Curbing the Pandemic Slide by Putting the Right Students into the Right Instructional Groups. Which Peas are You Going to Put in Your Pandemic Pod? (Part II)
Dear Colleagues,
Introduction
While clearly impacting innumerable areas of our lives, the current pandemic has significantly affected our country’s schools and educational processes.
Moreover, many students are going to sleep each night asking:
- “Are we Going to School?” rather than “Have I completed everything to Prepare for School?”;
- “Is it Safe to Go to School?” rather than “I can’t Wait to Get to School.”; and
- “Will I bring the COVID virus Home after School?” rather than “I can’t Wait to get Home to Share my Day.”
Our virtual students are asking:
- “Will the family computer (that I share with my siblings) be available to me tomorrow so I can attend school?”;
- “Will the internet connection be strong enough so I can watch, download, and interact with my teacher and peers successfully and continuously?”; and
- “Why should I bother even getting up? I hate Zoom, and I’m not learning anyways?”
Relative to these latter questions, we know that (a) as many as 4.4 million student households still lack consistent computer access with 3.7 million struggling with internet access; (b) some teachers surveys have reported that less than half of their students were attending virtual classes; and (c) students have not mastered academic material at expected grade levels this Fall, with math skills more affected than literacy skills.
_ _ _ _ _
In Part I of this Series, we discussed the so-called “Pandemic Slide” by emphasizing the need to quantify it for every individual student, to validate it, and to analyze it—if present—so that the most effective services, supports, strategies, and interventions can be linked to address it.
In this context, we described (a) how to determine students’ academic skill mastery; (b) how to complete and explain students’ academic information and skill gaps; and (c) why it is important to differentiate between—and intervene differently for—gaps involving progressively taught, sequential, “building block” skills, and contextually taught, integrated, curriculum-embedded skills.
[CLICK HERE for Part I: It’s Not About the Size of the Pandemic Slide—It’s About Where to Start Teaching]
At the beginning of this Blog, we asked the following prevailing questions:
What does it mean for your district or school students—whether in a virtual or on-site classroom—to be “academically behind”?
How and where (in the curriculum) should you teach each of your students?
Moreover, we noted that these questions are the critical planning questions that need to be answered right now so that districts and schools can effectively plan their instruction and group their students for January and the second semester of the school year.
_ _ _ _ _
Throughout the Part I discussion, we also made the following essential points:
- Educationally, these are challenging times. The pandemic is an event that has created specific conditions that have resulted in academic skill gaps and social-emotional needs for some students. While unique, this event still is similar to having a student who, for example, was unable to attend school for eight to twelve months due to a hospitalization after an unfortunate car accident.
- We need to adapt to the academic impact of the pandemic by focusing on quality instruction and student learning. It makes no sense to be burdened or dictated to by academic standards and outcomes that are no longer viable.
- As a rule of thumb, if students—who demonstrated average or expected rates of learning before the pandemic—are now functioning below grade-level academically due to pandemic-related conditions that influenced the quality of instruction or their opportunity to learn, they need to be taught (a) at their current functional, mastery levels—for skills that need to be learned sequentially, and (b) at their current grade-placement levels—when missed skills can be integrated into the grade-level content and curriculum.
- The rule of thumb above, however, must be adapted if there were pre-pandemic learning conditions—for example, related to student disabilities and other individual student conditions—that need to be addressed.
- Once again, where students are “supposed to be”—using pre-pandemic academic and social expectations—is largely irrelevant from a pedagogical perspective right now.
We ultimately stated that:
The point of this two-part Blog Series is that (a) educators need to be less concerned about a pandemic slide that focuses on where students “should be” academically in their classes or courses; and (b) more concerned about determining what academic skills students have learned, mastered, and are able to apply, and how to teach from there.
In this Part II, we will address (c) how to StoryBoard students’ academic status data, organizing different-achieving students into classrooms that allow teachers to successful differentiate their instruction so that students can more effectively learn and master the material presented; and (d) how to strategically use homogeneous and heterogeneous instructional groups—as well as other multi-tiered supports—to facilitate the learning and mastery process for these different students.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The Current Virtual State of Affairs: Teachers are Struggling, Students Aren’t Learning, and Districts Aren’t Planning
Before discussing the plans needed by all schools nationwide for this coming January, let’s review the current national “state of affairs” as it relates to student learning, teacher instruction, and district planning. This planning, once again, is essential—especially as the positive rates for COVID-19 are escalating, many schools are moving (or continuing) full-time or hybrid-related virtual teaching, and none of us can truly predict what the New Year is going to look like.
Relative to teachers, a November 16, 2020 Education Week article reported new data from an October RAND Corporation survey of 1,082 teachers and 1,147 school leaders, from their American Educator Panels, regarding their experiences so far during the 2020-2021 school year.
The results indicated that:
- On-site teachers reported that 91% of their students were present every day, in contrast with 85% student attendance for hybrid teachers, and 84% for virtual teachers.
- On-site teachers reported that 82% of their students turned in most or all of their work, in contrast with 62% work completion for virtual students.
- Two-thirds of the teachers said that the majority of their students were less prepared for grade-level work than at this time last year.
- 56% of teachers said that they had covered only half, or less than half, of the curriculum content this year in contrast with previous years.
- Virtual teachers reported experiencing more challenges than on-site teachers, and they felt that they needed more support and guidance relative to planning instruction. The specifically noted needing help in adapting curriculum, motivating students, assessing learning, and helping students to progress.
- Virtual teachers also needed more help in supporting students from poverty, with severe disabilities, English-language learners, and those experiencing homelessness.
_ _ _ _ _
A separate report by the Center on Reinventing Public Education was reviewed on November 16, 2020 in Education Dive. Analyzing the 100 most high-profile school districts in the country (including the 30 largest school districts), the Center found that slightly more than half of the districts are providing some type of on-site instruction to their students, and that almost 60% of the districts lacked a “comprehensive” plan to address learning loss this Fall.
The Center noted that:
- Many districts are going it alone—procuring equipment and setting up plans to keep children safe in buildings, only to have those plans derailed by rising case counts in their communities.
- Large numbers of students remain disengaged from learning or going without crucial support services, and it's become increasingly clear that many school systems cannot simply rely on a return to school buildings to solve this problem.
- Just over one-fifth (21) of the districts explain how they are identifying high-absence students and getting them to participate in remote learning or return to school. The most common intervention is frequent calls to students' homes.
- In a few districts—when students have not logged in for three to four days, and staff are unable to contact their families—home visits are completed by nonprofit partner organizations, community school coordinators, and other staff.
- Most districts (80 out of 100) say they have plans to measure student learning, and nearly two-thirds specify strategies like tutoring or small-group instruction for students who fall behind.
- But many districts do not provide specifics about what assessment system they'll use or what data they will make available to parents and the public. Relying on assessments tied to specific curricula instead of common standards, or created by individual educators, won't help leaders make crucial system-level decisions.
- These most-recent findings show that school districts are so consumed with crisis responses and the logistical challenges of reopening that new strategies for teaching, re-engaging missing students, and identifying and addressing students’ learning needs are not being developed.
The results of both of these recent reports reinforce the current gaps in our instructional system, and the need and importance of planning systemically now for the second half of this school year.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Using Student Mastery Data to (Re)Organize January’s Classrooms or Pods
In Part I of this Blog Series, we noted that, in order to address the assessment, instructional grouping, and multi-tiered service and support needs for all students come January (but, especially, for those students with moderate to significant academic skills and information gaps), districts and schools need to immediately:
- Assess—validly and functionally—all of their students in literacy, mathematics, science, and writing/language arts;
- Integrate and “StoryBoard” the results in each academic area to determine the best ways to group students instructionally to maximize the impact of effective teaching and differentiation;
- Identify and plan for the students who need multi-tiered services, supports, and interventions;
- Align the StoryBoard with staff and resources (including Intervention Specialists, paraprofessionals, computer-assisted instruction and intervention, after-school tutoring, etc.). . . with an eye toward student equity;
- Factor the results into (a modification of) the school’s second semester schedule and logistics; and
- Evaluate the decisions on an ongoing basis, making “mid-course” grouping, scheduling, and/or logistical changes as needed.
After describing how to effectively collect and analyze students’ skill mastery and current functional academic status in literacy, mathematics, science, and writing/language arts, we finished Part I by recommending that schools pool each student’s quantitative and qualitative data into a “Grade-Level Equivalent Skill Summary Score.”
We stated:
While not the most sophisticated psychometric score, a student’s current functional skills in a specific academic area can be categorized as at the Beginning-, Middle-, or End of a specific Grade-Level Equivalent.
Thus, for example, a student at the beginning of her Seventh-Grade year might be functioning at the End of Fifth Grade level in Reading, the Middle of Sixth Grade level in Math, and the Beginning of Fifth Grade level in writing/language arts.
This Grade-Level Equivalent Skill Summary Score can be compared with the district’s scope and sequence or curricular pacing charts to determine where curriculum and instruction might begin for specific students.
At this point, we will address how to use these Summary Scores to organize different-achieving students into instructional groups; and how to integrate remediation, core instruction, and acceleration for different-performing students.
_ _ _ _ _
StoryBoarding Students
In this step, educators in a specific school look separately at the literacy, mathematics, science, and writing/language arts Skill Summary Scores for all of the students in a particular grade level—pooling, or StoryBoarding, the data across students.
Let’s say that a school randomly distributed its third-grade cohort of 85 students into four classes at the beginning of the 2020-20201 school year. Now—based on the end-of-Fall quantitative and qualitative data collection process, these students have the following distribution of literacy Summary Scores across the entire cohort:
- 10 Students: Middle of Fourth Grade functioning or above
- 15 Students: Middle to End of Third Grade functioning
- 45 Students: Middle to End of Second Grade functioning
- 10 Students: End of First Grade to Beginning of Second Grade functioning
- 5 Students: Middle of First Grade functioning or below
In looking at these data, school staff might say that 10 students are above grade level in literacy, 15 students are at grade level, 40 students are below grade level, and 10 students are well-below grade level.
BUT. . . given that these students “lost” a number of months of high-quality instruction due to the pandemic last Spring (and, maybe, since September), the school should not be surprised that 45 students are functioning at the middle to end of Second Grade. Indeed, they may reconsider calling them “below grade level.”
But the more functional, critical issues here are:
- How are school staff going to (re)cluster these students for January into the most optimal instructional groups?
- What different-skill-level instructional groups will be (re)assigned to each of the four third-grade teachers’ classrooms?
- Where in the literacy scope and sequence will these teachers begin teaching these different student skill clusters?
- How are teachers going to differentiate and teach them?
As each grade level will be looking at its students’ literacy, mathematics, science, and writing/language arts StoryBoards, respectfully, a decision needs to be made as to which academic area should be used to (re)cluster students into homeroom classes.
Typically, the literacy data is used to organize kindergarten through Grade 3 classrooms with each teacher receiving only three skill-level clusters so that they can effectively differentiate their instruction.
Assuming that most students are reading on grade level, the mathematics data is used to organize Grade 4 to Grade 8 classrooms—with each teacher, once again, receiving only three skill-level clusters.
And, high school students are organized by considering their combined literacy and mathematical skill mastery, as well as their performance in earlier content courses.
Parenthetically, when homeroom teachers receive three student skill clusters—for example, of above, at, and below grade-level students— their classrooms effectively have a “heterogeneous” group of students made up of three “homogeneous” clusters of students.
_ _ _ _ _
While we advocate this approach to clustering students into homeroom classrooms in a “typical” year, it will be especially useful given the current pandemic as schools are organizing students into instructional pods and within-classroom quadrants that remain together for the entire school day.
But what about schools using a hybrid schedule?
For example, what if a school is using a schedule where one cohort of students comes to school on Mondays and Wednesdays, another cohort comes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and everyone status home on Fridays? And what if the third grade described above is in this school with its four classroom teachers? And, finally, what if the school decides to use the students’ third grade literacy scores to organize the cohorts— given the importance of literacy in third grade, the integration of writing/language arts in the literacy curriculum, and the fact that the teachers are committed to adapting the Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday student groups to accommodate for students’ differential mathematics skills?
A Possible Arrangement. One option for this school is to have the Monday/Wednesday on-site school cohort include the 10 Middle of Fourth Grade functioning or above students, 20 of the Middle to End of Second Grade functioning students, and the 10 End of First Grade to Beginning of Second Grade functioning students. These 40 students are assigned to three of the four classroom teachers (Average Class Size= 13 students; which allows for social distancing), and the fourth teacher guides the Tuesday/Thursday cohort through virtual instruction.
This means that the Tuesday/Thursday on-site school cohort will consist of the 15 Middle to End of Third Grade functioning students, and the remaining 25 of the Middle to End of Second Grade functioning students. Once again, three teachers will teach this cohort, and one teacher will guide the Monday/Wednesday cohort virtually.
Now let’s say that the 5 Middle of First Grade functioning or below students include a group of students with disabilities. These students will attend school every day. They will be taught by general education teachers in their areas of non-disability, and by a combination of general and special education teachers in their areas of disability. They will obviously get more on-site time and attention than their peers (as they should) and, hopefully, this schedule will maximize their academic learning and progress.
_ _ _ _ _
Clearly, every grade-level StoryBoard in a school may look somewhat different, and the School Leadership Team will need to pool all of the StoryBoards together to make many whole-school staffing and support decisions.
But critically, these decisions will be based on data, and made in informed, strategic, incisive, and student-centered ways.
This whole-school perspective also may trigger other creative staffing approaches. For example, what if the 10 Middle of Fourth Grade functioning or above third grade students (above) are combined into a multi-grade classroom with Fourth Graders who are working at grade level? And what if, then, the Third-Grade teaching team takes responsibility for teaching an above-grade-level group of second grade students in another multi-grade pod?
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Balancing Homogeneous Versus Heterogeneous Instruction
In the section above, we suggested pooling three different student skill clusters—for example, groups of students functioning above, at, and below grade-level, respectfully—into homeroom classrooms. This would effectively create a “heterogeneous” class of students made up of three “homogeneous” clusters of students.
This does not suggest, however, that the three student clusters should be taught in separate areas of the literacy, mathematics, science, and writing/language arts curricula, and/or with separate materials.
These decisions, instead, need to be based on a number of factors related to homogeneous versus heterogeneous instruction.
Homogeneous Skill Groups consist of students who are functioning in a specific academic subject area at or around the same skill level in the district’s or curriculum’s scope and sequence map.
Homogeneous Skill Groups are most effective when students need to learn specific, discrete skills and content that are (a) dependent on a specific set of prerequisite skills (that are already mastered), and that (b) require explanations, differentiated instruction, materials, practice and feedback opportunities, and assessment and response approaches that are organized in a specific, tailored way.
Homogeneous Skill Groups also are most effective when a cluster of students need remediation because they have not learned and mastered specific, discrete skills that are prerequisite (as above) to the “next” set of skills in an academic scope and sequence. Critically, these Groups should be fluid—adapting to students’ needs, progress monitoring data, and speed of academic mastery.
As an example, let’s revisit the 10 End of First Grade to Beginning of Second Grade functioning Third Grade students in our earlier scenario. These students have, most likely, not learned and mastered the first, second, and third grade decoding skills in the district’s literacy scope and sequence. If true, a Homogeneous Skill Group (whether primary or supplemental) that focuses on teaching these skills just to these students in a small and intensive way may be the best long-term approach relative to closing their instructional skill gap, as well as to their eventual success.
_ _ _ _ _
Heterogeneous Comprehension and Application Groups are most effective when focused (as named) on students’ comprehension, application, higher-ordered thinking, and/or cooperative or project-based learning. Once again, these groups are formed and used to address goals and objectives in the district’s scope and sequence in a specific academic area, or the specific needs of a lower- (or higher-) functioning skill group.
In the hybrid schedule scenario above, the Third-Grade teachers might use Heterogeneous Groups of the third grade students in the Monday/Wednesday and Tuesday/Thursday cohorts, respectively, for their vocabulary and comprehension instruction in reading. While the students who are functioning above grade level can also receive enrichment opportunities in these areas, we know from research that the use of heterogeneous groups will typically generate higher quality discussions and thinking, and greater whole-group understanding and learning.
As with Homogeneous Skill Groups, the use of and student composition within different Heterogeneous Comprehension and Application Groups should be strategic and fluid. Progress monitoring and formative/summative evaluations should determine when desired levels of mastery have been attained, and teachers should not hesitate to modify group membership or to adapt instruction as needed.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Tracking and StoryBoarding Pragmatics
Hopefully, the discussion above has helped create an academic planning blueprint that districts and schools can use right now to prepare for January and the second semester. Clearly, an explicit part of this blueprint involves potentially putting students into Homogeneous Skills Groups.
And for those who react emotionally when discussions advocating homogeneous skill grouping or teaching students at their instructional (rather than age/grade) levels begin, we hope that our explanations and clarifications have resulted in a level of calm.
To be more specific: The use of homogeneous skills groups is not ability grouping, and we would never suggest the “old-school” tracking of students.
Indeed, to this point and embedded in the discussions above, we have emphasized the importance of:
- Grouping students so that teachers do not have so many differently-skilled (relative to prerequisite knowledge and skills) student groups that differentiated instruction is functionally impossible;
- Effectively monitoring students’ progress relative to formative and summative outcomes—to ensure that teachers’ instructional grouping approaches produce expected learning and mastery;
- Regrouping students in a timely way when they have made so much progress that the group they are in no longer makes pedagogical sense; and
- Grouping students on an academic subject-by-subject basis—recognizing that some students may be weak in one academic area, but strong(er) in different academic areas.
_ _ _ _ _
StoryBoarding Pragmatics
After completing the recommended end-of-Fall academic assessments to determine the current functional skill levels of all students, school leaders and grade-level teachers need make strategic decisions on how to cluster students into January’s classrooms and instructional groups. While completing this task, they need to determine which student skill clusters can be taught in the same class and by the same teacher, and how to organize the classrooms and their instructional groups in ways that balance (a) gender, race, and socioeconomic status; with (b) students’ social, emotional, and behavioral status; with (c) everyone’s health and safety at this point in the pandemic.
Academically, how students are (re)organized for the remainder of the school year will determine teachers’ ability to organize students into Homogeneous Skill Groups and Heterogeneous Comprehension and Application Groups, respectfully. But, functionally, students also should be selected to maximize the positive climate and relationships in each classroom, while simultaneously addressing student equity and representation—all on the road to optimal learning and mastery.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
Summary
Earlier this week, I provided a series of virtual Zoom consultations with a school district in Michigan. While working with different grade-level teams of general education teachers, I told many of them to stop worrying about teaching to prepare their students for the end-of-the-year state standards test.
Instead, as in this Blog series, I encouraged them to:
(a) stop focusing on where they thought their students “should be” in order to be “proficient” on the test; and (b) focus more on determining what literacy, mathematics, science, and writing/language arts skills their students have learned, mastered, and are able to apply—and how to teach from there.
Many of these teachers’ students are (predictably) at least 8 to 12 months behind in their core academic skills.
I asked the teachers if their students would pass—at proficiency or above—their state standards tests if they taught them with grade-level material for the remainder of the school year.
Virtually all of them said, “No—they don’t have the prerequisite knowledge and skills to learn and master the material at grade-level instruction.”
Then, I asked them if their students would pass—at proficiency or above—their state standards tests if they taught them at their functional skill levels for the remainder of the school year.
Virtually all of them said, “No—they won’t be exposed to the grade-level material that will be on the test.”
I then said to them—“If your students are not going to pass the state standards tests at proficiency or above regardless of the material that you present to them, as responsible and professional educators, at what instructional level do you want to present your academic material?”
Every one of them said, “We need to teach our students from their current levels of mastery, reinforce their prerequisite skills, and teach them the next set of skills in the scope and sequence— regardless of the grade level of that instruction and those materials.”
_ _ _ _ _
My friends, we need to follow the science-to-practice of effective instruction and pedagogy.
Most states are not going to administer their state standards tests this year. Thus, the educators in these states can focus on student learning, mastery, and application without fearing that this snapshot of academic performance will negatively impact their jobs or reputation.
For the states that are going to administer state standards tests this year, every educator is in the same proverbial boat relative to how the pandemic has affected students’ academic learning and growth. If they all do the “right” thing and teach students for mastery and not mandate, no one will “lose” and everyone—especially our students—will win.
Given this, as I asked my colleagues in Michigan above,
“Do we want to make the right professional and pedagogical decision, and educate our students for their future success? . . . or, do we want to spend our time—between January and June—teaching students material that they are not prepared for and will not learn, only to have to re-teach these materials (and more) again next year?”
_ _ _ _ _
The thesis of this two-part Blog Series was that (a) educators need to be less concerned about a pandemic slide that focuses on where students “should be” academically in their classes or courses; and (b) more concerned about determining what academic skills students have learned, mastered, and are able to apply, and how to teach from there.
In Part I of this Series, we discussed the so-called “Pandemic Slide” by emphasizing the need to quantify it for every individual student, to validate it, and to analyze it—if present—so that the most effective services, supports, strategies, and interventions can be linked to address it.
In this context, we described (a) how to determine students’ academic skill mastery; (b) how to complete and explain students’ academic information and skill gaps; and (c) why it is important to differentiate between—and intervene differently for—gaps involving progressively taught, sequential, “building block” skills, and contextually taught, integrated, curriculum-embedded skills.
In this Part II, we addressed (c) how to StoryBoard students’ academic status data, organizing different-achieving students into classrooms that allow teachers to successful differentiate their instruction so that students can more effectively learn and master the material presented; and (d) how to strategically use homogeneous and heterogeneous instructional groups—as well as other multi-tiered supports—to facilitate the learning and mastery process for these different students.
_ _ _ _ _
Now is the perfect time to evaluate the academic status and progress of all students in literacy, mathematics, science, and writing/language arts so that data-informed planning can occur for this coming January and the start of the new semester.
This is especially important during this pandemic as some schools will welcome their students on-site for the first time this year beginning in January, while other schools—that have taught their students in full-time on-site pods, or using half-time hybrid schedules—need information to continue their second semester journeys.
We need to adapt to the academic impact of the pandemic by focusing on quality instruction and student learning. It makes no sense to be burdened or dictated to by academic standards, expectations, and outcomes that are not viable right now. Instead, we need to use science, practice, and common sense to serve our students, and honor their futures.
As always, I appreciate your ongoing support in reading this Blog. I hope that you, your colleagues, your students, and your families have a safe, healthy, and meaningful Thanksgiving.
If you have comments or questions, please contact me at any time.
Best,
