Education reform: Shorter week, more learning
More than 120 school districts across the U.S. are finding that less can be more — less being fewer days spent in school.»
May 8, 2011
The general assumption is that when it comes to educating American kids, more is more. Longer school hours. Saturday school. Summer school. Yet more than 120 school districts across the nation are finding that less can also be more — less being fewer days spent in school.
The four-day school week has been around for decades, according to the National Council of State Legislatures, but it's quietly spreading as a money-saving tactic, especially after several states — including Montana, Georgia, Missouri and Washington — passed legislation allowing school districts to make the switch as long as they lengthened each school day so that there was no reduction in instructional hours. Teachers work just as much under the four-day plan, so there are no cost reductions there, but schools have saved from 2% to 9%, according to a 2009 report by the Center for Education Policy at the University of Southern Maine. Utility and transportation costs are lower; there's no need to serve a fifth lunch each week; even the reduced wear and tear on buildings has helped.
Here's the surprise: There appear to be educational benefits as well. Absenteeism among students and teachers in these schools has fallen appreciably, the report said. (As a result, schools also paid less money for substitute teachers.) Students reported feeling more positive about school. Dropout rates fell, students behaved better and participation in extracurricular activities rose. Parents of young children often objected to the change because of the need to find childcare, but once the programs were in place, the report said, they often found that it was easier to find care for one full day a week than for several partial days. Test scores didn't fall, and in many cases, they rose.
As promising as all this sounds, the findings are far from definitive. The four-day week has been tried mostly in tiny, rural school districts. Providing the necessary childcare could be more of a challenge in urban areas. And despite the findings above, four-day schedules might turn out to be more helpful to high school students than children in primary grades, who have shorter attention spans. For those children, teachers said, it would help to schedule meatier academic subjects early in the day, but it still means the later hours are likely to be less academically productive.
Four-day school weeks aren't an educational panacea, but they are intriguing. Even in Los Angeles, there might be individual schools where such an arrangement would lower dropout rates and perhaps give teenage students an opportunity to find part-time jobs. Some teachers might prefer it too, which would be a way to provide a benefit without additional cost.
California has 10 or so school districts, all with fewer than 500 students, that use the four-day week. It takes a new law each time a school district wants to try it. The state could make that simpler, ideally by allowing a couple of hundred schools to try the new schedule in a pilot program, and checking on the results in a few years. Real reform requires schools to break the mold, to test new ideas; here's one that's worth a try.
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
Showing posts with label EDUCATION. Show all posts
Showing posts with label EDUCATION. Show all posts
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries
I like how the article explains the lack of respect, support, and money for teachers also has an impact in our educational system.
The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries
By DAVE EGGERS and NÍNIVE CLEMENTS CALEGARI
WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.
We have a rare chance now, with many teachers near retirement, to prove we’re serious about education. The first step is to make the teaching profession more attractive to college graduates. This will take some doing.
At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.
So how do teachers cope? Sixty-two percent work outside the classroom to make ends meet. For Erik Benner, an award-winning history teacher in Keller, Tex., money has been a constant struggle. He has two children, and for 15 years has been unable to support them on his salary. Every weekday, he goes directly from Trinity Springs Middle School to drive a forklift at Floor and Décor. He works until 11 every night, then gets up and starts all over again. Does this look like “A Plan,” either on the state or federal level?
We’ve been working with public school teachers for 10 years; every spring, we see many of the best teachers leave the profession. They’re mowed down by the long hours, low pay, the lack of support and respect.
Imagine a novice teacher, thrown into an urban school, told to teach five classes a day, with up to 40 students each. At the year’s end, if test scores haven’t risen enough, he or she is called a bad teacher. For college graduates who have other options, this kind of pressure, for such low pay, doesn’t make much sense. So every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the United States $7.34 billion yearly. The effect within schools — especially those in urban communities where turnover is highest — is devastating.
But we can reverse course. In the next 10 years, over half of the nation’s nearly 3.2 million public school teachers will become eligible for retirement. Who will replace them? How do we attract and keep the best minds in the profession?
People talk about accountability, measurements, tenure, test scores and pay for performance. These questions are worthy of debate, but are secondary to recruiting and training teachers and treating them fairly. There is no silver bullet that will fix every last school in America, but until we solve the problem of teacher turnover, we don’t have a chance.
Can we do better? Can we generate “A Plan”? Of course.
The consulting firm McKinsey recently examined how we might attract and retain a talented teaching force. The study compared the treatment of teachers here and in the three countries that perform best on standardized tests: Finland, Singapore and South Korea.
Turns out these countries have an entirely different approach to the profession. First, the governments in these countries recruit top graduates to the profession. (We don’t.) In Finland and Singapore they pay for training. (We don’t.) In terms of purchasing power, South Korea pays teachers on average 250 percent of what we do.
And most of all, they trust their teachers. They are rightly seen as the solution, not the problem, and when improvement is needed, the school receives support and development, not punishment. Accordingly, turnover in these countries is startlingly low: In South Korea, it’s 1 percent per year. In Finland, it’s 2 percent. In Singapore, 3 percent.
McKinsey polled 900 top-tier American college students and found that 68 percent would consider teaching if salaries started at $65,000 and rose to a minimum of $150,000. Could we do this? If we’re committed to “winning the future,” we should. If any administration is capable of tackling this, it’s the current one. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan understand the centrality of teachers and have said that improving our education system begins and ends with great teachers. But world-class education costs money.
For those who say, “How do we pay for this?” — well, how are we paying for three concurrent wars? How did we pay for the interstate highway system? Or the bailout of the savings and loans in 1989 and that of the investment banks in 2008? How did we pay for the equally ambitious project of sending Americans to the moon? We had the vision and we had the will and we found a way.
Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari are founders of the 826 National tutoring centers and producers of the documentary “American Teacher.”
The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries
By DAVE EGGERS and NÍNIVE CLEMENTS CALEGARI
WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.
And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.
We have a rare chance now, with many teachers near retirement, to prove we’re serious about education. The first step is to make the teaching profession more attractive to college graduates. This will take some doing.
At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.
So how do teachers cope? Sixty-two percent work outside the classroom to make ends meet. For Erik Benner, an award-winning history teacher in Keller, Tex., money has been a constant struggle. He has two children, and for 15 years has been unable to support them on his salary. Every weekday, he goes directly from Trinity Springs Middle School to drive a forklift at Floor and Décor. He works until 11 every night, then gets up and starts all over again. Does this look like “A Plan,” either on the state or federal level?
We’ve been working with public school teachers for 10 years; every spring, we see many of the best teachers leave the profession. They’re mowed down by the long hours, low pay, the lack of support and respect.
Imagine a novice teacher, thrown into an urban school, told to teach five classes a day, with up to 40 students each. At the year’s end, if test scores haven’t risen enough, he or she is called a bad teacher. For college graduates who have other options, this kind of pressure, for such low pay, doesn’t make much sense. So every year 20 percent of teachers in urban districts quit. Nationwide, 46 percent of teachers quit before their fifth year. The turnover costs the United States $7.34 billion yearly. The effect within schools — especially those in urban communities where turnover is highest — is devastating.
But we can reverse course. In the next 10 years, over half of the nation’s nearly 3.2 million public school teachers will become eligible for retirement. Who will replace them? How do we attract and keep the best minds in the profession?
People talk about accountability, measurements, tenure, test scores and pay for performance. These questions are worthy of debate, but are secondary to recruiting and training teachers and treating them fairly. There is no silver bullet that will fix every last school in America, but until we solve the problem of teacher turnover, we don’t have a chance.
Can we do better? Can we generate “A Plan”? Of course.
The consulting firm McKinsey recently examined how we might attract and retain a talented teaching force. The study compared the treatment of teachers here and in the three countries that perform best on standardized tests: Finland, Singapore and South Korea.
Turns out these countries have an entirely different approach to the profession. First, the governments in these countries recruit top graduates to the profession. (We don’t.) In Finland and Singapore they pay for training. (We don’t.) In terms of purchasing power, South Korea pays teachers on average 250 percent of what we do.
And most of all, they trust their teachers. They are rightly seen as the solution, not the problem, and when improvement is needed, the school receives support and development, not punishment. Accordingly, turnover in these countries is startlingly low: In South Korea, it’s 1 percent per year. In Finland, it’s 2 percent. In Singapore, 3 percent.
McKinsey polled 900 top-tier American college students and found that 68 percent would consider teaching if salaries started at $65,000 and rose to a minimum of $150,000. Could we do this? If we’re committed to “winning the future,” we should. If any administration is capable of tackling this, it’s the current one. President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan understand the centrality of teachers and have said that improving our education system begins and ends with great teachers. But world-class education costs money.
For those who say, “How do we pay for this?” — well, how are we paying for three concurrent wars? How did we pay for the interstate highway system? Or the bailout of the savings and loans in 1989 and that of the investment banks in 2008? How did we pay for the equally ambitious project of sending Americans to the moon? We had the vision and we had the will and we found a way.
Dave Eggers and Nínive Clements Calegari are founders of the 826 National tutoring centers and producers of the documentary “American Teacher.”
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Waiting for Superman? Not so Much.
"Waiting for Superman" presents a very biased view of education and charter schools. A colleague presented this article to me which shows a more neutral explanation of what's happening in education and what "Waiting for Superman" is not showing us.
Ordinarily, documentaries about education attract little attention, and seldom, if ever, reach neighborhood movie theaters. Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting for “Superman” is different. It arrived in late September with the biggest publicity splash I have ever seen for a documentary. Not only was it the subject of major stories in Time and New York, but it was featured twice on The Oprah Winfrey Show and was the centerpiece of several days of programming by NBC, including an interview with President Obama.
Two other films expounding the same arguments—The Lottery and The Cartel—were released in the late spring, but they received far less attention than Guggenheim’s film. His reputation as the director of the Academy Award–winning An Inconvenient Truth, about global warming, contributed to the anticipation surrounding Waiting for “Superman,” but the media frenzy suggested something more. Guggenheim presents the popularized version of an account of American public education that is promoted by some of the nation’s most powerful figures and institutions.
The message of these films has become alarmingly familiar: American public education is a failed enterprise. The problem is not money. Public schools already spend too much. Test scores are low because there are so many bad teachers, whose jobs are protected by powerful unions. Students drop out because the schools fail them, but they could accomplish practically anything if they were saved from bad teachers. They would get higher test scores if schools could fire more bad teachers and pay more to good ones. The only hope for the future of our society, especially for poor black and Hispanic children, is escape from public schools, especially to charter schools, which are mostly funded by the government but controlled by private organizations, many of them operating to make a profit.
The Cartel maintains that we must not only create more charter schools, but provide vouchers so that children can flee incompetent public schools and attend private schools. There, we are led to believe, teachers will be caring and highly skilled (unlike the lazy dullards in public schools); the schools will have high expectations and test scores will soar; and all children will succeed academically, regardless of their circumstances. The Lottery echoes the main story line of Waiting for “Superman”: it is about children who are desperate to avoid the New York City public schools and eager to win a spot in a shiny new charter school in Harlem.
The movie asserts a central thesis in today’s school reform discussion: the idea that teachers are the most important factor determining student achievement. But this proposition is false. Hanushek has released studies showing that teacher quality accounts for about 7.5–10 percent of student test score gains. Several other high-quality analyses echo this finding, and while estimates vary a bit, there is a relative consensus: teachers statistically account for around 10–20 percent of achievement outcomes. Teachers are the most important factor within schools.
But the same body of research shows that nonschool factors matter even more than teachers. According to University of Washington economist Dan Goldhaber, about 60 percent of achievement is explained by nonschool factors, such as family income. So while teachers are the most important factor within schools, their effects pale in comparison with those of students’ backgrounds, families, and other factors beyond the control of schools and teachers. Teachers can have a profound effect on students, but it would be foolish to believe that teachers alone can undo the damage caused by poverty and its associated burdens.
Guggenheim skirts the issue of poverty by showing only families that are intact and dedicated to helping their children succeed. One of the children he follows is raised by a doting grandmother; two have single mothers who are relentless in seeking better education for them; two of them live with a mother and father. Nothing is said about children whose families are not available, for whatever reason, to support them, or about children who are homeless, or children with special needs. Nor is there any reference to the many charter schools that enroll disproportionately small numbers of children who are English-language learners or have disabilities.
The film never acknowledges that charter schools were created mainly at the instigation of Albert Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1974 to 1997. Shanker had the idea in 1988 that a group of public school teachers would ask their colleagues for permission to create a small school that would focus on the neediest students, those who had dropped out and those who were disengaged from school and likely to drop out. He sold the idea as a way to open schools that would collaborate with public schools and help motivate disengaged students. In 1993, Shanker turned against the charter school idea when he realized that for-profit organizations saw it as a business opportunity and were advancing an agenda of school privatization. Michelle Rhee gained her teaching experience in Baltimore as an employee of Education Alternatives, Inc., one of the first of the for-profit operations.
It bears mentioning that nations with high-performing school systems—whether Korea, Singapore, Finland, or Japan—have succeeded not by privatizing their schools or closing those with low scores, but by strengthening the education profession. They also have less poverty than we do. Fewer than 5 percent of children in Finland live in poverty, as compared to 20 percent in the United States. Those who insist that poverty doesn’t matter, that only teachers matter, prefer to ignore such contrasts.
If we are serious about improving our schools, we will take steps to improve our teacher force, as Finland and other nations have done. That would mean better screening to select the best candidates, higher salaries, better support and mentoring systems, and better working conditions. Guggenheim complains that only one in 2,500 teachers loses his or her teaching certificate, but fails to mention that 50 percent of those who enter teaching leave within five years, mostly because of poor working conditions, lack of adequate resources, and the stress of dealing with difficult children and disrespectful parents. Some who leave “fire themselves”; others were fired before they got tenure. We should also insist that only highly experienced teachers become principals (the “head teacher” in the school), not retired businessmen and military personnel. Every school should have a curriculum that includes a full range of studies, not just basic skills. And if we really are intent on school improvement, we must reduce the appalling rates of child poverty that impede success in school and in life.
There is a clash of ideas occurring in education right now between those who believe that public education is not only a fundamental right but a vital public service, akin to the public provision of police, fire protection, parks, and public libraries, and those who believe that the private sector is always superior to the public sector. Waiting for “Superman” is a powerful weapon on behalf of those championing the “free market” and privatization. It raises important questions, but all of the answers it offers require a transfer of public funds to the private sector. The stock market crash of 2008 should suffice to remind us that the managers of the private sector do not have a monopoly on success.
Ordinarily, documentaries about education attract little attention, and seldom, if ever, reach neighborhood movie theaters. Davis Guggenheim’s Waiting for “Superman” is different. It arrived in late September with the biggest publicity splash I have ever seen for a documentary. Not only was it the subject of major stories in Time and New York, but it was featured twice on The Oprah Winfrey Show and was the centerpiece of several days of programming by NBC, including an interview with President Obama.
Two other films expounding the same arguments—The Lottery and The Cartel—were released in the late spring, but they received far less attention than Guggenheim’s film. His reputation as the director of the Academy Award–winning An Inconvenient Truth, about global warming, contributed to the anticipation surrounding Waiting for “Superman,” but the media frenzy suggested something more. Guggenheim presents the popularized version of an account of American public education that is promoted by some of the nation’s most powerful figures and institutions.
The message of these films has become alarmingly familiar: American public education is a failed enterprise. The problem is not money. Public schools already spend too much. Test scores are low because there are so many bad teachers, whose jobs are protected by powerful unions. Students drop out because the schools fail them, but they could accomplish practically anything if they were saved from bad teachers. They would get higher test scores if schools could fire more bad teachers and pay more to good ones. The only hope for the future of our society, especially for poor black and Hispanic children, is escape from public schools, especially to charter schools, which are mostly funded by the government but controlled by private organizations, many of them operating to make a profit.
The Cartel maintains that we must not only create more charter schools, but provide vouchers so that children can flee incompetent public schools and attend private schools. There, we are led to believe, teachers will be caring and highly skilled (unlike the lazy dullards in public schools); the schools will have high expectations and test scores will soar; and all children will succeed academically, regardless of their circumstances. The Lottery echoes the main story line of Waiting for “Superman”: it is about children who are desperate to avoid the New York City public schools and eager to win a spot in a shiny new charter school in Harlem.
The movie asserts a central thesis in today’s school reform discussion: the idea that teachers are the most important factor determining student achievement. But this proposition is false. Hanushek has released studies showing that teacher quality accounts for about 7.5–10 percent of student test score gains. Several other high-quality analyses echo this finding, and while estimates vary a bit, there is a relative consensus: teachers statistically account for around 10–20 percent of achievement outcomes. Teachers are the most important factor within schools.
But the same body of research shows that nonschool factors matter even more than teachers. According to University of Washington economist Dan Goldhaber, about 60 percent of achievement is explained by nonschool factors, such as family income. So while teachers are the most important factor within schools, their effects pale in comparison with those of students’ backgrounds, families, and other factors beyond the control of schools and teachers. Teachers can have a profound effect on students, but it would be foolish to believe that teachers alone can undo the damage caused by poverty and its associated burdens.
Guggenheim skirts the issue of poverty by showing only families that are intact and dedicated to helping their children succeed. One of the children he follows is raised by a doting grandmother; two have single mothers who are relentless in seeking better education for them; two of them live with a mother and father. Nothing is said about children whose families are not available, for whatever reason, to support them, or about children who are homeless, or children with special needs. Nor is there any reference to the many charter schools that enroll disproportionately small numbers of children who are English-language learners or have disabilities.
The film never acknowledges that charter schools were created mainly at the instigation of Albert Shanker, the president of the American Federation of Teachers from 1974 to 1997. Shanker had the idea in 1988 that a group of public school teachers would ask their colleagues for permission to create a small school that would focus on the neediest students, those who had dropped out and those who were disengaged from school and likely to drop out. He sold the idea as a way to open schools that would collaborate with public schools and help motivate disengaged students. In 1993, Shanker turned against the charter school idea when he realized that for-profit organizations saw it as a business opportunity and were advancing an agenda of school privatization. Michelle Rhee gained her teaching experience in Baltimore as an employee of Education Alternatives, Inc., one of the first of the for-profit operations.
It bears mentioning that nations with high-performing school systems—whether Korea, Singapore, Finland, or Japan—have succeeded not by privatizing their schools or closing those with low scores, but by strengthening the education profession. They also have less poverty than we do. Fewer than 5 percent of children in Finland live in poverty, as compared to 20 percent in the United States. Those who insist that poverty doesn’t matter, that only teachers matter, prefer to ignore such contrasts.
If we are serious about improving our schools, we will take steps to improve our teacher force, as Finland and other nations have done. That would mean better screening to select the best candidates, higher salaries, better support and mentoring systems, and better working conditions. Guggenheim complains that only one in 2,500 teachers loses his or her teaching certificate, but fails to mention that 50 percent of those who enter teaching leave within five years, mostly because of poor working conditions, lack of adequate resources, and the stress of dealing with difficult children and disrespectful parents. Some who leave “fire themselves”; others were fired before they got tenure. We should also insist that only highly experienced teachers become principals (the “head teacher” in the school), not retired businessmen and military personnel. Every school should have a curriculum that includes a full range of studies, not just basic skills. And if we really are intent on school improvement, we must reduce the appalling rates of child poverty that impede success in school and in life.
There is a clash of ideas occurring in education right now between those who believe that public education is not only a fundamental right but a vital public service, akin to the public provision of police, fire protection, parks, and public libraries, and those who believe that the private sector is always superior to the public sector. Waiting for “Superman” is a powerful weapon on behalf of those championing the “free market” and privatization. It raises important questions, but all of the answers it offers require a transfer of public funds to the private sector. The stock market crash of 2008 should suffice to remind us that the managers of the private sector do not have a monopoly on success.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Bill Gates - What I've Learned About Great Teachers
I found it interesting that Bill Gates learned "teachings hard." But says that teachers are not improving overtime. And after going over all these cool things he "taught" his kids, he didn't explain how he was going to modify these cool things for students who were ELL, RSP or SDC. How he plans to adjust his lesson in case of disruptions, lack of student materials (like pencils), daily procedures, and discipline. Or how schools were going to pay for all those wonderful field trips he took his own kids and how we are going to make sure all classrooms have access to the technology he found useful. And I'm not really sure how he came to the conclusion that it's the teachers who have gotten worse over time. He doesn't explain what research or observations he's made, other than to say the inner city kids are dropping out and it is a crisis.
I believe there are other parts to the education system that are being overlooked. Administrators (including district personel) and parents. Administrators control the money flow and create the community environment with their leadership. Parents are role models and are part of the educational process. I'm surprised that these documentaries and studies coming out lately only look at teachers. If a teacher had as much power as these videos and articles give them credit for, I think the education system would be a lot better off.
What I've Learned About Great Teachers | Parade.com
"In almost every area of human endeavor, the practice improves over time," says Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. "That hasn't been the case for teaching." This month, Gates is sounding the alarm about public education in Waiting for "Superman," a new documentary from An Inconvenient Truth's Davis Guggenheim. "He has this amazing capacity to drill really, really deep," Guggenheim says of Gates. "He has an infectious curiosity." PARADE sat down with the software mogul turned philanthropist to talk about the movie, the American education system, and his own school days.
PARADE: Why did you decide to appear in Waiting for "Superman"?
BG: Our foundation has picked education as a priority in the United States, and we've spent over $4 billion on various projects. So when I heard that somebody who's done great documentaries was doing one on education, my interest was to share some thoughts and say, "Hey, don't get too depressed."
PARADE: Depressed? Do you think people will find the film pessimistic?
BG: Most people don't realize how bad the situation really has become. They think, Geez, if half the kids in the inner city were really dropping out, wouldn't somebody declare a crisis? The movie shows how bad the system is, and that's a downer. But you also see that there are great schools, and kids in the inner city can succeed. So that's a very hopeful thing.
PARADE: In the documentary, experts say there are too many bad teachers in America and not enough great ones. Why is that?
BG: Very little is invested in understanding great teaching. We've never had a meaningful evaluation system that identifies the dimensions of great teachers so we can transfer the skills to others. The Gates Foundation has learned that two questions can predict how much kids learn: "Does your teacher use class time well?" and, "When you're confused, does your teacher help you get straightened out?"
PARADE: As a student, did you have one teacher who really influenced you?
BG: I went to a public school through sixth grade, and being good at tests wasn't cool. Then my parents switched me to the Lakeside School [a private school in Seattle]. A teacher there, Mr. Anderson, was pairing people up by ability for a geography quiz, and he put me with this kid I didn't think was very clever. I thought, Wait, he thinks I'm the same as this kid? Man, oh, man, there's something wrong.
PARADE: How did you turn yourself into a different kind of student?
BG: When I was in eighth grade, I scored the best in the state on a math exam. After that, my math teacher let me go off and do independent study and computer stuff. I also became good at relating to adults. When I'd meet a teacher, I'd say, "Hey, tell me your 10 favorite books." I'd read them, and then I could talk to the teachers about something they knew a lot about.
PARADE: You and Melinda have three school-age kids. Are you involved in their education?
BG: Last year our family traveled for three months, and we did some home-schooling. I taught math and science. We went to the Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator in Switzerland. We went to a toilet-paper factory, a garbage dump, an aircraft carrier, and a coal plant. I also found great educational material on the Web, including short videos at Khanacademy.org.
PARADE: What did you learn from working with your kids?
BG: Teaching's hard! You need different skills: positive reinforcement, keeping students from getting bored, commanding their attention in a certain way. I'd be better at teaching the college-level stuff.
PARADE: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has criticized Waiting for "Superman" for focusing too much on charter schools as a solution. What do you think?
BG: She points out that, on average, charter schools don't do better than other public schools. She's right. But it's a strange point to make: "Hey, they're as bad as we are!" The fact is, we're failing those kids. Ms. Weingarten represents the teachers' union, but say there was a students' union. Might they ask that the dropout rate be lowered? Might they stay at the negotiating table until it was below 50%? We ought to ask kids whether they think the status quo is working.
Waiting for "Superman" has triggered a national debate about the quality of teachers in America. School districts from Washington, D.C., to Washington State are demanding more accountability from teachers, tying salaries to students' performance and firing educators who fail to make the grade.
But teachers -- and their unions -- are pushing back. They argue that struggling teachers should receive additional training, not a dismissal notice. They also contend that students' test scores don't accurately reflect teachers' skills.
"If we measure teachers or students by standardization alone, we're left with a culture of sameness that creates mediocrity -- not equality," says Sarah Brown Wessling, National Teacher of the Year.
I believe there are other parts to the education system that are being overlooked. Administrators (including district personel) and parents. Administrators control the money flow and create the community environment with their leadership. Parents are role models and are part of the educational process. I'm surprised that these documentaries and studies coming out lately only look at teachers. If a teacher had as much power as these videos and articles give them credit for, I think the education system would be a lot better off.
What I've Learned About Great Teachers | Parade.com
"In almost every area of human endeavor, the practice improves over time," says Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates. "That hasn't been the case for teaching." This month, Gates is sounding the alarm about public education in Waiting for "Superman," a new documentary from An Inconvenient Truth's Davis Guggenheim. "He has this amazing capacity to drill really, really deep," Guggenheim says of Gates. "He has an infectious curiosity." PARADE sat down with the software mogul turned philanthropist to talk about the movie, the American education system, and his own school days.
PARADE: Why did you decide to appear in Waiting for "Superman"?
BG: Our foundation has picked education as a priority in the United States, and we've spent over $4 billion on various projects. So when I heard that somebody who's done great documentaries was doing one on education, my interest was to share some thoughts and say, "Hey, don't get too depressed."
PARADE: Depressed? Do you think people will find the film pessimistic?
BG: Most people don't realize how bad the situation really has become. They think, Geez, if half the kids in the inner city were really dropping out, wouldn't somebody declare a crisis? The movie shows how bad the system is, and that's a downer. But you also see that there are great schools, and kids in the inner city can succeed. So that's a very hopeful thing.
PARADE: In the documentary, experts say there are too many bad teachers in America and not enough great ones. Why is that?
BG: Very little is invested in understanding great teaching. We've never had a meaningful evaluation system that identifies the dimensions of great teachers so we can transfer the skills to others. The Gates Foundation has learned that two questions can predict how much kids learn: "Does your teacher use class time well?" and, "When you're confused, does your teacher help you get straightened out?"
PARADE: As a student, did you have one teacher who really influenced you?
BG: I went to a public school through sixth grade, and being good at tests wasn't cool. Then my parents switched me to the Lakeside School [a private school in Seattle]. A teacher there, Mr. Anderson, was pairing people up by ability for a geography quiz, and he put me with this kid I didn't think was very clever. I thought, Wait, he thinks I'm the same as this kid? Man, oh, man, there's something wrong.
PARADE: How did you turn yourself into a different kind of student?
BG: When I was in eighth grade, I scored the best in the state on a math exam. After that, my math teacher let me go off and do independent study and computer stuff. I also became good at relating to adults. When I'd meet a teacher, I'd say, "Hey, tell me your 10 favorite books." I'd read them, and then I could talk to the teachers about something they knew a lot about.
PARADE: You and Melinda have three school-age kids. Are you involved in their education?
BG: Last year our family traveled for three months, and we did some home-schooling. I taught math and science. We went to the Large Hadron Collider, the giant particle accelerator in Switzerland. We went to a toilet-paper factory, a garbage dump, an aircraft carrier, and a coal plant. I also found great educational material on the Web, including short videos at Khanacademy.org.
PARADE: What did you learn from working with your kids?
BG: Teaching's hard! You need different skills: positive reinforcement, keeping students from getting bored, commanding their attention in a certain way. I'd be better at teaching the college-level stuff.
PARADE: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, has criticized Waiting for "Superman" for focusing too much on charter schools as a solution. What do you think?
BG: She points out that, on average, charter schools don't do better than other public schools. She's right. But it's a strange point to make: "Hey, they're as bad as we are!" The fact is, we're failing those kids. Ms. Weingarten represents the teachers' union, but say there was a students' union. Might they ask that the dropout rate be lowered? Might they stay at the negotiating table until it was below 50%? We ought to ask kids whether they think the status quo is working.
Waiting for "Superman" has triggered a national debate about the quality of teachers in America. School districts from Washington, D.C., to Washington State are demanding more accountability from teachers, tying salaries to students' performance and firing educators who fail to make the grade.
But teachers -- and their unions -- are pushing back. They argue that struggling teachers should receive additional training, not a dismissal notice. They also contend that students' test scores don't accurately reflect teachers' skills.
"If we measure teachers or students by standardization alone, we're left with a culture of sameness that creates mediocrity -- not equality," says Sarah Brown Wessling, National Teacher of the Year.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Would you volunteer to eat school lunch every day to prove a point? This teacher did.
Found this on the web.
* by Jessica Ashley, Shine staff, on Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:24pm PDT
I will be honest -- I do not love making my son's lunch. Every evening at about midnight, I do it. It's one more task to tick off my list before I fall into bed. I know that it would be easy and less expensive to have him eat the school lunches. For those reasons, I do not judge the parents who choose -- or have to, out of financial or other necessity -- to ensure that that their kids eat a midday meal by arranging for them to have the school lunch. As much as little cups of organic apple sauce cost and no matter how many soy butter and jam sandwiches I make, I just cannot bring myself to let my kid eat what the school is serving.
This is a privileged perspective, I know. Many families rely on school lunches and I am aware that these meals are sometimes the only ones or the healthiest ones some children eat. For that, I am grateful the system allows kids to eat one or several meals before and during school hours.
Still, the question of how to make this system work better, particularly during a time when obesity threatens so many children, stands. How can we feed our children healthfully and economically? And what in the world are we teaching our children when we put food in front of them that has little nutritional value or is high in fat and sodium or that we would not dare eat ourselves?
A teacher in Illinois is illustrating those concerns candidly on her own anonymous blog. I like to think of her as an undercover activist for the cause of feeding our children well -- or at least better. She is spending 2010 eating school lunch every day, documenting photos of the (let's be honest, sad-looking) food on her tray, providing some nutritional information, commenting on the taste, and detailing the not-so-pretty bellyaches she's had since beginning the project. It's all chronicled on her blog "Fed Up With Lunch" and through Tweets.
Mrs. Q, as she dubs herself on the site, writes that the timing of her project is critical because, "The Child Nutrition Act is being debated in Congress. It's important that people realize that funding for school lunches is vital to children's success in school and in life."
Why is she speaking out pretty loudly but still keeping her identity mum?
"I'm blogging anonymously because I like my job and getting a paycheck. But I'm still putting my livelihood on the line by speaking up. Why? Because I want to raise awareness about school lunch. It may not be what every child in this country eats, but I believe the meal that I am showing represents what most children eat at lunch in the US," she posted in February, just over a month after she launched the lunch project.
Mrs. Q also says that caring about what kids eat for lunch is an investment in their long-term health and the eventual well-being of our country.
"I am not a nutritionist. That being said, I became concerned about what the kids were eating because on the surface, the food doesn't appear to be very healthy. These are the kids who need the good nutrition. My students don't have good food models at home. These kids depend on the school for so much, including good nutrition. And if they don't get it, they will develop bad habits and increase our health-care costs in the future," she told AOL Health.
Mrs. Q's concerns are not centered solely on the food. She says that the time allotted to students for lunch encourages unhealthy eating habits. She reports that students often have only 13 minutes to eat, and that can easily be knocked down to five if the student has to wait in a long line, go to the bathroom, or hunt for a space at a table.
Only a few months into the year, she says she believes healthier meals -- namely stir fries, salads, soups, and casseroles -- could be made in bulk and served in better conscience to the kids. She says she'd also like tater tots to be replaced with roasted potatoes, yogurt and cottage cheese to be added as sides, and to banish hot dogs altogether.
Her blog is a fascinating -- and yes, disturbing -- read. It includes posts by guest bloggers, many of whom are teachers, all of whom have their own take on what is on the trays. Reading it and looking deeper into what she is doing in a very short lunch period every day this year, not only makes me more adamant about brown-bagging it for my own son, but it also makes me want to get more involved in changing the system for kids in schools across the country.
Still, Mrs. Q says she fears being found out, as she explained on her blog.
"I feel a lot of guilt and turmoil about what I'm doing here. I'm waiting for the moment I'm called to the principal's office and let go. I do believe it's a matter of 'when' not 'if' they find out and it's curtains for me and then of course the project.
"I want them to know that the project is not about individuals in one school but about a country full of children who need better food models."
* by Jessica Ashley, Shine staff, on Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:24pm PDT
I will be honest -- I do not love making my son's lunch. Every evening at about midnight, I do it. It's one more task to tick off my list before I fall into bed. I know that it would be easy and less expensive to have him eat the school lunches. For those reasons, I do not judge the parents who choose -- or have to, out of financial or other necessity -- to ensure that that their kids eat a midday meal by arranging for them to have the school lunch. As much as little cups of organic apple sauce cost and no matter how many soy butter and jam sandwiches I make, I just cannot bring myself to let my kid eat what the school is serving.
This is a privileged perspective, I know. Many families rely on school lunches and I am aware that these meals are sometimes the only ones or the healthiest ones some children eat. For that, I am grateful the system allows kids to eat one or several meals before and during school hours.
Still, the question of how to make this system work better, particularly during a time when obesity threatens so many children, stands. How can we feed our children healthfully and economically? And what in the world are we teaching our children when we put food in front of them that has little nutritional value or is high in fat and sodium or that we would not dare eat ourselves?
A teacher in Illinois is illustrating those concerns candidly on her own anonymous blog. I like to think of her as an undercover activist for the cause of feeding our children well -- or at least better. She is spending 2010 eating school lunch every day, documenting photos of the (let's be honest, sad-looking) food on her tray, providing some nutritional information, commenting on the taste, and detailing the not-so-pretty bellyaches she's had since beginning the project. It's all chronicled on her blog "Fed Up With Lunch" and through Tweets.
Mrs. Q, as she dubs herself on the site, writes that the timing of her project is critical because, "The Child Nutrition Act is being debated in Congress. It's important that people realize that funding for school lunches is vital to children's success in school and in life."
Why is she speaking out pretty loudly but still keeping her identity mum?
"I'm blogging anonymously because I like my job and getting a paycheck. But I'm still putting my livelihood on the line by speaking up. Why? Because I want to raise awareness about school lunch. It may not be what every child in this country eats, but I believe the meal that I am showing represents what most children eat at lunch in the US," she posted in February, just over a month after she launched the lunch project.
Mrs. Q also says that caring about what kids eat for lunch is an investment in their long-term health and the eventual well-being of our country.
"I am not a nutritionist. That being said, I became concerned about what the kids were eating because on the surface, the food doesn't appear to be very healthy. These are the kids who need the good nutrition. My students don't have good food models at home. These kids depend on the school for so much, including good nutrition. And if they don't get it, they will develop bad habits and increase our health-care costs in the future," she told AOL Health.
Mrs. Q's concerns are not centered solely on the food. She says that the time allotted to students for lunch encourages unhealthy eating habits. She reports that students often have only 13 minutes to eat, and that can easily be knocked down to five if the student has to wait in a long line, go to the bathroom, or hunt for a space at a table.
Only a few months into the year, she says she believes healthier meals -- namely stir fries, salads, soups, and casseroles -- could be made in bulk and served in better conscience to the kids. She says she'd also like tater tots to be replaced with roasted potatoes, yogurt and cottage cheese to be added as sides, and to banish hot dogs altogether.
Her blog is a fascinating -- and yes, disturbing -- read. It includes posts by guest bloggers, many of whom are teachers, all of whom have their own take on what is on the trays. Reading it and looking deeper into what she is doing in a very short lunch period every day this year, not only makes me more adamant about brown-bagging it for my own son, but it also makes me want to get more involved in changing the system for kids in schools across the country.
Still, Mrs. Q says she fears being found out, as she explained on her blog.
"I feel a lot of guilt and turmoil about what I'm doing here. I'm waiting for the moment I'm called to the principal's office and let go. I do believe it's a matter of 'when' not 'if' they find out and it's curtains for me and then of course the project.
"I want them to know that the project is not about individuals in one school but about a country full of children who need better food models."
Monday, March 8, 2010
2...4...6...8...How Should We Compensate?
Districts that appreciate educators’ knowledge and experience should have a pay plan that shows it. By Mary Ellen Flannery
With all the chatter these days about merit pay for teachers, there’s not nearly enough listening to the educators who have already developed innovative, collaborative pay plans.
From Helena, Montana, to Portland, Maine, local unions and school districts have put together 21st Century alternative pay plans that reward teachers—not for student test scores or subjective evaluations—but for doing the kinds of things that actually improve the learning environment. None are intended to replace a strong, single salary schedule, but to enhance it.
In Helena, educators commit to career development plans. In Manitowoc, Wisconsin, they get raises for taking—or even teaching—professional development courses. “You can’t go through all this and not be a better teacher!” exclaims third-grade teacher Michelle Preusser, who has risen to the top step through three new professional degrees and certifications.
NEA supports these educators in their efforts to find creative solutions to local problems. Losing new teachers? A program like Portland’s, which pays veteran teachers more to mentor their new colleagues and new teachers more for Portland-specific professional development classes, might be the solution.
Can’t find staff for so-called failing schools? Consider the new contract in Evansville, Indiana, where teachers at some inner-city schools will receive additional training on closing the gaps—and get paid for it.
“Our nation has the capacity to make sure every child in every high-needs school has great teachers,” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel told a congressional committee late last year. “President Obama has called for the nation to ‘treat teachers like the professionals they are while also holding them more accountable.’ Doing so means not only looking carefully at the research evidence, but also listening to our most accomplished teachers and acting on their advice.”
For its part, the White House and its Administration have made merit pay—that is, pay tied to student test scores—a key condition for states participating in the $4.3 billion Race to the Top fund. But educators know that test scores aren’t a direct measure of their ability, and just paying teachers more isn’t going to help students do any better. In one of the most recent studies on merit pay, Vanderbilt University researchers found that a statewide Texas bonus pay program had “weakly positive, negative, or negligible effect on student test-score gains.”
In other words, it didn’t work. Because it’s teacher learning that leads to student learning, educators believe.
“It’s about getting people involved in professional activities that relate directly to student learning in their classroom,” says Karen MacDonald, a Portland middle-school teacher for 30 years. That might mean National Board Certification, it might mean a research project that measures the effectiveness of different reading programs, or it might mean taking a class on how to use test scores to improve instruction—all of the kinds of things rewarded by locally bargained alternative pay plans. (Go here for more about Portland’s pay schedule.)
“Obviously we don’t want to tie our merit to test scores,” Preusser says. “If that happens, I want a dorm in the back of the school where the kids can live 24/7.”
Call it old-fashioned, like Mom and apple pie, but NEA still believes a short and strong salary schedule, with a minimum of $40,000 annual pay for teachers, is best. It rewards teachers for things we know make a difference in teacher quality—knowledge and experience—and, at the same time, avoids the capriciousness of typical merit pay plans.
It doesn’t pay you less when your students are distracted from learning by empty bellies and ear infections. Nor does it pay you more for a class full of native English speakers and supportive, college-educated parents—or for loudly agreeing with your principal at staff meetings! (“Yes, yes, you’re a genius! Now do I get a raise?”) A single salary schedule is fair and transparent, and it’s locally bargained or agreed to.
But alternative pay plans—the ones written by teachers and local Association leaders—can also be fair and easy to understand. They provide creative solutions to local problems, and most of all, they make for better teachers. Read on for a quick look at how some educators are faring under their locally bargained pay plans.
Third-grade teacher
20 years’ experience
Manitowoc, Wisconsin
$73,919
Ten years ago, Manitowoc didn’t have a single National Board Certified teacher and less than a quarter had master’s degrees. Now, thanks to a contract approved almost unanimously by teachers in 1999, nearly half have master’s—and 21 have won that most rigorous certification.
Michelle Preusser has both—plus a professional development certificate focused on differentiating instruction—which means she has earned the salary rewards for working toward advanced degrees or certification. (National Board? Worth a 13 percent boost.) Now, from the top tier of the salary scale, Preusser surveys a body of professional development that has enriched her wallet as well as her classroom. “There’s something wrong if you come out the other side not a better teacher,” she exclaims. “You’re constantly reflecting on your own practice, the way you see the kids, and the way they learn.”
Assistant principal
12 years’ experience
Hamilton County, Tennessee
$64,000
A few years ago, the Chattanooga urban schools advertised 64 vacant jobs. Just one person applied. So, with the idea of attracting and retaining more great teachers, the Hamilton County Education Association and its district partners negotiated a new contract that provides $5,000 bonuses for moving to “hard-to-staff” schools and up to $10,000 for improving test scores.
LaFrederick Thirkill, a music teacher turned administrator, doesn’t much care for the transfer bonus: “For some teachers it’s merely an opportunity to make more money, as opposed to making a change.” Nor does he approve of the test-score checks that he calls sometimes unfair and often divisive. But Hamilton County also now offers a $4,000 annual bonus for National Board Certification, which Thirkill was the first to earn, and he says the process of certification “had a profound affect on me. I now know how to reflect, as an educator and administrator.” At the same time, as a dozen of his colleagues have followed in his footsteps, “it has changed the perception of inner-city teachers,” he says.
High school history teacher
3 years’ experience
Helena, Montana
$36,000
Maybe $36,000 doesn’t sound like much, but it’s pretty good for a guy three years out of college, living in Helena, Montana, says Ryan Cooney. It’s also a lot more than new teachers here were earning a few years ago (just $23,000). “Our union has done a heck of a job representing us,” he says.
In 2002, with more than half of Helena’s teachers nearing retirement and far too few applicants at their heels, the local Association and district got together to boost salaries with $1 million freed up from early retirement. They also agreed that educators should present “career development plans” to get raises. For his plan, Cooney concentrated on technology in his classroom, creating a Moodle Web page where students and parents have “24/7 access” to assignments, current events, and research (and their teacher). “If you take [the plan] seriously, you really can better yourself as a teacher,” he says.
Middle school language arts teacher
30 years’ experience
Portland, Maine
$70,225
After 30 years in the classroom, Karen MacDonald is sitting on top of the salary scale in Portland, but she still hasn’t stopped collaborating with colleagues, helping them become better teachers.
Her latest effort? A series of classes for teachers with three to seven years’ experience, designed to help them learn more about where their students are academically, and how to move them forward. “This is what you need in your instruction,” MacDonald explains.
By taking the Portland-based course, early career teachers can move up along an innovative salary schedule that rewards them for professional learning. MacDonald, a National Board Certified teacher, made her final step up through an ELL endorsement—a key help when nearly 30 percent of Portland’s kids are from refugee countries like Somalia and Iraq. Other colleagues have earned raises through district committee work, curriculum design, and other “above and beyond” assignments.
“I feel like I’m paid as a professional. I also feel the responsibilities that go along with my pay—and that’s good,” MacDonald says.
I thought I also add some concerns and questions teachers have brought up in regards to Merit Pay.
With all the chatter these days about merit pay for teachers, there’s not nearly enough listening to the educators who have already developed innovative, collaborative pay plans.
From Helena, Montana, to Portland, Maine, local unions and school districts have put together 21st Century alternative pay plans that reward teachers—not for student test scores or subjective evaluations—but for doing the kinds of things that actually improve the learning environment. None are intended to replace a strong, single salary schedule, but to enhance it.
In Helena, educators commit to career development plans. In Manitowoc, Wisconsin, they get raises for taking—or even teaching—professional development courses. “You can’t go through all this and not be a better teacher!” exclaims third-grade teacher Michelle Preusser, who has risen to the top step through three new professional degrees and certifications.
NEA supports these educators in their efforts to find creative solutions to local problems. Losing new teachers? A program like Portland’s, which pays veteran teachers more to mentor their new colleagues and new teachers more for Portland-specific professional development classes, might be the solution.
Can’t find staff for so-called failing schools? Consider the new contract in Evansville, Indiana, where teachers at some inner-city schools will receive additional training on closing the gaps—and get paid for it.
“Our nation has the capacity to make sure every child in every high-needs school has great teachers,” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel told a congressional committee late last year. “President Obama has called for the nation to ‘treat teachers like the professionals they are while also holding them more accountable.’ Doing so means not only looking carefully at the research evidence, but also listening to our most accomplished teachers and acting on their advice.”
For its part, the White House and its Administration have made merit pay—that is, pay tied to student test scores—a key condition for states participating in the $4.3 billion Race to the Top fund. But educators know that test scores aren’t a direct measure of their ability, and just paying teachers more isn’t going to help students do any better. In one of the most recent studies on merit pay, Vanderbilt University researchers found that a statewide Texas bonus pay program had “weakly positive, negative, or negligible effect on student test-score gains.”
In other words, it didn’t work. Because it’s teacher learning that leads to student learning, educators believe.
“It’s about getting people involved in professional activities that relate directly to student learning in their classroom,” says Karen MacDonald, a Portland middle-school teacher for 30 years. That might mean National Board Certification, it might mean a research project that measures the effectiveness of different reading programs, or it might mean taking a class on how to use test scores to improve instruction—all of the kinds of things rewarded by locally bargained alternative pay plans. (Go here for more about Portland’s pay schedule.)
“Obviously we don’t want to tie our merit to test scores,” Preusser says. “If that happens, I want a dorm in the back of the school where the kids can live 24/7.”
Call it old-fashioned, like Mom and apple pie, but NEA still believes a short and strong salary schedule, with a minimum of $40,000 annual pay for teachers, is best. It rewards teachers for things we know make a difference in teacher quality—knowledge and experience—and, at the same time, avoids the capriciousness of typical merit pay plans.
It doesn’t pay you less when your students are distracted from learning by empty bellies and ear infections. Nor does it pay you more for a class full of native English speakers and supportive, college-educated parents—or for loudly agreeing with your principal at staff meetings! (“Yes, yes, you’re a genius! Now do I get a raise?”) A single salary schedule is fair and transparent, and it’s locally bargained or agreed to.
But alternative pay plans—the ones written by teachers and local Association leaders—can also be fair and easy to understand. They provide creative solutions to local problems, and most of all, they make for better teachers. Read on for a quick look at how some educators are faring under their locally bargained pay plans.
Third-grade teacher
20 years’ experience
Manitowoc, Wisconsin
$73,919
Ten years ago, Manitowoc didn’t have a single National Board Certified teacher and less than a quarter had master’s degrees. Now, thanks to a contract approved almost unanimously by teachers in 1999, nearly half have master’s—and 21 have won that most rigorous certification.
Michelle Preusser has both—plus a professional development certificate focused on differentiating instruction—which means she has earned the salary rewards for working toward advanced degrees or certification. (National Board? Worth a 13 percent boost.) Now, from the top tier of the salary scale, Preusser surveys a body of professional development that has enriched her wallet as well as her classroom. “There’s something wrong if you come out the other side not a better teacher,” she exclaims. “You’re constantly reflecting on your own practice, the way you see the kids, and the way they learn.”
Assistant principal
12 years’ experience
Hamilton County, Tennessee
$64,000
A few years ago, the Chattanooga urban schools advertised 64 vacant jobs. Just one person applied. So, with the idea of attracting and retaining more great teachers, the Hamilton County Education Association and its district partners negotiated a new contract that provides $5,000 bonuses for moving to “hard-to-staff” schools and up to $10,000 for improving test scores.
LaFrederick Thirkill, a music teacher turned administrator, doesn’t much care for the transfer bonus: “For some teachers it’s merely an opportunity to make more money, as opposed to making a change.” Nor does he approve of the test-score checks that he calls sometimes unfair and often divisive. But Hamilton County also now offers a $4,000 annual bonus for National Board Certification, which Thirkill was the first to earn, and he says the process of certification “had a profound affect on me. I now know how to reflect, as an educator and administrator.” At the same time, as a dozen of his colleagues have followed in his footsteps, “it has changed the perception of inner-city teachers,” he says.
High school history teacher
3 years’ experience
Helena, Montana
$36,000
Maybe $36,000 doesn’t sound like much, but it’s pretty good for a guy three years out of college, living in Helena, Montana, says Ryan Cooney. It’s also a lot more than new teachers here were earning a few years ago (just $23,000). “Our union has done a heck of a job representing us,” he says.
In 2002, with more than half of Helena’s teachers nearing retirement and far too few applicants at their heels, the local Association and district got together to boost salaries with $1 million freed up from early retirement. They also agreed that educators should present “career development plans” to get raises. For his plan, Cooney concentrated on technology in his classroom, creating a Moodle Web page where students and parents have “24/7 access” to assignments, current events, and research (and their teacher). “If you take [the plan] seriously, you really can better yourself as a teacher,” he says.
Middle school language arts teacher
30 years’ experience
Portland, Maine
$70,225
After 30 years in the classroom, Karen MacDonald is sitting on top of the salary scale in Portland, but she still hasn’t stopped collaborating with colleagues, helping them become better teachers.
Her latest effort? A series of classes for teachers with three to seven years’ experience, designed to help them learn more about where their students are academically, and how to move them forward. “This is what you need in your instruction,” MacDonald explains.
By taking the Portland-based course, early career teachers can move up along an innovative salary schedule that rewards them for professional learning. MacDonald, a National Board Certified teacher, made her final step up through an ELL endorsement—a key help when nearly 30 percent of Portland’s kids are from refugee countries like Somalia and Iraq. Other colleagues have earned raises through district committee work, curriculum design, and other “above and beyond” assignments.
“I feel like I’m paid as a professional. I also feel the responsibilities that go along with my pay—and that’s good,” MacDonald says.
I thought I also add some concerns and questions teachers have brought up in regards to Merit Pay.
An initiative to encourage teachers to constantly improve their knowledge and strategies is laudable. Even veteran teachers can benefit from ongoing professional development with collaboration and "peer coaching" opportunities in place to determine how well students are able to utilize classroom learning in real life - this is a much fairer measure than multiple choice tests.
So I am a special education teacher in an inclusion setting. I do not "teach", I facilitate. How would the president's program work for me? In Indiana, the "Race to the Top" grant money has been accepted. This should be interesting to see if special education educators, especially in inclusion type settings are overlooked for pay increase.
My concern rests with the teacher who is proficient at differentiating instruction, and therefore gets more children with learning difficulties placed in his/her classroom, or the teacher who works well with children with behavioral difficulties, and has more of those children in the classroom. Merit pay based on test scores would be great if there were any way to have equality of classrooms, but that is an impossibility.
Will there be merit pay for all of the extra duties performed on a daily basis? Duties like spending our own money on new clothes, mittens, hats, snacks and supplies? Duties like potty training 5 year olds because they have been in foster care, and nobody has taught them? Try to measure those things with test scores! People need to remember that we have to take these children from where they are and teach them! Sometimes that means that they will learn to read by the end of kindergarten, and sometimes that means that they will finally know their colors and shapes! Each child comes to us with different abilities, and our job is to teach them. They may not score well on a test, but that doesn't mean that they haven't made progress just the same!
I know that it's unfair when class size reduction teachers don't get a fair share of any grants in our districts. Older, more experienced teachers are being left out when it comes to rewarding hard work, student's success, just because districts want to retain the younger teachers.
Concerns Over Test Scores and Questions
I decided to post two concerns in this blog regarding tests. The first is a comment from two teachers regarding test taking skills and the other is example of the difference in test questions between the US and Australia. Both of these were found in the NEA Today magazine. I just want to get people to think carefully about "Race to the Top" and the direction we are leading our students in with continuous testing.
I found these quotes from teachers and thought it was an appropriate response that sums up what teachers are up against with "Race to the Top."
I also found some example questions between the US National Assessment of Education Progress and a biology exam in Australia. Which questions are preparing students for higher levels of thinking, college, and preparing them for real life experiences?
First, two questions from the eighth- and 12th-grade science test of the United States National Assessment of Educational Progress.
1. What two gases make up most of the Earth’s atmosphere?
1. Hydrogen and oxygen
2. Hydrogen and nitrogen
3. Oxygen and carbon dioxide
4. Oxygen and nitrogen
2. Is a hamburger an example of stored energy? Explain why or why not.
Next, from a biology exam in Victoria, Australia.
3. When scientists design drugs against infectious agents, the term “designed drug” is often used.
1. Explain what is meant by this term.
Scientists aim to develop a drug against a particular virus that infects humans. The virus has a protein coat and different parts of the coat play different roles in the infective cycle. Some sites assist in the attachment of the virus to a host cell; others are important in the release from a host cell.
The structure is represented below: (not included in the blog)
The virus reproduces by attaching itself to the surface of a host cell and injecting its DNA into the host cell. The viral DNA then uses the components of the host cell to re-produce its parts, and hundreds of new viruses bud off from the host cell. Ultimately the host cell dies.
2. Design a drug that will be effective against this virus. In your answer, outline the important aspects you would need to consider. Outline how your drug would prevent continuation of the cycle of reproduction of the virus particle. Use diagrams in your answer.
I found these quotes from teachers and thought it was an appropriate response that sums up what teachers are up against with "Race to the Top."
I have seen more students who can pass [the test] but cannot apply those skills to anything if it's not the test format. I have students who can do the test but cannot look up words in the dictionary and understand the different meanings.
"The Perils of Merit Pay" brings to light that I, a teacher with 27 years of experience, would be paid less [than other teachers] because mine are the students distracted from learning. Mine are the students who experience empty bellies, ear infections, homelessness, or gunshots echoing in the night. I would be the one paid less because I do not have a class full of native English speakers with college-educated parents. Neither my Master of Science degree nor 27 years of experience can, in one school year, make students learn English faster, catch up to the rest, or have experiences in the world like children from more affluent areas. Let the children of our President and his Administration “walk a mile on our side of the tracks.”
I also found some example questions between the US National Assessment of Education Progress and a biology exam in Australia. Which questions are preparing students for higher levels of thinking, college, and preparing them for real life experiences?
First, two questions from the eighth- and 12th-grade science test of the United States National Assessment of Educational Progress.
1. What two gases make up most of the Earth’s atmosphere?
1. Hydrogen and oxygen
2. Hydrogen and nitrogen
3. Oxygen and carbon dioxide
4. Oxygen and nitrogen
2. Is a hamburger an example of stored energy? Explain why or why not.
Next, from a biology exam in Victoria, Australia.
3. When scientists design drugs against infectious agents, the term “designed drug” is often used.
1. Explain what is meant by this term.
Scientists aim to develop a drug against a particular virus that infects humans. The virus has a protein coat and different parts of the coat play different roles in the infective cycle. Some sites assist in the attachment of the virus to a host cell; others are important in the release from a host cell.
The structure is represented below: (not included in the blog)
The virus reproduces by attaching itself to the surface of a host cell and injecting its DNA into the host cell. The viral DNA then uses the components of the host cell to re-produce its parts, and hundreds of new viruses bud off from the host cell. Ultimately the host cell dies.
2. Design a drug that will be effective against this virus. In your answer, outline the important aspects you would need to consider. Outline how your drug would prevent continuation of the cycle of reproduction of the virus particle. Use diagrams in your answer.
Will NCLB ever make sense?
Will NCLB ever make sense
Gloria Salazar, a fifth-grade teacher in Somerville, Massachusetts, welcomed an immigrant child to her classroom last year with a No. 2 pencil. No English? No excuses, say testing advocates—he still has to take the state test.
And stop that crying already!
“It happens all the time,” Salazar laments. “And there’s no way to explain to them, ‘It’s okay, we know that you don’t understand this material.’ They see the formalities and they know it’s important.”
Important, but also impractical—how on Earth could English Language Learners succeed on a standardized test that’s administered in a language they don’t understand?
When it comes to requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, those pertaining to ELL and special needs students are particularly bewildering.
This year, as Congress prepares to reauthorize the federal education law, NEA asks that it recognize the individual needs of students, including non-fluent English speakers and those with disabilities. More than test scores should be used to measure student learning and school progress.
“I believe in assessment, but I also believe they need to recognize that children are different. We need to recognize those differences and equip educators with tools to help students improve,” Salazar said.
Gloria Salazar, a fifth-grade teacher in Somerville, Massachusetts, welcomed an immigrant child to her classroom last year with a No. 2 pencil. No English? No excuses, say testing advocates—he still has to take the state test.
And stop that crying already!
“It happens all the time,” Salazar laments. “And there’s no way to explain to them, ‘It’s okay, we know that you don’t understand this material.’ They see the formalities and they know it’s important.”
Important, but also impractical—how on Earth could English Language Learners succeed on a standardized test that’s administered in a language they don’t understand?
When it comes to requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act, those pertaining to ELL and special needs students are particularly bewildering.
This year, as Congress prepares to reauthorize the federal education law, NEA asks that it recognize the individual needs of students, including non-fluent English speakers and those with disabilities. More than test scores should be used to measure student learning and school progress.
“I believe in assessment, but I also believe they need to recognize that children are different. We need to recognize those differences and equip educators with tools to help students improve,” Salazar said.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Reading To Our Kids (Parenting,com)
I like the different ideas about encouraging your child to read. Especially the "make" idea.
"I promise to read/Each day and each night/I know it's the key to growing up right." That's the part of the oath the National Education Association (NEA) wants all kids to take this Read Across America Day.
Read
Picks from the NEA's list of teachers' 100 books. Nea.org/grants/13154
Watch
See the movie after reading the book. Talk about the differences to your child.
Make
Cut out a 6 by 2 inch piece of construction paper and let your child decorate it with stickers, paint, and markers. For every book she reads, punch a hole in it. See how long it takes until the bookmark falls apart from so many punches.
Surf
Visit Starfall.com and the website for the reading show Between the Lions (Pbskids) for fun alphabet and phonic games.
"I promise to read/Each day and each night/I know it's the key to growing up right." That's the part of the oath the National Education Association (NEA) wants all kids to take this Read Across America Day.
Read
Picks from the NEA's list of teachers' 100 books. Nea.org/grants/13154
Watch
See the movie after reading the book. Talk about the differences to your child.
Make
Cut out a 6 by 2 inch piece of construction paper and let your child decorate it with stickers, paint, and markers. For every book she reads, punch a hole in it. See how long it takes until the bookmark falls apart from so many punches.
Surf
Visit Starfall.com and the website for the reading show Between the Lions (Pbskids) for fun alphabet and phonic games.
Fun Fact: More than 1,000,000...the number of written words children are exposed to per year with just 15 minutes of out-of-school reading a day!
Friday, February 26, 2010
Homework is stupid
I think as teachers it's important to see the view of homework from some parents' perspectives. We need to make sure that homework that is assigned is necessary to review a concept or teach a skill, not as busywork or "be quiet" activity.
OC Family
Homework is stupid[edited to add: it's important for me to clarify that I do not place blame at the feet of teachers. I see homework as a symptom of a larger problem in our public education system. My kids' teachers have been hardworking, dedicated and I've truly appreciated them. They love what they do but are often hamstrung by curriculum requirements and standardized testing which forces them to "teach to the test" for a significant portion of the school year. Despite this mess, I still find great inspiration in the teachers who daily strive to provide creative solutions to these challenges.
Especially homework for kindergartners. Actually, if I had it my way, kids K-6 would not have homework.
If the energy our family has wasted on homework could be converted into solar energy, I'm certain it could power our city for a year. Seriously, if I see another photocopied worksheet I might poke my eyeballs out.
Now, not all homework is created equal. I have no problem with flash cards or special creative projects. But I'm darn sick of reams of those "shut-up sheets."
You do know what a shut-up sheet is, right? It's a photocopied worksheet designed specifically to shut-up the kid and keep him busy.
My sons are convinced it's a form of torture. I happen to agree.
I mean, the last thing my kid wants to do after six hours of school is sit down and do another worksheet. And yet, as The Good Responsible Parent, I'm supposed to force him.
When my kids get home, I shoo them outside and let them run around. They're dying to release all that pent up energy and if I dare require them to SitDownBeQuietAndDoYourHomework, we'll have a full-blown mutiny.
I'm talking tears. Wailing. Gnashing of teeth.
Homework interferes with our life on almost every possible level. For one thing, homework time coincides with that wicked time of day known in my house as "The Witching Hour." This is when Mommy is already tired but still has to prepare dinner, mind her babies and help with homework.
Homework hangs over our head like a wrecking ball. It has the potential to destroy even the best of days.
By the time my husband gets home I'm so exhausted that I'm ready to take up permanent residence on a deserted island. Except, we still have baths and bedtime routines to manage.
Looking back over the last 12 years (cumulatively speaking) of grade-school homework, I can hardly see any educational benefit. At least, no benefit that outweighs the many tears, anguish, frustration and sometimes, sheer outrage.
Because here's the thing: not only do my kids have to complete the homework, but I've gotta check it and then sign the little assignment book. Every.Single.Day.
Dude, I don't even shower as often as I sign those infuriating assignment books.
And if I prayed as often as I've signed 'em, well, I'd be so holy that I'd be raptured by now; shot straight up to Heaven in a flaming chariot of fire.
By the time my twins hit kindergarten, I'm just gonna roll up to the classroom with a recycling trash-can and toss those stupid homework packets right in. If anyone asks, I'll simply reply: "Hey, I'm only removing the middle-man."
I dunno. I'm so fed up I'm seriously considering a Homework Strike.
Anyone wanna join me?
'Cuz me and my kids wanna know: IS THERE LIFE AFTER HOMEWORK???
OC Family
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Smart Is Cool
I THOUGHT THIS ARTICLE IS INTERESTING BECAUSE BEING SMART BECOMES "UNCOOL" STARTING IN MIDDLE SCHOOL. I WILL HAVE GIRLS START STRONG IN MY CLASS AND THEN BY SECOND QUARTER THEIR GRADES START TO DROP AND THEIR ATTITUDES CHANGE (THEY SUDDENLY DON'T KNOW THE ANSWERS IN CLASS) AS THEY FOCUS ON BOYS AND THEIR SOCIAL LIFE. WHEN I HAVE CONVERSATIONS WITH THEM, SOME OF THEM EXPRESS HOW IT IS NOT COOL TO BE PERCEIVED AS SMART. THIS STIGMA HAS ALSO AFFECTED BOYS IN MY CLASSROOM AS WELL WHEN THEY WANT TO BE PART OF THE "POPULAR" GROUP.
Smart Is Cool: My Change Nation Interview with Ana Henao
Intelligence is not just about book smarts. It's about using all your tools—all your skills, all your smarts and anything you learn along the way—to help you reach your goals. That's according to Ana Henao, one of three co-founders of "Smart is Cool," a movement that seeks to redefine smart and set a new standard for cool at college campuses across the U.S. "The most fashionable thing you wear is your intelligence," says Henao, quoting the community's motto.
Why don't girls see smart as cool? Henao blames the media, pointing out that many of the stars they look up to don't make the smartest choices. "There may be the Lindsays and the Britanys," she says, "but [girls need to see that] there are also all of these women who have accomplished such great things by being smart." Stories of inspirational women will appear on the Smart Is Cool web site and are being compiled for an upcoming book, which I am honored to be a part of.
© 2010 The First Thirty Days, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Smart Is Cool: My Change Nation Interview with Ana Henao
Intelligence is not just about book smarts. It's about using all your tools—all your skills, all your smarts and anything you learn along the way—to help you reach your goals. That's according to Ana Henao, one of three co-founders of "Smart is Cool," a movement that seeks to redefine smart and set a new standard for cool at college campuses across the U.S. "The most fashionable thing you wear is your intelligence," says Henao, quoting the community's motto.
Why don't girls see smart as cool? Henao blames the media, pointing out that many of the stars they look up to don't make the smartest choices. "There may be the Lindsays and the Britanys," she says, "but [girls need to see that] there are also all of these women who have accomplished such great things by being smart." Stories of inspirational women will appear on the Smart Is Cool web site and are being compiled for an upcoming book, which I am honored to be a part of.
© 2010 The First Thirty Days, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Can Video Games Teach Kids | Parade.com
Can Video Games Teach Kids | Parade.com
On a fall morning at a public school in New York City, sixth-graders are called to sit down at their desks. At first glance, it looks like any other middle-school science classroom. There’s an aquarium full of tiny turtles and a harried teacher fumbling with a projector.
But then the instructor boots up the day’s lesson: a video game. The students watch as the tiny dolls in PlayStation 3’s LittleBigPlanet (pictured) hop through a maze of contraptions onscreen. The game is being used to introduce them to Newtonian physics, and as part of their coursework, the kids will be required to build devices similar to the ones they’ve just seen.
This is the inaugural class of Quest to Learn (Q2L), the first-ever school in the U.S. built on the innovative approach of games-based learning. While many American schools use computers and games, Q2L is the first to follow a curriculum entirely focused on video games. Its 72 sixth-grade students—guided by six teachers—study and explore subjects through role-playing activities and computer-driven interactive quests instead of textbooks and lectures. They work together on gamelike “missions,” solving puzzles and completing challenges as teams. Their courses have been combined into multidisciplinary “domains” like Codesworlds, a blend of math and English, and Sports for the Mind, a mix of art and physical education. At semester’s end, the pupils won’t take finals; they’ll reach the next level, like at the end of a game.
Katie Salen, Q2L’s executive director of design and a self-described “game geek,” thinks this approach is necessary to engage a generation of wired young people and reduce dropout rates. In New York City, a dismal 39% of students leave high school without earning a diploma.
“These are digital kids,” she says. “They’ve already transformed society. Why not education?” Experts view Q2L as a model for other schools. “We’re starting to see agreement that video games are the new liberal arts,” says Kurt Squire, a professor in education communications and technology at the University of Wisconsin. “This school is the first implementation.”
In September, Edward O. Wilson, a respected professor emeritus of biology at Harvard University, caused a stir when he said, “Games are the future in education. I envision visits to different ecosystems that the student could actually enter...with an instructor. They could be a rain forest, a tundra, or a Jurassic forest.” His vision resembles the kind of teaching that goes on at Q2L. For example, in one class, students are studying design through Gamestar Mechanic, an online game. In another class, they are learning geography by role-playing as location scouts for a mock reality-TV show. They will research different climate zones around the world, create digital maps, and eventually submit their multimedia pitches to an actual TV producer.
Instructors were recruited not for their gaming skills but for their willingness to rethink education. “Students now live to play games and are immersed in technology,” teacher Ginger Stevens says. “It makes sense to tap into that enthusiasm. Instead of forcing an old model of education on them, we’re looking at where students are coming from and building a program around that.”
Q2L is the result of a collaboration among the Parsons School for Design, New Visions for Public Schools (an education-reform group), and the Institute of Play (a nonprofit devoted to game-based education). Q2L is a non-charter public school funded by the Department of Education. It will add another grade every year until it reaches the 12th grade.
Its students have ended up there after applying and being chosen by lottery. “I have quite a few friends who are jealous,” 11-year-old Beauchamp Baker says. His mother, Lesli, reports that the school has benefited him in more significant ways. Beauchamp, who has been diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder, had some difficulty at previous schools. Now he is more engaged in his schoolwork than ever before. “It’s a great match for him. He’s really enthused about learning,” his mother says. But she admits that, as a parent, “you have to take a leap of faith.”
Some educators think the leap is too big and unnecessary. “I’m not hostile to the idea of kids learning with technology, but there’s not much deep thinking behind the hype about gaming,” says Gary Stager, an educational technology expert at Pepperdine University. “Great teachers have reached kids for generations through interesting subject matter and meaningful work.”
But what seizes the interest of today’s sixth-graders may be entirely different from what engaged earlier generations. These young people have only ever known a world with the hands-on, immediate interactivity of the Internet and video games. When asked what his favorite part of school is, Q2L student Liam Smith says, “I like doing stuff instead of just learning about it.”
His classmates seem to agree. In math class, when the teacher unfolds a checkered mat on the floor, the children’s excitement is apparent. One kid shouts, “It looks like Tetris!” Yells another, “It looks like Connect Four!”
“Those are good observations,” he says, “but this is actually a game I’ve made.” Then, when he asks for volunteers, an amazing thing happens—everyone raises a hand.
How Games Are Used in Schools
Here’s a look at how teachers are firing up their students.
• Mother of Mercy High School, Westwood, Ohio
Students are learning about subjects like business ethics, hiring, and the environment by playing SPILL!, a game in which teams work to clean up an oil spill in a simulated city. The game was also used in 500 other U.S. schools this fall.
• Oak Grove Elementary School, Paragould, Ark.
In addition to using standard gym-class equipment, kids break a sweat with the video games Dance Dance Revolution and ATV Off Road Fury 2.
• Southwest High School, Jacksonville, N.C.
Through a program calledProject K-Nect, students are given smartphones equipped with math games and problem sets to help improve test scores.
On a fall morning at a public school in New York City, sixth-graders are called to sit down at their desks. At first glance, it looks like any other middle-school science classroom. There’s an aquarium full of tiny turtles and a harried teacher fumbling with a projector.
But then the instructor boots up the day’s lesson: a video game. The students watch as the tiny dolls in PlayStation 3’s LittleBigPlanet (pictured) hop through a maze of contraptions onscreen. The game is being used to introduce them to Newtonian physics, and as part of their coursework, the kids will be required to build devices similar to the ones they’ve just seen.
This is the inaugural class of Quest to Learn (Q2L), the first-ever school in the U.S. built on the innovative approach of games-based learning. While many American schools use computers and games, Q2L is the first to follow a curriculum entirely focused on video games. Its 72 sixth-grade students—guided by six teachers—study and explore subjects through role-playing activities and computer-driven interactive quests instead of textbooks and lectures. They work together on gamelike “missions,” solving puzzles and completing challenges as teams. Their courses have been combined into multidisciplinary “domains” like Codesworlds, a blend of math and English, and Sports for the Mind, a mix of art and physical education. At semester’s end, the pupils won’t take finals; they’ll reach the next level, like at the end of a game.
Katie Salen, Q2L’s executive director of design and a self-described “game geek,” thinks this approach is necessary to engage a generation of wired young people and reduce dropout rates. In New York City, a dismal 39% of students leave high school without earning a diploma.
“These are digital kids,” she says. “They’ve already transformed society. Why not education?” Experts view Q2L as a model for other schools. “We’re starting to see agreement that video games are the new liberal arts,” says Kurt Squire, a professor in education communications and technology at the University of Wisconsin. “This school is the first implementation.”
In September, Edward O. Wilson, a respected professor emeritus of biology at Harvard University, caused a stir when he said, “Games are the future in education. I envision visits to different ecosystems that the student could actually enter...with an instructor. They could be a rain forest, a tundra, or a Jurassic forest.” His vision resembles the kind of teaching that goes on at Q2L. For example, in one class, students are studying design through Gamestar Mechanic, an online game. In another class, they are learning geography by role-playing as location scouts for a mock reality-TV show. They will research different climate zones around the world, create digital maps, and eventually submit their multimedia pitches to an actual TV producer.
Instructors were recruited not for their gaming skills but for their willingness to rethink education. “Students now live to play games and are immersed in technology,” teacher Ginger Stevens says. “It makes sense to tap into that enthusiasm. Instead of forcing an old model of education on them, we’re looking at where students are coming from and building a program around that.”
Q2L is the result of a collaboration among the Parsons School for Design, New Visions for Public Schools (an education-reform group), and the Institute of Play (a nonprofit devoted to game-based education). Q2L is a non-charter public school funded by the Department of Education. It will add another grade every year until it reaches the 12th grade.
Its students have ended up there after applying and being chosen by lottery. “I have quite a few friends who are jealous,” 11-year-old Beauchamp Baker says. His mother, Lesli, reports that the school has benefited him in more significant ways. Beauchamp, who has been diagnosed with attention-deficit disorder, had some difficulty at previous schools. Now he is more engaged in his schoolwork than ever before. “It’s a great match for him. He’s really enthused about learning,” his mother says. But she admits that, as a parent, “you have to take a leap of faith.”
Some educators think the leap is too big and unnecessary. “I’m not hostile to the idea of kids learning with technology, but there’s not much deep thinking behind the hype about gaming,” says Gary Stager, an educational technology expert at Pepperdine University. “Great teachers have reached kids for generations through interesting subject matter and meaningful work.”
But what seizes the interest of today’s sixth-graders may be entirely different from what engaged earlier generations. These young people have only ever known a world with the hands-on, immediate interactivity of the Internet and video games. When asked what his favorite part of school is, Q2L student Liam Smith says, “I like doing stuff instead of just learning about it.”
His classmates seem to agree. In math class, when the teacher unfolds a checkered mat on the floor, the children’s excitement is apparent. One kid shouts, “It looks like Tetris!” Yells another, “It looks like Connect Four!”
“Those are good observations,” he says, “but this is actually a game I’ve made.” Then, when he asks for volunteers, an amazing thing happens—everyone raises a hand.
How Games Are Used in Schools
Here’s a look at how teachers are firing up their students.
• Mother of Mercy High School, Westwood, Ohio
Students are learning about subjects like business ethics, hiring, and the environment by playing SPILL!, a game in which teams work to clean up an oil spill in a simulated city. The game was also used in 500 other U.S. schools this fall.
• Oak Grove Elementary School, Paragould, Ark.
In addition to using standard gym-class equipment, kids break a sweat with the video games Dance Dance Revolution and ATV Off Road Fury 2.
• Southwest High School, Jacksonville, N.C.
Through a program calledProject K-Nect, students are given smartphones equipped with math games and problem sets to help improve test scores.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Savvy educators offer advice for keeping kids honest.
What goes on in the mind of a cheating student? Most educators would love to peek inside those young brains to see what motivates the eye wandering or cell-phone sneaking, in an attempt to prevent it.
Researcher and expert on cheating Eric Andermann, director of Ohio State University’s School of Education Policy and Leadership, has found that the goal that students are encouraged to work toward significantly affects whether they cheat or not.
“If the test is seen by students as the most important part of schooling, then cheating will be more likely to occur,” says Andermann. “The research is quite clear about this.” While testing will always be a necessity in schools, there are ways for teachers to mitigate cheating. If they “really stress the value of the content, the importance of the content, understanding the content, and don't emphasize social comparison (i.e., don't point out who knows more or less than others), cheating will be less likely to occur,” he says.
Some students don’t even realize they’re cheating. More than 23 percent of teens admitted in a Common Sense Media poll that they don’t think it’s cheating to look at notes on a cell phone during a test.
But you can help them understand that it is, says Andermann, by teaching students about proper and improper use of the Internet and technology, as well as plagiarism from online sources. “Students are so used to gathering information via the Internet that they often don't know that it may be wrong,” he says.
Of course, there are some students who will still cheat. Fortunately, educators have strategies for keeping them honest. We asked your colleagues for their best advice in an online discussion. Read on for their tips or add your own here.
An Ounce of Prevention
Review Expectations
The first assignment of the semester is a plagiarism Webquest I found on the Internet (Google “PAMS Plagiarism WebQuest”). Students complete a paper answer sheet for 100 quiz points. If a parent signs the completed sheet, the score increases by 15 points. I keep the sheet on file. If I can prove plagiarism on a later assignment, the student receives a zero and detention. Parents tend to stop fussing when I pull out the answer sheet with their signature.
Stephanie L., Jasper, Tennessee
Mess with the Tests
Make multiple versions of the test so kids cannot copy from one another’s papers during the test.
Carol S., Belgrade, Minnesota
When you make multiple versions, always use different colored paper. That way, if you ever don’t have time to create multiple versions, you can use different colored paper and students will not know whether there is only one version of the test.
David T., San Jose, California
I punch holes on the sides of my tests. When I wander around the room as tests are being taken, I look to see the surface of the desk through the holes. If I see a paper instead of the desk, I know the study guide is hidden underneath.
Spencer H., Brentwood, California
Try a Cheat-Proof Assessment Model
Use performance-based assessment. Students may work cooperatively during the planning process but each person receives an individual presentation and/or written grade. It’s usually easy to determine the amount of learning and effort the student has as I work with him or her on projects and listen to presentations.
Elle G., Louisville, Kentucky
Give Them the Crib Sheet
Nearly all of my tests are open note and open book as my questions are usually essay questions asking students to apply what they should know, evaluate what they have read, and synthesize material. For example, they might have to compose a paragraph that contains at least three quotes that point out a personality trait of a character I choose. On the rare occasions that part of the tests are simple recall, I allow students to bring a 3×5 note card with any notes they can squeeze on it. The effort to go over material and decide what might be important means they are actually studying! I always tell students I do not expect them to memorize material but I expect them to know HOW and WHERE to find an answer quickly.
Elaine F., Defiance, Ohio
Choose Your Position Carefully
I monitor test-takers from the back of the classroom to get a “bird’s eye” view of the whole class and catch the stray eyeball or suspicious hand movements.
Ed G., Mountain Top, Pennsylvania
Never leave your desk during a test. Last year, when I went to a student’s desk to answer a question, it became “open season” for all students who were at my back.
Connie C., Louisville, Kentucky
Cut It Off at the Source
I make my students responsible for keeping their papers covered. Whenever I see answers uncovered, I quietly place a small, red square of construction paper on the student’s desk as a warning and reminder. If a second square is placed on the same student’s desk, a point is deducted.
Susan R., Olive Branch, Mississippi.
Fight Copying with Technology
My eighth-grade students would copy work before school and at morning break. So I began using my blog to post questions related to readings (Click here for an example). Replies are time-stamped and can be easily compared. Soon the copying was almost eliminated.
Chris M., Lakewood, California
Trick ’Em
I made copies of students’ test papers, recorded the grades, and then handed them back saying, "I did not have time to grade this set of papers so this will be a test of honesty for you." Those who self-corrected and came up with the same grade earned on the copies, got an A regardless of what had been earned. Those who cheated, earned a zero. The graded papers were then handed back. Since they never knew if this would be done again, cheating was diminished. I made phone calls to every parent and let them know the results and asked them to praise their honesty or talk about cheating. There are lots of ways to try and eliminate cheating, but talking about character and learning for life was stressed.
Cecelia S., Greensboro, Georgia
When Cheating Happens
Make a Statement
When I discovered cheating, usually on a homework assignment, I divided the grade among the number of children whose assignments were identical. I told them that if they were willing to share the work, they should be willing to share the grade. Word got around.
Christine S., Buffalo, New York
Give them a Second Chance
Take the student out into the hall and say, “Charles, I don’t think you are ready to take this test today, are you? I’m going to have you take a makeup test in a day or two. This time, I want you to study and be prepared. I need your honest answers so I can give you a fair grade.” This establishes trust as a caring teacher, one who can be approached for help.
Robert E., San Francisco, California
I grade the work. Then I put a zero on the paper and ask them to get a parent to sign it and to write a page explaining what they intend to do to correct the problem. When I get both, I reinstate the grade. This way, the parents have no reason to complain about a zero, they just have to sign the paper, and the student is empowered to choose his or her own consequences.
Joseph C., Covington, Virginia
When in Doubt, Let it Go...
If you are not absolutely certain that cheating occurred, let it go. There is nothing worse than a dispute about whether a student cheated or not. Make a mental note to watch the suspect more closely in the future.
http://www.nea.org/home/36759.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=nea_today_express&utm_campaign=20091111howshouldyoubepaidv1&utm_content=cheat&utm_term=howshouldyoubepaidv1
Other ideas:
1. Move student seats or seating arrangement just for the test
2. backpacks and other paraphernalia are moved to the side of the room-students can have books but no paper at their desks
3. When answering questions during the test, always position yourself so you can still see the majority of students (called "cheating out" in theater)
Researcher and expert on cheating Eric Andermann, director of Ohio State University’s School of Education Policy and Leadership, has found that the goal that students are encouraged to work toward significantly affects whether they cheat or not.
“If the test is seen by students as the most important part of schooling, then cheating will be more likely to occur,” says Andermann. “The research is quite clear about this.” While testing will always be a necessity in schools, there are ways for teachers to mitigate cheating. If they “really stress the value of the content, the importance of the content, understanding the content, and don't emphasize social comparison (i.e., don't point out who knows more or less than others), cheating will be less likely to occur,” he says.
Some students don’t even realize they’re cheating. More than 23 percent of teens admitted in a Common Sense Media poll that they don’t think it’s cheating to look at notes on a cell phone during a test.
But you can help them understand that it is, says Andermann, by teaching students about proper and improper use of the Internet and technology, as well as plagiarism from online sources. “Students are so used to gathering information via the Internet that they often don't know that it may be wrong,” he says.
Of course, there are some students who will still cheat. Fortunately, educators have strategies for keeping them honest. We asked your colleagues for their best advice in an online discussion. Read on for their tips or add your own here.
An Ounce of Prevention
Review Expectations
The first assignment of the semester is a plagiarism Webquest I found on the Internet (Google “PAMS Plagiarism WebQuest”). Students complete a paper answer sheet for 100 quiz points. If a parent signs the completed sheet, the score increases by 15 points. I keep the sheet on file. If I can prove plagiarism on a later assignment, the student receives a zero and detention. Parents tend to stop fussing when I pull out the answer sheet with their signature.
Stephanie L., Jasper, Tennessee
Mess with the Tests
Make multiple versions of the test so kids cannot copy from one another’s papers during the test.
Carol S., Belgrade, Minnesota
When you make multiple versions, always use different colored paper. That way, if you ever don’t have time to create multiple versions, you can use different colored paper and students will not know whether there is only one version of the test.
David T., San Jose, California
I punch holes on the sides of my tests. When I wander around the room as tests are being taken, I look to see the surface of the desk through the holes. If I see a paper instead of the desk, I know the study guide is hidden underneath.
Spencer H., Brentwood, California
Try a Cheat-Proof Assessment Model
Use performance-based assessment. Students may work cooperatively during the planning process but each person receives an individual presentation and/or written grade. It’s usually easy to determine the amount of learning and effort the student has as I work with him or her on projects and listen to presentations.
Elle G., Louisville, Kentucky
Give Them the Crib Sheet
Nearly all of my tests are open note and open book as my questions are usually essay questions asking students to apply what they should know, evaluate what they have read, and synthesize material. For example, they might have to compose a paragraph that contains at least three quotes that point out a personality trait of a character I choose. On the rare occasions that part of the tests are simple recall, I allow students to bring a 3×5 note card with any notes they can squeeze on it. The effort to go over material and decide what might be important means they are actually studying! I always tell students I do not expect them to memorize material but I expect them to know HOW and WHERE to find an answer quickly.
Elaine F., Defiance, Ohio
Choose Your Position Carefully
I monitor test-takers from the back of the classroom to get a “bird’s eye” view of the whole class and catch the stray eyeball or suspicious hand movements.
Ed G., Mountain Top, Pennsylvania
Never leave your desk during a test. Last year, when I went to a student’s desk to answer a question, it became “open season” for all students who were at my back.
Connie C., Louisville, Kentucky
Cut It Off at the Source
I make my students responsible for keeping their papers covered. Whenever I see answers uncovered, I quietly place a small, red square of construction paper on the student’s desk as a warning and reminder. If a second square is placed on the same student’s desk, a point is deducted.
Susan R., Olive Branch, Mississippi.
Fight Copying with Technology
My eighth-grade students would copy work before school and at morning break. So I began using my blog to post questions related to readings (Click here for an example). Replies are time-stamped and can be easily compared. Soon the copying was almost eliminated.
Chris M., Lakewood, California
Trick ’Em
I made copies of students’ test papers, recorded the grades, and then handed them back saying, "I did not have time to grade this set of papers so this will be a test of honesty for you." Those who self-corrected and came up with the same grade earned on the copies, got an A regardless of what had been earned. Those who cheated, earned a zero. The graded papers were then handed back. Since they never knew if this would be done again, cheating was diminished. I made phone calls to every parent and let them know the results and asked them to praise their honesty or talk about cheating. There are lots of ways to try and eliminate cheating, but talking about character and learning for life was stressed.
Cecelia S., Greensboro, Georgia
When Cheating Happens
Make a Statement
When I discovered cheating, usually on a homework assignment, I divided the grade among the number of children whose assignments were identical. I told them that if they were willing to share the work, they should be willing to share the grade. Word got around.
Christine S., Buffalo, New York
Give them a Second Chance
Take the student out into the hall and say, “Charles, I don’t think you are ready to take this test today, are you? I’m going to have you take a makeup test in a day or two. This time, I want you to study and be prepared. I need your honest answers so I can give you a fair grade.” This establishes trust as a caring teacher, one who can be approached for help.
Robert E., San Francisco, California
I grade the work. Then I put a zero on the paper and ask them to get a parent to sign it and to write a page explaining what they intend to do to correct the problem. When I get both, I reinstate the grade. This way, the parents have no reason to complain about a zero, they just have to sign the paper, and the student is empowered to choose his or her own consequences.
Joseph C., Covington, Virginia
When in Doubt, Let it Go...
If you are not absolutely certain that cheating occurred, let it go. There is nothing worse than a dispute about whether a student cheated or not. Make a mental note to watch the suspect more closely in the future.
http://www.nea.org/home/36759.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=nea_today_express&utm_campaign=20091111howshouldyoubepaidv1&utm_content=cheat&utm_term=howshouldyoubepaidv1
Other ideas:
1. Move student seats or seating arrangement just for the test
2. backpacks and other paraphernalia are moved to the side of the room-students can have books but no paper at their desks
3. When answering questions during the test, always position yourself so you can still see the majority of students (called "cheating out" in theater)
Pay Based on Test Scores? (by NEA)
What educators need to know about linking teacher pay to student achievement.
By John Rosales
How do you define your success as a teacher? Are you well-prepared? Experienced? Board-certified? Congratulations! You must be a good teacher. Well, maybe.
How were your students’ test scores? Some districts (perhaps yours) want to reward educators on the basis of student test scores. Some already do.
It’s one of education’s burning hot issues: pay-for-performance, and it's becoming one of the determining factors in whether you are judged a success or flat-out failure.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan says performance pay for teachers is his department’s “highest priority.” The Obama Administration created the $4.3 billion Race to the Top fund to encourage states to implement performance pay systems and other changes.
Legislators and elected officials are answering that charge and considering using student performance as a criterion in setting teacher pay. But such a move comes with serious, potential pitfalls. For example, when pay raises are based on student test scores, you’re only measuring a narrow piece of the teacher’s work. In addition, such plans can pit employee against employee, especially when there’s a quota for merit increases. What happens to teachers who do not teach tested subjects? How are they rewarded?
There are other potential problems with alternative compensation systems. Any educator whose district is considering or bargaining such a system, needs to ask these questions:
* Is there adequate funding for the new pay system and is it sustainable?
* Is it easily understood and transparent?
* Are evaluations subjective or objective?
* Have administrative and implementation costs been considered?
* Are the sizes of incentives large enough to change behavior?
“We all must be wary of any system that creates a climate where students are viewed as part of the pay equation, rather than young people who deserve a high quality education that prepares them for their future,” says Bill Raabe, NEA’s director of Collective Bargaining and Member Benefits. “We can all do a better job of linking quality professional development and career opportunities directly to the pay system.”
So what makes a quality pay system? It should begin with professional level starting pay (at least $40,000) and have no more than 10 steps. And you should move through the salary system for things that actually improve teaching and student learning, such as experience, knowledge and skills, and National Board Certification. Some plans also grant extra pay for other assignments, such as peer coaching, mentoring newer educators, earning advanced degrees, or working in hard-to-staff schools.
NEA supports systems that create career paths and include teachers as partners in any compensation reform effort.
“It is crucial that all pay plans or policies be negotiated with teachers in collective bargaining, or developed collaboratively with the Association where there is no bargaining,” says Raabe.
Fortunately, some districts have heard the message. Below are two examples of alternative pay systems designed to serve the needs of members in their areas. Both emphasize teachers’ professional development and were the results of negotiations between the school district and the local Association.
Portland, Maine
Since 2007, the Portland Education Association (PEA) has operated under the Professional Learning Based Salary System (PLBSS) with its 740 members participating in professional development and other activities that are awarded salary contact hours (SCH) and result in a lane change.
“Our salary system is based on the statement that the best indicator of student learning is teacher learning,” says Gary Vines, who led PEA to a new salary system in 2007. “A high quality teacher is the most important factor in student learning.”
Here’s how it works: Under PLBSS, educators move horizontally across five salary lanes based on the earning of SCH for participation in professional learning activities.
Work on district committees, curriculum design, and leading student activities can contribute to earning the SCH needed to gain a lane change. Staff also can gain SCH for participating in learning activities and taking college courses.
“We wanted to recognize some of the kind of ‘above and beyond the job definition’ work that teachers always do as having an impact on their base salary,” says Vines, a high school guidance counselor.
In order to move to another lane, staff must accumulate 225 SCH. College credit awards and individual proposals can be made for hours applied to an activity (see http://blogs.portlandschools.org/plbss/ ).
Earnings
When changing lanes, staff members can immediately and permanently increase their salary from between $2,100 and $8,900, depending on their starting step. If an individual moved from Lane 1/ Step 1 (brand new teacher) to Lane 5/Step 1 at the quickest possible pace (13 years), they would move from $33,000 to $67,000.
The highest paid teachers in the prior system (doctorate, 31 years) could earn $64,000. Now, teachers who continually participate in approved professional development could earn $15,000 more nine years earlier.
Helena, Montana
In Montana, professional development and service to the school district and community is what matters most in determining pay increases.
The Helena Education Association (HEA) introduced the Professional Compensation Alternative Plan in 2004. Under its salary schedule educators earn $35,040 in their first year and work their way up to $73,173.
“Our performance plan is not based on any type of test scores,” says Larry Nielsen, a UniServ Director with MEA-MFT and former president of HEA. “If you invest the money up front in professional development, it has been proven that student achievement will improve.”
Though teachers had the option of remaining under the traditional salary schedule, the majority of HEA’s members embraced the new system in which they can advance according to the following mutually-agreed on criteria:
The Career Development Plan, which is written by educators for themselves and “designed to get people to be innovative,” says Nielsen, who was a band teacher for 19 years before joining MEA-MFT. It is based on the principle of “professionals helping professionals to be better professionals.”
Professional Service Commitment – Those activities educators participate in outside of the bargaining contract for which they receive no compensation. These activities are not assigned, but are performed in agreement with school administrators. “Anything that benefits the students, the school, or the district is applied here,” Nielsen says. This includes union work performed by officers, building representatives, and committee members. “Union work is a professional service to the district,” he says.
Positive Evaluation – Written by an administrator, there are two guidelines followed:
1) Professional growth, where teachers write a plan in conjunction with administrators.
2) Check-out, where an administrator meets with a teacher and checks off items and tasks from a list noting what the teacher has accomplished during the evaluation period. Administrators also write an essay-type narrative which accompanies the check-out list.
At the end of the school year, “the teacher and administrator meet, and if the educator has met the criteria, they advance,” Nielsen says.
http://www.nea.org/home/36780.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=nea_today_express&utm_campaign=20091111howshouldyoubepaidv1&utm_content=meritpay&utm_term=howshouldyoubepaidv1
By John Rosales
How do you define your success as a teacher? Are you well-prepared? Experienced? Board-certified? Congratulations! You must be a good teacher. Well, maybe.
How were your students’ test scores? Some districts (perhaps yours) want to reward educators on the basis of student test scores. Some already do.
It’s one of education’s burning hot issues: pay-for-performance, and it's becoming one of the determining factors in whether you are judged a success or flat-out failure.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan says performance pay for teachers is his department’s “highest priority.” The Obama Administration created the $4.3 billion Race to the Top fund to encourage states to implement performance pay systems and other changes.
Legislators and elected officials are answering that charge and considering using student performance as a criterion in setting teacher pay. But such a move comes with serious, potential pitfalls. For example, when pay raises are based on student test scores, you’re only measuring a narrow piece of the teacher’s work. In addition, such plans can pit employee against employee, especially when there’s a quota for merit increases. What happens to teachers who do not teach tested subjects? How are they rewarded?
There are other potential problems with alternative compensation systems. Any educator whose district is considering or bargaining such a system, needs to ask these questions:
* Is there adequate funding for the new pay system and is it sustainable?
* Is it easily understood and transparent?
* Are evaluations subjective or objective?
* Have administrative and implementation costs been considered?
* Are the sizes of incentives large enough to change behavior?
“We all must be wary of any system that creates a climate where students are viewed as part of the pay equation, rather than young people who deserve a high quality education that prepares them for their future,” says Bill Raabe, NEA’s director of Collective Bargaining and Member Benefits. “We can all do a better job of linking quality professional development and career opportunities directly to the pay system.”
So what makes a quality pay system? It should begin with professional level starting pay (at least $40,000) and have no more than 10 steps. And you should move through the salary system for things that actually improve teaching and student learning, such as experience, knowledge and skills, and National Board Certification. Some plans also grant extra pay for other assignments, such as peer coaching, mentoring newer educators, earning advanced degrees, or working in hard-to-staff schools.
NEA supports systems that create career paths and include teachers as partners in any compensation reform effort.
“It is crucial that all pay plans or policies be negotiated with teachers in collective bargaining, or developed collaboratively with the Association where there is no bargaining,” says Raabe.
Fortunately, some districts have heard the message. Below are two examples of alternative pay systems designed to serve the needs of members in their areas. Both emphasize teachers’ professional development and were the results of negotiations between the school district and the local Association.
Portland, Maine
Since 2007, the Portland Education Association (PEA) has operated under the Professional Learning Based Salary System (PLBSS) with its 740 members participating in professional development and other activities that are awarded salary contact hours (SCH) and result in a lane change.
“Our salary system is based on the statement that the best indicator of student learning is teacher learning,” says Gary Vines, who led PEA to a new salary system in 2007. “A high quality teacher is the most important factor in student learning.”
Here’s how it works: Under PLBSS, educators move horizontally across five salary lanes based on the earning of SCH for participation in professional learning activities.
Work on district committees, curriculum design, and leading student activities can contribute to earning the SCH needed to gain a lane change. Staff also can gain SCH for participating in learning activities and taking college courses.
“We wanted to recognize some of the kind of ‘above and beyond the job definition’ work that teachers always do as having an impact on their base salary,” says Vines, a high school guidance counselor.
In order to move to another lane, staff must accumulate 225 SCH. College credit awards and individual proposals can be made for hours applied to an activity (see http://blogs.portlandschools.org/plbss/ ).
Earnings
When changing lanes, staff members can immediately and permanently increase their salary from between $2,100 and $8,900, depending on their starting step. If an individual moved from Lane 1/ Step 1 (brand new teacher) to Lane 5/Step 1 at the quickest possible pace (13 years), they would move from $33,000 to $67,000.
The highest paid teachers in the prior system (doctorate, 31 years) could earn $64,000. Now, teachers who continually participate in approved professional development could earn $15,000 more nine years earlier.
Helena, Montana
In Montana, professional development and service to the school district and community is what matters most in determining pay increases.
The Helena Education Association (HEA) introduced the Professional Compensation Alternative Plan in 2004. Under its salary schedule educators earn $35,040 in their first year and work their way up to $73,173.
“Our performance plan is not based on any type of test scores,” says Larry Nielsen, a UniServ Director with MEA-MFT and former president of HEA. “If you invest the money up front in professional development, it has been proven that student achievement will improve.”
Though teachers had the option of remaining under the traditional salary schedule, the majority of HEA’s members embraced the new system in which they can advance according to the following mutually-agreed on criteria:
The Career Development Plan, which is written by educators for themselves and “designed to get people to be innovative,” says Nielsen, who was a band teacher for 19 years before joining MEA-MFT. It is based on the principle of “professionals helping professionals to be better professionals.”
Professional Service Commitment – Those activities educators participate in outside of the bargaining contract for which they receive no compensation. These activities are not assigned, but are performed in agreement with school administrators. “Anything that benefits the students, the school, or the district is applied here,” Nielsen says. This includes union work performed by officers, building representatives, and committee members. “Union work is a professional service to the district,” he says.
Positive Evaluation – Written by an administrator, there are two guidelines followed:
1) Professional growth, where teachers write a plan in conjunction with administrators.
2) Check-out, where an administrator meets with a teacher and checks off items and tasks from a list noting what the teacher has accomplished during the evaluation period. Administrators also write an essay-type narrative which accompanies the check-out list.
At the end of the school year, “the teacher and administrator meet, and if the educator has met the criteria, they advance,” Nielsen says.
http://www.nea.org/home/36780.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=nea_today_express&utm_campaign=20091111howshouldyoubepaidv1&utm_content=meritpay&utm_term=howshouldyoubepaidv1
How homework can harm English Language Learners
By Mary Ellen Flannery
When it comes to predicting a student’s grades, which factors are important? Whether they know the material should be at the top of the list, right? Or, for English Language Learners, maybe their fluency in the classroom lingo?
Whether they’re poor? Mother went to high school?
No, no, no, and no. According to a recent study, published in the journal Educational Research, the best predictor of an immigrant student’s grades is completion of homework.
And that’s a problem.
Many immigrant students face significant hurdles to completing homework. They may be poor and lack a quiet study environment to do homework. They might be responsible for taking care of their younger siblings or household chores, or working a part-time job after school. Unlike their English-fluent peers, they probably don’t have parents who can help to decipher Shakespeare – or who have time to help at all, as they might be working two jobs. Their parents also might not understand that, in America, it’s expected that they too will help build that dry-ice volcano.
“You know those science fair projects where the parent does half the work? Immigrant kids don’t have that help,” says New York University professor Carola Suárez-Orozco.
And the difference has real consequences.
Should You Assign Homework at All?
Three years ago, in his book “The Homework Myth: Why our kids are getting too much of a bad thing,” author Alfie Kohn calls homework, a “modern-day cod-liver treatment.” Not a single study shows that homework leads to higher student achievement, he argued. In fact, the only thing it’s been proven to cause is bad attitudes.
Do you agree? Comment on our discussion board.
“Each homework assignment that is out of reach for immigrant students arguably places them at a position of cumulative disadvantage – for failed opportunities to learn, negative teacher perceptions, and academic disengagement,” writes researcher and author Hee Jin Bang.
In Bang’s first study on homework – her second is due to be published this year – she found teacher perceptions to be the likely connection between grades and homework. It's as if teachers use homework to gauge whether a student works hard and tries his or her best, and then rewards that effort with better grades.
That’s not doing them any favors, Bang suggests. All students should be held to high expectations, and the right kind of homework could actually help these kids practice English or new skills learned in the classroom. It just has to be homework that students can handle independently.
“If I send anything home for homework, it has to be an assignment that can be handled by the students by themselves,” says Ricardo Rincon, a Las Cruces, New Mexico, teacher whose students are primarily first-generation Latino. “These parents make sure to pay the bills, bring home the food, and keep a roof over their heads, but they may have to take a job that doesn’t have them at home when their kids are at home.”
He encourages educators to think about the kind of homework they assign. Not only should it be simple enough for a student to do independently, it also has to be meaningful, urges Michelle Preusser, a National Board Certified third-grade teacher in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. That doesn’t mean 25 more math problems, she says. “We don’t want to turn our kids off to learning."
Her students take home a reading log and they’re asked to read at least four days out of seven, and record what they’ve read. “In third grade, the more they read, the more everything falls into place.” At the same time, their math homework, called “Math Links,” and sent home in English and Spanish, will extend the day’s lesson to home. For example, after learning about perimeter in the classroom, they might have to look at shapes on the paper, estimate which has the largest perimeter, and then maybe measure the perimeter of their room.
A favorite assignment: Build your own musical instrument. To go with science lessons on sound, Preusser asks her students to build an instrument using everyday objects in their homes. They bring them to school and demonstrate for classmates, then do self and peer evaluations.
And it’s not just the quality of your assignment – it’s the quantity. “I’m not sure more homework necessarily means more learning,” Preusser says. For its part, NEA supports “the 10-minute rule,” developed by a Duke University professor. That rule calls for 10 minutes of homework per grade, so a third-grader would have 30 minutes, a ninth-grader no more than 90 minutes.
http://www.nea.org/home/36753.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=nea_today_express&utm_campaign=20091111howshouldyoubepaidv1&utm_content=homework&utm_term=howshouldyoubepaidv1
Some ideas for ELL (also good for RSP):
1. Highlight half the questions they have to complete in a workbook.
2. Limit book questions to multiple choice and true/false questions
3. Make it a point to ask your student if they understand and question them. They may say yes they understand but then they can't explain to you what they are supposed to do.
4. Increase their workload or type of questions they complete slowly as they show they can handle so that by the end of the year they are completing the same amount of work as your regular education students
5. If you have a workbook written at a lower level, have them work in that book for a semester until their abilities become stronger.
6. Quickly go over any words that may be difficult for ELL and have them write what the word means on their HW paper so they can refer to it again when they go home.
When it comes to predicting a student’s grades, which factors are important? Whether they know the material should be at the top of the list, right? Or, for English Language Learners, maybe their fluency in the classroom lingo?
Whether they’re poor? Mother went to high school?
No, no, no, and no. According to a recent study, published in the journal Educational Research, the best predictor of an immigrant student’s grades is completion of homework.
And that’s a problem.
Many immigrant students face significant hurdles to completing homework. They may be poor and lack a quiet study environment to do homework. They might be responsible for taking care of their younger siblings or household chores, or working a part-time job after school. Unlike their English-fluent peers, they probably don’t have parents who can help to decipher Shakespeare – or who have time to help at all, as they might be working two jobs. Their parents also might not understand that, in America, it’s expected that they too will help build that dry-ice volcano.
“You know those science fair projects where the parent does half the work? Immigrant kids don’t have that help,” says New York University professor Carola Suárez-Orozco.
And the difference has real consequences.
Should You Assign Homework at All?
Three years ago, in his book “The Homework Myth: Why our kids are getting too much of a bad thing,” author Alfie Kohn calls homework, a “modern-day cod-liver treatment.” Not a single study shows that homework leads to higher student achievement, he argued. In fact, the only thing it’s been proven to cause is bad attitudes.
Do you agree? Comment on our discussion board.
“Each homework assignment that is out of reach for immigrant students arguably places them at a position of cumulative disadvantage – for failed opportunities to learn, negative teacher perceptions, and academic disengagement,” writes researcher and author Hee Jin Bang.
In Bang’s first study on homework – her second is due to be published this year – she found teacher perceptions to be the likely connection between grades and homework. It's as if teachers use homework to gauge whether a student works hard and tries his or her best, and then rewards that effort with better grades.
That’s not doing them any favors, Bang suggests. All students should be held to high expectations, and the right kind of homework could actually help these kids practice English or new skills learned in the classroom. It just has to be homework that students can handle independently.
“If I send anything home for homework, it has to be an assignment that can be handled by the students by themselves,” says Ricardo Rincon, a Las Cruces, New Mexico, teacher whose students are primarily first-generation Latino. “These parents make sure to pay the bills, bring home the food, and keep a roof over their heads, but they may have to take a job that doesn’t have them at home when their kids are at home.”
He encourages educators to think about the kind of homework they assign. Not only should it be simple enough for a student to do independently, it also has to be meaningful, urges Michelle Preusser, a National Board Certified third-grade teacher in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. That doesn’t mean 25 more math problems, she says. “We don’t want to turn our kids off to learning."
Her students take home a reading log and they’re asked to read at least four days out of seven, and record what they’ve read. “In third grade, the more they read, the more everything falls into place.” At the same time, their math homework, called “Math Links,” and sent home in English and Spanish, will extend the day’s lesson to home. For example, after learning about perimeter in the classroom, they might have to look at shapes on the paper, estimate which has the largest perimeter, and then maybe measure the perimeter of their room.
A favorite assignment: Build your own musical instrument. To go with science lessons on sound, Preusser asks her students to build an instrument using everyday objects in their homes. They bring them to school and demonstrate for classmates, then do self and peer evaluations.
And it’s not just the quality of your assignment – it’s the quantity. “I’m not sure more homework necessarily means more learning,” Preusser says. For its part, NEA supports “the 10-minute rule,” developed by a Duke University professor. That rule calls for 10 minutes of homework per grade, so a third-grader would have 30 minutes, a ninth-grader no more than 90 minutes.
http://www.nea.org/home/36753.htm?utm_medium=email&utm_source=nea_today_express&utm_campaign=20091111howshouldyoubepaidv1&utm_content=homework&utm_term=howshouldyoubepaidv1
Some ideas for ELL (also good for RSP):
1. Highlight half the questions they have to complete in a workbook.
2. Limit book questions to multiple choice and true/false questions
3. Make it a point to ask your student if they understand and question them. They may say yes they understand but then they can't explain to you what they are supposed to do.
4. Increase their workload or type of questions they complete slowly as they show they can handle so that by the end of the year they are completing the same amount of work as your regular education students
5. If you have a workbook written at a lower level, have them work in that book for a semester until their abilities become stronger.
6. Quickly go over any words that may be difficult for ELL and have them write what the word means on their HW paper so they can refer to it again when they go home.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Websites for Teachers
This is one of my favorite sites as a science teacher (specifically health and biology).
http://teachhealthk-12.uthscsa.edu/
This site is for creating your own games, like jeopardy, flash cards, BINGO, scavenger hunt, etc.
http://teachhealthk-12.uthscsa.edu/
Haven't tried this one yet, but it looks like it has some great ideas.
http://pbskids.org/designsquad/parentseducators/index.html
For math teachers, check out this site.
http://www.themathmom.com/
This site is great for creating a word art. Insert a poem, parts of a speech, biographical information and the like and create a wordle. Use the wordle as decoration, writing promt, discuss the main ideas or plot of a story, etc.
www.wordle.net
This site is so much fun, it's like scrap booking for teachers. Add photos, blogs, podcasts, videos, and more.
www.edu.glogster.com
Create your own survey for free.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/
A learning platform where teachers and students create learning projects.
http://www.thinkquest.org/en/
A free way to talk about and share your images, documents, and videos.
http://voicethread.com/#home
Createa movie from pictures and add subtext, all for free.
www.photostory.com
Make a movie for your class with this free website.
www.moviemaker.com
A website where you can buy gifts under $30 to help people around the world. A great way for students to learn about the needs of people and community around the world.
www.mercycorps.com
Teachers can post what materials they need for their classroom and people can donate money for your materials.
www.donorschoose.org
Post or view what teachers are doing in the classroom. Almost like YouTube.
www.teachertube.com
Real world videos and STEM resources
www.thefutureschannel.com
Don't forget you can research lessons using google. I have found some helpful lessons online that way.
http://teachhealthk-12.uthscsa.edu/
This site is for creating your own games, like jeopardy, flash cards, BINGO, scavenger hunt, etc.
http://teachhealthk-12.uthscsa.edu/
Haven't tried this one yet, but it looks like it has some great ideas.
http://pbskids.org/designsquad/parentseducators/index.html
For math teachers, check out this site.
http://www.themathmom.com/
This site is great for creating a word art. Insert a poem, parts of a speech, biographical information and the like and create a wordle. Use the wordle as decoration, writing promt, discuss the main ideas or plot of a story, etc.
www.wordle.net
This site is so much fun, it's like scrap booking for teachers. Add photos, blogs, podcasts, videos, and more.
www.edu.glogster.com
Create your own survey for free.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/
A learning platform where teachers and students create learning projects.
http://www.thinkquest.org/en/
A free way to talk about and share your images, documents, and videos.
http://voicethread.com/#home
Createa movie from pictures and add subtext, all for free.
www.photostory.com
Make a movie for your class with this free website.
www.moviemaker.com
A website where you can buy gifts under $30 to help people around the world. A great way for students to learn about the needs of people and community around the world.
www.mercycorps.com
Teachers can post what materials they need for their classroom and people can donate money for your materials.
www.donorschoose.org
Post or view what teachers are doing in the classroom. Almost like YouTube.
www.teachertube.com
Real world videos and STEM resources
www.thefutureschannel.com
Don't forget you can research lessons using google. I have found some helpful lessons online that way.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Tips for Writing Test Questions
TYPES OF TEST ITEMS
There are two major types of test items, subjective and objective. Under subjective test items, fall essay, short-answer and fill-in-the-blank tests. Objective test items include matching, true/false and multiple choice tests.
With subjective tests, the student provides the answer. These tests are subjective because they require evaluation and judgment from the grader.
With objective tests, the student selects specific answers provided by the test writer. These tests are objective because the scoring in impartial. The exception might be a fill-in-the-blank test which could be considered objective since you are looking for a single word, but you must still make judgments on spelling, or on whether a similar or alternate answer is acceptable which makes it more subjective.
Let’s evaluate each kind of test, both subjective and objective, looking for pros and cons of each type.
Essay Questions
Pros: The advantage of essay questions is that they are flexible, comprehensive, integrated, easier and faster to write and they discourage guessing.
Essay questions allow you to ask for information or skills that you can’t define well or completely. They allow respondents to be innovative and to create, to pursue original thinking. Students can also demonstrate the ability to organize knowledge, express opinions and show originality. These questions can also test complex learning objectives, allow for thoughtful discussion and insights and encourage interpretive thinking and logical projections.
Cons: The disadvantage of essay questions is that they are time consuming, limit the amount of material tested, require writing ability, take longer to score, and are difficult to score consistently and fairly.
Because essay questions take so long to answer, the fact that the tests contain fewer questions and that some pertinent content may get ignored, this kind of question can be unreliable in assessing the entire content of a course or topic area so that the test’s validity is decreased. Test takers may not have time to organize and proofread answers. And, because essays are so subjective, they are difficult to score impartially.
Short Answers
Pros: The advantage of short answer questions is that they are easy to construct, are good for factual content, minimize guessing and encourage more intensive study.
Cons: On the other hand, short answer questions may overemphasize memorization of facts, may have more than one correct answer and take longer to score.
Students have to know the correct answer with short answer questions rather than just recognizing the answer, which keeps them from guessing the answer compared to true/false and multiple choice questions.
Here are a few sample short answer questions on an actual test for a building engineer which would apply to a hotel maintenance employee and how one test taker answered them:
1. What is the procedure for finding and correcting an electrical problem?
Answer: Troubleshoot
2. How would you report the nature of a problem?
Answer: Call the supervisor
3. How do you document your work?
Answer: Fill out the form
As far as the respondent is concerned, these are short answers and he has answered the questions correctly. But do they get at the knowledge the tester was really trying to evaluate? Clearly they do not. The tester was probably looking for the engineer to demonstrate that he knew how to do the work.
How could the test have been constructed differently to get the responses the tester wanted? The tester could have used a verbal test where the respondent is asked to explain what they would do and show how they would do it. The tester could record their answers in a simple checklist. Or, the tester could have supplied better instructions such as a brief explanation of what is expected and a description of how the answer will be scored.
For example, the tester could have prefaced the short answer test with: “Use the space provided to write a brief outline of how to do each of these things. Your answers should indicate how you know there is a problem, what you do to find it, and briefly, what you do to solve it. “
Fill-In-The-Blank
Pros: Fill-in-the-blank questions are advantageous in that they: are more objective than essay or short answer questions, minimize guessing and are the best choice for direct recall of specific facts.
Cons: These questions are more difficult to score than multiple choice or true/false questions and can be ambiguous.
While fill-in-the-blank questions do minimize guessing compared to true/false and multiple choice, they are more difficult to score. You may have to consider more than one answer correct if the question was not properly worded. For example:
ABC Restaurants was founded in _____________.
Does that mean in what year, what city or what country? Often, a limited short answer is the better choice. So, this question could be reworded to say:
In what year was ABC Restaurants founded?
Note that the information the tester is looking for is at the beginning of the question, not at the end. It was not written as, “ABC Restaurants was founded in what year?” Why is this question format better? Because posing the question as a question rather than as fill-in-the-blank prompts the test taker’s brain to go into search and retrieve mode.
Matching
Pros: The good thing about matching questions is that they provide maximum coverage of knowledge in a minimum amount of space and preparation time, and are valuable in content areas that have a lot of facts.
Cons: On the other hand, these questions: are time consuming for students, are not good for higher levels of learning, don’t require students to remember the answer to respond, and are difficult to construct.
Students answering these questions have to rule out a lot of responses, making them take a lot of time to answer questions. You are only asking them to recognize answers, not recall (this is true for true/false and multiple choice as well). And, the test constructor has the problem of selecting a common set of stimuli and responses.
True/False
Pros: True/false questions require less time for test takers to answer, allow the test takers to ask more questions and are easily graded.
Cons: However, they are too easy, one needs a large number of questions for high reliability, they do not allow test takers to demonstrate a broad range of knowledge and it is difficult to test at a higher level of learning.
Multiple Choice (also see the CareerTech Testing Center's article, "The Secret of Writing Multiple Choice Test Items")
Pros: These questions work because they require less time for test takers to answer, allow the test maker to ask more questions, are easily graded, provide reliable test scores and give test takers more answer options than true/false questions.
Cons: On the negative side, these questions can be too tricky or too picky, encourage guessing, allow for correct responses to be easily faked, do not allow test takers to demonstrate knowledge beyond the options provided and are time consuming to create.
With multiple choice questions, good test takers can analyze the way items are presented and respond according to the results of their analysis. They can pass such a test without being able to use the knowledge presented in any other context.
It is also difficult with these questions to create good distracters. It is probably the most difficult part of test writing, since you want distracters that aren’t too easy and sound plausible, but aren’t so hard that they confuse the test taker.
WHAT KIND OF QUESTIONS TO CHOOSE?
Deciding what kind of question to use depends on your learning objectives, which are important to develop.
Here is when to use each type of question:
Essay: Evaluating ability to apply concepts and information to a new situation.
Short Answer: “Who,” “what,” “when,” and “where” content.
Fill-in-the-Blank: Direct recall of specific facts
Evaluating related content, such as matching terms with their definitions
True/False: Evaluating understanding of popular misconceptions.
Multiple Choice: Covering a broad range of content.
GENERAL TEST WRITING DO’S AND DON’TS
Following are some do’s and don’t to remember when developing tests. Remember you must select a type of test appropriate for the skills to be tested. This means testing the right information at the right level using the right type of test items. A beautifully written multiple choice question, for example, is useless if it tests recall when you need application, or if it doesn’t really test the competency.
• DO keep question language simple.
• DO put the respondent into the question.
• DO be consistently aware of the learning level you intend to sample.
• DO use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
• DO have someone else review your test for readability and interpretation.
• DON’T use trick questions.
• DON’T ask trivial questions.
Test-Writing Do’s and Don’ts—Multiple Choice
• DO use a question in the stem whenever possible.
• DO reveal the central idea in the question stem, rather than in the options.
• DO use the term (not the definition) in the question stem when testing knowledge of terminology.
• DO make each alternative grammatically parallel with each other and grammatically consistent with the stem.
• DO make every alternative sound plausible.
• DO make each alternative approximately the same length.
• DO randomly distribute the correct responses.
• DO place alternatives in a logical order.
• DON’T use negatives unless you can’t avoid them.
• DON’T teach in the question stem.
• DON’T use fill-in-the-blank for multiple choice questions.
• DON’T use “All of the Above” as a response.
• DON’T use “None of the Above” as a response.
• DON’T use a complex multiple choice format.
• DON’T repeat the same phrase in every response.
• DON’T use overlapping distracters.
• DON’T make the correct response different from the other responses.
• DON’T give away the answer to a question in another question.
Test-Writing Do’s and Don’ts—True/False
• DO have more false than true answers.
• DO use statements that are absolutely true or false.
• DON’T express more than one idea in a test item.
• DON’T lift statements directly from the training material.
• DON’T use negatively stated items.
• DON’T use absolutes such as never, only, all, none, always.
• DON’T use uncertain words such as might, may, can, sometimes, generally, some, few.
Test-Writing Do’s and Don’ts—Matching
• DO include more responses than stimuli.
• DO keep the list of stimuli to under 10.
• DO indicate whether a response may be used more than once.
• DON’T give away the answers with grammatical clues.
• DON’T mix unrelated material or concepts in a single matching item.
Test-Writing Do’s and Don’ts—Fill-in-the-Blank
• DO omit only significant words from the statement.
• DO make the blanks of equal length.
• DO put omitted words at the end of the statement, rather than the beginning or middle.
• DO limit the required response to a single word or phrase.
• DON’T omit so many words from the statement that the intended meaning is lost.
• DON’T give away the answers with grammatical clues.
• DON’T lift statements directly from the training material.
EXAMPLE OF IMPROVING A TEST QUESTION
What’s wrong with this question?
Charles, training manager for the Sandy Beach Hotel, has recommended that the laundry attendants be trained to use a new time-saving sorting system. Four full-time laundry attendants and one part-time attendant will need to be trained. Another part-time laundry position is not currently filled. There is no existing budget for this training initiative, however Charles believes that the new system may eliminate the need for the additional part-time position. Which of the following represents the best action Charles can take to possibly justify the cost of the training?
A. Consider eliminating another planned training initiative and request that the funds be used for this more worthwhile initiative.
B. Reduce the recommended number of hours for the training and try to accomplish the task in half of the time and half of the cost.
C. Recommend that both part-time positions be eliminated in favor of a fifth full-time position.
D. Determine the amount of money (labor hours) that can be saved by the new system, including the possibility of eliminating one part-time position. Compare the savings with the cost of training.
This actual question breaks a number of test-writing rules:
• It uses third person.
• It gives too much information in question stem.
• “Which of the following?” is an ineffective question.
• Sentences in both question and responses are too long.
• Distracters aren’t necessarily plausible.
• Alternatives are too dissimilar in length (correct answer is noticeably longer)
Original version:
Charles, training manager for the Sandy Beach Hotel, has recommended that the laundry attendants be trained to use a new time-saving sorting system. Four full-time laundry attendants and one part-time attendant will need to be trained. Another part-time laundry position is not currently filled. There is no existing budget for this training initiative, however Charles believes that the new system may eliminate the need for the additional part-time position. Which of the following represents the best action Charles can take to possibly justify the cost of the training?
Better version:
You are the training manager for the Sandy Beach Hotel. You have recommended that laundry attendants be trained to use a new time-saving sorting system. Four full-time laundry attendants and one part-time attendant will need to be trained. Another part-time laundry position is not currently filled. There is no existing budget for this training initiative. How can you justify the cost of the training?
This improved version:
• Puts the respondent into the action. The question is about “you,” not “Charles.”
• Eliminates extraneous information. No longer says that Charlies believes that the new system eliminates the need for the additional part-time position. You shouldn’t tell the trainee this, since it gives away the answer – you want to test their ability to infer this from the other facts presented.
• Edits sentences so they are shorter and more succinct, easier to read.
• First sentence divided into two sentences.
• Last sentences shortened so that the question is less wordy, more direct.
Original version:
A. Consider eliminating another planned training initiative and request that the funds be used for this more worthwhile initiative.
B. Reduce the recommended number of hours for the training and try to accomplish the task in half of the time and half of the cost.
C. Recommend that both part-time positions be eliminated in favor of a fifth full-time position.
D. Determine the amount of money (labor hours) that can be saved by the new system, including the possibility of eliminating one part-time position. Compare the savings with the cost of training.
Better version:
A. Consider eliminating another planned training initiative. Request that the funds be used for this more worthwhile initiative.
B. Reduce the recommended number of hours for the training. Propose the revised, loser-cost training plan to upper management.
C. Calculate the cost of training one part-time laundry position. Deduct that dollar amount from what it would have cost to train all the positions if they were filled.
D. Determine the number of labor hours that can be saved by the new system, including the possibility of eliminating one part-time position. Compare the savings with the cost of training.
The better version of the answers to the question:
A: Splits the answer into two shorter sentences; easier to read.
B: Splits the answer into two sentences; revised second part so that it sounds more plausible.
C: Replaces the answer with a more plausible distracter; longer so that it is more similar in length to others.
D: Slightly reduced length.
I have to give credit where it's due and I originally saw a post by Julie Chazyn on Question mark's blog entitled, "Which Question Type To Use?" The post is a preview and then links to "Test Writing 101: Making The Grade."
Posted by CareerTech Testing Center at Tuesday, October 20, 2009 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: Test Development, Training and Resources
http://www.careertechtesting.blogspot.com/
There are two major types of test items, subjective and objective. Under subjective test items, fall essay, short-answer and fill-in-the-blank tests. Objective test items include matching, true/false and multiple choice tests.
With subjective tests, the student provides the answer. These tests are subjective because they require evaluation and judgment from the grader.
With objective tests, the student selects specific answers provided by the test writer. These tests are objective because the scoring in impartial. The exception might be a fill-in-the-blank test which could be considered objective since you are looking for a single word, but you must still make judgments on spelling, or on whether a similar or alternate answer is acceptable which makes it more subjective.
Let’s evaluate each kind of test, both subjective and objective, looking for pros and cons of each type.
Essay Questions
Pros: The advantage of essay questions is that they are flexible, comprehensive, integrated, easier and faster to write and they discourage guessing.
Essay questions allow you to ask for information or skills that you can’t define well or completely. They allow respondents to be innovative and to create, to pursue original thinking. Students can also demonstrate the ability to organize knowledge, express opinions and show originality. These questions can also test complex learning objectives, allow for thoughtful discussion and insights and encourage interpretive thinking and logical projections.
Cons: The disadvantage of essay questions is that they are time consuming, limit the amount of material tested, require writing ability, take longer to score, and are difficult to score consistently and fairly.
Because essay questions take so long to answer, the fact that the tests contain fewer questions and that some pertinent content may get ignored, this kind of question can be unreliable in assessing the entire content of a course or topic area so that the test’s validity is decreased. Test takers may not have time to organize and proofread answers. And, because essays are so subjective, they are difficult to score impartially.
Short Answers
Pros: The advantage of short answer questions is that they are easy to construct, are good for factual content, minimize guessing and encourage more intensive study.
Cons: On the other hand, short answer questions may overemphasize memorization of facts, may have more than one correct answer and take longer to score.
Students have to know the correct answer with short answer questions rather than just recognizing the answer, which keeps them from guessing the answer compared to true/false and multiple choice questions.
Here are a few sample short answer questions on an actual test for a building engineer which would apply to a hotel maintenance employee and how one test taker answered them:
1. What is the procedure for finding and correcting an electrical problem?
Answer: Troubleshoot
2. How would you report the nature of a problem?
Answer: Call the supervisor
3. How do you document your work?
Answer: Fill out the form
As far as the respondent is concerned, these are short answers and he has answered the questions correctly. But do they get at the knowledge the tester was really trying to evaluate? Clearly they do not. The tester was probably looking for the engineer to demonstrate that he knew how to do the work.
How could the test have been constructed differently to get the responses the tester wanted? The tester could have used a verbal test where the respondent is asked to explain what they would do and show how they would do it. The tester could record their answers in a simple checklist. Or, the tester could have supplied better instructions such as a brief explanation of what is expected and a description of how the answer will be scored.
For example, the tester could have prefaced the short answer test with: “Use the space provided to write a brief outline of how to do each of these things. Your answers should indicate how you know there is a problem, what you do to find it, and briefly, what you do to solve it. “
Fill-In-The-Blank
Pros: Fill-in-the-blank questions are advantageous in that they: are more objective than essay or short answer questions, minimize guessing and are the best choice for direct recall of specific facts.
Cons: These questions are more difficult to score than multiple choice or true/false questions and can be ambiguous.
While fill-in-the-blank questions do minimize guessing compared to true/false and multiple choice, they are more difficult to score. You may have to consider more than one answer correct if the question was not properly worded. For example:
ABC Restaurants was founded in _____________.
Does that mean in what year, what city or what country? Often, a limited short answer is the better choice. So, this question could be reworded to say:
In what year was ABC Restaurants founded?
Note that the information the tester is looking for is at the beginning of the question, not at the end. It was not written as, “ABC Restaurants was founded in what year?” Why is this question format better? Because posing the question as a question rather than as fill-in-the-blank prompts the test taker’s brain to go into search and retrieve mode.
Matching
Pros: The good thing about matching questions is that they provide maximum coverage of knowledge in a minimum amount of space and preparation time, and are valuable in content areas that have a lot of facts.
Cons: On the other hand, these questions: are time consuming for students, are not good for higher levels of learning, don’t require students to remember the answer to respond, and are difficult to construct.
Students answering these questions have to rule out a lot of responses, making them take a lot of time to answer questions. You are only asking them to recognize answers, not recall (this is true for true/false and multiple choice as well). And, the test constructor has the problem of selecting a common set of stimuli and responses.
True/False
Pros: True/false questions require less time for test takers to answer, allow the test takers to ask more questions and are easily graded.
Cons: However, they are too easy, one needs a large number of questions for high reliability, they do not allow test takers to demonstrate a broad range of knowledge and it is difficult to test at a higher level of learning.
Multiple Choice (also see the CareerTech Testing Center's article, "The Secret of Writing Multiple Choice Test Items")
Pros: These questions work because they require less time for test takers to answer, allow the test maker to ask more questions, are easily graded, provide reliable test scores and give test takers more answer options than true/false questions.
Cons: On the negative side, these questions can be too tricky or too picky, encourage guessing, allow for correct responses to be easily faked, do not allow test takers to demonstrate knowledge beyond the options provided and are time consuming to create.
With multiple choice questions, good test takers can analyze the way items are presented and respond according to the results of their analysis. They can pass such a test without being able to use the knowledge presented in any other context.
It is also difficult with these questions to create good distracters. It is probably the most difficult part of test writing, since you want distracters that aren’t too easy and sound plausible, but aren’t so hard that they confuse the test taker.
WHAT KIND OF QUESTIONS TO CHOOSE?
Deciding what kind of question to use depends on your learning objectives, which are important to develop.
Here is when to use each type of question:
Essay: Evaluating ability to apply concepts and information to a new situation.
Short Answer: “Who,” “what,” “when,” and “where” content.
Fill-in-the-Blank: Direct recall of specific facts
Evaluating related content, such as matching terms with their definitions
True/False: Evaluating understanding of popular misconceptions.
Multiple Choice: Covering a broad range of content.
GENERAL TEST WRITING DO’S AND DON’TS
Following are some do’s and don’t to remember when developing tests. Remember you must select a type of test appropriate for the skills to be tested. This means testing the right information at the right level using the right type of test items. A beautifully written multiple choice question, for example, is useless if it tests recall when you need application, or if it doesn’t really test the competency.
• DO keep question language simple.
• DO put the respondent into the question.
• DO be consistently aware of the learning level you intend to sample.
• DO use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
• DO have someone else review your test for readability and interpretation.
• DON’T use trick questions.
• DON’T ask trivial questions.
Test-Writing Do’s and Don’ts—Multiple Choice
• DO use a question in the stem whenever possible.
• DO reveal the central idea in the question stem, rather than in the options.
• DO use the term (not the definition) in the question stem when testing knowledge of terminology.
• DO make each alternative grammatically parallel with each other and grammatically consistent with the stem.
• DO make every alternative sound plausible.
• DO make each alternative approximately the same length.
• DO randomly distribute the correct responses.
• DO place alternatives in a logical order.
• DON’T use negatives unless you can’t avoid them.
• DON’T teach in the question stem.
• DON’T use fill-in-the-blank for multiple choice questions.
• DON’T use “All of the Above” as a response.
• DON’T use “None of the Above” as a response.
• DON’T use a complex multiple choice format.
• DON’T repeat the same phrase in every response.
• DON’T use overlapping distracters.
• DON’T make the correct response different from the other responses.
• DON’T give away the answer to a question in another question.
Test-Writing Do’s and Don’ts—True/False
• DO have more false than true answers.
• DO use statements that are absolutely true or false.
• DON’T express more than one idea in a test item.
• DON’T lift statements directly from the training material.
• DON’T use negatively stated items.
• DON’T use absolutes such as never, only, all, none, always.
• DON’T use uncertain words such as might, may, can, sometimes, generally, some, few.
Test-Writing Do’s and Don’ts—Matching
• DO include more responses than stimuli.
• DO keep the list of stimuli to under 10.
• DO indicate whether a response may be used more than once.
• DON’T give away the answers with grammatical clues.
• DON’T mix unrelated material or concepts in a single matching item.
Test-Writing Do’s and Don’ts—Fill-in-the-Blank
• DO omit only significant words from the statement.
• DO make the blanks of equal length.
• DO put omitted words at the end of the statement, rather than the beginning or middle.
• DO limit the required response to a single word or phrase.
• DON’T omit so many words from the statement that the intended meaning is lost.
• DON’T give away the answers with grammatical clues.
• DON’T lift statements directly from the training material.
EXAMPLE OF IMPROVING A TEST QUESTION
What’s wrong with this question?
Charles, training manager for the Sandy Beach Hotel, has recommended that the laundry attendants be trained to use a new time-saving sorting system. Four full-time laundry attendants and one part-time attendant will need to be trained. Another part-time laundry position is not currently filled. There is no existing budget for this training initiative, however Charles believes that the new system may eliminate the need for the additional part-time position. Which of the following represents the best action Charles can take to possibly justify the cost of the training?
A. Consider eliminating another planned training initiative and request that the funds be used for this more worthwhile initiative.
B. Reduce the recommended number of hours for the training and try to accomplish the task in half of the time and half of the cost.
C. Recommend that both part-time positions be eliminated in favor of a fifth full-time position.
D. Determine the amount of money (labor hours) that can be saved by the new system, including the possibility of eliminating one part-time position. Compare the savings with the cost of training.
This actual question breaks a number of test-writing rules:
• It uses third person.
• It gives too much information in question stem.
• “Which of the following?” is an ineffective question.
• Sentences in both question and responses are too long.
• Distracters aren’t necessarily plausible.
• Alternatives are too dissimilar in length (correct answer is noticeably longer)
Original version:
Charles, training manager for the Sandy Beach Hotel, has recommended that the laundry attendants be trained to use a new time-saving sorting system. Four full-time laundry attendants and one part-time attendant will need to be trained. Another part-time laundry position is not currently filled. There is no existing budget for this training initiative, however Charles believes that the new system may eliminate the need for the additional part-time position. Which of the following represents the best action Charles can take to possibly justify the cost of the training?
Better version:
You are the training manager for the Sandy Beach Hotel. You have recommended that laundry attendants be trained to use a new time-saving sorting system. Four full-time laundry attendants and one part-time attendant will need to be trained. Another part-time laundry position is not currently filled. There is no existing budget for this training initiative. How can you justify the cost of the training?
This improved version:
• Puts the respondent into the action. The question is about “you,” not “Charles.”
• Eliminates extraneous information. No longer says that Charlies believes that the new system eliminates the need for the additional part-time position. You shouldn’t tell the trainee this, since it gives away the answer – you want to test their ability to infer this from the other facts presented.
• Edits sentences so they are shorter and more succinct, easier to read.
• First sentence divided into two sentences.
• Last sentences shortened so that the question is less wordy, more direct.
Original version:
A. Consider eliminating another planned training initiative and request that the funds be used for this more worthwhile initiative.
B. Reduce the recommended number of hours for the training and try to accomplish the task in half of the time and half of the cost.
C. Recommend that both part-time positions be eliminated in favor of a fifth full-time position.
D. Determine the amount of money (labor hours) that can be saved by the new system, including the possibility of eliminating one part-time position. Compare the savings with the cost of training.
Better version:
A. Consider eliminating another planned training initiative. Request that the funds be used for this more worthwhile initiative.
B. Reduce the recommended number of hours for the training. Propose the revised, loser-cost training plan to upper management.
C. Calculate the cost of training one part-time laundry position. Deduct that dollar amount from what it would have cost to train all the positions if they were filled.
D. Determine the number of labor hours that can be saved by the new system, including the possibility of eliminating one part-time position. Compare the savings with the cost of training.
The better version of the answers to the question:
A: Splits the answer into two shorter sentences; easier to read.
B: Splits the answer into two sentences; revised second part so that it sounds more plausible.
C: Replaces the answer with a more plausible distracter; longer so that it is more similar in length to others.
D: Slightly reduced length.
I have to give credit where it's due and I originally saw a post by Julie Chazyn on Question mark's blog entitled, "Which Question Type To Use?" The post is a preview and then links to "Test Writing 101: Making The Grade."
Posted by CareerTech Testing Center at Tuesday, October 20, 2009 0 comments Links to this post
Labels: Test Development, Training and Resources
http://www.careertechtesting.blogspot.com/
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