Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Learner Centered Spaces podcast, where we empower and inspire ownership of learning, sponsored by Mastery Portfolio, hosted by Star Saxton and Crystal Frommer.
Speaker: In each episode, we bring you an authentic conversation with educators, both in and out of the classroom, that will hopefully encourage you to try something new. This podcast is created for educators who want to learn more about how to make the shift toward learner-centered spaces for their students, schools, and districts or education at large.
Speaker: The learner-centered spaces podcast is a member of the Teach Better Podcast Network. Get ready to be inspired as we dive right into the conversation with today's guest.
Speaker: We are so excited to have Tom Guskey on with us today. His current role is a professor emeritus of the College of Education at the University of Kentucky. And in his past lives, he has been a middle school mathematics teacher, research assistant, Boston College and University of Chicago. That's where you were the research assistant.
Speaker: And then a director of research and development, also in Chicago, Center for Improvement and Teaching of Learning, visiting professor at 10 universities, wow, in the U.S., visiting scholar at universities in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, distinguished research professor, Georgetown College and Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Louisville.
Speaker: One sentence that shares Tom's purpose or passion says to assist teachers and school leaders in using the results of high quality research to help all of their students learn well and gain the many positive benefits of that success.
Speaker: Some additional information, which is also interesting, and I didn't know this about you. A passionate outdoors person and conservationist, hiker and mountain climber, former pole vaulter and aspiring tennis player.
Speaker: That's fascinating, Tom.
Speaker: how do you determine what you wanna be doing the research on? You're such a prolific writer and you know i've I've had the pleasure of reading tons of your work and meeting you a bunch of times in person and seeing you present, but what drives your interest to dive down this particular and assessment At least in my experience, it's it's not the most glamorous of um education topics to choose.
Speaker: I mean, it's what I love. I know it's what you love, too. But how do you make those decisions about where your research is going to lead? And then what is the impact of the research that you do on the work you're currently doing?
Speaker: yeah Well, again, Benjamin Bloom had this idea, and he was the head of a program at the University Chicago that was the acronym was MESA, M-E-S-A, which stood for Measurement Evaluation Statistical Analysis.
Speaker: But his idea was that you really need to be a ah a thoughtful person and always thinking about how the work needed to be extended.
Speaker: I can remember the frustrating experience that I went through with him and coming up with a topic for my doctoral dissertation. Because I would i come up with a topic and it was really intriguing and I was sort of fascinated by it. And would go in and have a meeting with him.
Speaker: And he would say to me, Tom, that's a great idea, but it's maybe two or three years ahead of where we are now. You need to think 10 years ahead of where we are. If this worked out, what be the next step?
Speaker: What would be the next step after that? and And continue to press in that way. oh and And so his idea was that don't don't think of where we should be just two years from now, but where where the whole field should go, ideally.
Speaker: And so it was from that, that it sort of prompted me that when you take on an area of interest, that you should be thinking ahead of where, where that will lead and where that will take you. So my dissertation was on the topic of teacher change and what prompts teachers to change, and what inhibits the change process.
Speaker: That sort of led me to explore and become involved more in the professional development of teachers and sort of how they change once they enter the field and and how we prompt new innovations to really take hold and become institutionalized, ah become a natural part of what but teachers do.
Speaker: Then that sort of led with that background in evaluation to the notion of student assessment. How do we help teachers? it was Bloom's work in the 1960s, in the early 1970s, that really prompted this idea of using assessments as learning tools rather than just evaluation devices.
Speaker: He was the one who came up with the word of formative assessment in 1968. Yeah, and and imp prompted us to really think about how assessments could be used to facilitate the the teaching and learning process.
Speaker: And then from that, the next step was, well then, if we're doing a better job, how do we report this in ways that are meaningful? And how do we engage parents sort of in the process to facilitate learning and and coordinate efforts with teachers? And how can we see this as a sort of unified effort rather than there being any breakdown between what we're working on in school and what we're working at home? So it's that progression that I think has been both exciting but challenging to take on, but always thinking about what the next step is after this step you're currently working on.
Speaker: Yeah, I think so much of what you just said resonates on so many different levels and I know that the work in assessment to me assessment is learning. Like everything we do in the classroom centers around that very nimble and flexible means of formative assessment like the things that we're doing throughout a lesson to really make sure that kids are getting what we're teaching them and then the adjustment rates of what we need to do for individuals sitting in that space, which is why, of course, feedback is so important once we get that as well.
Speaker: So given your background, and I know the book that you're working on right now is about professional learning specifically, like what what advice do you have for folks who are trying to make these changes and how can we make it most impactful for our learners?
Speaker: Well, Robert Allingh, MD, This goes the early work that I did really in the change process. And that's where the premise of a lot of this work on professional learning to Robert Allingh, MD, Everybody that studies the change process in education agrees that through professional learning opportunities, there are three kinds of change we hope to accomplish.
Speaker: ah we want some change in teachers' attitudes and beliefs. We want them to accept the idea of that using assessments as learning tools. We want them to change their beliefs about all kids really being able to learn well, believe that they have control over the conditions that might facilitate their learning, things like that.
Speaker: Second, we want to get some changes in teaching practices, to do things differently, especially as they interact with their students. And third, of course, we want some change in student learning. We're going prove it.
Speaker: Now, everybody agrees that those are the three major areas of change we're trying to impact. The question I raised was, in what order do those changes occur?
Speaker: Because they happens simultaneously. And if you're going to be effective as a change leader, you really need to think about that order because you want to know where to put your time and energy. And I was able to trace the history of professional learning in in the United States anyway,
Speaker: And by the was a long and distinguished history based on the idea that the order of change was attitudes and beliefs come first, it's results in change in practices and leading to change in student learning.
Speaker: And I was able to trace this back to work of early change theorists, Kurt Lewin, for example, who wrote about change in the 1930s and 40s. He based my advanced ideas on psychotherapeutic models.
Speaker: The problem is All our modern research on teacher change shows that's not the way it works.
Speaker: The more typical order of change is practices first, student learning second, attitudes and beliefs last. interesting The reason that is so, it is experience that shapes those attitudes and beliefs. It is not the other way around.
Speaker: And so the reason that so many of our professional learning endeavors fail is that consultants are trying to change the attitudes and beliefs of of teachers when all of their experience is counter to what they're advocating.
Speaker: And it's very difficult to change this. Now, I mean, even Bandura's work a indicates that what's what's the most powerful aspect of ah change that influences teachers' sense of efficacy?
Speaker: It's the idea of mastery experiences. Experience shapes the attitudes and beliefs. So the key is that when you work with any group of like experienced educators, mean, I've always said, if I can change people from being cynical to skeptical, I'm very happy.
Speaker: That's all I'm working on, right? I don't expect anybody to leave that session convinced this going to work. I'm not that foolish. All I hope is leave skeptical enough to say, I'm not so sure, but I'll give it a try.
Speaker: It's so interesting because I do the same thing. When people come into my sessions, I'm kind of like, I have no intention of trying to change your mind about this. But if you leap here questioning just one thing that you do or more curious about something else, then I've done what I hope to set out to do.
Speaker: Exactly. Yeah. And that's that' why that but notion. Now, it if they try, then what's necessary is there has to be some mechanism whereby they can get feedback that it works.
Speaker: And the feedback has to come from your kids. And it has to come from source of evidence that they trust. Third, it has to come pretty quickly.
Speaker: Several years ago, i was being interviewed by for an article that was going to be in what was at that time called the Journal of the National Staff Development Council. It's now called the Learning Professional.
Speaker: And they asked me, When teachers are engaged in new strategy or a new instructional approach or new techniques, how soon should they see results? Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And and friends of mine, you know, Michael Fuller Andy Hargreaves, because I think we're talking about change the slow process and and support needs to be sustained for not months, but years.
Speaker: I said. and two weeks. They were shocked, they were absolutely stunned. and And the reason I said that was all the evidence we were gathering been indicated that if teachers don't see a change in their kids pretty quickly, they're going to revert back to the tried and true things they've used in the past.
Speaker: Not because they're afraid of change, but because teachers are so committed to the learning of their kids. And there is this fear that if they persist, their kids will learn less well.
Speaker: And no teacher is willing to sacrifice their students for the sake of innovation. And so this is where things like the using assessments as learning tools, mastery learning becomes such a powerful innovation because teachers are getting regular feedback on assessments they developed in their classroom with their kids that change and improvement is being made.
Speaker: And once they see that, then they become the strongest advocates for this. You know, then the attitudes beliefs change. And you see this remarkable, remarkable shift.
Speaker: In fact, we actually have evidence to show that there's a very direct relationship between the magnitude of improvement in student learning and the magnitude of the change in teacher attitudes and beliefs.
Speaker: Small improvement in student learning, small improvement attitudes and beliefs. Huge improvement in student learning, drastic, drastic alteration attitudes of beliefs. I mean, they become strong advocates for this.
Speaker: you know they They are reborn as teachers. It's a and ah new renaissance for them you know to see this new thing come forth, and they become the strongest advocates. But there there has to be that sense of feedback to them that this is a making difference.
Speaker: I mean, I've lived that I think that that's so true and when I've worked with schools, I've seen that as well, like teachers really do have the best of intentions when it comes to learning for their kids and they certainly don't want to be doing anything that they feel is detrimental to that learning.
Speaker: And you're right, probably they're willing to try something for two weeks and see what happens. But obviously, you know, by choosing something you get the most bang for your buck in those two weeks, that's going to have the most impact, which is, I mean, I always default to feedback. Really good, like robust, actionable feedback is going to get you your most bang for the buck, regardless of what your breeding system is, what, you know, what kind of different pedagogies you're using in the space, kids need, they need that immediate like feedback loop of what's happening with my learning.
Speaker: Sure. Yeah. equate with, with these advertisements I see for these new exercise programs where they say, you know, you will, you will feel results in one week.
Speaker: You will see results in two weeks and your friends will compliment you in three weeks. mean, what a powerful thing. who's gonna stay on ah a weight loss program or an exercise program if you don't see results pretty quickly?
Speaker: you You can't say, you know in nine months from now, you're gonna results. No, I'm not gonna do it. I'm gonna see it making a difference pretty quickly. and And that's the way we are as human beings. It's just natural.
Speaker: That's so true. i could talk to you about this all day, Tom. i I always love picking your brain about these different things and the way you're readily able to pull up research because that's like, I feel like my experience is you know, what I write about is more the experience based approach, um you know, which is leaning on folks like you who have tons of research in you know, in the background.
Speaker: So if if you had to give a shout out to people, our listeners, what who do we need to be reading and listening to and following on social media to really help us understand where the research comes from around these assessment paradigms?
Speaker: Well, think one of the dilemmas we have today is that we have lost a sense of of history and tradition in education. And these sort of classic works that provided the foundation for everything we're doing today, but are often missed by new people coming into the field.
Speaker: i I did a presentation recently where i I took all these quotes about how the brain learns, and you know thinking about experience shaping our our ideas and and how we need to make connections with our past learning and things like that i took all these quotes uh and i asked the audience from where did these come and of course they were all naming the the most current people that are talking about brain-based learning and and and research in that way every one of those quotes came from john dewey ah wow his book
Speaker: his book in 1937 called Education as Experience, right? you You need to read education as experience. It's such a classic word.
Speaker: oh and The idea of, you know, to teach anyone anything, there are two fundamental decisions you have to make. Number one, you must decide what it is you want to learn and be able to do. Number two, you must decide what evidence you would accept to verify they learned it.
Speaker: That's it. It's a premise of our standards-based approach, our competency-based approach, all these things we're doing today. That basic idea came from Ralph Tyler in his little tiny book called Basic Principles for Curriculum Instruction, published in 1949.
Speaker: wow i know if if you haven't read these books you're missing the whole point of it you know and and i see these arguments people get into today about i mean basing entire careers on the difference between standards and proficiencies and competencies and and outcomes and learning targets and learning goals and and arguing with great passion about differences between them in 1949 ralph tyler said it doesn't matter what you call it but it's not the label that matters it's the clarity and the precision by which you articulate those goals that's where we need to be focusing and so the idea that that you know you're you're only familiar with the research if you learn what's happened in the last 10 20 years no that's not the case we have these classic works in the field that people really need to understand and that way we wouldn't have to rediscover them you know when i think my my greatest frustration
Speaker: for our field is that people come up with ideas and they think that nobody's thought about it before and they write about it and they might rename it a little bit and call it something different, but it's been around for a long time.
Speaker: And I think that we will, we'll make progress as a field. If we recognize the contribution of these brilliant scholars that came before us and the remarkable contribution they made and then build on their work to extend it and advance our field.
Speaker: Others, disciplines do this better, the sciences in particular, they have an established knowledge base that everybody tries to extend. We need to do that better in education. Such a good spot to end. i know, like, I mean, when you, and every time I get off a call with you, Tom, I feel like but there's so much more I need to read.
Speaker: i need, you know, like, I feel like I have a pretty decent, especially with assessment, you know, but I would say that the the reading that I've done most frequently, you know, most recently is stuff that's more on the recent side.
Speaker: I do wonder why the titles you mentioned didn't necessarily come up while I was doing my masters who are in my leadership program or any of these other places where those seminal works should be a part of, you know, foundational learning in education. And i don't I don't think that they are.
Speaker: Yeah, that's really the case, Starr, and it's really a shame that it is that way. I knew few years ago, in preparation for a presentation I was going to make at the ASCD conference, like I did a search on all the books that currently are available to educators that have the word formative in the title.
Speaker: Now, one would think that if you write a book that has something to do with formative assessment, you might want to at least describe where the term came from or who developed the term. a And the term was actually developed in 1967 by Michael Scriven.
Speaker: Michael Scriven focused primarily on program evaluation. And he wrote a paper in 1967 suggesting that the problem with people in program evaluation is they focused on only the end and the end of results.
Speaker: And Scriven argued with great passion and and very articulately that program evaluators need to be gathering information as the program was being implemented to provide some source of information for the program developers so they can make changes along the way and that you would be much more successful at the end.
Speaker: And he distinguished between what he called summative evaluation and formative evaluation. Well, Michael Scriven and Benjamin Bloom were great friends. And Bloom said, wow, that's great, Michael. Let's use that in education.
Speaker: And so in 1968, wrote the first article called Learning for Mastery, where he really talked about formative assessment. He talked about feedback from formative assessments.
Speaker: He talked about pairing that feedback with guidance and direction to students as to how they could improve the notion of correctives. They wrote the first book. on this topic in 1971 called the Handbook on Formative and Summative Evaluation of Student Learning.
Speaker: i So identify currently available at that time, this was a couple of years ago, 64 books with a topic that with formative in the title. Do you know many those books cited Michael Scriven or Benjamin Bloom who came up with the term?
Speaker: Zero. Maybe one. Four. Wow. Four out of 64. like go wow I mean, this is why we're struggling in the field. You know, we we we develop these different things and don't recognize the valuable contribution to those wonderful people that came before.
Speaker: We stand on the shoulder of giants and are able to see you so far because of what they provided for us. It takes nothing away from our work to give them credit for that brilliant contribution.
Speaker: Oh, not at all. And I'm so glad that you brought it up and we'll make sure that their names and their works get put in the show notes and so that we could make sure that we could start to write that a little bit. um I so appreciate your time, Tom. It is always a pleasure to talk to you and I hope we get the chance to do it again real soon.
Speaker: I do too, Star. i always learn from our conversations too and really appreciate your depth of understanding in these issues. It's always been helpful to me. Thank you. Thank you so much. You have a great day, Tom.
Speaker: Thanks again, Star.
Speaker: Thank you for learning with us today. We hope you enjoyed the conversation as much as we did. If you'd like any additional information from the show, check out the show notes. Learn more about Mastery Portfolio and how we support schools at masteryportfolio.com.
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