From: The Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121936528440062155.html?mod=dist_smartbrief
By BEN WILDAVSKY
In the early 1980s, my mother taught at an Oakland, Calif., community college. Her students ranged from blacks born in the rural South to Southeast Asian boat people. When I was myself away at school, she sent me a moving letter describing how much she loved the job. Whatever their backgrounds, she wrote, her students showed a hunger for education and for improving their lot in life. For the most part, she said, their writing got better, too.
The vision that captivated my mother and her students -- that education offers a chance not only for acquiring knowledge but for improving opportunity -- has long been central to the American dream. Yet it is a vision that has too often gone unrealized -- which is one reason that education reform has taken on such urgency in recent decades.
Since the release of "A Nation at Risk" 25 years ago, we have seen the introduction of top-down standards (including the No Child Behind Act), the spread of a bottom-up school-choice movement (including vouchers and charter schools), and the advent of entrepreneurial programs, like Teach for America, that combine a market-oriented approach with a focus on academic results.
Meanwhile, record numbers of students aspire to higher education, not least because the economic returns to a college degree are, despite a recent leveling off, indisputable. Thus all sorts of people are busy trying to make sure that more high-school grads get a shot not only at enrolling in college but at finishing it.
None of this much impresses Charles Murray. In "Real Education," he suggests that teachers, students and reformers are all suffering from a case of false consciousness. "The education system," he says, "is living a lie."
The problem with American education, according to Mr. Murray, is not what President Bush termed the "soft bigotry of low expectations" but rather the opposite: Far too many young people with inherent intellectual limitations are being pushed to advance academically when, Mr. Murray says, they are "just not smart enough" to improve much at all. It is "a triumph of hope over experience," he says, to believe that school reform can make meaningful improvements in the academic performance of below-average students. (He might have noted, but doesn't, that such students are disproportionately black and Hispanic.)
Thus students are being steered toward college when many should be directed toward jobs for which they are better suited. At the same time, Mr. Murray argues, we're giving short shrift to the academically gifted, who ought to be offered a rigorous education appropriate to their abilities rather than having their classroom experience dragged down by low-IQ underachievers.
Mr. Murray believes that Americans should forsake what he calls "unattainable egalitarian ideals of educational achievement" in favor of "attainable egalitarian ideals of personal dignity." For high-school students that would mean more realism about potentially lucrative vocational options.
Mr. Murray would also institute a series of CPA-like certification exams for which students could prepare in a variety of non-B.A.-granting postsecondary schools. Only true high-IQ achievers -- say, 10% or 20% of all students -- would go on to college, study the Great Books and learn virtue, too.
To be sure, Mr. Murray does see a place for a broad liberal education -- but only in elementary and middle school, where he would like teachers to use E.D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge curriculum.
What is one to make of all this? For one thing, it is dismayingly fatalistic. One can accept the idea that inherent academic abilities are unevenly distributed while also believing that many low-achieving kids -- and high-achieving kids, too, for that matter -- could learn a lot more than they are learning now. International tests show that students in many other nations bypass American kids in reading and math. Could such comparative results really be a function of higher raw intelligence overseas -- or are they more likely to reflect superior educational practices? It is telling that hard-headed education reformers like Eric Hanushek, Chester E. Finn and Jay Greene believe that we can do much more to boost the academic achievement of children upon whom Mr. Murray would essentially give up.
In Mr. Murray's deterministic vision of education, IQ scores matter considerably more than teaching or curriculum or effort -- variables that are within the control of individuals and not, as he would have it, mostly their DNA. He wants to make way for what is essentially an IQ-elite.
Let us hope that he has a fool-proof way of identifying this lucky group, beyond the universal IQ testing that he advocates. He does see his certification exams as egalitarian and notes in passing that otherwise nonelite students should be permitted to lobby for admission to advanced classes, so long as they accept the risk of flunking out. But one can't help thinking: Woe to those who get put in the wrong category.
While accusing education reformers of being wooly-headed romantics, then, Mr. Murray conjures up a romantic vision of his own. In his brave new world, the bell curve of abilities is cheerfully acknowledged; students and workers gladly accept their designated places in the pecking order; and happy, well-paid electricians and plumbers go about their business while their brainy brethren read Plato and prepare for the burdens of ruling the world. It is hard to believe that a dynamic, upwardly mobile society would emerge from such an arrangement, or "dignity" either.
The view outlined in "Real Education" seems far from the one that Mr. Murray put forward in "Losing Ground" (1984). In that influential book, a headlong assault on the welfare state, he called for an "infinitely forgiving" education system in which students can try over and over to succeed, even if only some will.
And indeed, there is something in the American creed that sees the classroom as exactly the place for such second chances, a place where the efforts of personal will (those of students, teachers and policymakers alike) can make a difference in what we learn and how we live.
Mr. Murray says that he is deeply concerned about the dangers of overestimating the abilities of students. To which one might reply: Aren't the dangers of underestimating their abilities vastly worse?
Friday, August 22, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Sites Mimicking Social Networks Set Up for Staff Development
From: Education Week
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/08/21/01network.h28.html?tmp=1403284944
By Stephen Sawchuk
Vol. 28, Issue 01, Pages 1,18
As support and professional-development opportunities for teachers begin to move from conference rooms to chat rooms, a burgeoning number of states and districts are drawing on features from course-management software and popular social-networking sites to establish online networks connecting teachers to peers who may live dozens or even hundreds of miles away.
Conceptually, these teacher networks reflect the “learning team” approach to professional development, in which teachers at a school site seek feedback, glean new ideas, and reflect on instructional practices through discussions with their colleagues. To this, the online networking adds the ability for teachers to connect to peers at any time of the day or night, say experts familiar with the networks.
“In the 21st century, no teacher should have to say he feels alone,” said Tom Carroll, the president of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. The Washington-based advocacy group, which works to improve teaching standards, supports online teacher-networking projects in Denver, Memphis, Tenn., and Seattle as part of its Teachers Linked In Networked Communities initiative. “These teachers grew up connected. They have Facebook, they’re texting, they’re e-mailing. It’s time for us to bring their schoolwork into this environment,” he said.
In general, the networks connect novice teachers to others in their preparation classes, teachers who instruct in the same subject or grade level to one another, and teacher-mentors to colleagues—even when they are not located at the same schools. The sites facilitate online discussions, workshops, coaching, and collaborative study groups and work teams.
One of the three TLINC sites, housed at the University of Colorado at Denver, began after the “cooperating” teachers—the district’s term for the educators who mentor teacher-candidates during their clinical preparation—were hampered from regular meetings by the sprawling city’s distances.
“There was no way we could have had the time to drive and meet together and have the rich conversational discussions we needed to have,” said Cindy Gutierrez, the director of initial professional teacher education at the university.
In Illinois, a handful of supporters—primarily the Illinois state board of education, the college of education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the State Farm Companies Foundation—financed the Illinois New Teacher Collaborative in 2004. The initiative was designed to spearhead induction programs across the state through which educators could advance up the credentials ladder, said Renée T. Clift, the collaborative’s director.
To facilitate the sharing of best practices across these programs, the collaborative subsequently launched its network, INTC Online, in 2006.
Both sites adapted existing networking platforms for their own use. Their distinguishing features lie in their sizes and scope.
Denver uses Tapped In, an education networking site that claims about 2,800 members from around the world and allows individuals to join online “classrooms” and user groups.
To this platform, officials embedded access to TLINC at specific junctures on the district’s teacher professional continuum. Groups of teacher-candidates in schools across the city can network through the site, as can the district’s cooperating teachers.
“We can be very strategic about the network, rather than just having an individual teacher joining Tapped In and seeing who’s out there,” Ms. Gutierrez said. “In doing it this way, it allows us to collaborate at a systems level.”
Illinois’ INTC Online grew out of an open-source course-management platform known as Moodle.
The network is not tied to a specific university, and can be accessed by every candidate who completes a state-approved teacher-training program, whether traditional or alternative, as well as any educator who works to support new teachers.
As on social-networking sites, users set up profiles and can connect to all others who list the same tags—such as “reading” or “biology”—on their profiles. They can join specific user groups oriented toward preservice teachers, new teachers, or pre-K-12 administrators.
Members can also set up restricted-access pages within the site for program-specific activities.
The networks are still in the early stages of adopting appropriate technology to support the online discussions. Both Denver and Illinois have instituted asynchronous communication tools, such as threaded discussions on bulletin boards.
Denver’s network permits real-time communications among teachers using chatrooms. Illinois officials are now piloting a similar tool.
Facebook for Teachers
In South Carolina, officials hope to tailor a teacher network specifically to those educators most physically isolated from their peers.
Rural districts make up the lion’s share of South Carolina’s school system. The smallest communities lack restaurants, entertainment, even a Wal-Mart.
With Blackboard, a for-profit leader in the course-management software industry, the state envisions a site similar to Facebook. As on that site, users would be able to connect to other teachers and post messages on electronic “walls.”
“The idea is that teachers would leave their college [online social] network and enter a professional network,” said Mark Bounds, the state’s deputy superintendent for educator quality and leadership.
In contrast to the Denver and Illinois networks, South Carolina’s initiative would primarily function as a social network, Mr. Bounds said. But he expects that teacher interactions would soon turn to discussions of students’ performance.
“We know that professional development would ensue—that teachers would discuss great lessons they’ve taught and things they’ve done to increase student achievement,” he said.
The project wasn’t included in the state’s budget this year, but Mr. Bounds said he will seek other funding to continue the initiative.
A Question of Data
With their focus on teachers seeking out their own peers for help and support, the virtual sites contain many features of professional-learning communities in actual school settings. But there is one key difference: The sites connect teachers who are not necessarily in the same schools or classrooms.
“The collaboration is less around specific data or classroom problems where everyone knows the students involved,” noted Hanna Doerr, the program manager for the national commission’s TLINC initiatives.
Instead, she said, the sites tend to facilitate broader discussions about curriculum, content-delivery, and classroom management.
The distinction raises some concerns for advocates of the learning-team approach to professional development.
“The danger of relying solely on networks beyond the school is that you get potentially fragmented results, and you’re affecting some teachers, not all teachers, and some students, not all students,” said Stephanie Hirsh, the president of the Oxford, Ohio-based National Staff Development Council, a nonprofit group that works to link professional development to school improvement efforts.
Ms. Hirsh said all schools should establish such in-house teams to meet two to three times in a week. Still, she added, online networking can afford teachers opportunities to deepen their content knowledge, especially when they have limited access to peers who instruct in the same grade or subject level.
Ms. Doerr underscored the importance of supplementing online interactions with face-to-face meetings—a mix her organization calls “bricks and clicks.”
“When you have that face-to-face interaction,” she said, “it’s easier to come out with your problems and reach out for help and support [online].”
A Critical Mass
As networks’ directors focus on how to build the right set of features to transform the networks from novelties to integral components of teachers’ professional learning, they are now running into questions about sustainability.
Obstacles include network interfaces that Ms. Gutierrez described as somewhat “clunky” and graphically limited compared with sites such as Facebook.
The Illinois INTC project officials have experienced challenges building a “critical mass” of users sufficient to ensure that teachers who log on to the network can immediately find the help they need.
“You’ll have new people who come online and are excited abut the site, but they don’t see much activity, and they don’t come back,” said Lara Hebert, the INTC online research and development coordinator.
INTC Online now has 978 registered users, but in July, only 50 logged on, she said.
Denver officials are addressing the problem through a mix of requirements and incentives.
Participation in TLINC is required as part of the teacher training at the University of Colorado at Denver, Ms. Gutierrez said. It is also an element of the district’s ProComp differentiated-pay system: Mentors can earn a compensation bonus if they participate.
Still, across the three TLINC sites, officials have observed a decrease in usage over time.
“Because the programs are focused in the schools of education, we get a lot of use in the first year by the teacher-candidates, but then it tends to fade out,” Ms. Doerr said. “We want to get the veteran teachers already in the schools onto the community.”
Illinois officials, so far, have resisted tying INTC Online to requirements, and the site remains purely voluntary. In part, that reflects the goal of allowing teachers to drive the system’s gradual evolution, Ms. Hebert said.
I
n the meantime, the site’s managers hope to develop a better understanding of what will make the networks self-sustaining over time.
“If [network participation] is required for something—a grade, a certification, a stipend—people will participate. We know that,” said Ms. Clift, the director of the Illinois collaborative. “What we don’t know is what are the triggers that will encourage people to get as much professional satisfaction out of a space like this as they are personal satisfaction using Facebook and MySpace.”
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/08/21/01network.h28.html?tmp=1403284944
By Stephen Sawchuk
Vol. 28, Issue 01, Pages 1,18
As support and professional-development opportunities for teachers begin to move from conference rooms to chat rooms, a burgeoning number of states and districts are drawing on features from course-management software and popular social-networking sites to establish online networks connecting teachers to peers who may live dozens or even hundreds of miles away.
Conceptually, these teacher networks reflect the “learning team” approach to professional development, in which teachers at a school site seek feedback, glean new ideas, and reflect on instructional practices through discussions with their colleagues. To this, the online networking adds the ability for teachers to connect to peers at any time of the day or night, say experts familiar with the networks.
“In the 21st century, no teacher should have to say he feels alone,” said Tom Carroll, the president of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future. The Washington-based advocacy group, which works to improve teaching standards, supports online teacher-networking projects in Denver, Memphis, Tenn., and Seattle as part of its Teachers Linked In Networked Communities initiative. “These teachers grew up connected. They have Facebook, they’re texting, they’re e-mailing. It’s time for us to bring their schoolwork into this environment,” he said.
In general, the networks connect novice teachers to others in their preparation classes, teachers who instruct in the same subject or grade level to one another, and teacher-mentors to colleagues—even when they are not located at the same schools. The sites facilitate online discussions, workshops, coaching, and collaborative study groups and work teams.
One of the three TLINC sites, housed at the University of Colorado at Denver, began after the “cooperating” teachers—the district’s term for the educators who mentor teacher-candidates during their clinical preparation—were hampered from regular meetings by the sprawling city’s distances.
“There was no way we could have had the time to drive and meet together and have the rich conversational discussions we needed to have,” said Cindy Gutierrez, the director of initial professional teacher education at the university.
In Illinois, a handful of supporters—primarily the Illinois state board of education, the college of education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the State Farm Companies Foundation—financed the Illinois New Teacher Collaborative in 2004. The initiative was designed to spearhead induction programs across the state through which educators could advance up the credentials ladder, said Renée T. Clift, the collaborative’s director.
To facilitate the sharing of best practices across these programs, the collaborative subsequently launched its network, INTC Online, in 2006.
Both sites adapted existing networking platforms for their own use. Their distinguishing features lie in their sizes and scope.
Denver uses Tapped In, an education networking site that claims about 2,800 members from around the world and allows individuals to join online “classrooms” and user groups.
To this platform, officials embedded access to TLINC at specific junctures on the district’s teacher professional continuum. Groups of teacher-candidates in schools across the city can network through the site, as can the district’s cooperating teachers.
“We can be very strategic about the network, rather than just having an individual teacher joining Tapped In and seeing who’s out there,” Ms. Gutierrez said. “In doing it this way, it allows us to collaborate at a systems level.”
Illinois’ INTC Online grew out of an open-source course-management platform known as Moodle.
The network is not tied to a specific university, and can be accessed by every candidate who completes a state-approved teacher-training program, whether traditional or alternative, as well as any educator who works to support new teachers.
As on social-networking sites, users set up profiles and can connect to all others who list the same tags—such as “reading” or “biology”—on their profiles. They can join specific user groups oriented toward preservice teachers, new teachers, or pre-K-12 administrators.
Members can also set up restricted-access pages within the site for program-specific activities.
The networks are still in the early stages of adopting appropriate technology to support the online discussions. Both Denver and Illinois have instituted asynchronous communication tools, such as threaded discussions on bulletin boards.
Denver’s network permits real-time communications among teachers using chatrooms. Illinois officials are now piloting a similar tool.
Facebook for Teachers
In South Carolina, officials hope to tailor a teacher network specifically to those educators most physically isolated from their peers.
Rural districts make up the lion’s share of South Carolina’s school system. The smallest communities lack restaurants, entertainment, even a Wal-Mart.
With Blackboard, a for-profit leader in the course-management software industry, the state envisions a site similar to Facebook. As on that site, users would be able to connect to other teachers and post messages on electronic “walls.”
“The idea is that teachers would leave their college [online social] network and enter a professional network,” said Mark Bounds, the state’s deputy superintendent for educator quality and leadership.
In contrast to the Denver and Illinois networks, South Carolina’s initiative would primarily function as a social network, Mr. Bounds said. But he expects that teacher interactions would soon turn to discussions of students’ performance.
“We know that professional development would ensue—that teachers would discuss great lessons they’ve taught and things they’ve done to increase student achievement,” he said.
The project wasn’t included in the state’s budget this year, but Mr. Bounds said he will seek other funding to continue the initiative.
A Question of Data
With their focus on teachers seeking out their own peers for help and support, the virtual sites contain many features of professional-learning communities in actual school settings. But there is one key difference: The sites connect teachers who are not necessarily in the same schools or classrooms.
“The collaboration is less around specific data or classroom problems where everyone knows the students involved,” noted Hanna Doerr, the program manager for the national commission’s TLINC initiatives.
Instead, she said, the sites tend to facilitate broader discussions about curriculum, content-delivery, and classroom management.
The distinction raises some concerns for advocates of the learning-team approach to professional development.
“The danger of relying solely on networks beyond the school is that you get potentially fragmented results, and you’re affecting some teachers, not all teachers, and some students, not all students,” said Stephanie Hirsh, the president of the Oxford, Ohio-based National Staff Development Council, a nonprofit group that works to link professional development to school improvement efforts.
Ms. Hirsh said all schools should establish such in-house teams to meet two to three times in a week. Still, she added, online networking can afford teachers opportunities to deepen their content knowledge, especially when they have limited access to peers who instruct in the same grade or subject level.
Ms. Doerr underscored the importance of supplementing online interactions with face-to-face meetings—a mix her organization calls “bricks and clicks.”
“When you have that face-to-face interaction,” she said, “it’s easier to come out with your problems and reach out for help and support [online].”
A Critical Mass
As networks’ directors focus on how to build the right set of features to transform the networks from novelties to integral components of teachers’ professional learning, they are now running into questions about sustainability.
Obstacles include network interfaces that Ms. Gutierrez described as somewhat “clunky” and graphically limited compared with sites such as Facebook.
The Illinois INTC project officials have experienced challenges building a “critical mass” of users sufficient to ensure that teachers who log on to the network can immediately find the help they need.
“You’ll have new people who come online and are excited abut the site, but they don’t see much activity, and they don’t come back,” said Lara Hebert, the INTC online research and development coordinator.
INTC Online now has 978 registered users, but in July, only 50 logged on, she said.
Denver officials are addressing the problem through a mix of requirements and incentives.
Participation in TLINC is required as part of the teacher training at the University of Colorado at Denver, Ms. Gutierrez said. It is also an element of the district’s ProComp differentiated-pay system: Mentors can earn a compensation bonus if they participate.
Still, across the three TLINC sites, officials have observed a decrease in usage over time.
“Because the programs are focused in the schools of education, we get a lot of use in the first year by the teacher-candidates, but then it tends to fade out,” Ms. Doerr said. “We want to get the veteran teachers already in the schools onto the community.”
Illinois officials, so far, have resisted tying INTC Online to requirements, and the site remains purely voluntary. In part, that reflects the goal of allowing teachers to drive the system’s gradual evolution, Ms. Hebert said.
I
n the meantime, the site’s managers hope to develop a better understanding of what will make the networks self-sustaining over time.
“If [network participation] is required for something—a grade, a certification, a stipend—people will participate. We know that,” said Ms. Clift, the director of the Illinois collaborative. “What we don’t know is what are the triggers that will encourage people to get as much professional satisfaction out of a space like this as they are personal satisfaction using Facebook and MySpace.”
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Some Twin Rivers teachers upset about extended class time
From: The Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/education/story/1170607.html
By Deb Kollars
A decision to add 25 to 30 more teaching minutes every day for elementary children in the new Twin Rivers Unified School District has upset many teachers there.
About 400 met Tuesday afternoon at a union meeting to complain about the schedule changes, which took hold when school opened last week.
Some schools lengthened the day to provide the instructional minutes. Others shortened recesses and lunches. The goal was to help students achieve at higher levels.
According to many Twin Rivers teachers, children no longer have enough time to eat and play, and teachers are struggling to fit their lunches and preparation time into the school day.
"It's very stressful now," said Joyce Childs, a special education teacher at Pioneer Elementary, where lunches went from 45 to 30 minutes. More teaching time is good for children, she said, but not at the expense of other important uses of the school day. In the past, she noted, teachers used the longer lunch periods to help children who were behind, lead student councils and prepare lessons.
"When you add up the minutes, it's 12 extra days we are teaching," Childs said.
The change in instructional minutes – a rare move among districts – came as part of a new teachers contract being negotiated in the district, which was created July 1 when four districts merged. Parts of the contract are still being worked out, and it is not expected to go to members for a vote until later this fall.
But the district and teachers have a formal agreement on the added instructional minutes, as well as salary raises. The district isn't directly paying for the extra teaching minutes, but it is putting $3 million toward equalizing and raising salaries throughout the district.
According to Janice Auld, president of Twin Rivers United Educators, teachers could vote down the entire contract, but that would mean the salary raises might go away.
"I'm not sure we can change it this year," she said of the additional minutes. "But it's a one-year contract, so things could be modified next year."
Merging four districts and coming up with a single contract was bound to create some tough spots, Auld said.
"I liken this contract to building a house while you're living in it," she said.
http://www.sacbee.com/education/story/1170607.html
By Deb Kollars
A decision to add 25 to 30 more teaching minutes every day for elementary children in the new Twin Rivers Unified School District has upset many teachers there.
About 400 met Tuesday afternoon at a union meeting to complain about the schedule changes, which took hold when school opened last week.
Some schools lengthened the day to provide the instructional minutes. Others shortened recesses and lunches. The goal was to help students achieve at higher levels.
According to many Twin Rivers teachers, children no longer have enough time to eat and play, and teachers are struggling to fit their lunches and preparation time into the school day.
"It's very stressful now," said Joyce Childs, a special education teacher at Pioneer Elementary, where lunches went from 45 to 30 minutes. More teaching time is good for children, she said, but not at the expense of other important uses of the school day. In the past, she noted, teachers used the longer lunch periods to help children who were behind, lead student councils and prepare lessons.
"When you add up the minutes, it's 12 extra days we are teaching," Childs said.
The change in instructional minutes – a rare move among districts – came as part of a new teachers contract being negotiated in the district, which was created July 1 when four districts merged. Parts of the contract are still being worked out, and it is not expected to go to members for a vote until later this fall.
But the district and teachers have a formal agreement on the added instructional minutes, as well as salary raises. The district isn't directly paying for the extra teaching minutes, but it is putting $3 million toward equalizing and raising salaries throughout the district.
According to Janice Auld, president of Twin Rivers United Educators, teachers could vote down the entire contract, but that would mean the salary raises might go away.
"I'm not sure we can change it this year," she said of the additional minutes. "But it's a one-year contract, so things could be modified next year."
Merging four districts and coming up with a single contract was bound to create some tough spots, Auld said.
"I liken this contract to building a house while you're living in it," she said.
Teaching Secrets: Take Charge of Your Classroom
From: Teacher Magazine
http://www.teachermagazine.org/tm/articles/2008/08/20/44tln_tillery.h19.html?tmp=1633073078
By Gail Tillery
“If he were my teacher, I’d make him cry,” remarked a sophomore at my high school after a teacher we’d just hired did a “shadow day.” Although I didn’t share that specific comment, I did reiterate to our new colleague that classroom management would be his biggest challenge. And so it was.
As mentoring coordinator at our large suburban high school, I’m in charge of inducting about 25 teachers a year. The teachers of most concern, of course, are the ones I affectionately dub the “baby teachers” (though not to their faces). Usually, these novice educators are very young—most have just graduated from college—and they are still feeling their way in life, much less in the classroom. Suddenly they may find themselves standing in front of a room filled with 35 seniors, some of whom are only three years younger than they are. In many cases, the disaster is coming on fast.
The first day of teaching school is something that must be experienced to be believed. Novice teachers think they are ready, but they are not. Based on years of working with these wonderful young people, I present the following advice.
What happens on the first day will happen on the last day. This means you must decide in advance what you want your classroom atmosphere to be. What will a typical day look like in your room? In order to make your vision happen, you must have a concrete, simple plan. Harry Wong’s excellent book, The First Days of School, is an invaluable resource for setting up routines that will allow your daily learning activities to function efficiently.
You are the king or queen of your room. Students this age will act as if they want to be in charge. They don’t. They are looking to you to set the atmosphere and the agenda. Be their leader instead of letting them run the show. This means setting boundaries, making consequences clear, and following through if necessary. Your students do not need a new friend. They need a teacher—and a leader. It’s your responsibility to take the point position and lead them where they need to go.
Dress the part; act the part; speak the part. Particularly when you are young, you must set yourself apart from your students. I have actually advised young female teachers to buy some suits and cut their hair. And yes, for males, ties are a must. Professional clothing not only makes you look more mature and in charge; it makes you feel that way. Don’t even think of flip-flops. Ever. And never use the word “like” except as a verb. Even then, question its use! '
Act the part, Part II: Take down your Facebook and your MySpace pages. Period. They will find it. Do not discuss your private life with your students—especially if you choose to drink. While they cognitively understand that it’s legal for you, they’re not experienced enough to filter it. Thus, they will say: “But Ms. Smith drinks, so it must be cool.”
Realize that you are a public figure. Understand that, while in my generation, your name was discussed at the ball field, this generation of students (and parents!) will be discussing you online and via text. As your first-period students leave the classroom on the first day of school, they will text on their way to second period about you. You’re a new teacher, which makes you interesting to them. What do you want them to be saying about you, in 140 text characters or less?
Let go of your need to be liked. Novice high school teachers want so badly to be popular with their students that they lose sight of the truth that teaching is not a popularity contest. My favorite TV show ever is M*A*S*H, and one of my favorite scenes involves Major Margaret Houlihan and a young, wounded G.I. He’s in pain, afraid, confused, and very far from home. As she gives him a sponge bath, he says furiously, “I hate your guts!” To which she very calmly replies, “My guts are not here for you to love.” Adopt this sentence as your motto, and believe it in your heart. Understand that you must earn your students’ respect; 99 percent of the time, their love will follow.
After 24 years of teaching, the best compliment I ever received continues to be this: “She’s tough, but she’s fair.” Show me a teacher who has a sense of her own power in the classroom, and I’ll show you students who feel safe and comfortable and who are learning to their utmost because there’s no drama and chaos in the room. Understanding that you are the leader will make your experience, and your students’ experience, a pleasant and rewarding one. And you won’t be suicidal at Thanksgiving.
http://www.teachermagazine.org/tm/articles/2008/08/20/44tln_tillery.h19.html?tmp=1633073078
By Gail Tillery
“If he were my teacher, I’d make him cry,” remarked a sophomore at my high school after a teacher we’d just hired did a “shadow day.” Although I didn’t share that specific comment, I did reiterate to our new colleague that classroom management would be his biggest challenge. And so it was.
As mentoring coordinator at our large suburban high school, I’m in charge of inducting about 25 teachers a year. The teachers of most concern, of course, are the ones I affectionately dub the “baby teachers” (though not to their faces). Usually, these novice educators are very young—most have just graduated from college—and they are still feeling their way in life, much less in the classroom. Suddenly they may find themselves standing in front of a room filled with 35 seniors, some of whom are only three years younger than they are. In many cases, the disaster is coming on fast.
The first day of teaching school is something that must be experienced to be believed. Novice teachers think they are ready, but they are not. Based on years of working with these wonderful young people, I present the following advice.
What happens on the first day will happen on the last day. This means you must decide in advance what you want your classroom atmosphere to be. What will a typical day look like in your room? In order to make your vision happen, you must have a concrete, simple plan. Harry Wong’s excellent book, The First Days of School, is an invaluable resource for setting up routines that will allow your daily learning activities to function efficiently.
You are the king or queen of your room. Students this age will act as if they want to be in charge. They don’t. They are looking to you to set the atmosphere and the agenda. Be their leader instead of letting them run the show. This means setting boundaries, making consequences clear, and following through if necessary. Your students do not need a new friend. They need a teacher—and a leader. It’s your responsibility to take the point position and lead them where they need to go.
Dress the part; act the part; speak the part. Particularly when you are young, you must set yourself apart from your students. I have actually advised young female teachers to buy some suits and cut their hair. And yes, for males, ties are a must. Professional clothing not only makes you look more mature and in charge; it makes you feel that way. Don’t even think of flip-flops. Ever. And never use the word “like” except as a verb. Even then, question its use! '
Act the part, Part II: Take down your Facebook and your MySpace pages. Period. They will find it. Do not discuss your private life with your students—especially if you choose to drink. While they cognitively understand that it’s legal for you, they’re not experienced enough to filter it. Thus, they will say: “But Ms. Smith drinks, so it must be cool.”
Realize that you are a public figure. Understand that, while in my generation, your name was discussed at the ball field, this generation of students (and parents!) will be discussing you online and via text. As your first-period students leave the classroom on the first day of school, they will text on their way to second period about you. You’re a new teacher, which makes you interesting to them. What do you want them to be saying about you, in 140 text characters or less?
Let go of your need to be liked. Novice high school teachers want so badly to be popular with their students that they lose sight of the truth that teaching is not a popularity contest. My favorite TV show ever is M*A*S*H, and one of my favorite scenes involves Major Margaret Houlihan and a young, wounded G.I. He’s in pain, afraid, confused, and very far from home. As she gives him a sponge bath, he says furiously, “I hate your guts!” To which she very calmly replies, “My guts are not here for you to love.” Adopt this sentence as your motto, and believe it in your heart. Understand that you must earn your students’ respect; 99 percent of the time, their love will follow.
After 24 years of teaching, the best compliment I ever received continues to be this: “She’s tough, but she’s fair.” Show me a teacher who has a sense of her own power in the classroom, and I’ll show you students who feel safe and comfortable and who are learning to their utmost because there’s no drama and chaos in the room. Understanding that you are the leader will make your experience, and your students’ experience, a pleasant and rewarding one. And you won’t be suicidal at Thanksgiving.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Piling On The Homework: Does It Work For Everyone?
From: Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080818101331.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2008) — While U.S students continue to lag behind many countries academically, national statistics show that teachers have responded by assigning more homework. But according to a joint study by researchers at Binghamton University and the University of Nevada, when it comes to math, piling on the homework may not work for all students.
Published in the July issue of the Econometrics Journal, researchers found that although assigning more homework tends to have a larger and more significant impact on mathematics test scores for high and low achievers, it is less effective for average achievers.
"We found that if a teacher has a high achieving group of students, pushing them harder by giving them more homework could be beneficial," said Daniel Henderson, associate professor of economics at Binghamton University. "Similarly, if a teacher has a low ability class, assigning more homework may help since they may not have been pushed hard enough. But for the average achieving classes, who may have been given too much homework in an attempt to equate them with the high achieving classes, educators could be better served by using other methods to improve student achievement. Given these students' abilities and time constraints, learning by doing may be a more effective tool for improvement."
According to co-author Ozkan Eren, assistant professor of economics at the University of Nevada, the study examined an area previously unexplored, namely the connection between test scores and extra homework.
"There has been an extensive amount of research examining the influences of students' achievement, but it has been primarily focused on financial inputs such as class size or teachers' credentials," said Eren. "Our study examined the affect that additional homework has on test scores." While past studies suggest that nearly all students benefit from being assigned more homework Henderson and Eren discovered that only about 40% of the students surveyed would significantly benefit from an additional hour of homework each night.
According to Henderson, the findings should be of particular interest to schools who have responded to the increased pressures to pass state-mandated tests by forcing students to hit the books even harder. "This does not mean that homework is unimportant for average achievers," says Henderson. "But it does mean that this population may also benefit from other activities such as sports, art or music, rather than additional hours of math homework."
So what can teachers take away from the study? Henderson points out that every student is unique and while umbrella policies may benefit some, they generally cannot be applied to all.
"In my own personal experience I see that each semester requires a different approach," says Henderson. "This is even true when I teach the same course twice in a semester. Different times of the day or lengths of classes require different methods. Just as different quality students require different approaches."
Henderson also points out that repetition has been proven effective for some but not all subjects and what may have worked one academic year may need to be altered the next.
"Teachers should consider quality over quantity when it comes to homework assignments," he says. "In the end it should be up to the individual teacher to decide how to motivate and educate their students."
According to Henderson, the learning process needs to remain a rich, broad experience.
"One of the most beautiful things about America to me is the creativity that we instill in our primary and secondary schools," says Henderson. "I know that we lag behind many countries in test scores, but I believe we also produce some of the most creative, enthusiastic students in the world."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080818101331.htm
ScienceDaily (Aug. 19, 2008) — While U.S students continue to lag behind many countries academically, national statistics show that teachers have responded by assigning more homework. But according to a joint study by researchers at Binghamton University and the University of Nevada, when it comes to math, piling on the homework may not work for all students.
Published in the July issue of the Econometrics Journal, researchers found that although assigning more homework tends to have a larger and more significant impact on mathematics test scores for high and low achievers, it is less effective for average achievers.
"We found that if a teacher has a high achieving group of students, pushing them harder by giving them more homework could be beneficial," said Daniel Henderson, associate professor of economics at Binghamton University. "Similarly, if a teacher has a low ability class, assigning more homework may help since they may not have been pushed hard enough. But for the average achieving classes, who may have been given too much homework in an attempt to equate them with the high achieving classes, educators could be better served by using other methods to improve student achievement. Given these students' abilities and time constraints, learning by doing may be a more effective tool for improvement."
According to co-author Ozkan Eren, assistant professor of economics at the University of Nevada, the study examined an area previously unexplored, namely the connection between test scores and extra homework.
"There has been an extensive amount of research examining the influences of students' achievement, but it has been primarily focused on financial inputs such as class size or teachers' credentials," said Eren. "Our study examined the affect that additional homework has on test scores." While past studies suggest that nearly all students benefit from being assigned more homework Henderson and Eren discovered that only about 40% of the students surveyed would significantly benefit from an additional hour of homework each night.
According to Henderson, the findings should be of particular interest to schools who have responded to the increased pressures to pass state-mandated tests by forcing students to hit the books even harder. "This does not mean that homework is unimportant for average achievers," says Henderson. "But it does mean that this population may also benefit from other activities such as sports, art or music, rather than additional hours of math homework."
So what can teachers take away from the study? Henderson points out that every student is unique and while umbrella policies may benefit some, they generally cannot be applied to all.
"In my own personal experience I see that each semester requires a different approach," says Henderson. "This is even true when I teach the same course twice in a semester. Different times of the day or lengths of classes require different methods. Just as different quality students require different approaches."
Henderson also points out that repetition has been proven effective for some but not all subjects and what may have worked one academic year may need to be altered the next.
"Teachers should consider quality over quantity when it comes to homework assignments," he says. "In the end it should be up to the individual teacher to decide how to motivate and educate their students."
According to Henderson, the learning process needs to remain a rich, broad experience.
"One of the most beautiful things about America to me is the creativity that we instill in our primary and secondary schools," says Henderson. "I know that we lag behind many countries in test scores, but I believe we also produce some of the most creative, enthusiastic students in the world."
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