What can be Done to Discourage Cheating? (Small Group Work 5.4)

I don’t think the problem is cheating.  I think the larger problem is that all students are asked to do the same thing, but they are asked to do it individually.  Testing is meant to bring all children under one umbrella, but at the same time we expect children to be individuals?  Sometimes in the interest of fairness, we have stripped children of their ability to think.  Tests don’t actually teach students to think because we expect a certain answer, and students know this.  Students are taught that there is a “right” and a “wrong” answer and that there is only one way to get to this answer.

Students wouldn’t need to cheat if we gave them more collabarative work and more inquiry based work (where there is not just one “right” answer).  I think that we should create more tests where students must work together (because this is what happens in life), and teach them to solve problems where there is not just one “right” answer.  Students can’t cheat if there are no more multiple choice tests or generic worksheets with fill in the blank answers.

The end of this video below is particularly important for teachers to hear…

 

What is a good test? (Small Group Work 5.3)

There is a lot of talk going on today about tests and testing.  The problem, as this video talks about below, is that schools are geared towards creating university professors.  The video, taken from a TED conference, argues that tests are not geared towards creativity.  The big problem is that it seems only those who excelled in school want to be school teachers.

I think that fair tests are those were all students are allowed to excel.  I don’t exactly know the in’s and out’s of this, but I do know that testing needs to change.

 

What is Happening in Testing in Your State? (Small Group Work 5.2)

With the recent attempt of Baylor University to artificially inflate SAT scores, there has been renewed discussion about the value of standaradized testing in the United States.  Last May, one student in LAUSD blasted state and federal government in the LA Times because of his belief that the tests simply don’t work.  In the article, Jordan Senteno stated:

One of the biggest obstacles to better schools are the standardized tests — especially the California High School Exit Exam (CAHSEE) — that the district has to issue because of, among other reasons, the federal government’s No Child Left Behind Act. Schools should have more say over how to measure what students are learning, not have standardized measurements forced on them. Students are getting strikes against them for the mistakes that the government is making.

Recently also in my time observing classes in the Santa Maria Valley, one of the teachers I have been observing mentioned frustration with CFA’s (commom forms of assessment).  CFAs are district wide tests given in the Santa Maria Joint Union High School District to assess how different schools are doing in various subjects.  He explained that he used to be able to first do a quick overview of United States history at the beginning of the year and then take a closer look at each era after the overview.  Because of the CFAs and their time sensitivity, he can’t really do the class the way he wants to.  I would argue that the biggest change that teachers want to see is to have more control in their own classrooms.

This video, although full of Bristish humor, gives a good satire on many of the problems in education:

 

Family and Social Class (Small Group Work 5.1)

When thinking about the effect of social class, environment, and family on education, we enter into a hazy territory.  In a very spirited article on his blog, Chris Evans declares:

I have also noticed through my readings and experiences that many lower-class kids are not taught to think critically about various subjects. Many kids in these areas are taught only to remember factual events or ideas but not think why these events occurred. If a child cannot think for themselves, then how do we expect them to be able to sustain themselves in our society? Many upper-class kids are taught to reason so why can’t the lower-class kids do that? Just because they are poorer does not mean they don’t have the ability to think as critical as upper-class kids.

I resonate heavily with Evans here.  Sometimes I think that the reason inner city kids do so poorly is that teachers expect them to do poorly. There isn’t any sort of push from within for change.  A state or federal government can pull from without all they want, but the real pushing has to come “in house.”  No one outside the house has any direct control over the way classes are run (they only have oversight and accountability).  We can pay more money for more oversight, but it won’t necessarily make any difference in the schools themselves.  Increasing the standards won’t change apathetic teachers who never wanted to teach them in the first place.

 

Assessment and Evaluation (Chapter 5)

Chapin notes in this chapter of her book that eighth grade students believe social science is the least valuable subject in terms of lifeskills, but the same study also found that these students looked forward to going to Social Science more than any other class.  Whether or not we like it, student perception plays a major part in how our classes run.  If students generally percieve a topic as boring, it is difficult to teach them it can also be fun.  Her section on parents, teachers, administrators, and community were also somewhat bleak and reminded me HBO’s The Wire.  Basically the pyramid is students on the bottom upset that the teachers are making them do work.  The teachers are upset because the adminstration seems focused–from the teacher’s perspective–on all the wrong things.  The adminstators are doing the bidding of the superintedents and the superintedents likewise do the bidding of the state who, in turn, recieve financial backing based on test scores that return to the circle to evaluate the teachers.  Perhaps that is why those like Michael Kaufman are saying we have traded out drill and practice for drill and test.

The thoughts on assessment and evaluation tie in well with another book I am reading for another class called A Teacher’s Guide to Classroom Assessment.

Her references to the NAEP peaked my interest and I went to look at some of the sample questions online.  I was surprised to see that students actually have to fill out short-answer questions for this test.  It was also very helpful to see actual student responses.  This type of test seems much more valuable than a multiple choice that does not necessarily show depth of thinking.  I was confused, however, by the grading scale.  How does one determine the difference between an “A” or a “B” in short answer questions?  How does one standardize this?

When reading about state testing, I favor criterion-based tests over norm-referenced tests.  The lines bewteen the two tests, however, may not be as dark as Chapin makes them out to be as shown by arguments over the ACT in Kentucky.  In line with this as well, I think that performance assessment is very important in assessing students.  Instead of just paper and pencil tests, I am able to gague deep thinking and help students improve.

On the nature of tests, Chapin takes times to explain the proper context for taking tests.  I hate multiple choice tests and never want to give one as a teacher (another blogger explains why giving something other than multiple choice tests is problematic at the state level).  I know that I will regret writing this later, but I just don’t see the value in students taking them.  There are better ways to gague student learning, but Chapin is correct in noting that multiple choice tests are easy to grade.  My preferred method of testing for students is fill in the blank tests or tests where students have to write a definition of based on the description of that definition.  But I prefer essay tests over all of these other types of testing.

 

A new idea

I have created a new website that will house all my history lesson plans.  I hope that others find it useful.  You can find my first lesson plan on the Monroe Doctrine there.

 

Teaching Students Lifeskills in a Global Environment

Recently I was observing a classroom where a teacher explained that one of his goals was to teach students about life works in the “real” world.  In the real world, on puts in a hard days work and then goes home to rest.  If they have worked hard throughout the day, they will not have to do work that night.  In the same way, he argued that students should not have to complete homework if they worked hard during class.  While I agree with this sentiment to some degree, I would argue that we don’t work in the same industrialized eight hour work day world anymore.  We live in a quickly evolving world that deals mainly with creative thinking and innovation of electronic software.

It is not enough in a globalized world to be a “hard worker” because people in other countries will invariably do comparable work for less pay.  The new term, which really is an old term, is work harder smarter, not harder.  In this case, I refer specifically to working creatively rather than quantitatively.  Leave the quantitative activities for China–they have the natural advantage in industrial output because of their population.  For instance, paper companies should be finding new and powerful ways to invent cheap ways to view new “digital” paper (like Amazon’s kindle) rather than finding way to produce more paper.  In the long run, they will do better by thinking creatively than thinking about how to create more paper that people simply don’t need as a result of electronic software and new better designed reading devices.

One only need look at two of the companies that have virtually revolutionized the online world: google and firefox.  Both of these organizations encourage ingenuity and good design rather than mass production or efficiency.  These companies were made from peopel thinking creatively and they fixed their problems as they went along.

This can also apply to the social sciences.  There is little value in knowing the chronological order of US presidents or the date of when the diet of worms took place, but it is incredibly important to know general trends of history and how things have come to be by engaging in historical thinking.  The general trends of history are important in understanding our present era as flux and constant change due to various stimuli over time.  When students engage historical thinking, they are able to analyze documents and pictures to discern information about social trends.

IBM is one example of a corporation that has understood social trends and acted accordingly.  Someone came in, looked at the design of the corporation, and was able to reformat the corporation to fit a new global economy by outsourcing jobs that could be outsourced to other countries that would do it for less through the internet.  Thomas Friedman has spend an enormous amount of time chronciling this event in our lifetime in his commentary on the flattening of the world.  We simply do not do business the way we used to and there is really no way of telling how they will be doing it when freshman in high school graduate even four years from now.  Technology is changing this quickly, and we have to be prepare students to think.  It is not enough to give them facts because the facts are constantly evolving in a technological world.

 

Civil Servants and Education

Why do we have a department of education in the federal government?

I know this questions sounds simplistic, but why do we have one?  Are states incapable of deciding what standards should and should not be met for their needs?  And one might say, “Well we need clear standards across the nation,” but we don’t even have that now. California state standards are different than Massachusetts state standards.  The idea that the department of education creates some kind of level playing field is just not true.  So if the states decides all the standards and does all the testing, why do we need a whole department for this organization?

Perhaps it is to make sure money is being spent properly, but isn’t the job of congress to allocate funds from the federal government to state governments?  And even then, doesn’t it make sense to simply give money to schools on a per pupil basis based on population and enrollment?  Couldn’t states just be given their lump sum on education for the year from the federal government and then the state spend it how it sees fit?  I know these are novel and simplistic, but doesn’t it make sense?

 

Well Paid Teachers: Is this The Answer?

One school seems to think so.

 

English Language Learners – Some Backwards Thinking

English Language Learners (EL students) in the United States are often considered “behind” in most of the core classes in the United States educational system simply because they lack the English language skills to express themselves coherently in language arts classrooms or the ability to understand teacher instruction in math.  These students often struggle to understand textbooks written primarily in English.  I am writing today to argue that these are exactly the type of students who are “ahead” in the new global world. 

There are still those modernists who are suggesting that America has to find ways to “get ahead” in education and “compete” with the rest of the world in educational standing.  This view in, in my estimation, wrong headed and ignorant of the future in which our students will be working.  When considering history, for instance, there may have been a day long ago when an English historian could gain a place in the world simply because he was in the west while a South American historian would have a harder time making “rank” in the world of global ideas, but this is not the case today.  In today’s wireless world, with the help of technology and grass roots support, this same historian can disseminate his ideas cheaper and to more people.  But the South American may be have the advantage: he has learned English as a second language.  Now his work can be published in two different areas will relative ease. 

You see, it is not the English language learner who is behind.  They already have begun study on language number two.  It is us Americans who, unlike almost every other industrialized nation, refuse to learn more than one language in our quest for greatness.  We believe that we can unilaterally control the market with our “American ingenuity” and our love for democracy.  We have learned from Somalia, Vietnam, and presently Iraq (depending on how you see it) that democracy doesn’t sell and American ingenuity doesn’t count for much when Chinese workers will do it for half the price.

What, then, is the answer?  All students who are able should be required to participate in a foreign exchange program at the high school level in a developing country with new ties in the global economic market.  We are past the age of spreading American democracy to the rest of the world.  While we were sleeping, the rest of the world caught up with America.  They have the same technology as us, and many of them know English and all about America.  The problem? Most of us don’t know about them. 

History teachers can only do so much for promoting cultural understanding.  The reality is that we need to begin implementing foreign language requirements at the elementary level and students must have at least four years of foreign language study by the time they hit junior high.  One plan would then be for students to begin studying that language in high intensity at the junior high level by taking two courses of study: a history of the country in which they are learning the language and a literature course on the country they are studying (both of which should be taught primarily in the language of that country).  At the high school level, students should spend one semester in that country in a rigorous curriculum of math, science, English, and history (plus electives).  This will give our students the real chance they need to succeed in this global world. 

It would, at the least, give skype a new target audience.