Visible Learning PD Takeaways

Today I got to spend the day with Doug Fisher who spoke about Visible Learning within Literacy. It's not exactly a small moment story, but had to share my top 10 takeaways before I forgot them!

Some background knowledge: Visible learning is THE research study of all the educational research studies. It looks at all the strategies known to teacher man and then rates them based on their effectiveness. The hinge point is 0.40, which equals one year of growth. So, you will see mention of some strategies that are like, for example, 1.09, which would be over two years worth of growth in one year! Here's a link with more, but for me, onward to what I'm walking away with:

10. Call it a Think Along (that we're all doing together) rather than a Think Aloud (that the teacher is doing on their own).

9. Teacher modeling should not be teacher monologue. Self-regulation can be taught but attention span cannot (and people's attention span is their age in minutes UP TO TEN.) Please keep it brief!

8. Small group work (around a level) is not as effective as strategy groups. But you gotta be a kidwatcher (Yetta Goodman) in order to notice kids' needs and then place them in dynamic groups that give them the strategies they need. That's complex work and takes time and lots of effort, but DOABLE! (Know who wants to do this work with you? Your friendly Literacy Coach!)

7. PLEASE STOP: telling kids, "Pick another book. You already read that book." This may be why kids hate rereading anything.

6. Kids should be involved in "Goldilocks tasks" as much as possible: not too hard, not too boring.

5. Keep wide reading, and make kids do it at home (d = 0.42). Increase at home reading volume by: (1) Access to books, ideally 50 books per kid in each classroom, (2) Choice in books matters and raises volume, (3) offer time for kids to discuss their books, and (4) recommend books to readers via book talks.

4. Coaches & admins: When you visit classrooms ask kids, "What are you learning today?" rather than "What are you doing?" Visible learning shows students who can tell what they are learning, why it's important, and how they know if they are doing it right will achieve at higher levels than those who only can tell what they are doing (which typically identifies the activity.) Here's one I wrote today for 8th grade argument:

I'm learning how to close read argument text in order to be a competent consumer of texts. I know I'm doing this right if I can extract evidence that makes Adnan Syed (text: Serial podcast) guilty and innocent of Hae Min Lee's death, and elaborate / make inferences about each piece of evidence.

3. Teacher Credibility (d = 1.09) = Trust + Competence + Dynamism + Immediacy

2. The influence that has the worst effect on student achievement is mobility (d = -0.34.) So, teachers and schools need to do things that will help a new kid feel welcome. Love this idea: The day before a new kid shows up, their new class's exit slip is to write a welcome letter to the new student, who gets a file of them when they arrive. #Imnotcryingyourecrying

1. Strong teacher-student relationships are everything (d = 0.72.) Young people don't learn from old people they don't like. (My edit: Young people don't learn from *anyone they don't like.) Teachers: Please know kids names, know how to pronounce them, and know (at least) one thing about them, at a minimum.

Thoughts? Thanks to my school and district leaders for sending me! :-) 

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