The system is designed to move students along curriculum content knowledge paths, but it fails to teach the skills required for learning. Students are tested for content knowledge, then, no matter the test score, the students are moved on to the next level. Teacher preparation programs and licensing criteria focus on teacher content knowledge and content transfer through lesson planning. Teacher lesson planning preparation assumes too much. It assumes a reasonably motivated student. It assumes a student who wants to learn and earn good grades. It assumes a student with adequate prior skills and knowledge. It assumes that students are in stable family situations that support learning and promote good behavior.
With the exception of early elementary pre-service teachers, teacher preparation and licensing programs give only cursory attention to how students learn and how teachers prepare, assess, and reteach students learner skills. This creates a common reality: Students move into fourth grade (as an example) with learner skill gaps, content knowledge gaps, and a teacher whose priority is the fourth grade content that will be tested at year end. Yes, that teacher understands that some students will need some extra support, but the demands of teaching the class the fourth grade curriculum will soon create a pace that leaves some, perhaps many, students behind. A teacher steeped in content knowledge and trained in content delivery will often neglect the learning skill needs of students; not because they want to, but because the environment and their training steers their focus away from learner skill development and toward content knowledge gaps.
An example that assumes a good student in fourth grade with stable life inside and outside school might illustrate the point. The teacher assesses math readiness of the student early in the year and determines that the student is at grade level having scored well on the standard assessment of third grade content. In fourth grade, the curriculum guide places multiplication of two digit numbers before division using a two digit divisor (for example 175 divided by 25). The student in question struggles with two digit multiplication as evidenced by classwork. The teacher provides support in the form of corrections of the student’s work, models of worked out solutions for other examples, and additional remedial two digit multiplication problems. A quiz on two digit multiplication is given to the class before the first lesson on division using two digit divisors. The student scores 80% on the multiplication quiz, but struggles with the two digit divisor classwork as he did with the two digit multiplication classwork.
Continuing with this example, the teacher provides support in the form of corrections to the student’s division work, models of worked out solutions, and additional remedial division problems. Recognizing that the student still has not mastered the two digit multiplication as evidenced by the 80% quiz score, the teacher also provides the student some two digit multiplication problems after doing some one on one reteaching. The teacher also reaches back to the fundamentals of division with the student by working through some division problems using single digit divisors (for example 175 divided by 5) before reviewing the two digit division problems with the student. As we can see, in addition to teaching the daily lessons according to the pacing guide, the teacher is providing individual content skills coaching to the students. In this example, the student entered fourth grade on grade level in content knowledge and scored 80% on the two digit multiplication quiz.
Assuming the teacher is providing similar content readiness feedback and support to all students, what’s missing? Attention to learner skills and development of student agency are both missing from the teacher’s approach. This is the norm. This is how the teacher was trained. This is how administrators guide teachers to help struggling students. This is the approach parents expect from teachers. The teacher is focusing on the student’s gaps in content knowledge and content skills. The teacher is not addressing learner skills. What are learner skills? Learner skills are applicable to any content and grow over time into life skills. Examples of learner skills that might be appropriate for a fourth grade student include: persistence, avoiding distractions, striving for accuracy, applying prior knowledge, questioning, explaining process steps being used, and various other self-discipline or self-monitoring skills.
