Author: Sweat to Inspire

Educator and Parent

Do our Standardized Assessments fail our students?

Posted on by Sweat to Inspire

As students here in Michigan are in the middle of the Fall cycle of the Michigan Educational Assessment Program (MEAP), I have to ask if these tests are doing what they were intended to do? The tests were originally designed to measure students academic achievement. Now the test are also used to measure the quality of school districts and as teacher evaluations have changed the data can be used to show student growth (or lack there of).

As I administer the tests this week I have really thought about how they work. First these test disrupt the normal school atmosphere, changing schedules. Announcements are made to asking students to do their best, get sleep and eat breakfast (notes also sent home to parents). Of course don’t we want students to get plenty of sleep, do their best and eat a proper diet every day? Of course but many school place an extra emphasis at this time of year. Many students stress about their performance on the test. Wanting to do well and try their best. Others (often with parental support) don’t care and see testing as an annoyance, rushing to finish so they can “do nothing” for the rest of the testing period. Since the tests are almost entirely multiple choice, they are limited in the type of questions they can ask. Often requiring students to know specific vocabulary or have content background knowledge.  This style of assessment has not changed since they were created. Has learning and teaching changed?

Teaching has changed so much!! Teachers spend time creating relationships with students to understand their learning style. Then learning activities are created to meet the individual student’s needs. Students are given choice in assignments and allowed to voice their preferences in how demonstrate knowledge. Many teachers give students freedom to express their learning in many different styles. Teachers are trained in questioning techniques to drawn student’s knowledge out. Most middle school classrooms rarely use the Multiple Choice format (except to practice for standardized tests).

Colleges have seen the flaws in relying solely on standardized test scores for admissions. Isn’t it time for K-12 education to create a better assessment system to measure student achievement? One that reflect best teaching practices?  We can do better and should.

Michigan Council of Teachers of English 2013 Presentation

Posted on by Sweat to Inspire

On Friday Oct 5, 2013 I will be co-presenter at MCTE Conference. I feel luck to have collaborated with my partner Kattie Hogan in linking science and literacy.  Our project was just the beginning of fusing science instruction with a focus on literacy skills. Our goal is to create independent collaborate learners. Not there yet but work towards it every day. Below is the Presentation:

Creating an Environment for Success #michEd

Posted on by Sweat to Inspire
Last week when I saw the following quote on twitter from our governor I was confused.

“It’s not government’s job to hire people. Our role is to create an environment for success.” Gov Snyder @AEI http://ow.ly/i/3g0Fh 

 This is the classic cliche: You can lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink argument. Ironically I agree with the Nerd on this one. I am confused because this is the exact same statement educational professionals have been making for the past few years as so-called educational reformers have changed how student achievement data is used to evaluate educators. Are teachers supposed to be held to a higher standard than  the governor?
A teachers job is to create an environment where every learner can be successful. All of our students are at different starting points when they arrive in our classrooms and when they leave they exit through different doors on their educational journey. Our job is not to have these students score proficiently on a standardized test one day out of the 180 they are in our classrooms.  Teachers are trained in creating an environment for educational success. When are teacher evaluations going to be created that measure the ability of teachers to build this atmosphere and teach, instead of how well our students perform on tests created by large corporations.
Governor Snyder, if you feel that you can use this statement to defend the business climate here in Michigan. Then you need to listen to teachers who make the same statements, instead of dismantling our education system in the state. Stop allowing for-profit charters from taking over public school districts. Return educational funding to pre-recession funding levels. Changing the educational funding system to create an atmosphere for educational collaboration instead of competition. Then you will have given teachers an environment for success like you have created for businesses in the state. The children of Michigan deserve it. The tax payers desire it. Educators have been demanding it.

 

Homework what is it good for? …Dependency?

Posted on by Sweat to Inspire

There are many views in education about homework ranging from : Necessary for success to an evil tool from the old days of education. Parents, teachers and administrators are on both sides of the debate. Students not surprisingly are pretty much united against homework.

So the burning question is: What is Homework Good For?

The easy answer comes from students:

  • boredom

  • repetition

  • frustration

  • wasting time

  • busy work

These are not the desired outcomes when a teacher assigns the work, but what happens. Is something lost in translation? Most assigning the work feel it is practice that is reinforcing the skills learned in the classroom. Not being concerned by the students perception of the work. Recently, I have noticed a trend where teachers profess at Open House that they don’t “give” homework, followed by a list of weekly at home expectations that include: Math practice (Online w/ TenMarks or IXL), spelling practice (Spelling city) a weekly reader and daily independent reading. These same teachers also expect student to finish any work not completed in class at home. All this work is done at home, so what is it if not homework?

Parents expect homework. They use homework as a gauge to measure what is going on in the classroom. It informs them of what learning is happening in the classroom. Working on it with their child can give them an idea of how their child is doing. Parents often mistaking the lack of homework for success by their student in a class. Parents also feel that IF their child does the homework it should be reflected in their grades, no matter how proficient they in the subject area tests. Of course teachers can have a hard time knowing if the student or the parent completed the homework.

Traditionalist feel that homework is practice of the vital school skills learned in class. How are our student going to learn math, spelling, vocabulary, etc. with out this practice? Practice is helpful. Should our students be practicing without a coach? DO they all need to practice the same material? How much practice do they need? Does practice count in the big picture?

Instead of giving homework, teachers need to teach student to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Give their students the tools to allow them to decide what needs to be practiced and how to practice. Then be available during practice time to help students hone their skills. By making this fundamental change, students will still have homework, but they will be the ones deciding what they need to do and when it needs to be done. Freeing up time for family and extracurricular activities. It will also end the homework dependency our society has created over the past few decades!

#mschat @AMLE event: The Purpose of Homework 9-19-13

Posted on by Sweat to Inspire

Tonight #mschat was rocking. Over 90 Educators showed up to tweet their feels and thoughts on homework. Excellent ideas were exchanged. Sadly Storify, the tool I use to archive chats: could not handle the volume of tweets and kept overloading as I tried to insert all the tweets into the story. I did get over 500 from the conversation and am working on getting more. Will update if I can save the entire conversation. The chat was too good to not save what I could. Check out the link below to see most of the conversation.

[View the story “#MSchat @AMLE Purpose of Homework Chat ” on Storify]