in special education. Their combined expertise makes
unit planning and the analysis of student work a particularly rich and
valuable experience.) Over the past few years, the class size in
Grade 8 Humanities has ranged between 45 and 55, but since the
physical space is available and virtually all classroom work is done in
small groups, the large size is not an impediment to student learning.

Creating Learning Communities

Wellman and Lipton (2004) identify four forces that are driving
constructive change in education:

1. Schools are moving from a focus on teaching to a focus on

learning. Nowhere has this trend been more evident than in the
changing face of teacher supervision and professional
development. Supervisors are now looking for learning in the
classroom as opposed to simply observing teacher behavior.
Educators are coming together to collectively analyze student
work and are interviewing students about their learning.
2. There is a shift toward deprivatizing teaching practice. Teachers
are encouraged (and in some schools even expected) to
engage in peer observation and collective reflection.
Administrators and teachers together are forming “walk through”
observer teams.
3. We are coming to understand that school improvement is no
longer an option but a necessity. We know that there is no
status quo in schools; schools are either improving or
deteriorating. Periodic accreditation underscores this reality.
 4. Perhaps most important, we are moving from a sense of
accountability to one of responsibility. Accountability is external
to self; it is dependent on outside evaluation and usually
associated with extrinsic rewards and punishments.
Responsibility is internal to self; it is closely linked to intrinsic
professional motivation. Responsibility, not accountability, is the
foundation upon which professional learning communities are
built.

Together, these trends move us toward a vision of professional

learning communities (Louis et al., 1996). This is the vision of what
schools that embrace collaboration can become. These are schools
where people share common professional norms and values, have a
collective focus on student learning, actively practice collaboration,
deprivatize teaching practice, and encourage reflective dialogue.
Professional learning communities are places in which the challenge
of personalized learning is embraced collectively.
However, it would be unrealistic to deny that some obstacles exist to
developing collaboration in schools. These obstacles can include

Fear of criticism or judgment of colleagues

A toxic school culture (unhealthy adult-to-adult relationships)
Territoriality
Fear of change (“What does collaboration look like anyway?
What will I need to give up—classroom autonomy?”)
Perception that collaboration is optional—for those who want to
embrace it
Absence of training in the skills of collaboration
Absence of leadership support for collaboration
Lack of planning/reflecting time
Scheduling problems
 Increased costs

Most of these roadblocks can be removed by effective and

committed leadership. In order to genuinely improve learning for
students and implement effective personalized learning, school
leaders needs to do three things: (1) provide time for collaboration
within the working day (e.g., time for common planning, collective
assessment, and analysis of student work); (2) provide explicit
training in the specific norms and skills of collaborative work; and (3)
maintain an unwavering expectation that collaboration is how we do
business in this school.
The time teachers need for collaboration, in most cases, represents
a significant budgetary increase. Nevertheless, we would argue that
few budgetary expenditures are as important as providing teachers
with the time to deliberately and collectively work on improving
student learning. In our experience, the competing demands on
teacher time and attention—particularly in high-quality schools—
mean that collaboration simply will not happen unless schools
provide faculty members time to engage in it.
However, time, by itself, is not enough. Teachers need to be trained
in the skills of collaboration, and the school leadership needs to have
an iron resolve in insisting on a partnership or team approach to
every aspect of student learning. The response of Melville’s quixotic
Bartleby the Scrivener—“I prefer not to”—is no longer acceptable.
School leaders also must insist that the skills learned within a
collaboration workshop are actually transferred to the workplace.
This means that the administrators should have the same training
and serve as role models. In some schools we work in,
administrators join the teachers as participants in the professional
development workshops. The message about collaboration that
these school leaders give to their teachers is profound—we are all
learners. We are all here to focus on student learning. The effect on
school culture is transformational.
Administrators effective in leading the way in collaboration also
support their teachers by helping them address collaborative issues
such as

What behaviors foster shared goals, greater trust, and

interdependence?
What can each of us do to promote shared accountability?
How can each of us support the deep thinking of our
colleagues?
How can we handle conflict in our groups?
How are high-functioning teams developed and maintained?

Ochan recalls the 8th grade team meeting in which the new team
member, a math teacher, exclaimed, “Well, those new ESL students
sure are poor at math! They hardly have enough math to get by in
grade 8, and neither of them passed my last quiz.”
Ochan and her coteacher, Alex, taught humanities to the entire 8th
grade, and both immediately wondered how they might support the
learning of these new ESL students as well as the work of their new
colleague. They asked which students, specifically, the math teacher
was referring to. He named twin sisters from Taiwan, who had
started in the school the previous month.
“That’s odd that they did so poorly on your test,” Alex said. “It’s true
they didn’t have any English before they started here, but they’re
really hard workers, and they’ve integrated themselves into our class
and made a lot of progress.”
Another team member asked to see the math quiz, and when it was
produced, probed further to find out exactly which items the sisters
had missed. As the team reviewed the quiz, it soon became
apparent that all items the girls had missed were language-
dependent word problems.
“So what do you think?” Alex asked their new colleague. “What are
you noticing about the items and the errors the girls made?”
“Well,” said their new colleague, “I guess the real question is whether
they’re struggling with the math or with English-language
comprehension. I’m going to have to go back and take another look
at the quiz questions that didn’t involve English and see if I can come
up with a better way to figure out what level the girls’ math is really
at.”
The collaborative process had provided all team members with an
opportunity to perceive the sisters’ situation from a different
perspective. Team members had begun collectively to analyze data.
A mediative question had led the new team member to suspend his
judgment and dig deeper into what might actually be going on for the
Taiwanese twins.
 Start Simple and Social

Teachers are often either overwhelmed or underwhelmed by the

prospect of personalized learning. Either reaction is problematic. The
overwhelmed teacher perceives the demands and complexities of
personalized learning as beyond his or her ability. There are simply
too many balls to keep in the air, and personalized learning is
dismissed as an interesting theory but an unrealistic expectation in
“the real world of my classroom.” The underwhelmed teacher selects
particular aspects of personalized learning practice (e.g., a specific
instructional strategy or approach) and says to him- or herself, “I’m
doing all that already.” From the opposite end of the attitude
spectrum, personalized learning is again dismissed.
In order to help them avoid being either over- or underwhelmed, we
counsel teachers when they are setting personalized learning goals
in diverse global classrooms to be realistic and kind to themselves.
We suggest that the incremental steps on the journey toward
personalized learning be kept simple and social. By simple, we mean
that our professional goals are manageable and doable. By social,
we mean engaging in professional collaboration. Knowing our
collegial relationships will make the work lighter and keep us from
missing ideas and practices that could improve learning in our
classrooms.
As teachers redefine what it means to work together, and as we
collectively journey toward the vision of a professional learning
community, we are wise to take a humble lesson from the indri
lemurs. Whether in the rainforests of Madagascar or within your own
school, collaboration is too important to be left to chance or the
individual whim of the players involved. The commercial world has
known this for many years, and businesses have invested many
billions of dollars in helping employees learn how to work together in
teams. The good news for schools is that, like emotional intelligence,
collaboration skills can be learned. But they must be deliberately
developed and self-consciously practiced.
Action Advice: Supporting Collaboration and Developing
Collaborative Skills

Because we are not used to thinking about collaborative skills as

something to be explicitly learned, this process can make us feel
awkward, and the practice can initially feel artificial. It is helpful to
reinforce that these skills are useful and expected. Here are some
strategies that invite collaborative groups to reflect on their practice.
NORMS INVENTORY. About once every five or six weeks, reserve
the last 10 minutes of your team’s meeting to reflect on how you
have been using (or not using) Garmston and Wellman’s (2009)
norms of collaboration: pausing, paraphrasing, putting inquiry at the
center, probing for clarity and specificity, putting ideas on the table,
paying attention to oneself and others, and presuming positive
presuppositions. Based on the inventory and the outcome of ensuing
discussion, set a norm-focused goal for the next month. For
example, your team might agree that your collective goal for the next
four weeks will be to extend the use of paraphrasing during
collaborative work.
ROUND-ROBIN REFLECTION. Many times highly task-oriented
teams will focus on the content of their work to the exclusion of an
awareness of the process they are going through. A round-robin
reflection is a brief activity that focuses the attention of the group on
how it is working together. The strategy works as follows: at the
close of a meeting or work session, all members of the team should
number off. Person #1 answers two questions: (1) What decisions
did I make about how and when I would participate in our teamwork?
and (2) In what ways did my participation affect the other members
of the group? Person #2 paraphrases the first person’s comments
and then answers the same two questions. Person #3 paraphrases
Person #2’s responses to the questions and then answers the
questions him- or herself. The pattern repeats until everyone has
had a turn. Interruptions and cross-talk are not permitted.
 Chapter 6
The Challenge and the Opportunity

Bill is an avid collector of antique maps. Generally, a map is valued

for its accuracy in showing land forms, topography, and distance. But
it is the inaccuracies of the antique maps that fascinate Bill, because
they provide a window into the cultural perspective and
misunderstandings of the age and people that produced them.
Take for example, the so-called “Slug Map” of Africa. Drawn in 1771
in Britain, this map includes a reasonably accurate depiction of North
and West Africa, but East Africa is a profusion of inaccuracies. One
of the most striking is that Lakes Victoria, Albert, Tanganyika, and
Nyasa are depicted as a single body of water—a slug-like mass that
gives the map its nickname.
In the cartouche at the top of the map is the inscription “Africa
According to the Best Authorities.” Presumably these authorities
were European explorers and the previous maps of the region and
anecdotal information these Europeans had provided. It’s highly
unlikely that the Africans who lived on the shores of Lake Victoria or
fished the waters of Lake Tanganyika were included among these
“best authorities” or consulted at all.
We can learn many lessons from antique maps, and perhaps the
most important of these lessons is humility. There can be no
question that the 18th century British cartographers who drew the
slug map considered themselves the best authorities, and perhaps at
that time they actually were. However, from a contemporary
perspective, their self-aggrandizing suggests ethnocentricity and
arrogance. These are the age-old enemies of international
mindedness. Ultimately, without the consideration or inclusion of
other perspectives, the resulting view of the world was skewed,
incomplete, and not as useful.
 Equipping Students for the Future

In many respects, education is a mapping of something we are not

yet sure of. Its success depends on conjuring up a portrait of how life
will be sometime in the future and then designing learning
experiences that will develop understandings and skills that are a
good fit with that picture. It takes an imaginative leap to equip the
next generation cognitively and emotionally to deal with the
environment they will inherit.
A century or two ago, the future was easier to predict than it is now.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the future looked a great deal
like the present. Changes were relatively small, and they occurred
incrementally. So the 19th century educator could feel justified in
evoking the past in order to prepare students for the future. Consider
that Latin and Greek and the “classics” were staples of the
curriculum for most of the 20th century. Today, it is much more
difficult to envision the future. Changes are happening too quickly.
In the past two decades, we have seen what Yong Zhao (2009) calls
the “death of distance,” with developments in both technology and
transportation making the world a much, much smaller place. We live
our lives now in an interdependent web of global relationships. What
happens in Beijing matters in Berlin. As Friedman (2006) has written,
we essentially live in a flat, global village. The concept of a
homogenous local community is increasingly something of the past,
and it is a truism to say that our children and their children will live in
an even more globalized world than we do. The adaptive challenge
facing the next two or three generations—our children and
grandchildren—is probably one of the greatest that our species has
experienced since that small, intrepid band of early humans walked
out of Africa some 50,000 years ago.
We believe that in order to navigate the complexities of the 21st
century, our children will need to become globally competent.
Harvard University professor Fernando Reimers (2010) defines
global competence as the ability to interact effectively with people
who speak different languages, believe in different religions, and
hold different values. Global competence involves “attitudinal and
ethical dispositions that make it possible to interact peacefully,
respectfully, and productively with fellow human beings from diverse
geographies” (Zhao, 2009, p. 165).
Global competence is not just about the accumulation of knowledge.
It is about using that knowledge to develop attitudes and dispositions
that will allow the construction of a more complete picture. It is about
learning a second or third language; traveling not as a simple tourist
but as a curious scholar. It is about perceiving what different cultures
have in common and developing a shared frame of reference—a
truer map. Unfortunately, this competence is not innate. Indeed, we
all naturally operate under our own cultural bias.

Cultural Bias as a Way of Knowing

We have discussed how our understanding, our construction, of the

world is filtered through our perceptions, most of which are held at a
subconscious level and remain unexamined. Keith Stanovich (2009)
and his colleague Richard West from James Madison University
have conducted an interesting research project that reveals the
influence of one of those filters—cultural bias—on decision making.
The researchers presented two different groups of students with two
different scenarios:
The German Deathtrap
Imagine that the U.S. Department of Transportation has found
that a particular German car is eight times more likely than a
typical family car to kill occupants of another vehicle in a crash.
The U.S. federal government is considering restricting the sale
and use of the German car. Please answer the following two
questions: Do you think sales of the German car should be
 banned in the United States? Do you think the German car
should be banned from being driven on American streets?
The American Deathtrap
Imagine that the German Department of Transportation has
found that the Ford Explorer is eight times more likely than a
typical family car to kill occupants of another vehicle in a crash.
The German government is considering restricting the sale and
use of the Ford Explorer. Please answer the following two
questions: Do you think sales of the Ford Explorer should be
banned in Germany? Do you think the Ford Explorer should be
banned from being driven on German streets?
Among the American subjects surveyed there was considerable
support for banning the car when it was a German car for American
use. Almost 80 percent of the respondents said its sales should be
banned, and almost 75 percent thought it should be kept off the
streets. But for the respondents who thought it was an American car
on German streets, the results were significantly different. Only 51
percent supported a sales ban, and just under 40 percent thought
the car should be kept off German streets.
Stanovich sees this tendency to evaluate a situation from our own
cultural perceptive as a “my-side-bias” and suggests that it
contributes to a preponderance of irrational thought involving
otherwise very bright individuals. He has termed this syndrome
“dysrationalia.”

Beyond Food, Flags, and Festivals

So how do we overcome this bias, this dysrationalia? How do we

teach global competence? To start with, we probably need to go
beyond food, flags, and festivals. These “three Fs” are the most
common school practice for addressing cultural diversity. For
example, if you visit an international school in the weeks leading up
to United Nations Day (October 24), you’re likely to find the school
community celebrating its diversity by staging international food fairs
and cultural shows that include music, dance, and national costumes
from around the world—all against a forest of flapping flags. Some
schools build festivals into the curriculum and have units of study
designed around the themes of Eid’l Fitr or Divali or Chinese New
Year. Often these units culminate in opulent assemblies that are
much enjoyed by parents and children alike.
However, we are compelled to return to that key to personalized
learning that has to do with knowing our curriculum. We need to ask,
What’s the big idea? What is important for students to know about
food, festivals, or flags? The answer is probably “not very much.”
The three Fs are topics that are indeed worth being familiar with, but
they are not the truly important teachable concepts—they are not the
enduring understandings. When we teach at the level of topics, the
big ideas often remain hidden from our students.
Matt White, the IB Coordinator at Geelong Grammar School in
Australia, writes about the three Fs: “I sometimes think this approach
is too limiting. It reduces the richness of cultural diversity to
marketable pieces, becoming a method, which seems to
characterize so many international programs of education. I think
sometimes we can fall into the trap of being glib in our understanding
of international mindedness if we simply believe we are all shards of
a shattered mirror reflecting common humanity” (2008, p. 19).
At the heart of being internationally minded is the understanding of
self—the recognition that I, too, am a product of my culture, and out
of this recognition may come a broader, more balanced view of the
world. The role of the teacher is to facilitate this understanding. As
Hill (2008) puts it, “The teacher must be sensitive to cultural
differences and manage the discussion so that each student realizes
that there are perspectives which are valid, however alien they may
be to his or her own beliefs” (p. 16). In other words, the teacher
engages students in reflection on why differing points of view exist.
Together, they all explore the historical, social, economic, political,
and emotional roots of different cultural perspectives.
For example, during the IB social anthropology class at Jakarta
International School, the students were examining various creation
stories from different religions. The teachers invited them to find
similarities and differences. This produced a lively exchange about
the Garden of Eden story. A young Chinese student raised his hand
and observed, “Had Adam and Eve been Chinese, the world would
be a different place. Because they would have eaten the snake!”
While the young man’s playful conclusion is open to debate, the
anecdote illustrates the rich potential for meaningful conversation
when we explicitly invite students to bring their cultures to school
with them and to consider them thoughtfully—when we personalize
learning in the truly global classroom.
 Adaptive Challenges

Darwinian evolution theorizes that a species adapts over time in

response to the challenges the environment presents to its survival.
Such physiological adaption takes a very long time. Clearly, in order
for our children and our children’s children to survive a rapidly
changing environment, they will require a different kind of adaptation
—one that takes much less time and one over which we can exert
some control.
Their best chance is cognitive adaptation, which means learning new
and more complex ways to think about the issues that threaten us.
It’s a matter of prioritizing the making of meaning over the acquisition
of information (Drago-Severson, 2009). In other words, we need to
support our students in learning how to learn. This is
transformational learning.

Oscillating Systems

The 21st century began with a series of cultural collisions. A number

of them were tragic. These ongoing clashes of cultures are examples
of the type of problems facing the next generation: oscillating
systems. An oscillating system is one in which a problem’s solution
in turn creates another problem, and so on. The dialectical opposites
oscillate back and forth like a pendulum. Many of the most serious
global issues facing us in the 21st century can be thought of as
oscillating systems.
A very simple example of an oscillating system is Bill’s return from a
holiday in which he has overindulged his passion for good food. The
problem is clear: Bill feels overweight. The solution is also clear: a
firmly enforced diet. However, when Bill diets, he becomes
depressed; when Bill is depressed, he eats. The problem renders a
solution that creates another problem.
We cannot find our way out of oscillating systems using traditional
linear problem-solving techniques. Oscillating systems present us
with what Garmston and Wellman (2009) call “wicked problems,” for
which there are no simple or easy solutions. Let’s look at what
happens when an individual is trapped in one of these systems, in
one of these wicked problems.
In early November 2009, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old
U.S. Army psychiatrist, told his landlord that he would be vacating
his apartment in two weeks. He gave away his furniture and his food.
He paid visits to his friends to say goodbye and presented at least
one with a copy of the Koran. Friends and acquaintances from his
local mosque reported that he appeared calm and unperturbed.
Several days later, Major Hasan entered Fort Hood military base and
allegedly opened fire on a large group of soldiers waiting to have
medical examinations. At the end of the bloody carnage, 13 soldiers
were dead and 29 others were wounded.
As Dr. Stephen Diamond (2009) asked in his blog on the Psychology
Today website, “What could have possessed an apparently polite,
pleasant, quiet, reserved, compassionate, forgiving, and deeply
religious psychiatrist to commit this incredibly evil act?” We may
never know the actual motivating factors behind this heinous crime.
However, it would seem obvious that a clash of cultures played some
role.
Major Hasan is an American-born Muslim of Palestinian heritage. It
is reported that he frequently argued with military colleagues about
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is quoted as saying that he
believed these wars were being “waged against Islam.” When
Hasan’s deployment orders to Afghanistan came through, he
attempted to have himself discharged from the military. Diamond
speculates that the impending posting to Afghanistan as a combat
stress counselor may have been the trigger that sent Hasan over the
edge. It may be that Hasan’s inability to address and make sense
out of what he perceived to be powerful, mutually exclusive
pressures led to his increasing isolation and alienation. We know
that in such isolation, extremist beliefs can flourish.
The Fort Hood massacre is a dramatic and extreme example of
global incompetence—a failure to deal constructively with complex
and conflicting cultures. There are thousands of smaller and less
significant examples of provincialism and cultural ignorance. One of
the greatest challenges educators have before them is helping
young people live, work, and interact with people from different
cultures. This is no longer a nicety; it’s a necessity.

Supporting Transformational Learning

One way to approach the wicked problem of an oscillating system is

by engaging in what Michael Fullan calls a “ruthless re-examination
of reality” (2000) and we call transformational learning—learning that
involves taking a critical look at beliefs in order to develop new ways
of knowing. Here’s an example.

The Bringing of Light to South Africa

Ochan and two other teachers from the International School of

Tanganyika in Dar es Salaam organized an interdisciplinary field trip
to South Africa that involved a group of 30 high school students and
3 teachers spending a week studying history, psychology, and
biology in the Johannesburg-Pretoria area. The trip was carefully
planned and included visits to historical sites, research at the
University of Pretoria, lectures, a tour of Soweto, meetings with
political leaders, and even a firsthand observation of a radical
prostatectomy at Pretoria Urology Hospital.
Despite the careful planning and exciting agenda, by the end of the
second day’s historical tour of Pretoria, everyone was feeling
troubled, students and teachers alike. Probably the most distressed
were Annelise and Stephanie, two white South African 12th graders.
The tour had focused exclusively on white South African history and
had culminated at the Voertrekker Monument, in front of which is a
large statue of a white woman standing with her two children. The
white South African guide explained that the woman symbolized
“bringing the light of civilization to the Dark Continent.” The
international school students, many of whom were African, Asian, or
mixed race, listened to this presentation in stony silence.
Before class that evening, Ochan and the two other teachers on the
trip met in closed session. While no student had said anything so far
about the day’s tour, the teachers agreed that a number of the
students had showed signs of hurt, anger, and outrage. The teachers
planned how they would handle the class. It was agreed that one of
the social studies teachers would introduce the topic by attempting to
create a historical context for apartheid. Ochan would then pose a
series of mediative questions that related to what they had all seen
and heard during the tour and would help everyone consider the
underlying assumptions and perceptions of that view of South
African history. While this was going on, the biology teacher would
monitor the emotional climate of the class, playing close attention to
the reactions of Annelise and Stephanie, the two white South African
girls who were clearly proud of their country and pleased to show it
off to their classmates.
As predicted by the teachers, that evening many of the students
revealed that they had been upset and hurt by the tour of Pretoria.
Once the subject had been introduced, a number of the students
spoke passionately about the one-sidedness and bias that the tour
represented and about the deep resentment that they felt. Annelise
and Stephanie remained silent and withdrawn until just before the
end of the class meeting, when both rose and walked out of the
conference room.
The biology teacher waited a few minutes before heading off to
Annelise and Stephanie’s hotel room to help them process their
feelings. At the same time, Ochan and the social studies teacher
asked the remainder of the students why they thought Annelise and
Stephanie had walked out. A discussion ensued that ended with
several of the non-Caucasian students exploring ways that they
could depersonalize the racism they had experienced. They decided
to make sure that Annelise and Stephanie were included in all class
activities planned for the following day. In essence, they decided that
even though they were feeling angry about the racial oppression
South Africa was just emerging from, they would not respond by
behaving in a way that would perpetuate feelings of division. Happily,
Annelise and Stephanie responded well to the other students’
overtures and were soon reintegrated into the group.
Two weeks later, when everyone had returned home to Dar es
Salaam, Annelise confided to Ochan that the experience had
allowed her to see South Africa for the first time through nonwhite
eyes, and that she had learned a lot about her country and herself.
For many of the students, the experience was transformational.
Instead of entering into a futile cycle of anger and misunderstanding,
the examination of their beliefs had revealed other ways of seeing.

Moving Toward the Danger

We believe that the way to foster global competence is through

personalized learning in the classroom. When teachers welcome and
celebrate individual student differences in cultures, languages,
interests, values and beliefs, talents, and even aptitudes, we create
the classroom climate that can support transformational learning.
Rather than attempt to standardize informational learning into some
sort of input-output factory model, we need to encourage and
explore our differences. This is not always easy or comfortable—and
on occasion it can require us to move, in Michael Fullan’s (1998)
words, “toward the danger.”
Ochan and her coteachers moved toward the danger when they
invited their students to express and examine their feelings of anger
and hurt. We would like to share two other very powerful instances of
educators helping their students confront and work to solve an
oscillating system in order to bring about transformational learning.
At the outbreak of the Gulf War, the administration of the United
Nations International School in New York faced a dilemma. The
school had over 80 nationalities represented in the student
population, including a number of Iraqi students and students from
other Arab nations. There were also American, British, and Israeli
students enrolled. Tensions were running very high. The school
administration chose to move toward the danger. They called a high
school assembly and allowed the students to speak about their
emotions, their fears, and their anger, but in an atmosphere of
respect and tolerance. It was the combination of deeply felt emotions
expressed in respectful terms that contributed to what was reported
to be for many a transformational learning experience. The simple
act of listening actually diffused tensions.
A similar situation played out at the same time at the Amman
Baccalaureate School in Jordan. It was January 1991, and the
American-led forces had just begun an aerial bombardment in the
initial stages of trying to drive the Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. Unlike
the student body at the United Nations International School in New
York, the students at the Amman Baccalaureate School were
overwhelmingly Jordanian and Palestinian. However, many of the
teaching staff were British or American. Anger among the students
was evident, and it seemed very possible that they might direct this
anger at the foreign teachers. Like his counterparts in the New York
international school, the then–high school principal, Nick Bowley,
moved toward the danger. He called for a student assembly. It was a
courageous act. Nick wanted to ensure two understandings. First, he
wanted the students to understand that the adults in the school
respected their feelings and their anger. Second, he wanted the
students to understand that they could express their emotions
without compromising their feelings, but they had to do so in a
respectful manner. Strong feelings were acceptable, but destructive
behavior was not. It was not an easy or comfortable assembly, but
out of it came the idea for the first International Baccalaureate
Student Conference on Global Issues, which Amman Baccalaureate
School hosted the following year. This was an example of being able
to see opportunity in crisis.
 Dimensions of Global Competence

A recent MetLife survey of American teachers (cited in Crow, 2010)

showed that a majority of U.S. teachers and principals now consider
the preparation of students for competition and collaboration in a
global economy to be “very important.”
However, the shadow of the 19th century is still with us. Many
national systems of education make provincialism into an unspoken
creed. The U.S. statistics are frightening. The Asia Society (2008)
found that 83 percent of young Americans could not locate
Afghanistan on a world map. According to a Committee for
Economic Development report (2006), 80 percent of young
Americans surveyed did not know that India was the world’s largest
democracy. The National Commission on Asia in Schools concluded
that Americans are “dangerously uninformed about international
matters” (cited in Zhao, 2009, p. 161).
The danger isn’t just the ignorance of factual knowledge but also the
narrow and intolerant attitudes and perceptions that go with it. Being
globally ill-informed is a kind of isolation and, as we have seen in the
case of Major Hasan, such isolation can be very dangerous. Global
competence is not developed through informational learning.
Knowing the capital of Zambia or being able to locate Afghanistan on
a world map is no measurement of attitudinal and ethical
dispositions. However, without a degree of informational learning,
transformational learning may not be possible.
Reimers addresses this issue by including three dimensions in his
concept of global competence. He calls these dimensions the
affective, the action, and the academic. The affective dimension
includes ethical considerations and can be defined as a “positive
disposition toward cultural differences and a framework of global
values to engage differences” (cited in Zhao, 2009, p. 166). The
action dimension includes the ability to speak and think in another
language so as to understand some of the subtleties and nuances of
different cultures. The academic dimension has to do with
knowledge of world geography, history, and global issues such as
economics, health, and the environment.
The National Staff Development Council (NSDC) warns, though, that
“a global focus can’t be an add-on, just one more thing a school has
to do. Schools that see the benefit of integrating a global focus will
have to look carefully at the implications for curriculum, instruction,
assessment, and support for educators” (Crow, 2010, p. 2). The
NSDC has recently published a series of questions and a matrix on
global competence to support teachers and schools in bringing a
greater global focus into their settings. Together, these dimensions of
global competence can serve to produce international-minded young
people.
Another tool for helping students to work toward international
mindedness is the Global Issues Network (GIN). Inspired by the
book High Noon: 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them by
former World Bank vice president J. F. Rischard, the organization
was founded in 2003 with a mission to help students realize they can
make a difference by empowering them to work internationally with
their peers to develop solutions for global issues. In the years since,
GIN has formed a series of satellite networks of more than 100
international schools around the world. Thousands of students are
currently involved in conferencing, both face-to-face and
electronically, on issues such as global warming, deforestation,
conflict prevention, children’s rights, and the global spread of
infectious diseases.
Rischard (2002) points out that the existing institutions responsible
for addressing such issues—namely, nation states, government
departments, and international organizations—are self-serving,
bureaucratic and, more often than not, inadequate for the task. He
calls for an alternative model of global governance based upon
independent global networks that are flexible and highly responsive.
Although most of the schools in GIN are international schools,
membership is open to government schools as well. Students can be
encouraged to think systemically about real issues while also taking
action to improve the human condition. This approach involves
collaboration rather than competition, where students assume
leadership of their own program.
 A Gift for the Next Generation

Personalized learning is a strenuous ethic. It demands that we

teachers come to know our students as learners and ourselves as
professionals. It requires a high-quality curriculum and teaching at a
conceptual level. It focuses on student strengths and readiness and
strives to provide an invitation to all learners by way of multiple
access points.
When we “globalize” the classroom, we connect it with the real
world. We invite students to bring their cultures and national heritage
with them to school. We celebrate differences and recognize
commonalities. We engage and explore assumptions and analyze
beliefs and values. We do so in an atmosphere of respect and
appreciation. In such an environment, informational learning can
become transformational.
When we personalize learning, we emphasize effort over
achievement, and we strive to instill in all student learning efficacy
and healthy self-esteem. We seek a variety of ways to engage
students in meaningful and respectful work and to welcome their
diverse cultures into our classrooms.
Personalized learning in the global classroom is a gift to the next
generation, a way of approaching the new world we are facing and
its many challenges. It is an inclusive method of mapmaking that will
produce a more accurate and useful picture of our world and guide
the next generation in navigating a shared course.
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 About the Authors

William Powell has served as an international school educator for

the past 30 years in the United States, Saudi Arabia, Tanzania,
Indonesia, and Malaysia. From 1991 to 1999, he served as chief
executive officer of the International School of Tanganyika in Dar es
Salaam, Tanzania, and from 2000 to 2006, he was headmaster of
the International School of Kuala Lumpur.
Ochan Kusuma-Powell received her doctorate from Columbia
University and has developed and implemented inclusive special
education programs in the United States, Indonesia, Malaysia, and
Tanzania. She is an associate trainer for the Center for Cognitive
Coaching and an adjunct faculty member at Buffalo State College
and Lehigh University.
Together Ochan and Bill have coauthored Becoming an Emotionally
Intelligent Teacher (2010), Making the Difference: Differentiation in
International Schools (2007), and Count Me In! Developing Inclusive
International Schools (2000). They are currently working on a project
to support the inclusion of special needs children in international
schools, through a grant from the U.S. Department of State. They
also focus on teacher professional development, school leadership,
and governance training as consultants for Education Across
Frontiers.
When they are not facilitating teacher workshops or speaking at
conferences, Bill and Ochan can be found on their farm in the
French Pyrenees where Bill, together with a handful of sheep, fights
an annual battle with the European bramble.
You can reach both authors by e-mail: Bill at
bpowell@eduxfrontiers.org, and Ochan at
okpowell@eduxfrontiers.org.
 Related ASCD Resources
Personalized Learning in the Global
Classroom

At the time of publication, the following ASCD resources were

available (ASCD stock numbers appear in parentheses). For up-to-
date information about ASCD resources, go to www.ascd.org. You
can search the complete archives of Educational Leadership at
http://www.ascd.org/el.
 ASCD EDge

Exchange ideas and connect with other educators interested in

global education, differentiated instruction, the whole child,
overseas/international schools, assessment for learning, and 21st
century learning on the social networking site ASCD EDge™ at
http://ascdedge.ascd.org/.
 Multimedia

Educating the Whole Child: An ASCD Action Tool (#709036)

 Online Professional Development

Embracing Diversity: A Look in the Mirror (#PD09OC35) and

Embracing Diversity: Global Education (#PD09OC36). Visit the
ASCD website (www.ascd.org).
 Print Products

Connecting Teachers, Students, and Standards: Strategies for

Success in Diverse and Inclusive Classrooms by Michele J. Sims
and Deborah L. Voltz (#109011)
Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World by Heidi
Hayes Jacobs (#109008)
Educating Everybody’s Children: Diverse Teaching Strategies for
Diverse Learners, Revised and Expanded 2nd Edition by Robert
W. Cole (#107003)
Integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design:
Connecting Content and Kids by Carol Ann Tomlinson and Jay
McTighe (#105004)
Managing Diverse Classrooms: How to Build on Students’ Cultural
Strengths by Elise Trumbull and Carrie S. Rothstein-Fisch
(#107014)
 Videos

21st Century Skills: Promoting Creativity and Innovation in the

Classroom (15-minute DVD and associated professional learning
materials) (#609096)
Assessment for 21st Century Learning (3 DVD set) (#610010)
Problem-Based Learning for the 21st Century Classroom (2 DVD
set) (#610014)
 The Whole Child

The Whole Child Initiative helps schools and communities create

learning environments that allow students to be healthy, safe,
engaged, supported, and challenged. To learn more about other
books and resources that relate to the whole child, visit
www.wholechildeducation.org.
For more information: send e-mail to member@ascd.org; call 1-800-
933-2723 or 703-578-9600, press 2; send a fax to 703-575-5400; or
write to Information Services, ASCD, 1703 N. Beauregard St.,
Alexandria, VA 22311-1714 USA.
 Study Guide

This ASCD Study Guide is designed to enhance your understanding

and application of the information contained in How to Teach Now:
Five Keys to Personalized Learning in the Global Classroom, an
ASCD book written by William Powell and Ochan Kusuma-Powell
and published in June 2011.
You can use the study guide after you have read the book or as you
finish each chapter. The questions provided are not meant to cover
all aspects of the book, but, rather, to address specific ideas that
might warrant further reflection.
Most of the questions contained in this study guide are ones you can
think about on your own, but you might consider pairing with a
colleague or forming a study group with others who have read (or
are reading) How to Teach Now.
 Introduction

1. In what ways is your classroom a “global classroom”?

2. What is your definition of “personalized learning”? Write a 2-
Minute Essay (see the “Action Advice” section at the end of Chapter
2) explaining what the term means to you. Share your sentences
with your study group, and then work together to craft a single
sentence that captures the thinking of the entire group.
3. What examples of flexibility, purposefulness, and respectfulness
can you identify in your current instructional practices?
4. Review Figure A and then recreate the figure’s labeled axes and
four quadrants on a blank sheet of paper. Close the book and plot
yourself in the quadrants. What evidence are you drawing upon to
decide your placement? Are you where you want to be in terms of
knowing your curriculum and knowing your students and self? What
kinds of professional learning might help you change your placement
for the better?
5. Reflect on the case study of Nicolas and what Ochan and Alex
learned from the experience of teaching him. What are some of the
things your students have taught you about teaching and learning?
6. How might embarking on “the personalized learning journey”
engage educators in redefining our professional identities? How,
specifically, might it modify who you are as a teacher?
 Chapter 1. Knowing Our Students as Learners

1. Working in a study group, develop a T-chart brainstorm that

includes both the benefits and challenges of coming to know your
students as learners.
2. What are some of the characteristics of a psychologically safe
classroom environment? What, specifically, do you do as a teacher
to create such an environment?
3. How do you go about determining the “Zone of Proximal
Development” for your students? What evidence do you draw upon?
Think of a child you currently teach, and describe the kind of work
you have seen this child do when working in his or her ZPD.
4. Access points to the curriculum are often related to student
interests or strengths. Think of a student you teach who struggles
with basic skills. Share with a learning partner the conditions under
which you have seen this student doing his or her best work. What
are the student’s strengths, and how might you leverage them to
provide alternative access points to the curriculum?
5. In what ways does teacher emotional intelligence influence
student learning in the classroom?
6. What are the dimensions of a student learning profile? Think of a
student you teach who comes from a culture different from your own.
How has that cultural background influenced his or her learning?
How has your own cultural background influenced your instructional
decision making where that child is concerned?
7. What are some systematic ways teachers can gather data about
students as learners? Which of these do you use in your own
practice?
8. Use the Student Analysis Instrument in Figure 1.2 to organize
your thoughts and observations on a student who interests you.
Write a brief case study on this child and share it with a learning
partner. What have you learned about the student? What have you
learned about yourself?
 Chapter 2. Knowing Ourselves as Teachers

1. What are some of the ways in which a teacher’s professional self-

knowledge might enhance student learning?
2. Share with your study group recent strategies that you have used
in order to develop greater professional self-knowledge. What,
specifically, have you learned, and how will you use it to enhance
student learning?
3. What are some of your perceptions of childhood, and how do they
influence your decision making in the classroom?
4. What are Costa and Garmston’s five states of mind, and how do
these interact and influence your perceptions of students?
5. Think of a student (or a colleague) about whom you have recently
changed your mind. Try to map out the process of your change in
perception, identifying the evidence that influenced you. What
broader lessons are you taking away from this specific change in
perception?
 Chapter 3. Knowing Our Curriculum

1. Are standards and benchmarks complimentary with personalized

learning? In what ways? What is the teacher’s role in making
personalized learning work with a standards-and-benchmarks-driven
curriculum?
2. What are the relationships and connections between conceptual
teaching and personalized learning? Discuss your thoughts with a
learning partner in a 3-Minute Stand-up Conversation (see the
“Action Advice” section at the end of Chapter 2).
3. In your personal experience, how do essential questions enhance
student learning?
4. What aspects of the curriculum can and cannot be personalized,
and what consequences might come from trying to personalize what
should not be personalized?
5. Working with a colleague, use the metacognitive script in Figure
3.1 to plan a unit of study. Use the reflective questions as a self-
assessment of the effectiveness of the unit.
 Chapter 4. Knowing Our Assessments

1. What are some of the traditional purposes of assessment, and

how has educators’ thinking about assessment changed? Has your
own thinking about and use of assessment changed over the years?
In what ways?
2. In what ways are assessment of learning and assessment for
learning different? What are some of the principles of assessment for
learning? How do you incorporate them into your own instructional
planning?
3. Define “mind-sets” and discuss with a learning partner how
assessment and attribution theory influence the development of fixed
and growth mind-sets. Reflect on specific examples of student
behavior or your own behavior that illustrated fixed or growth mind-
sets.
4. With your study group, identify some ways that you are already
involving students in the assessment process. Brainstorm further
strategies that will bring students inside the assessment process and
encourage metacognition.
5. What are your current grading processes, and what is the
reasoning behind them?

6. What are some of the characteristics of effective and fair

assessment, and to what degree are they present in your
assessment practices? How might you make your assessments
fairer and more effective?
 Chapter 5. Knowing Our Collegial Relationships

1. The authors assert that the quality of adult-to-adult relationships in

schools is a remarkably accurate barometer of the quality of student
learning that takes place in classrooms. In what ways has your
experience shown this to be true?
2. Which of Garmston and Wellman’s seven norms of collaborative
work do you or your team need to develop further? How, specifically,
might you go about doing so?
3. In what ways are you attempting to deprivatize your teaching
practice? What else might you try?
4. With your study group, develop a T-chart that identifies the
benefits and challenges of coteaching.
5. Think about your teaching colleagues as potential resources.
What unique experiences, backgrounds, skills, and perspectives
might they contribute to provide your students with a more
personalized learning experience? What might you have to offer their
students?
 Chapter 6. The Challenge and the Opportunity

1. What effects has globalization had on your school? How has your
school or your classroom adapted as a result? What are the issues
yet to be addressed?
2. What does it mean to be globally competent? How might you go
about developing global competence in yourself and your students?
3. What is the difference between informational and transformational
learning? Can you think of specific examples in the lessons and units
you teach?
4. How does a teacher go about planning for transformational
learning? Think of an incident of transformational learning in which
you were involved, either as a learner or as a teacher. What
conditions were in place? What processes were involved?
ASCD®

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EPUB e-book ISBN: 978-1-4166-1361-9
MOBI e-book ISBN: 978-1-4166-1358-9
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-4166-1204-9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Powell, William.
How to teach now : five keys to personalized learning in the global
classroom / William Powell and Ochan Kusuma-Powell.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4166-1204-9 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Global method of teaching 2. Educational technology. 3.
Education–Effect of technological innovations on. 4. International
education. I. Kusuma-Powell, Ochan. II. Title.
LB1029.G55P68 2011
371.102—dc22
2011007945