Christian School Excellence

1. Christian School Excellence What it Means and What it Doesn’t Mean in 2014 Steve Dill, ACSI

2. What does excellence look like in our Christian schools? • ???? • ???? • ???? • ???? • ???? exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

3. Three Goals in this session: • Excellence for us is not measured in the usual ways, although those variables have value. (They are helpful ingredients but not the essence of the matter) • The essence of excellence for Christian schools is achieving expected student outcomes. (ESO’s) • Excellent schools significantly improve on the delivery of ESO’s with a faculty organized in teams focusing on goals and assessment. (Spirit filled, relational, outcome focused teachers are the gold in the bank.) exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

4. Psalm 78: From Generation to Generation …tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the Lord, and his might, and the wonders he has done. …he commanded our fathers to teach to their children, that the next generation might know them, the children yet unborn, and arise and tell them to their children, so that they should set their hope in God… Psalm 78:3-5 (selected portions) exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

5. Excellence does NOT mean: • Test scores • Spiritual Activities • Technology • Facilities • Library volumes • Experienced faculty • Brand new faculty • Past school achievements • Past blessings to the school • Balanced budget with adequate cash reserves

6. The Secret Sauce for Excellence: Great Teachers • “Family and personal attributes of students have the greatest effect on achievement. But among the elements of schooling that promote performance, teachers have the most impact by far. Research offers varying estimates of the impact, but it is safe to say that several consecutive years with highly effective teachers – the best 20-25% - can move students quite a way in the national achievement distribution.” (Chubb, 2012) • “The data showed that students working with top quintile teachers learned two to four times the amount of students working with bottom quartile teachers”. (Sanders and Rivers, 1996) • . • The Best Teachers in the World: And Why We Don’t Have Them, John Chubb; 2013. exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

7. The Secret Sauce for Excellence: Great Teachers • “In the last decade of the 20th century, the picture of what constitutes a great school has become a lot clearer. Among elements such as a well-articulated curriculum and a safe and orderly environment, the one factor that surfaced as the single most influential component of an effective school is the individual teachers within that school.” (Marzano, 2007) • “These findings would suggest that the difference in achievement gains between having a 25th percentile teacher (in terms of pedagogical competence) and a 75th percentile teacher is over one third a standard deviation (0.35) in reading and almost half a standard deviation (0.48) in mathematics.” (14 percentile points in reading; 18 percentile points in math) • (Nye and colleagues, “How Large Are Teacher Effects?”, Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 2004) • . • The Best Teachers in the World: And Why We Don’t Have Them, John Chubb; 2013. exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

8. Are great teachers born or made? • “Again and again, researchers have sought to explain great teaching through personality and character traits. The most effective teachers, researchers have guessed, must be more extroverted, agreeable, conscientious, open to new experiences, empathetic, socially adjusted, emotionally sensitive, persevering, humorous, or all of the above. For decades, though, these studies have proved inconclusive. Great teachers can be extroverts or introverts, humorous or serious, flexible or rigid.” • Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works, Elizabeth Green, 2014. exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

10. Key Ingredients to the Secret Sauce for having great teachers in a school: • Goals • Teams • Assessment exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

11. Expected Student Outcomes (ESO’s) • Are well prepared in all academic disciplines, and are skilled in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking. • Are proficient in mathematics and science. • Have a knowledge and understanding of people, events, and movements in history (including church history) and the cultures of other peoples and places. • Appreciate literature and the arts and understand how they express and shape their beliefs and values. • Have a critical appreciation of languages and cultures of other peoples, dispelling prejudice, promoting inter-ethnic harmony, and encouraging biblical hospitality for the (“alien,” “stranger”). • Personally respond to carrying out the Great Commission locally and around the world in a culturally sensitive manner. • Know how to utilize resources including technology to find, analyze, and evaluate information. • Have the skills to question, solve problems, and make wise decisions exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

12. 9. Understand the worth of every human being as created in the image of God. • 10. Can articulate and defend their Christian worldview while having a basic understanding of opposing worldviews. • 11. Understand and commit to a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. • 12. Know, understand, and apply God’s Word in daily life. • 13. Possess apologetic skills to defend their faith. • 14. are empowered by the Holy Spirit and pursue a life of faith, goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness, and love. • 15. Treat their bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit. • 16. Are actively involved in a church community, serving God and others. • 17. Understand, value, and engage in appropriate social (community) and civic (political) activities. • 18. Embrace and practice justice, mercy, and peacemaking in family and society. • 19. Value intellectual inquiry and are engaged in the marketplace of ideas (open honest exchange of ideas). • 20. Respect, and relate appropriately with integrity to the people with whom they work, play, and live. • 18. exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

13. Ingredient #1: Clear Learning Goals • “In most cases, neither teachers nor students can articulate what they are supposed to be learning that day. They can describe only the activity or assignment …and in defiance of what every educator has learned, there is a glaring absence of the most basic elements of an effective lesson: an essential, clearly defined learning objective followed by a clear sequence of steps, punctuated by efforts during the lesson to see how well students are paying attention or learning the material. In most classrooms, half or more of the students are clearly not engaged or paying attention. In a recent study based on 1500 classroom observations, only 4% of the classrooms showed evidence of a clear learning goal.” • Results Now: How We Can Achieve Unprecedented Improvements in Teaching and Learning, Mike Schmoker, ASCD, 2005, p. 16-18 exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

14. Ingredient #1: Clear Learning Goals • Setting and communicating learning goals will increase student achievement by 20%. • Giving feedback (using formative assessment) in classrooms will increase student achievement by 25% • The Art and Science of Teaching, Robert Marzano, ASCD, 2007. exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

15. Ingredient #2: Teams (PLC’s) • Teachers establish a common, concise set of essential curricular standards and teach them on a roughly common schedule (often not possible in our small schools- thus cross grade discussions….) • Regular meetings – at least twice a month for 45 minutes – focused; talking in concrete, precise terms – with “thoughtful, explicit examination of practices and their consequences”. (academic discourse, Schmoker, 2006) • But….most teams tend to “confirm present practice without evaluating its worth”. (Schmoker, 2006) • And most workshop professional development lacks effectiveness because no formal immediate arrangements for teachers are made to translate learning into actual lessons or units. • Teams are almost always “smarter than the smartest people within them” (Surowiecki, 2004, p. 182) exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

16. Ingredient #2: Teams (PLC’s) • Most teachers admit they have seldom, or never, met to create a detailed lesson plan or unit with their colleagues in their entire professional lives. (Schmoker, p. 112) • Any faculty could improve student performance beginning tomorrow if they decided on what they wanted students to learn and worked together to prepare, test, and refine lessons and strategies – continuously, toward better results”. (Sparks, cited in Schmoker, p.114) exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

17. Ingredient #3: Assessment • Formative vs. Summative Assessment: we need both • Giving feedback (using formative assessments) in classrooms will increase student achievement by 25%. (Marzano, 2007) • Classroom summative vs. standardized test scores: we need both. • “There is no such thing as teaching without learning. Successful teachers must know what their students know, don’t know, are learning, and are not learning – all year long – to provide students the instruction they need.” • The Best Teachers in the World: Why We Don’t Have Them and How We Could, John Chubb, 2012 exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

18. Review Multiple Choice Question • The most effective way to develop great teachers is: • Attend ACSI Conventions every year. • Set annual professional goals and review them at the end of the year with your school leader. • Set outcome/achievement goals; review goals, strategies, and assessment results with colleagues. • Read two articles a month from current educational journals – Christian and secular. • Become more reflective about your teaching – analyze your lessons and tweak them regularly. exists to strengthen Christian Schools and equip Christian Educators worldwide as they prepare students academically and inspire students to become devoted followers of Jesus Christ.