Creating the Opportunity to Learn

Creating the Opportunity to Learn: Moving from Research to Practice to Close the Achievement Gap by Wade Boykin and Pedro Noguera. ASCD, 2011

Reflections
The focus of Creating the Opportunity to Learn is to close the achievement gap of Blacks and Latinos. I am reminded of the quote “Good for all. Essential for some” by then-Education Officer Anthony Azzopardi back in 2005 when I was contracted to help rewrite the Ontario high school mathematics curriculum. The reality is teachers have students with varying abilities, interests, and readiness. There may be students who have immigrated to Canada from war countries and have not been in school for a few years. There may be students living in poverty. There may be students functioning at the beginnings of the English language. To close the achievement gap, which has remained virtually unchanged, we must meet the needs of our at-risks students. Research gives us hope: “Under the right conditions, poor and minority group children can achieve at high levels” (p. xi)”.

It all begins with relationships and having high expectations for all students. Students know if we genuinely care. We must be disturbed with the findings of the meta-analysis from 1968 to 2003 of Tenenbaum & Ruck (2007): “Teachers have more positive expectations for White students than they do for Black or Latino students. Teachers direct more positive speech (in the form of praise, affirmations, and positive feedback) toward White students” (in Boykin & Noguera, p. 79). With low expectations, these students get asked low-ordered questions, receive more criticism than praise, and less time to answer questions. Sizer (1984) reminds us that “schools should function as the equalizers of opportunity” (in Boykin & Noguera, p. 199) so we must confront out stereotypes.

In addition to high expectations for all students, we need to focus on teachers’ instructional and assessment practices. Much has been written about differentiating instruction and assessment for learning. The focus is on meeting students’ academic, social, and emotional needs – not just “cover curriculum”. At my previous school, I was a part of a pilot study on implementing Assessment for Learning (AfL) – writing and sharing learning goals, co-constructing success criteria with the class, providing descriptive feedback, and student self and peer assessment. My class in the video studyquickly saw how Alf made them actively engaged in their learning, resulting in: “The more self-efficacious a student is, the more likely he or she will pursue adaptive self-regulatory learning strategies and believe that effort matters. The more self-regulated a student is, the more confident he or she will be about the possibility of success and believe that efforts will make him or her ‘smarter’” (p. 67). Similar findings occurred in all subsequent classes, including grade 9 applied mathematics, with AfL being used to drive the instruction.

As Chenoweth (2007) reminds us: “...simply must do whatever it takes to meet the educational and social needs of the children they serve...there is no one single factor that is at the core of a successful school...there is no magic bullet” (in Boykin and Noguera p. 179). Further, “catching up is difficult, particularly when one considers that middle-class White students often have access to substantially superior resources, both within school and at home, that affect learning outcomes” (p. 15). Through the complexity, we cannot give up. We know from the research of Ken Leithwood that the teacher is key. Through quality teacher-student relationships, teachers are empathetic, supportive, fair, and genuinely care. With each small success, students gain confidence and self-efficacy. We need all students actively engaged in higher-order thinking, critical thinking, and problem solving – and they need to see what they are learning relevant and meaningful. We need teachers engaged in professional learning conversations about best practices and development. We need parents as partners. We may need the support of guidance counsellors, administration, and the school social worker. This is a team effort and a worthy one.