Descriptive Review

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Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1366] Re: ProfessionalDevelopment Digest, Vol 22, Issue 10
From: Yankwitt Ira (79K755) IYankwitt at schools.nyc.gov
Date: Tue Jul 10 14:57:18 EDT 2007

Hi Cris,

I am one of those practitioners who would be very grateful if you developed that guidebook! I recently took on a new position overseeing professional development in a program that has over 400 teachers, working in 150 different sites throughout New York City. While some of our teachers work in large learning centers, where up to two dozen classes take place at any given time, others work in church basements or CBOs, where they may be the sole instructor. What every one of the teachers I've spoken to has said is that they want more opportunities to share questions and ideas with their colleagues. I think that having a tool and a structure to guide that process would be invaluable.

I'm wondering if you, or anyone else on the list, has seen the K12 literature on Descriptive Review? I am only familiar with it from discussion with friends who work in elementary education, but I'm curious if it may be an approach that could guide the kind of embedded, practitioner-led PD that you've described. Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
Ira

Ira Yankwitt
Director of Program Initiatives
Office of Adult and Continuing Education
NYC Department of Education

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1367] Re: job-embedded professional development
From: Cristine Smith cristinesmith at comcast.net
Date: Tue Jul 10 15:22:27 EDT 2007

Ira: I haven't heard about Descriptive Review; could you tell us something about it? (Meanwhile, I'll go Google it!) Thanks. Best...Cris

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1375] Re: descriptive review
From: Silja Kallenbach skallenbach at worlded.org
Date: Wed Jul 11 09:10:17 EDT 2007

In the Adult Multiple Intelligences study we used the descriptive review process with the 10 teacher researcher partners. It's a protocol by which a group of practitioners focuses on one teacher's work at a time using multiple rounds of comments. There are variations on the protocol but here's how we implemented it: The teacher presents her question or a dilemma, usually with sample student work or sample of her teacher research data as well as some context for her class and program. In the first round, the other participants can ask clarifying questions only. A clarifying question involves factual information only, no opinions or judgements. In the next round, the participants offer suggestions and recommendations using phases like, "I wonder what would happen if. . ." rather than, for example, "You should . . ." Each person can make only one suggestion at a time or they can pass. It usually takes at least two rounds for all the comments to come out. The presenting teacher does not respond to them until the end. This ensures that the feedback does not become a dialogue between two people. The facilitator ensures that the feedback does not make the presenting teacher vulnerable and also summarizes the comments at the end of each round. The process worked well because it was so focused and engaged everyone in considering one person's work at a time. Some of the comments and suggestions gave us ideas for other types of sharing and PD activities that we did later with the same teachers.
Silja

Silja Kallenbach, Director
New England Literacy Resource Center
World Education
44 Farnsworth Street
Boston, MA 02210
tel. 617-482-9485
fax. 617-482-0617
skallenbach at worlded.org
www.nelrc.org

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1376] Re: descriptive review
From: jhalaesl at aol.com jhalaesl at aol.com
Date: Wed Jul 11 09:31:28 EDT 2007

this reminds again of The Teaching Gap research.
The Japanese model highlighted in the book emphasized the lesson/technique/approach NOT the instructor. The line of questioning in the teaching team (required in public school settings) is How can we change the activity to better help these students learn? (not what did I do wrong?)

A tweaking process similar to what you describe occurs on-going. This back-to-the-drawing-board method allows varied learning strategies within a group of students. I recommend some time reading the study.
Joanne

Joanne Hala
Literacy Services
Jointure for Community Adult Education, Inc.
Raritan, NJ

Subject: [ProfessionalDevelopment 1378] Re: descriptive review
From: Marilyn Gillespie marilyn.gillespie at sri.com
Date: Wed Jul 11 10:45:19 EDT 2007

Hi all,

Another model to look at is the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. They got a large endowment to work to improve Chicago Schools and formed a collaboration of researchers to help with this, called the Consortium on Chicago School Research. They worked to increase the ability of schools to better themselves by investing in the "on the ground" improvement efforts of networks - schools connected with an external partner organization. They offered K-12 schools a lot of support through professional development and technical assistance. One of these projects was called the Critical Friends initiative whereby networks of teachers helped each other. You can learn about this by going to www.annenberginstitute.org

The Consortium on Chicago School Research --ccsr.uchicago.edu -- pioneered work on how to involve teachers in analyzing teacher's assignments and concurrent student work. They developed some great rubrics that focused on whether teachers were developing activities that required students to draw on prior experience and construct knowledge. The Gates Foundation also used this model to develop ways to analyze teacher assignments and student work in their small schools project. We are building on this for the National Writing Project evaluation SRI is doing. I think this model could be adapted to adult education and would really help teachers to expand their thinking on participatory learning.You can read about some of this in the document below which is on the Consortium website.

1. Documentation of the 1996-2002 Chicago Annenberg Research Project on Authentic Intellectual Demand Exhibited in Assignments and Student Work:

A Technical Manual
<http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/content/publications.php?pub_id=27>*

On another topic, I think the idea of a master teacher (critical friend) who works on-site at more than one site and is networked to other master teachers to allow for the cross fertilization of ideas for teaching would be a wonderful model for adult education. I wonder if we could find some foundation funding to pilot this and develop the kind of training manual Chris is suggesting.

Marilyn

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