What Were They Thinking? Highly Effective Middle School Teachers Reveal Shared Knowledge About Purposeful Practice

• In Event: Teacher Effectiveness: What Teachers Think and Do and What Students Know

Abstract

In this golden age of intensified scrutiny and systemic accountability in the increasingly business minded microcosm of education, the term effective is often used as coveted label to signify much more than just functional, as the basic term implies. Instead, effective is used to qualify and represent a results-oriented successful model, which is exemplary, top quality, the cream of the crop, the very best example of a strategy, a system, a school site, and especially a teacher. In addition to multiple measures of teacher quality and performance including: classroom observations, administrative evaluations, teacher self-reflections, and student feedback, teacher effectiveness is primarily identified through the documentation of student achievement data, based on value added to students’ standardized test scores (Poplin & Rivera, 2005; Rockoff, 2004; Staiger & Rockoff, 2010).

Exploration of the multi-faceted concept of effective teaching requires reaching far beyond statistical achievement data into the realm of teacher knowledge and perspectives regarding individual practice and purpose. In combination with student testing results, these “nontraditional predictors of effectiveness” (Staiger & Rockoff, 2010; pp. 105) including awareness and self-efficacy, attitudes, dispositions, individual abilities and beliefs, specific training, subject matter knowledge, background experience, instructional practices and classroom management styles work symbiotically to weave a more complete illustration of the multidimensional tapestry of teacher effectiveness (Bracey, 2009; Giovannelli, 2003; Hill et al., 2005; Lemov, 2010; Pianta & Hamre, 2009; O’Donnell, 2009; Palardy & Rumberger, 2008; Wayne & Youngs, 2003).

The purpose of this investigation was to explore and to identify the knowledge and beliefs of 12 highly effective middle school teachers regarding their own instructional practices in relation to the achievement of their students. These teachers served diverse student populations in two different Title 1 middle schools, in Southern California. Teachers were identified as “highly effective” exclusively according to value-added student achievement data. This qualitative study focuses on a data subset of 12 in-depth teacher interviews, which is part of a larger dataset containing extensive observational and student survey data obtained with full Institutional Review Board approval through a broad classroom management study (McGregor, 2012). Marzano’s (2003) and Brown’s (2004) classroom management theoretical frameworks structured this inquiry. Verbatim interview transcript data was analyzed inductively. Using content analysis, dominant themes were generated identifying shared teacher knowledge and beliefs concerning classroom management techniques, and preferred instructional practices that these teachers believed most impacted achievement.

Significant findings support prevalent scholarly literature identifying: maintaining high expectations for all students, providing explicit explanations, directly instructing step-by-step sequences, continually streaming inquiry-based communication, and increased awareness of and attending to student needs as the instructional practices which these highly effective middle school teachers believed were directly linked to the increased achievement of their students. Results from this study are presented in a user-friendly categorical framework intended to be directly applicable to practicing teachers, school administrators and teacher education programs as they seek to identify, encourage and empower highly effective teachers.

Author

• Katheryne L. McGregor, San Jacinto Unified School District