Category Archives: Leadership

Measuring For Learning

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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

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Should Teacher Meetings Run Like Business Meetings?

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What makes a good meeting?

Books on leading effective meetings include recommendations about precise agendas, fearless timekeepers, and detailed notetakers. In business meetings, all those items have value.

But are teacher meetings the same thing as business meetings? Should they be? How many great, innovative teachers have you seen move into leadership roles and lead meetings with the same creativity as they crafted lessons?

Bambi Betts of the Principal Training Center told a group of international school leaders that teacher meetings should be about unit planning, assessment, student work analysis, and professional development. If this is true, teacher meetings should not resemble traditional business meetings.

Changing the Meeting Paradigm

Bloated with newbie leader enthusiasm (that I suspect will crash and burn as quickly as first-year-of-anything enthusiasm), I’m channeling my energy into rethinking teacher meetings. Specifically, I wonder how teacher meetings would be different if they began with the leaders asking the following questions:

  1. What is the purpose of the meeting? When attendees leave the meeting, what should they know or be able to do?
  2. What essential question or enduring understanding am I facilitating?
  3. How will I know if those attending the meeting have met the objectives?
  4. What activities will increase understanding? Will technology help?

Not wanting to plan my first meeting completely from scratch, I searched Slideshare, The few leadership presentations that popped up on the first 20 pages were full of words and bullet points – exactly what we tell students not to do in their presentations.

So then I went to twitter, where George Couros shared his philosophy that, while it is important to move forward with annual initiatives, teachers need time to set up their classrooms. Tim Slack piped in with some ideas on saving teachers’ time – materials that I will use in February.

The Result

The first meeting turned out to be 15 minutes of me talking and 75 minutes of teacher activity. The goals:

  • Create community with visual thinking and sharing (candy activity)
  • Give teachers a bit of background knowledge on the new Yank
  • Encourage new teachers to connect with veteran teachers (movement and conversation)
  • Model the use of QR codes as a way to reinforce previous learning – locations of rooms and resources in the school (scavenger hunt)
  • Facilitate discussion on procedures related to yard duty, library check-out, after-school procedures, first aid procedures, and more (questions programmed into QR codes)

Feedback

While only the new teachers and their buddies were required to do the scavenger hunt, groups of veteran teachers decided they wanted to do it for fun. And, teachers organically began conversations about how the iPad QR code reader could be used to enhance classroom learning.

Other feedback came from a surprising source. The day after the scavenger hunt, I was listening to Ed Tech Co-Op during my work commute and heard David Carpenter discuss a school using QR codes for a scavenger hunt for teacher orientation. School leaders extended the QR code activity into a full-on multimedia project. Some great ideas – worth a listen and a podcast subscription.

Differentiating Meetings from Workshops

Lest it sound like I’m criticising business meetings, my lovely hubby (a.k.a. Road Warrior) rarely uses the word meeting. Mostly, his face-to-face ‘meetings’ are called workshops. Workshops have clear outcomes. Leaders plan activities that get participants to the realisation of the outcomes.

So maybe the key is to think of teacher meetings as workshops. What do you think?

A Little Fun

If you haven’t seen this comedy bit on traditional Power Point presentations, remove yourself from food items that make lead to inadvertent choking before watching.

Are We Confusing Standards with Standardization?

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Standards, not standardization

My soap box. Here I go again…

As I write this, I’m ducking behind my screen, ready to dodge virtual tomatoes. Please bear with me as I question some assumptions we are making with regards to standards and standardization.

We educators use terms and acronyms, assuming that all people have the same understanding. First, I will clarify terms. Then I will ask questions.

Clarification 1: Textbooks are not curriculum.

Most simply put, curriculum is a list of things students should know and be able to do. We call the list a list of standards because we hope that all students will be able to know and do these things when they leave school. Then we create benchmarks, clarifying what those standards “look like” at various grade levels.

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

I haven’t used textbooks in over ten years. What I learned from my Australian colleagues is this: Teachers can look at a list of standards and figure out the best way to teach to those standards.

So here are some questions: Are schools underestimating teachers? Are schools assuming that teachers cannot teach to standards unless they have the “right” materials?

Clarification 2: Standards are different than Standardization

If we understand curriculum as a list of standards describing what students should know and be able to do, we can differentiate between curriculum and instruction.

Curriculum is built on standards. Instruction may or may not be standardized.

The progression of assumptions goes something like this (my reaction in italics):

  1. We need to teach to the common core (standards). True.
  2. The district has purchased materials that align with the standards. Okay.
  3. If we all teach this curriculum (a misuse of the term), then [the company's] research suggests that students will test better. Here is training on how you should all use these materials… Hold the phone!!!!!

We have crossed a line at #3. We assume that, to hit standards, instruction must be standardized according to commercially-created materials.

My next question: Once companies have convinced us that they have the “right” materials, are we requiring all teachers to use those materials in the same way?

Clarification 3: If we agree that instructional standardization is unnecessary, we can maintain creativity and passion in a standards-based classroom.

But we need to make a few paradigm shifts.

Specifically,

  1. Look at the standards before we look textbooks or think of “thematic” activities. The unit on Spiders is no longer a list of activities. It is a list of standards first (classification, expository writing, research, health and safety), then activities.
  2. Use team meeting time to plan. Work together to compile activities and resources that will teach to the standards. Use textbooks and other materials as resources. Trust yourself to create new activities that teach to standards more authentically than pre-packaged materials.
  3. Maintain checklists of standards and keep track of students that have and have not met specific standards. Project-based learning is then tweaked to include the following instructions: Somewhere in your project, you need to show me that you understand the difference between insects and spiders. You need to tell me whether or not your spider is dangerous and how you can tell. When I come and talk to you, I will ask which books and websites you have been reading and how they helped you.

Clarification 4: There are some things that are just wrong.

Wrong: Awards and sanctions for schools, teachers, and students based on test scores. Household rewards and sanctions do not get kids to bed on time, nor is bedtime a single standard by which we judge parenting (thank heavens!). Let’s pay attention to the scores, but realize that tests will never tell us the full extent of student knowledge.

Wrong: Hours and hours of standardized testing. I’ve created assessments where students learn through the process of demonstrating, synthesizing, and evaluating their knowledge and skills. Students learn nothing when they fill in bubbles. A few hours per year is okay. Weeks? Wrong.

Wrong: Teaching all students the same way. The little Steve Jobses and Mark Zuckerbergs in your classroom (who probably test well), will withdraw or start programming social media when they should be underlining the topic sentence.

There are more wrong things, but those are the biggies.

Conclusion: Education is not doomed, unless we confuse standards with standardization.

As Yong Zhao Trim said, American education was “doomed” in the 1960s when the Russians beat us to space. American education was “doomed” according to the 1980s publication “A Nation At Risk.” NCLB was created because schools were failing.

Yes, 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.

Let’s teach to the standards, but teach them in ways that are individualized, differentiated, and personalized.

My last question: What if we change the assumptions?

If the new assumptions are as follows…

  • Teachers can teach to standards with or without specific, commercial materials.
  • No one set of materials (commercially-created or otherwise) will help teachers teach all standards to all students.
  • Standards can be taught and tracked in the midst of innovative, project-based classrooms.
  • We fight government initiatives that are truly wrong while resolving to show the world that students learn through individualized, differentiated, and personalized instruction.

…how would schools look different?

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“Do ‘Ya Have a Goal?”

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At the risk of showing my age, I’ll venture that one of the most underrated scenes from the 1990 Movie Pretty Woman involved Kate de Luca (Laura San Giacomo) talking to a potential new roommate. She looks at the potential subletter and says, “Do ‘ya have a goal?”
If you work at an international school, overseas purchase orders are due in early March. Do you have a plan? a goal?
Really??? you say? It’s only February!
Yep! I counter. It’s February. Time to dream!
Please don’t throw your Coke at me. It’s time to begin looking toward the next school year. What has worked? What has not worked? Will units next year be the same as those you taught (or will teach) this year? Are there one or two units that need revamping? Will you scrap some units and start again?
As a self-proclaimed curriculum junkie, I take pleasure in planning themes and units for the upcoming school year much like I take pleasure in choosing the type of macaroni and cheese to order from Portland’s Montage.  I begin with a chart that looks something like this:
Then I move around the lines, merge a few cells, and fill in ideas for units within which can incorporate curriculum standards (Common Core or School-specific). 
It’s even more fun when you work with fellow curriculum enthusiasts who like to dream of what might be.
Some of your teammates might even get fancy – publishing a template that is fun for parents and students to see at the beginning of the next school year.
This is just the first step. Units must be written or refined. But a map like this gives you a place to start when ordering resources and collecting online materials.
  • By such-and-such date, I will identify nonfiction trade books on the topic of x.
  • When I see resources on Twitter or blogs, I will bookmark them according to…
  • By the “end-of-overseas-requisitions-date”, I will submit a proposal for…
  • I need to do coffee with so-and-so. Not only do I like her and want to hear about Bali, I’d like to pick her brain on ways I can enhance x unit.

Do ‘ya have a plan? What’s your plan?

Weighing in on the Handwriting Issue

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I am stepping on my soap box again. This time it is on the issue of teaching handwriting. An Education Week article clearly stated the reasons behind the teaching of handwriting. I liked the author’s point that, by teaching handwriting, we are teaching important fine motor skills.

Beyond that, I think we’re asking the wrong question and making the issue too complicated.

First, we’re asking the wrong question.
It’s not about the medium by which things are written (handwritten or type) – it’s about the fluency with which students can clearly state their ideas and their observations.

As I read articles about the speeds at which news travels over social media, I note that news is shared almost instantaneously. My job is to make sure students can efficiently get clear ideas to an audience. That is a skill students will definitely need going forward. I don’t care if they type those ideas or write them.

If parents really want their kids to learn handwriting, I can send home a handwriting book for practice. I hope that parents want me to teach the things students CAN’T learn independently at home.

Second, we’re making handwriting too complicated.
I have beautiful handwriting. Really. I loved my mother’s handwriting and would spend hours tracing over her script so that I could write like her.

But I’m okay with the fact that my students will not write like John Hancock. I prefer to approach handwriting in the context of “real life.” In the real world, I believe there are three levels of handwriting quality:

Level 1: You write for you. No one else will read it. Level 1 writing is for shopping lists, brainstorming, and outlining.

Level 2: You are communicating an idea. Someone needs to read it. It’s only polite that the reader can easily decipher your ideas. Math work and daily assignments are Level 2 work.

Level 3: You’re publishing. Most final presentations are typed by Grade 5 (at least in my school). If not typed, Level 3 work must be in pen, and in the neatest handwriting possible.

Some of my students prefer to handwrite their stories. Some of my students prefer to brainstorm and outline on paper, then type rough drafts. Some students demonstrate the whole writing process all on their computer. If the final products demonstrate quality work within a reasonable time period, I’m happy.

What’s your opinion?