Today I had the opportunity to see two sides of education. I started the day observing two high school Algebra classes in preparation for a data gathering project. During my observations, I was surprised by the amount of down time the students had through out the course of the period and how boring it was. The students had a number of practice problems to do on paper, but when they finished they had to wait until a teacher could review the answers. If a student came across a difficult problem, more often than not they didn't do it, because they knew they could just wait for the teacher to review the answer. During those periods of waiting their engagement with the content was lost. In today's age of instant information and responses, this method seemed so antiquated.
On the flip side, later in the day I was able to participate in an iPod lesson with third grade students where they were practicing fractions. Even though one of the apps we used had some really difficult problems, the students continued to try them. They didn't lose focus and were really able to persevere through out the lesson. I believe this has a lot to do with the immediate feedback that the app based practice provides. Students didn't have to wait. They could try a solution. If it didn't work, they learned from their mistakes and tried again. I didn't see the same frustration and lack of effort.
I spent some time today thinking about how we can make the iPod example more of a reality in schooling. I want to leverage technology to make learning more personal, exciting, and immediate. We have the tools to do it. We just need to find the right combination, put it together, and make it happen. That is my goal.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Friday, December 30, 2011
My Reader Feed
I met with a former professor recently and during the discussion we talked about sharing our reader feeds. This is the write up on my reader feed that I shared with him.
Personal Finance:
Get Rich Slowly - I believe this is the most popular personal finance blog. It has a lot of good stuff although it was better when J.D. Roth, the founder was the only one writing.
Lazy Man and Money - personal finance topics plus some other things, I appreciate his writing style.
The Smart Passive Income Blog - I watched Pat take this site from just starting out to the $40,000 a MONTH site he has now, it has been cool to watch. Excellent motivation for finding ways to make money passively.
Education:
Spotlight on Digital Media - MacArthur foundation supported site that looks at digital media and learning
2,000 Hours - teacher trying to measure how many hours he spends on school stuff in a year not updated often
Video-a-day - short videos on topics that are taught in the classroom. It usually has good stuff.
2 cents worth - I think his name is David Warlick and he deals with all sorts of education and technology thoughts
http://deangroom.wordpress.com/ - this is the teacher using the game Minecraft as a teaching tool
Clive on Learning - A learning architect is what he calls himself, more focused on learning in the workplace
Eduflack - A school board member from NOVA area
The Quick and the Ed - blog from the Education Sector, they have a nicely daily round up called quick hits.
Joanne Jacobs - Writes quick summaries of major education stories. Usually posts about 4 times a day and is about 24 hours behind the news cycle.
The following are all from the Education Week website:
Bridging Differences - Debra Meier and Diane Ravitch write letters back and forth to each other
Digital Education- tech topics and trends in K-12
On Performance - I like this guy, but he is not writing very much currently
Rick Hess Straight Up - my counter to Bridging Differences. I like his candor.
Other:
Leading Smart - Christian Leadership
Seth's Blog - best read of my day by far
Zen Habits - interesting ideas on simplifying life
The Blog of Author Tim Ferris - not sure why I subscribe to this one.
Overflowing with MMMM - my wife's blog
Reflecting Hope - my blog
Personal Finance:
Get Rich Slowly - I believe this is the most popular personal finance blog. It has a lot of good stuff although it was better when J.D. Roth, the founder was the only one writing.
Lazy Man and Money - personal finance topics plus some other things, I appreciate his writing style.
The Smart Passive Income Blog - I watched Pat take this site from just starting out to the $40,000 a MONTH site he has now, it has been cool to watch. Excellent motivation for finding ways to make money passively.
Education:
Spotlight on Digital Media - MacArthur foundation supported site that looks at digital media and learning
2,000 Hours - teacher trying to measure how many hours he spends on school stuff in a year not updated often
Video-a-day - short videos on topics that are taught in the classroom. It usually has good stuff.
2 cents worth - I think his name is David Warlick and he deals with all sorts of education and technology thoughts
http://deangroom.wordpress.com/ - this is the teacher using the game Minecraft as a teaching tool
Clive on Learning - A learning architect is what he calls himself, more focused on learning in the workplace
Eduflack - A school board member from NOVA area
The Quick and the Ed - blog from the Education Sector, they have a nicely daily round up called quick hits.
Joanne Jacobs - Writes quick summaries of major education stories. Usually posts about 4 times a day and is about 24 hours behind the news cycle.
The following are all from the Education Week website:
Bridging Differences - Debra Meier and Diane Ravitch write letters back and forth to each other
Digital Education- tech topics and trends in K-12
On Performance - I like this guy, but he is not writing very much currently
Rick Hess Straight Up - my counter to Bridging Differences. I like his candor.
Other:
Leading Smart - Christian Leadership
Seth's Blog - best read of my day by far
Zen Habits - interesting ideas on simplifying life
The Blog of Author Tim Ferris - not sure why I subscribe to this one.
Overflowing with MMMM - my wife's blog
Reflecting Hope - my blog
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Smarter Tests Make for Smarter Schools
Our current standardized, high stakes tests do a disservice to our students. They don't measure student growth and they penalize students who develop at a rate other than what society deems to be the norm. We should get rid of those tests and replace them with a testing system that actually measures student progress from year to year rather than measuring if schools can meet basic minimum thresholds.
A testing system that measures progress would help to better identify teachers and practices that have value. It would also help students see how their learning builds from year to year. It would provide relevant and meaningful feedback for teachers. In short, it would provide better data from which students, teachers, administrators, parents, and the greater community could make better decisions.
I like one particular option that creates a testing system similar to that of the GRE. It would be computerized and would work to locate the level of the students knowledge by adjusting the difficulty of questions and concepts based on student responses. To do this the test would need to take the skills necessary for success in a discipline and break them down into their component parts. Those parts would then have to be categorized in terms of difficulty from the first testing year up until the last testing year. For example, all the math concepts taught from say second grade through twelfth grade would be included. Multiple question types would need to be created for each concept and then all of them would be compiled into the program. Students would take the test from the same program every year.
Right now, the current tests don't measure student growth for smart students very accurately so we don't have a picture of how much they actually learned from their teacher. Because each test given each year is different, you can not measure student growth from year to year with much accuracy. By giving the same test, year after year, you start to get a picture of students learning growth.
I am looking forward to the day that education starts getting smarter about how it collects data.
A testing system that measures progress would help to better identify teachers and practices that have value. It would also help students see how their learning builds from year to year. It would provide relevant and meaningful feedback for teachers. In short, it would provide better data from which students, teachers, administrators, parents, and the greater community could make better decisions.
I like one particular option that creates a testing system similar to that of the GRE. It would be computerized and would work to locate the level of the students knowledge by adjusting the difficulty of questions and concepts based on student responses. To do this the test would need to take the skills necessary for success in a discipline and break them down into their component parts. Those parts would then have to be categorized in terms of difficulty from the first testing year up until the last testing year. For example, all the math concepts taught from say second grade through twelfth grade would be included. Multiple question types would need to be created for each concept and then all of them would be compiled into the program. Students would take the test from the same program every year.
Right now, the current tests don't measure student growth for smart students very accurately so we don't have a picture of how much they actually learned from their teacher. Because each test given each year is different, you can not measure student growth from year to year with much accuracy. By giving the same test, year after year, you start to get a picture of students learning growth.
I am looking forward to the day that education starts getting smarter about how it collects data.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
How Teacher Pay Scales Impact My Life
So I mentioned recently that teachers are paid based on years of experience and number of college credits earned. I also mentioned that research has shown that these two categories have no correlation to student performance. That means that a teacher with ten years of teaching experience and a bachelors degree could teach just as well or better than a teacher with 30 years of experience and a masters degree.
I am currently working with in this system to try and increase my pay. I am taking the last class I need to hit the threshold for the next pay bump. I do this because I see no other way to increase my earnings as a teacher. I am not patient enough to wait for the yearly increases. Particularly not early in my career where they are less frequent.
That is another disappointment that I have with teacher pay. My division's pay scale offers no raise for teachers in their 1, 2, or 3 years of teaching. Yet research has shown that these are incredibly formative years for new teachers. The first pay bump comes at the start of your fourth year, which here in Virginia, is when you earn your long term contract.
I am looking forward to the day when pay in education is a reflection of your worth as a teacher of students and not a reflection of your years in the profession and your level of formal education.
I am currently working with in this system to try and increase my pay. I am taking the last class I need to hit the threshold for the next pay bump. I do this because I see no other way to increase my earnings as a teacher. I am not patient enough to wait for the yearly increases. Particularly not early in my career where they are less frequent.
That is another disappointment that I have with teacher pay. My division's pay scale offers no raise for teachers in their 1, 2, or 3 years of teaching. Yet research has shown that these are incredibly formative years for new teachers. The first pay bump comes at the start of your fourth year, which here in Virginia, is when you earn your long term contract.
I am looking forward to the day when pay in education is a reflection of your worth as a teacher of students and not a reflection of your years in the profession and your level of formal education.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Wealth is New
I am taking a class through the Foundation for Teaching Economics entitled "Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?" One idea from the course for all of you to consider, poverty has been the norm throughout history while wealth has not.
The idea of wealth being as widespread as it is today is rather new. For a long, long time almost all of humanity lived in poverty.
Helps you appreciate what you do have.
The idea of wealth being as widespread as it is today is rather new. For a long, long time almost all of humanity lived in poverty.
Helps you appreciate what you do have.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)