Classroom Assessment Scoring System™ (CLASS™) Manual, Pre-K - Softcover

Pianta Ph.D., Robert; La Paro Ph.D., Karen; Hamre Ph.D., Bridget

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1557669414 ISBN 13: 9781557669414

Publisher: Brookes Publishing, 2007

Synopsis

Effective teacher–student interactions are a primary ingredient of high-quality early educational experiences. With the popular CLASS® observational tool, schools can accurately assess classroom quality in pre-kindergarten based on teacher–student interactions rather than the physical environment or a specific curriculum. The CLASS tool

• covers three crucial domains of teacher–student interaction: Emotional Support, Classroom Organization, and Instructional Support.
• has high validity and reliability, proven through more than a decade of testing and research in over 3,000 classrooms.
• addresses a school's most urgent needs: accountability efforts, professional development, program planning, and research.
• establishes an accurate picture of the classroom through 30-minute cycles of observation and scoring, repeated up to 6 times over 3 hours.
• helps identify areas for improvement so programs can choose effective interventions for "trouble spots."

This useful manual includes detailed descriptions of the 10 CLASS dimensions, administration procedures, and a technical appendix. One copy of the CLASS® Dimensions Overview, a tri-fold reference sheet for observers, is included with the manual.

This manual is part of CLASS, the bestselling classroom observational tool that measures interactions between children and teachers—a primary ingredient of high-quality early educational experiences. With versions for infant programs, toddler programs, pre-K (in English and Spanish), and K–3 classrooms, the reliable and valid CLASS tool establishes an accurate picture of the classroom through brief, repeated observation and scoring cycles and effectively pinpoints areas for improvement.

Learn more about the entire CLASS system. Sign up for webinars on CLASS presented by Teachstone.

About this title

About the Author

Robert C. Pianta, Ph.D., is Dean of the Curry School of Education, Director of the Center for Advanced Study in Teaching and Learning and Novartis U.S. Foundation Professor of Education at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville. A former special education teacher, Dr. Pianta is a developmental, school, and clinical child psychologist whose work focuses on assessment and improvement of teacher-student interactions and their role in fostering children's learning and development.

Dr. Pianta is a principal investigator on several major grants including the National Center for Research in Early Childhood Education and the Virginia Education Sciences Training Program, and he has worked closely with the Gates Foundation-funded Measure of Effective Teaching project.

He is the author of more than 250 journal articles, chapters, and books in the areas of early childhood education, teacher performance assessment, professional development, and teacher–child relationships, and he consults regularly with federal agencies, foundations and universities.

Karen M. La Paro, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dr. La Paro teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in theory and research as well as supervises practicum students in early childhood classrooms. Her areas of research relate to issues of quality in early childhood classrooms and the development of effective teachers. This work addresses critical needs in supervision, support, and reflection of preservice teacher development, and she has authored several peer-reviewed manuscripts in these areas. Dr. La Paro works on both research and community projects focused on professional development for both in-service and preservice teachers utilizing innovative strategies for supervision, coaching, and mentoring. She spent several years as research faculty with The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care as well as the National Center for Early Development and Learning at the University of Virginia.

Bridget K. Hamre, Ph.D., is Research Associate Professor in the Curry School of Education and Associate Director of University of Virginia’s Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL). Dr. Hamre’s areas of expertise include student–teacher relationships and classroom processes that promote positive academic and social development for young children, and she has authored numerous peer-reviewed manuscripts on these topics. This work documents the ways in which early teacher–child relationships are predictive of later academic and social development and the ways in which exposure to high-quality classroom social and instructional interactions may help close the achievement gap for students at risk of school failure.

Dr. Hamre leads efforts to use the CLASS™ tool as an assessment, accountability, and professional development tool in early childhood and other educational settings. Most recently, she was engaged in the development and testing of interventions designed to improve the quality of teachers’ interactions with students, including MyTeachingPartner and a 14-week course developed for early childhood teachers. Dr. Hamre received her bachelor’s degree from the University of California, Berkeley, and her master’s degree and doctorate in clinical and school psychology from the University of Virginia.

Jennifer LoCasale-Crouch, Ph.D. is a research assistant professor at the University of Virginia's Center for Advanced Study of Teaching and Learning (CASTL). Her areas of expertise in which she has authored multiple peer-reviewed manuscripts include classroom observation, supporting children's successful transition to kindergarten, professional development that supports teachers' effective classroom interactions and ways to implement such supports with high degrees of fidelity.

Dr. LoCasale-Crouch has worked with the Office of Head Start in training staff to implement the roll out of CLASS™, and also has worked with multiple Head Start grantees across the country in their kindergarten transition planning development. Dr. LoCasale-Crouch is also a co-investigator on three recently funded IES grants designed to enhance the supportive ways teachers interact with children, particularly those at-risk. Dr. LoCasale-Crouch received her bachelor and master's degrees from the Florida State University, and her doctorate in risk and prevention in education sciences from the University of Virginia.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Excerpted from Chapters 1 and 3 of Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS) Manual, Pre–K, by by Robert C. Pianta, Ph.D., Karen M. La Paro, Ph.D., & Bridget K. Hamre, Ph.D.

Copyright © 2008 by Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

CLASS DOMAINS

The following discussion elaborates on the major domains of classroom experience assessed by the CLASS. A more complete discussion of the theoretical and empirical basis for the CLASS is available elsewhere (Hamre & Pianta, 2007, La Paro, Pianta, & Stuhlman, 2004).

Emotional Support

Children's social and emotional functioning in the classroom is increasingly recognized as an indicator of school readiness (Blair, 2002; Denham & Weissberg, 2004; Raver, 2004), a potential target for intervention (Greenberg, Weissberg, & O'Brien, 2003; Zins, Bloodworth, Weissberg, & Walberg, 2004), and even a student outcome that might be governed by a set of standards similar to those for academic achievement (Illinois State Board of Education, 2004). Children who are motivated and connected to others in the early years of schooling are much more likely to establish positive trajectories of development in both social and academic domains (Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Ladd, Birch, & Buhs, 1999; Pianta, Steinberg, & Rollins, 1995; Silver, Measelle, Essex, & Armstrong, 2005). Teachers' abilities to support social and emotional functioning in the classroom are therefore central to any conceptualization of effective classroom practice. The dimensions included in the Emotional Support domain on the CLASS include the following:

• Positive Climate: The emotional connection, respect, and enjoyment demonstrated between teachers and students and among students
  
  
• Negative Climate: The level of expressed negativity such as anger, hostility, or aggression exhibited by teachers and/or students in the classroom
  
  
• Teacher Sensitivity: Teachers' awareness of and responsivity to students' academic and emotional concerns
  
  
• Regard for Student Perspectives: The degree to which teachers' interactions with students and classroom activities place an emphasis on students' interests, motivations, and points of view
  
  

These dimensions collectively and separately predict to students' performance on standardized tests of literacy skills in preschool and first grade (NICHD ECCRN, 2003; Pianta, 2003), levels of mother–reported internalizing behaviors in kindergarten and first grade (NICHD ECCRN, 2003), and students' engagement in the classroom across all grade levels (Bryant et al., 2002; NICHD ECCRN 2002, 2005).

Although these processes are important for all students, they may be particularly important for students at risk for school failure. For example, among a group of students who displayed significant behavior and emotional problems in kindergarten, those who were placed in first–grade classrooms offering high levels of emotional support made academic progress at levels similar to their low–risk peers, whereas high–risk students placed in classrooms offering lower levels of emotional support fell further behind their low–risk peers (Hamre & Pianta, 2005). These studies demonstrate that emotional support in the classroom uniquely predicts student outcomes, after adjusting for selection effects and prior student functioning.

Classroom Organization

The Classroom Organization domain includes a broad array of classroom processes related to the organization and management of students' behavior, time, and attention in the classroom (Emmer & Stough, 2001). Classrooms function best and provide the most opportunities for learning when students are well–behaved, consistently have things to do, and are interested and engaged in learning tasks. The theoretical underpinnings of this domain include work by developmental psychologists studying how children develop self–regulatory skills (Blair, 2003; Raver, 2004), work by ecological psychologists examining the extent to which these skills are determined by environmental factors (Kounin, 1970), and constructivist theories exploring how young children are best engaged in learning (Bowman & Stott, 1994; Bruner, 1996; Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978). The term self–regulated learning (Schunk, 2005; Sperling, Howard, & Staley, 2004) often is used to refer to the regulatory skills students need to be successful in classroom settings. This term is defined as "an active constructive process whereby learners set goals for their learning and then attempt to monitor, regulate, and control their cognition, motivation, and behavior, guided and constrained by their goals and the contextual features in the environment" (Pintrich, 2000, p. 453). A point of emphasis across this definition and the work of other ecological and process-product researchers is that the development and expression of regulatory skills is highly dependent on the classroom environment (Anderson, Evertson, & Emmer, 1980; Emmer & Stough, 2001; Kounin, 1970; Pintrich, 2000; Sanford & Evertson, 1981; Soar & Soar, 1979). At the simplest level, this work suggests that students exhibit better self–regulation in well–regulated classroom environments. The CLASS framework incorporates three dimensions of this classroom–level regulation:

• Behavior Management: How effectively teachers monitor, prevent, and redirect behavior
  
  
• Productivity: How well the classroom runs with respect to routines and the degree to which teachers organize activities and directions so that maximum time can be spent in learning activities
  
  
• Instructional Learning Formats: How teachers facilitate activities and provide interesting materials so that students are engaged and learning opportunities are maximized
  

Each of these dimensions captures a distinct aspect of classroom organization that has demonstrated associations with children's learning. With regard to behavior management, classrooms with positive strategies for preventing and redirecting behavior tend to have students who make greater academic progress (Good & Grouws, 1977; Soar & Soar, 1979). In addition, intervention studies provide evidence that teachers who adopt these types of practices after training are more likely than teachers in control groups to have students who are engaged and learning (Emmer & Stough, 2001; Evertson, Emmer, Sanford, & Clements, 1983; Evertson & Harris, 1999). In terms of productivity, early work by process&8211;product researchers has focused attention on the importance of time management, providing consistent evidence that students are most engaged in productive classrooms and that this engagement, in turn, is directly associated with student learning (Brophy & Evertson, 1976; Coker, Medley, & Soar, 1980; Good & Grouws, 1977; Stallings, 1975; Stallings, Cory, Fairweather, & Needels, 1978). In fact, in their review of teacher behavior and student achievement, Brophy and Good (1986) concluded that the link between the quantity of time spent on instruction and student achievement was the most consistently replicated finding of process–product researchers. Finally, for students to learn they must not only have something to do but also must be effectively engaged and interested in the instructional activities provided to them as well (Yair, 2000). Consistent with constructivist theories that guide much of early childhood practice (Bowman & Stott, 1994; Bruner, 1996; Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978), when teachers provide high–quality learning formats, students are not just passively engaged in learning but are active participants in the learning experience. Taken together, these dimensions of classroom organization set the stage for learning in preschool to third–grade classrooms.

Instructional Support

The theoretical foundation for the CLASS conceptualization of instructional support comes primarily from research on children's cognitive and language development (e.g., Catts, Fey, Zhang, & Tomblin, 1999; Fujiki, Brinton, & Clarke, 2002; Romberg, Carpenter, & Dremock, 2005; Taylor, Pearson, Peterson, & Rodriguez, 2003; Vygotsky, 1991; Wharton–McDonald, Pressley, & Hampston, 1998). This literature highlights the distinction between simply learning facts and gaining usable knowledge—learning how facts are interconnected, organized, and conditioned on one another (National Research Council, 1999)—noting that gaining usable knowledge is the more important of the two when it comes to cognitive development. The development of metacognitive skills, or the awareness and understanding of one's thinking processes, also is critical to children's academic development (Veenman, Kok, & Blöte, 2005; Williams, Blythe, & White, 2002). A child's ability to develop metacognitive skills is contingent on the opportunities that adults provide to express existing skills and scaffold more complex ones (Davis & Miyake, 2004; Skibbe, Behnke, & Justice, 2004; Vygotsky, 1991). Thus, as with the other CLASS domains, interactions between adults and children are the key mechanism through which instructional support is provided to children in the early years of schooling. As a result, the CLASS Instructional Support domain does not focus on the content of curriculum or learning activities but rather on the ways in which teachers implement whichever curriculum they are using to effectively support cognitive and language development. The CLASS has three dimensions that focus on instructional support:

• Concept Development: How teachers use instructional discussions and activities to promote students' higher–order thinking skills in contrast to a focus on rote instruction
  
  
• Quality of Feedback: How teachers extend students' learning through their responses to students' ideas, comments, and work
  
  
• Language Modeling: The extent to which teachers facilitate and encourage students' language
  

These dimensions together, and Quality of Feedback in particular, form an index of the instructional value of the classroom that predicts to student academic functioning in the areas of literacy and general knowledge (Howes et al., in press), with indications that this association is a result of increased student engagement in the activity (NICHD ECCRN, 2003).

As with emotional support, there is some evidence that these instructional processes may be particularly important for students at risk for school failure. In one study, students identified as at risk based on low levels of maternal education who were placed in first–grade classrooms offering moderate to high instructional quality displayed academic achievement at a level commensurate with their low–risk peers, whereas those students in low instructional quality classrooms fell further behind (Hamre & Pianta, 2005).

Low Language Modeling (1, 2)

There are few if any conversations in the classroom. Few individual, small–group, and/or large–group conversations occur between the students and the teacher. In classrooms at the low end of the Language Modeling dimension, the teacher rarely initiates conversations with students and does not engage conversationally with students during center time or other open periods of time. If students talk to the teacher, the teacher rarely responds with more than a few words. In addition, there are few, if any, back–and–forth exchanges between the teacher and students. The conversations that do occur in the classroom are primarily teacher–controlled and focus on students' behavior, classroom management, or teaching a particular concept or skill. Teacher–controlled conversations are those in which the teacher selects the conversational topic, limits students' answers, and/or does not wait patiently for students to respond. For instance, large–group time for a classroom scoring at the low end of this dimension would include a preponderance of closed–ended questions and little recasting or repeating of students' responses, such as the following:

Teacher: Show me your right hand.

[Students raise right hand.]

Teacher: Good. Teresa, point to your left.

[Teresa points to left.]

Teacher: Good job. Who is on your left, everyone?

[Students say names of classmates.]

Teacher: That's right. Nice work.

In this interaction, the students have little or no opportunity to initiate conversation; the teacher is setting the pace and the conversational focus, no extended turn taking is present, and the students' communicative participation is highly constrained. Classrooms receiving a low score on this dimension are characterized by a high frequency of this type of teacher—student interaction. Students do not initiate conversation with their peers and rarely, if ever, engage in extended conversations with one another. The students primarily direct their comments to the teacher.

The majority of the teacher's questions are closed–ended. The teacher consistently asks questions that require no more than a one–word answer or short sentence (e.g., "What is this?" "What color is it?" "Where is it?" "How many are there?") Students rarely, if ever, have opportunities to respond to the teacher with more complex language.

The teacher rarely, if ever, repeats or extends the students' responses. When students make comments or ask questions, the teacher does not respond to the comment or answer the question and/or ignores the student's communicative attempt. For example, while the teacher is reading a story to the class, a student points to and makes a comment about a bird in the illustration: "Look, there's a blue bird." The teacher either continues to read, ignoring the student's comment, or simply says, "Yes, a bird."

The teacher rarely maps his or her own actions and the students' actions through language and description. The teacher does not use self–talk or parallel talk in conversation or instruction. For example, when he is writing something on the board, he simply writes, rather than using it as an opportunity to link his actions to language by saying something such as, "Now I am writing a B, then an O, then an A, then a T." During play with students, he fails to use parallel talk to describe what the students are doing such as, "Wow, you are building a tall tower; you are putting another block on top and then another."

The teacher does not use advanced language with students. The vocabulary that the teacher uses to explain concepts to the students is limited and lacks variety. Terms or ideas that may be difficult for students are rarely clarified in simple terms or in a way to which students can relate.

Middle–Range Language Modeling (3, 4, 5)

There are limited conversations in the classroom. The teacher talks regularly with and to the students and appears somewhat interested in the students; however, conversations typically are limited to one or two back–and–forth exchanges r...

Edition details

• Publisher: Brookes Publishing
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 1557669414
• ISBN 13: 9781557669414
• Binding: Spiral-bound
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 120