Opportunity+to+Learn+-+School-Level+Factors

**//Opportunity to Learn//** was introduced by John Carroll (1963), who asserted an individual cannot learn a task if he or she is not allowed enough time to do so. Since 1963, various national and international studies have been conducted in an effort to measure opportunity to learn. The IEA Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), English Language Learners and Math Achievement: A Study of Opportunity to Learn and Language Accommodation, the Education for All Global Monitoring Report(s), and the National Educational Longitudinal Survey of 1988, are among the surveys and research studies that have analyzed how **//Opportunity to Learn//** impacts student achievement.

The purpose of this article is to focus on a few specific factors that impact **//Opportunity to Learn//** at the school level. If educators agree that all students should be prepared for the next grade level and the goal is for 100% of our students to graduate, then we should develop a clear idea of how to support student achievement. Robert Marzano (2003) cited several factors which impact student achievement. He divided the factors into the following categories: School Level, Teacher Level, and Student Level. His thirty year meta-analysis revealed that the number one factor impacting student achievement is a 'guaranteed and viable curriculum.' In other words, according to Marzano's research, Opportunity to Learn is the number one factor impacting student achievement.


 * School Districts Can Increase Opportunity to Learn By:**

Does our school district have a common curriculum?
 * 1. Developing a Guranteed and Viable Curriculum**

Does our school district administer common formative assessments or benchmarks to monitor student achievement results?
 * 2. Monitoring Student Achievement**

Does our school district differentiate instruction while still providing every student with the //Opportuntiy to Learn//?
 * 3. Differentiating Instruction**

Does our school district provide teachers with time to focus on student misconceptions? Do teachers collaborate and share strategies for teaching the common curriculum to all students? Does our school district focus on 'coverage' of material or student understanding?
 * 4. Identifying Common Student Misconceptions**

Does our school district provide teachers with pacing guides, curriculum maps, online tools which allow for teacher collaboration, or other tools which assist in implementing a guaranteed and viable curriculum? If the pacing is not working, do teacher have a voice in modifying the district's pacing and curriculum maps?
 * 5. Developing and Revising Pacing**

Does our school district have strategic plans in place for identifying students who would benefit from advanced course offerings? Do Advanced Placement (AP) and Honors courses reflect the demographics of our student enrollment?
 * 6. Increasing the Number of Minority Students Enrolled in Advanced Courses**

Will the instructional strategies used in our school district support student understanding of the district's guaranteed and viable curriculum? Will students receive challenging assignments and the opportunity to learn regardless of school assignment or teacher assignment? Are certain instructional strategies more effective than others?
 * 7. Identifying Instructional Strategies Which Will Support the Learning Styles of Today's Student's**

1. Celebrating success on the End-of-Grade or End-of-Course High-Stakes Assessments or 2. Becoming frustrated because student growth is decreasing annually according to High-Stakes Assessments
 * Too often teachers and administrators make the mistake of:**

Educators should celebrate their success. However, if we are only celebrating and not looking for patterns or identifying individual students who need academic support, then we may be missing the point. It is also understood by most teachers and administrators that waiting to measure students' knowledge of the common curriculum or state standards at the end of the grade or course is too late to provide students with timely intervention and support. Several educators also struggle with assessing student understanding using multiple choice exams. Do we help all students meet the district's learning outcomes when we use one high-stakes multiple choice test to determine student achievement?

Recently, Squires (2009) wrote, "It is of paramount importance to make sure students have the opportunity to learn more important content aligned with standards and assessments....Further, school districts, through their curricula, have the tools at their disposal to control and ensure what students learn" (p. 133). Developing specific strategies which support Opportunity to Learn will impact student achievement. Over forty years of research supports that "access to curriculum opportunities is a more powerful determinant of achievement than initial achievement levels" (Darling-Hammond, 2010, p. 54).

Author
Steven Weber is the Director of Secondary Instruction for Orange County Schools in Hillsborough, NC. Weber has served as a classroom teacher, assistant principal, and state department of education consultant in Arkansas and North Carolina. He consults school systems in aligning their curriculum and in unpacking curriculum standards.

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