If you have not yet had the opportunity to view Matt Damon's speech at the Save Our Schools March in Washington, DC, please do yourself a favor and watch now. I had heard about it from various sources, but had not taken the time to watch it until I stumbled across it at Mr. EduHowTo's blog. It's a refreshing, inspiring, feel-good seven-and-a-half minutes that will help you to look forward to the upcoming school year, in spite of budget cuts, standardized tests, and threats of school take-overs. Damon, whose mother was a teacher, speaks out against the current teacher-bashing atmosphere that seems to prevail in society today.
The complete blog post, "A Ray of Hope for Educators," posted August 5, 2011 by "Mr. EduHowTo" can be viewed at: http://eduhowto.wordpress.com/2011/08/05/a-ray-of-hope-for-educators/
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Sunday, August 7, 2011
Response to "Leveling the Playing Field: How to Make Standardized Test Preparation Accessible to All Students"
I always have mixed emotions when I hear about "test preparation." On one hand, I agree that it's important that we assess our students to confirm that they have learned new material and have improved their skills over time. On the other hand, I feel deeply concerned that our society places so much emphasis on how well our students perform on one single standardized test per academic area per year. All educators are aware that one small snapshot, such as a single standardized test, cannot possibly hope to give a complete overview of what a particular student has learned. And yet we are in constant pursuit of that elusive test preparation tool that will help to "level the playing field."
Now, I will say that that Andrea Alexander, the author of this article, does give two very good test prep suggestions: "Encourage Predictive Reading Habits," and "Build Good Vocabularies." These are valuable teaching practices whether you are preparing for a standardized test or not. But Aexander's third strategy, "Take Advantage of All the Resources Offered by the Internet," seems too artificial to be considered an all-round good classroom strategy. To me, this is an example of "teaching to the test." According to Alexander, "By adding a few simple approaches into their lesson plans and exploring developments in online standardized test prep, such as practice questions, video tutorials, and forums, teachers can integrate the skills that help students add points to their scores into the classroom and make test preparation attainable for any student with an internet connection." All this for a $100 to $300 membership! I'm not sure why, but I feel almost offended by Alexander's suggestion that students should be encouraged to pay a membership fee in order to access resources promising to help them "...add points to their scores..."
How can we make people see that the results of a single test do not always reveal a true picture of student learning, but rather encourage students, parents, and teachers to employ artificial methods in order to achieve higher scores?
The complete article, "Leveling the PLaying Field: How to Make Standardized Test Preparations Accessible to All Students," posted July 6, 2011 by Andrea Alexander, can be viewed at: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/how-to-make-standardized-test-prep-available-to-all-students
Now, I will say that that Andrea Alexander, the author of this article, does give two very good test prep suggestions: "Encourage Predictive Reading Habits," and "Build Good Vocabularies." These are valuable teaching practices whether you are preparing for a standardized test or not. But Aexander's third strategy, "Take Advantage of All the Resources Offered by the Internet," seems too artificial to be considered an all-round good classroom strategy. To me, this is an example of "teaching to the test." According to Alexander, "By adding a few simple approaches into their lesson plans and exploring developments in online standardized test prep, such as practice questions, video tutorials, and forums, teachers can integrate the skills that help students add points to their scores into the classroom and make test preparation attainable for any student with an internet connection." All this for a $100 to $300 membership! I'm not sure why, but I feel almost offended by Alexander's suggestion that students should be encouraged to pay a membership fee in order to access resources promising to help them "...add points to their scores..."
How can we make people see that the results of a single test do not always reveal a true picture of student learning, but rather encourage students, parents, and teachers to employ artificial methods in order to achieve higher scores?
The complete article, "Leveling the PLaying Field: How to Make Standardized Test Preparations Accessible to All Students," posted July 6, 2011 by Andrea Alexander, can be viewed at: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/how-to-make-standardized-test-prep-available-to-all-students
Response to "Student Learning Groups: Homogeneous or Heterogeneous?"
Wow, guilty as charged! Reading this article by Ben Johnson made me very conscious of the fact that I often group students heterogeneously in an attempt to manage discipline, or in the hope that the brighter students will inspire the struggling students to "try harder." These assumptions really come into play during our biggest project of the year, our Science Fair project. I go to great lengths to assure that behavior problems are spread among the different groups, and that lower-achieving students are grouped with the higher achievers. While this does tend to work okay for the most part, I can always anticipate complaints from some group members who assert, "_______'s not helping!" And rightly so; often the behavior-problem or low-achieving student is not helping, and is often hindering the group's efforts. Is this fair to the hard-working students who really want to do a good job, and who would very likely learn a great deal and produce an excellent product if only all the members in the group were working towards a common goal? No, it's not, but on the other hand, if several behavior problems or low-achieving students were grouped together, those groups would demand a great deal of my time, and I believe that the higher-achieving groups would feel that they were getting cheated out of my attention, and would not be getting all the advice and guidance that they needed. I'm still not sure of what the right answer is in regard to student groupings on large, long-term projects.
For short-term projects, I do use a variety of grouping methods. Different methods I have used include: assigning a partner, allowing students to chose, randomly drawing name cards two at a time, handing out colored cards and directing students to form groups that include one of each color, ...etc.
Based on this article though, I will reconsider the use of heterogeneous grouping on long-term projects. Perhaps the best way to really examine this would be to have at least one long-term project with the students grouped heterogeneously and at least one with the students grouped homogeneously.
The complete article, "Student Learning Groups: Homogeneous or Heterogeneous?" posted on August 2, 2011 by Ben Johnson can be viewed at: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/student-grouping-homogeneous-heterogeneous-ben-johnson
For short-term projects, I do use a variety of grouping methods. Different methods I have used include: assigning a partner, allowing students to chose, randomly drawing name cards two at a time, handing out colored cards and directing students to form groups that include one of each color, ...etc.
Based on this article though, I will reconsider the use of heterogeneous grouping on long-term projects. Perhaps the best way to really examine this would be to have at least one long-term project with the students grouped heterogeneously and at least one with the students grouped homogeneously.
The complete article, "Student Learning Groups: Homogeneous or Heterogeneous?" posted on August 2, 2011 by Ben Johnson can be viewed at: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/student-grouping-homogeneous-heterogeneous-ben-johnson
Friday, August 5, 2011
Response to "States Seek Ways to Measure Quality Instructional Time"
Whenever I hear about the need to add more "instructional time," I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I know I have often felt that if I just had more time with the students, we could accomplish so much more! On the other hand, I often feel that if my students had to spend even one more minute inside the classroom, they would explode!
According to this article by Sarah D. Sparks, "Education Secretary Arne Duncan has made 'extended learning time' a political catch-phrase..." Just what is "extended learning time?" More hours in the school day? More days in the school year? Or is it just making better use of the time we currently have available? In this article, Sparks mentions schools in Oklahoma which have conducted audits of their time, revealing that schools tend to "[use] about three-quarters of their time for instruction, as opposed to class transitions, recess, and other things." To me, this sounds reasonable. I can't imagine what it would be like for the students if we expected them to be engaged in learning for more than 75% of their day. Think back to the last college course or PD opportunity that you, as a teacher, took part in. Were you able to stay totally engaged and focused for over six hours? I know that from my experience, I tend to feel "saturated" by a certain point. I feel that young students definitely need a little "down-time" in their day: transitions, recess, special activities...etc.
I'm not sure the answer to a higher quality education lies in adding time to the day, or days to the year. No matter what, kids still need time to be kids. To confine them to a classroom for a greater portion of their childhood doesn't seem to be the answer. It might be different if schools could afford more field trip types of learning opportunities, but with funding what it is right now, that doesn't seem likely in the near future.
One thing that definitely could extend a child's learning opportunities is if parents played a greater role in a child's education. Reading at home, playing board games, trips to the grocery store, zoo, or museum...the lists goes on and on. These are the types of "extended learning times" that children could really benefit from. But, as we all know, not all children have the opportunity to take advantage of these types of activities either. So, most likely, schools will be mandated to play a greater role in children's lives (we're already expected to not only educate them, but feed them twice a day and guide them in social skills and citizenship). When will parents be mandated to parent their children?
The complete article, "States Seek Ways to Measure Quality Instructional Time," posted August 4, 2011 by Sarah D. Sparks can be viewed at : http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/08/states_seek_ways_to_measure_qu.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2
According to this article by Sarah D. Sparks, "Education Secretary Arne Duncan has made 'extended learning time' a political catch-phrase..." Just what is "extended learning time?" More hours in the school day? More days in the school year? Or is it just making better use of the time we currently have available? In this article, Sparks mentions schools in Oklahoma which have conducted audits of their time, revealing that schools tend to "[use] about three-quarters of their time for instruction, as opposed to class transitions, recess, and other things." To me, this sounds reasonable. I can't imagine what it would be like for the students if we expected them to be engaged in learning for more than 75% of their day. Think back to the last college course or PD opportunity that you, as a teacher, took part in. Were you able to stay totally engaged and focused for over six hours? I know that from my experience, I tend to feel "saturated" by a certain point. I feel that young students definitely need a little "down-time" in their day: transitions, recess, special activities...etc.
I'm not sure the answer to a higher quality education lies in adding time to the day, or days to the year. No matter what, kids still need time to be kids. To confine them to a classroom for a greater portion of their childhood doesn't seem to be the answer. It might be different if schools could afford more field trip types of learning opportunities, but with funding what it is right now, that doesn't seem likely in the near future.
One thing that definitely could extend a child's learning opportunities is if parents played a greater role in a child's education. Reading at home, playing board games, trips to the grocery store, zoo, or museum...the lists goes on and on. These are the types of "extended learning times" that children could really benefit from. But, as we all know, not all children have the opportunity to take advantage of these types of activities either. So, most likely, schools will be mandated to play a greater role in children's lives (we're already expected to not only educate them, but feed them twice a day and guide them in social skills and citizenship). When will parents be mandated to parent their children?
The complete article, "States Seek Ways to Measure Quality Instructional Time," posted August 4, 2011 by Sarah D. Sparks can be viewed at : http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/inside-school-research/2011/08/states_seek_ways_to_measure_qu.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2
Response to "Confronting Gender Anxiety"
I must be out of the loop, because I didn't realize that gender was once again a hot news topic, as this article states. The two main examples of efforts to combat gender stereotyping mentioned in this article seem quite extreme to me: a couple in Canada who refuse to reveal the gender of their 4-month-old baby; and a preschool in Sweden that does not allow the words boy, girl, him, or her, instead using "friend" and "a newly minted Swedish word, the genderless 'hen,'" according to the authors of this article, Caryl Rivers and Rosalind Barnett.
I realize that there are many legitimate concerns regarding gender stereotyping, both in schools and in society at large, but I'm not sure that either of the above examples provides the answer to the problem. I feel that educating society about the negative aspects of gender stereotyping can be our best defense against the problem. Of course, I am aware that efforts to educate the public have been going on for years, but sometimes those efforts have been too sporadic, or too extreme (as in the above examples). When the efforts are sporadic, some people may mistakenly believe that the problem has been "solved" and cease to worry about it. When the efforts are too extreme, I think people tend to scoff at the ridiculousness of it, and then disregard the importance of the larger issue.
In my classroom, the question is often on my mind: "Do I treat both the boys and the girls in a fair and equitable manner?" This is a very difficult question to answer, because I don't believe that fair treatment always means the same treatment. Sometimes what's best for one student, or even one gender, is not best for another student or the other gender. I even wonder if you can hope to expect the same results when the same treatment is given to everyone.
Part of the problem with gender stereotyping, too, is that it's almost impossible to separate the behaviors and attitudes of a child that are genetic from those that are imposed by society. What if you had an entire classroom of students who were raised like the 4-month-old mentioned at the beginning of this post: their gender was never revealed to society? (Yes, impossible, I know, but play along). Would it really be impossible to tell the boys from the girls if they had similar haircuts and clothing? Would we even want males and females to be so similar that we couldn't tell them apart?
Again, I agree that gender stereotyping is a dilemma in our society, but I don't agree that measures as extreme as the two cited by Rivers and Barnett are necessarily the best way to combat the problem.
The complete article, "Confronting Gender Anxiety," posted August 5, 2011 by Caryl Rivers and Rosalind Barnett can be viewed at: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/08/05/37rivers.h30.html?tkn=NVRFePrMLlEqE%2BJQOJi8J3JJaimDbIvDxfbN&cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS1
I realize that there are many legitimate concerns regarding gender stereotyping, both in schools and in society at large, but I'm not sure that either of the above examples provides the answer to the problem. I feel that educating society about the negative aspects of gender stereotyping can be our best defense against the problem. Of course, I am aware that efforts to educate the public have been going on for years, but sometimes those efforts have been too sporadic, or too extreme (as in the above examples). When the efforts are sporadic, some people may mistakenly believe that the problem has been "solved" and cease to worry about it. When the efforts are too extreme, I think people tend to scoff at the ridiculousness of it, and then disregard the importance of the larger issue.
In my classroom, the question is often on my mind: "Do I treat both the boys and the girls in a fair and equitable manner?" This is a very difficult question to answer, because I don't believe that fair treatment always means the same treatment. Sometimes what's best for one student, or even one gender, is not best for another student or the other gender. I even wonder if you can hope to expect the same results when the same treatment is given to everyone.
Part of the problem with gender stereotyping, too, is that it's almost impossible to separate the behaviors and attitudes of a child that are genetic from those that are imposed by society. What if you had an entire classroom of students who were raised like the 4-month-old mentioned at the beginning of this post: their gender was never revealed to society? (Yes, impossible, I know, but play along). Would it really be impossible to tell the boys from the girls if they had similar haircuts and clothing? Would we even want males and females to be so similar that we couldn't tell them apart?
Again, I agree that gender stereotyping is a dilemma in our society, but I don't agree that measures as extreme as the two cited by Rivers and Barnett are necessarily the best way to combat the problem.
The complete article, "Confronting Gender Anxiety," posted August 5, 2011 by Caryl Rivers and Rosalind Barnett can be viewed at: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/08/05/37rivers.h30.html?tkn=NVRFePrMLlEqE%2BJQOJi8J3JJaimDbIvDxfbN&cmp=ENL-EU-VIEWS1
Response to "Teachers Head Back to School With a Shortage of Money--And Morale"
Wow, can I ever relate to this! Just like the Alabama teachers in this article by Tim Lockette, the teachers in my school have been adversely affected by deep budget cuts this year. Many of our teachers are laid off; for the first time ever we are paying over $100 per pay for our health insurance; we received no money to purchase classroom supplies; and we're expecting to have class sizes that hover around 32 students. Our staff is having a hard time maintaining a positive attitude with all the negatives that are out of their control.
Most importantly, it's difficult to think of how all of this will ultimately impact the students. I am most concerned about class sizes. I am currently teaching summer school to a group of nine students who struggled last year. When I think about these nine students being placed in a classroom of 32, I can't help but think that they will be totally lost, and some may ultimately give up. And yet, the teachers are expected to bring all students up to grade level, capable of passing a standardized test over a year's worth of material--and they won't even be tested until they've had a few months to forget some of what they learned!
I certainly don't know what the answer is (and obviously our governor doesn't either, because he was instrumental in getting us into this budget crisis!), but I hope that I, and the other teachers, can maintain a positive learning environment for our students. I look forward to every new year, and in spite of my concerns, I am looking forward to this one as well!
The complete article, "Teachers Head Back to School With a Shortage of Money--and Morale," posted August 5, 2011 by Tim Lockette, can be viewed at: http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2011/08/05/mct_alteachermorale.html?tkn=YNNFIW4Qr%2FpizflqabqzKkRhWWVv1LM%2BYARv&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2
Most importantly, it's difficult to think of how all of this will ultimately impact the students. I am most concerned about class sizes. I am currently teaching summer school to a group of nine students who struggled last year. When I think about these nine students being placed in a classroom of 32, I can't help but think that they will be totally lost, and some may ultimately give up. And yet, the teachers are expected to bring all students up to grade level, capable of passing a standardized test over a year's worth of material--and they won't even be tested until they've had a few months to forget some of what they learned!
I certainly don't know what the answer is (and obviously our governor doesn't either, because he was instrumental in getting us into this budget crisis!), but I hope that I, and the other teachers, can maintain a positive learning environment for our students. I look forward to every new year, and in spite of my concerns, I am looking forward to this one as well!
The complete article, "Teachers Head Back to School With a Shortage of Money--and Morale," posted August 5, 2011 by Tim Lockette, can be viewed at: http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/2011/08/05/mct_alteachermorale.html?tkn=YNNFIW4Qr%2FpizflqabqzKkRhWWVv1LM%2BYARv&cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2
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