Murphy, Hayashida Turn 156th Street Classrooms into Interactive Adventures

In Room 14 at 156th Street Elementary School in Gardena, Patricia Murphy writes two fractions on the white board and intentionally adds them incorrectly. She then asks her fifth-grade students to tell her what she did wrong. "You didn’t reduce the fraction," says an enthusiastic 11-year-old with 10 other classmates also ready to give Murphy the correct answer.

Meanwhile, next door in Room 13, Roy Hayashida is re-enacting the battle of Lexington and Concord by asking his students to use their imaginations to transport themselves back to 1775 to the site of the famous Revolutionary War battle. "It’s like watching T.V.," says 11-year-old Greg, describing Hayashida’s animated story telling style of teaching. "I can see the pictures in my mind."

In about 15 minutes the two classes will switch and Murphy and Hayashida will repeat their lessons to each other’s students receiving the same enthusiastic responses and participation.

"With this group we really have to turn teaching into an interactive adventure," said Hayashida. "It’s a very hands-on cooperative learning environment," Murphy said completing Hayashida’s thought. Actually, these days, the two teachers finish each others thoughts quite often, especially since they have developed a team teaching format that allows them to plan instruction for and interact with the entire fifth grade.

Murphy, a 25-year teaching veteran and Hayashida, who has been teaching for five years, have seen great success since they began team teaching two years ago. So much so, that the team has been given an Excellence Award by the Los Angeles Educational Partnership for their exemplary teaching practices.

They team teach social studies and math so the students benefit from their expertise in each area. Although they don’t team teach other subjects, they plan together and present similar programs in each of their classrooms, making modifications from year to year to build upon the strengths and individual needs of students. Their day typically begins sometime early each morning when the two meet to go over the lessons for the day and may not end until the early evening with Murphy and Hayashida analyzing student work to see if it meets content standards.

"We talk all the time," Murphy said. "We talk before school, during school, after school and we call each other at home."

With their classrooms arranged in a way that promotes cooperative learning and the sharing of ideas, the teachers focus on providing students with a hands-on learning experience and helping them make connections between subjects and developing thinking skills. Students are encouraged to investigate answers for themselves and have become active partners in their learning. For example, students often correct their own class work and have control over whether they will have homework based on their classroom performance and participation.

"We give the students choices," said Murphy. "All of these students have the potential to learn as much as they want."

During the past two years, the team teaching approach has yielded measurable positive results. Fifth graders made significant improvements in their 1999 Stanford 9 test scores as compared with their 1998 scores at the end of the fourth grade with reading scores rising from a mean percentile of 46 to 57, math rising from 49 to 65 and language rising from 47 to 57. In addition, the gains students made in Stanford 9 test performance between fourth and fifth grade showed up across every ethnic group. Every group scored at or above a mean percentile in reading of 28 in 1998 and 46 in 1999, an increase of 18 percentile ranks. In mathematics, scores of all groups were above a mean percentile of 40 in fourth grade and 52 in fifth grade. In language arts, the difference between 1998 and 1999 was a minimum mean percentile of 39 for fourth- grade groups and 47 at the end of their fifth-grade year.

Individually, 16 fifth-grade students maintained a 3.5 grade point average for the second and third trimesters in 1999 for which they were awarded the Principal’s Academic Achievement Award. Six students earned the President’s Academic Fitness Award for earning a 3.5 GPA and maintaining a math or reading percentile of 85 or higher on the SAT-9 for two consecutive school years.

"Of course our goal is to make the kids smarter, but it’s also to teach them how to think and to change their attitudes about learning" Hayashida said. "A lot of times the kids don’t even know that they’re learning something because we try to make it fun for them."

Murphy and Hayashida can point to several students who they say went through an attitude shift. Eight months ago, Doug, 11 arrived at 156th Street School from another Garden Grove school with what the two teachers described as a "bad attitude."

"He made it quite clear that he wasn’t interested in school, he didn’t participate in class and didn’t turn in his homework. He rarely even smiled," Hayashida said. "We worked together and started slowly getting him involved in the class activities and he began to trust us. Now, Doug turns in his homework everyday and wants to learn."

The same could be said to a lesser extent about 11-year-old Stephanie. An otherwise bright student, Stephanie did not like to read. But because of Murphy’s constant encouragement, Stephanie is now an avid reader.

"I just really had to find the right book for her," Murphy said, adding that she typically reads dozens of kids books a year so that she knows what to recommend to her students.

"I think we’ve really created a feeling of community," Hayashida said. "What we’ve created is a giant fifth grade where students know we’re both here to help them achieve." Murphy agrees. "Neither one of our programs are static," she said. "We bounce ideas off each other all the time and are constantly improving upon what and how we teach. This is absolutely the best teaching situation I have ever taught in."

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