I communicate regularly with my students teachers, and I know my middle school and high school students much better than their teachers do. And the more I think about education and learning, the more I see relationships as the key to what really matters. If I think about all the movies I have seen about "great teaching" both fictional and those "based on a true story", while the actual teaching going on in them varies enormously, what they all have in common is a teacher that builds caring strong relationships with their pupils, from "To Sir With Love", "Up The Down Staircase" of the 60s, to more recent movies such as "Mr. Holland's Opus" and "Dangerous Minds." But of course that portrayal could just be the license of the writers and directors.
But I would say I have found the same in my experience as a teacher and now a tutor. I worked with teachers with many different pedagogical approaches. If you have read my previous columns, you will see it's clear I have strong beliefs about which are more effective. However, the most consistent thing that I noticed of teachers that appeared to me as more effective was that those teachers all had strong relationships with their students. The students knew their teacher expected them to learn, and was there to help them succeed in doing so.
It was really much for this reason that I decided to move to elementary school after teaching middle and high school for 17 years. It is really difficult to build those relationships when every hour you have a new group of students. I often asked other teachers to keep an eye an a specific student in the hopes that one of us could connect with them. And I consequently worried that there where students that had no one to advocate for them and that someone would slip through the cracks. With elementary school kids I had the same ones all day long. It is also a reason I have never liked "regrouping" with other teachers - I never saw the trade off as worth the loss in knowing my students fully.
One anecdote. At one place I taught, we were using the Reading Recovery program for our struggling first and second grade readers. Reading Recovery is a strongly researched based program giving intensive support to the lowest readers in the first and second grades, based on some of the best research of learning to read, with a strong research record of its own, and all the practitioners of it have to be credentialed teachers who have gone through an intensive training in the model. One year I taught third grade and my struggling readers did not qualify. So instead we used instruction assistants, who had a rudimentary training in more traditional phonics approaches to work with them. I would argue that third graders who are still struggling with reading are probably more difficult candidates, as they have a longer history of failure to overcome.
Yet, in decidedly non-random and small sample that this consisted of, my instructional assistant succeeded with every one she worked with. The same cannot be said of the Reading Recovery program that had about a two-thirds success rate with our students. I attribute it to the strong relationship she built with each of them-letting them know that she believed they each would and could learn to read.
This, maybe, is what worries me most about many of the past educational reforms. They make those relationships more difficult. Scripted curriculum, larger classes and school consolidation, use of technology for instruction, and worst of all, the tactics of fear-trying to scare teachers and students into doing a better job. Each if these, in a different way, makes it slightly more difficult for teachers and students to develop strong relationships.
I will be following the implementation of the Common Core Standards as they are designed to foster more teacher and student engagement and allow teachers the opportunity to develop their own units of study that incorporate the required standards.
I have been offered a job to teach an all on-line teacher education course. I haven't made a decision yet, but I am curious to know to what degree this mode allows for and interferes with such relationships.
If you or any one you know teaches on-line, or for that matter, if you have taken on-line classes, I would be interested in hearing about your experience. What kinds of relationships does on-line learning foster?
Debra
Friday, October 18, 2013
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Improving Math Skills by Improving Your Note Taking
When studying for math, we often use exercises, worksheets and sample problems to work through in order to prepare of an upcoming test, exam, or review. However, as in most other subjects, note taking and journaling is also very effective and very important to help with the understanding of specific math concepts. Whether you dictate your notes and have them available for audio, or write your notes to review them visually, the strategies and tips here will help you prepare for math quizzes and tests. Effective notes will help you to remember important concepts taught in class and they will guide you through various math problems.
Taking Notes
I prefer to use the two column approach in my notes and I also prefer pencil. To use the two column approach, your actual notes will be on one side and the examples of theorems/formulas will be on the other. There is usually more than one method of solving a problem, use your notes to document this. Be sure to include examples that you believe will help you later. Math is often about making connections as so many concepts interrelated, be sure to record the connections you make. Areas where you have concerns of believe to be your greatest weakness are also the areas you should emphasize. To emphasize you may wish to use a highlighter and attach a few stickies. Personally, I prefer to date my notes as well, I also include the text pages for handy reference.
Format
I've already mentioned that it is helpful to keep audio notes, however, it is difficult to record examples of exercises in audio. Audio is better when you are reviewing postulates, procedures, and formulas. The more you hear the explanations, the greater chance you will retain the information. However, you may also wish to record your notes on your computer. Microsoft One Note is quite effective. There's an add-in that allows you to perform calculations, and to plot graphs and it contains an extensive collection of mathematical symbols and structures to display expressions and has a pretty good equation gallery. Two others are La-Tex, and Math Symbols. Although I like La Tex, it is not my first choice for taking notes. Math Symbols is great for creating exercises and it allows you to create your equations quickly (newer versions has handwriting recognition) but you'll still need another application to integrate it with. A lot of my students prefer One Note because it's where they keep all of their notes. But, everyone is different and you'll need a strategy that works best for you.
Tips for Improving Your Note Taking Skills
* Listen carefully to your instructor and jot down the key points about solving problems, proving theorems or using a procedure. Write everything you think that will help you when you return to this concept later.
* Don't get too wordy, keep your notes to the point and simple to understand.
* Use logical organization, jumping around from concept to concept will only be confusing. Make sure your examples have key points in your notes.
* Explain your reasoning. This component is key, keep it short and sweet but explain the logic behind the application or procedure.
* Record alternate methods, as I mentioned earlier, there is usually more than one way to solve a problem,
be sure to record the alternative method.
* Yes, it's a lot of work but a great way to learn . . . recopy your notes. Highlight and add or delete
information/
When taking notes in math, look at your textbook. What do you like about it? What don't you like about it? Think of your notes as a set of cheat notes for you to review. Make them look like a text that you find easy to follow.
In summary, most important of all is the review your notes in a timely way. Make review part of your routine. We are all guilty of cramming before tests and exams but a little review along the way will better equip you to
see greater success in math. If journaling works better for you, you may wish to read my up-coming posts about strategies for effective math journaling.
Taking Notes
I prefer to use the two column approach in my notes and I also prefer pencil. To use the two column approach, your actual notes will be on one side and the examples of theorems/formulas will be on the other. There is usually more than one method of solving a problem, use your notes to document this. Be sure to include examples that you believe will help you later. Math is often about making connections as so many concepts interrelated, be sure to record the connections you make. Areas where you have concerns of believe to be your greatest weakness are also the areas you should emphasize. To emphasize you may wish to use a highlighter and attach a few stickies. Personally, I prefer to date my notes as well, I also include the text pages for handy reference.
Format
I've already mentioned that it is helpful to keep audio notes, however, it is difficult to record examples of exercises in audio. Audio is better when you are reviewing postulates, procedures, and formulas. The more you hear the explanations, the greater chance you will retain the information. However, you may also wish to record your notes on your computer. Microsoft One Note is quite effective. There's an add-in that allows you to perform calculations, and to plot graphs and it contains an extensive collection of mathematical symbols and structures to display expressions and has a pretty good equation gallery. Two others are La-Tex, and Math Symbols. Although I like La Tex, it is not my first choice for taking notes. Math Symbols is great for creating exercises and it allows you to create your equations quickly (newer versions has handwriting recognition) but you'll still need another application to integrate it with. A lot of my students prefer One Note because it's where they keep all of their notes. But, everyone is different and you'll need a strategy that works best for you.
Tips for Improving Your Note Taking Skills
* Listen carefully to your instructor and jot down the key points about solving problems, proving theorems or using a procedure. Write everything you think that will help you when you return to this concept later.
* Don't get too wordy, keep your notes to the point and simple to understand.
* Use logical organization, jumping around from concept to concept will only be confusing. Make sure your examples have key points in your notes.
* Explain your reasoning. This component is key, keep it short and sweet but explain the logic behind the application or procedure.
* Record alternate methods, as I mentioned earlier, there is usually more than one way to solve a problem,
be sure to record the alternative method.
* Yes, it's a lot of work but a great way to learn . . . recopy your notes. Highlight and add or delete
information/
When taking notes in math, look at your textbook. What do you like about it? What don't you like about it? Think of your notes as a set of cheat notes for you to review. Make them look like a text that you find easy to follow.
In summary, most important of all is the review your notes in a timely way. Make review part of your routine. We are all guilty of cramming before tests and exams but a little review along the way will better equip you to
see greater success in math. If journaling works better for you, you may wish to read my up-coming posts about strategies for effective math journaling.
Friday, October 4, 2013
The History of Standards-Based Education
Currently in education there is a lot of talk about the new Common Core State Standards and the need for high standards. I will discuss in this column where that concept came from and how it has been distorted from its original use.
The idea of a standards-based educational system came from the work of Ted Sizer (1932-2009). In the early 1980s he was involved in a nationwide study of high schools that resulted in his book Horace's Compromise (and later Horace's School and Horace's Hope). In Horace's Compromise, Sizer describes the work of a typical teacher, and how no matter how willing, well-meaning, and hardworking, the teacher cannot meet the needs of the over hundred students she sees everyday, and how students by the same token cannot do deep quality work while jumping from one subject to another each with a different teacher and mostly sitting there being expected to soak up facts and concepts. In other words, the lack of real quality learning going on in schools was not the fault of teachers or students, but the design of the institution and the compromises teachers and students made with each other to survive in such an institution.
Sizer proposed that instead of students being rewarded for successfully passing a certain number of courses, and being in school for a certain amount of time, they be required to demonstrate the knowledge and abilities of a successful high school student through some sort of performance assessment where students actually showed they could apply what they had learned. He also posited certain attributes tat schools would need in order to carry out such an education.
What came out of that directly from Sizer and likeminded educators was an organization, the Coalition of Essential Schools, which holds a set of ten common principles that schools doing such work adhere to. This organization supports schools trying to make the changes to move toward applying these ideas. According to Sizer, how schools would measure this success, and how each school would carry out those principles in practice, needed to be locally decided.
This idea of Sizer's that students should graduate by being measured against a set of standards rather than just seat time became popularized in the 1990s. However, in many ways the concept got turned on its head. For one thing, the term "standards" took on a new meaning from its usual everyday meaning of a level of quality. Instead "standards" became a laundry list of facts and concepts, both broad and discrete, to be learned, as well as levels of performance. This standards, rather than being locally decided as Sizer proposed, have been mandated by National and State authorities.
The other distortion is that meeting these standards is measured by standardized tests. Performance has come to mean not what Sizer had in mind-the ability to carry out real world tasks that used the knowledge and abilities that schools decided were important-but how one "performs" on a standardized tests. These standardized tests are designed to test students' recall random sample of what is on that laundry list of facts and concepts. High standards have come to mean high scores on such tests.
Sizer's idea was that graduation by standards should free up schools to look and act differently, and free up students to demonstrate their knowledge in a variety of ways. The current practice of "standards" has meant that the standardization of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment of the students, as well as their teachers, schools, districts, and states by the use of standardized tests. So far there's no evidence that the current use of standardized curriculum and the high stakes use of standards has improved the quality of education. The achievement gaps these so called reforms were to solve are as great of greater than before these changes. Graduation rates are overall no better, and we do not hear high school teachers claiming that students are coming in more prepared than they used to be. So far the only response the educational establishment has to offer to lack of results is that we need more standardization, a Common Core of facts and concepts, more tests, and higher stakes.
On the other hand, Sizer's ideas of standards without standardization have also been tried out, at times with astounding success. One of the first schools to implement Sizer's ideas was Central Park East School (CPESS) a public school of choice in New York's East Harlem. Deborah Meier, building on her work at Central Park East Elementary School, collaborated with Ted Sizer on how to meld his ideas and hers to develop a secondary school on the Coalitions principles. They came up with a school where students studied fewer topics, and worked with fewer teachers more intensively. All faculty and administrators worked as advisors who stayed with students over time and met with their advisory group daily. Students took part in internships in real world professional settings. The standards of the school were upheld through a series of portfolios and defenses of those portfolios in front of a committee. Students graduated, not after a prescribed number of years or prescribed number of completed courses, but when they had successfully passed and defended those portfolios. The standards of Central Park East were built around certain "Habits of Mind" that the faculty believed were important in all facets of life and in all disciplines. To a large extent, the demonstration of the use of those habits was the rubric used to decide if the portfolio or defense of the work met the schools standards. The students of CPESS had success at graduating high school and going on to, as well as succeeding in, college and far beyond their demographic equivalents in other public high schools in New York (see David Bensman's fascinating book Central Park East and its Graduates which documents his study of CPESS alumni).
After CPESS, such schools sprung up all over New York City, and to some extent nationwide. Schools such as Urban Academy, the International High Schools, the Met Schools, High Tech High, and Boston Arts Academy, to just name a few, continue if this tradition of high standards without standardization, of depth of knowledge over coverage, and of the importance of relationships with students as essential to successful education. While each of these schools looks very different, in each school one will see students who are passionately following their own interests while being held to a common set of high standards in a non-standardized curriculum. These schools have shown that they help students beat odds in terms of graduation and getting into college. Even more importantly, these schools produce graduates with positive attitudes toward learning and their ability to shape their own futures and contribute to the larger society.
When I attended a forum recently on the Common Core, many concerns were voiced. True positive educational reform with high expectations/standards can be achieved - there are models (I just described a few) to learn from and we, citizens, must be activity engaged in the process. Educate yourself, volunteer at your child's school, go to school board meetings (remember they are elected politicians) and remember that everything a teacher can or cannot do in her classroom is determined by a politician.
The idea of a standards-based educational system came from the work of Ted Sizer (1932-2009). In the early 1980s he was involved in a nationwide study of high schools that resulted in his book Horace's Compromise (and later Horace's School and Horace's Hope). In Horace's Compromise, Sizer describes the work of a typical teacher, and how no matter how willing, well-meaning, and hardworking, the teacher cannot meet the needs of the over hundred students she sees everyday, and how students by the same token cannot do deep quality work while jumping from one subject to another each with a different teacher and mostly sitting there being expected to soak up facts and concepts. In other words, the lack of real quality learning going on in schools was not the fault of teachers or students, but the design of the institution and the compromises teachers and students made with each other to survive in such an institution.
Sizer proposed that instead of students being rewarded for successfully passing a certain number of courses, and being in school for a certain amount of time, they be required to demonstrate the knowledge and abilities of a successful high school student through some sort of performance assessment where students actually showed they could apply what they had learned. He also posited certain attributes tat schools would need in order to carry out such an education.
What came out of that directly from Sizer and likeminded educators was an organization, the Coalition of Essential Schools, which holds a set of ten common principles that schools doing such work adhere to. This organization supports schools trying to make the changes to move toward applying these ideas. According to Sizer, how schools would measure this success, and how each school would carry out those principles in practice, needed to be locally decided.
This idea of Sizer's that students should graduate by being measured against a set of standards rather than just seat time became popularized in the 1990s. However, in many ways the concept got turned on its head. For one thing, the term "standards" took on a new meaning from its usual everyday meaning of a level of quality. Instead "standards" became a laundry list of facts and concepts, both broad and discrete, to be learned, as well as levels of performance. This standards, rather than being locally decided as Sizer proposed, have been mandated by National and State authorities.
The other distortion is that meeting these standards is measured by standardized tests. Performance has come to mean not what Sizer had in mind-the ability to carry out real world tasks that used the knowledge and abilities that schools decided were important-but how one "performs" on a standardized tests. These standardized tests are designed to test students' recall random sample of what is on that laundry list of facts and concepts. High standards have come to mean high scores on such tests.
Sizer's idea was that graduation by standards should free up schools to look and act differently, and free up students to demonstrate their knowledge in a variety of ways. The current practice of "standards" has meant that the standardization of curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment of the students, as well as their teachers, schools, districts, and states by the use of standardized tests. So far there's no evidence that the current use of standardized curriculum and the high stakes use of standards has improved the quality of education. The achievement gaps these so called reforms were to solve are as great of greater than before these changes. Graduation rates are overall no better, and we do not hear high school teachers claiming that students are coming in more prepared than they used to be. So far the only response the educational establishment has to offer to lack of results is that we need more standardization, a Common Core of facts and concepts, more tests, and higher stakes.
On the other hand, Sizer's ideas of standards without standardization have also been tried out, at times with astounding success. One of the first schools to implement Sizer's ideas was Central Park East School (CPESS) a public school of choice in New York's East Harlem. Deborah Meier, building on her work at Central Park East Elementary School, collaborated with Ted Sizer on how to meld his ideas and hers to develop a secondary school on the Coalitions principles. They came up with a school where students studied fewer topics, and worked with fewer teachers more intensively. All faculty and administrators worked as advisors who stayed with students over time and met with their advisory group daily. Students took part in internships in real world professional settings. The standards of the school were upheld through a series of portfolios and defenses of those portfolios in front of a committee. Students graduated, not after a prescribed number of years or prescribed number of completed courses, but when they had successfully passed and defended those portfolios. The standards of Central Park East were built around certain "Habits of Mind" that the faculty believed were important in all facets of life and in all disciplines. To a large extent, the demonstration of the use of those habits was the rubric used to decide if the portfolio or defense of the work met the schools standards. The students of CPESS had success at graduating high school and going on to, as well as succeeding in, college and far beyond their demographic equivalents in other public high schools in New York (see David Bensman's fascinating book Central Park East and its Graduates which documents his study of CPESS alumni).
After CPESS, such schools sprung up all over New York City, and to some extent nationwide. Schools such as Urban Academy, the International High Schools, the Met Schools, High Tech High, and Boston Arts Academy, to just name a few, continue if this tradition of high standards without standardization, of depth of knowledge over coverage, and of the importance of relationships with students as essential to successful education. While each of these schools looks very different, in each school one will see students who are passionately following their own interests while being held to a common set of high standards in a non-standardized curriculum. These schools have shown that they help students beat odds in terms of graduation and getting into college. Even more importantly, these schools produce graduates with positive attitudes toward learning and their ability to shape their own futures and contribute to the larger society.
When I attended a forum recently on the Common Core, many concerns were voiced. True positive educational reform with high expectations/standards can be achieved - there are models (I just described a few) to learn from and we, citizens, must be activity engaged in the process. Educate yourself, volunteer at your child's school, go to school board meetings (remember they are elected politicians) and remember that everything a teacher can or cannot do in her classroom is determined by a politician.
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