More of This....

If you have been in the district the past few years, you have seen and heard lots about “HSE²¹.” For those of you new to HSE, below is a graphic you can find on the district website that may help you understand the journey we are on together.

Notice right at the top of the document is the statement “Best Practices Model for Hamilton Southeastern.”  This term “best practices” gets thrown around in all sorts of ways. Some uses of this term are helpful, but others, not so much.

In this entry, I would like to clarify a common misconception that I have heard about HSE²¹ Best Practices Model and then leave us with a challenge for the coming year.

Misconception: HSE²¹ Best Practices are a checklist of activities and strategies.

If you’ve been around in education for as long as I have, you get to see some things come and go, and you get to see the staying power of certain concepts.  I first came across the “best practice” terminology way back in the early 90s, when Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde published the first edition of their groundbreaking Best Practice: Today’s Standard for Teaching and Learning in America’s Schools. 

The old and the new: My copy is the third edition and
was published in 2005.  I would argue it is still a valuable resource!

When I was teaching, the most helpful parts of the best practice books were the charts at the end of each chapter, where the authors made recommendations about what to increase and what to decrease. 

For Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde, best practice was not about using any one specific strategy or approach.  Rather, these educators encouraged teachers to learn to know their students well, to study current instructional research, and to build a robust “toolbox” of instructional strategies. 

The research is clear, they argued.  Some approaches have a higher probability of leading to increased student engagement and learning than others.  Armed with knowledge of multiple high probability strategies and with knowledge of the students, you can choose the most effective tools from the toolbox to use with your students.

More of this…  Less of this….

Best Practice, said Zemelmen, Daniels, and Hyde is all about increasing the use of high probability strategies and decreasing the use of lower probability strategies.  The science of teaching is knowing the high probability approaches; the art of teaching is knowing when and how to use them. 

The HSE²¹ graphic at the beginning of this entry illustrates current research-based best practice activities and strategies that we are working to increase over time in HSE classrooms.  You may not have noticed it before, but the footer on the graphic above acknowledges the contributions of Zemelman, Daniels, and Hyde to our efforts in Hamilton Southeastern.

Using their methodology, best practice in HSE looks like this:

Items on the right lend themselves to compliance.
Those on the left lead to engagement.
Which do you want for your students?

Notice that there are times when all of the items in the right-hand column are necessary and appropriate.  The problems arise if we don’t give opportunities for our students to experience the left-hand column as well.  The activities on the left engage students in high levels of learning.  They move beyond simple compliance to real student engagement.  In the terms of Understanding by Design, they lead to understanding, application, and transfer of knowledge and skills.

The Challenge: Walking the Walk

Look one more time at the graphic at the top of this entry and consider whether or not more of these types of activities and strategies would improve student learning.  Then, think of your own child or of a child you love.  Would you want that child in a classroom that skillfully implements the HSE²¹ Best-Practices Model?

And this is our challenge: We must find ways to take the words from the pages of our document and bring them to life in the classroom.  We can’t just talk the talk; we must also walk the walk.  Fortunately, we don’t have to do it all at once.  Best practice means we work over time to increase high probability/high engagement activities and strategies while decreasing their less productive counterparts. Our students deserve nothing less.

Have a great week, HSE.  Enjoy the journey we are on together.

Phil

HSE Teaching and Learning Team

• Jan Combs, Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning
• Stephanie Loane, Director of Elementary Education
• Tom Bell, Director of Special Education
• Jeff Harrison, Director of Educational Technology
• Phil Lederach, Director of Secondary Education