TACTics Journal

A Publication for and by TOC for Education Practitioners

August 15, 2003

In this week’s issue:

Connections

(1) PAR2—A Student-Owned Reading Method: The Many Benefits of

Using the Ambitious Target, Belinda Small

Editor’s Notes

(2) Kay Buckner-Seal

NETWORKING

(1) The Many Benefits of Using Ambitious Target

By Belinda Small, B.S., M.Ed., Classroom Teacher, USA

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 Sunshine State

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) Kay Buckner-Seal

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 New York, but so

many other cities in Eastern USA. I send TACTics out from the state of

Michigan and the southeastern part of our state was actually the largest

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,

2253 S. Hill Island Rd., Cedarville, Michigan 49719, USA. Or send hyperlink

to cedwards@cedarville.net or bucknek@earthlink.net.