How to increase student growth and raise teacher expectations

Increasing student growth and raising teacher expectations are two of the biggest challenges facing educators today. Here are three areas you can address with workable strategies in your classroom, school, or district. Encourage teachers to expect more, and prompt students to grow to meet expectations.

Calibrate and standardize student work

Standardizing and calibrating student work in both elementary and secondary is a necessary part of changing teacher expectations—and it has an effect size of 1.62! Determine the optimal amount of homework, and identify its role in calibrated and standardized work. Another strategy to consider is to use roving subs.

Evaluate student work with the grade-level or course-level team

Standardizing the evaluation of student work is key. What are the necessary criteria to determine that the student work meets the required level of performance? What happens when the student does not meet the criteria? How do we adjust the supports so that the student does meet that level of performance? If we are to raise teacher expectations, we need to start by answering these questions and getting buy-in from our teams.

Collegial functioning and intervention

One of the biggest issues in collegial efficacy, which has a substantial effect size of 1.57, is that teachers do not know how to function collegially. Teaching is basically a “loner” type of activity, but there are six or seven roles that must be performed in a team in order to accomplish the team’s tasks. Leaders need interventions that move poorly functioning teams forward.

Ruby Payne2020-06-26T14:54:00-05:00August 16th, 2017|K-12 Schools|

About the Author: Ruby Payne

In her two decades as a consultant on education and economic class, Ruby has published more than a dozen books and spoken extensively around the globe. Ruby empowers educators and community leaders to address issues of poverty in classrooms, communities, businesses, hospitals, churches, and social services. Through aha! Process programs and conferences, Ruby has certified thousands of trainees in her Framework for Understanding Poverty and Bridges Out of Poverty models. Her book Emotional Poverty won an IPPY Award from the Independent Publishers organization, which named it one of the best educational resources of the year. Over her distinguished career, Ruby has worked as a teacher and principal, written K–12 curriculum in all subject areas, and assisted in strategic planning and staff development programs for multiple organizations. Ruby’s work guides educators and community leaders through her extensive library of resources. She aims to equip everyone she meets with the tools to write a future story full of hope.