Ignition for Education

The phrase “amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics” has been attributed to various military leaders. I suspect it’s apocryphal, and that, if a serious soldier did ever say it, they meant that serious soldiers don’t discuss strategy without discussing logistics at the same time, because the strategy won’t succeed unless the logistics are made to work.

But teachers often discuss strategy without discussing logistics. By STRATEGY, I mean an approach to teaching and learning, whether a project-based approach, a Socratic approach, or any other. This blog has not gone into detail on strategy. It has argued that research favors interactive approaches over ones in which students are passive learners, and that research does not tell us that this has to always happen through small group activities, as some teachers seem to believe. Rather, a blend is appropriate: some direct teaching, some discussion, some whole class, small group, paired, and individual activities.

The truth is that many strategies benefit students, so teachers should be open to exploring, finding strategies that they are good at and that work for the students that they teach. No-one should be a dogmatist for group work, the Harkness method, or any other approach. But we should all be dogmatists about the importance of logistics to the success of any strategy.

By LOGISTICS I mean the things that might seem less exciting: scheduling class activities, homework assignments, deadlines; giving clear instructions, along with rubrics, examples, sometimes templates; holding students accountable through timely and honest grading; giving thorough feedback to individual students and whole classes.

Because, coming back to strategy, the most important way to help your students strengthen their skills in reading, writing, throwing, catching, drawing, or anything else is to have them do it a lot (that’s class activities and homework), clearly explain how (that’s instructions and related materials), tell them whether and to what extent they’re succeeding (that’s grading), and tell them how to succeed better (that’s feedback).

Really, then, the uber-strategy of the teacher, that of having students learn through practice, is just logistics writ large.

So, here are some tips for getting the logistic right.

1. Have students work frequently on the skills that you want them to learn. If you are an English teacher, have them write, and I don’t mean just once per quarter. If you are a math teacher, have them calculate. If you teach music, have them sing or play.
2. Make clear to them what constitutes successful execution of those skills. This is where direct teaching comes into its own, though alternatives, such as activities in which students search for information, are also valid. Rubrics and examples help students to see what they’re aiming for. For me as a writing teacher, templates also help.
3. Grade in a timely and honest way, so that they know the extent of their success. Don’t sugar coat. If your rubric suggests that a student has earned an F, do not be nice and give them a C-.
4. Give copious feedback, to individual students and to the class as a whole, and, when that feedback is in writing, make sure that they read it. I spent between five and ten minutes over a single paragraph piece of writing, fifteen and twenty on a five-paragraph essay, because I am writing about the student’s arguments, citations, sentence organization, and so on. I relate my comments to my rubrics. And, during class time, I have the students review my comments. (Admittedly, it helps that I teach small classes.)
5. Rigidity, in the enforcement of deadlines and adherence to rubrics when grading, helps students learn to be accountable. But flexibility is important too. Students may have good reasons for needing extensions and for needing accommodations. And, because everyone has bad days and no one deserves to have their level of achievement defined by their bad days, it’s a good idea to drop the lowest grade or two.
6. Well-thought-out curriculum plans and lesson plans are essential to make sure that your efforts are focused on the skills that you want your students to learn, and that your standards are appropriate for your students. A lot of teachers act like planning, especially curriculum planning is a waste of time, but the success of all our efforts depends on it. It determines what skills we will teach our students, as well as the outline of how, and it ensures that each school year readies our student for what they must learn in the next. Without curriculum planning, we’re like hunters blithely firing into a forest and hoping to hit something edible.
7. Students often need help with executive skills. They need us to post assignments (and rubrics and other supporting documents) in a way that makes them clearly accessible. That means online. They need us to help them to carry and use schedules or other planning aids. They need us to inform their parents/guardians of their assignments, as those are the adults that can do most to ensure that they get work done and develop the habit of getting work done.
8. Building on point seven, partnering with parents/guardians helps keep students on track, helps with discipline, and sometimes helps teachers to find out information that we need. I do this through a mass text messaging system that enables me to send information to all of the parents at the same time and to communicate with them one-on-one.

Those eight points are not a complete guide to success in teaching. Classroom management and the development of friendly and respectful relationships with students play a big part, and so, perhaps more than anything else, does the teacher’s self-efficacy, sense of mission, and willingness to continually improve. But this post has focused on the logistics that teachers need to get right in order to successfully execute any teaching strategy.