I know it's a cliche in the recent educational philosophies but I came across a blog on feedback and felt strongly to write about it.
In my long practicum I had the "pleasure" of completing report cards for the mid-term reporting period. I had heard many great stories about how the elementary school report cards are so very lengthy with the teacher having to describe how each student is doing in each area of learning and their social interactions in the class and their overall well being, while high school report cards are just entering the percentage, allocating a working habit, and choosing a comment from a list of codes and that's that. Frankly I was happy to be teaching high school. Once reporting period came along, I was introduced to the system and was given a list of comments. As I sat there putting in grades and work habits I found it more and more difficult to find the right comment, or should I say a more fulfilling comment for each student. A one liner would just not do. I wanted to write sentences, nay paragraphs about some of the students. It was then that I was tempted to wish I was teaching elementary school. Many a time, we give a grade and a "good job" or "see me" on the students' assignments many of which go unnoticed or sometimes useless. There must be constant open communication between the teacher and the students with parents being involved as well. How practical is that? How can we make it practical? That is one that I will have to figure out as I step into the real world of teaching. Bi-weekly reports that are filled out by the teacher from a template and by the parents and student from a template that they are given, a regular forum/email thread back and forth to discuss progress of student are a couple of ways I'd like to send and receive feedback from
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RE: http://mr-stadel.blogspot.ca
After looking through Andrew Stadel's blog for a good 30 minutes I couldn't find a single topic that, content wise, was sufficient for me to write a blog on. It was difficult as the topics weren't really philosophical as I like them but rather seemingly superficial everyday stories from his classroom. I'm not saying they are useless, rather, I just can't write reflections or further thoughts or critiques on them. Surely, if I had a choice I'd chose another blogger to write on. Anyways, I had to think a while before I could come up with something to write on and to my surprise some profound cliche ideas came to mind. Two weeks ago in my "Designs for Science" class we had a guest lecturer who's primary focus was on visual teaching. That is, using visuals all the time, every lesson to help students be engaged in the lesson and to help them understand better. He argued, rightfully so, that as teachers we have to compete with the world of visual stimulation. Therefore, we must make our lessons more visually stimulating so that it engages the student. What I noticed on Andrew Stadel's blog is that many of his blog posts are about his classroom activities many of those have videos. That gave me the idea of presenting classroom activities and the exercises whether in science or in math in video format. That is, se it up like a movie trailer and ask the students to solve it. The cool thing is that the students if they wish, may respond in whatever format they wish whether that be on a piece of paper, in an email, in a series of pictures, or a video. Watching a video and responding to it is much more "21st Century" than opening the book to page 84 and completing exercises 3-9 don't you think? I came across a blog (http://function-of-time.blogspot.ca/2009/05/final-exam-review-blog-is-live.html) that was very interesting and sparked some ideas in my head. The teacher has set up a blog for students and they are to pair up, take a topic and write a post on the blog about that topic so that all students can review it. This is very interesting especially if you've read my previous blogs about review. This review is such a great idea because it is what I find review to be: something that the students take ownership of and do constantly. It is a great idea to have a forum for them to post while having the responsibility to do so as well. I would make sure that it happens constantly and not only before big tests. In a sense this becomes more than just a review, rather a place where the students can interact and help each other with concepts (hence the title above). The teacher's job in all this is to moderate it all and help any misunderstandings that he sees on the forum.
It also sparked another idea in my head. During my university career I had a professor who gave us his phone number and said he is going to be available 3 hours the night before the exam and called the number "the microbiology hotline." Now aside from the fact that he was encouraging last minute studying, I liked the idea him being very accessable when I was doing the actual studying at home though. So I thought it would be a very good idea to have an online forum once a week perhaps at the end of the week when I would be available on a given time to answer any questions that students had from home. RE: http://mrvaudrey.com/category/teacher-improvement/
I searched for a few days before I found something to write on from this blogger. When I came across the above post it reminded me of a course I took on Classroom Assessment. One of the last topics we learned in that class was about teacher assessment. How do teachers get meaningful feedback from the students so that they can improve their teaching with every passing year? During my practicum as a student teacher, I used exit slips to get a grasp on my students' learning and attitude towards the class. However, I was always reminded of my Classroom Assessment class, which said that you are not really going to get meaningful, truthful assessment of yourself or your classroom unless your assessment is as anonymous as the students like it. It's true. Students don't like the teacher to know what they really think of the teacher, his/her teaching methods and his classroom especially if they have negative things to say. So when I read this post - that is - using online forms that students can fill without the teacher being able to recognize their hand writing or the colour pen they use or how neat they circle letters from a multiple answer question - all of a sudden it became so much easier for me to think about it and try and apply it to my future students so that I can use those assessments to Re: http://ispeakmath.wordpress.com/2012/10/23/study-guide-kit-for-math-tests/
As a student I have almost never found review packages prepared by teachers to be of any help, especially ones that are checklists of things I had to know. However, I have a huge bias in that I have always been a "good" student who did his work all the time and asked questions during the lesson and not right before a test. I have yet to experience how students who have trouble with the material find review packages, especially now that I am a teacher. However, I have a few thoughts to share. Firstly, when it comes to review packages, rather, when it comes to any review, it is almost always in the context of a test. Why does that have to be the case? Why can we not review all the time, whenever it is appropriate and necessary. For example, I was teaching a student I tutor about solutions to graphs. The lesson was focused solely on the graphical solutions to systems of equation and that's what was going to be testes for his online course. However at the beginning of the course we had learned how to solve systems of equations using substitution and elimination. So when we were covering graphical solutions to systems of equation, we also reviewed substitution and elimination and we related all of them together to get a fuller understanding of what a "solution" is and how we can find it, even though that was not going to be tested. I believe it gave a more well rounded understanding to my student. I mentioned how review packages made by teachers aren't helpful. In the education world we hear more and more that instruction should be differentiated and students must take ownership of their education. A checklist is a good thing to have for each student at the beginning of the year to help them know what's coming up next in the course. When it comes to review I think each student should list and prioritize what they know about the least or what they cant remember. A checklist might be helpful for this. According to their priorities, they can come up with specific question about the topic that they don't understand/remember. They can either try and find answers individually or as groups or they can also submit it to the teacher. That way the teacher can help the students with those specific questions and potentially give them practice questions. But I find packages with all sorts of questions for students to complete are inefficient and sometimes not even relevant to questions that students have. Review must also be differentiated. To this date (July 1, 2013) this is the most interesting topic I have found to write on. I was reading a blog by Geoff Krall (http://emergentmath.com/2013/03/06/how-does-one-provide-the-complex-data-of-global-warming-to-students/) that talks about teaching global warming to students through raw data. I found this interesting because, like he talks about, science is often watered down, just like math, to series of facts you learn followed by a set of questions you answer about those facts followed by a test where you spit out whatever the facts were.
Science is the subject of investigation from a set of observations. Therefore it is a good idea to teach it in that manner. How are we developing the students' power of investigation if we are doing it for them? To develop this power of investigation, students should practice observing, taking down data, looking for patterns, hypothesizing, and coming to a conclusion that either describes the data or one that leads to more questions for investigation. Many know this as "Problem Based Learning." So how do we teach that practically? Sometimes it's hard with so much curriculum to "cover." However, we can use elements from the above bolded terms in the classroom. One example is what Geoff Krall talks about, which is finding raw data and using it to find patterns. Of course these thoughts are just starting to form in my head and will take a while for me to come up with practical solutions that can be used in everyday lessons as I try to gain more experience as a new science teacher. But the least I know is that a science class is not a visit to wikipedia. This week I read a blog on Sam Shah's page (http://samjshah.com/tag/general-ideas-for-the-classroom/) regarding his so called Algebra Bootcamp. The idea is that Calculus is not hard, Algebra is, so it's a good idea to review algebra before teaching concepts in Calculus. As I have not taught Calculus in a classroom before, I have no experience and no comments about the specifics of what should be reviewed and what shouldn't be in Calculus. However, I know that in any course, especially Math, it's best to review the foundational concepts before moving onto new material.
Now, what is not so obvious is that review shouldn't be the, too commonly used, review packages. What I really like about Shah's post is the self assessment of the students and its specificity. Activities such as a "boot camp" are great ways to bring excitement into reviewing concepts that might be boring to some and very much new to others. This, meanwhile having a clear objective. That is, students know exactly what it is they are reviewing and why. They should take on the responsibility and understand the importance of the review activity with respect to their future in that subject. A review is not to just remember, it's rather to prepare. Re:
http://blog.mrmeyer.com/?p=11093 Dan Meyer has a blog post about assessing with videos. In it there are three examples of how you'd assess a concept in physics, one of which is a rather thrilling video of a stunt man performing a stunt. Following the video, there is a question that asks students to explain the physics concept that was demonstrated in the video clip. I have always thought multimedia is a very good add-on to the everyday classroom to complement what is being taught. However, I had never though about it as an assessment tool. After reading this blog i realized that unknowingly I used video assessment during my long practicum in Science 10. We were studying the Ecology unit and everyday I would show the class a video (either a BBC documentary or clips from NatGeo etc) and ask the class questions as a review before we continue onto the lesson for that day. At the end of my practicum, I got the students to complete a survey form about my teaching in the classroom. The results showed that THE highlight of almost every student was the videos that I showed at the beginning of the class as either a hook or review. That got me thinking. In today's society, especially in North America, kids of all ages are bombarded with advertisements, shows, movies, music that stimulates all their senses to engage them and in a way "brainwash" them (long story). As teachers, we tend to stick to "boring" ways of teaching. Multimedia is no longer a complementary add-on. It is rather essential if we are to engage the students and actually have a chance at keeping their attention in the classroom. http://rationalexpressions.blogspot.ca/2012/06/helping-kids-become-better-people.html
So how CAN you make kids become better people? Unfortunately in today's society, the subjectivity of what is "good" makes teaching morals in curriculum very hard. I find Michael Pershan's post very inspiring as it gives me hope that somewhere, someone is actually giving importance to the character of students rather than just their academics and athletics. Pershan mentions that he is trying to help his students become "other" than today's societal norms of being selfish. That is a noble thing to do as a teacher. In a way, all teachers are the role models of nobility. We hear it too often, but how do you actually teach it as part of the curriculum? As an animator (not the type that draws, but the type that facilitates) I have been working running the Junior Youth Empowerment Program, whose aim is just that: to empower junior youth (~12 ~14 year olds) to make their own lives and the lives of their fellow community members, young and old, better. I have found that the goals/topics discussed, though specific, are very personable to each member of the group and each person can grow with respect to their own capabilities. The questions that Pershan asks to determine the measurability of the kid's improvement are hard to answer because, not only as teachers, but as any human being we cannot question or measure another human being's ethics and morality. From my experience what is necessary is the involvement of the students in discussions that help broaden their scope of what it means to be a good person. The assessment and specific goals can be determined by each individual and kept as a journal or portfolio. Each human being has a certain amount of "goodness" but there is always room for improvement. Therefore it is best to let each individual determine where and in what for that improvement and its measurement might take place. Recently I came across an article by Christopher Danie about using metaphors in the classroom.
http://christopherdanielson.wordpress.com/category/metaphors/ This short article talks about how as teachers we must resist the urge to use metaphors haphazardly and incorrectly just because it may sound "cool." Rather when using metaphors, teachers should have an understanding of how metaphors relate to the topic they are using it for and delving deep into how and why the metaphor is related to the topic. I mostly agree with this thought as using metaphors can enhance the lesson if they are used correctly and analyzed deeply. That is, when using metaphors, the discussion should be around how the details of the metaphor describe the topic and how they don't. However, I think most of the time it is very hard or almost impossible to find a metaphor to use that perfectly fits the topic you are trying to teach. The purpose of a metaphor or analogy or example is to simplify the specific topic to a given situation so that the students can understand a piece of the topic (puzzle) once they understand a small portion of it, they can more easily understand the rest. If teachers can use metaphors that help the students understand small portions of a particular topic, they shouldn't hesitate to do so, even if the metaphor doesn't fully fit the topic as a whole. Of course a metaphor that is deeply connected with the topic would be much more useful to use in teaching, but it is hard to find. Just because a metaphor doesn't fit a topic perfectly doesn't mean we shouldn't use it. It is however important to mention the limitations of any metaphor/analogy/example when teaching. |