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Learning in the Fast Lane: 8 Ways to Put All Students on the Road to Success
165 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2014
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December 8, 2023This is not a super exciting book to read or implement. That’s not the say it’s not full of valuable information, because I think it is. It’s just more general than I tend to like, because I like content specific things, as you’ll see. In addition the tone is all business. The idea here is to provide eight key steps to improve learning and reduce gaps in learning.
Step one involves how to create Accelerated Classes (meaning closing gaps quickly), and while I agree in general that the gaps in kids’ education need this kind of structure, I am not in charge of those decisions, this didn’t impact me much as a teacher.
Step two involves using standards walls instead of just simply posting the state standards on the wall. The difference is that posting the standards is a CYA/Best Practices nonsense step that replaces actual good work. Student need to know what they’re expected to learn, but the standards are kind of opaque and are a list, not actual instruction. Most standards are written to tell the parents and teachers what’s expected and cannot really be used to inform student, even as objectives. The standards wall instead provides a visual model for kids to know what will be learned and how that learning will be demonstrated. Again, I like the idea, but I will be floating this year, so I can’t make a wall as such. That doesn’t mean I can’t be on top of how best to present the learning goals to students.
Step three involves “success starters.” Chances are when you were in school you had an introductory task on the board as you walked in. Different divisions call them different things “Snapshots” “Bellwork” “Bell ringers” etc. The goal is usually to help establish routine and get kids working on something while the beginning of class chaos settles down before the warm up activity. This author argues instead that kids need to working directly on the lesson material and doing thoughtful and interactive work at the beginning. This means not review work, busywork or homework type stuff. Her argument is NOT that every minute counts and all that. That’s kind of true, but “bell to bell teaching” is more used as a cudgel than as a realistic tool. Instead, her argument is that this is the best time to have kids begin to engage with material because the opening minutes are when they are most open to learning. They’ve just had a slight break/disruption. Their attention is the highest. I like this approach because it starts class off on the right foot, focusing on say a thematic or creative idea, getting kids motivated and moving, and time goes by way faster (which usually means it’s functioning and kids are not getting tired or off-track).
Step four feels more like a reminder than a prescription. This is where the book is useful for new teachers or teachers who are trying to reinvigorate themselves. Formative assessment and feedback. For you non-teacher folks, formative assessments are spot checks that teachers do to see if individual students or most of the class is “getting it”. These are myriad: short discussions, questions and answers, hand raises, Kahoot, etc. The idea here is to monitor progress all along the way and stop or slow down as necessary and add in more supports.
Step five is strategic vocabulary plans. This is a step that I found useful reading this text. Vocab is an incredibly frustrating and important part of high school English. In one way, kids need to learn new words and especially content words. They also need to learn how to use those words, how to master them, and then translate general skills into successful reading in my area and others.
Step six is student work sessions. Think about this as the class time devoted to students “doing work” whether those are practice sets, reading skills,writing skills. This section serves as a reminder to make meaningful work available to students: relevant, earnest, achievable, and purposeful.
Step seven is similar to six, motivation. Basically students need to know what you want them to do, how to do it, why they’re doing it, and why it’s meaningful. If you can communicate these to student through good explanation, good planning, and modeling (showing them how to do it) and provide them a space to take risks, they will be have greater success.
Lastly scaffolding. Scaffolding are the structural supports put into place by teachers to help student take initial steps, and as they master them, these get taken away.
Over all, this is a strong book, but not very much new stuff for me. I will probably reread the vocabulary section before school starts how I can come up with a more thoughtful way for students to learn new words.
Step one involves how to create Accelerated Classes (meaning closing gaps quickly), and while I agree in general that the gaps in kids’ education need this kind of structure, I am not in charge of those decisions, this didn’t impact me much as a teacher.
Step two involves using standards walls instead of just simply posting the state standards on the wall. The difference is that posting the standards is a CYA/Best Practices nonsense step that replaces actual good work. Student need to know what they’re expected to learn, but the standards are kind of opaque and are a list, not actual instruction. Most standards are written to tell the parents and teachers what’s expected and cannot really be used to inform student, even as objectives. The standards wall instead provides a visual model for kids to know what will be learned and how that learning will be demonstrated. Again, I like the idea, but I will be floating this year, so I can’t make a wall as such. That doesn’t mean I can’t be on top of how best to present the learning goals to students.
Step three involves “success starters.” Chances are when you were in school you had an introductory task on the board as you walked in. Different divisions call them different things “Snapshots” “Bellwork” “Bell ringers” etc. The goal is usually to help establish routine and get kids working on something while the beginning of class chaos settles down before the warm up activity. This author argues instead that kids need to working directly on the lesson material and doing thoughtful and interactive work at the beginning. This means not review work, busywork or homework type stuff. Her argument is NOT that every minute counts and all that. That’s kind of true, but “bell to bell teaching” is more used as a cudgel than as a realistic tool. Instead, her argument is that this is the best time to have kids begin to engage with material because the opening minutes are when they are most open to learning. They’ve just had a slight break/disruption. Their attention is the highest. I like this approach because it starts class off on the right foot, focusing on say a thematic or creative idea, getting kids motivated and moving, and time goes by way faster (which usually means it’s functioning and kids are not getting tired or off-track).
Step four feels more like a reminder than a prescription. This is where the book is useful for new teachers or teachers who are trying to reinvigorate themselves. Formative assessment and feedback. For you non-teacher folks, formative assessments are spot checks that teachers do to see if individual students or most of the class is “getting it”. These are myriad: short discussions, questions and answers, hand raises, Kahoot, etc. The idea here is to monitor progress all along the way and stop or slow down as necessary and add in more supports.
Step five is strategic vocabulary plans. This is a step that I found useful reading this text. Vocab is an incredibly frustrating and important part of high school English. In one way, kids need to learn new words and especially content words. They also need to learn how to use those words, how to master them, and then translate general skills into successful reading in my area and others.
Step six is student work sessions. Think about this as the class time devoted to students “doing work” whether those are practice sets, reading skills,writing skills. This section serves as a reminder to make meaningful work available to students: relevant, earnest, achievable, and purposeful.
Step seven is similar to six, motivation. Basically students need to know what you want them to do, how to do it, why they’re doing it, and why it’s meaningful. If you can communicate these to student through good explanation, good planning, and modeling (showing them how to do it) and provide them a space to take risks, they will be have greater success.
Lastly scaffolding. Scaffolding are the structural supports put into place by teachers to help student take initial steps, and as they master them, these get taken away.
Over all, this is a strong book, but not very much new stuff for me. I will probably reread the vocabulary section before school starts how I can come up with a more thoughtful way for students to learn new words.
January 26, 2016
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’ 3rd 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).
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
1. Homework challenges 1. School homework plans that identify (and post)
– either failure to complete it or doing purpose and value of HW and specificly place
it wrong parameters on HW length;
Learning Labs or opportunity rooms for students
to complete HW at school.
2. Zeros or low grades for missing work 2. 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)
3. Lack of ongoing assessment & intervention 3. 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.
4. Low Student Motivation 4. Student surveys to determine degree of
difficulty of tasks and level of interest;
Teacher as caring adult.
5. Weak skills or knowledge gaps 5. Early reading intervention – as reading
comprehension is essential to learning.
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’ 3rd 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).
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
1. Homework challenges 1. School homework plans that identify (and post)
– either failure to complete it or doing purpose and value of HW and specificly place
it wrong parameters on HW length;
Learning Labs or opportunity rooms for students
to complete HW at school.
2. Zeros or low grades for missing work 2. 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)
3. Lack of ongoing assessment & intervention 3. 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.
4. Low Student Motivation 4. Student surveys to determine degree of
difficulty of tasks and level of interest;
Teacher as caring adult.
5. Weak skills or knowledge gaps 5. Early reading intervention – as reading
comprehension is essential to learning.
February 28, 2020
The author is in favor of acceleration classes instead of remediation classes. Students can learn the past concepts embedded in the new content. In his framework he talks about success starters and how they are different from the warm-ups and openings in a lesson. He also discusses strategies to present vocabulary, create assessment, enhance reading comprehension and types of scaffolding devices. Motivation is another aspect of the book.
I specially like the discussion around success starters; it gave me another perspective on using role-plays and how to approach homework review. There were a few strategies I didn't know and others that I always found difficult to implement but here the explanation was concise and concrete. For the rest of the information, it is good to refresh your memory.
This book is for all content teachers as the author shows how the same strategy can be used in different subjects.
I specially like the discussion around success starters; it gave me another perspective on using role-plays and how to approach homework review. There were a few strategies I didn't know and others that I always found difficult to implement but here the explanation was concise and concrete. For the rest of the information, it is good to refresh your memory.
This book is for all content teachers as the author shows how the same strategy can be used in different subjects.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 6, 2017
This is a highly-readable, immediately-implementable professional book for teachers. My favorite idea is doing away with remediation and replacing it with acceleration. You identify your strugglers and pre-teach the vocabulary and prior knowledge for each upcoming lesson. They then enter that class with confidence and skills to understand the concepts. Rather than giving them less-interesting, less-challenging skill review, they develop their skills with their peers.
I recommend this for every secondary teacher.
I recommend this for every secondary teacher.
June 22, 2017
Many good pieces to use on cluster class--maybe as a second semester book after reading Teaching in the Fast Lane in first semester.
*** Use Chapter 2 in cluster--the whole thing! Have t's select a piece to work on--(TIP? Standards wall?) AND it brings in student work! (32).
(TIP = Terms, Information, Pictures)
***Also use...
Success starters (39+)
Assessment
Vocabulary (ch 5) *Real examples, (76-77)
Student work sessions = (one part of pie chart lesson)
Scaffolding (136+) Explanation + strategies
Reasons ss still fail (146+)
*** Use Chapter 2 in cluster--the whole thing! Have t's select a piece to work on--(TIP? Standards wall?) AND it brings in student work! (32).
(TIP = Terms, Information, Pictures)
***Also use...
Success starters (39+)
Assessment
Vocabulary (ch 5) *Real examples, (76-77)
Student work sessions = (one part of pie chart lesson)
Scaffolding (136+) Explanation + strategies
Reasons ss still fail (146+)
August 4, 2020
The book doesn't really do Suzy justice- if you ever have the chance to attend one of her workshops or hear her live- you MUST. Her innovation of acceleration instead of remediation would change the American public schools if we let it. It's an equity issue, and I am thankful to have had her coaching, books, and theories present as we redesigned programs in my school.
Her book has so many practical suggestions- it's a must read for teachers.
Her book has so many practical suggestions- it's a must read for teachers.
July 28, 2021
Loved this book! As our interventionist I am so inspired and cant wait to work with our staff to get them to shift their thinking from remediation to acceleration. I love the standards/content maps especially. This should be required reading for all educators since we all have students who lack either motivation or self-efficacy.
August 7, 2022
Read by suggestion of my principal to hopefully start a pilot group at work. I took Criss and Kagan years ago and loved them. This was a nice refresher and I found a couple new ideas to implement in my room!
November 25, 2024
I loved these ideas, but it was a little hard to be able to relate it to a smaller school is some aspects. Made me think a lot about how we teach as a whole school and what to do to mitigate the problems we have as well as what we are doing well.
June 9, 2021
Easy read, good ideas, especially for newer teachers.
September 15, 2021
A book of strong strategies for accelerating student learning.
December 24, 2021
I recently finished this book as part of a class through NNU. It was informative and provided approachable strategies to increase motivation for struggling students.
May 6, 2014
This book argues that we spend entirely to much time with remediation and not enough time accelerating and setting students up for success. What I love about this book are the easy to implement tips that just take minor changes to use for student success. For example, instead of a warm up bell ringer use a success starter where students are finding success and relevance in what's coming up in the lesson today. Another gem is instead of finishing a worksheet while reading partners can read looking for vocab and one partner flags vocab words while the other explains in their own words.
September 22, 2015
An excellent book that provides strategies for accelerating students. If you remediate students when they are behind, they will always be behind. The strategies that this book incorporates for setting a strong foundation are fantastic. In order for students to feel successful in the general classroom, a solid preview will assist in this. I encourage SPED teachers as well as any teacher to be exposed to this material. At our school, we are encouraging our SPED and EIP teachers to utilize this model.
June 29, 2014
Reading this book will freshen and refresh the practices teachers use to reach all learners; it would be an excellent beginning of the year book study for any grade level PLC. It's also a tool for evaluating the things we seem to habitually do in class without remembering why we do them. I, for one, will be revisiting many of my practices this coming year as a result of reading this book in partnership with many other books to powerfully implement the Common Core curriculum.
November 7, 2015
Lots of interesting ideas and examples. My biggest issues with implementation are time and space--doing this well requires that co-teachers have regular, dedicated planning time to truly collaborate, as well as quite a bit of wall space. Both of these are sadly lacking in my current situation.
December 13, 2015
Quick read that sparked some ideas. I liked the discussion of acceleration of learning, and scaffolding as a quick support strategy.
November 10, 2015
An interesting look at what to do with students who don't learn information the first time
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews