In class this week, Katie McKnight introduced us to the ideology of Diane Ravitch and suggested that we all follow this educational writer on Twitter. So I did! Diane Ravitch's ideology is simple: standardized testing and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is the crisis; they are "demoralizing teachers, undermining professionalism and harming kids." In one of her tweets on July 27, 2011, she says "Be sure to read National Research Council report on failure of 'Incentives & Test-Based Accountability." So I did a little Google search and found this article: "National Research Council Gives High-Stakes Testing an F" by Alain Jehlen.
The article reports that the National Research Council (NRC) has concluded that there is no scientific basis for the current heavy reliance on high-stakes tests "for measuring student achievement, teacher quality, and school performance." They looked at testing imposed by the No Child Left Behind law, the effects of graduation tests in some states, bonuses offered to teachers who have raised their students' test scores, and "other ways in which rewards or punishments have been used in an effort to lift scores" known as incentives.
According to the article, none of these tactics have worked. That, to me, is the crisis; Diane Ravitch has a point. The panel said attaching incentives or punishments (“high stakes”) to test scores pushes teachers to focus on the material that is tested, and leads them to leave out material or entire subjects that are not tested. “Current tests do not measure such important characteristics as creativity, curiosity, persistence, values, collaboration, and socialization,” they pointed out.
This is relevant to me as an AUSL resident, because AUSL has a reputation, whether it is true or not, of being "test-driven" and emphasizing the importance of increasing students' ACT scores. On our first day of orientation, we were told that our goal is to get students to score a 22 on the ACT. As a new teacher, I feel burdened by the emphasis on test scores and would much rather create creative, curious, persistent, collaborative citizens. Who gets into this profession and says, "I want to be a teacher because I am passionate about test scores"? No one. I just wish there was a more obvious way to merge teaching to the test and creating a community of creative learners.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
Kicking it old school. Benito Juarez style
Below is a video that Dazlynn, Rachel and I used to present Benito Juarez Community Academy to our cohort. This video really shows the liveliness of the students at the high school and reminds us all of why we want to teach. Enjoy!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Facing Freedom at the Chicago History Museum
Yesterday our SEC 525 class with Mark Larson met at the Chicago History Museum (at 1601 N. Clark St.) We got to explore one of their recent additions, the Facing Freedom Exhibition. Afterward, two museum employees who specialize in the educational facet of the museum, walked us through their interactive website at facingfreedom.org.
This website mirrors the set up of the exhibition; it is color coded and divided into four main parts: workers' rights (red), armed conflict (orange), race & citizenship (green), and public protest (magenta). The exhibit asks essential questions like, what would you do for freedom, what would you risk to form a union, when do you have to fight to be free, how would you live if you lost your freedom, and how do you make your voice heard.
As a future educator, I am extremely impressed with the level of cognitive and critical thinking that the exhibit asks of students. The museum has taken History, a subject that gets a rap for being out dated and unrelated, and turned it into a personal experience with which students can connect.
Outside the realm of field trips, which are not always available for low budget schools, the museum offers the images and artifacts from the exhibit on their website. As a Language Arts educator, I am most eager to use this website to prepare students for a unit or a story we will read in class. The website offers concise information, images, and videos that students can explore in a variety of time periods and aspects of this country's history.
Check out the website and see for yourself!
This website mirrors the set up of the exhibition; it is color coded and divided into four main parts: workers' rights (red), armed conflict (orange), race & citizenship (green), and public protest (magenta). The exhibit asks essential questions like, what would you do for freedom, what would you risk to form a union, when do you have to fight to be free, how would you live if you lost your freedom, and how do you make your voice heard.
As a future educator, I am extremely impressed with the level of cognitive and critical thinking that the exhibit asks of students. The museum has taken History, a subject that gets a rap for being out dated and unrelated, and turned it into a personal experience with which students can connect.
Outside the realm of field trips, which are not always available for low budget schools, the museum offers the images and artifacts from the exhibit on their website. As a Language Arts educator, I am most eager to use this website to prepare students for a unit or a story we will read in class. The website offers concise information, images, and videos that students can explore in a variety of time periods and aspects of this country's history.
Check out the website and see for yourself!
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Writing section taken out of standardized tests
Earlier this month, the writing portion of the Prairie State Achievement Exam (PSAE) was eliminated in order to save money and curtail budget cuts. This adjustment is expected to save the Illinois State Board of Education roughly $2.4 million in costs related to administering and scoring the writing assessment. Officials also hope this will curtail Gov. Pat Quinn’s proposed budget cuts for education, according to an ISBE spokeswoman.
Without the writing component, the annual two-day exam will continue to test students in reading, math, and science to assess if students and high schools are meeting Illinois Learning Standards. Writing assessments were first cut from standardized testing last year in the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT), taken by third through eighth graders. Writing tests are not required by the federal No Child Left Behind Law.
This week on Twitter, the National Writing Project (@writingproject) tweeted an argument to keep the writing section in the test. The editorial in the Chicago Tribune called "Write On!" mocks the writing skills of young people today. Sentences like, "No more swetting over topic sentances, subjekt-verb agremant, pursuasave argumints," make their point.
As an English Language Arts teacher, I agree that writing is "the best way we have to see how students think." Through writing, students demonstrate their ability to reason, to argue, to put ideas together, and to draw conclusions. While on the one hand, some educators argue that writing can and will still be taught in the year-long curriculum, others say, how can we when we're constantly balancing our activities with "teaching to the test"?
Without the writing component, the annual two-day exam will continue to test students in reading, math, and science to assess if students and high schools are meeting Illinois Learning Standards. Writing assessments were first cut from standardized testing last year in the Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT), taken by third through eighth graders. Writing tests are not required by the federal No Child Left Behind Law.
This week on Twitter, the National Writing Project (@writingproject) tweeted an argument to keep the writing section in the test. The editorial in the Chicago Tribune called "Write On!" mocks the writing skills of young people today. Sentences like, "No more swetting over topic sentances, subjekt-verb agremant, pursuasave argumints," make their point.
As an English Language Arts teacher, I agree that writing is "the best way we have to see how students think." Through writing, students demonstrate their ability to reason, to argue, to put ideas together, and to draw conclusions. While on the one hand, some educators argue that writing can and will still be taught in the year-long curriculum, others say, how can we when we're constantly balancing our activities with "teaching to the test"?
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Twitter in the Classroom?
This week on Twitter, I've decided to comment on an interesting blog posting about using Twitter in the classroom. Up until recently, I've viewed Twitter as a social networking site that allows users to stay up-to-date on the latest news and interesting postings. I've learned that it's a powerful tool for building one's PLN, but I was interested in learning how it could be used in the classroom setting.
In a blog posting by "Apps in Education," from June 26, 2011 called "Can you really use Twitter in your classroom?", the author of the post (Greg Swanson) shared my thoughts toward Twitter: "Twitter was one of those things that I just ignored. I thought it was a little bit indulgent and frivolous, that was until I got shown how teachers are using it for Professional Development." In the post, Swanson offers eleven uses of Twitter in the classroom.
Although I won't list them all, I will call attention to the few that caught my attention most. First, develop a whole book with chapters. Using an app from iTunes called "Zite Personalized Magazine," you can create a book using the content from your Twitter feed. You can include chapters, as well. This tool would be especially useful if you set up a class Twitter account and allowed students to follow Tweets related to a class research project. At the end of the researching phase, the different collaborative groups could create a different chapter of the book using Zite. At the end of the unit, you'd be left with a whole e-book filled with chapters that your students made. Talk about creating a high level of pride in student's work (Danielson Framework).
The second application for Twitter in the classroom that caught my attention is creating a class newspaper. Using an application called Paper.li, you can upload text sites, photos or videos in your class e-newspaper. These online newspapers can be updated daily, weekly or whenever the class changes to a different unit of content. It's a great way to encourage parental involvement and collaboration with teachers/colleagues. Also, since they're stored online, they can serve as a great way to keep track of units from previous years.
Some of the other applications for Twitter in the classroom include creating 140 character biographies, which will give students practice in writing concisely; creating online Scavenger hunts using QR codes; using Crowd Source to collaborate on writing a story; and conducting a Twitter debate forcing students to make a concise argument in 140 characters or less.
For me, this reading was extremely interesting and encouraged me to fool around with some of the applications mentioned. Now, I am much more appreciative of Twitter and all the ways it can be used. Be sure to read the article and familiarize yourself with some of them!
In a blog posting by "Apps in Education," from June 26, 2011 called "Can you really use Twitter in your classroom?", the author of the post (Greg Swanson) shared my thoughts toward Twitter: "Twitter was one of those things that I just ignored. I thought it was a little bit indulgent and frivolous, that was until I got shown how teachers are using it for Professional Development." In the post, Swanson offers eleven uses of Twitter in the classroom.
Although I won't list them all, I will call attention to the few that caught my attention most. First, develop a whole book with chapters. Using an app from iTunes called "Zite Personalized Magazine," you can create a book using the content from your Twitter feed. You can include chapters, as well. This tool would be especially useful if you set up a class Twitter account and allowed students to follow Tweets related to a class research project. At the end of the researching phase, the different collaborative groups could create a different chapter of the book using Zite. At the end of the unit, you'd be left with a whole e-book filled with chapters that your students made. Talk about creating a high level of pride in student's work (Danielson Framework).
The second application for Twitter in the classroom that caught my attention is creating a class newspaper. Using an application called Paper.li, you can upload text sites, photos or videos in your class e-newspaper. These online newspapers can be updated daily, weekly or whenever the class changes to a different unit of content. It's a great way to encourage parental involvement and collaboration with teachers/colleagues. Also, since they're stored online, they can serve as a great way to keep track of units from previous years.
Some of the other applications for Twitter in the classroom include creating 140 character biographies, which will give students practice in writing concisely; creating online Scavenger hunts using QR codes; using Crowd Source to collaborate on writing a story; and conducting a Twitter debate forcing students to make a concise argument in 140 characters or less.
For me, this reading was extremely interesting and encouraged me to fool around with some of the applications mentioned. Now, I am much more appreciative of Twitter and all the ways it can be used. Be sure to read the article and familiarize yourself with some of them!
Saturday, July 2, 2011
"Debunking those Pesky Classroom Myths"
The AUSL UTR Program tweeted about an interesting article today. The article is "Debunking those Pesky Classroom Myths" by Ben Johnson of www.edutopia.org. This article caught my attention because it "busted" a few myths that I've heard teacher-friends of mine discussing. These myths are: don't smile until Christmas; never turn your back to students; teachers know best; students aren't interested in learning, only in having fun; and students hate school. Instead, Johnson suggests throwing a party on the first day to make students eager to come back, trusting students by getting to know them and letting them get to know you, being receptive to the fact that students teach teachers often through their feedback, understanding that students are interested in learning when they are motivated to be and that students don't hate school. They hate the way they're being taught. Johnson says, "We simply need to align our teaching better to how students really learn and they will feel success and remember what we taught them."
A good friend of mine has been teaching in Detroit for six years and tells me regularly that classroom management is key to any well-functioning classroom. He believes that discipline is necessary in the beginning of the school year because it's easier to be strict and lighten up as the year goes on than to be fun-and-games in the beginning and then try to gain control of a classroom. I believe this to be true, and I can recall this method being used in my own middle school and high school experience. For that reason, I both agree and disagree with one aspect of Johnson's article.
I agree that the worst thing to do on the first day of class is go over the rules, "ad infinitum." Students should learn something interesting the first day, so they can go home and tell their parents how interesting at least one of their classes is. At the same time, I believe it's important to let the students know that you won't be a pushover teacher. Perhaps do an icebreaker the first day, and be strict on the rules of the game. use techniques like 100% and Strong Voice to let the students know that even when we're having fun, discipline is necessary. And yes, of course you should smile before Christmas.
A good friend of mine has been teaching in Detroit for six years and tells me regularly that classroom management is key to any well-functioning classroom. He believes that discipline is necessary in the beginning of the school year because it's easier to be strict and lighten up as the year goes on than to be fun-and-games in the beginning and then try to gain control of a classroom. I believe this to be true, and I can recall this method being used in my own middle school and high school experience. For that reason, I both agree and disagree with one aspect of Johnson's article.
I agree that the worst thing to do on the first day of class is go over the rules, "ad infinitum." Students should learn something interesting the first day, so they can go home and tell their parents how interesting at least one of their classes is. At the same time, I believe it's important to let the students know that you won't be a pushover teacher. Perhaps do an icebreaker the first day, and be strict on the rules of the game. use techniques like 100% and Strong Voice to let the students know that even when we're having fun, discipline is necessary. And yes, of course you should smile before Christmas.
A list of the 10 Tweeters I follow on Twitter
I'm new to Twitter, but I've managed to find ten Tweets that I'm interested in following in order to build my Personal Learning Network, or my PLN. They are:
1. @advanceillinois: An objective source that promotes public education in Illinois.
2. @web20classroom: Steven W. Anderson did a presentation on 60 Web 2.0 Tools in 60 Minutes. Very cool.
3. @SirKenRobinson: 'Nuff said. Sir Ken Robinson is a brilliant theorist in the world of Education.
4. @TheThirdTeacher: Offers practical strategies for transforming education in the physical environment of the classroom.
5. @fitzwalsh: Recommended by Professor Katie McKnight. Chris Fitz Walsh is interested in bringing more technology into the classroom.
6. @LiteracyWorld: Professor Katie McKnight herself. She always finds interesting articles and data concerning literacy in American public schools.
7. @elemenous: Recommended by Professor Katie McKnight. Lucy Gray is a friend of hers, whose interest is Education technology.
8. @EdWriters: A group of journalists who cover education for newspapers and other media.
9. @CatalystChicago: Recommended to my cohort by our professor, Mark Larson. This magazine reports on urban school reform since 1990, which is relevant to my work with AUSL.
10. @auslutr: AUSL UTR Program, of which I am a Resident.
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