The DLM project is an experimental field study focusing on excellence and equity. By focusing on reducing the achievement gap (equity) and raising the achievement of all students (excellence), the project supports quality learning and teaching in schools. Rigorous diagnostic, formative and summative assessments measure gains in student learning and achievement. The mixed-methods field study demonstrates why, how, and by how much all subgroups of students learn and achieve in schools.

We have grouped the questions into the six categories below. Click on each to explore and understand them.

About DLM

What is the "DLM Model"?
The "DLM Model" stands for Designing Learning Model, an evidence-based instructional intervention in which students and teachers become co-creators of knowledge (2007). The “Design” in the DLM Model underscores the intentionality for promoting learning and increasing student achievement throughout the intervention. Specifically, the Designing Learning Model has two components.

First, it utilizes an Embodied Theory (aka the 7-step model) for curriculum planning and delivery. Second it promotes higher-level thinking and conceptual understanding by explicitly using Higher-Level Literacy Skills (HLS) to actively promote the teaching for transfer–when students use their learning and understanding from one subject and apply it in other subject areas and real-life situations.

By focusing on the five HLS–critical thinking, problem solving, mathematical reasoning, inference making and visualization/modeling–we can meet the needs of this cognitively sophisticated, technology-savvy generation. This will also help move these learners away from gaining mere “inert” knowledge as Prof. Brent Wilson discussed during DLM Session 3 Training.

These two components–embodied theory and higher-level literacy skills–together will help us explicitly focus on our overall project goals of equity and excellence at Overland to close both the achievement gap (equity) and raise the academic achievement of all students (excellence).

How is the DLM model different from what I already do in my classroom?
The DLM model incorporates what teachers have been trained to do well in their classrooms–teaching. However, the main focus on the DLM model is using the Embodied Theory (aka 7-step model) and Higher-Level Literacy Skills (Refer Question 1) to increase student thinking, learning and achievement.

What is the difference between the DLM Model, 7-Step Model, Embodied Theory and Higher-Level Literacy Skills?
The Designing Learning model has two components. First, it utilizes an Embodied Theory (aka the 7-step model) for curriculum planning and delivery. Second it promotes higher-level thinking and conceptual understanding by explicitly using Higher-Level Literacy Skills (HLS) to actively promote the teaching for transfer. By focusing on the five HLS–critical thinking, problem solving, mathematical reasoning, inference making and visualization/modeling–more learners will move away from gaining mere “inert” knowledge to use their learning and understanding from one subject and apply it in other subject areas and real-life situations. These two components together will help us explicitly focus on both equity and excellence at Overland to close the achievement gap (equity) and raise the academic achievement of all students (excellence).

What are Higher-Level Literacy Skills?
Higher-Level Literacy Skills (HLS) are five higher-level thinking skills that the DLM project focuses on. These five skills are beyond what is typically considered traditional “literacy” skills (i.e., reading, writing and numeracy – Recall last paragraph on p. 4 of Chapter 1 in How People Learn and Prof. Brent Wilson’s discussion during Session 3 DLM Training). The Higher-Level Literacy Skills (HLS) actively promote conceptual understanding and the teaching for transfer. The five HLS–critical thinking, problem solving, mathematical reasoning, inference making and visualization/modeling–will help more learners will move away from gaining mere “inert” knowledge and instead use their learning and understanding from one subject and apply it in other subject areas and real-life situations.

How are teachers assigned to quadrants in the 2x2 factorial design? Teachers have been randomly assigned, by computer, to a quadrant in the 2x2 factorial experimental design. The first quadrant is already available on Communication > Group Pages on the DLM Virtual PLC in BlackBoard.

Student attitudes towards learning in our classrooms are important to our success in the DLM project. How we assess the “affective” components of learning in our class next year?
The counseling department has this charge. They will be administering an informal survey of our students every 3 weeks. This survey should take no more than 5 minutes to complete and will not always occur in your particular class.

Expectations

What are the dates, times, expectations and commitments of this project?
Beginning summer 2007, teachers participating in the project will begin their training on the DLM model. Teachers involved in the project are required to attend two, two-hour training sessions and one full-day training session to learn the DLM model. Additionally, teachers are required to attend two full-day of training sessions on assessment, Overland Unit Planner, and technology tools to support the DLM Model. Teachers are required to turn in their “Curriculum Plans” to the Principal, Jana Frieler, by July 1, 2007 for the first quarter of their instruction in Fall 2007.

There are four components to the “Curriculum Plan:” (1) Units planned using the Overland Unit Planner (see sample) for Quadrant 2 (EE) in the DLM Model, (2) Pre-Observation Form for each Unit in the first quarter, (3) Course Shell for BlackBoard, so the Site Leadership can enroll as students and comment on the Course and (4) the First Semester Final for their 2007 course. Additional deadlines will be announced for the other academic quarters, depending on project funding.

What is actually due July 1?
Teachers are required to turn in their “Curriculum Plans” to the Principal, Jana Frieler, by July 1, 2007 for the first quarter of their instruction in Fall 2007. There are four components to the “Curriculum Plan:” (1) Units planned using the Overland Unit Planner for Quadrant 2 (EE) in the DLM Model (see sample), (2) Pre-Observation Form for each Unit in first quarter, (3) Course Shell for BlackBoard, so the Site Leadership can enroll as students and comment on the Course and (4) the First Semester Final for their 2007 course. Additional deadlines will be announced for the other academic quarters, depending on project funding.

Which of our classes will we be required to implement the DLM model in?
Teachers will be required to implement the DLM model in all sections of one subject they will be teaching next year. However, because of random assignments into the 2x2 factorial experimental design, teachers may have their classes in different experiment quadrants (e.g., EE, EN, or TE), with the understanding, that they will be assigned to no more than two of the three experimental quadrants. You will see during the Unit Planner training, how easy it is to modify and adapt an EE lesson to the EN and TE quadrants. Adjusting and adapting an EE lesson plan to fit an EN or TE quadrant is minimal.

Why is it important to keep track of my hours on the Time and Effort Record Sheet?
Accountability is very important! All persons involved with the project must document ALL of their work for the project so that the can be properly compensated for their efforts. Failure to properly document time and effort will limit compensation a participant receives.

What happens if I cannot meet one of the requirements in the initial DLM contract I signed?
Participants in the project must meet all requirement set forth in the initial DLM contract. If a participant cannot complete any aspect of the contract they forfeit their compensation.

When do we get our stipends?
Stipend requests for the initial DLM training will be submitted to HR July 26 for all teachers that meet the requirements per DLM Project Agreement I. Teachers should receive this payment in their August 2007 paychecks.

How will I be held accountable to show I have met the requirements of the DLM contract?
Teachers will be monitored to ensure they have completed all requirements of the DLM contract. Submitted Curriculum Plans will be reviewed by the Site Leadership Team to ensure that they meet the requirements of the project. Additionally, each teachers will be observed four times in action by Jana Frieler and/or Shannon Minch using the three-minute classroom walk-through observation-protocol to determine how effectively and purposefully students are learning in the classroom.

Can I skew my testing data by how I administer my tests?
YES! It is important that all teachers administer their pre and post-test in the exact same fashion. The importance of this becomes clear when you imagine two teachers administering the same pretest. Teacher A says something like, “Please hurry and take this pretest, we all know you don’t know much about the topic yet, so just bubble as quickly as possible so we can move on.” In contrast, Teacher B explains, “Today you will take a pretest on _______. Please take your time and do your best work because I will use this pretest data to "help guide our learning through this unit"/"see how well you can read/write/reason mathematically/understand science concepts." Normalized gains for the pre and post-tests could be affected if there is a difference in how a teacher administers these unit tests.

Assessment

If there is another teacher involved in the project teaching the same course as I, do we have to have common assessment for the final and each unit even though we may be in different quadrants of the 2x2 factorial design?
Yes. Teachers involved with the project teaching the same courses must all have common assessments. This requirement is critical because it is an important data point for formative assessment for the DLM Model by the Site Leadership Team. Additionally, common assessments are one way the best practices within this building will be identified and recognized.

What makes up a good “pre-write” assessment?
Following our reading of chapter 1 in How People Learn (HPL), the pre-writes are critical in eliciting learners' preconceptions and rudimentary understanding of concepts. A well-written pre-write will elicit student misconceptions and naive renditions of their conceptual understanding to inform our instruction.

Should my pre-write and post-write for a particular unit be identical?
No, they should not be because we cannot then generalize about the transfer and connections made by our learners.

Will we need to include the ICAS assessment frameworks (or ASSESS) in our lesson planning in addition to the state standards and district GVCs?
Yes. Incorporation of the ICAS assessment frameworks is important so that we can continuously use them to guide our lesson development. Since these tests have an emphasis on Higher-Level Literacy Skills, using their assessment frameworks in lesson development will help us focus on this important component in the DLM model.

At any rate, the grade level assessment frameworks of Grade 9 CSAP Reading, Writing, Mathematics, and Science should be the most important document guiding your classroom instruction.

What is the value in pre-testing before each unit?
There are two reasons for pretesting our students:
First, as we have seen in chapter one of How People Learn, pre-testing (especially our pre-writing component of the Embodied Theory) helps elicit incomplete understandings, false beliefs and naïve renditions of concepts that students bring with them to our subject-disciplines (Recall Fish-is-Fish story). The research shows that if the above are not brought to the surface, students may develop understandings that are very different from the teacher’s intent and/or they may learn the information for the purposes of a test, but they may revert to their old preconceptions (Fish-is-Fish) later. As we continue through the HPL book we will learn more about this important component in the DLM model.
Second, data that is collected from our unit tests will be reported out as “normalized gains” which can only be calculated if a pretest is given. The value of reporting out data using normalized gains is that it controls for differences in the abilities of the diverse groups of students we have in our classes. Look at the chart below for an example of student performance on a unit test between two teachers:

In the example above, if Teacher A’s students received a 66% post-test average and Teacher B’s students received a 70% post-test average, it would initially seem that Teacher B’s students outperformed Teacher A’s students. It might seem that Teacher B should be sharing “best practices” with Teacher A. However, if the pretests were 48% and 60% for Teacher A’s and B’s students respectively, when the normalized gains between the teachers is calculated they would be .35 and .25 (35%, 25% normalized gains) for Teachers A and B respectively. That means that Teacher A’s students increased .1 (10%) more than Teacher B’s students from their starting point at the beginning of the unit and the best practices conversation may need to go in another direction. A normalized gain effectively controls for differences in background knowledge for diverse groups of students and allows us to compare the relative gain of each group of students. Normalized gains will also be calculated for the CSAP, ICAS and ASSESS between the different groups of the 2x2 factorial experimental design. See summary student results from Nathan Balasubramanian's Physics classes in 2007-2008 here.

Collaboration

Can teachers plan and work together?
Yes. However, teachers may not use the, “divide and conquer” approach. Curriculum and assessments must be developed collaboratively to be acceptable.

What is the level of collaboration required in this project?
It is expected that teachers involved in the project will attend weekly PLC meetings after school with the teachers in their subject area and monthly meetings involving all project participants. Collaboration across subject-disciplines for Unit/Lesson development is encouraged, but is not absolutely required.

Results

Updates