In Massachusetts students get a growth score related to their academic performance. Essentially the growth score compares students to other like students, and rates their growth. I have studied these scores carefully over the years and have found that these scores, overall, demonstrate some important correlations with regard to instruction, attention, practice, and teacher-student relationships.
Students who get the best growth scores generally demonstrate the following attributes:
Students who get the best growth scores generally demonstrate the following attributes:
- Regular practice
- Positive teacher-student relationships
- Pedagogy that matches the students' learning needs, strengths, and challenges
- Good use of at-home and in-school technology
- Multi-modal lessons that focus on visual models, problem solving, collaborative work, independent exercises/tests
- Regular progress monitoring with reliable tools
- Extra, targeted supports in math
- Explicit focus on growth mindset, asking questions, learning-to-learn behaviors, and growth over specific knowledge or scores--the attitude that we're all on the learning journey and our goal is to continually progress
- Positive family-school collaboration
- At-home tech access and use with positive practice venues
When I have seen less growth, I have noticed the following:
- less positive student-teacher relationship
- less regular practice
- less targeted, positive support
- impactful challenging life events also affect this growth
Why do these scores matter?
When students achieve, their confidence and knowledge, skill, and concept foundation grows. This is positive for later learning. Parents also relax when they receive score reports that demonstrate meeting or exceeding expectations.
I believe that all scores have to be evaluated with the whole child in mind. In no year do all children demonstrate optimal growth. There are always some who demonstrate less growth, and in these cases some children do meet or exceed expectations, but some do not. Life events affect these scores too--when children face troubling or upsetting life events, their growth is generally impacted. That's why it's optimal to provide children with steady, loving, and predictable routines as much as possible at school, at home, and in the community. Yet we can't plan for all of life's events, and that's to be expected.
As I think about growth, I am thinking about how I can work with my team to invite students to grow with a positive attitude and regular success. I will focus on the attributes at the top of the page to reach this result. Onward.