What Should Schools Teach?
Compromise verses extremism…Our readings from this cycle brought this battle to the forefront of my mind.
So often in education, there are extreme pendulum swings where one philosophy is pushed aside and another revered. This for example, is exemplified in phonics vs. whole language debate which has pervaded reading instruction for decades. (More on this topic is available at the following links: http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr029.shtml and http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/Reading_Wars.html ) It seems when it comes to educating our children there are often very passionate views and, unfortunately in my opinion, the two sides to the arguments often fail to see the value in the perspective of the other side. They fail to see that education is place of compromise.
I believe that in answering the question of “What Should Schools Teach?” one must consider many levels of compromise. In our readings from this cycle, I found myself very much in agreement with Hirsh’s thoughts from chapter five of his text. In this chapter, Hirsh argues for a compromise between the traditionalist and the formalist. Hirsh states that this compromise can be made by offering a curriculum that is both extensive and intensive. In other words, we need to find a balance between breadth and depth. Though in my professional experience, this balance is not easy to come by, it is still a very worthwhile goal for the classroom teacher to pursue.
In last cycle’s post I stated, that I felt that the purpose of a curriculum should not be to “fill an empty vessel” with knowledge to regurgitate. While I am not going back on this statement, I feel it needs to be further explained.
I do not believe that the goal ultimate goal of any educator is for his/her students to simply be able to “parrot” back facts and content of a lesson. By that I mean that, my goal for my third graders is not for them to be able to recite definitions of key vocabulary or rattle of lists of dates or key players in historical events. That is not to say I don’t want them to know those things, but rather I hope that they are able to use that knowledge to continue to make meaning in other areas. So as Hirsh would suggest, I want them to acquire an extensive knowledge so that they can use it to develop a more intensive understanding. For example, in order for my students to become stronger readers, they have to go past simple decoding skills and be able to construct meaning from what they have read. Again as Hirsh noted, in order to do this students have to be able to make connections and tap into schema. The larger the knowledge base they have, the more connections they will be able to make, and the more meaning they will be able to construct from more complicated texts. In connection to this, a student who has an extensive knowledge base is able to delve deeper into a topic within a content area.
However, I do not believe that a compromise between an extensive and intensive curriculum is enough to answer the question of what schools should teach. This compromise only addresses the question of what is the appropriate content of curriculum. Again, as I argued in my posting last cycle, I believe the purpose of curriculum is more than imparting content. I believe the purpose of content should also be to provide students with opportunities to develop skills that will help them to be successful in their futures beyond the classroom. Therefore, it is my opinion that they ultimate compromise in education is one between the proponents of content driven educational philosophy and proponents of critical thinking. This same compromise was noted by Hirsh at the end of the assigned chapter. My view is that this compromise can be made by using instructional methods to teach the content which infuses 21st Century Teaching and Learning skills. I think that students can gain a vast body of knowledge by engaging in activities which ask them to use problem solving skills, collaboration, and creativity. I think they can go beyond receivers of knowledge to become creators and contributors of it as well.
It is this belief that has me very curious about the use of gaming in schools as was presented by the New York Times Article from Sara Corbett, Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom. However this article was not the first place I read about the activities of and philosophies behind Quest 2 Learn. I first encountered this trail-blazing institution while reading the book, Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work and Learn, by Cathy Davidson.
In her discussions of the school, Davidson advocates the use of gaming in the classroom to promote learning and critical thinking skills. Essentially, Davidson would have us believe that, through the use of gaming activities, not only will students acquire the content knowledge, but they will me more motivated to do so. Further, the students will have internalized the learning more deeply. I personally, am a bit on the fence regarding the use of gaming. I even had apprehensions when reading about it in the Davidson text. Although I do believe that gaming and related activities can provide opportunities for students to develop the critical thinking skills I truly believe all students need, I am not sure that it is the only way in which to do this. I am also not certain that all students will connect to gaming as vehicle for learning or that all students will be able to transfer the skills required in gaming situations into real world applications.
That being said, Now You See It was an extremely thought provoking read! Although I did not agree with all of Davidson’s ideas about the current state of education and its future, the book definitely pushed me to do a good deal of self-reflection. I highly recommend it to any teacher. If you would like a taste of the Davison’s musing on education, you might be interested in this video. The video is about an hour long but will provide you with a very good preview of the ideas in her book.
How Should Schools Be Held Accountable?
Although, as I noted, I am not I am in agreement with Davidson’s every idea, I am of like mind regarding her views of one of the most common forms of assessment prevailing in American schools, the standardized, multiple-choice test.
In her book, Davidson calls for a reexamination of current educational philosophy especially that connected to the use of and emphasis placed on standardized testing. She argues that this form of assessment is outdated having been created for the changing needs of education in the early 20th century.
In the chapter, How We Measure, Davidson reveals the origins of the standardized test as created by Frederick J. Kelly. Kelly, she explains, developed the testing as way to alleviate both the subjectivity of teacher grading and the time teachers took to score student work. It seemed so unlikely to me that what has become the “end all and be all” of student assessment and teacher evaluation has such simple beginnings. It made me wonder, if that was the original intention of such assessments, how then did standardized testing become elevated to the level of high-stakes testing in American education?
I do believe that there is a need for schools to be held accountable. However, traditional multiple-choice, standardized assessments do not always offer a true picture of a student’s understandings and do not show the efforts or effectiveness of a teacher so as to be used a measure in teacher evaluations. While they do allow for assessment data to be created in a timely manner, I often question the value of the data. This is because these types of tests often measure a student’s ability to take a test not his/her ability to apply the learning s/he has attained. I feel that performance-based assessments are more reliable for ascertaining as students’ level of learning and understanding. Unfortunately, these types of assessments can lead to subjective teacher grading and can take up too much time for the data they provide to be useful for guiding instruction as Kelly feared. It is quite a quandary.
A solution just might be in adaptive testing such as the ones currently being used in my district (NWEA) and the one that will soon be adopted by the state of Michigan (Smarter Balanced) to replace our current state assessment, the MEAP. In this type of computerized assessment, the test adjusts based on a student’s answers. As the student answers questions correctly, the questions that follow become more difficult. As they answer incorrectly, the questions adjust again to meet their level.
Having used the NWEA assessment for the past two years, I have found it to be very valuable. To begin, the data is available immediately after the students complete the test. Additionally, the reports created instantly by the NWEA site not only show student s’ goals for future assessments and their progress toward achieving those goals, it also provides goals for every child within each strand of the content area which a teacher can use to inform individual, small-group, and whole-group instruction. Since the test is adaptive, it is a more accurate measure of a student’s capabilities. I also feel that it is a more reliable way to measure teacher effectiveness that its predecessor because it measures growth. In other words, when using the data to measure a teacher’s effectiveness, the evaluator can see if a teacher’s students are making progress toward personal learning goals rather than just meeting or falling below a standard. The upcoming Smarter Balanced Assessment will provide similar benefits; however, it will have the added bonus of including performance based tasks. Adding an element of application level thinking, will raise the quality of the assessment data generated by this form of standardized testing.
Additional resources on the subject of gaming/technology in schools
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/04/zora-ball_n_2586140.html (This article highlights the work of 1st grader, Zora Ball, who developed a mobile gaming app
Maria,
ReplyDeleteThe issue you raised this week in your reflection about teaching in such a way that does not ask your third grade students to be “parrots” really resonated with me. Although we teach different levels of education (I teach US History to 10th graders and AP US History to 10-12 graders), the principle behind how we should instruct is the same. I couldn’t agree more with this statement of yours. If we construct our lesson plans each day in such a manner that delivers information for students to simply absorb then we are, in my opinion, only being successful in one aspect of our jobs. Our job is not only to provide students with a foundation of important and relevant content, but to ALSO teach them HOW to learn and critically reason. Thus, we should be aiming every day to not only teach our kids what to learn but also how to learn. This analytical thinking, in my opinion, is arguably more important than the content.
Problem solving, to me, is something that cannot be ignored in our schools. Oftentimes I feel that lesson plans that aim to develop these skills are the ones that might take longer and require more effort to construct. Thus, unfortunately, they are often the lesson plans that get passed over in favor of the plans that simply ask students to absorb information. In my mind, if we are able to develop critical thinkers in our classrooms, then we are really doing a great job as educators.
As an Advanced Placement teacher, I am forced to curtail my instruction to incorporate analytical thinking and problem solving amidst my content. Although it is indeed more difficult to hone and requires more planning to be successful, I have seen the amazing results that can come from it. I feel like this could easily be done in your third grade classroom as well. Sometimes, I think we can teach the content while we are teaching students to problem solve. Most of these problem solving activities, regardless of level of education, are rooted in students using their creativity as a means to an end. Just as you said, creativity and collaboration are crucial in allowing students to figure out for themselves how to go from A to B to C.
Moreover, I feel that if our instruction is tweaked a bit to accommodate this type of skill in our youth, they will also be more competitive in the new set of testing practices that most educators believe to be the future of testing in America. The instruction will reflect a testing format that is less like the standardized multiple choices tests of old, and more like assessments that ask students to problem solve. The benefit of these tests could be the fact that they evaluate students’ analytical growth and ability to critically evaluate scenarios as opposed to simply evaluate what content has been memorized by the student at that time. The latter of which, unfortunately, can often be a misnomer because we all know students memorize content for just the short-run—to pass the test—as opposed to the long-run where it will be more beneficial. In the end, you’re right, we don’t want “parrots”. We want critical thinkers.
Best of luck to you!
Kyle
Maria,
ReplyDeleteI agree it’s unfortunate that education extremists cannot see the value of compromise. I found it interesting you brought up the phonics vs. whole language debate as this also came to my mind while reading the Hirsch article. We spent many class periods studying this debate during my undergrad (as I’m sure so do you) and ultimately decided that a compromise would provide the best solution.
I also believe that a compromise can be attained through 21st Century Teaching. Students need to be deeply engaged and interested to learn specific content. Also, students should be culturally literate and exposed to higher order thinking skills. I believe this can be achieved by effectively utilizing technology and this “must happen across the curriculum in ways that research shows deepen and enhance the learning process.” While searching for related articles I came across an interesting article advocating for the integration of technology into curriculum. (Why Integrate Technology into the Curriculum?: The Reasons are Many) In the article writers state that “properly used, technology will help students acquire the skills they need to survive in a complex, highly technological knowledge-based economy.” Also, technology “must support four key components of learning: active engagement, participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real-world experts.”
Also, in the article Technology Integration: What Experts Say James Paul Gee a Professor of Literacy Studies at Arizona State University advocates for the use of games in school “(Games are) part of the solution of getting kids in school to learn not just knowledge as facts, but knowledge as something you produce. And in the modern world, you produce collaboratively.” I am also leery of introducing gaming as a means of educating my students and am not completely sold on the idea. I did however, like the statement by Angela Maiers:
"Learning in the 21st century is all about social learning -- working on a goal, idea, or project with a group of diverse learners. In a culture organized around learning through projects, we have a whole different way of organizing time, instruction, even the language in the classroom. Learners need to be able to cooperate, to manage tasks together, to accomplish goals, to contribute. Technology allows a community of learners to do those things together”
I enjoyed reading your post and I hope you find these articles interesting!
Jamie
http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-introduction
http://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-experts
Maria,
ReplyDeleteIn reading and reflecting on your writing, I was most interested to learn the historical background for test standardization as well as the context in which the process began. Much aligned with your concerns on standardized testing, I too feel like this modem of operandi has taken what originally seemed to be an authentic and valuable tool, to the extremes of its purpose. One reasoning perhaps is the difficult balance between grade-level standards and individual child progress.
This balance or as you state it compromise, seems to be so core to the needs of education, however the most unrealistic desire of our current educational model. The politics of education and education reform seem to constantly be at odds with true dialogue and conversation that often I wonder how simple needs like that of standardized testing, will occur in the current educational sphere. You bring up a great explanation in terms of the balance between breadth and depth and again in the balance of traditional education and education reform espoused by Quest 2 Learn etc. How many students will thrive in a gaming modeled education, no one can ever say, but the balance for educators to experiment, introduce and weave such techniques into the curriculum should and must be allowed. However, as long as the two threads of education remain so starkly divided in their own definition on the What and How’s of education, there will always be areas that lack breadth or depth within each structure.
As such, I completely agree with your statement on the needed compromise between instructional methods infused by 21st century teaching skills, however I would be curious to know how or to what end should this be integrated? Returning to the question which is one that I have yet to definitively answer myself, I wonder how does the question of what/how schools teach relate to the question of how schools should be held accountable? Not wanting to complicate the situation again and return to a spot where a simple needs has expanded to unrecognizable proportions, but if we (educators in America) believe that the ‘sweet’ spot is the interweaving of 21st century learning into an education that is both wide and deep, how do we bring everything together and then measure a teachers or schools ability to impart knowledge?
I do think that the adaptive testing techniques you mention are a great resources in the developing field, as we shift away from standardized-grade level needs to recognize that children come into classrooms at different levels and a teachers job is more to rise all boats not hit a target. However how do we measure pure success? Is it even measurable?
In trying to answer this question myself, I found myself reflecting back on a documentary I once watched on the Finnish education system, which outlines their model as the exact opposite of ours and very much in tune with what I believe you envision. Thus, it is interesting that our concept of the holy grail in education, standardized testing, doesn’t play any factor into their successful model. Now, perhaps part of this goes to the fact that teachers are one of the highest professions in the country and thus are more qualified to teach their subject matter on average that those in our country, or perhaps this is because many teachers remain with their set of students for many years, building an ever-growing understanding of each child’s long-term potential and lessons already learned. So if we must, and I predict we do, continue standardized testing, I believe we should look to systems that are superior to our own and then see what translatables can copy over. For example, having test summaries available for the following year’s teacher. Or having more mixed classes with multiple teachers to ease yearly transition, along with the added creative component.
Overall, your piece here has some great concepts and some possible lines of thought that I believe added an interesting dynamic to the readings this wee – so thank you for sharing!
Heather Turney
Hi Maria,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your work here, and the awesome conversation your post got started! Good stuff!!
This was a really well written post. There is a lot I could respond to. I guess I'll start with your use of Davidson to explore the origins and benefits of standardized tests.
You make a great case for the just-in-time utility of standardized test--easy enough to grade, and quick enough to summarize the results, that instruction can actually be adapted based upon what the results show. I wasn't aware the degree to which the adaptive testing was being moved forward in Michigan--so that was really helpful to have you explain to me. I'm glad you've been able to pilot it and found it helpful. That gives me cause for hope.
Still, I can't help wondering: Does the adaptive test give you information that you didn't already know, that you trust to actually help you in terms of adapting your instruction? Maybe I am naive, but I do think of the best teachers, especially elementary teachers, as really in tune to what their students know and can do, just on the basis of observation and everyday interaction.
I think about this as a parent: do I really need a diagnostic test to figure out where my sons are at? I'm not saying it wouldn't be helpful for some specific things. But I wonder if the evidence I gained from that test would outweigh the evidence I have gathered in all of our other interactions?
And I think there is the issue behind the purpose of the testing: is it to rate teachers, or is it to improve instruction? Can tests be validly used for both purposes? I am not a testing expert, but I have read enough pieces by such folks to know there are questions about this.
In any case, I thank you for the important work of public education you have done about this coming shift!!
Lastly, I'd like to ask more about your reservations about gaming. On one level, I share them. Anything that claims to be a silver bullet should be viewed with suspicion. On the other hand, aren't all curriculum designers game designers? Aren't we trying to create environments in which students produced knowledge to solve problems? Aren't we try to make failure into a basic part of learning, rather than a stigma that creates a culture of fear and humiliation?
So I do think we all have a lot to learn from the gamers. Even if we don't introduce high tech games into our classrooms, I think the principles of design they use are relevant to curriculum writing for the 21st century.
I hope I've given you some thoughts to dwell on here. Thanks!!!
Kyle