Reflections On Myself

So here I am. It's after 11:00 at night, on the last day of break, and what am I doing?

Trying to finish work for school I technically should have done several weeks ago.

Yeah, yeah, I know--bad idea. Believe me, I've heard it all before. You're reading words written by someone who registered for his college classes on Tuesday, January 3rd, when he received the paperwork before Thanksgiving break. I have a habit of minor procrastination. While we're on this topic, it's probably a good time to mention that I have yet to start the coursework for my online AP microeconomics course, all of which is due at the end of this month.

So...why? Why do I consistently do this to myself?

I'm not sure I know the answer. I do feel like I have an overdrive I can turn on when I need it. This summer, I sequenced most of the MIDI files (if you don't know what that is, it's sufficient to know that it's a lot of work) for a local production of The Producers within the space of a week by working from 6:00 A.M. to 11:00 P.M., with breaks only for marching band practices and for rehearsals for my own play, Annie. But, although I do sometimes enjoy cranking out work in this frenzied manner, after a while, it becomes somewhat tiresome.

Do I think I learn more or produce better work when the pressure to finish as quickly as possible is on me? Certainly not. I know that I am far less efficient when I am working like I am right now than I would be if I, as common sense would dictate.

Rarely, I will successfully map out a work schedule for myself, and stick to it, and get whatever it is I'm working on done ahead of time. And it is a nice feeling. But then, I'll lapse back into my old ways. So even though I've tried other solutions, I don't stick with them.

However, the more I think about it, the more I realize that I am, in some aspects, extremely self-motivated. I've engineered and worked on a massive trebuchet, developed a Beowulf cluster, performed some of the harder piano pieces ever written, and made first chair flute in our Allstate band (and believe me, I practiced ahead of time for that). I can work to achieve a goal...sometimes.

Looking through that list, the distinction is obvious: I work on what I want to work on, pushing aside that which bores me (and, let's be honest...compared to a ten foot tall trebuchet, what isn't boring?) for what grabs my attention. Some of my friends here in La Junta don't do this. They prioritize, thinking about what work's due date is closest and therefore should be done first.

Reread that last sentence. Think about it.

"Even our brightest students..." Part II

In a recent post, I spent a lot of time criticizing the attitudes of students--including myself. Even back then, I knew that I was being pretty pessimistic about the future, and that bothered me.

So I tried to find out if my outlook was accurate.

A few things I should say before I start:

The students that I work with have only had--at most--two flavors of standards-based grading. Whenever I refer to SBG in this post, I'm generally referring to Chris Ludwig's approach, because that's the one I've seen in action and debated.

With that out of the way...here's what I've found:

1. Some students agree with me--even though SBG is preferable to a points-based system, it wouldn't be widely accepted.

2. Some students don't like SBG. Period.

So, basically...nothing new. I've been hearing both of those all year, typically when I'm, for some reason, describing SBG in a group setting--and someone else jumps in and says either:

"Yes! I really like standards-based grades!" and then goes on to explain why, or the student will say:

"But standards-based grading [is confusing/kills my grade/is hard]!"

Why is that second response even there? I think the answer is quite simple: students on the whole--especially after over ten years of grades--are so used to viewing a single letter grade as an achievement or as something that communicates some sort of information about them that many simply don't get why that's really not the case.

What I'm about to say has been said many times, but in a summative system--which is basically all I've seen for the past eleven years--grades are developed by building points that often become meaningless. I've heard teachers say, "Now, if you can just remember that the answer to Question 14 is C., you'll get more points for the test." And before this year, I didn't really have a problem with that. But when grades simply become who brought in the most Kleenex and could remember certain answers to a test (and, of course, forget them five minutes later) it's ridiculous to think that they have any meaning.

And the more I think, the more I believe that some students really don't want them to. After all, when we're signing up for the ACT and the SAT (and, after all, that's our only chance to get into a good college), we meet pages like:

 and

 

Since grades obviously matter so much, students have to get the best ones they can! Right? RIGHT?!?

Now, those of you with incredible memories will recall that, at the beginning of this rambling, I mentioned that there are some students who agree with me--that SBG is preferable to a summative system. And it's these guys that give me hope. I look around and I see classmates' posts (like this one and this one) and I realize that SBG really did bring out a different level of learning in many students--and that they appreciate it.

Students like those two--self-motivated and willing to adapt--are the only reason I believe there is a chance for SBG to become widespread. They know about this idea, support it, and hopefully they will continue to spread it in discussions, like I've been trying to do all year. After all, many people do not know about these non-traditional grading/instruction methods--as I've said before, before the 2010-2011 school year, I had never considered either.¹
 

Ok, I've rambled enough by now. Seriously, though, if you don't think I'm giving an accurate representation of students, yell at me. On this issue particularly, I really want to know what you think.

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1. Of course, some may suggest that teachers should be forced to use SBG so that we can let more people know about it. I disagree, because I think that, if a teacher is going to make this change, they should make it because they understand the reasons behind it--because they truly believe that the conventional method of assessment is flawed.

Great American Teach In

What would a perfect learning space look like?

Before I start, I have a confession to make. That's actually a question I've honestly never really considered. I guess I've spent too much time reflecting on what my current learning space looks like--and how I want to make a different one in ten years--to even think about what I think it ought to look like now. There's my little bit of self-reflection done for the day.

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So here's what's coming into my mind:

1. Students have a right to know about the various instruction methods available.

I guess this is really my third post (see here and here) in which this idea has made its appearance, but it's an important idea: There are large groups of people out there with no idea what project-based or inquiry-based learning are. Until this school year, I was one of them. I simply didn't know that there were better things out there that I could be getting. Therefore, I never asked for it.

2. Schools should be willing to work for students instead of vice versa when it comes to scheduling.

I know I'm not the only person to write a post on this idea, but it's another idea that matters a lot to me. Students have a certain path that they will end up following, and if this path involves going beyond the typical high school curriculum, they should be able to do it, regardless of "minimum graduation requirements," "only six classes a day," etc.

3. The methods used to assess students should truly assess skills and knowledge.

Oftentimes, students, including myself, get so caught up in what their grade is that we lose sight of whether or not we are truly learning. In a perfect learning system, there would be a correlation between the knowledge and the ways in which the students are objectified. (Of course, my perfect learning system would also be SBAR-based.)

4. Students have a responsibility to provide feedback to their teachers.

Let's be honest: I belong to a generation that, as a whole, is not famous for its communication skills.We (at least around here) need to work on calmly addressing teachers when we have a complaint instead of telling peers about how evil that teacher in Room 304 is.

5. Class sizes are small.

My fourth hour, with Chris Ludwig, has about twenty-five students. Sixth hour is next door, so I often step into his class during this time. On a normal day, there's about ten kids in there, but only three today because all of our seniors are essentially gone. And the one thing that really hit me was the incredible change in atmosphere from fourth hour. It's so much more laid back, relaxed, and open--and it really is a preferable change.

"Even our brightest students suffer with % point systems rather than #sbar"

I wrote my last post while sitting in my hotel room between "workshops" at the Colorado state FBLA conference, so I ran out of the room before throwing it onto Twitter. Then, two of my favorite edu-people out there did it for me, adding their own comments:

 

Then came:

Ever since the small discussion that ensued, in which I stated that I wasn't certain that students would really embrace this change, thoughts on these ideas have been bouncing around my head. And the more time I spend on this, the more certain I am that not everyone would be won over by the idea of SBAR.

Here's the two main reasons I can think of:

Reason 1: At first glance, it translates to more work and more accountability.

An example: I'm in a certain points-based class in which an assignment was supposed to be completed over spring break. It's a pretty important assignment--much of what we have done since then has revolved around it.

I have an "A" (insert eye-roll here) in this class.

And I never did this assignment.

We have accumulated enough points since then that the impact of this missing 25 points has been diluted. From looking at a grade sheet, you'd never know that I was anything but an exemplary worker.

Now, from the way I understand SBAR, there's no way I could pull that off.  My missing work wouldn't have been absorbed by everything else--and students know that. I've often heard someone say, "Oh, I already have all of the points, so it won't matter if I don't know what is going on for the rest of the year." (And that's almost a direct quotation.)

Because kids know that they can hide things they don't understand, many wouldn't want to give this up. After all, grades have become so important to many people (and I have to plead guilty) that often times we resort to "what gets me the best grade is going to be best."

Reason 2: It's new.

There. I said it. Students, at least around here and including myself, tend to be pretty conservative when it comes to massive changes. There was essentially unanimous disappointment ("Oh, man! That is so stupid!") about merging the high school and middle school. Even though it would make practical sense, many students do not want to merge the eight tiny school districts in a thirty-mile radius of La Junta. And multiple times this year, I've heard comments along the lines of, "I hate that new grading system of Ludwig's!" (Of course, then I typically jump in and ask why. I'm then often met with, "I actually have to work.")

The point is that, simply because we've been going along with this system for twelve or thirteen years, able to hide our weaknesses and our struggles, I don't think that we would embrace a change in the opposite direction.

Of course, I could be wrong. Let's hope so. 

Why I'm Glad I'm Doing This

Hopefully, by this point, the posts that I put up here seem to be somewhat thought out. Believe it or not, I do try to spend some time thinking about what goes on here and how efficiently and effectively it communicates with what I'm trying to say.

With that said, I do write these posts in two different ways. There are those that are triggered by some external event, which seem to be written as I watch this event happen, and those that I spend quite a bit of time developing because they explain my preexisting feelings about something.

But as I spend that time thinking about how to communicate my ideas, it's led to a complete paradigm shift. I can't just walk into a classroom anymore; I walk into a classroom thinking, "Oh, boy. Here we go. I get to not really learn anything and watch everyone else do the same."

Is this a good thing?

I suppose, in many ways, it is. After all, if I don't spend any time analyzing learning, I'm not going to be able to shift my own learning/teaching style. Of course, it would probably be preferable for me to find some nice way to tell the teacher that this is my impression of his or her class, but then...how do I tell someone that what he's been doing for longer than I've been alive isn't really that effective for me? I've been able to hide any sub-par learning behind the mask of points for so many years that it is expected that I will be able to excel in any class. Am I really the person to bring this to a discussion?

The answer is probably yes, but I haven't been assertive enough to do this yet.

With my little rant for the day out of the way, however, I really would like to say that I am glad that this year has turned out the way it has. I know so much more now than I did a few months ago--and I know there is a titanic amount left for me to discover.

So why am I here?

I like to think that, first off, I can provide my thoughts. I think that it is important to consider both sides of the desk in education. By doing this, I hope I can provide the perspective of someone who has not been to a teacher's college but still wants to know what can be done to aid students.

This brings me into my next point: Looking around the edublogosphere, I can't help but be a little jealous at what quite a few other students have. I really hope Frank Noschese's students know how lucky they are not to be in a classroom where their itinerary for every day is to watch videos. But because I have this knowledge, if I do end up as a teacher, I will have the tools I will need to avoid this in my own classroom. It's a miniature PLN for a sophomore in high school.

I already do some tutoring, mostly in math, my forte. And in the last month, my style's changed completely. I've gone from, "So here's what you do next" to "So what do you do next?" Although I'm not Dan Meyer yet, I think I've helped a lot more kids in this way--and hope be able to continue refining my ideas.

And that's why I do this.

Graduating: It's Nice

Well, today, I had to make a few quick decisions, the long term effects of which will be, hopefully, my own high school graduation. To make a long story short, I was supposed to take our school's "World History" class this year, which is, if you want to be nit-picky about it, required for graduation. Somehow, I slipped through the cracks and this class was not on my schedule.

Today, in my monthly meeting with our district's GT advisor (which has, over the year, been christened "Nerd Lunch"), I pointed out this minor technicality and gave what I thought was the best solution. I felt that, since one of the seven classes I would be taking next year would be a class at our community college instead of one on our school's campus, I could then use the open hour this produced to take World History. Basically, I thought I could take eight classes in a day instead of the regular seven.

But of course it couldn't be that easy.

Instead, we ran into more and more scheduling conflicts, and eventually decided that the "best" outcome would be for me to take a "hybrid" course (which, being a different course, is theoretically far more rigorous than World History) through our community college--OJC. This means that, although it would primarily be an online course, I would also have occasional contact with the professor.

So, at this point, I have two main reactions:

Reaction 1:  What will this be like? 

Over the last year, I have learned an incredible amount simply by reading around various edublogs. I have started analyzing every moment I spend in a classroom to see if I am really learning. Of course, this may be getting to the point where it becomes a distraction--but it's a distraction I can live with because it is providing me with the tools I will need if I hope to, one day, be a halfway decent teacher.

Now, as I try out this new medium--a "hybrid" course--I'll be able to carry this newfound insight with me to see how effective it really is. It'll give me a firsthand chance to experience what I try and think about every day, and I'll be able to write about it without having to worry about hurting anyone's (read: a teacher's) feelings because I won't be "learning" from a teacher.

Reaction 2: Is this really the best way?

Bill Ferriter actually said pretty much everything I've been thinking in this post, but I'll go ahead and rehash it. Throughout the entire conversation, we were looking at what I absolutely had to get in before 2013--and it meant a lot of time spent in classes that would probably not be beneficial. Now, we did start to take steps in this direction--we're going to ask the department chair to waive the World History credit for the hybrid course.

But it's not far enough.

If we could keep going in this direction, somehow customizing the curriculum for each student's individual needs and preferences...that's when I think we could get some real work done.

Now, I recognize that, logistically, that's a borderline ridiculous statement. As far as I can see, there's no way to pull that off in a way where every student is in a class beneficial to them--after all, who gets to decide which classes are "beneficial"? Then, even if that could be worked out somehow, we'd have to find a way to actually create a schedule for which that actually worked.

Am I on to something, or am I just an idealistic idiot? 

Community Meeting on School Budget

Well, I've just come from a "community budget forum" regarding the various cuts that will have to be made to cover a $900,000 shortfall in our district's budget. (You can find all of the in-depth data here.) I was actually in the process of shifting my weight to get up to talk when the meeting was adjourned. (My dad joked that they saw me coming.) So, since I didn't say it in public, I'll say what I had to say here. (Don't worry. It's not much.)

Although many of the cuts presented were just that--cuts that would result in loss of students, teachers, and/or other personnel and activities--a couple of "cuts" seem to be, to me, beneficial. For example, one possible option was combining Reading and Writing classes (which are offered separately in grades 4-8) into one English or Language Arts class. 

I've heard arguments for both sides. But I think that this move has the potential to deepen a student's understanding of literature and the English language in general. It gives students a chance to see the big picture and how everything ties together in the end. For example, a class can look at particular styles of language, and then see how they have been used in literary works. Unless the two separate classes are exceptionally well coordinated, they cannot play off of each other in this manner--and if they are this well coordinated, what's the point of having two?

Then, another potential "cut" would be the loss of the NWEA test. Multiple times a year, we lose classroom time to this computerized test. Of course, the reason this was frowned upon at the meeting was the loss of "data" about students. (Insert eye roll here.) Really--that score is just a number. In all reality, it doesn't mean that much. It just leads to more stress among students and staff alike, and I would not lose sleep if it went bye-bye.

Finally, the possibility of undepartmentalizing our fourth and fifth grades was also mentioned.¹ I was never a fan of this idea, because I do not feel that students of this age are developmentally ready for these conditions. My mother passed away when I was in fourth grade, and my teacher was incredibly supportive of me in this time. However, younger students don't have as close relationship with teachers, and in similar situations, cannot receive this support.

Well, I'm afraid that's all for this time. I didn't have much to say at the meeting tonight, and I just wanted to get what I did out there!

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1. Although this is probably technically a teacher reduction, I would not mind seeing this implemented in a way that did not cause this loss. With student to teacher ratios well over 20:1 for most of the district, we can certainly use as many teachers as we can afford to keep.

Limited Resources: What Now?

I've been quiet here recently, mostly because I've been traveling and haven't wanted to take time out to type up my thoughts. But they've been in my head for a while, and here they are.

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Peter asked an interesting question in this post:

"What do you see as an alternative to a teacher who doesn't have he resources to have all the students participate in a lab, but still wants the concept to be taught?"

In my response, I suggested that if a student could successfully design an experiment--even without carrying it out--that should be evidence that the aforementioned student had sufficient comprehension of the ideas he or she was testing. I've actually done this myself--see this post (I know, I know--slideshows=bad. I was just getting tired of doing complex prezis for everything).

All that I really did, though, was design an experiment to test a certain question. (I can't claim that I knew everything, though--I did have information on the reactions between BTB, water, and carbon dioxide.)

Now, let's try this, and see if this can work to show if student has real understanding. Imagine the overall goal of a class period was to extract DNA from an organism--say our student chooses wheat germ. First off, we'd consider what needed to be done to isolate the DNA. We'd have to break down the cell membrane and the nucleus somehow so that the DNA could precipitate. At this point, the student (let's call her Jill) would have to come up with something along the lines of, "Because wheat germ has a phospholipid membrane, hot water and soap can break it down."

Ok. So, now we have a bunch of DNA floating around in water. What next? 

Well, let's ask Jill. "DNA isn't soluble in alcohol. So, if we add alcohol to the raw DNA, it should pull together into a precipitate."

Of course, I recognize that there are major flaws with my presentation here. After all, Jill would have to know that wheat germ has a phospholipid membrane which can be broken down by hot water and soap, and that DNA isn't soluble with alcohol. But that's the problem with examples. In a real classroom, these topics could either be covered ahead of time or Jill could be given this information (like I was on that experiment over photosynthesis). Then, of course, Jill would need to figure out how to apply these facts to obtain her desired result.

And isn't that skill what education should be about? 

Being Pseudotaught

I'll be honest: I've had some extreme difficulty developing this post. I eventually ended up looking back through the original pseudoteaching posts, and this is what I found:

"The key idea of pseudoteaching is that it looks like good teaching. In class, students feel like they are learning, and any observer who saw a teacher in the middle of pseudoteaching would feel like he’s watching a great lesson. The only problem is, very little learning is taking place." (John Burk, Pseudoteaching: Hunting Monkeys) 

To me, the key phrase in that quote is, "In class, students feel like they are learning...." (Perhaps that's just my bias as a student, though.) But, I know the feeling of being pseudotaught. It's that feeling of sitting in a class, typically watching, as has been mentioned many times before, a lecture or a video (complete with demos!) and truly believing that I understand what's being presented.

And then...I try to apply it. Suppose that wonderful classroom experience was a demonstration on fluid pressure. Two hours later, I'll be walking down a hallway and see some objects in an aquarium when thoughts along the lines of:

"Now, that one on the bottom is under more pressure, because...no, wait, let me think...no, that's not right...huh?"

Immediately, that familiar sinking feeling of frustration and loss comes back to me. And once again, I know--I really have no idea what's going on beneath those waves. It's not a good feeling! It only goes to reinforce the struggle that many of my fellow students have with learning.

This frustration is one that comes to many students throughout our educational careers. In fact, I mentioned to a friend that I was struggling with a post on pseudoteaching. Her response, of course, was "What's that?" I sent her through the FAQ, and once she was done reading it, she turned to me and said, "There's a lot of that in La Junta." (She's right, of course. Not having attended any other schools, I don't know how we compare in terms of volume of pseudoteaching, but I would assume, from reading various other  edublogs, that many other schools have this problem.)

I have spent an incredible amount of time thinking about how to write this post. I spent the entire Saturday at a track meet, and when I wasn't running, my mind kept coming back to this. And the whole time, I've been wondering if the reason pseudoteaching is so bad but looks so good isn't that the student isn't learning, it's that the student does not retain what he or she has learned.

Let's consider a theoretical student, Jack. When Jack sits through a lecture in his English class on the "correct" way to read a book, he really does get it. He understands the method and the techniques and the why. But when he's outside of that classroom, it's gone--because he didn't retain it. His understanding was there, but not solid. And as a result, over even a short period of time, it doesn't deepen. Instead, it leaves him.

Now, I think this is why lectures, videos, and demos tend to be so ineffective. They don't give the student time to process the information they're being given, and as a result, even though the student may understand the material in the here and now, it's not there when it's actually needed--in the future.

At least, that's how it seems to me--and that's why I'm here, isn't it? 

Any Solutions?

Like pretty much any school I'm aware of, our school district is facing massive cuts. This has been a situation of some concern to me--after all, I'm trying to take the "advanced" classes, and, historically, those are one of the first things on the chopping block.

After track practice today, Sandy Malouff, the director of our local BOCES, gave me a ride home, and she was throwing out various solutions being discussed to this problem. One particularly struck me: the idea of "modified magnet schools." This is a system where, even though, technically, there would be one school district, the schools in each of our small towns would remain active in their own specialty.

Allow me to explain some background information: There are currently, within approximately a twenty mile radius of La Junta, six school districts (La Junta, Swink, Rocky Ford, Manzanola, Las Animas, and Cheraw). If you go down the road ten more miles from Manzanola, you run into Fowler, with another school system. Last year, when our schools were forced to make even more massive budget cuts, one option that was thrown around for a while was the consolidation of these districts. (Eventually, the option of consolidating our middle and high schools was chosen.) 

There is, or so it seems to me, major opposition to the option of consolidating these districts, because, potentially, this will result in, "the loss of the hometown feeling of the schools." Of course, this would also be an issue with the "modified magnet schools" idea. Although I'm not yet expressing support for this option--I want to hear what you think about its potential repercussions--allow me to explain it in more depth.

Cheraw is a small school district. The town itself has just over 200 people, so you can imagine the population of the school (K-12) itself. Swink, just to our west, has a population of 700, and runs another K-12 school. Rocky Ford is significantly larger, with a population of over 4000, and is in the same setup La Junta (pop. 7000) currently is (three schools, K-3, 4-6, 7-12).

Do you get the idea? Each town is struggling to run a school system that is becoming more and more burdensome. Now, the "modified magnet" system would, as I understand it, involve consolidating the districts--which means it's likely to meet opposition. However, each school would then offer more options to its students for a specific need of its region. (The schools that I will use in the examples below have been randomly assigned. There is no stereotyping based on the community whatsoever.)

Cheraw, for example, could be considered a GT school. La Junta could move to more of a vocational school atmosphere. Swink could become more of an artistically themed school, while Las Animas could be a general ed school (kind of like the setup of each of the schools now).

Now, of course, there are some problems with this idea. One major one that jumps out at me is that many students at this age do not know what they want to do with their lives, and many would simply choose one school to go to because it was the "easiest." Should we give personality tests to assign students to a school? Of course, then we only have one measure to judge which school will be the best fit for a particular kid. In addition, if this was the case, the student's interests themselves are ignored.

Then, of course, which schools get to host which themes? Should it be based on which school already has the greatest strength in each area? Of course, the students could be surveyed to see what the predominant interest in a particular area is, so that the school already in that area could be themed to that interest

Finally, what would happen to graduation requirements? Would each school have its own, tailor-made requirements that students would have to meet to earn a diploma from it? Clearly, each school would have to have some sort of general ed requirements--it couldn't just teach one subject. But I think that the primary objective of this option is to give more opportunities in a certain subject area to each school.

Of course, this is an issue that deserves a lot of attention, and many solutions should be examined. I simply wanted to see what other people thought of this particular solution. So...any comments?

Why Paperless?

Over the past few days, I've been enjoying (hah!) the drudgery of state-standardized testing--in Colorado, CSAP. Now, I'm not going to go on an in-depth attack of standardized tests, as that's been done enough times in the past. However, as I was sitting there, in my assigned seat, waiting for the hour-long testing session for a twenty-minute test to be over, I realized that this test was probably the most interaction with paper that I've had all year.

Although this sounds like something that would be done for me by the school, I wouldn't say that it is. I've been making a conscious choice throughout the year to use Google Docs for essays and Evernote for notes whenever possible. Sure, it's great that we have that technology and those capabilities, but what good are they really doing me?

I'm tempted to argue that they help me because, with their aid, my writing is miraculously legible, but this doesn't help on CSAPs or AP tests where the entire body of the test is handwritten. (For that matter, my hand--despite my influx of piano recitals--was noticeably sorer this year!)

Do they help me learn? In a class such as Biology¹, I would say that it does. Here, the teacher expects me to use the technology in a way that will be beneficial to my learning, and because of that, it is successful. I can type up posts on this blog (sometimes school related, sometimes not), but regardless, I can use the MacBook to facilitate learning.

But then, what about another class? In my English class, for example, I have spent way too much time trying to make Google Docs work with Opera (I'm an Opera user at heart) which simply provides another distraction for my hyperactive brain. Of course, if I simply used a normal browser, I could then not have to worry about this...but where's the fun in that?

However, there are clearly advantages to having it around. Being able to sync to the cloud through some service, Opera-compatible or not, allows me to work on my projects if/when I don't get them done in class. Of course, you could look at this the other way, arguing that this capability relieves the pressure on me as a student to focus and do this work in class.

I have a confession to make: My brain doesn't see solutions. It sees problems. This has caused strife on every committee I've ever been on, and it's probably something I should work on. In case you haven't noticed already, this means that often I'll be typing along, all is going well, and I get to the part of my post where I should either answer my original question or provide a fix for the problem I've identified, and you get: nada. That's going to happen again here, because I don't know the answer to "What good does technology do me as a student?" However, if you'd like to ask questions in the comments, then I can probably answer those questions, and we might actually get somewhere.

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¹

I hesitate to link to this post, because it was thrown around on Twitter back in September, and since then, it is STILL by far my most popular post. I don't really like it because of that.

The Wave of the Future

First off, I have a question: How many other student edubloggers are out there? I'm not aware of any, although I am sure there are some. (Feel free to comment and let me know about others!)

Now, here's another question that, to me, seems to be somewhat connected: What will happen to the idea of a PLN for teachers in the future?

I ask this not out of pessimism, but out of simple curiosity. After all, the majority of teachers (in my district at least) are old enough to have been actively teaching in the days before Twitter and Facebook became key tools for certain educators. (I'm going to focus on Twitter and Facebook because they are the two services I have observed being used by teachers for teachers most often.) But as my generation grows older and moves into the workforce--and yes, some of us will take up teaching--we will have been using these services for our own personal purposes instead of professional ones.

Of course, I don't feel that anything's wrong with this. This is what those services were originally developed for, after all. I myself first joined Facebook to maintain contact with my various friends across the globe. But because I already have this use for it, will I be able to use it in the future for professional purposes?

There are workarounds to this. First off, one can make two separate Facebook pages, and I really doubt that many people will mind seeing the occasional personal tweet. I know at least one teacher who has taken this course. But this simply leads to more confusion as to which "Michael Rees" is the one that is actually being sought.

Then, of course, it's wrong to assume that all incoming teachers will already be active on these two services. I know one first-year teacher our district gained this year (who, by the way, is fantastic!) who made a Facebook page to get messages out to his students. (Now, this leads into what the relationship between students and teachers should really be and other ethical issues, but if you really feel compelled to discuss those, there's a comment form for a reason.)

I guess that what I'm really saying is that I'm uncertain what the future here will really look like. Because our teachers of the future are growing up with their own uses for things such as blogging (!), will new services for the purpose that ideas such as #edchat has taken?

It will certainly be interesting to find out. 

Scripted Learning

Looking around the edublogosphere, it seems that many other edubloggers have their own catch phrase they use to build the rest of their blog around. Dan Meyer has his "pseudocontext," while Chris Ludwig has his "skills-based grading." I've actually had my own phrase in my head for the past week; I simply haven't had the initiative (or time or energy!) to type up a post about it.

Here it is: scripted learning. I admit it may not be an entirely original phrase (as a minute of Googling proves) but I came up with it myself, so I'll keep using it.

What is scripted learning?

At the risk of sounding too much like Jonathan Burk and Frank Noschese and their "pseudoteaching," I think there are two main signs of scripted learning:

1. The student is drilled in how to do something, with no real understanding of why this works or how to apply these ideas to other situations.

2. The student is then only willing to accept this method of solving a problem, because "that's how the teacher said to do it."

My sister was recently telling me about her preparations for the CSAP (Colorado Student Assessment Program) and she mentioned that she would "get in a lot of trouble" if she did not read through the questions first, underline certain passages and do everything "exactly the way [the teacher] said." 

Sound a little scripted to you?

Now, I recognize the fact that these are test-taking skills, not actual everyday instruction, but aren't scenes like this everyday occurrences in many classrooms? I'd be willing to bet that I am the only person in our school who has actually examined the proof of the quadratic formula. Even though it's right there in the textbook, a few pages away from the homework problems, curiosity has been squashed by this process of "do it this way. Don't ask why or how it works. Simply accept it."

Of course, no one would ever come out and say that. I don't think that's the intent, but often, that becomes the effect.  

Then, of course,  there's the second main warning sign of scripted learning: the assumed infallability (or maximum efficiency) of the given method of solving a problem. Time and time again, I will be working with a peer, and they will choose an elementary, clumsy, and roundabout way of solving a given problem. When I try to explain a more streamlined solution, I'm often met with, "But that's how (insert teacher name here) said to do it."

This, to me, simply demonstrates a lack of understanding to the deeper methods at work here. In the case of the quadratic formula, if you're going to derive it by completing the square on the general equation, you have to really understand the method of completing the square and why it works--otherwise, how can you solve an equation without any numbers in it?

Of course, I'm being undeservedly hard on teachers here. Students share just as much of the blame--after all, we're the ones who accept this. I have yet to meet a teacher who, when I began the "Why?" series, would not give me a valid solution.

But perhaps there is a better way. I'm here to offer my plea for bright students everywhere. I've often been asked by our district's GT advisor if I feel "challenged." Really, there's no reason why I shouldn't. I'm a sophomore in a plethora of senior/advanced junior classes. 

However, I think that the meaning of "challenged" is interesting here. If you want it to mean simply doing harder things--harder math problems, deeper essays, and more esoteric sciences--then of course I feel "challenged." But I like to think that there's a kind of "challenged" beyond that--beyond scripted learning, where the student has to really understand everything in order to simply survive. My biology class this year is a perfect example of this--it's the first class where I can say that I've really had to work so that I don't sink.

Why? It's because I don't have a teacher who tries to hold my hand and show me what they think I should know. Instead, I have a teacher who's willing to let me go where I want to. The poor guy may have students feel like they're teaching themselves, but hey...he's taught me more than I've learned in most other classes combined.

Now that's not scripted. 

The Quintessential Question

Recently, I was examining a grade sheet for a class whose grades are calculated by adding up all of the points earned and dividing by the points possible. I admit that's not too exciting. However, my mind needed some form of distraction and started playing around with the numbers on the sheet. Then, I began to notice some anomalies.

Consider the following situation, which I put into a graph:

There are two students, Bob (the black line) and Joe (the red line) whose understanding of the content material does not match their grades.

Allow me to explain this (unrealistic and overly simplistic) situation. There are two students, Joe and Bob. Their understanding of a certain idea will be mapped by five various assignments (worksheets, tests, etc.) and will be averaged together at the end for their final grade on this concept. Each assignment is worth one hundred points, and no one assignment will be weighted above the others in the final averaging.

Now, Bob's (black line) understanding of the subject is superior to Joe's (red line). However, on the day of the first assignment, his girlfriend breaks up with him, his grandmother dies, and he falls on ice and breaks his arm. He's somewhat distracted, and he lets it get to him--in fact, he only earns 60 of the 100 possible points. Joe, however, is having a good day and is able to guess his way through this assignment (it's all multiple choice) and aces the paper. In addition, he brought in a box of Kleenex, so he was able to tack on 10 more points to his "grade."

Here's where the problem comes in. Bob actually understands the subject matter, and is able to receive all of the 100 points possible on the four following assessments of his knowledge. He is consistently able to demonstrate that he knows what he is talking about.

Joe's luck, however, does not continue to hold out. On the next assignment, he only earns 95 of the potential points, then 90, then 85, and so on, losing 5 points from his score each time. If these assessments are truly gauging the knowledge these students have, then shouldn't we conclude that Joe does not fully understand the material--and shouldn't we also conclude that Bob's grade should be higher than Joe's?

However, at the end of the series of assessment of knowledge, Bob's and Joe's grades are equal--a 92%, 460 points earned out of 500 points possible. Although I may be becoming a parrot, this is the primary flaw with using averages to determine a grade: averages include the history of a student's understanding instead of the student's current understanding.

This seems to be the question every edublogger asks: Which is more important, the history or the present?

To me, it's clear that the answer is the present. What about you? 

The Grading Instinct

I have a nine-year-old, incessantly creative sister. Yesterday, we were taking a Sunday afternoon walk when she had an idea: Why can't we clean the water in gutters before depositing it in oceans? (I have a feeling that the water cycle has been stressed in her science class lately.) 

After we made it home, she continued developing this idea--to the point of writing a "book" on it (complete with table of contents). Once it was finished, she proudly walked up to Dad, handed it to him, and said, "What grade would you give this?"

Grades. They're the nemesis of students (and many teachers!) everywhere. But I must say that I think it's somewhat sad when the first thing a nine-year-old can think of after she's finished an independent project is to ask for a grade.

At the risk of recycling what every other edublogger has ever written, it seems to me that the real question is what role grades play in an educational system. Are they superfluous and redundant and have no real meaning, or are they a vital and essential system that tell all of the knowledge a student has?

I intentionally overstated both sides of this story so that the strengths and weaknesses of both sides could become more apparent. But still, does a report card with simply a final letter grade really give anything but an overview of a student's "knowledge" within several different subjects? What about the overlap within certain subjects? After all, most physics classes depend at least somewhat on mathematics. Should there be a way to display the student's understanding of the overlap of these materials?

Then, we should spend some time evaluating the role that grades play within the lives of students. The prime example here is my sister asking for her "grade" on her book. She felt that she would not know the value of the work if she did not have a grade on it. She also attends a school where, like many schools, late work earns a zero. Of course, this drives me crazy. After all, all it really says is that if you don't demonstrate understanding of a certain topic by a certain date, you must not understand the topic.

Right?

I've intentionally left many questions unanswered here, simply because I don't feel that I have the level of expertise necessary to answer these questions. However, I do want to know what you think. Let's share ideas and see how this develops.

A New Chapter

Most of you know that this blog began as a class requirement--the place where I put my various posts involving various topics such as the properties of water or photosynthesis.

I've been looking around the edublogosphere more and more lately, commenting on various blogs and trying to share my ideas. However, this means more and more people have been coming to my blog--and I'll be honest: I don't currently feel that this blog has enough substance to warrant this attention.

So, I know announce a new chapter in the life of this blog. It will continue to play host to my musings on biology, but those posts will probably be far less frequent than those concerning my outlook on education in today's society. I hope to be able to provide something to the debate most of the edubloggers cannot--the student's perspective on what happens within schools.

In addition, the URL of this blog will change to

http://www.mreeseducation.blogspot.com

on Wednesday, so if you would like to continue receiving my posts (and I think they're about to become much more interesting!), I'm afraid you will have to resubscribe after this change is made. I simply wanted to give everyone ample warning before officially changing it.

To be honest, I'm a little nervous about this change. So many edubloggers are so knowledgeable and experienced that I can't help but feel like an uninitiated upstart that will only end up seeming somewhat naive. I hope that you will be willing to bear with me and hope that we can all learn from this experience. 

So begins the new chapter of Education from the Student's Perspective.

A Question

Although up to this point, I've been extremely satisfied with the process of SBG, I've started thinking about one negative aspect it may have. I've realized that I currently have all threes and fours, which means I've earned a 95 in the class. Now, what would happen if, one day before the semester ended, I did a sloppy blog post that merited twos across the board? Would that one mistake negate the work I've done for the rest of the year?

Then, consider the flip side of this coin. Suppose a student did nothing the entire year, but one day before his or her cumulative grade was posted put together an exceptional piece of work--one that deserves entirely fours? Would this earn this person a perfect score for the class?

It seems to me that any grading system should reflect the student's knowledge of the entire curriculum--not just what content was covered most recently. But how can this hole in the system be fixed? The scores for each standard cannot be averaged--one runs into the problems that are present in the averaging system.

The more I reflect on this problem, the greater its magnitude seems. The grade that will go on my transcript should reflect my understanding of the entire world of biology, not just the content area that I have most recently learned. 

I'm curious to see how this problem will be resolved--and I hope some other SBG'ers will comment and give me some ideas. 

Random Ramblings (Mr. Ludwig, You Can Probably Ignore This.)

Having had nothing to really blog about in the past few days, I just thought I'd give a little update on my thoughts of standards-based grading (SBG).

So...what is SBG?

At first, it's the most confusing idea you can imagine (up there with string theory). But once the student (and, for that matter, the parents!) really figures out how it works, it's by far a superior grading system to the standard "averaging" system. (I have no idea what it's technically called.) What makes this so? To me, the superiority all revolves around the idea of second chances. Once a student has a grade, they can change it. Nothing is set in stone.

This system also takes some of the improvements of a system formerly employed by Mr. Ludwig: his "Binary" Grading System. This system did not overload the averages with participation points; students earned one point for turning in daily papers, and none if they did not. SBG improves along these lines because it gives specific areas for students to work in: standards. Each student has to find some way to demonstrate to Mr. Ludwig that he or she "gets" that standard. Mr. Ludwig will then evaluate the student's comprehension and give them a "level" in that standard. If the student is not happy with this level, they can try again. The whole goal of SBG (for the student, at least) is to "level up" enough times.

This is another reason that SBG is such a good idea. Grades are not formed by averaging the levels together, but simply by a combination of each. An "A" translates to all 4's and 3's, for example, and the system continues from there.

All things considered, I hope to see it implemented in many more classrooms.