One teacher who teaches "high content"
and one who does not

If teachers want students to reach high standards, they must teach challenging content to every student. Here are profiles of two teachers in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The first teacher meets the "high content" standard. The second teacher, although she cares deeply for her kids, does not.

We begin with a brief look at the work of one high-content teacher. She is an African American woman in her forties who has served as a teacher and administrator during her 20-year career. We call her Marguerite; her real name and school are not important. What is important is her teaching.

Marguerite's Way: A Full Measure of Teaching

If you choose to shadow Marguerite Williams for a day, wear comfortable shoes with plenty of traction. She's on the move.

In her dual role as teacher and administrator, you may find Marguerite overseeing a building repair, evaluating a teacher, teaching sixth grade math, or wrangling a fleet of yellow buses at the end of the school day.

Despite her split duties, Marguerite still finds the energy to apply her considerable knowledge and skill to the work of a high-content middle school teacher. The math classroom where she spends half the day sizzles with her excitement and enthusiasm. Learning is fun, exciting, and challenging for all students.

Marguerite Williams uses the physical layout of her classroom to envelop her students in mathematics. Today's lesson is on measurement, and the measurement theme is reinforced on bulletin boards and wall decorations. There are no desks in neat rows; instead, tables with sturdy chairs are placed around the room, allowing more opportunity for students to learn together.
Materials and storage bins are organized so students can easily keep track of their class assignments. A variety of tools that can help students learn about math concepts are readily available.

The focus is on student achievement: Marguerite has stretched a rope across the blackboard where individual student math progress charts are visible and accessible. The room feels like learning.
It's easy (if not always effective) to teach measurement with a little lecture and a lot of worksheet practice. But this is not Marguerite's way.

She begins by reviewing her students' progress in their mathematical understanding -- where they began and where they are headed. She shifts to a discussion of their previous lessons on measurement and then quickly instigates a group learning activity that combines advanced knowledge of measurement with an exploration of how humans historically have used measurement in their lives.

Students will use their flattened hands to measure the length of a rectangular table and the height of one the classroom doors. In less than 15 minutes, small groups of excited students decide how they will divide up their tasks; monitor their learning and behavior; and collect, record, and evaluate the information.

Soon Marguerite is leading a class discussion on the results. "Why did our groups come up with such a wide range of answers?"

The students return to their groups to speculate about possible reasons for the differences. After five minutes of discussion, students offer some well-reasoned theories -- ranging from incorrect positioning of hands to statistical miscalculations.

Marguerite praises the students for their creative approach to problem-solving and keeps imploring them to think more deeply. "You guys are really doing a super job thinking. I am impressed."

Using their own experience, she asks the students to draw conclusions about measurements in early times that were done with arms or hands. After a few minutes, Marguerite neatly slips into a conversation about how differing measurement systems could lead to a variety of injustices.

One student hypothesizes that people were often cheated in the past when they purchased items that required measurement by inexact methods. The class ends with a discussion about the development of modern methods of measurement, including the metric system.

This simple but rich lesson illustrates how well students can work together under the leadership of a teacher who not only knows mathematical concepts but knows how to make those concepts relevant to a diverse group of 11- and 12-year olds.

The lesson reveals the power of cooperative groups in completing tasks and finding solutions to problems. It's also a good example of "active learning." Marguerite asked students to solve problems that grew out of their own work. The activity required them to use high-level thinking and reasoning skills and to learn from each other.

Perhaps most remarkably, using a sophisticated teaching model, Marguerite succeeded in engrossing these students during the "arsenic hour" -- the last period of the school day. #

. . . and teachers who don't.

Some teachers may want to change without knowing how. Others may not realize they need to change.

One teacher we met, Lydia Lapin, spoke glowingly of a week-long training session where she worked with other teachers to learn new ways to teach mathematical concepts. She is clearly committed to change and dedicated to her students and her school. But there are problems in her class.

Lydia's Way: Love and Low Expectations

Lydia is ranked by her principal as one the school's best math teachers. Lydia's colleagues believe she is a good teacher, but in her school, like in most other schools in Chattanooga and across the nation, teachers make this claim more on blind faith than on actual evidence.

In fact, despite Chattanooga's efforts to improve teaching, very few teachers in the district have an opportunity to see others teach -- one of the best ways to refine and improve good teaching.

Lydia's undergraduate degree in elementary education has done little to deepen her knowledge of mathematics. She has a master's degree, but it is in educational administration, not in her content area. That's the general pattern for teachers in Tennessee and other states.

Most teachers seek an advanced degree so they will earn more money and perhaps prepare themselves for an administrative position in the future. There are few incentives in the system to encourage teachers to pursue a graduate degree in a content area and deepen their knowledge of what they teach.

We watched Lydia teach for two days. She is experienced, at ease in the classroom, and she understands and cares about her students. But her limited content knowledge and her "in the box" teaching style restricts her ability to challenge her students.

Walking into Lydia's class is not a bad experience. Her students are hard at work, though they work passively at their seats. They are attentive when called upon -- perhaps because Lydia continually expresses her respect and concern and even love for them.

But how much math are they learning?

The lesson is well structured. The objective of the day -- written clearly on the board -- reads "write quotient as a mixed number in its simplest form."

This task seems appropriate and straightforward enough. Students need to learn a great deal about fractions in order to master algebra -- the goal for all Chattanooga students by the time they finish the middle school. But for all her care and concern for these children, Lydia's expectations and her instruction are at a low level.

The students are expected to spend the entire 45-minute period using a calculator to transcribe simple division problems into mixed fractions.

23 / 5 = 4.6 = 4 & 6/10 = 4 & 3/5

Few questions are asked, and Lydia doesn't expect students to explore questions about the mathematical processes involved or discuss how one form might be more useful than another in a given situation.

The calculator is seldom used to solve problems; for the most part, students use it instead of a pencil to quickly conduct routine mathematical procedures without much thought.

During the period, students solve 41 similar problems. While drill and practice has its place, this day's lesson is devoid of any application to real life situations of the type offered by Marguerite.
Is the lesson typical? Yes, Lydia says. "We generally teach this way in our school. We will spend about two minutes introducing a concept and then practicing it." Other visits to other classrooms confirm her statement.

It appears from standardized test results that the strategy is not working very well.

Only 7 percent of the 6th graders, 2 percent of the 7th graders, and 5 percent of the 8th graders at Lydia's school scored "above average" in mathematics on the nationally standardized test used by the state of Tennessee. #

One teacher who teaches "high content" and one who does not

Marguerite's Way: A Full Measure of Teaching

. . . and teachers who don't.

Lydia's Way: Love and Low Expectations

One teacher who teaches "high content"
and one who does not