Saturday, June 14, 2014
Bad Cripple: The Ashley Treatment Rears its Ugly Head
Bad Cripple: The Ashley Treatment Rears its Ugly Head: I was having a good day until I had an early lunch. As I ate I checked out links on Facebook and came across a link provided by David Carlso...
Monday, October 29, 2012
As we settle in with our clean laundry, bottled water and new flashlights (or at least fresh batteries) it may do us well to think about the people next door. Perhaps they have not been able to get supplies, cannot afford readiness or accessibility (lacking under sunny skies) is not available. With a cautious heart I recall people who died in nursing homes in past hurricanes. Unable to move away from the rising water and unseen by the billions of CNN minutes. Many of us know of people next door or people who used to be next door and now are behind the doors of institutions that on dry days have hurricane conditions inside. Remember them, share a bottle of water open your doors.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
During a middle school soccer game on a beautiful fall day a friend, neighbor and fellow soccer dad asked me why college tuition was rising so fast. My response was lackluster and sparked a reply.
Dear Friend,
You had to go an ask me about rising tuition costs and I was surprised at how much my answer was lacking. So, taking advantage of awake time while others are asleep I did a little digging. Here is what I found out. Thanks for making me think about this as my answer is now more complete.
Thomas
Summary: If education where strictly a business then all is well. Supply and demand dictates the elasticity of demand to support raising rates at current levels. Competition for customers dictates enhanced services and facilities in order to attract the most customers in a particular companies (institution of higher ed) niche. Lobbies at government levels create policy in support of the business (loans, tax breaks and so forth). A very typical scenario for the majority of industries in our economic and political system. This raises the question; is education strictly a business or do we want it to be a public service?
Some answers as to why college tuition up over inflation.
1) Availability of government backed loans (1992) coupled with the trend of the 1980s to operate all organizations as a "business".
2) Increased numbers of administration
3) Building projects offering services such as sports, recreation facilities, living facilities and so forth
4) Supply & Demand (economics) there are a lot more students attending and the same number of colleges.
5) Cuts in state contributions (at MU from about 60% 1986 to about 27% 2012)
Now here is a story that has a more complete answer. (You can download this and listen)
“among them excessive spending by colleges and universities, which drives up tuition, and declining government support for public universities as state and local governments face budget crises.”
"[Colleges and universities] compete with one another not to make money, but for status and prestige, so they buy things that increase their status and prestige in relation to their competitors," Carey tells Fresh Air's Dave Davies. "They're big on construction. ... They're always building things."
“It turns out professors aren't really doing all that well. They're not the beneficiaries of the large increase in college spending that has gone on.”
What's Driving College Costs Up?
Due to availability of government backed loans
Inflation Data Article on Rising Costs
Loan availability plus - “universities have in recent years vastly expanded their administrative bureaucracies, while in some cases actually shrinking the numbers of professors.” (with bias I must correct the statement on tenure in this article. At my university, and MU is typical, one has tenure and there is a contractual agreement to “produce” at specified rates. At MU that is 8 courses per year at an average of 40 students per class. Additionally one is held responsible for a complex set of quality control measurements. Failure to complete these expectations will not protect ones employment. Tenure does not guarantee a position, only the opportunity to preform in the position.)
Forbes gives a more complete analysis
Millersville Costs:
http://www.millersville.edu/bursar/costs.php
In-State tuition, fees, room & board = $17,500.00
In-State tuition & fees only = $8,600.00.
Tuition up in ten years about 4.53%
Reduction in state contribution in ten years down about 4%
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Student Engagement
A student teachers reflection:
So far in my placement I have had to deal with a few challenges. One challenge would be the attitude of the students towards the class I teach. As I have stated in previous reflections, the period I teach is a tier 3 RtII class referred to as intervention. Every student in the school has an intervention period after their lunch. Some students go to social studies or science intervention as enrichment. Other students go to a regular math or reading class for their intervention to touch base on content that will be on the standardized tests. Other students, like mine, go to a math or reading intervention to review previous topics they have learned and need some extra practice and instruction in.
The students in my class often view this class as a free period or waste of time. Many joke around the entire period and do not take the content seriously. I know they do not act this way in their other math class because I see many of them throughout the day in my co-teaching periods.
So what would be the reasoning for their poor attitudes towards the class? The students in the intervention do not receive a grade in the class. The data is used for the students who have IEPs, but not all students have one. The students have been made aware that they do not receive a grade which may result in a poor attitude and an attitude of not caring. Another reason may be that many of the students are succeeding in this intervention period and will most likely be in the tier 2 group next marking period. The students who are succeeding often have mastered the content they are receiving remediation in and finish their work prior to other students who may really need the remediation. This is the time when the joking around and the talking begins to happen which distracts the other students who are working and trying to learn.
I need to really sit down and evaluate the students’ attitudes towards the class and try to come up with some solutions to try to guide the students to take this class more seriously and realize it really is important.
One Response:
You posit a fundamental teaching / learning question. Reading your reflection makes me realize that whereas you have all the components of potential learning environment, actual learning still eludes the students. Which, said another way, actual teaching still eludes the teacher. Your third paragraph that begins with the question, “so what would be the reasoning for their poor attitudes towards the grades?”, contains the answers to your question.
ATTITUDES
The students “view this class as a free period or waste of time” and you are looking for the cause of “the reasoning for their poor attitudes towards this class”. My first response is to look at the problem as the reason. The class is a free period as defined by institutional expectations. Think of school as a culture. The culture is that nothing worthwhile or important is ungraded. There are examples of ungraded activities that have intense student interest and commitment.
Sports, for example, are self selected and chosen by the student. They opt in and out based on individual control and autonomy (choice). The consequences of being in or being out are a complex set of social, cultural, and psychological factors ranging from achievement to belonging.
“…how fully they are psychologically present during particular moments of role performances. People can use varying degrees of their selves, physically, cognitively, and emotionally, in the roles they perform, even as they maintain the integrity of the boundaries between who they are and the roles they occupy. Presumably, the more people draw on their selves to perform their roles within those boundaries, the more stirring their performances and the more content they are with the fit of the costumes they don.” (Kahn 1990, pg 692)
When Kahn says “the more stirring their performance” he is referring to what we measure in education as behavioral compliance, grades and test scores. What we do not measure and is the key to engagement (and therefore learning) is what Kahn refers to as a person being “content”.
Sports represents only one category of a plethora of options that is part of the genre personal engagement. Authentic, student driven personal engagement causes the student to be content in their role and thus perform at high levels. The key to this performance and contentment are the processes of internalization. In this scenario one can compare your students performance and behavior with the same students performance and behavior in the graded courses. It is likely that the main differences would center on observable attending behavior and earned grades. These measurements originate from the theories of Behaviorism and interpret knowledge as a repertoire of observable behaviors (Theories of learning, UC Berkeley). Although the behavior (observable attending) is different there cannot be an assumption of a difference in learning. Students have been taught to appear to be attending while not actually doing so.
Recent research on the Engaged Learner Index (Schreiner, 2008) measures and influences environments as it relates to students performance in critical thinking skills, interaction and satisfaction. The major premise of Schreiners (2008) theory is that people are more likely to be authentically motivated when an activity or task meets three of their most basic human needs: their needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Students’ need for relatedness can be supported by learning environments that foster a sense of community (Schreiner, 2008). A sense of community is comprised of four key elements: (1) membership, or a sense of belonging; (2) ownership, or a sense of voice and contribution; (3) relationship, or emotional connections with others in the community; and (4) partnership, or an interdependence in working toward mutual goals (Schreiner, 1998). Note that grade acquisition is absent from the basic human needs and are not listed as indicators of learning.
In short the students will take the class more seriously when the class is more serious. No amount of manipulating will convince them that time spent on tasks they either know or have no reason to know is anything but a waste of time. Perhaps the students are performing a coherent analysis of the class period and have created a dramatic representation of the analysis in lieu of a written report. A joke for a joke may be an appropriate title.
I offer this reflective response with respect for the teacher and a deep understanding for the forces operating in educational structures.
References:
Kahn, William (1990) Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work(pp. 692-724) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/256287 The Academy of Management Journal >
Vol. 33, No. 4, Dec., 1990
Newmann, F. (1992) Student Engagement and Achievement in American Secondary Schools. Teachers College Press. pp. 2–3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_engagement
Schreiner, L., & Louis, M. (2008, November). The Engaged Learning Index: Implications for faculty development. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the
Study of Higher Education, Jacksonville, FL.
http://gsi.berkeley.edu/teachingguide/theories/behaviorism.html
So far in my placement I have had to deal with a few challenges. One challenge would be the attitude of the students towards the class I teach. As I have stated in previous reflections, the period I teach is a tier 3 RtII class referred to as intervention. Every student in the school has an intervention period after their lunch. Some students go to social studies or science intervention as enrichment. Other students go to a regular math or reading class for their intervention to touch base on content that will be on the standardized tests. Other students, like mine, go to a math or reading intervention to review previous topics they have learned and need some extra practice and instruction in.
The students in my class often view this class as a free period or waste of time. Many joke around the entire period and do not take the content seriously. I know they do not act this way in their other math class because I see many of them throughout the day in my co-teaching periods.
So what would be the reasoning for their poor attitudes towards the class? The students in the intervention do not receive a grade in the class. The data is used for the students who have IEPs, but not all students have one. The students have been made aware that they do not receive a grade which may result in a poor attitude and an attitude of not caring. Another reason may be that many of the students are succeeding in this intervention period and will most likely be in the tier 2 group next marking period. The students who are succeeding often have mastered the content they are receiving remediation in and finish their work prior to other students who may really need the remediation. This is the time when the joking around and the talking begins to happen which distracts the other students who are working and trying to learn.
I need to really sit down and evaluate the students’ attitudes towards the class and try to come up with some solutions to try to guide the students to take this class more seriously and realize it really is important.
One Response:
You posit a fundamental teaching / learning question. Reading your reflection makes me realize that whereas you have all the components of potential learning environment, actual learning still eludes the students. Which, said another way, actual teaching still eludes the teacher. Your third paragraph that begins with the question, “so what would be the reasoning for their poor attitudes towards the grades?”, contains the answers to your question.
ATTITUDES
The students “view this class as a free period or waste of time” and you are looking for the cause of “the reasoning for their poor attitudes towards this class”. My first response is to look at the problem as the reason. The class is a free period as defined by institutional expectations. Think of school as a culture. The culture is that nothing worthwhile or important is ungraded. There are examples of ungraded activities that have intense student interest and commitment.
Sports, for example, are self selected and chosen by the student. They opt in and out based on individual control and autonomy (choice). The consequences of being in or being out are a complex set of social, cultural, and psychological factors ranging from achievement to belonging.
“…how fully they are psychologically present during particular moments of role performances. People can use varying degrees of their selves, physically, cognitively, and emotionally, in the roles they perform, even as they maintain the integrity of the boundaries between who they are and the roles they occupy. Presumably, the more people draw on their selves to perform their roles within those boundaries, the more stirring their performances and the more content they are with the fit of the costumes they don.” (Kahn 1990, pg 692)
When Kahn says “the more stirring their performance” he is referring to what we measure in education as behavioral compliance, grades and test scores. What we do not measure and is the key to engagement (and therefore learning) is what Kahn refers to as a person being “content”.
Sports represents only one category of a plethora of options that is part of the genre personal engagement. Authentic, student driven personal engagement causes the student to be content in their role and thus perform at high levels. The key to this performance and contentment are the processes of internalization. In this scenario one can compare your students performance and behavior with the same students performance and behavior in the graded courses. It is likely that the main differences would center on observable attending behavior and earned grades. These measurements originate from the theories of Behaviorism and interpret knowledge as a repertoire of observable behaviors (Theories of learning, UC Berkeley). Although the behavior (observable attending) is different there cannot be an assumption of a difference in learning. Students have been taught to appear to be attending while not actually doing so.
Recent research on the Engaged Learner Index (Schreiner, 2008) measures and influences environments as it relates to students performance in critical thinking skills, interaction and satisfaction. The major premise of Schreiners (2008) theory is that people are more likely to be authentically motivated when an activity or task meets three of their most basic human needs: their needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Students’ need for relatedness can be supported by learning environments that foster a sense of community (Schreiner, 2008). A sense of community is comprised of four key elements: (1) membership, or a sense of belonging; (2) ownership, or a sense of voice and contribution; (3) relationship, or emotional connections with others in the community; and (4) partnership, or an interdependence in working toward mutual goals (Schreiner, 1998). Note that grade acquisition is absent from the basic human needs and are not listed as indicators of learning.
In short the students will take the class more seriously when the class is more serious. No amount of manipulating will convince them that time spent on tasks they either know or have no reason to know is anything but a waste of time. Perhaps the students are performing a coherent analysis of the class period and have created a dramatic representation of the analysis in lieu of a written report. A joke for a joke may be an appropriate title.
I offer this reflective response with respect for the teacher and a deep understanding for the forces operating in educational structures.
References:
Kahn, William (1990) Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work(pp. 692-724) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/256287 The Academy of Management Journal >
Vol. 33, No. 4, Dec., 1990
Newmann, F. (1992) Student Engagement and Achievement in American Secondary Schools. Teachers College Press. pp. 2–3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_engagement
Schreiner, L., & Louis, M. (2008, November). The Engaged Learning Index: Implications for faculty development. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Association for the
Study of Higher Education, Jacksonville, FL.
http://gsi.berkeley.edu/teachingguide/theories/behaviorism.html
Monday, October 24, 2011
Teaching in Numbers; Economy of Disability in Teacher Preparation.
I do not like having to give students a failing grade even if they have earned it. For many years I took moral and professional pride in being able to adjust the learning environment with students in ways that caused all comers to access the materials and lessons. My son has aided me in what may be thought of as a universal teacher. What I learned from my son as I helped him negotiate the special education system and clean his room was that being with him while he was completing a task was both time consuming and effective. The time spent in analysis of how he was functioning allowed me to relate as a role model and adjust the environment for success. This process in educational terms is to create a Functional Behavior Analysis in typical settings (Skinner 2009) and requires significant focus on parent / child or teacher / learner relationship in order to develop the learning environment or climate (Mitchell, 2010). The purpose of this article is to increase retention for teacher candidates with disabilities. Current teachers with learning disabilities come to the profession with a distinct advantage in causing proficiency for students with learning disabilities. The teacher candidate with a learning disability is more likely to draw from personal experience while internalizing the cultural and professional discussions impacting learning methodology (Ferri 2005).
After three decades of working with and for people with disabilities I knew I had acquired the habits of advocacy, accommodation and accessibility, which make up the fundamentals of universal Design for Learning (Edyburn, 2010). I made efficient and effective use of the fundamentals by engaging in close professional relationship with each student in order to shape interactions and attitudes. This combination caused an increase in academic performance and classroom climate (Mitchell 2010). As a teacher who applied personal skills to shape interactions and model professional methods of climate building I experienced high rates of academic achievement in course participants. Even with the rigor of community service, complex reading and research papers as product few students failed during a 10-year period. Making use of learner’s tendency to learn from and model after the teacher who is a personal teacher (timmerman 2009) I was able to meet with success even with the most unique learner.
One critical resource in the approaches I developed is time (Skinner 2009) and may be impacted depending on the number of students in the course. A secondary factor may be the number of competencies intended to develop in each student in each course. My focus in this article is not to discuss the tendencies of higher education to increase class size but to take a look at the student with learning disabilities in relation to my experiences in serving them as they engage and learn from course material.
As class size increases I am less able to apply the skills of a personal teacher (Timmerman 2009) or create student-centered analysis within the learning community (Skinner 2009). An associated question is the student’s capacity to engage me, the teacher, as their school experience involves increased numbers of peers and expected competencies. In essence it becomes easier for each student to get lost. This is especially true for students with specific learning support needs. An anecdotal survey of three courses reveals the number of students with identified learning disabilities is significantly higher in the certification related education courses (15%) as opposed to the general education elective (5%). Calculating a simple average for two required special education courses over 5 semesters the following data is revealed. When comparing class size of less than thirty (16 – 29) participants vs. greater than or equal to thirty (30 – 38) participants there is approximately a 100% increase in failure rate. When comparing class size of less than 35 (16 – 34) participants vs. greater than or equal to 35 (35 – 38) participants there is approximately a 250% increase in failure rate. The number of courses and participants is small enough that one would expect the statistics to be not statistically relevant. However the data is useful in calling for more research. The question is to compare class size to retention as it applies to teacher preparation programs for students with identified learning disabilities.
New teacher certifications in our state have lead the Department of Special Education to create a new certification curriculum. In many ways this has given us the opportunity to improve and update what is delivered to teacher candidates. In the foundational courses that are the subject of this inquiry it has resulted in a 300% increase in number of identified competencies embedded in one course. In the past teacher candidates experienced three courses that generally fall into the category of introductory and foundational. The new curriculum does not afford the extra credits and has teacher candidates arriving at an educational foundation course as their first experience with special education. The 300% increase in competencies may account for some of the failure rate. Comparing the two courses the class size average is about equal (29.17% vs 30.66%). The failure rate reveals an increase of approximately 133% with the course in the new curriculum showing the higher failure rate. I bring this into the discussion in for transparency. I suspect the two factors; class size and number of competencies impact the teacher candidates more complexly than a simple sum. However, factoring out the increase in competencies the effects of class size continues to reveal an increase of approximately 120% in failure rate. A secondary inquiry suggested to considering the complexities and organization of individual course competencies as it applies to retention of teacher candidates with learning disabilities.
Solutions Driven by Student Need / A modest proposal for restructuring the higher education experience.
The question; what methods will build excellence into the learning experience while taking advantage of the large class size and considering a diverse mix of learning styles considering today’s social, cultural and economic variables? It is possible that Grace Lee Boggs (2011) is correct when she notes that schools have treated learning and students like products of a factory aimed at satisfying the needs of the industrial age. The more than one hundred years of factory schools may have developed blind spots in the actions and thinking of well intentioned educators. As educators we may be unaware of the place from which our attention and intention originate (Scharmer 2007). With more expected in a shorter amount of time with heavy reliance on past practice while ignoring the contributions of the learners as teachers, it is quite likely that the problem is not simply more learners in the room. An increase in class size may be the straw that broke the camels back. Many learners all learning together may be a beacon shining on a larger need. Students are crying out for an education that delivers opportunities to exercise creative energies because “it values them as whole human beings” (Boggs, 2011 pg. 49).
I asked my son what would be the strategies of a high performance leaning environment that capitalized on the thinking and behavioral patterns of a learner with ADD. If subjects where combined into practical workshops with reading, writing, reflection, research and so forth being done during the workshop that would be both exciting and focused. His answer caused me to envision a learning day that was built around a nine-hour workshop. Perhaps two 3-credit courses are combined for mutual support and application that is both deep and wide. The dominant methods are founded on peer tutoring and Universal Design for Learning.
The term universal design for learning means a scientifically valid framework for guiding educational practice that - (A) provides flexibility in the ways information is presented, in the ways students respond or demonstrate knowledge and skills, and in the ways students are engaged; and (B) reduces barriers in instruction, provides appropriate accommodations, supports, and challenges, and maintains high achievement expectations for all students, including students with disabilities and students who are limited English proficient (Edyburn 2010 Pg 34).
Peer tutoring in Higher Education is shown to be an effective and efficient tool, which results in student learning and empowerment (Colvin, 2007). The key in the context of this paper is the elimination of traditional hierarchical structures (Colvin 2007). The concept and process of students educating one another turns an over populated classroom into a classroom with many teachers with high motivation to learn. The workshop-scheduling concept, as thought of in this paper, has five main guidelines.
1) Focused significant time frames of practical and productive learning,
2) Workshop type scheduling that incorporates information giving, information sharing, student cohort work, and multiple products of choice which evidence mastery,
3) Learning that relies on the emergent future (Scharmer 2007).
4) All products are produced during workshop-scheduled time and/or as part of filed experience responsibilities.
5) Self-assessment (Taras, 2010) is a strong component as a means of learning, instruction and collaborative (learner and instructor) grading.
The literature review, assumptions and suggestions detailed in this paper are reflective of the need to let go of the old body of institutionalized behavior. Educators as students and students as educators will drive us to operate from the possible future and keep us out of the muck of the past (Scharmer 2007).
References
Boggs, Grace Lee (2011). The next American Revolution; Sustainable Activism for the twenty-First century. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Colvin, Janet ( 2007) Peer Tutoring and Social dynamics in higher education. Mentoring & Tutoring Vol 15, No2, May 2007, pp 165-181, Routledge.
Edyburn, D. L. (2010). Would You Recognize Universal Design For Learning If You Saw It? Ten Propositions For New Directions For The Second Decade Of UDL. Learning Disability Quarterly, 33(1), 33-41. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Ferri, B., Connor, D., Solis, S., Valle, J., & Volpitta, D. (2005). Teachers with LD: ongoing negotiations with discourses of disability. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 38(1), 62-78. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Mitchell, M., Bradshaw, C., & Leaf, P. (2010). Student and teacher perceptions of school climate: a multilevel exploration of patterns of discrepancy. Journal of School Health, 80(6), 271-279. doi:10.1111/j.1746-1561.2010.00501.x
Scharmer, C. Otto (2007) Theroy U; leading from the Future as it Emerges. SOL, Cambridge, MA.
Skinner, J. N., Veerkamp, M. B., Kamps, D. M., & Andra, P. R. (2009). Teacher and Peer Participation in Functional Analysis and Intervention for a First Grade Student with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Education & Treatment of Children, 32(2), 243-266. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Taras, Maddalena (2010) Student Self-assessment: processes and consequnces. Teaching in Higher education, Vol 15, No2, April 2010, 199-209.
Timmerman, G. (2009). Teacher educators modelling their teachers?. European Journal of Teacher Education, 32(3), 225-238. doi:10.1080/02619760902756020
After three decades of working with and for people with disabilities I knew I had acquired the habits of advocacy, accommodation and accessibility, which make up the fundamentals of universal Design for Learning (Edyburn, 2010). I made efficient and effective use of the fundamentals by engaging in close professional relationship with each student in order to shape interactions and attitudes. This combination caused an increase in academic performance and classroom climate (Mitchell 2010). As a teacher who applied personal skills to shape interactions and model professional methods of climate building I experienced high rates of academic achievement in course participants. Even with the rigor of community service, complex reading and research papers as product few students failed during a 10-year period. Making use of learner’s tendency to learn from and model after the teacher who is a personal teacher (timmerman 2009) I was able to meet with success even with the most unique learner.
One critical resource in the approaches I developed is time (Skinner 2009) and may be impacted depending on the number of students in the course. A secondary factor may be the number of competencies intended to develop in each student in each course. My focus in this article is not to discuss the tendencies of higher education to increase class size but to take a look at the student with learning disabilities in relation to my experiences in serving them as they engage and learn from course material.
As class size increases I am less able to apply the skills of a personal teacher (Timmerman 2009) or create student-centered analysis within the learning community (Skinner 2009). An associated question is the student’s capacity to engage me, the teacher, as their school experience involves increased numbers of peers and expected competencies. In essence it becomes easier for each student to get lost. This is especially true for students with specific learning support needs. An anecdotal survey of three courses reveals the number of students with identified learning disabilities is significantly higher in the certification related education courses (15%) as opposed to the general education elective (5%). Calculating a simple average for two required special education courses over 5 semesters the following data is revealed. When comparing class size of less than thirty (16 – 29) participants vs. greater than or equal to thirty (30 – 38) participants there is approximately a 100% increase in failure rate. When comparing class size of less than 35 (16 – 34) participants vs. greater than or equal to 35 (35 – 38) participants there is approximately a 250% increase in failure rate. The number of courses and participants is small enough that one would expect the statistics to be not statistically relevant. However the data is useful in calling for more research. The question is to compare class size to retention as it applies to teacher preparation programs for students with identified learning disabilities.
New teacher certifications in our state have lead the Department of Special Education to create a new certification curriculum. In many ways this has given us the opportunity to improve and update what is delivered to teacher candidates. In the foundational courses that are the subject of this inquiry it has resulted in a 300% increase in number of identified competencies embedded in one course. In the past teacher candidates experienced three courses that generally fall into the category of introductory and foundational. The new curriculum does not afford the extra credits and has teacher candidates arriving at an educational foundation course as their first experience with special education. The 300% increase in competencies may account for some of the failure rate. Comparing the two courses the class size average is about equal (29.17% vs 30.66%). The failure rate reveals an increase of approximately 133% with the course in the new curriculum showing the higher failure rate. I bring this into the discussion in for transparency. I suspect the two factors; class size and number of competencies impact the teacher candidates more complexly than a simple sum. However, factoring out the increase in competencies the effects of class size continues to reveal an increase of approximately 120% in failure rate. A secondary inquiry suggested to considering the complexities and organization of individual course competencies as it applies to retention of teacher candidates with learning disabilities.
Solutions Driven by Student Need / A modest proposal for restructuring the higher education experience.
The question; what methods will build excellence into the learning experience while taking advantage of the large class size and considering a diverse mix of learning styles considering today’s social, cultural and economic variables? It is possible that Grace Lee Boggs (2011) is correct when she notes that schools have treated learning and students like products of a factory aimed at satisfying the needs of the industrial age. The more than one hundred years of factory schools may have developed blind spots in the actions and thinking of well intentioned educators. As educators we may be unaware of the place from which our attention and intention originate (Scharmer 2007). With more expected in a shorter amount of time with heavy reliance on past practice while ignoring the contributions of the learners as teachers, it is quite likely that the problem is not simply more learners in the room. An increase in class size may be the straw that broke the camels back. Many learners all learning together may be a beacon shining on a larger need. Students are crying out for an education that delivers opportunities to exercise creative energies because “it values them as whole human beings” (Boggs, 2011 pg. 49).
I asked my son what would be the strategies of a high performance leaning environment that capitalized on the thinking and behavioral patterns of a learner with ADD. If subjects where combined into practical workshops with reading, writing, reflection, research and so forth being done during the workshop that would be both exciting and focused. His answer caused me to envision a learning day that was built around a nine-hour workshop. Perhaps two 3-credit courses are combined for mutual support and application that is both deep and wide. The dominant methods are founded on peer tutoring and Universal Design for Learning.
The term universal design for learning means a scientifically valid framework for guiding educational practice that - (A) provides flexibility in the ways information is presented, in the ways students respond or demonstrate knowledge and skills, and in the ways students are engaged; and (B) reduces barriers in instruction, provides appropriate accommodations, supports, and challenges, and maintains high achievement expectations for all students, including students with disabilities and students who are limited English proficient (Edyburn 2010 Pg 34).
Peer tutoring in Higher Education is shown to be an effective and efficient tool, which results in student learning and empowerment (Colvin, 2007). The key in the context of this paper is the elimination of traditional hierarchical structures (Colvin 2007). The concept and process of students educating one another turns an over populated classroom into a classroom with many teachers with high motivation to learn. The workshop-scheduling concept, as thought of in this paper, has five main guidelines.
1) Focused significant time frames of practical and productive learning,
2) Workshop type scheduling that incorporates information giving, information sharing, student cohort work, and multiple products of choice which evidence mastery,
3) Learning that relies on the emergent future (Scharmer 2007).
4) All products are produced during workshop-scheduled time and/or as part of filed experience responsibilities.
5) Self-assessment (Taras, 2010) is a strong component as a means of learning, instruction and collaborative (learner and instructor) grading.
The literature review, assumptions and suggestions detailed in this paper are reflective of the need to let go of the old body of institutionalized behavior. Educators as students and students as educators will drive us to operate from the possible future and keep us out of the muck of the past (Scharmer 2007).
References
Boggs, Grace Lee (2011). The next American Revolution; Sustainable Activism for the twenty-First century. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
Colvin, Janet ( 2007) Peer Tutoring and Social dynamics in higher education. Mentoring & Tutoring Vol 15, No2, May 2007, pp 165-181, Routledge.
Edyburn, D. L. (2010). Would You Recognize Universal Design For Learning If You Saw It? Ten Propositions For New Directions For The Second Decade Of UDL. Learning Disability Quarterly, 33(1), 33-41. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Ferri, B., Connor, D., Solis, S., Valle, J., & Volpitta, D. (2005). Teachers with LD: ongoing negotiations with discourses of disability. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 38(1), 62-78. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Mitchell, M., Bradshaw, C., & Leaf, P. (2010). Student and teacher perceptions of school climate: a multilevel exploration of patterns of discrepancy. Journal of School Health, 80(6), 271-279. doi:10.1111/j.1746-1561.2010.00501.x
Scharmer, C. Otto (2007) Theroy U; leading from the Future as it Emerges. SOL, Cambridge, MA.
Skinner, J. N., Veerkamp, M. B., Kamps, D. M., & Andra, P. R. (2009). Teacher and Peer Participation in Functional Analysis and Intervention for a First Grade Student with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Education & Treatment of Children, 32(2), 243-266. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.
Taras, Maddalena (2010) Student Self-assessment: processes and consequnces. Teaching in Higher education, Vol 15, No2, April 2010, 199-209.
Timmerman, G. (2009). Teacher educators modelling their teachers?. European Journal of Teacher Education, 32(3), 225-238. doi:10.1080/02619760902756020
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Teacher Accountability Not Found in Standardized Testing
Teacher Accountability Not Standardized
We are marching toward a state of standardized testing that is used for what we think we know about our children and the nation’s teachers. A solid regime of standardized testing used in isolation will result in children who do not know and teachers who do not know that the children do not know. When teaching to the test, is the driving fetish the old maxim “you pretend to learn, and I’ll pretend to teach” institutionalized? The question that perplexes me, if our lawmakers, supported by wealthy donors, are sure that the only path is reductionist standardized testing, why do they send their children to private schools that do not rely on standardized testing? What causes those of us (I send my children to private schools) who send our children to private schools to trust the competence and accountability of teachers without standardized test results as a measurement of merit? The answers lie in three focus areas. One centers on a common body of core values. The second is founded on high levels of competence in teachers, and the third is grounded in profound governance and school sponsorship.
According to the data posted by the Council for American Private Education (http://www.capenet.org/facts.html), 10 percent of all students in the United States are attending private schools. About the same amount of families (12 percent) with incomes of $75,000 and over have their children in private schools. The imbalance comes in with lawmakers. According to the Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org), 40 percent of the members of the House of Representatives and 49 percent of the Senate send or have sent at least one child to a private school. The numbers are even higher for those members of Congress who serve on committees with jurisdiction over education issues. A review of the literature reveals about the same numbers in the state houses. These numbers make me think that while lawmakers are passing a set of laws for public schools, they apply different strategies for the teachers and standards at the private schools with which they associate. What do they know that is not or cannot be reflected in laws, policies and regulations? What drives the teachers of their children to have the vision to consistently perform above standard?
Values
“Professor John Coons states that private schools don't make the pretense of being value free. To the contrary, the majority of private schools are voluntary communities whose members share a core body of highly visible values.” http://www.capso.org/resources/ccpsa.html
Values are the first ingredient of the ecological school structure. The overriding assumption in each private school is that each school must be treated as a unified and individual institution. Private schools tend to shy away from standardized testing because it often conflicts with core values, such as promoting individuality and aiding multifaceted development (http://people.howstuffworks.com/private-schools5.htm). In general, public school students are much more likely to submit to annual testing than students who attend private schools not because reasonable adults believe it will reveal what the children know and how the teachers are performing, but because we have failed to create a unified and transparent set of values. The driving forces of most learning and intrinsic motivation goes underground absent the unification and transparency of the schools’ values. When communities and institutions trade individuality and multifaceted development for standardized testing, the school ecology goes fallow. Holding teachers accountable to the single measurement of the standardized test makes us all pretend to sleep better at night.
Competent teaching professional
So the question is how does the well-resourced family, sending their children to private school, know if the children are learning and if the teachers are performing? Many private schools reject traditional grading entirely and would not entertain assessing standardized test scores in order to understand teacher competence and performance (http://people.howstuffworks.com/private-schools5.htm). At a time when test scores are seen by some as the ultimate measure of attainment, the accountability of private schools for student achievement, teacher quality and school success cannot be addressed by standardized testing alone or any single scale of measurement (http://www.capenet.org/accountability.html). Current research identifies subject matter competence, a high degree of verbal skill and significant intellectual competence as stronger correlates of teacher quality (http://www.capso.org/resources/ccpsa.html). Engagement, continual study and teaching in an educational setting that nurtures mutuality in learning will assure teacher quality and demonstrate strong student outcomes. Engagement is the first and strongest of these three. Engagement with the children and the community as a whole builds deep competence. Mutuality is a critical component in the strategies of engagement.
Governance and school sponsors
Who serves on the school board and what they focus on are key factors of teacher performance. Another is how people in the community are engaged with the school. How are typical citizens called to vouch for and take responsibility for school ecology?
The performance of private schools is continually assessed in a Participatory Action process (http://epx.sagepub.com/content/25/3/488.abstract), which calls for engagement of the Board and the sponsoring publics. The two sectors, school board and citizen action groups, are overseers of each school and each teacher. The combination of working with and for causes a pattern of continual improvement.
However, today’s school board members appear not to be as interested in the issues that many policy observers deem to be on the cutting edge of school reform (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/02/03/20schoolboards.h30.html). School boards are often concerned first with budget and facilities and second with curriculum. Curriculum is many times thought of as the sole business of the administration. Each policy created, action taken, plan written and budget designed must be done through the lens of curriculum. An authentic collaboration between a continually learning board and an increasingly influential local citizenry brings decisions in line with curriculum and teachers known for their competencies.
Conclusion
The three pillars of values, professional competence and governance are the supports for teacher evaluation and accountability. Collaborative actions from school picnics to team teaching implement the three pillars in ways that strengthen relationships and what we know of each other. Building the collective ecology that is called for will result in times of celebration and times of struggle. The entire spectrum of struggle to celebration is required to institutionalize teacher accountability. A vision is generated that becomes the new and evolving community standard. Without this vision, the children and the future will surely perish. We are left then only with implementing rules and low-level regulatory guidelines such as judging teacher performance by standardized test results.
We are marching toward a state of standardized testing that is used for what we think we know about our children and the nation’s teachers. A solid regime of standardized testing used in isolation will result in children who do not know and teachers who do not know that the children do not know. When teaching to the test, is the driving fetish the old maxim “you pretend to learn, and I’ll pretend to teach” institutionalized? The question that perplexes me, if our lawmakers, supported by wealthy donors, are sure that the only path is reductionist standardized testing, why do they send their children to private schools that do not rely on standardized testing? What causes those of us (I send my children to private schools) who send our children to private schools to trust the competence and accountability of teachers without standardized test results as a measurement of merit? The answers lie in three focus areas. One centers on a common body of core values. The second is founded on high levels of competence in teachers, and the third is grounded in profound governance and school sponsorship.
According to the data posted by the Council for American Private Education (http://www.capenet.org/facts.html), 10 percent of all students in the United States are attending private schools. About the same amount of families (12 percent) with incomes of $75,000 and over have their children in private schools. The imbalance comes in with lawmakers. According to the Heritage Foundation (http://www.heritage.org), 40 percent of the members of the House of Representatives and 49 percent of the Senate send or have sent at least one child to a private school. The numbers are even higher for those members of Congress who serve on committees with jurisdiction over education issues. A review of the literature reveals about the same numbers in the state houses. These numbers make me think that while lawmakers are passing a set of laws for public schools, they apply different strategies for the teachers and standards at the private schools with which they associate. What do they know that is not or cannot be reflected in laws, policies and regulations? What drives the teachers of their children to have the vision to consistently perform above standard?
Values
“Professor John Coons states that private schools don't make the pretense of being value free. To the contrary, the majority of private schools are voluntary communities whose members share a core body of highly visible values.” http://www.capso.org/resources/ccpsa.html
Values are the first ingredient of the ecological school structure. The overriding assumption in each private school is that each school must be treated as a unified and individual institution. Private schools tend to shy away from standardized testing because it often conflicts with core values, such as promoting individuality and aiding multifaceted development (http://people.howstuffworks.com/private-schools5.htm). In general, public school students are much more likely to submit to annual testing than students who attend private schools not because reasonable adults believe it will reveal what the children know and how the teachers are performing, but because we have failed to create a unified and transparent set of values. The driving forces of most learning and intrinsic motivation goes underground absent the unification and transparency of the schools’ values. When communities and institutions trade individuality and multifaceted development for standardized testing, the school ecology goes fallow. Holding teachers accountable to the single measurement of the standardized test makes us all pretend to sleep better at night.
Competent teaching professional
So the question is how does the well-resourced family, sending their children to private school, know if the children are learning and if the teachers are performing? Many private schools reject traditional grading entirely and would not entertain assessing standardized test scores in order to understand teacher competence and performance (http://people.howstuffworks.com/private-schools5.htm). At a time when test scores are seen by some as the ultimate measure of attainment, the accountability of private schools for student achievement, teacher quality and school success cannot be addressed by standardized testing alone or any single scale of measurement (http://www.capenet.org/accountability.html). Current research identifies subject matter competence, a high degree of verbal skill and significant intellectual competence as stronger correlates of teacher quality (http://www.capso.org/resources/ccpsa.html). Engagement, continual study and teaching in an educational setting that nurtures mutuality in learning will assure teacher quality and demonstrate strong student outcomes. Engagement is the first and strongest of these three. Engagement with the children and the community as a whole builds deep competence. Mutuality is a critical component in the strategies of engagement.
Governance and school sponsors
Who serves on the school board and what they focus on are key factors of teacher performance. Another is how people in the community are engaged with the school. How are typical citizens called to vouch for and take responsibility for school ecology?
The performance of private schools is continually assessed in a Participatory Action process (http://epx.sagepub.com/content/25/3/488.abstract), which calls for engagement of the Board and the sponsoring publics. The two sectors, school board and citizen action groups, are overseers of each school and each teacher. The combination of working with and for causes a pattern of continual improvement.
However, today’s school board members appear not to be as interested in the issues that many policy observers deem to be on the cutting edge of school reform (http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/02/03/20schoolboards.h30.html). School boards are often concerned first with budget and facilities and second with curriculum. Curriculum is many times thought of as the sole business of the administration. Each policy created, action taken, plan written and budget designed must be done through the lens of curriculum. An authentic collaboration between a continually learning board and an increasingly influential local citizenry brings decisions in line with curriculum and teachers known for their competencies.
Conclusion
The three pillars of values, professional competence and governance are the supports for teacher evaluation and accountability. Collaborative actions from school picnics to team teaching implement the three pillars in ways that strengthen relationships and what we know of each other. Building the collective ecology that is called for will result in times of celebration and times of struggle. The entire spectrum of struggle to celebration is required to institutionalize teacher accountability. A vision is generated that becomes the new and evolving community standard. Without this vision, the children and the future will surely perish. We are left then only with implementing rules and low-level regulatory guidelines such as judging teacher performance by standardized test results.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Followership
I am starting to think about the subject and behavior of followership. A workshop is scheduled for the end of the month and I like to engage in significant free-thought prior to researching and gathering the work of others. Warren Bennis has done a great deal of work as have other thoughtful people so I certainly cannot take credit for the concept. Perhaps the current thinkers cannot take full credit either as the disciples focused on being good followers over 2000 years ago and Attila the Hun inspired great followers as well.
The first layer of thinking comes in the form of skills or behaviors consistent with adhering to the voice or intent of the leader. One assumes at this point that there has been a voluntary choice to follow a particular person, dogma, method and so forth. The non-voluntary type of follower enters into a dialogue of survival and that is for a later reflection. A few skills associated with voluntary follower-ship are; rigor, critical thinking, curiosity, inquiry, research capacity and community membership.
Rigor is required as a means of being true to the particular theory or personal intent. A certain accuracy or strictness to the thought, belief or person being followed is required in order to do good for what is being practiced. The rigor I suggest is not the sort of mindless rigor associated with a cult. The strictness is enveloped in a field of mindfulness (a practice added to good followers).
Critical thinking is a required skill developed by great followers. Likenleaders, followers come in all stages of development. A weak follower not practiced in the skill of critical thinking serves not the good outcome but serves to create problems never before thought of.
Curiosity, inquiry and research capacity are separate and intertwined skills that serve the follower to do good in ways not specifically imagined by the leader.
Community membership is required in order to perform the tasks of followership. In order to do good one must not exist in a vacuum.
The second level of followership is to understand the personal power of a Leading. The Quakers speak of this as a powerful force that can not be turned away from. This level of followership requires additional sets of skills.
The first layer of thinking comes in the form of skills or behaviors consistent with adhering to the voice or intent of the leader. One assumes at this point that there has been a voluntary choice to follow a particular person, dogma, method and so forth. The non-voluntary type of follower enters into a dialogue of survival and that is for a later reflection. A few skills associated with voluntary follower-ship are; rigor, critical thinking, curiosity, inquiry, research capacity and community membership.
Rigor is required as a means of being true to the particular theory or personal intent. A certain accuracy or strictness to the thought, belief or person being followed is required in order to do good for what is being practiced. The rigor I suggest is not the sort of mindless rigor associated with a cult. The strictness is enveloped in a field of mindfulness (a practice added to good followers).
Critical thinking is a required skill developed by great followers. Likenleaders, followers come in all stages of development. A weak follower not practiced in the skill of critical thinking serves not the good outcome but serves to create problems never before thought of.
Curiosity, inquiry and research capacity are separate and intertwined skills that serve the follower to do good in ways not specifically imagined by the leader.
Community membership is required in order to perform the tasks of followership. In order to do good one must not exist in a vacuum.
The second level of followership is to understand the personal power of a Leading. The Quakers speak of this as a powerful force that can not be turned away from. This level of followership requires additional sets of skills.
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