Developing Expert Learners: A Roadmap for Growing Confident and Competent Students

281 Pages·2019·6.567 MB·English

by  Michael McDowell

WHAT YOUR COLLEAGUES
ARE SAYING . . .
As educators, we are challenged in preparing our students for college and
career readiness as they go into the real world. Developing Expert
Learners addresses the intentional moves of the teacher to prepare students
for challenging work at their level of learning, resulting in students reaching
their fullest potential as experts in their own learning.
—Elizabeth Alvarez, Chief of Schools
Chicago Public Schools
Chicago, IL
“Teaching for transfer”—imparting knowledge and skill in a way that makes
them really useful, and not just fodder for exams and tests—is the Holy
Grail of education. This book is a wonderfully practical guide to how to do it
in any classroom.
—Guy Claxton, Author
The Learning Power Approach: Teaching Learners to Teach Themselves
This book is the roadmap to take students from being developing experts to
the experts they all have the potential to be. Providing high expectations and
valuing all students as learners requires educators to plan instruction that
takes students—all students—from their current level, to that place just
beyond that level. McDowell suggests that in order for students to become
experts, “the control over learning must be mutually shared between
teachers and students.” Teaching students how to build their efficacy in
learning, the ability to navigate and lead their own learning, is the optimal
approach for every faculty to engage in. McDowell identifies The 5Cs
(Clarify, Challenge, Check, Communicate, and Cross contexts) that are
requisite for this shared partnership to flourish, and gives reflection questions
and activities that allow every educator to plan their steps toward this
desirable result.
—Tom Hierck
Consultant/Author
Grading for Impact: Raising Student Achievement
Through a Target-Based Assessment and Learning System
As he did in Rigorous PBL by Design, Michael McDowell has once again
produced an invaluable resource for educators who are striving to empower
students to fully develop their own expertise and self-efficacy. Developing
Expert Learners provides the practical means—through planning tools,
research-based strategies, teaching practices, and special features—to enable
teachers to maximize student learning at the surface, deep, and transfer
levels of complexity. By integrating “The 5Cs (Clarify, Challenge, Check,
Communicate, and Cross Contexts) as guiding actions for developing
student expertise” into all unit and lesson planning, McDowell shows how
these strategies can dramatically impact student learning. Classroom
educators will find Chapter 3, “Planning for Impact,” and Chapter 4,
“Teaching for Impact” particularly useful for creating and implementing
their own roadmap to greater student self-efficacy. Chapter 5, “Collective
Efficacy,” presents a powerful framework that teacher teams can utilize to
create their own beliefs and action steps to greater student learning.
—Larry Ainsworth, Author
Common Formative Assessments 2.0, and Learning Intentions and
Success Criteria
I appreciate and am enthusiastic about the layout of this book. For a coach, team
leader, or school administrator, the book lends itself to being a manual for school
improvement. It provides excellent questions to reflect on and activities after
each chapter for school leaders to collaborate with and work alongside teacher
teams in developing efficacy and expertise at their schools—which in the end
will impact the achievement of all our learners. Our district will benefit from
the content of this book and its resources, activities, and reflection questions to
increase student learning at the surface, deep, and transfer levels through the
work of teams.
—LeeAnn Lawlor
Assistant Superintendent of Educational Services
Cartwright Elementary School District
This urgently needed book has the potential to transform schools and
experiences for learners and teachers everywhere. Once again, Michael
McDowell has written a compelling, practical guide for educators who seek to
give their students the skills they need to be successful in our ever-changing
world. This book is a must-read for new and veteran educators alike!
—Cindy Johanson
Executive Director, Edutopia
George Lucas Educational Foundation
Of course, Michael McDowell has once again provided a purposeful and
practical guide for teachers and leaders. Teachers, administrators, and even
student leaders recognize the importance of focusing on learning through clear
learning intentions, success criteria, and now—with this new book—tools and
strategies to measure student progress. We have made a fundamental shift in
how we address instructional practice, review student work, and more
important, build our own efficacy and expertise at all levels of our organization.
—Maren Rocca Hunt
Executive Director, Elementary Education
Napa Valley Unified School District
In Developing Expert Learners, McDowell harnesses the research on
building student self-efficacy, peer-to-peer feedback structures, and student
ownership of learning through a handful of focus areas, aligned and actionable
learning practices, and tools that have been road-tested. If you wish to build
stronger, more invested, and more equipped learners, this book is a must-read.
—Kara Vandas
Consultant, Co-Author of Clarity for Learning
As a follow up to Rigorous PBL by Design, McDowell continues to write
about practical strategies to help teachers build students’ expertise. The book
is filled with strategies, tools, and very useful references based on the exciting
research of John Hattie and Visible Learning. McDowell shapes this book
around 5Cs—promoting clarity, leveraging challenge, consistent checking,
cultivating conversation, and tackling contextually rich problems. Michael’s
command of lesson design and instruction make this a natural follow up to
his very successful Rigorous PBL by Design. It will clearly help teachers
have impact on student learning.
—Ainsley B. Rose
Corwin Author Consultant
As we move away from the age of pouring knowledge into the brains of learners
and, instead, begin handing them the steering wheel of their own learning to
develop efficacy and expertise, McDowell's tool kit of sound simplicity, sparked
by wisdom and courage, offers clear and do-able courses of action that all
educators can put into motion to change the learning lives of their students.
—Melissa Schaub
Director of Learning
The Anglo-American School of Moscow
Developing Expert Learners is a practitioner guide for the research-based
classroom teacher. McDowell does an exemplary job of providing powerful
strategies that can transform any classroom into a learning laboratory.
The book is filled with these strategies, relevant school-based examples, and
educator testimonials that inspire. McDowell focuses on the importance of
both the learner and the teacher in helping to co-construct a learning
community that empowers learners to attain high levels of expertise and
efficacy. The book is a wonderful balance between theory and practice and a
must have for any educator trying to move their students from surface to
deep understanding. McDowell brings action to research.
—Sascha Heckmann
Head of American International School of Mozambique
Author of Personalized Learning in a PLC at Work
Michael McDowell provides practical examples in designing learning for
students. Developing Expert Learners is a must-read for educators to
build student expertise in a meaningful way, with many wonderful thoughts
and ideas to support teachers in developing clarity for their students.
—Sophie Murphy
Melbourne Graduate School of Education
University of Melbourne
Developing Expert
Learners

Developing Expert
Learners
A Roadmap for Growing Confident
and Competent Students
Michael McDowell
Foreword by James Nottingham / Afterword by Shirley Clarke
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Identifiers: LCCN 2018052016 | ISBN 9781544337159 (pbk. : alk. paper)
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CONTENTS
List of Online Resources xii
Foreword xiii
James Nottingham
Acknowledgments xv
About the Author xvii
A Teacher’s Perspective xix
Bridget R. Mazzella
Introduction 1
Chapter 1. Guiding Actions for Expertise and Efficacy 19
The 5Cs: Guiding Actions for Developing Student Expertise 22
Clarify 22
Challenge 24
Check 28
Communicate 30
Cross Contexts 32
Putting Principles of Expertise Into Practice Successfully 34
Conclusion 37
Chapter 2. Conditions for Impact: Creating a
Culture of Collective Efficacy 45
Culture of Learning 46
Recurring Problems 48
Defining Efficacy 49
Evidence of Efficacy 50
Orientation 50
Activation 51
Collaboration 57