What Can Schools Learn from Reality Shows?

Posted on by
2

ExpatEducatorBlueprint

Since moving out of Asia, I’ve been shocked by the sheer number of home improvement reality shows both in Australia and in the US. I notice the confusion, the speculation, and the disagreements teams have when designing or redesigning a space.

Can’t the contestants just go to IKEA, assemble some items, and make the house work? Of course not. Along the way, teams discover leaky pipes, faulty wires, and shoddy insulation – things they never factored in to the original plan or budget. Builders could ignore these issues, assemble the trimmings, and make it all look nice. But the structures won’t last.

So why do educators think that learning can be built from assembling some items produced by textbook companies? If teachers follow the pre-assembled scripts, texts, and activities, are they fostering understanding or creating a facade?

Teachers can learn lessons about curriculum from reality shows, particularly home improvement reality shows.

This post expands on the house-building analogy, taking a slightly different spin on the house analogy used by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins (although the foundational ideas are the same – pun intended).

In Terms of Building a House…

Outcomes or Standards are the specs. Curriculum is the blueprint. Textbooks or resources are the materials you use to build and furnish the house.

If you’re building a house, you know what you want. You’re pretty clear about the specs. If you’re following Common Core or Australian Curriculum, the specs (outcomes) are set for you.

Outcomes are not curriculum. Outcomes comprise lists of what students should know and be able to do. Outcomes are often called standards because all students should know and be able to do these things when they leave school. By analysing the outcomes, you learn what a child leaving school should “look like” academically.

Architects use the specs to create a blueprint. Teachers use outcomes to design curriculum. Curriculum is a set of plans, or an ‘academic blueprint’, that show how a teacher will lead students to achieve the outcomes.

Textbooks, in contrast, are resources that may or may not be included in a set of curriculum documents. Admittedly, textbook companies try and write materials that align with outcomes. Relying on a textbook company to write your curriculum is like going to IKEA, picking out a bunch of furniture, assembling it all according to instructions, and hoping you come out with a house.

Teachers are both the architect and the builder. They must know what the final outcomes look like. They then design curriculum units and individual lesson plans. Finally, they assemble or create resources and use them to their full potential. Teachers notice which parts of the written curriculum are working or not working and re-design the curriculum blueprint as necessary. It’s likely curriculum will be designed differently according to the needs of a particular class or the resources available.

While standards are standardised, instruction should not be. Teachers should not be mandated to follow scripted programs. Doing so is like asking reality show contestants to build a facade over leaky pipes. No one program can fix student misconceptions and meet the needs of all students. Teachers cannot ignore foundational differences in student needs in order to finish programs. If you exclusively trust packaged materials, you build a hovel of learning that comprises a random clutter of facts and skils.

Get the plan right before building and purchasing materials.

I often hear teachers and other school leaders saying that they want to find a curriculum for Common Core or Australian Curriculum standards. What they’re really saying is this: We are looking for the “magic bullet” educational materials that will help students’ test scores improve.

Imagine builders who decide they want a fireplace, a pizza oven and a home theatre system – very cool items they’ve seen in other houses. To preserve money and time for such luxuries, they fire the architect.

Bricks for the fireplace arrive at the house. Leather reclining chairs are dropped off along with a gynormous television and state-of-the art surround sound equipment. Then come another stack of bricks and some metal items presumably for the oven.

Suddenly, the builders realise there is no room for the TV and no outdoor wall fit for a fireplace. Should the pizza oven go inside or outside of the house?

Sounds ridiculous. But educators do it. Without engineering a curriculum, we purchase levelled readers, iPad apps for 500+ devices, microscopes and bunsen burners – all of which are fantastic learning tools within a solid curriculum plan. We complete a school year realising we never touched half of the apps. Students couldn’t use the bunsen burners because there was no budget for safety goggles, and only one teacher knew how to use the levelled readers.

Reality show contestants have a very small budget – much like schools. They can’t afford to measure incorrectly or purchase unnecessary materials. As educators, we can’t afford to purchase items that we can’t use. If time is taken to design solid units of study we can make more informed choices about what materials are most useful. 

Make sure the curriculum blueprints are solid.

The decor should match the personality of homeowner.

I can’t allow students to be creative or learn what interests them. If I do, we won’t have time to cover everything they need for the standardised tests.

As stated earlier, you can teach to standards without standardising instruction. The wiggle room comes in knowing that standards include what students should be able to do.

Take, for example, a writing standard consistent with Common Core and Australian Curriculum: [Students will be able to] Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons.

Classroom A: A school purchases materials that guide the class through a step-by-step process of writing essays. Teachers follow the lessons as prescribed. All students write opinion essays about homework, the topic suggested by the publisher.

Classroom B: The teacher realises that opinion pieces are stronger with research, and research skills and nonfiction reading skills are also listed as outcomes. The teacher designs a unit around the question How can my writing change people’s minds? The teacher allows students to choose their topics but expects them to demonstrate research, nonfiction reading, and persuasive writing skills within their areas of interest. When teaching research skills, a boy interested in dinosaurs evaluates sources of information about dinosaurs. A girl evaluates sources writing about Justin Bieber. After finding reliable sources, the teacher creates mini-lessons that teach students to break articles into chunks, write margin notes, and use post-its to form follow-up questions and thesis statements. Finally, the boy chooses to write an opinion piece convincing people that volcanic eruptions led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. The girl writes an opinion piece about how Justin’s Bieber’s early music is better than his current hits.

Both classes teach to standards, but the teacher in Classroom B is able to engage students by allowing them to demonstrate skills in the context of their interests. 

Using the analogy of a house, both Classroom A and B build a nonfiction opinion-writing ‘room’ in the house. Students in classroom B connect the persuasive ‘room’ with research skills and nonfiction reading ‘rooms’. They choose the rooms’ decor, creating a final project they are proud to share.

It is not necessary to standardise instruction in order to hit the same standards. Schools can maintain creativity and passion in a standards-based classroom.

Home improvement reality show contestants work in pairs.

Contestants do the design thinking together then separate and work on different aspects of the plan. They regularly pull back together to address an unexpected problem or assess completed work.

Curriculum design is hard work. Teachers should work together on the original design thinking. They can distribute the labour related to finding and creating resources to use within those units. Problems will arise that require creative solutions – and teachers can come back together to think through possible solutions.

In the end, people will judge your work.

Contestants in reality shows get judged and receive scores. The scores are subjective – sometimes we agree with the judges and sometimes we don’t. While it’s easy to focus on who is winning, it’s good to remember that each of the houses ends up looking heaps better than it did in the beginning.

Schools are judged by students’ performance on standardised tests. As unfair as it seems, the tests aren’t going away. If standardised tests are the only visible evidence of learning we give the community, that is the only evidence by which we will be judged.

By carefully designing curriculum, students demonstrate authentic learning in ways that elicit the “Wow!” factor from parents and members of the community. Parents beam when their son or daughter independently works on a project at home, Imagine the proud smile on a parents face when they read a persuasive letter from their child, outlining all the reasons the child should be able have ears pierced.

Let’s make authentic projects and assessments embedded in well-designed curriculum be the measure by which our schools are judged. In the process, students will learn information necessary for standardised tests. I promise.

We have work to do in education. But, we have innovative teachers who care about student passions and are capable of creating lessons that teach to standards. Accomplished teachers know their students and how they learn.

We’re not building houses, but we’re building learning environments. Let’s teach to the standards in ways that are individualized, differentiated, and personalized.

What curriculum units are you writing?

If this post was helpful, please share it with a friend. Also consider subscribing to Expat Educator. I promise not to spam or share your email with others.

The photo was purchased from freedigitalphotos.com. 

Educational Leader, Manager or Detective?

Posted on by
5

Expat Educator Detective

As I’m finding my proverbial feet as administrator, I’m logging small notes about the things I do everyday. My original idea was to track the percentage of activities that are leadership-related and the percentage that are management-related.

I’ve created a third category: percentage of time Playing Detective.

The role of detective goes beyond ‘finding out who is at fault’. When you get to the heart of a situation, you get to the heart of a child. You create a school culture that values honesty and looks out for the needs of individual children.

When playing the detective role, the line between behaviour management and school leadership becomes blurred.

Beginning the Investigation

Picture five-year-olds playing their first soccer game – a game affectionately known as “beehive soccer”. If you grab a group of younger students to tell you what happened, you’re gonna be circled by students all talking at once and doing their best to prove to you that they and their close friends are all in the right and another person or persons are all in the wrong. Getting to the truth is about as likely as getting that soccer ball out of a beehive of players.

Calmly state, “Hmmm. This sounds very important. Let’s first get back to class then I’ll sort this out.” Insist they stop talking and walk with you back to class.

Walk them to their teacher(s). Smile. Ask the teacher if he or she would be so kind as to sit the young people far away from one another and not allow them to talk to one another until they’ve spoken with you.

Keep Them Separated

Yes, keeping them separated keeps the students from continuing the verbal brawl in the learning environment. But there’s another reason: Your goal is to get all the stories to match.

If students have opportunity to talk or write notes or sms one another before you talk with them, it’s more likely they will corroborate an alternate version of reality that keeps them out of trouble and keeps you from getting to the truth.

Conversations with the Students in the Brawl

“Tell me what happened” is an inefficient way to start a conversation with younger students (older ones too!). You’ll get the students’ sides of the story, details of which are carefully selected as to avoid any personal responsibility.

Instead, begin with “So tell me who all saw the [encounter].” Visible confusion. After all, the student expected to unfold a dramatic story of all the wrongs perpetrated against him or her. Now the child has to think outside of him- or herself.

After the student names five or six people that were at the scene, ask “When I ask [other student in brawl + witnesses] about the story – and I will – what do you think they’ll tell me?”

The student’s body language changes. Not only are you forcing the youngster to step into the shoes of the other person in the brawl, the student knows that you’re gonna find out more than a quick “he said – she said” version.

Take notes on what the student tells you and repeat the story back to him or her. Then ask, “Is there anything else the others will tell me? Are you sure? All the stories need to match.”

Take Them to the Scene and Bring Stuffed Animals

It’s much easier to re-construct a story when you can have the children at least partially re-enact the scene. “You were standing where? Then what happened?”

Holes in the story quickly emerge. “Hmmm. If you were yelling at him from here, how is it that he pushed you off the bridge? You weren’t anywhere near the bridge?” Gulp. “Can you grab the stuffed animal like so-and-so grabbed you?”

The other advantage to taking the individuals to the scene is that they get out of your office and are allowed to take a walk. A Head of School office is a very scary place for many kiddos. You’re heading out to their turf.

Conversations with Witnesses

By the time you get to the witnesses, the emotion of the situation has died down and students’ ever-brilliant teachers have been able to redirect them into the classroom activity. You have most of the stories, but there are a few holes in the story left to fill.

The conversation with witnesses starts something like this: “I’ve talked to a number of people and will talk to at least [x-number of] others – so whatever you say won’t be traced back to you. The stories need to match. I already know the bigger parts of the story, I just need you to confirm what I already know and fill in a few missing details.”

These phrases accomplish a few things. First, the student relaxes because you’re talking to lots of people – no one can trace back to him or her as the ‘rat’. Second, whatever story they’ve rehearsed in their heads suddenly becomes null and void. It’s not about taking sides, it’s about filling in details.

Take the witnesses to the scene and use the stuffed animals to recreate the parts of the story that have matched. Ask the witness to stop you if the story seems incorrect. Ask questions in the parts of the story that seem less certain.

When You Don’t Know Where to Start

So what if you don’t know either who did something or who witnessed an instance? Vandalism, for instance, often goes unreported. One thing to try is to go into a classroom and hand all the students a half sheet of paper (same colour, same shape, same everything).

Tell students you’re going to ask them to write something and you’d like them all to use either pencil or pen so whatever they write will not be traced back to them.

Explain the situation in general detail. You might say, Many of you know of a situation that happened today in the cafeteria. I’ve been thinking about the poor custodians who will be spending extra time cleaning and of the money that will be required to repair damages. We know that some of you actually saw the instance and that you may be afraid to come forward. 

All of you will write something on the paper. You will either write “I do not know anything about what happened in the cafeteria. Thank you for asking and have a lovely day” or you will write a few sentences that will help us understand what happened or who we need to talk to. The key is that everyone writes. Names are optional. 

After explaining the procedure, you can speak to the unknown culprit.

If you were involved, this is a time for you to show courage. You can talk to an adult at school later today or you can simply admit it on this paper. I can assure you the consequences will be far less if you come forward than if we have to spend additional teaching/learning time investigating. Everyone makes mistakes. We’re here to help you make things right again.

By ‘making things right again’, students hear you using the language of Restorative Practice – an alternative way of helping students understand how their actions affect others (and a future Expat Educator post).

Is an Educational Detective role counted as Leadership or Management?

The detective role could be delegated to teachers. It’s behaviour management.

But getting to the bottom of what really happened takes time – instructional time – from other students. I remember being a teacher and giving a class mind-numbing worksheets so that I could get to the bottom of an important incident. How much total instructional time would be lost if I left this all to the teachers?

If part of my role as educational leader is to remove obstacles to teaching/learning and encourage teachers to get make the most of every minute of instructional time, I need to take an active role in these situations.

When students are unkind to one another, whether as an instigator or retaliator, the instance should be taken very seriously. As a teacher, I admit dismissing instances that I should have taken more seriously. I couldn’t both supervise a classroom and take the care necessary to understand a complicated situation. There was no way I could take students back to the location of the trouble much less counsel them about alternative future choices.

The detective role allows us to effectively communicate to students (and teachers) that kindness and honesty are at the heart of the school. We also communicate that the school honours teaching and learning time. Hence, the detective process becomes a leadership activity that helps communicate and model the school culture we want to create.

Keeping the Teacher as Leader in the Mind of Students

The risk in becoming so heavily involved as detective is that you may become the ultimate authority in the minds of students – a role you want to have remain with teachers and parents.

To avoid taking power away from the teacher and parents, end the investigation by pulling the culprits out of class to confirm the final story. Then, prepare them to retell the story to their teacher and parents. Help them through the specific apologies they need to make to one another. Then hand over follow-up responsibility to the parents and teachers.

End the conversation saying something like You guys have been really courageous by telling me the truth and I know you’re not mean boys/girls. You just did something wrong and it needs to be made right. I’ll let your teacher and parents decide the best consequence for this, but I know the consequence will be lots less severe because they will know both sides and know that you were honest.

Help with Parents

If an instance is big enough for me to get involved, I give a call to parents. Having gone through the whole detective process, I can relay the story with a great degree of certainty. Also, I can say that all parties were honest about their contributions to the problem and they are sincerely remorseful.

The phone call or entry into the student diary does not accuse their chid or tell the parents their child is ‘bad.’ The communication simply relays a story and lets parents know that a follow-up conversation and, possibly, a few extra hugs may be needed that evening.

Future Situations

More than a few kiddos at my school know the drill. When taken to my office, their initial retelling ends up being very, very close to the full story. They know I’m gonna get there eventually.

I’m not angry. I’m genuinely concerned for their wellbeing. They know that too. I can use our time together to point out patterns and refer them to the chaplain or counsellor.

One of the things I love about my new role as administrator is the flexibility to talk with students during these important character-building moments. Yes, other important things get pushed aside – but nothing is more important than creating a culture of honesty and forgiveness. School mission statements mean nothing if they are not communicated in action.

How much time do you spend Playing Detective? What have been your experiences?

photo credit: paurian via photopin cc

Differentiating Homework for Gifted Students

Posted on by
9

Expat Educator Homework

As part of Mary St. George’s New Zealand Gifted Awareness Week Blog Tour, this post addresses homework for the gifted student.

Admittedly, as a classroom teacher, I avoided differentiated homework for many years. The idea of finding, assigning, grading, and following-up with multiple assignments seemed prohibitively time-consuming. Until I tried it.

This post begins with essential understandings and ends with some practical ideas.

Essential Understandings

1. Homework for gifted students should not be ‘more of the same’. If you want your class to spend their homework time reviewing the process of adding fractions, gifted students will not learn anything additional if you give them 20 computation problems while the other students do 10.

2. The homework objective should align with the class objective. Let’s say you’re studying groups of people native to your country of origin. You want the class to use a few websites or book pages to locate information critical to the understanding of the natives’ culture. You have a student in your class who is a font-of-all-knowledge on the topic. Assigning the student to research modern Estonia won’t lead the student to a deeper knowledge of native cultures. Asking the student to make a video portraying his or her knowledge of the culture may help the student learn more about tech skills than native culture. You want to further this child’s understanding of native cultures – the same objective you have for others.

3. You don’t need to create a new differentiated assignment each day for each subject. You can’t. You just can’t.

4. Make sure the student (and parents!) know that the gifted child is not expected to spend any more time on his or her assignment than you expect of the rest of the students. One of my favourite Australian phrases is “Have a go.” Some gifted students will pressure themselves to find a correct answer the next day (After all, the other students have to have all their answers correct the next day). Ask the gifted student to work on the alternate question or topic for 20-30 minutes. The next day, the student can tell you what he or she thought about or tried. If you have multiple gifted students who did the same alternate assignment, they can meet together to come to share thinking and come to consensus on an answer.

Option 1: Add a thought-provoking question.

In my ground rules example, I mentioned a homework assignment for practicing the addition of fractions. With gifted Year 5 students, the directions change. Say,

“Instead of doing all of these problems, pick two – just so I know that you know you remember how to add fractions. But I’d like you to spend the remainder of your homework time thinking through one of my dilemmas: We teachers tell you that fractions and decimals are the same. I’m not sure if that is true. When I add 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3, I get 1. When I add 0.333 [repeating] + 0.333 [repeating] + 0.333 [repeating], I get 0.999 [repeating]. Those aren’t exactly the same. Can you help me figure out why? What happens to the extra 0.001?” – or

“We’ve been working on the rules of divisibility for 2, 3, 5, 6, and 10. Can you figure out rules for 4, 7, and/or 8?”

Many teachers get stuck on the idea that students have to turn in something to be graded. If a gifted student has grappled with a difficult question, write anecdotal notes about your conversation(s) with them. You’re holding them accountable by having the follow-up conversation.

Option 2: Give the student choices as to how to extend knowledge

Returning to the example of the student who could give a college lecture on many aspects of native culture, consider giving the student a few other homework choices that deepen knowledge or add complexity. The conversation goes something like this…

“Look, Jung Ho, I now that you already know everything in the reading assigned for tonight. I’m wondering if there is anything else you might like to know.

  • If I set up a Google hangout with an historian or a person of Aboriginal descent, what questions would you want to ask that person? How ’bout you spend tonight thinking about those questions and we’ll discuss them tomorrow?” – or
  • I’ve been thinking about the apologies made to the Aboriginals by the Australian government. Have countries like New Zealand, South Africa or the United States made similar apologies? What, if anything, might they need to apologise for? Would you say the colonists’ treatment of native Australians is better or worse than the treatment of those native to New Zealand, South Africa or the United States? Would you like to look into that?” – or
  • I watched the All Blacks do the haka before yesterday’s football game. It made me wonder about all the ways the Maoris’ culture is similar to or different from the culture of the Aboriginals. Would you like to look into that?” – or
  • I’ve been thinking about all the explorers who encountered native cultures from different countries. If you were a native, which explorer would you have most wanted to ‘discover’ your country? Which one would you dread the most?” – or
  • “When I was in Mexico, I went to an art gallery and saw pictures of the native Mexicans’ encounters with Cortez. The natives were visibly oppressed. Then I went to Spain and saw Spanish artwork of Cortez’s encounter with the Mexican natives. The natives were smiling. Would you like to look into some artwork depicting colonials’ encounters with natives and see if you notice other things?”

Option 3: Work with the student to develop a learning contract.

The beauty of a learning contract is that the student both plans it and completes it. Your input is critical, but the onus of the contract (especially for older students) lies directly on the student(s).

Homework contracts may contain any of the following:

  • Overarching question
  • List of sources to investigate
  • Journal pages to document investigations and thinking
  • Presentation format or picture of the end product
  • Timeline of due dates (most important!)

Projects can seem overwhelming for some gifted students. Also, gifted students sometimes get so engrossed in reading and research that they never get to information synthesis or presentation.

You’ll want to hold the student accountable for an end product but also allow the due dates to be fluid. As students continue to research and think, a final project may morph into something completely different. Your goal is to make sure students are working and to push their thinking.

Option 4: Make worksheets two-sided.

Worksheets are most prevalent in math. One side of a sheet could comprise computational problems that help students review the day’s lesson. The other side could extend the concept with a problem-solving situation or a thought-provoking question.

As much as possible, align the mathematical strand with the problem-solving concept. One side might be the addition of decimals. The other side might ask students to make an organised list to find the number of possible combinations of coins could pay for a $5 load of laundry.

The key is that students can choose. Many students not identified as gifted will want to ‘have a go’ with the challenge problem. Some parents will require their child to do both sides, even if you’re explicit that students should only spend x-number of minutes per night. It doesn’t hurt them.

Final Thoughts

If you ask students to do ‘more of the same’ or you require them to do things they already know, you teach them that homework is pointless. You want to teach gifted students that homework can be valuable for them too.

Need more ideas? Check out Dr. Sarah Eaton’s post on Alternatives to Traditional Homework.

What have you found to be successful strategies for differentiating homework for gifted students?

Expat Educator Gifted Blog Tour

6 Lessons on Making Decisions

Posted on by
6

Expat Educator Thinker

Unlike schools in the Northern Hemisphere, Australian schools are now halfway through the academic year. The learning curve in this first year of administration has been steep, especially in the area of decision-making. Here is what I’ve learned so far…

1. Decision-making is a delicate balance of having a heart for the needs of an individual and a knowledge of how the needs of the individual affect the entire system of educating children.

As a teacher, I could accommodate most every parent, student, and administrator request short of daily written reports. As an administrator, I’m becoming an expert on communicating messages that some are reluctant to hear.

A difficult message must follow a session of active listening. You may spend hours beginning sentences with What I hear you saying is… and allowing the person to clarify his or her point of view.

The decision must be delivered in a way that honours the point of view but doesn’t waver in resolution. I appreciate the point of view. I understand you don’t like the decision for [state the reasons]. The decision is final.

The closings are awkward. Individuals leave your office knowing that you can’t/won’t give them what they want. So what do you say when you shake hands?

2. Some good decisions feel crummy for awhile.

Leaders have to break through decision paralysis, a condition that may result from analysing a situation from a student, parent, teacher, community, philosophical, research, practical, policy, long-term, and systems perspective.

When you write down the possible decisions next to the probably outcomes, someone almost always suffers – at least in the short term. You can only hope that the decision will result in the most good possible and, long-term, result in at least some good for everyone.

3. When people don’t like a decision, they say things they don’t mean.

This truth threw me off at first. Whether the unhappy person threatens to pull children out of a school, go to the union, or take the issue to the boss or the board/council, you have to be able to calmly (and honestly) look at them and say, I’m sorry you feel that way.

I admit to having sleepless nights, considering how I will react to those who will probably not like a decision. While I understand that I can never make everyone happy, learning communities, by definition, are about relationships.

You must be able to put a negative encounter aside for the sake of the relationship so that you can continue to work together for the benefit of students.

4. Support is critical.

I’m super-fortunate to have a boss who backs me. More than a few conversations have gone something like this: When I said x, I was thinking… I considered saying y, but I suspected… only to have the boss reassure me that both x and y might well have been wrong in the ears of the listener.

Support goes both ways. you need to understand the decisions made by those more senior so that, when teachers, parents, or students ask questions, you can defend those decisions and the good intent with which the decisions were made.

Actually, support goes more than both ways. Teacher deserve your support. They work incredibly hard and make a huge difference in the lives of children. When you encounter parents who say My son/daughter says that the teacher…, you respond, I’m surprised by that. Having spent a great deal of time in the teacher’s classroom, I wonder if there has been a misunderstanding. Have you spoken with the teacher? My late mother, an early childhood educator, told parents this at parent night: “Let’s make a deal. I’ll believe 50% of what your 5-year-old children tell me about home if you believe 50% of what they tell you about school. It’s not that the children are dishonest, it’s just that they interpret things differently and often don’t explain situations accurately.”

Appreciate support. Pay it forward. Pay it back.

5. It is important to clarify who will make a final decision.

Many decisions directly affect teachers. Even when teachers aren’t able to make a final decision, it’s helpful to fully consider their points of view. But you need to tell them beforehand whether they are being asked to make the decision or are being asked for input.

If a decision is completely top-down, teachers should understand the strategic intent behind the decisions as well as the steps for implementation. Teachers might have some input into whether the steps of implementation need to be further broken down. They can set personal learning goals aligned with the school strategic goals. In what other ways might they feel some control over decisions imposed upon them?

6. Decisions + resolve = exhaustion.

Each night, I go home mentally exhausted. I’ve told my husband that I don’t have the energy to decide what I want for dinner. I don’t have the mental capacity for anything beyond reality television or reruns of popular sitcoms. And, unfortunately, my brain is most often too muddled to coherently write a blog post.

But it will get easier. Every new job does. I smiled as I read Jessica Johnson’s post on her first year as principal – it’s all so true.

What have you learned about decision-making?

photo credit: BabyDinosaur via photopin cc

Measuring For Learning

Posted on by
1

Expat Educator StudyingThe Problem With Traditional Learning Measures

Not everything that can be counted counts is a phrase often used in the conversation about standardised tests. Whether originally stated by Dr. Stephen Ross or by Albert Einstein, human beings have long sought “fair” ways to determine which students are high achievers and which student are likely to be successful in university. The logic goes something like this: If we give every student the same test under the same conditions, those who know more will pick more correct answers and earn higher numerical marks.

We can’t quantitatively definitively define “success” by testing unless we reduce it to a number. So we define academic success by numbers on a test or letters on a report card and we define lifetime success based on income or leadership level within organisations. 

I was interested to hear from Alan Boyle, an author from OnlineEducation.net, about a recent article on how top universities seek to measure noncognitive skills as predictors of future academic success. The article made me think back to all the applications I didn’t fill out because my SAT scores, used at the time as the most accurate predictor of university success, didn’t hit the magic numbers. I remember feeling cheated that I couldn’t tick the box “Top 10% of graduating class” because my 3.98 GPA made me third in a graduating class of 23 students. Had I chosen to drop Physics, I would have been able to tick the necessary box on the application. I wished for a way to communicate to admissions officers my drive to achieve whatever was required of me – and my willingness to stick with a subject even if it compromised my numerical standing in the rank of graduates.

Standards-Based Continuums Bring Out the Noncognitive Dispositions

My love for curriculum stems from the way curriculum is written. Curriculum scope and sequence documents comprise statements of what students should know and be able to do – information the “me” from High school wished to communicate to universities with highly competitive admission requirements.

The executive team at my current school is leading teachers in an effort to put the Australian Curriculum (AC) standards onto continuums. As students move from Prep to Year 12, common assessments determine student movement through the continuum of results statements for each subject. In history, for example, a student might demonstrate a Year 9 level of historical knowledge and demonstrate a Year 6 level of historical research skills.

The standards-based continuum is transparent. Assuming common assessments are valid and scored reliably, both parents and students know students’ specific strengths and areas for growth in each subject.

My hope is that, through the transparent standards-based marking process, noncognitive areas for growth will emerge. If, as Alan suggests, one can improve important noncognitive skills by taking on challenges, pushing through difficult situations, setting measurable goals, and becoming a decent person, then a transparent set of standards gives students a continuous set of challenging goals through which they navigate.

More specifically, through a transparent, standards-based continuum based on valid, reliable assessments, students

  • understand the next level of expectation in each subject
  • set measurable, personal goals in each subject each term and follow through with those goals
  • demonstrate the grit to push through the cognitive and emotional challenges associated with achievement of subsequent standards

Decreasing the Weight of Standardised Tests

If we can create a valid, reliable way of measuring student outcomes, then standardised tests become one of the ways rather than the way of determining student “success” in school.

Such a continuum does not make students exempt from standardised tests. Australian students encounter the NAPLAN in grades, 3, 5, 7, and 9. While results are not linked to school funding as they are in the American outcomes of NCLB, school NAPLAN results are published and accessed easily by parents.

But if we can report to students, parents, and universities that a particular student under regular life conditions is able to set high academic goals and achieve those goals, families and universities might more accurately predict that the same student would set and achieve future goals.

More Clearly Describing Success

We can label students as successful because they receive a particular number on a particular test on a particular day. Alternately, we can describe what “success” looks like in each subject area and help students celebrate continued growth and eventual mastery. Under which conditions will students learn more?

if students work toward descriptors rather than numbers, the common assessments become a measure of academic achievement and indicate growth of the noncognitive measures such as grit, stamina, and resilience. Learning extends beyond the academic.

So what if we stop counting and start describing? Not everything that can be counted counts. But things we describe and to which you can aspire count.

photo credit: Angela Radulescu via photopin cc

If you like what you read, please sign up for Expat Educator updates by email. Your address will never be shared with outside parties.