Correlation or Causality?

I've completed my first semester at the Early College. This was my first semester teaching high school Math on a block schedule, and the first time I've taught classes in one semester rather than two.

After 14 years teaching in Indiana with 7 period days, year long classes, and final exams written and graded by me, I have now experienced teaching Algebra II with 80 minute class periods for 90 days, and a final exam written and graded by the State Department of Public Instruction.

Thankfully for my students, the semester went pretty well. All but one of my students successfully passed the End of Course test supplied by the state. But to be honest, the experience for me was harrowing in the month leading up to the exam.

The Early College programs in the State of North Carolina are breaking ground in an effort to do high school education in a different way. Nearly two-thirds of the early college programs in the country are located in this state, which makes being a new teacher in one of these programs both exhilarating and nerve wracking at the same time.

The early colleges in our state focus on a common instructional framework which all teachers in these schools strive to implement in their teaching. This framework is a collection of pedagogical approaches that have been shown, through research, to improve efficacy in both learning and motivation. To help teachers along with implementing these approaches, new early colleges are given instructional coaches who provide professional development and observation to help teachers learn how best to begin reshaping their classrooms.

This has been a difficult process for me, perhaps because I am not a new teacher. Throughout the past semester, my visits with our coach have frequently left me feeling thoroughly inadequate and unskilled as a teacher. The pressure I have felt each time the coach came to visit was nearly palpable, and affected me negatively all during the week of the visit.

So that I am not misunderstood, I should say that I believe strongly in the common instructional framework, and all the pedagogical approaches that are promoted by it. Cooperative group work, dynamic questioning, formative assessment, classroom talk...all of these techniques can be incredibly useful, even powerful, in the classroom - at the right moment.

My problem is that for the most part, I am the kind of teacher that I had when I was in school. I lead my class. I am typically in front. I lead the discussions. I drive the curriculum.

Which is not to say that my students are casual observers. I thrive on interaction with the kids in my class. I prefer to call my approach a dialogue, rather than a lecture. I like to ask provocative questions and try to engage my students in conversation that hopefully leads to revelation. It doesn't always happen so neatly and cleanly. But it almost always happens to some degree.

My kids do work in groups sometimes. But usually only when I want to give them a challenging task that requires more than one head. I do provide scaffolding to my students during instruction. But usually in a less explicit way than the "technique" might suggest. I think I even use a type of formative assessment in my classroom. But it's a formative assessment that comes from really LOOKING at my students, pausing when I've asked questions, prodding for thoughts, comments, or concerns that let me know that maybe we're not quite there just yet.

So as my second semester begins, and I look back on what took place during my first experience in the Early College, I become contemplative.

I believe in this program. I'm convinced it's an amazing opportunity for our students, I'm certain that the focus on research proven techniques is a necessary one. I even have a desire to incorporate more of what the common instructional framework asks for from me. But I have to wonder at the same time...

Is improved student success and performance in the early college programs due to the focus on pedagogy, or is it because of the quality of the staff members who lead those classrooms?

I am always quick to speak with my math students about the difference between correlation and causality. When analysis of a data set shows a correlation, we are always tempted to believe that we have found THE link between the quantities involved. But a positive correlation simply means that we can quantify a mathematical link between an increase in methodology and an increase in student performance. It doesn't necessarily mean that the increase in methodology is the CAUSE of the increase...right?

There are two very important people in any classroom.

The student and the teacher.

I have always believed that the relationship between these two people is the absolute most important variable in a student's success or failure. Even more so if that student is somehow an at-risk student.

Do my students have success because I teach better than other teachers? Or do my students have success because they know I care, they know I'm interested in them, they know I want the best and would do anything for them, and they know that I am an adult in their life who they can trust?

I'm inclined to believe that the latter is much more of a causality than the former.

In my 15 years of teaching, the most ineffective teachers I have known all had one characteristic in common. They all wanted very little to do with the students in their classrooms. They certainly didn't want to chat with them, they didn't feel a sense of commonality with them, and they had little desire to even want to KNOW them.

At the same time, I have had kids in my own classroom who came to me with long reputations. Negative reputations. Even kids that I had been warned about by other teachers. And I have seen those students succeed and prosper in my room. They didn't become honor roll students, but they showed that in the right environment, even they could be convinced to reach for something more than what they already had.

Pedagogical techniques and best practices are truly important for all of us who teach. Hopefully all of us still have the desire to become even better and more effective teachers each and every year, and trying new classroom approaches, especially ones proven to be effective, holds the potential for making that possible for us.

But let's not forget the most important thing we must bring to every classroom, to every student.

Caring. Interest. Trust. Safety. Humanity. Perspective.

These are the things that turn our students heads.