“What a Difference a Word Makes” really appealed to me since I have been participating in a teacher study group at the middle school that I work at that focuses on formative assessment. Since I have been entrenched in this concept and revolutionary approach to teaching and assessing for the past two years, I was interested in getting another perspective on the topic.
Rick Stiggins and Jan Chappuis try to give the reader an alternative form of assessing their students which is rooted in this concept of formative assessment or what W. James Popham likes to refer to as transformative assessment (you might want to check out his book Transformative Assessment. It’s a bit long winded but definitely breaks down these concepts in tangible ways).
Summative assessment, in its current form, is not helping our students find success. It is only keeping them in the endless cycle of letter grades that at the end of the day measure very little. I often find myself saying that my “C” students could end up being the most successful in life because they know when to take risks and when not to. My “A” students might not fare so well since they play within the confines of the rules which often ends up making them very predictable and lacking a certain luster (being a generalization, the tables can turn both ways). Letter grades mean very little in determining if someone is going to be ok in the real world. At the end of the day, our students are the captains of their own ships, we are not, and if we are willing to surrender some of our “pen” power, and realize “students must be taught the skills they need to be in control of their own ultimate success: self assessment and goal setting, reflection, keeping track of and sharing their learning,” (13) we might all end up being better for it.
We are well oiled assessment machines. Teachers come out of educational training programs armed with the tools to makes tests, quizzes, art based projects, and presentations that aim to reward the kids who do exactly what the teacher tells them to do and nail the kids who don’t. Most teachers come from a place where “colleges of education often fail to include this(formative) kind of assessment training in their programs,” (11), and so teachers are left to unlearn or never learn the power of assessment that aims for growth instead of reward and punishment. And I will admit, at first transformative assessment sounds daunting, idealistic, and unrealistic, but with a little bit of work (ok, a lot of work), it can become the most powerful agent of change a teacher can arm himself with.
I am lucky that I am part of what Stiggins and Chappuis refer to as a learning team. It makes a world of difference, and most of the learning I have come to appreciate has been done through working with my colleagues rather than just reading about it. This year my colleagues (who I have to tell you are the most inspiring group I have ever met) and I have participated in action research projects on formative assessment practices, and we have put the ideas that are talked about in this article into action really illustrating that “when the experiences of such hands on learning are shared among teammates in regular team meetings, all members benefit from the lessons of each partner. When teams commit to shaping the ideas into new classroom practice, reflecting on the results, and sharing the benefits with each other, professional growth sky rockets,” (14). It has been a revolutionary experience that has not only been rewarding, but it has been difficult. Nothing that is really worth it is ever easy. I say this to my students all the time, and as teachers, it’s important to live by that motto as well. I’ve seen the differences in my own classroom, and the amazing results and data that are coming out of my colleagues’ classrooms, challenge me to want to be better.
This philosophy, which essentially it is, is rooted in transparency for students. Kids need to start taking a leadership role in their own education. It is the job of the teacher to provide them with experiences to do so where “quality assessment can arise only from a clear vision” (12). This philosophy asks you to be a guide rather than the chief. Teachers have to “delete content coverage” (14) in order to promote authentic learning that transcends into the future rather than just the moments that are in your classroom. If I’m going to be honest with myself, my students don’t care about the endless feedback I give them in the margins of their papers. What they do care about is meaningful conversation about feedback and improvement with their peers and me. It’s time consuming, but “assessment for learning happens in the classroom and involves students in every aspect of their own assessment to build their confidence and maximize their achievement,” (11). It’s time well spent and time I’m willing to invest.
Formative assessment is complex, certain days it is anything but joyful, and then on the really great days, it truly is transformative. So, maybe a bit idealistically I’ve jumped on Stiggins and Chappuis’s train, but it’s worth getting out of your comfort zone and trying a new approach every now and again.
Stiggins, R., & Chappuis, J. (2006). What a difference a word makes. National Staff Development Council, 27(1), 10-14.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Essential Questions
I will be finishing up a unit for Of Mice and Men
The essential questions will be:
Is "justice" always fair when it comes to crime and punishment?
How does power affect our ability to make decisions?
Is money and privilege the root of all evil?
The essential questions will be:
Is "justice" always fair when it comes to crime and punishment?
How does power affect our ability to make decisions?
Is money and privilege the root of all evil?
Monday, March 8, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Japan and I have more in Common than I Thought
The video that I just saw of a third grade Japanese classroom totally blew my mind and all of the stereotypes I previously had. I'm probably not alone when I say that my vision of a Japanese classroom was that of a militant and stifling environment where everyone raised their hands. It was straight out of a vision from 1950's America, except in my stereotyped vision, everyone was a mathematical genius with refined manners. Shame on me!
This video actually made me feel a lot better about my own teaching practices. My principal and I often joke around about the organized chaos of my classroom. My students are anything but quiet or robotic. They are constantly in motion, and our conversations are heated and very often full of debate. To the naked eye, it looks a lot like what we saw in the video, but when you take a closer look, you see how excited the kids are about learning. The kids in the video are engaged, wild, and are clearly learning. Now, it's a little challenging for us to understand what they are saying, but we don't even need a translation because we can tell there is an authentic connection there between the students and the teacher due to their body language.
One thing that I found very interesting was the way one of the students tugged on the teacher's arm. This could be interpreted as lacking patience, but I honestly think the kid was so excited, he couldn't wait another minute to find out if he was right. Granted, a lot of American educators would look down upon an action like this, but maybe we need to start rethinking some of the rules and boundaries of education that we set up for ourselves and our students. We're all pretty sure that people remember what they are learning more effectively when they are excited and passionate about what they are doing. Passion is not methodical or robotic. It's wild and cannot be contained. Perhaps, we should let our students pursue those emotions a little more often. Their experience in our classrooms might be that much more meaningful for it.
This video actually made me feel a lot better about my own teaching practices. My principal and I often joke around about the organized chaos of my classroom. My students are anything but quiet or robotic. They are constantly in motion, and our conversations are heated and very often full of debate. To the naked eye, it looks a lot like what we saw in the video, but when you take a closer look, you see how excited the kids are about learning. The kids in the video are engaged, wild, and are clearly learning. Now, it's a little challenging for us to understand what they are saying, but we don't even need a translation because we can tell there is an authentic connection there between the students and the teacher due to their body language.
One thing that I found very interesting was the way one of the students tugged on the teacher's arm. This could be interpreted as lacking patience, but I honestly think the kid was so excited, he couldn't wait another minute to find out if he was right. Granted, a lot of American educators would look down upon an action like this, but maybe we need to start rethinking some of the rules and boundaries of education that we set up for ourselves and our students. We're all pretty sure that people remember what they are learning more effectively when they are excited and passionate about what they are doing. Passion is not methodical or robotic. It's wild and cannot be contained. Perhaps, we should let our students pursue those emotions a little more often. Their experience in our classrooms might be that much more meaningful for it.
"Did you Know?"
My initial reaction to this piece on "You Tube" was a mixture of, "Wow! That's amazing" and "Wow! What happened to physical human connection"? I'm kind of a conflicted character when it comes to technology and its awe inspiring advancements. On one hand, I love it and am its personal slave, but on the other, I am the kind of girl who still yearns for hand written letters of years gone by. When I think of how amazing it was to hold in my hands the letters my grandfather had written to my grandmother during World War II, I can't imagine how emails, spit out from a laser printer, will hold the same intimate value for my grandchildren. In fact, I'm pretty sure the art of the love letter is slowly becoming an artifact thanks to the advent of email. Maybe they still come in the form of a love text(2,272 of them a month in the teenage cell phone) or a love tweet, but I just can't buy into the idea that the same level of excitement that my grandmother felt when heading to her mailbox exists when kids flip on their blackberry screens. I guess I'm just being old fashioned. I bet the US Postal service wishes that technology would just disappear. Maybe, they're yearning even more for the past, sans my nostalgia. http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/02/news/economy/usps/
After I got over my initial yearning for days gone by, it became glaringly obvious to me that things have to change for our schools or in a decade or so, we, too, will be obsolete. This was also reinforced by Pink and Friedman, and it left me a little frightened yet exhilarated. Our students are the products of a different era. Some of their skills in the technological arts far surpass ours, and I think the role of student and teacher is rapidly changing. Many teachers may have said that they liked to believe they were able to learn as much from their students as their students learned from them. For the first time in history, this is an undeniable truth, and anyone who isn't willing to face that truth should probably be scared. Kids are empowered with tools that we never had access to. The face of research has changed, and on one hand we think they are spoiled to have Google at their fingertips, but it is a double edged sword that presents challenges that you and I never had to think of. Those trusty books in the library were tried and true. Their validity was hard to dispute. Our kids are forced to be educated consumers of information at a much earlier age, and my main concern is are they ready for this responsibility? My next concern is are we ready to teach them how to really research in this new era? We can't speed up their physical development to tell the difference between truth and pure false. But do we have time for wisdom to mature?
When I look at the things we are teaching children, we are spending time teaching them things that were outdated twenty years ago. Are we holding on to those "saber tooth traditions" for our own sake of nostalgia at their expense? Let's be honest, I love teaching my kids how to construct newspaper articles and how to lay them out, but if I'm being serious with myself, I know that the newspaper is a dying form of artistry. If I wanted to teach them a skill that they could pursue, I would be asking them to become blogger journalists. It's time to chuck the chart paper and glue sticks and get them hooked up to the World Wide Web. Even with that sense of clarity, I think to myself, what a shame they'll never know what it was like to have black smudge on their fingers (and I'm not even being sarcastic).
Our students need the skills of adaptation. Without them, they will lead a life of professional disaster. It's not that much different from our personal lives. If we do not learn how to roll with the punches and adapt our skill sets to those around us, our relationships are in ruins. Technology poses that same threat to our students. They must become experts at the very things whose days are numbered, and then they will have to learn how to be experts at the next wave of technological inventions. We can model these behaviors with our teaching. Gone are the days of yellowed, dog eared lesson plans. We must lead by example and be the masters of adaptation and innovation if we are going to keep up with the times and the new skills we need to be teaching our students. It's not a choice; it's a responsibility, and if we are worth our salt as educators, we will accept these changes without making a fuss.
When I saw the question, "who's scared?", I thought, who's not scared? I'm horrified that many of us( 2 million) are watching television in the bathroom! With a sense of seriousness, change stirs horror in so many, and maybe that's human. That being said, it is true that there's nothing to fear but fear itself. You can be scared for a few short seconds, but then, you need to channel that fear into positive energy that aims for change. Some of our colleagues will refuse to jump on our train, but we'll have to throw them life preservers and help them out. If we stand by and watch them drown, then we are just as responsible for their metaphorical deaths as they are. Perhaps, we will not be popular when we rock the boat and promote change, but that's part of life. The greatest changers in the history of the Earth have rarely been the most popular set of people.
One of the questions that really made me think was the question of whether a teacher could truly be great without the use of technology. I will emphatically say yes because I have seen it done in my educational journey. Some of the most inspiring teachers I have ever had never used a power point presentation let alone YouTube. They inspired me to think, to feel, and to be genuinely human. They left me yearning to know more, and one of them left me yearning to be a teacher and her highest form of technology was an overhead projector. These teachers taught me how to "really connect" and that is the one thing I fear technology does not teach. In fact, it teaches the direct opposite of that. It teaches us how to put barriers between authentic human connection, but with a little finesse, the best educators will overcome that, as well.
After I got over my initial yearning for days gone by, it became glaringly obvious to me that things have to change for our schools or in a decade or so, we, too, will be obsolete. This was also reinforced by Pink and Friedman, and it left me a little frightened yet exhilarated. Our students are the products of a different era. Some of their skills in the technological arts far surpass ours, and I think the role of student and teacher is rapidly changing. Many teachers may have said that they liked to believe they were able to learn as much from their students as their students learned from them. For the first time in history, this is an undeniable truth, and anyone who isn't willing to face that truth should probably be scared. Kids are empowered with tools that we never had access to. The face of research has changed, and on one hand we think they are spoiled to have Google at their fingertips, but it is a double edged sword that presents challenges that you and I never had to think of. Those trusty books in the library were tried and true. Their validity was hard to dispute. Our kids are forced to be educated consumers of information at a much earlier age, and my main concern is are they ready for this responsibility? My next concern is are we ready to teach them how to really research in this new era? We can't speed up their physical development to tell the difference between truth and pure false. But do we have time for wisdom to mature?
When I look at the things we are teaching children, we are spending time teaching them things that were outdated twenty years ago. Are we holding on to those "saber tooth traditions" for our own sake of nostalgia at their expense? Let's be honest, I love teaching my kids how to construct newspaper articles and how to lay them out, but if I'm being serious with myself, I know that the newspaper is a dying form of artistry. If I wanted to teach them a skill that they could pursue, I would be asking them to become blogger journalists. It's time to chuck the chart paper and glue sticks and get them hooked up to the World Wide Web. Even with that sense of clarity, I think to myself, what a shame they'll never know what it was like to have black smudge on their fingers (and I'm not even being sarcastic).
Our students need the skills of adaptation. Without them, they will lead a life of professional disaster. It's not that much different from our personal lives. If we do not learn how to roll with the punches and adapt our skill sets to those around us, our relationships are in ruins. Technology poses that same threat to our students. They must become experts at the very things whose days are numbered, and then they will have to learn how to be experts at the next wave of technological inventions. We can model these behaviors with our teaching. Gone are the days of yellowed, dog eared lesson plans. We must lead by example and be the masters of adaptation and innovation if we are going to keep up with the times and the new skills we need to be teaching our students. It's not a choice; it's a responsibility, and if we are worth our salt as educators, we will accept these changes without making a fuss.
When I saw the question, "who's scared?", I thought, who's not scared? I'm horrified that many of us( 2 million) are watching television in the bathroom! With a sense of seriousness, change stirs horror in so many, and maybe that's human. That being said, it is true that there's nothing to fear but fear itself. You can be scared for a few short seconds, but then, you need to channel that fear into positive energy that aims for change. Some of our colleagues will refuse to jump on our train, but we'll have to throw them life preservers and help them out. If we stand by and watch them drown, then we are just as responsible for their metaphorical deaths as they are. Perhaps, we will not be popular when we rock the boat and promote change, but that's part of life. The greatest changers in the history of the Earth have rarely been the most popular set of people.
One of the questions that really made me think was the question of whether a teacher could truly be great without the use of technology. I will emphatically say yes because I have seen it done in my educational journey. Some of the most inspiring teachers I have ever had never used a power point presentation let alone YouTube. They inspired me to think, to feel, and to be genuinely human. They left me yearning to know more, and one of them left me yearning to be a teacher and her highest form of technology was an overhead projector. These teachers taught me how to "really connect" and that is the one thing I fear technology does not teach. In fact, it teaches the direct opposite of that. It teaches us how to put barriers between authentic human connection, but with a little finesse, the best educators will overcome that, as well.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)