Today's Ottawa Citizen published a very well-informed op-ed piece today about the issues around bill 115. The piece, written by public school board trustee Pam Fitzgerald makes some excellent points that the real issues of Bill 115 are not really about money or democratic rights but about the educational initiatives that have been launched over Dalton McGuinty's time in office.
Ms. Fitzgerald talks about how changes to processes involving student responsibility (plagiarism, incomplete work), increases to teacher responsibilities (testing, record-keeping, report cards), and the addition of many at-risk and special needs students to the classroom without sufficient support have greatly affected the role and workload of teachers.
Here are three insightful paragraphs from the article.
"Many of these initiatives appear to be laudable but they are
frequently implemented with undue haste and perhaps with a sense of
political expediency. There is little say on the viability, and the
process of implementation and collaboration is frequently lacking.
New
initiatives with unforeseen consequences for students, teachers and
school administrators often simply serve to stretch teachers to the
limit at the expense of time, creativity, and flexibility in the
classroom. (my italics)
While it’s recognized that differentiated instruction
and a little student autonomy improve learning, teaching itself has
become more standardized.(again, my italics) Unlike other professions where a standardized
approach might improve the product and despite some improvements in test
scores, standardization in education has led to frustration for
students and teachers alike. As the world-renowned and well-respected
educator Sir Ken Robinson might say, we are using the 19th-century
factory model to teach 21st-century minds."
Later on in the article Ms. Fitzgerald makes the point that that the government continues to use a "do as I say, not as I do approach". Any teacher can easily name a half-dozen policies, programs, or initiatives that fit that mold. We are to try to provide individualized instruction to our students but the principal wants all teachers teaching the same lessons. Or we are forced to attend professional development about the value of giving students choices. We are told that, despite our experience and judgement that some students cannot handle it, we must give all students more responsibility around assignment due dates and then also put in the time and effort to deal with lapses but our marks had better be in by 9am Monday even if exams were only written on Friday.
Showing posts with label new versus old ways. Show all posts
Showing posts with label new versus old ways. Show all posts
Friday, December 21, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
Why a No Zeroes policy is good for learning
Recently in Alberta there has been a large to-do over the suspension and subsequent dismissal of high school teacher Lynden Dorval. The main issue involved in the disciplining of Dorval was his refusal to follow his school's No Zero policy for student assignments that did not get handed in. Many people are referring to Dorval as a "hero" for standing up to what they view as watered-down, permissive education.
Ken O'Connor, an internationally recognized expert on evaluation and grading wrote a good defence of No Zero policies in the Edmonton Journal in June. I want to explain and expand on some of the issues he raised.
The first thing that Dorval's supporters do not realize is that teachers following best practices do not use averages to calculate final grades. When you don't use averages, then giving a zero or not becomes irrelevant. A student who has done work to demonstrate the learning demanded by the course curriculum deserves to be recognized for that learning even if he or she has not done all the work. A student whose missed work means that he or she has not met all course expectation should not be granted the credit, even if an average of his/her marks would give a grade above 50%.
Secondly, allowing a teacher to give zeros allows both teachers and students to avoid responsibility. A student can choose to not do work and "take a zero", avoiding his/her responsibility to do school work. A teacher can give a zero to that student and avoid the responsibility that I feel a teacher should have to follow up when a student has a problem so significant that work does not get completed. I ask parents out there, if your child did not do a school assignment, would you want the teacher to give a zero and forget about it or instead follow up with the student (and maybe you too) about what the problem was and how it can be fixed?
The third point that Dorval's proponents seem to be missing is the idea that grades and marks should try to accurately reflect student learning. If a student does not produce work, assigning any mark to it actually makes no sense. It would be a little bit like a meteorologist saying "On Thursday it rained most places in the city but because of a technical problem I did not get a rainfall reading so I will treat Thursday's rainfall as zero". Assuming that a measurement should be zero because you were unable to take the measurement is going to skew your data.
Now that you have read this post (and Ken O'Connors piece as well, I hope) you should have a better understanding that No Zero policies are not about watering down education or being permissive with students. No Zero policies are about trying to provide the best educational and learning opportunities possible to our young people based on what we know right now. If you are looking for more information on current best practices in assessment and evaluation, checking out Ken O'Connors books is a great place to start.
Ken O'Connor, an internationally recognized expert on evaluation and grading wrote a good defence of No Zero policies in the Edmonton Journal in June. I want to explain and expand on some of the issues he raised.
The first thing that Dorval's supporters do not realize is that teachers following best practices do not use averages to calculate final grades. When you don't use averages, then giving a zero or not becomes irrelevant. A student who has done work to demonstrate the learning demanded by the course curriculum deserves to be recognized for that learning even if he or she has not done all the work. A student whose missed work means that he or she has not met all course expectation should not be granted the credit, even if an average of his/her marks would give a grade above 50%.
Secondly, allowing a teacher to give zeros allows both teachers and students to avoid responsibility. A student can choose to not do work and "take a zero", avoiding his/her responsibility to do school work. A teacher can give a zero to that student and avoid the responsibility that I feel a teacher should have to follow up when a student has a problem so significant that work does not get completed. I ask parents out there, if your child did not do a school assignment, would you want the teacher to give a zero and forget about it or instead follow up with the student (and maybe you too) about what the problem was and how it can be fixed?
The third point that Dorval's proponents seem to be missing is the idea that grades and marks should try to accurately reflect student learning. If a student does not produce work, assigning any mark to it actually makes no sense. It would be a little bit like a meteorologist saying "On Thursday it rained most places in the city but because of a technical problem I did not get a rainfall reading so I will treat Thursday's rainfall as zero". Assuming that a measurement should be zero because you were unable to take the measurement is going to skew your data.
Now that you have read this post (and Ken O'Connors piece as well, I hope) you should have a better understanding that No Zero policies are not about watering down education or being permissive with students. No Zero policies are about trying to provide the best educational and learning opportunities possible to our young people based on what we know right now. If you are looking for more information on current best practices in assessment and evaluation, checking out Ken O'Connors books is a great place to start.
Why I don't average student marks
A short while ago Janice Kennedy of the Ottawa Citizen wrote a piece about teachers ignoring what she called "educational kookiness". Reading that piece, I realized that she was looking at the process of determining marks for students as if it had not changed since she was a teacher. In particular, she is assuming the teachers determine a student's final grade by averaging all the marks that student has earned. This prompted me to come up with an example of why current best practices recommend against using averages to determine student grades.
Imagine that two students have written the same series of tests in a course. Each test reflects the cumulative knowledge of the student for the whole course at that point. Student A scores 80% on the first test, 70% on the second test, then 60%, 50%, 40%. Student B scores 40% on the first test, then 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%. If we determine final grades based on averages, then both students get the same grade, 60%. But clearly student B is improving his/her learning while it looks like student A is understanding less and less. There are more statistically sophisticated methods than simple averages that can be used to try and capture the trend being shown, but they are tricky and have potential flaws. The reality is that any given statistical method for calculating final grade will have weaknesses, so Ken O'Connor, a recognized expert in student evaluation, offers this as Guideline #6 in his book How to Grade for Learning K - 12: "Crunch numbers carefully, if at all."
So instead of crunching student results into an average, best practices call for teachers to use their judgement based on the most consistent student results, with the emphasis on the most recent. In the example above, the lack of consistency would mean that a teacher should focus on the most recent results which are 50% and 40% for student A and 70% and 80% for student B. These most recent results suggest that student A may not have learned enough to pass the course while student B's learning can fairly be evaluated as being in the low 70s. That is a big difference from giving both 60%.
Imagine that two students have written the same series of tests in a course. Each test reflects the cumulative knowledge of the student for the whole course at that point. Student A scores 80% on the first test, 70% on the second test, then 60%, 50%, 40%. Student B scores 40% on the first test, then 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%. If we determine final grades based on averages, then both students get the same grade, 60%. But clearly student B is improving his/her learning while it looks like student A is understanding less and less. There are more statistically sophisticated methods than simple averages that can be used to try and capture the trend being shown, but they are tricky and have potential flaws. The reality is that any given statistical method for calculating final grade will have weaknesses, so Ken O'Connor, a recognized expert in student evaluation, offers this as Guideline #6 in his book How to Grade for Learning K - 12: "Crunch numbers carefully, if at all."
So instead of crunching student results into an average, best practices call for teachers to use their judgement based on the most consistent student results, with the emphasis on the most recent. In the example above, the lack of consistency would mean that a teacher should focus on the most recent results which are 50% and 40% for student A and 70% and 80% for student B. These most recent results suggest that student A may not have learned enough to pass the course while student B's learning can fairly be evaluated as being in the low 70s. That is a big difference from giving both 60%.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
The power of new teaching methods
I just found an article entitled Lectures obsolete, says Nobel winner in the Ottawa Citizen newspaper. The article talks about how new, interactive teaching methods were able to teach more physics to a group of students than an experienced, charismatic professor at UBC. This feels like a personal victory to me since back in January 2009 the Citizen ran an editorial ridiculing the types of methods that proved to be so effective in the current article. The Citizen's January 23, 2009 editorial, entitled "Learning Difficulties", concluded "A lecture from a charismatic professor, given to a group of students who want to be there, will always be worth more than clickers in the hands of a colourless professor and disengaged students."
I wrote two letters to the editor on the topic of lectures versus new teaching methods, defending the value of new teaching methods. Portions of the two letters were combined and printed in the Letters page on February 5, 2009, along with my picture. That was a small victory, although the Citizen highlighted my recognition of the fact that lectures work for some students over my defense of new teaching methods.
Now, however, comes today's article showing that good teaching methods, including the much-maligned clickers, actually blow away a charismatic professor. Students learning from the professor scored 18% better than random guessing while students learning from the new methods scored 51 percent higher than random guessing.
I am curious to see whether the UBC results will merit an editorial comment. If it does, I will be sure to respond. :)
I wrote two letters to the editor on the topic of lectures versus new teaching methods, defending the value of new teaching methods. Portions of the two letters were combined and printed in the Letters page on February 5, 2009, along with my picture. That was a small victory, although the Citizen highlighted my recognition of the fact that lectures work for some students over my defense of new teaching methods.
Now, however, comes today's article showing that good teaching methods, including the much-maligned clickers, actually blow away a charismatic professor. Students learning from the professor scored 18% better than random guessing while students learning from the new methods scored 51 percent higher than random guessing.
I am curious to see whether the UBC results will merit an editorial comment. If it does, I will be sure to respond. :)
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Changing models of education, part II
Just found this article about the School of One, a pilot project in New York City.
Here is another attempt to change the school model to better fit modern students. Interesting to note that the program seems to not reduce the number of teachers or the cost of education, but rather to redirect the resources in a way that allows for more individualized instruction.
Very interesting.
Here is another attempt to change the school model to better fit modern students. Interesting to note that the program seems to not reduce the number of teachers or the cost of education, but rather to redirect the resources in a way that allows for more individualized instruction.
Very interesting.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The old models of education are truly starting to be challenged
Here's an interesting article about a new thrust in online education.
The article postulates that it may be a decade or two before online courses really shake things up for universities. I'm guessing that some time after that a similar model for High School education is going to rock High Schools across North America, if not the whole world.
What is a cash-strapped school board going to do when a company like StraighterLine offers to teach all the Math classes for a flat fee per student that is way less than it costs that board to teach those classes? I'm pretty sure a bunch of the school boards are going to grab those savings. And once several boards prove that the online classes are as good as the old-style classes, then the dam is truly going to burst.
I had been thinking that my job as a High School teacher was recession and technology proof. Looks like I was wrong.
The article postulates that it may be a decade or two before online courses really shake things up for universities. I'm guessing that some time after that a similar model for High School education is going to rock High Schools across North America, if not the whole world.
What is a cash-strapped school board going to do when a company like StraighterLine offers to teach all the Math classes for a flat fee per student that is way less than it costs that board to teach those classes? I'm pretty sure a bunch of the school boards are going to grab those savings. And once several boards prove that the online classes are as good as the old-style classes, then the dam is truly going to burst.
I had been thinking that my job as a High School teacher was recession and technology proof. Looks like I was wrong.
Breaking down barriers
In the Ottawa Citizen today, Elizabeth Payne wrote about a dance program being introduced in elementary schools in Ottawa. Her piece is unfortunately short on specifics but in general, I like the idea.
A quote from Hannah Beach, a dancer who created this program, is very telling:"I really think that we offer children such narrow ways to express themselves. Not all children have the capacity to use language in a way that helps them express themselves. Dance gives them those skills."
I agree. People are often limited by beliefs and barriers that have at least been partially imposed by outside forces. Beliefs like "I can't sing", "I'm no good at math", "I'm a lousy dancer" are usually started by other people. Over time, the beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies as people avoid the practice, trial and error that they would need to beat those limiting beliefs.
If this dance program can teach people to be creative and try things even when they don't feel confident, then I am all for it.
A quote from Hannah Beach, a dancer who created this program, is very telling:"I really think that we offer children such narrow ways to express themselves. Not all children have the capacity to use language in a way that helps them express themselves. Dance gives them those skills."
I agree. People are often limited by beliefs and barriers that have at least been partially imposed by outside forces. Beliefs like "I can't sing", "I'm no good at math", "I'm a lousy dancer" are usually started by other people. Over time, the beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies as people avoid the practice, trial and error that they would need to beat those limiting beliefs.
If this dance program can teach people to be creative and try things even when they don't feel confident, then I am all for it.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Old vs. new
Doing some reading I came upon this blog entry about our school system: School Year.
The author, Kateland, finds a lot of problems with our current school system and the way it is going. She singles out the Ministry of Education as being the major cause of the problem. Without agreeing or disagreeing with her assessment of the Ministry, I would like to look at one of her thoughts.
Here is one of her comments: "Apparently it is considered much improved to visualize a group of seven things filled with 8 items each and then count out the answer but I cannot imagine solving algebra equations when I do not know instantly that “X” times “Y” equals “N” without a moment’s thought."
As a Math teacher, I hear what she is saying, and certainly in the past many people have memorized their multiplication tables and learned to solve algebraic equations. But today anyone can do any multiplication on their calculator, or for most students, their cellphone, and I can teach people to solve algebraic equations using algebra tiles in a way that does not require knowledge of multiplication tables. So it does not seem necessary to me that we force all students to memorize their multiplication tables.
I want to be really clear here. I definitely recognize that for many students, memorizing multiplication tables will be useful. But education today has to be about trying to teach every student in the class in the best way possible. Teachers can no longer teach any skill just one way. We need to use all the tools at our disposal, multiplication tables, calculators, algebra tiles, computers, and more to find a way to teach students in ways that they will understand, value, and remember.
To me the key thing as a teacher is to recognize which students would really benefit from memorizing multiplication tables and which students will be fine doing everything on their calculators. Or who should learn to solve equations with algebra tiles and who will simply be faster with the old, more abstract way. That is what teaching has to be about in the new, flattening, globalized world.
The author, Kateland, finds a lot of problems with our current school system and the way it is going. She singles out the Ministry of Education as being the major cause of the problem. Without agreeing or disagreeing with her assessment of the Ministry, I would like to look at one of her thoughts.
Here is one of her comments: "Apparently it is considered much improved to visualize a group of seven things filled with 8 items each and then count out the answer but I cannot imagine solving algebra equations when I do not know instantly that “X” times “Y” equals “N” without a moment’s thought."
As a Math teacher, I hear what she is saying, and certainly in the past many people have memorized their multiplication tables and learned to solve algebraic equations. But today anyone can do any multiplication on their calculator, or for most students, their cellphone, and I can teach people to solve algebraic equations using algebra tiles in a way that does not require knowledge of multiplication tables. So it does not seem necessary to me that we force all students to memorize their multiplication tables.
I want to be really clear here. I definitely recognize that for many students, memorizing multiplication tables will be useful. But education today has to be about trying to teach every student in the class in the best way possible. Teachers can no longer teach any skill just one way. We need to use all the tools at our disposal, multiplication tables, calculators, algebra tiles, computers, and more to find a way to teach students in ways that they will understand, value, and remember.
To me the key thing as a teacher is to recognize which students would really benefit from memorizing multiplication tables and which students will be fine doing everything on their calculators. Or who should learn to solve equations with algebra tiles and who will simply be faster with the old, more abstract way. That is what teaching has to be about in the new, flattening, globalized world.
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