TACTics Journal
A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners
In this week’s issue:
Connections
(1) PAR2—A Student-Owned
Using the Ambitious Target, Belinda Small
Editor’s Notes
(2)
NETWORKING
(1) The Many Benefits of Using Ambitious
Target
By Belinda Small, B.S., M.Ed., Classroom Teacher,
During the past two week’s of TACTics,
we have shared how Belinda and her
class applied the Ambitious Target
tool to create a reading method that
helped her students overcome
obstacles to taking a statewide reading test.
This week we are publishing the last part of this publication. To
view this
article, “PAR2—A Student-Owned
Reading Method,” in its entirety, you may
visit our website at www.tocforeducation.com.
The ambitious target is a unique tool for finding a reading
strategy that is
owned by students. It is different
than other techniques because the
STUDENTS do most of the work. More specifically:
1. Students think of the
solutions.
2. Students create the language.
3. Students use their own logic.
4. Students form the connections
between the
Standards (set by the Florida Department of Education).
5. Students understand the
connections between the standards and the
FCAT test questions.
The biggest difference? Students
relied on the method!
There were many other results from the students’ and the teacher’s
perspective.
Students’ Perspective
1. Increased performance scores on practice
2. Improved concentration and focus
3. Increased urgency to prove themselves
4. Found meaning in question and answer relationships
5. Increased confidence and security
6. Reduced feeling of intimidation
7. Gained ability to locate critical word differences
8. Improved skills of locating information and details
9. Improved ability to make useful notations
10. Understood what to do first, second and so forth
Teacher’s Perspective
1. Improved confidence in meeting students’ needs
2. Improved ability to engage students
3. Intensified the focus of the lesson
4. Gave more specific instructions and expectations
5. Created an opportunity to synthesize and review
6. Recognized the escalation in students’ pride
Limitations of this Experience
Timing
I took on the project of using the ambitious target tool two weeks
before
the standardized test was
administered. Thus, classroom practice time was
limited. While the tool was
extremely positive in pulling all reading skills
together for students, I can only
wonder the power and strength of the tool
if I BEGAN the year using this
system. My hunch would be that after
practicing the tool for the academic
year, active reading would become
second nature. I also believe the
rate of understanding would increase with
fewer notes.
Students personally told me that they did not feel rushed reading
more
critically. They gained confidence
because they felt time-wise and test-wise.
In fact, they found that reading the passage more critically sped
up their
answer selection. In addition,
students commented that finding details
became faster and easier. This
pleased me because “finding details” is
usually a weak skill for most of my
seventh graders. So, I felt good about
their ability to think and spend
their time wisely.
Mild Resistance to Practice from Select Few
For the very gifted students, another limitation was that they
ALREADY
mentally do the intermediate
objectives and found independent practice
tedious and “unnecessary.” Despite
their complaint about practice, I still
made them show evidence of
marginal notes and summaries. It was
interesting to note that in spite of
mild resistance to practice, many of the
gifted and talented students did
write on the standardized test. These
students made a point to tell me that
they found the method helpful and
that the method helped them
derive answers faster.
Prior Knowledge
Because my class had studied such academic vocabularies like
theme, tone,
conflict, etc, the creation of PAR2
went very quickly. It served as an
excellent year review. Other classes
who try this earlier in the year may not
use as much academic vocabulary.
Teacher Stamina
I found one teacher limitation. I taught five periods a day, same
subject
and grade level. One hundred and fifty students. The ambitious target tool
creates such an energized audience;
every student wants to participate.
This is a good thing. Ironically, because I was attempting to
build the action
plan with each class on the
overhead, I got very tired! Sometimes I would
catch myself showing what a
previous class had written and asked students
to simply take notes. Just
shoot me, okay? I will not do this next year. I
believe it is fun and powerful for
each class to create their own wording,
even though all class periods
will essentially find the same pattern.
Future Suggestions
My suggestion for the future would be to work intensively with two
periods a
week until each class had their
own copy of the method. This way, students
can keep the desirable high
energy levels, and the teacher can sustain
desirable high quality teaching. Then,
I suggest practicing throughout the
year on multiple genres,
including cross-curricular textbooks and novels. My
future plans include beginning the
academic year with this experience and
practicing it throughout the school
year.
Statistical Findings
Did I reach my Ambitious Target to dramatically improve test
scores? With
most students, yes. Compared to
the previous year’s percentage of students
with positive gains, most
definitely. The percentage of students showing
positive gains grew from 61% in
2001-02 school year to 89% in the 2002-03
year.
Conclusion
Can I realistically say that the difference in gains were all
because of the
PAR2 method that resulted from using the Ambitious Target tool? No, I
can not. This year, I also used
the TOC-based ABC method of instruction
and other traditional resources
to enhance learning. Of course there are
always many variables to consider.
But, do I feel more confident that students were more test-ready?
Yes.
Were they less anxious and more focused? Yes. I know this from
personal
observation and discussion after the
FCAT. Will I use this tool again next
year? Yes! And I will introduce
the strategy much, much earlier!
Special Thanks
Special thanks to TOCFE for the priceless opportunity to work with
students on thinking skills. I would
also like to thank Dr. Eli Goldratt,
founder of TOC for sharing his
valuable knowledge with educators who can
“pass it on.” Thanks to Kathy Suerken for
bringing me full circle with TOC.
I would also like to thank Dr. Sirias
for his dedication. Dr. Sirias’ work in his
statistical classroom and article
titled, Using Graphic Organizers to Improve
the Delivery of Business
Statistics,” inspired me
to try similar techniques
for this project. Thank you for
exercising my mind and the minds of today’s
youths.
EDITOR’S NOTES
(2)
Belinda Small, thank you so very much for sharing PAR2 with us. So
many
educators face the challenge of
preparing students for “high-stakes”
assessments and your application of the
Ambitious Target tool provides a
model that affects the context of
the learning situation. PAR2 involves
meeting the students “where they
are” and helping them move to higher
levels of knowledge and
performance. Thanks to your pedagogical skill and
application of the TOC tools, students
were allowed to negotiate shared
understandings to create a process that not
only helped them to be more
successful on the state-wide
assessment, but it also gave them a process
that will help them to continue
to “learn how to learn.”
And to our TOCFE family, TACTics is a day late this week do to the “Great
Blackout of 2003,” which not only affected the
city of
many other cities in
area that was affected. In the
scheme of things, I’m sure this delay may
not have been an inconvenience.
Feel free to share with us. Send your responses, applications of
the thinking
processes, lessons, announcements, and
etc. by mail to: Cheryl A. Edwards,
to