A Teacher’s Thoughts

You will see what you look for.

We will always find what we look for. 
How can you not applaud the efforts of a school which looks at how students are doing and puts specific actions into place to help students?  This RTI school has done just that.  Who wouldn’t suppose that as they focus more clearly on specific measures they will improve students performance on those measures?

“…all our professional development for the entire first semester is planned using the end of year summative data.”

Now some may argue that this is teaching to the test, and they are correct.  That is exactly what this is and it makes sense.  Whoa! Did I just say that?  Of course.  Really, if you want to get better at something, identify what to get better at, measure it and plan accordingly.  RTI or any other data-based decision making is not difficult it is just focused.

Lest you think I jumped ship, wait…

At some point a school needs to decide what is important and how to measure that.  And it is this step I would argue lacks follow through.  After all, no school or district mission statement reads  “It is the sole mission of our school for children to be proficient at all state measures.”   Faced with urgent need for change the question of what a school (and therefore community) should value often becomes framed within a predefined context of measurement, biasing the conversation from the word go and leaving other things aside.  And let’s face it, some things are very hard to measure.

Are reading, writing and math skills important to a school?  Absolutely.  Science and  Social Studies too?  Of course.  There are many available ways to get and analyze data about skills and content knowledge in these areas.  These measures and tools are not difficult.  But what isn’t being measured is difficult.  Are any RTI schools targeting creativity and innovation?  What measures are used to assess student’s connections to content?  What tools have been developed to assess students thinking processes to solve a problem and do (would) these tools allow for varied approaches across a variety of problems?  What is the spectrum of development of a self-directed learner and how do we measure that?  This is just the short-list.  (who noticed that I never even mentioned art, comprehensive technology, health, PE… ?)

There are arguments and data to suggest that the narrow focus on core subject skills does not negatively impact achievement in other subject areas. Does this suggest that it is ok to focus so narrowly on math, reading and writing skills? (is no negative impact what you want for your child?).  What isn’t being measured?

A recent article suggests that children’s cognitive development is strongly influenced by the valued cognitive skills of their culture.  We are certainly measuring important things already.  But do the things we exclude weigh equally on our values?

I wonder what this will turn up or you could look here?

Here is one

How do you know when science has happened?  Ask Doyle.

“A child muttered in class this week that she keeps knowing less than she thought she knew.

Success.”

The dismantling, disintegrating, demolishing, disassembling, trashing, throwing away, rooting out of misconceptions is hard work for teachers and students.

Seeing things that did not exist moments before is why I got into science in the first place.

Technology seems to be supporting two diverging paths in education. I am not sure these paths are anything new really. One represents a humanistic approach to learning while the other is focused on embedding itself within the achievement/testing model of education. Of course we know which one has been on top for the past decade or more.

I came across a reference to Adaptive Curriculum at Ed Tech for Science.  I wasn’t surprised to hear the usual “asleep for 50 years” story that has become so cliche in the push for more technology in schools.  New York city Ed Chancellor Klien is quoted as saying “It is time to use technology differently.”  And there-in lie our two diverging paths.

I spent some time looking over the Adaptive Curriculum site.  For the district level coordinator, what’s not to love?  A highly standardized, gated environment with clear assessments of the product’s ability to meet its own goals (this is sometimes referred to as achievement, that is another conversation).  Even better, students can just complete labs online.  There is no need to get out lab gear.  Besides, labs rarely produce the correct result with all the experimental noise that happens.

Before I go too far down this path I should reveal that I use modeling software with my students.  I have found the software to be very effective at meeting the learning goals that I have set for students.  But I only use it when a real lab cannot be done within reason.  For example looking at heat, energy and molecular motion.  If we need to understand temperature changes and state changes, we boil the real thing.  The same goes for pressure changes.  Make no mistake, kids get wet those days, lab gear gets broken and not everyone gets the same result.  But we also go to the whiteboard, in dynamic groups, and write, hypothesize, erase, draw, explain, test, fail, try again…

From the Adaptive Curriculum website

Adaptive Curriculum for Middle School Science is the ideal solution to student engagement and making science come to life in a virtual environment.

If you want to bring science to life, do science.  Get messy, fail, question, grow more questions.

More from the website

1. Real-World Experiments
   Aimed at improving student inquiry skills, these science Activity Objects create virtual experiments in a safe environment. Benefits of virtual experiments include::
   • Comprehension. Students can perform the experiment over and over.
   • Safety. Students are not exposed to dangerous situations and liability is reduced.
   • Cost Reduction. Virtual experiments do not require equipment or supplies and can be repeated as many times as necessary.
   • Resolution of ethical dilemmas. Virtual experiments eliminate objections to specimen dissection.

And there it is, hiding in the context of better comprehension (you know, if this didn’t work for you do it again and again until it does), this selling point has nothing to do with kids and learning and everything to do with ease of implementation, not having to think and of course, saving money.

I understand that there are things that cannot be taught through middle school labs.  I also understand how decisions regarding curriculum packages can shift values.

Are there good things in packages such as Adaptive Curriculum?  Sure, but these things worry me.  If a school or district choose to use this type of program, what steps would be put in place to ensure that real science still happened?  What discussions would be required to promote real solutions across all classrooms?  And most importantly, how will the district support students asking questions the software cannot answer?

Do you think what Randy Olson has to say about scientists goes for teachers too?   Most science teachers love science.  We don’t have to work hard to be interested. Science hasn’t kept up with modern media and neither has education.  The science communication problem, as Dr. Olson states, lies  with both science communication and eduction.

Listen to Randy Olson’s appearance on NPR’s Talk of the Nation

On one level this could be about engaging students in content.  As a teacher I cannot take for granted the interests I have.

On another level, this could be about students creating engaging products.  These skills will help them get their message across.  Quality, accurate content is the real challenge here.

Sometimes I  wonder if the media dressing provides an opportunity to disengage from the actual ideas at hand?

Change is difficult.  Change agents will tell you that to move forward a leader must create a sense of urgency.  This urgency requires the exclusion of competition.

NCLB, RTI, Common Core Standards, Race to the Top…  Urgent

When all of our conversation revolves around implementing these ideas, what becomes excluded?  What do we no longer talk about?