Recently, Greg Anrig, an important voice in American public policy mentioned our AIW work in Iowa in his blog, Tearing Down Classroom Walls. I posted the response below and would love to hear from any teachers and administrators at AIW schools. Does this account jibe with your experience? Please don’t hesitate to post a comment here or on Anrig’s blog, or even on our Center FaceBook site. Let’s use social media to share more perspectives on how to transform American schools!
This blog is a great start for a larger conversation about how American education evolves in the 21st century. As you've pointed out, the work in Iowa included teachers working with one another to analyze the quality of their assignments and instruction against the standards for Authentic Intellectual Work (AIW) in teams with 4 to 6 members. While we did not require schools to create interdisciplinary teams, we did find that the departmental silos typical in high school settings dissolved more quickly and staff from all disciplines came to know, understand, and respect one another's work. This shift seems to help the learning climate.
For us, the key ingredient to impacting student learning comes through de-privatizing the classroom regardless of an AIW team's membership. Teachers involved in AIW reform come to see the responsbility for change lies with them and that they are up to the challenge of improving the quality of what they offer students. They collaborate about their pedagogy and revise lessons and assignments rather than point out student shortcomings. Subsequently, student engagement increases along with their performance in school.
When administrators engage in the reform work right along with their teachers there is another striking impact on climate.. The vertical hierarchy's intensity appears to soften. Trust is born when everyone repeatedly shares ineffective lessons and works on the revisions together. When students are successful, the team celebrates. The shared mission of transforming students' lives generates energy and fosters civic discourse, intellectual risk taking, and yes, higher standardized test scores. Ironically, for the schools truly involved in AIW, high test scores become footnotes to the far loftier goal of fostering young scholarship and civic responsibility for tomorrow's world.
