To support teams struggling with how to build and find time for extensions, chapters 3 through 6 feature an extension planning template, with several completed examples featuring various content areas and grade bands. Educators will notice that the extension examples provided can draw all students in and raise the engagement of everyone in a given class. However, while the examples provided will not be particularly effective for filling in holes in nonproficient students’ learning, students who are proficient in the skills required to succeed on the standard in question will be able to take these lessons and run with them.
Each chapter concludes with a summary of key points and a list of questions for collaborative team reflection. Teams can use these questions to jump-start collaborative conversations about, and ultimately the planning of, extensions. These questions will help interdependent collaborative teams, as well as groups of teachers striving to become a team, plan their extensions and determine which type will best support their question 4 students.
This book is intended to be a resource to support communities and collaborative teams in truly answering the fourth critical question of a PLC. Educators ask and discuss this question the least out of the four critical questions. But question 4 students are at risk if their learning needs are not addressed, and we, as educators, cannot afford to lose some of our brightest and most prepared students simply because we ran out of time or because we lacked to the tools to effectively provide extensions.
chapter one
Addressing the Forgotten Question
She discovered I was literate and looked at me with more than faint distaste. Miss Caroline told me to tell my father not to teach me any more, it would interfere with my reading….
I knew I had annoyed Miss Caroline, so I let well enough alone and stared out the window until recess when Jem cut me from the covey of first-graders in the schoolyard, he asked how I was getting along. I told him.
“If I didn’t have to stay I’d leave. Jem, that damn lady says Atticus’s been teaching me to read and for him to stop it—”
— HARPER LEE, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
In Harper Lee’s (1960) classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird, learning is intuitive and easy for the protagonist, Scout. She has a passion for reading, noting at one point in the story that she could not remember when letters first formed into words for her. Later, she says she does not love reading, comparing it to loving the act of breathing. She is saying reading is necessary to her existence. In Scout’s mind, the written word is very much a part of her being.
And yet, for the young teacher Miss Caroline, Scout’s advanced reading ability is a nuisance. Upon observing Scout’s advanced reading abilities, Miss Caroline, out of a loss for how to teach a student who already possessed the required learning, discourages the student from continuing to advance in this area of great interest. The first interactions the well-meaning Miss Caroline had with her proficient student left a dark impression on Scout. In Scout’s own words, she wanted to leave the class, and her choice of words in describing her teacher reflect the negative impact from this classroom experience. By recess on the first day of school, the proficient student with great potential, who learns quickly and easily—who should be loving school and its challenges, and delighting in the discovery of new content, the student that showed up proficient in skills that are essential to learning and student success—was disengaged and had dismissed the teacher and school.
The modern educator would look at this section of To Kill a Mockingbird and say, “I would not handle an advanced student like Scout in that way.” No educator would approve of the solution the fictional Miss Caroline comes up with to solve the puzzle that is Scout. However, it is shocking how many times well-intentioned educators similarly shut down proficient students or marginalize their learning for the sake of whole-class continuity or to focus on at-risk students in need of support. When their needs are not being met, high-performing students may feel as though they are being ignored or disrespected by classroom teachers. These impressions can severely affect the relationship between student and teacher, which can lead to severe disenfranchisement issues down the road for the student (Davis & Dupper, 2004).
Another concern when teachers do not adequately tend to proficient students is boredom. In Judy Willis’s 2014 article in Phi Delta Kappan, she summarizes boredom as “a mismatch between an individual’s intellectual arousal and the availably of external stimulation.” This mismatch can lead to almost any kind of unwanted student behavior, ranging from acting out to disengagement. To avoid these potential issues with proficient students, teachers should turn to the four critical questions of a PLC to guide them to a solution to best support the many different skill sets students bring to class.
Since the publication of DuFour and Eaker’s (1998) Professional Learning Communities at Work, the four critical questions have permeated education. At the time of this writing, there are 226 model PLC schools spread around the world across three continents (AllThingsPLC, 2019). An educator may have become acquainted with these vital questions by reading about PLCs, attending an institute, or engaging in professional learning. Even some teacher prep programs, including undergraduate programs for education majors and teaching certificate programs for postbaccalaureate students working toward becoming teachers, have begun working with preservice teachers to familiarize them with these basic educational building blocks (DuFour et al., 2016).
Answering these straightforward questions seems an easy task. But that is where the genius of DuFour et al. (2016) lies. Reaching agreement among staff on how best to answer these questions is, in reality, a complex task. Focusing on exactly what a team wants the students to learn, creating clear learning targets and success criteria by which students may judge their own success, formatively assessing those targets well, and intervening on behalf of the students who did not learn it ensures schools are doing the right work to keep many—but not all—students engaged in school and build their confidence to succeed. Research and literature on the first three critical questions is plentiful. However, question 4 students are often excluded from this work, in part because question 4 remains underrepresented in administrative and teacher resources as well as in the discussions of collaborative teams doing the work of a PLC (Weichel, McCann, & Williams, 2018). If teams do not work to respond to all four critical questions, they risk allowing students to disengage from the learning process. Over time, this can lead to decreased student achievement and an increase in negative student behaviors that inhibit learning not just for that student but, in many cases, for others in the classroom as well (Feldman, Smith, & Waxman, 2017).
To ensure teams properly address this forgotten question, this chapter explores important foundational concepts, including understanding who the proficient students are, why they are often overlooked, how extension aligns with the three big ideas of a PLC, and what educators must do to ensure collaborative work that creates meaningful extensions.
Who Are the Proficient Students?
It is important when considering which students may be proficient not to confuse question 4 students with identified gifted students. Gifted students may or may not be proficient on a given standard and may have areas of academic weakness that require interventions in order to achieve proficiency. At the same time, students who do not carry the “gifted” label can be proficient in a standard and in need of extension.