The procedures are unfamiliar, and they seem like an extra burden on teachers already overloaded with competing demands for accountability. By the end of the first year, however, they have gained a deeper understanding and respect for the students they are observing, and generally they begin to reconceive their methods and practices. Often they entirely rearrange the classroom environment as well. Although using the Learning Record model does not dictate these changes, teachers typically break desks out of rows, replacing them with learning centers stocked with resources for independent group and individual activities. Standard measures, such as miscue analysis and running records in reading, can be incorporated into the record as supporting evidence of development, or as diagnostic tools to help teachers recognize what help is needed.
Teachers begin to talk less, and listen more.
They develop more collaborative activities where students can work with partners and with small and large groups. They begin to view teaching as providing opportunities for students to add to what they already know. By the third year, teachers have internalized the process of keeping the Learning Record, and the whole process has come to seem quite natural. Although the Learning Record reflects current pedagogical theory and good teaching practice more closely than other measures, it is a dramatically different kind of assessment tool from the tests and grades most teachers are accustomed to using. The Learning Record's public accountability system is also far different from the intrusive snapshots afforded by norm referenced multiple-choice tests.