MEd-OJT: Mark Johnson

Student Centered Formative Assessment

2010-03-19T16:02:00.001-07:00

An evaluation informed by three sources:

http://www.fairtest.org/value-formative-assessment-pdf

http://www.nmsa.org/Publications/WebExclusive/Assessment/tabid/1120/Default.aspx

http://www.lincoln.k12.or.us/Files/Formative%20Assessment%20Strategies.pdf

Formative assessment distinguishes itself in its focus on in process assessment of students' learning--a contrast to the more tradition and much more common summative assessment which assess students' learning after the process of covering content (i.e., Unit Tests, State-Assessments). Their are two opinions that were expressed in the sources in terms of how best to implement formative assessment, though all sources agreed on the merit of relying on formative assessment. There is the opinion (in Formative and Summative Assessment in the Classroom) that there should be a balance of reliance on both formative and summative styles. This is based on the understanding that formative in process assessment will allow for micro-assessment of students learning on specific topics, allowing adjustment and identifying needs especially in terms of remediation. However, likening this to grading students on their practice of the material, there is a need to assess there ability to demonstrate whole understanding--which only summative assessment can provide.

The other opinion (in The Value of Formative Assessment) is that a class successfully implementing formative assessment, needs only to rely on that. That is to assume that the flexibility and responsiveness that formative assessment provides, coupled with spiraling of content, can better support students' development of compounding understanding--the success of which will be demonstrated in process.

I find myself supporting this opinion and rely on the final source (Formative Assessment Strategies) as a model for creating a classroom culture that relies on formative assessment. I find that the spiraling assessment, flexibility, and responsiveness that a successful formative assessment provides can be more effective than summative assessment.

Book Review

2010-03-19T12:28:00.000-07:00

Black Children: Their Roots, Culture, And Learning Style

Janice E. Hale-Benson

The introduction of the book brings in the central concern and driving observation that the author has made—Black children are rooted in Afro-American culture and are being asked to succeed in an education system that is Euro-centric. From this realization an examination begins with the goal of honing in on the nature of and sources of Black children’s learning styles—to give, as the book shows, perspective on how to better build a curriculum responsive to the needs of Black children. The book’s chapters can be grouped as contributing to this examination in three ways—examining the sources of culture, connecting culture to its influence on cognitive development, and, in seeing such, the implications on what is needed for a culturally responsive curriculum. The chapters African Background Considered and The Humanities as a Source of Black Culture both reveal Afro-American culture as being intensely rich and unique—with many practices and traits being rooted in West African traditions. Another related chapter, Afro-American Roots: Interviews with Grandmothers, is based on the author’s survey Black and white grandmothers for comparison of child-rearing practices as another mode of influence on the child-development. The chapters How Culture Shapes Cognition, Play Behavior as an Indicator of Cognitive, and Culture and Child-Rearing discuss how culturally sourced behaviors and perspectives contribute to the cognitive reasoning of Black children. There is a distinction drawn between two types of cognitive reasoning—those being analytic and relational—Black culture encourages children’s development of the latter—while the Eurocentric system rewards most an expression of analytic cognitive reasoning. This cognitive conflict is a major source of conflict of the Euro-centric education system and the Black child. The final chapter, Towards a Curriculum Relevant to Afro-Americans: Implications for Early Childhood Education, provides suggestions for a curriculum that would take strides to address this conflict. The author starts by insisting that any new curriculum needs to address three components—political/cultural, pedagogical relevance, and academic rigor. With citation of other scholars, the author encourages an “education for struggle” that addresses the needs of black children as being the victims of colonialism and as needing to excel above their white peers in order to receive equal opportunity. There are many other suggestions, especially in the ways of incorporating the students’ culture into their learning, but the end result is a curriculum that sounds like that of a social justice education.

Though the book’s ordering did not reflect a deliberate streamlined process for beginning to derive a culturally relevant curriculum for children—I grouped and ordered them after reading—the model seems effective. Beginning with the observation—which I feel would be justified if it were only an assumption considering the inevitable struggle associated with culture and education—and noting the prominence of culture in the situation—I feel the author’s emphasis on first evaluating the contribution of culture is the right choice. The further conclusions derived from such, and connected to cognitive reasoning further shows the direct influence of culture on how a child thinks and therefore learns. The major question that stays with me is while there is an understandable emphasis on early childhood education—I assume the time when this culture-cognitive process is most relevant—do the findings change with the growth of the students? Is there an equalizing socialization process that takes place in school that makes a culturally responsive curriculum less relevant? If so, then is it worth the effort—the child’s experience will bring him/her to situations that are far from culturally responsive. If not—then could the same study be made with older students (say 7^th graders, cough) of a different culture?

Math Teacher Resources: Online Math Games

2010-02-25T21:03:00.000-08:00

http://www.xpmath.com/

Math Teacher Resources

2010-01-28T18:44:00.000-08:00

Collection of Calculators for Different Topics in Math:

http://www.math.com/students/tools.html

Collection of Unit Models for Different Topics in Math:

http://www.math.com/practice/Geometry.html

Confronting Ableism

2009-12-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

Hehir, Thomas. (2007). Confronting Ableism. Eduational Leadership, 64(5), 8-14.

Hehir discusses “abelism”: society's negative attitudes about disabilities. The popular perception feed by “ableist” ideas is that disabilities are to be overcome with an ultimate goal of gaining normal function—ideas that lead special education. Hehir defines the purpose of special education as “minimizing the impact of disability and maximizing the opportunities for students with disabilities to participate in schooling and the community.” However, research shows that this perspective is detrimental to students with disabilities. Hehir makes some suggestions in terms of how address the issue of special education—such as making students comfortable in terms of being able to communicate in their own medium, emphasizing investment, holding high standards. Based on the idea that an inclusion setting is best students overcoming their disabilities, Hehir suggests this as well. However from my experience, special education programs become too focused on the goal of “graduation” from the program to the point that they miss the position that they put both students and teachers in. The reading of an IEP does not prepare a teacher completely for handling students that have that been made accustom to the levels of accommodation experience in a special education classroom. Moreover, though this may not be complete the case, my experience has show me that once a student is “graduated” from special education there is a void of support and accommodation that the student must get over in order to succeed in a regular class room. This is not to say that inclusion strategies are not successful, but rather to say that inclusion and “graduation” shouldn’t be the only goal over finding the best solution for the student’s educational needs. It is a measure of success that doesn’t necessarily indicate or cause success.

Chapter 3 - Moore

2009-12-05T18:04:00.000-08:00

Chapter 3- Setting Goals and Objectives- Moore

Moore

Moore focuses his proper goals and objectives for the classroom. Looking at the need for accountability on teachers leading to national, state and district standards for performance under “No Child Left Behind.” Looking at the impact of this reform on special needs students—having IEPs, Section 504 students, and ELL students. The academic success of all students is tightly tied to the success of the teachers in interpreting and implementing the standards. Moore marks objective is a statement about what students should be able to do after instruction; these are components of standards. Goals are broader statements used to describe purposes of schooling or a course whereas objectives are more narrowly focused. Moore writes that objectives are to be made up of four elements: that they spell out the terminal behavior or performance, specify the product, describe the conditions, and state the criteria. There is introduction of three learning domains: cognitive domain, the affective domain, and the psychomotor domain. It seems that the best instruction would include consideration of all three. The chapter was a bit dense, but provided some good insight in terms of developing instruction and instruction strategies from standards, ever since emphasis that has been placed on them with NCLB.

Gender Equity: Still Knocking at the Classroom Door

2009-12-05T17:18:00.000-08:00

Sadker, David. (1999.) Gender Equity: Still Knocking at the Classroom Door. Educational Leadership, 56.

This article focuses on gender and whether or not there exists educational equity. It looks at the lower frequency of dropout rates in girls and the great number of females in higher education—facts that imply that there has been some victory in gender equality. However, the article also mentions the social biases that women and girls still suffer in terms of lower expectations and participation in math and science related fields. It goes further to realize the implicit biases that lead educators to treat boys and girls differently in the classroom. This is something that I have experienced in my classroom. Essentially—I know more about how to work with my male students than with my female students. With that I tend to be overly cautious with them—which must be seen as a bit of favoritism by the males. That’s something that I’ve got to work on.

Testing Stereotype Threat: Does Anxiety Explain Race and Sex Differences in Achievement?

2009-12-05T17:17:00.000-08:00

Osborne, Jason W. (2001.) Testing Stereotype Threat: Does Anxiety Explain Race and Sex Difference in Achievement? Contemporary Educational Psychology, 26, 291-310.

This article goes over a test looking at the effects of anxiety related to race and gender on student achievement. The hypothesis: anxiety associated with race and gender would account for different levels of achievement. The study did confirm this in the ways of race as anxiety in students and performance was correlated with gaps in performance between Afro-Americans and whites, and Hispanics and whites. From my experience and from other studies this was a bit of an obvious revelation. The combination of lowered expectations and a sense of starting off on a lowered level tends to bare a dark weight on minority student’s minds. I felt as if I had to prove something, to overcome much more than just my circumstances. For students in positions like this, student achievement seems like that much higher of a obstacle to overcome.

Week 14 and 15

2009-12-05T16:04:00.000-08:00

These weeks saw an upswing. Even though since the imposition of the furloughs has shown a lag in student performance and general focus, there was an upswing in how my classes have been going. I feel like I can connect this to a few changes.

The first change has been the deliberate and strict use of a timed agenda. Since the beginning of Week 14, I have written a daily written an agenda with time limits for myself for each activity. In the beginning of class I go over the schedule quickly with the students, then we follow the schedule, and then we go over what we learned. This piece was something I took from a friend that told me that you have to let people know what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them. This has freed up time and has made the flow of the class much more organized.

With the freed up time I’ve added a reoccurring activity section of the agenda. This follows our guided notes, which acts like an INM section. In this activity section students are made to practice what I’ve preached in an application of the objective lesson of that day. This over these weeks has been the use of folding paper and measuring the new shapes’ dimensions to see whether they are similar figures or not. We’ve measured our shadows and the shadows of rulers to estimate our approximate height. This section—while still a bit rusty because of the amount of time it demands—has contributed to student interest during class time. In this I have been more successful in appealing to different types of learners—those that just want to be taught and those that just want to do something.

Also with the time that has been freed up I have been able to more consistently use exit tickets. I write them long with my daily materials—which has led me to be more consistent in my backwards planning. Written to the material of the day and in the format of the questions that they’ll encounter on their quarterly assessments and HSA test—the exit tickets wrap up the day for us. The exit tickets also provide data on how successful the day’s lesson was—I average out those that got the question right for each class. This acts as a grade for me and lets me know how the class went—how much learning went on.

Another addition to my classroom has been the Pau Hana point system. This was a suggestion from a friend and helped me bring a different tone to my class—breaking away from the negative only point system of adding minutes of how long the class has to stay after when they act unruly. This system has been successful to far in three out of my four classes. My third period class has generally been my difficult class in terms of classroom management—and with this they are quick to loose PH points for talking, etc. Though I suspect that perhaps I’m being harder on this class because of their past poor behavior—and have less patience with them. This is something that I have to overcome.

In terms of individual behavior—I’ve had some interesting developments with a few students. One of my most talkative boys I had to move one day because he was disrupting his neighbors. I moved him to the back of the room and made him work by himself. He ended up focusing much more and getting all the questions right. However on the other end of the student achievement spectrum—a few students that had been making strides in terms of their performance have been accused of cheating by other students that have requested to be moved away from them. This reminds me that I have to both keep my eyes open for behaviors like this but also promote clarity and student confidence in my lessons so they aren’t motivated to cheat.

In reflecting on the weeks I still see a couple challenges—that of reaching the entire spectrum of my students’ skill levels in differentiation being the biggest on. In the mean time I’ve gotten used to idea of spending entire day in my room with the doors open for students that are having trouble.

Good: The new changes and mechanisms have shown to be pretty helpful and successful—its sad that it took me so long to realize that I need to control how I used my most vital resource—time.

Bad: I discovered that cheating may be a problem in my class, which begs the question of how reliable so of my measures of achievement are. I’ve got to work on better checks for understanding and positive reinforcement to boost student math-confidence. Also differentiation remains to be an issue.

Week 12 and 13

2009-11-23T19:31:00.001-08:00

Week 12 and 13—such a crazy weeks I have been too busy to write about it until now—writing about them together as they have splashed into a blur of events. The things that stick-out are new situations that make teaching increasingly challenging. Some behavior issues had made teaching in my 2^nd and 3^rd periods change over from a good pace to a lulling grind. I had to send students out in both classes—asking them to come back in when they had gotten themselves together and were ready to learn. In two of the instances I had to bring the student back in…

It seems that my social currency amongst my problem students was running out as I began to hold them to stricter standards—realizing that I was giving too many warnings for what I thought was excusable behavior. However, while that was happening—students were building a perception of me as a lenient teacher on the rules that I had recognized and wrote to support a productive classroom. So I became…not stricter…but more conscious and consistent.

I instituted a class wide disciplinary system (which I borrowed from Ms. Morimoto) to help students correlate certain behaviors—such as calling out, talking at the wrong time, etc.—with negative consequences—being held in as a class during wiki. I had to use this on my 2^nd period class first. After they silently sat in for 5 minutes after the bell they were much better at self-regulation of behavior.

Then came the problem of some kids getting the work fast and some getting the work slow—my solution would be in the implementation of self-directed guided notes. Students, within their groups, would work their way through the guided notes which I had tried to make as scaffolded as possible. With this I could take a smaller role in directing the class and address directly those individual needs to clarification. Also students come to rely more on each other for support and validation. The lacking factor that soon discovered would be the lack of exit tickets and other checks for understanding that would provide that extra measure of student understanding.

Good: It’s hard to pull something from these weeks that was really good. The discipline system of adding time helped…

Bad: I’ve got to work on better checks for understanding, consistent exit tickets, and keeping my students interested.

Culturally Responsive Instruction

2009-11-12T00:19:00.000-08:00

Jones, Shelly, "Culturally Responsive Instruction," Leadership. November/December 2007

The article begins by characterizing the education system as one being designed to server a select group of the population--that not including minorities. With this it begins a discussion of the NCLB Act as having noble goals and philosophy, yet failing to serve students that need its support the most. The article then makes the jump to CRSBI (culturally responsive standards based instruction) as being the solution. CRSBI is broken down into a set of behaviors. The first two are caring and communication, which is the demonstration of consideration for students' feelings and communicating in a way that considerate of their cultural background. The next two are curriculum and instruction, which essentially are inclusion of cultural consideration in creating curriculum content and instruction style. The final behavior is that following standards based instruction, which will lead students to become productive and prepared members of society--with the support of an emphasized assessment system. These behaviors, the article implies, are sufficient to support academic success in those groups that have been left behind education. There is a slighting statement to teachers which almost says: yes, though their going to be stragglers with NCLB but what teacher wouldn't break their neck trying to bring them up. I think the article does a good job of discussing some of the behaviors that could prevent cultural bias in the application of NCLB, but it fails to address the greater bias of NCLB--students that can learn/succeed under its education style and students that cannot.

"A self-determination approach to understanding students' motivation in project work"

2009-11-05T18:20:00.000-08:00

"A self-determination approach to understanding students' motivation in project work"

Woon Chia Liu ⁎, C.K. John Wang, Oon Seng Tan, Caroline Koh, Jessie Ee National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

The article outlines a study on project based learning examining self determination theory which examines the productivity and success of group based project work given varying levels constraints and motivation. The results of the study show that "'high self-determined/low controlled' group was the most adaptive cluster, and the 'low self-determined/high controlled' group was the least adaptive cluster." Below is an excerpt from the article that explains

"SDT distinguishes among four types of behavioral regulations with different degrees of self-determined motivation. Ex- ternal regulation, the least self-determined form of extrinsic motiva- tion, refers to behavior that is controlled by external means, such as rewards or external authority. Introjected regulation refers to behavior that is internally controlled or self-imposed, such as acting out of guilt avoidance or ego-enhancements. Identified regulation, a more self- determined form of extrinsic motivation, refers to acting according to one's choice or values. Finally, intrinsic motivation, the highest level of self-determination, refers to behavior that emanates fully from the self and is undertaken solely for its own sake or enjoyment."

I think that what teachers dream about is some sort of success in inspiring intrinsic motivation in our students. The success of project based learning with minimal constraints does make sense to me. With reduced teacher involvement of the project's determination students are pushed to take greater ownership and hopefully become intrinsically motivated in the process. With the increase of teacher involved constraints, there must also be teacher involvement in developing motivation. I've got to try this out.

Varieties of Multicultural Education: An Introduction

2009-11-05T14:56:00.000-08:00

Burnett, Gary "Varieties of Multicultural Education: An Introduction". ERIC Digest 98.

The article discusses multicultural education and to an extent veins in which it has changed education. Multicultural education is identified as having been the result of 1960's race centered social turmoil--that it was an attempt to bring minorities under the influence of the greater American culture. This would develop into content centered multicultural education, which the article describes as adding content or modifying curriculum to include material that demonstrates an acknowledgment of students' cultures. The next vein of multicultural education lies in student-centered action , which the article describes as grouping student by their cultural groups--with the hopes that they will be benefit from an education influenced by only their cultural background. The final model of multicultural education is that which prepares students for encounters with multiculturalism through content.

The article brings up a very important question--now that we've agreed that some form of multicultural education is needed, what is the best way to go about such and what does that even mean? Content only multicultural education, from my experience has seemed nothing more than a superfluous exercise. I never really gathered much multicultural understanding from them. Student oriented multicultural education, from my meeting students that had experience, prepares students for understanding their own culture and carrying on cultural ideas, but does not seem to accomplish what I always took the goal of multicultural education to be--that being educating students in multiculturalism. The encounter based education seems to be the form that succeeds at this the most. Students are led to develop broader understanding of multiculturalism and a maturity that would be needed to handle such a subject.

Understanding Unconscious Bias and Unintentional Racism

2009-11-03T20:42:00.000-08:00

Jean Moule, Understanding Unconscious Bias and Unintentional Racism, Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 90, No. 05, January 2008, pp. 320-326.

Th article takes on the interesting topic of unconsciously acquired biases that manifests itself in effectively racists behaviors--a woman clenching her purse as a black man approaches, etc. The article is convincing, especially in its reliance on some psychological behaviors of humans that rely on grouping and associations--and what seems to be prejudice. The article cites some case study examples demonstrating these points, and concludes that people would be better to make themselves more conscious of their subconscious biases as opposed to trying to make themselves seem apart from them.

I found the article very interesting and very successful in justifying its conclusion. My experience has shown me that these behaviors exist irrespective of race, but rather follow experience or acquired 2nd hand experience. The almost inescapability of the these behaviors' being created demands the attention of teachers especially as they work to teach students to overcome and become these inhibiting biases, while making sure that they do no impart their own biases. We must be more than conscious in this regard.

Week 10 and 11

2009-10-25T19:17:00.000-07:00

Week 10

Getting back to the pace of things was hard than I thought it would be. This week I’ve been more tired than I’ve ever been since I’ve started teaching. This lack of energy on my part unfortunately seemed to carry over into my students’ motivation and excitement about class. I imagine its hard to be excited about Quarter Two when your teacher is yawning while talking about it.

Nevertheless—the students were happy to be back (I think) and I was happy to have them back. Though I realized that I had to quickly get them and myself back into the mood of things. The relationships that we had built up from last quarter did carry over, but the classroom expectations seemed to have become lax. Because of this I had to address some behaviors that hadn’t been present in the last quarter.

With this I moved to quickly to go over existing class procedures, as well as to introduce some new ones. These new procedures attempt an interweaving remediation with the general progress by reviewing and grading homework daily in class. With this we go over the problems with each other and try to address together misunderstanding.

GOOD: I reacted to the student’s needs in terms of enacting new procedures.

BAD: I’ve got to do better at changing the way I do class in order to keep students’ interest. This might mean more games, group work, and real life connections.

Week 11

Because of the changes to the school schedule there has been some pressure to keep up and make sure students get to the breadth of material as opposed to delving into the material. This has been compounded more so with the pressure to keep up with the test which will test them on all the material. My reaction to this at first was to take a larger role in classes pulling student through the material. This was not that well received. Students getting pulled through math—that’s not the best class culture.

So noticing this I immediately took to having a smaller role in class. Making sure I made the most detailed and interpretable guided notes possible—I took to giving the student groups copies of the notes and letting them have at it. After a timed group work session I would recap asking clarification questions as a check for understanding and a way to correct. After this they would be let loose on their homework.

Also I took to adding remediation games where students are motivated support their group mates’ understanding of the material. I’ve also been able to use these games to weave in spiraled objectives’ remediation.

GOOD: I was able to boost student involvement with the new structure of class. The remediation games seem to be going well. The new homework

BAD: I have to work on making sure that everyone is fully understanding the material.

"Cultural Capital: A Theory of Structural Inequalities"

2009-10-15T12:10:00.001-07:00

Rueda, R., Monzó, L. D. and Arzubiaga, A. (2003, September 16). Academic instrumental knowledge: Deconstructing cultural capital theory for strategic intervention approaches. Current Issues in Education [On-line], 6(14). Available:http://cie.ed.asu.edu/volume6/number14/

"Cultural Capital: A Theory of Structural Inequalities"

The chapter discusses the forms and roles of capital in society--that being "the wealth out of which more wealth comes." Cultural capital is distinguished as cultural wells of knowledge connected to cultural background. The biggest claim that is made, citing Bourdieu, is that in differentiation schools not only contribute to but also exacerbate inequalities in social capital. This is performed by grouping by ability, especially in early education. Students that have been fortunate enough to be prepared by their family to meet the expectations of teachers and schools are set often set on a more advanced academic track. This differentiation, perceived to those differentiators to be based on skill, sets groups apart and contribute inequality in opportunities, resources, and expectations. Those "advanced" students are then have more of a chance to become successful in their lives and in turn impart the lessons from their experiences onto their children allowing the "advanced" to be further advanced.

The usage of "structural inequalities" in the subtitle is very appropriate to the cyclical consequences. This tragedy of differentiation is something that I can attest to from my own experience. Students that have strong guided support from home usually perform higher and in turn are rewarded. The struggle for sensible teaching then lies in providing an equal playing field for all students. Does the answer lie in some greater role of teachers mimicking that of parents? I'm not sure--but I am sure that the current system of differentiation seems to lack foresight.

"Teaching Mathematics and English to English Language Learners Simultaneously"

2009-10-15T11:40:00.000-07:00

David Slavit & Gisela Ernst-Slavit. "Teaching Mathematics and English to English Language Learners Simultaneously," Middle School Journal. November 2007.

The article takes a look at the challenge of ELL student in content area classes, particularly math, and the possible responses that teachers could implement. ELL students are described as doing twice the work--learning a new language while learning new content. The article contends that in order to communicate understanding of content to these students there needs to be an emphasis placed on vocabulary as being part of the lessons to build conceptual connections. Furthermore, there needs to be an effort to engage the cultural understanding of the student to have them draw on their knowledge and systems to develop understanding of new content. An example is given with different means of counting using body parts among students from different cultural backgrounds.

The authors do a good job of taking in the perspective of the student. This is seen in the sense of productive accommodation to the student in an effort to build upon their existing understandings. Connecting content to language structures and cultural experiences is a mode of accommodation that all teachers much possess dealing with all students--not just ELL.

2009-10-13T23:22:00.002-07:00

Moore, Chapter 5: Using Direct Teaching Methods

The chapter contrasts and develops teaching strategies, converging on some best practices that are hypothesized to show increased/better student retention and engagement. There is a beginning with an examination of the “traditional” style of direct teaching, where the goal is to communicate material to students via direct exposure either by lecture or textbook. The benefit of this method lies in its efficiency in communicating material quickly and directly to students. The next step in teaching methods is that of exposition teaching. The core of exposition teaching is explanation. Models and other visual ties that illustrate material support the most effect modes of explanation. Questioning and waiting are two more facets that the chapter considers as being able to expand student understanding of material. These facets seem to have the function of pushing and pulling students into a better understanding of the material. The article converges the “best” practices to end on exposition teaching with interaction to be the best method.

While using sound logic, the work lacks on the support of itself in the way of case studies. Furthermore it operates in the ideal of a relatively homogeneous class of excited learners. And while I will not say that my classes are not full of excited learners, it they are far from homogeneous. It discusses the idea of Direct Teaching as being effective for students that are slow to understand, but I have see that modeling has been the best way for them, with my higher level students requiring little of me at all. This observation could be correlated to the article’s discussion of varied learners needing more or less of the teacher—I struggle to translate that into a succinct and single “one pill cure” teaching style. Perhaps further demonstration-illustration of the article’s concluding claim could convince me. Like Moore says, straight lectures can be “boring.”

Moore, Chapter 6: Using: Indirect Teaching Methods

This chapter examines indirect teaching methods that place more responsibility on students to drive discovery-based learning. This is characterized as by a less than active teacher hand in directing student learning. The teacher’s new role is that of constructing activities that anticipate student needs and possible pitfalls while working with self-directed learning. Student discussion is shown to be the motor behind this type of learning, with student discussion being broken into either that of the “entire class”/large group or with small groups—which the chapter favors as it promotes more student-to-student interaction.

The chapter continues to discuss Heuristic Models in which discovery based questions are used to promote higher thinking. This relies on the idea that the process allows for multileveled problem solving. In this as well the teacher’s role is limited to that of facilitating—this requires, as the chapter states, great deals freedom within the classroom culture.

The ideas of indirect teaching are very interesting and I feel have merit in their attempt to promote student honed learning. The discovery base of indirect learning allows students to take charge and responsibility of their learning. This allows inquiry that provides much more sustainable learning as there is not an absorbing of knowledge just being thrown at the students, but rather them reasoning into the knowledge—in my case being mathematicians as opposed to calculators. However there are weak points in these methods as well—that especially being the need to balance the role of the teacher as the facilitator and the introducer of the new material. My teaching style, which I have to admit has show me some great results lately, has become an attempt to straddle both indirect and direct teaching methods. I have seen this to allow students develop their own understanding while they model themselves on the teacher as an exemplar of understanding. Furthermore there is are the real issues of minority student dominance (even in small groups) or the fact that not all students can fully understand new concepts just by talking about them and in fact might benefit more from more direct strategies. This and the last chapter I feel are pointing out the benefits and weaknesses of both to come to some sort of conclusion mixing the both in the end.

2009-10-13T23:22:00.001-07:00

Week 9

Week 9 was a challenge for both my students and myself. The end of the quarter one is neigh—the end of quarter one material is far from neigh. Unit 3 stood between us and a week of rested assurance of having mastered many of the 7^th grade math standards.

Decimal operations, scientific notation, and the order of operations—a big and mismatched three of 7^th grade math chuck full of possible pitfalls in understanding—some of which we would face. But I held fast to my guided notes method—having proven itself successful in pulling up scores during Unit 2—and charged ahead. Each day a rotating INM-“We Do”-“You Do” cycle that I tried to scaffold would drill through adding-subtracting-multiplying-dividing decimals and more.

Playing on the weirdness of the week before—students would read aloud as poets with English accents declaring the I can’s of the day. When the assessment finally came around there were initially mixed results. Our first round of decimal quizzes would show some confusion over the steps for multiplying and dividing decimals—a facet which I would work to later remediate with the Order of Operations. Then the Unit 3 assessment came just as quickly as we moved through our work—as I worked to force myself to stay true to my calendar.

Then there was the need to prepare students for their Quarter One Assessment—which would take place early the next week. I came up with the idea to have the students write study guides for 6^th graders at local elementary schools about the material that we covered in Quarter One, as well as writing them a letter letting them know how cool 7^th grade math was. They ate it up—with the agreement that this project would be the last piece of homework they would have for the rest of the semester.

Good: I was able to keep my kids focused whilst moving through lots of material at a very quick pace. The kookiness factor of my classroom has shown to support a classroom culture that the students fell comfortable in—which in turn has secured their learning something…

Bad: But maybe they are too comfortable. Hearing my name has become an item of loathing as students call out as they raise their hand. (At least they raise their hand?) I give my class a B.

2009-09-23T14:36:00.001-07:00

Week 7 and Week 8

These weeks went by in a blur. Covering integers, absolute value, and variables--I was sure quick would be the last way in which I could describe Unit 2. But it was quick. The kids absorbed like pros, these topics that others swore would need intense time commitment and later on--regardless of what I tried--intense remediation.

Maybe it was my honing of the art of "guided notes" or simply my now using of only one font when making them--either way, my seemingly un-jittery jittery self communicated understanding to my kids. Other teachers say that this class of 7th graders is much "smarter" than the last class--thats got to be it. There is still very in consistent levels of performance--my 1st period class has already broken the big goal mark of an 80% class average, while my 2nd remains slightly below 70%. There are most likely many factors that play into this--size of class, time of class, energy in them, energy in me. My 2nd period class has my special needs students and my highest performing, is my largest class, and seems always to be lacking in energy--I've got to find a solution

In terms of class room management--things are pretty much the same. I realized that my students are getting to comfortable with me in some terms and like to call out or just call on me. I've started making a more conscious effort to curb this via ignoring them until they realize their fault or resorting to negative consequences.

I did have a small issue with one student. I made all my students that did not score above a 70% on the Unit 2 assessment (many of them being from 2nd period) come in during lunch to take a re-test that would add more points onto their original grade. This involved me having to call 30 students' homes to get their parent/guardians to remind them and give them a little stress over the matter. One student, who's parents I was unable to call, was offended at the thought that she would have to give up more time for the sake of 7th math and at best reluctantly stayed. Her taking the re-test seriously was another matter altogether. She, after 10 minutes, handed me the green test sheet with half of the questions answered--insisting that she didn't know the rest. I retorted with the thought that everyone was taught the same material and that she had shown understanding of the material in other work and insisted that she could not leave with having any question blank. Cursing under her breath slightly she returned to her seat to hand me the paper 10 more minutes later, this time with all the questions with at least some form of answer. I haven't graded it yet, but a concern that I believe is legitimate is whether or not she put effort into it the second time around. Investment has got to become my strong suit again.

Good: It seems like I've started to overcome my issue with clarity in my teaching which has been a concern of mine. This success is measured in my student's performance, and I mark it up mainly to my effort to over compensate in making sure they understand as well as my use of more developed guided notes. Then again my kids are also just friggin smart.

Bad: My students are too "comfortable" with my classroom culture, and while this has positives--it also make focused discipline harder to attain from everyone at times. I have to work also on getting my kids invested in learning math--not working because of the pressure of having high expectations.

Using Standards and Assessments

2009-09-17T19:29:00.002-07:00

Schmoker, Mike, et. Marzano, Robert. “Using Standards and Assessments: Realizing the Promise of Standards-Based Education.” Education Leadership. Volume 56 Number 8 March 1999.

This article take a good look at some of the positive and negative consequences realized at the introduction standards based education. Schmocker and Marzano remark at the almost obvious fact that organizations are successful when they have “clear, commonly defined goals.” This is due to its ability foster a “common focus” that “clarifies understanding, accelerates communication, and promotes persistence and collective purpose.

Demonstrating the truth behind this idea, the article continues by calling on examples of schools attaining increased student “success” via various forms of implementing or establishing education based in content standards. These, most likely because of when it was written, are introduced as the signs of an increasing wave of standards based education.

The writers sets this new wave apart from already set standards in education by marking the status quo of “a common, coherent program of teaching and learning” as a delusion. This is attributed to teachings making “independent and idiosyncratic decisions” about how and what to teach. This they connected to a lack of clear or practical standards; they either written in unclear “absurd” language or demand a teaching of material that would take “a 10-hour day of teaching” to cover. (This supported by a comparison between German, Japanese, and American textbooks showing American textbooks as attempting to cover much more content—while German and Japanese students out performing American students)

With this the largest problems associated with standards based teaching are realized—that of inconsistency in how things are taught and too much to teach. The solution that the authors draw as a potential cure all would be standards driven schools—with standards assumedly connected to state standards (as an example of state standards being a solution is presented).

This allows for a small enough environments to assure consistency while allowing for customization of curricula around practices that have proven successful for teachers at that school. This would, as the writers say, create a pool of resources that are particular to the schools’ environment, students, and content goals—as directed by standards.

From my experience this article successfully addresses the pitfalls that could come up from the wide implementation of standards based learning, and successfully pulls out a solution that I have seen to work. My school implements a similar model discussed by Scmocker and Marzano, which has allowed a customization of curricula and a collection of best practices within departments. This model along with a strong emphasis on communication between teachers, both releases the burden from teachers to come up with new ways of teaching but also enlightens teachers to best practices and warns of the lest than best.

Standards-Based Reforms: Problems and Possibilities

2009-09-17T19:29:00.001-07:00

Falk, Beverly. “Standards-Based Reforms: Problems and Possibilities.” The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 83, No. 8 (Apr., 2002), pp. 612-620

Falk does a good job in her pretty comprehensive review of some of the dangers and effects of standards-based teaching and assessment lead education. The article begins with the observation that far too often “standards-based reform [has been] defined largely as making sure children do better on…standardized paper tests.” After marking some of the potential positives that could come from properly enacted standards-based education—setting clear and consistent macro/micro-goals for teachers and students—Falk delves in to a critique of the negative results of assessment led education.

While Falk addresses other major issues that she sees rising from assessment led education—“assessing new standards with old tests,” “high stakes testing causes harm,” “investing in testing instead of teaching and learning,” “cheating on the rise” (that of school administrators for higher scores), and the issue of “relying on a single test for high stakes decisions”—the most influential and drastic shift that is seen since assessment led education became the norm and policies such No Child Left Behind imparted high stakes costs for not following such has been the greater issue of “teaching to the test.”

A result of policy and higher administration hand-down mandates, assessment led education, which seems to be a reaction to low national test scores, spurring “teaching to the test” has played the greatest role in shifting the classroom into a prep environment as opposed to a learning environment. Teaching to the test is the result of an imposition of high demand on students and educator to meet bars test measured student success.

In this, teachers are pushed to model their curriculum on the standards in preparation for tests. There are two part of that statement—the thought of modeling curriculum to standards, and in preparation for tests. While standards based education is not wholly inhibiting, and in fact allows for some consistency in curriculum, current testing is rigid and is designed, as Falk calls it, to produce a “bell curve” where at least 50% of students fall below the mean. In terms of the students it enforces a game of winners and losers, insisting that there can’t be losers, as is the mission of No Child Left Behind. Furthermore, educators are then hung up on how to best prepare for a one-hour assessment of a student as opposed to preparing that individual for a lifetime of learning.

In this the failures of schools has only brought forth a system unfit and contradictory in its inability to address the dynamics of education and students, and indeed giving up on some in its rigidity and form. This becomes cyclical as schools no longer invest in education, but rather testing—a point that Falk addresses.

Falk’s assessment of assessment led education does well in pulling apart the problems that result from imposing a single form solution on a multi-formed and much more complex issue—that being how to improve education and student performance.

Week 6

2009-09-06T22:30:00.000-07:00

This week we dove deeper into integers while introducing the concept of variables, evaluating variable expressions, and solving variable equations. The way I chose to approach this was by careful scaffolding of the topics to be introduced with guided notes reinforced by examples. The guided notes were discovery based, demanding students to define the concepts, describe the steps of performing the operations, and to finally perform the operations.

The INM was kicked off with the students reading a paragraph on their Guided Notes that described the day's goal, and followed by my drawing/writing an example of the concept on the board. Students, in discovery fashion, were then made to define and describe the concept in their own words. I allowed them to work in their groups for this. Afterwards the class was re-centered to discuss the definitions/descriptions we came up with with refinement directed by Socratic style leading questions from me. After coming to a consensus, the students wrote down our refined definitions/descriptions.

As a "WE DO" students followed along in their Guided Notes examples being worked out either on the board on in powerpoint. Students then were made to perform the operation on their own, with the answers being worked out after a significant portion of the class had finished. This allowed a great opportunity for positive reinforcement, and a direct reinforcement of students' understanding the need to pay attention and take notes.

As a "YOU DO" students were given time to perform the operations on their own (usually 8-10 problems). Class review of these problems also followed.

As a general assessment students were given a problem which they had to perform on a personal white-wipe-board, holding it up to show me their work and wether they were able to perform the operation. Student were told when they got the correct and incorrect answers, and those that got the problem wrong multiple times were asked to come back during lunch to review the material again.

Homework provided additional practice.

GOOD:

I think the guided notes were a great idea, as well as the discovery based learning and structure of the class. This take a lot of pressure off from me to lead the class constantly. This also make it easy to work through Blooms Hierarchy.

BAD:

I think I'm giving too much homework and not reviewing it enough. I think I'm going to work book work into the "Do Now" as well as homework review.