Learning in The Fast Lane

Book Review: Learning in The Fast Lane

by Suzy Pepper Rollins

Rollins begins Learning in The Fast Lane with her observation that traditional remedial programs and strategies are not working in closing the achievement gap for at-risk learners, essentially because they “… are not compelling, rigorous, or engaging.” (1)  As a tonic, as the sub-title of her book indicates, she offers 8 “… instructional approaches that can move academically challenged students toward success.” (1)

Acknowledging Marzano’s (2004) finding that a student’s prior knowledge is the strongest predictor of how successful he/she will master new learning, she introduces her first strategy – acceleration programs.  In order to prepare for new lessons, students in an acceleration program receive both instruction in key prior knowledge and remediation in necessary prerequisite skills.  Acceleration classes are “enriching experiences” as students stay slightly ahead of their peers in regular classes. (10)  They feature 6 steps:

·        Success starters – thought-provoking, hands on activities at the beginning of classes to introduce and build interest in the big ideas;

·        Introduction of clear learning goals in student-friendly language;

·        Judicious use of scaffolding;

·        Review of prior vocabulary and introduction of new vocabulary;

·        Dip into the new concepts through engaging activities;

·        Frequent formative assessment (to determine instructional adjustments).

The topic of Chapter 2 is standards walls, which answer the question What are we learning? for students and include “everything students need in one place, including learning objectives, vocabulary, and work samples.” (23)  The 3 parts of an effective standards wall are a concept map, TIP chart, and student work.  The concept map is a graphic organizer which has an essential question for the unit of study in the centre and then learning goals (expressed as I can statements) around it. The teacher (or students) move an arrow around the map as the class moves through the goals.   As students achieve mastery, their work samples are posted beside the goals.   The TIP chart (Term, Information, & Picture) has key vocabulary terms, information on the terms, and reinforcing pictures.

Rollins’ 3^rd strategy – success starters – is based on the well-established regency effect, which indicates that students best retain what is taught first and most recently.  A good class starter:

·        Connects to prior knowledge

·        Holds high interest, real-world relevance

·        Connects directly to the learning goal

Some suggested success starter strategies are role playing, surveys, prediction (either sorts or anticipation guides), student-generated questions, brainstorming (ie. alpha brainstorming), and concrete representations (ie. pictures, graphs, or maps).

Chapter 4 explores strategy #4 – formative assessment and feedback. The author shares some research-based principles of effective feedback, including focusing feedback explicitly on learning goals and using peer and self-assessment.  She cites Anne Davies on peer feedback: “By actively incorporating peer feedback, teachers can multiply the impact of feedback.” (60)  Among the non-threatening and just-in-time formative assessment strategies she recommends are Stick It! (students place answers on sticky notes on a viewing board) and gallery walks.

I particularly like her original bow ties peer feedback idea whereby a pair of students draw a large bow and place it between them.  Each answers a question or contributes information on a topic on his/her side, and then the students compare answers and create a shared answer on the inside of the 3-part diagram.  

Vocabulary development strategies are explored in Chapter 5.  Rollins opens this chapter by identifying 3 challenges affecting vocabulary development: many students arrive in classrooms with huge vocabulary gaps, students are confronted in all subjects with a “barrage” of new academic vocabulary, and reading alone (the normal classroom method for acquiring new vocabulary) is ineffective for students to understand new words. (78-79)  Recognizing that many popular strategies for vocabulary, such as using dictionaries or context clues while reading, don’t work, the author goes on to state several principles of an effective vocabulary plan including:

·        Multiple and engaging exposures to a new word;

·        The focus should be only on words students need to know.

Some engaging strategies for successful word acquisition that Rollins identifies include TIP charts, word art (students make art out of the text of the word), Action! (students act out a word’s meaning), and Which One Doesn’t Belong? (an activity in which students identify and explain why a particular word doesn’t fit in with other words in a list).

Math Word Wall

The topic of Chapter 6 is effective student work sessions, which the author maintains should be student centred, highly engaging, rely on cooperative learning, and reveal student thinking.  Student work sessions should follow a compelling lesson opener and brief teacher-directed mini-lesson on the key concepts and goal.  Rollins presents a mix of traditional and novel strategies for effective student work sessions including jigsaw groups, learning stations, menus of tasks, and her own Walk the Line activity, whereby students line up and move along a masking tape line across the classroom floor as students present cases for or against a position or between two alternatives.  Each end of the line represents one of the two positions or alternatives, and where students locate themselves on the line indicates where they stand on the issue.

Chapter 7 opens with Hansen’s (1989) important theory on student motivation: “When value and confidence are both high, learners are likely to be engaged and motivated." (119)   In this chapter, Rollins provides advice on how to create engaging tasks and a safe learning environment - the conditions for high student motivation.  For a learning task to be engaging it must be relevant, possess an appropriate level of difficulty (neither too easy nor too hard), and involve choice and social interaction.  Her strategies for creating a safe learning environment include modeling mistakes as a positive step toward learning, setting up purposeful student groupings, providing meaningful positive feedback, having a growth mindset, establishing short-term goals, and providing evenhanded responses to negative classroom situations.  

Scaffolding, the strategy discussed in Chapter 8, is explained in the following way by the author: “Scaffolding enables instruction to move forward and backward at the same time.  It fills in past gaps in the context of today’s learning.  It also looks forward to new challenges in the new learning that may need to be bridged. (134-135)   Some scaffolding devices are bookmark lists, steps in a process, flowcharts, annotations, and student samples.  I like Rollins comment that “Samples take the nebulousness out of learning goals. “ (142)  Good metacognitive scaffolding strategies include teacher think-alouds, reciprocal teaching, and visible thinking techniques such as charting student thoughts on paper.

Rollins concludes Learning in The Fast Lane by identifying 5 problems that contribute to student failure and proposes strategies for overcoming each of these problems.

Problem	Solutions
Homework challenges – either failure to complete it or doing it wrong	School homework plans that identify (and post)  purpose & value of HW and specificly place parameters on HW length; Learning Labs or opportunity rooms for students to complete HW at school.
Zeros or low grades for missing work	Don’t “scare students straight” by giving zeros! “Grades should signal students’ level of mastery of standards, not how many (or how much) of their assignments they completed.” (p.152)
Lack of ongoing assessment & intervention	Use portfolios to track daily evidence of learning; Allow timely second chances on assignments; Gather evidence of learning in small chunks, not large high-stakes assessments.
Low Student Motivation	Student surveys to determine degree of difficulty of tasks and level of interest; Teacher as caring adult.
Weak skills or knowledge gaps	Early reading intervention – as reading comprehension is essential to learning.