The Purposeful Classroom, Fisher & Frey

The pandemic teaching of mid-2020 was really not distance learning. It was also not homeschooling, which is a choice parents make for very specific reasons.  It was crisis teaching.  Now, we have time to be more purposeful and intentional with distance learning. What should not be lost is that as a field we learned more about what works by, at times, experiencing what didn’t work in a virtual setting. It heightened our sense of what we already knew in face-to-face classrooms (Hattie, 2020):

• Fostering student self-regulation is crucial for moving learning to deep and transfer levels
• Learning accelerates when the student, not the teacher, is in control of learning
• There needs to be a diversity of instructional approaches (not just some direct instruction and then some off-line independent work)
• Well-designed peer learning impacts understanding
• Feedback in a high trust environment must be integrated into the learning cycle 

Let’s use what we have learned and are continuing to learn, whether in a face-to-face or distance learning environment. As a part of face-to-face teaching, let’s build our students’ capacity (and our own) for distance learning. Now we have time to use evidence about what works best to impact students.  Inspired by The Distance Learning Playbook, this On-Your-Feet Guide for Instructional Leaders will apply the wisdom of Visible Learning research to distance learning for principals, superintendents, and district leaders in a quick, easy-to-navigate guide. 

On-Your-Feet Guides (OYFGs) provide you with the ultimate “cheat sheet” to implement effective change in your classroom while in the moment of teaching. Designed for accessibility, and providing step-by-step guidance, the OYFGs are written by experts who take research-based practices and make them doable for the busy teacher.

Each On-Your-Feet Guide is laminated, 8.5”x11” tri-fold (6 pages), and 3-hole punched.

Use the On-Your-Feet Guides

• When you know the “what” but need help with the “how”
• As a quick reference to support a practice you learned in a PD workshop or book
• To learn how to implement foundational practices
• When you want to help your students learn a specific strategy, routine, or approach, but aren’t sure how to do it yourself

• Examples of impactful tutoring conversations, including what to say and what not to say when building a relationship with a learner.
• Specific approaches to use when establishing credibility, addressing challenges to learning, leveraging the relevance of knowledge, setting goals, and ensuring practice.
• Learning strategies, with effect size, for teaching and learning content, including specific strategies for improving reading, writing, and mathematics.
• Tips and tools for helping students develop powerful cognitive, metacognitive, and affective study skills.
• Resources and advice for establishing an effective and transformational tutoring program.

Done well, tutoring can repair a student's damaged relationship to learning, address unrealized potential, and alter the course of a young person's life. A strong and nurturing relationship between tutor and learner is key.

Enter Doug Fisher, Nancy Frey, Dominique Smith, and John Hattie, whose Distance Learning Playbooks have supported more than a half million educators across pandemic teaching and who are here now to advise you on this next, absolutely critical leg of our ongoing journey.

Complete with tools and strategies, prompts and exercises, Rebound: A Playbook for Rebuilding Agency, Accelerating Learning Recovery, and Rethinking Schools will help you

• Address the collective traumas we have experienced during the pandemic and rebuild our sense of agency and self, so that we can attribute student success to both teachers' and students' efforts
• Evaluate what we have learned about remote teaching and learning to determine what to carry forward and what to leave behind
• Shift the narrative from learning loss to learning leaps and implement instructional and assessment practices that ensure our students reclaim lost knowledge, build skills, develop agency, and accelerate gains
• Redefine classrooms, learning experiences, the ways schools operate, and the very idea of schooling itself

The greatest travesty that can arise for schools after 2020/21, Doug, Nancy, Dominique, and John write, is to rush back to the old normal, and learn nothing, or little, about what worked well. That's why this book has focused on rebounding, and taking the opportunity to create an even better schooling system, one that serves even more students, and focuses more on what matters most.

Let′s agree not to reduce the impact that our expectations have on students′ learning. What if we talk about learning leaps instead of learning loss? What if we identify where students are in their learning and identify critical content that they must learn now to accelerate their performance n the future? And what if we raise our expectations for students rather than lower them?

-Douglas Fisher, Nancy Frey, Dominique Smith, and John Hattie

• Fostering student self-regulation is crucial for moving learning to deep and transfer levels

• Learning accelerates when the student, not the teacher, is in control of learning
• There needs to be a diversity of instructional approaches (not just some direct instruction and then some off-line independent work)
• Well-designed peer learning impacts understanding
• Feedback in a high trust environment must be integrated into the learning cycle 

Let’s use what we have learned and are continuing to learn, whether in a face-to-face or distance learning environment. As a part of face-to-face teaching, let’s build our students’ capacity (and our own) for distance learning. Now we have time to use evidence about what works best to impact students.  Inspired by The Distance Learning Playbook, this On-Your-Feet Guide dedicated to primary grade students (pre-kindergarten through grade 2) will apply the wisdom of Visible Learning research to distance learning in a quick, easy-to-navigate guide. 

• Fostering student self-regulation is crucial for moving learning to deep and transfer levels
• Learning accelerates when the student, not the teacher, is in control of learning
• There needs to be a diversity of instructional approaches (not just some direct instruction and then some off-line independent work)
• Well-designed peer learning impacts understanding

• Feedback in a high trust environment must be integrated into the learning cycle 

Let’s use what we have learned and are continuing to learn, whether in a face-to-face or distance learning environment. As a part of face-to-face teaching, let’s build our students’ capacity (and our own) for distance learning. Now we have time to use evidence about what works best to impact students.  Inspired by The Distance Learning Playbook, this On-Your-Feet Guide will apply the wisdom of Visible Learning research to distance learning in a quick, easy-to-navigate guide. 

On-Your-Feet Guides (OYFGs) provide you with the ultimate “cheat sheet” to implement effective change in your classroom while in the moment of teaching. Designed for accessibility, and providing step-by-step guidance, the OYFGs are written by experts who take research-based practices and make them doable for the busy teacher.

Each On-Your-Feet Guide is laminated, 8.5”x11” tri-fold (6 pages), and 3-hole punched.

Use the On-Your-Feet Guides

• When you know the “what” but need help with the “how”
• As a quick reference to support a practice you learned in a PD workshop or book
• To learn how to implement foundational practices
• When you want to help your students learn a specific strategy, routine, or approach, but aren’t sure how to do it yourself

This guide provides a quick reference for encouraging students to develop strong and efficient study skills when preparing for assignments and assessments. This guide includes detailed explanations of cognitive study skill tools, including note-taking and mnemonics, as well as other types of study skills, such as metacognitive study skills, practice assessments, and affective study skills.

This On-Your-Feet Guide includes:

• Links to blank study skills templates.
• Explanations of various cognitive study skill tools, including note-taking, annotation, pre-reading tools, and mnemonics.
• A template for analyzing practice assessments.
• Tips for encouraging metacognitive study skills and affective study skills.

• When you know the "what" but need help with the "how"
• As a quick reference to support a practice you learned in a PD workshop or book
• To learn how to implement foundational practices
• When you want to help your students learn a specific strategy, routine, or approach, but aren't sure how to do it yourself

How to Reach the Hard to Teach presents a thoughtful and practical approach to achieving breakthrough success with linguistically and culturally diverse students who struggle in school. Combining elements of the SIOP(R) Model and the FIT Teaching(R) approach, authors Jana Echevarr a, Nancy Frey, and Douglas Fisher take stock of what we know about excellent instruction and distill it into five guiding principles:

1. Set high expectations.
2. Provide access to the core curriculum.
3. Use assessment to inform instruction.
4. Attend to language development--both English and academic.
5. Create a supportive classroom climate.

You'll learn specific practices associated with each principle and see how real-life teachers are employing these practices in their classrooms so that all students have the opportunity to learn and receive optimal support for that learning.

Every teacher has had the experience of seeing a "hard to teach" student in a new light and realizing all he or she might achieve. This book is about shining that light of possibility on the students who challenge us most, interrogating our beliefs, and taking action to ensure they receive the best instruction we have to offer.