In general, says Consortium Director Tony Bryk, students performed better academically when they had challenging, real-world tasks that required them to think critically and learn concepts rather than memorize facts and figures. A national, five year-study conducted by education professors Fred Newmann, Gary Wehlage and others at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research draws the same conclusions. Advocates of the approach don't rule out memorization, though. Local progress Locally, schools using the process also see progress. I think having teachers really look at what their students are doing has played a huge part of our success.
Teachers get together, look at that child's work as a group and come up with the answer.
The school's three 3rd-grade teachers, for example, get together every five weeks to look at work samples from each other's students and offer advice. At Telapochalli Elementary School in South Lawndale, which works closely with the Small Schools Workshop, teachers have grouped themselves into threes to examine student work and invite each other into their classrooms to help answer specific questions about their own teaching. Witzl says teachers have signed up to bring students' work through the end of the year. When one of our teachers has a problem and doesn't feel she is reaching a student, she gets together with others, explains the lesson, offers up the work and, in a structured way, teachers make comments about what she can do. In 1997, this duo expanded to embrace Calhoun North in East Garfield Park and Saucedo Magnet in South Lawndale under the Annenberg Challenge program.